Music: Dimethyltryptamine Release

Took a night off from comedy performance and decided to finish a track I've been working on for a while for Anything Forever is Torture...

This Album is taking a long time to complete, but hopefully I'll get it done by the end of 2015...

This track is called 'Dimethyltryptamine Release' and it's nice and mellow and something that actually sounds pretty much exactly how I wanted it to when I started.. which is rare....

It's supposed to represent the blissful chemical surge that people believe is released at the point of death...

Yes the whole album is about Death...

But this isn't sad... ok...

Comedy: Gig 10. My first 10 minute spot at Fabio's Birthday Party 21/2/15

Last night's Gig at Fabio's Party... Gig 10 and it's my first Ten minute set.
Do not watch if offended (Not necessarily 'Easily'... Consider this fair warning) if you are a member of my family or if you're someone who has any shred of respect left for me

Was a great night. Thanks to Fabio for inviting me, Lucy for being Amazing as always and the crowd and compere for bringing the buzz...

Upcoming Dates in case you ever want to endure this horror live:
Feb 25th The Cavendish Arms​
March 5th Blackout The Open Mic at Up the Creek​
March 10th Dirty Dicks
March 11th Cavendish Arms
March 25th Cavendish Arms
March 31st Dirty Dicks
April 16th G&B Comedy.

Undoubtedly more will pop up to fill in the gaps...

First New Track of 2015. Firework Aimed at Soil (More Glitch than Owt Mix)

First new Track of 2015. It's a Glitchy little sod...

First Ever Stand up... Backyard Comedy Club, Comedy School Showcase Dec 2014

Hi All.. This is my first ever time on stage, and it's doing a stand up set...
Was on 7 December 2014 and was part of a showcase with my fantastic fellow Comedy School Alumni...

I might write about my Comedy School experience soon, but a quick capsule review = Amazing experience, everyone should do it...

Am already retiring a lot of this set, so this is probably the only time you will get to see much of it... Oh and I know I move about too much, but thanks for the feedback...

Black Friday 4 Step Prep (Or, at least rioters in the past weren't maiming for 5 pounds off a kettle)

Black Friday finished yesterday... but in many shops it continues today... somehow...

Anyway, in light of this I wanted to put together my 'Never-fail 4 step prep' for anyone venturing into town to pick up a bargain.

1 Work out the hourly rate you'd need to be paid if your job was to constantly and repeatedly punch men, women, the elderly and toddlers in the face.

2 Multiply this figure by the number of hours you think it will take to fight your way through a riot of psychopaths in a shopping centre that is nightmarish at the best of times, but has now degenerated into a hellscape worthy of a post apocalyptic movie.

Remember to figure in extra time for clambering over piles of the shattered bones and teeth of those 'less dedicated' shoppers than yourself.

3 Compare this figure to the discount you hope to receive on the product you have statistically negligible chance of finding Intact, Usable and not currently being used by a hulking lunatic as a murder weapon to crush the skulls of the children in front of them at the 'must-have toy' counter.

4 Stay at home.

New Music: Lioniser

New Album: The World is Coming to Get you!

It's finally here.. In a year of strangeness and movement I've managed to complete it...
It's a bit odder than usual.. and a bit Shorter.. and it reflects EXACTLY where I am at the moment...

Hope you enjoy...

Day 30: The Final Day (Or, The explanation for this cavalcade of inanity)

Well.. It's the last day of September, and so it's the last day of the experiments...

I managed to not have any caffeine for a whole month...
That started off very bad, but very quickly became normal. Decaff Tea and Coffee are pretty good these days and the only difficult bit was remembering not to have any rum and coke while I was out, and being boozy... I managed it though...

I managed to not go on Facebook at all, despite the desperate pleading emails the website sent me, or the alluring notifications that popped up on my phone every so often. The trick is to get rid of any shortcut that leads to it. You find if you have to type the word in, it is rarely worth the effort. I've enjoyed the additional free-time this has given me, and although I will go back on there, I have no desperation. I won't be 'racing' back. I feel I have re-calibrated my relationship to a s lightly more healthy and balanced level and will no longer feel the urge to trawl through it endlessly, succeeding only in getting agitated by distant relatives unknowingly racist/sexist/homophobic 'shares'.

The third one will become obvious if you have looked over this Blog at any time over the past month. It was the most tricky one, and the one I was least confident in being able to achieve, and so I haven't mentioned it until now... (Although it really is terribly self-evident)
Yes I committed to write a blog a day. No matter what was happening, no matter how little I felt like it, in fact no matter how little I had to say. I decided I had to do it.

Why? Well, I had been neglecting it quite badly since I had a whole load of real life and could no longer trawl Twitter for days looking for Trends and Rumours and weird political bits and bobs.. It's like a complicated US TV show, miss it for a bit and it takes a while to pick up the rhythm, so I hadn't been putting anything on here at all...

Also because of that real life stuff, I wanted to do deep and meaningful writing. But A blog simply isn't the place for that, by forcing myself to write every day It meant I had to keep hopping from subject to subject and would have to be, essentially shallow... which is a good thing.. I needed to break out from my self imposed seriousness and embrace frivolity.. so apologies if this seems even more inane that usual, believe me.. it was supposed to...

Mainly I did it because I never thought I'd be able to. To just write and publish a short piece every day amongst all the other things that go on when you've started a new job that is ludicrously stressful, and having moved to a city on your own, seemed a ridiculous feat. I did it mainly because I thought I couldn't... But I did....

So what now?

Well I won't be bound into blogging every day. It was a good exercise and I've felt the benefit, but I've got different things to start this month...
I will Blog more often though.. I still have a few ideas that I didn't use, and I think I've successfully re-modeled what I want this Blog to be... just cheeky little observation pieces, fluff that I put out while I pour the blood and tears into the real writing...

So yes. First month of experimentation complete, and I'm happy with what I've done...

Role on October.

Day 29: Any old Iron, Any old Iron, Any any any old Irony... (Or, Please, Younglings, we've already made these mistakes.. save yourselves...)

A change of pace from the last two Blogs which painted me as some kind of arrested development mankid... now one that will sketch me as a curmudgeonly old bugger grumbling about 'The Kids Today'

Well kind of... I'm going to be complaining about their music. Well, not their music.. it was our music actually.. but anyway I'm getting ahead of myself and overcomplicating things... So I'll leap back to the start.

Since I couldn't go to the Sleepover at the Natural History Museum (A friend did offer me a lend of their child, but sadly it was too late for me to do anything about it) I decided to find a club night. Something light hearted. Somewhere I'd never been. I settled upon one, and made my way down to East London to attend it.

It was quite fun. Much like the 'Preacherman' episode of Nathan Barley, but with more drag queens. So Far so much fun, but the problem soon became clear, in a crushing attempt to lay irony on with a trowel they had seemingly restricted their record box into novelty Hell...

Confession time: I am an Ex-Music Snob. Yes I was one of the worst. One of those annoying douchebags who has a narrow idea of what music actually 'is'.. and therefore anything that doesn't match that, therefore, SIMPLY Cannot be music. I was wrong of course. Music is simply noise designed to elicit an emotion, and that can be a Symphony, a Jazz Solo, Children Singing or the fucking We Buy Any Car Jingle... You may not like it, but it's all music isn't it...

Anyway, I'm much better now. I have grown up and loosened up. I have 99 Red Balloons and Luft Balon on my ipod, I very publicly requested Toxic by Britney on a 6music show about Pop that Stands up (Many friends contacted me within 45 seconds of my name being mentioned), I actually like the song 'Wired for Sound' and I have been known 'throw shapes' to some of the cheapest pop there is.

So that's the context, Reformed Music Snob goes to Irony heavy club night. And soon enough I was getting irked. Yes Yes, it's all very well to do 'Cheesy Pop' and 'Retro Classics', but at least keep it consistent. I mean, there were plenty of good tunes from the 80s and 70s, Prince, New Order, Go West, Duran Duran, Technotronic, Inner City... sounds lovely doesn't it. It was, they were the diamonds sparkling away.

Sadly though, the vast bulk was pop from the 90s and 2000s, basically from my era. This selection represented us. All these kids (And I use that term advisedly, as many of them were younger than my vinyl copies of the records we were listening to) were going wild, but to what tunes?.. Well we had Everybody (Backstreet's Back).. Not once, but 3 times. We had 'I just can't get you out of my head', a nice enough little pop tune, but we had it 4 times over the course of the night... The Mashup with new order twice, the original twice.

...and this was common incidentally. Many of the songs were repeated, and often the worse ones. It seemed, that because they were trying so hard to be quirky and funny they seemed to be desperately avoiding anything that could be even remotely be construed as serious (from which the older songs are immune, cos 'They're like.. retro yeah?'... By doing this they had closed the box on all the best pop of the period.

We didn't get Missy Elliot doing 'Get Ur Freak on', which would have torn the roof of the place, we got the fucking Vengabus for some sub-Butlin's arm waving, we didn't get Timbers doing 'Sexy Back', we got Reach for the Stars... and they did. They reached. I've already used Sub Butlin's. This was Sub Pontins.

I just wanted them to try harder. You can be poppy without being repetitive. You can be Ironic without just slinging The worst on Offer, you can be 'Camp' without being Shrill... I wanted to tell them that these are all mistakes I've made earlier in my clubbing life. We went through this so you don't have to.

Mostly I was just embarrassed that they will now think that's all the 90s/2000 pop acts were. They weren't. even for the snob I was at the time, I heard a few Bangers.

But I didn't let it spoil my night. I would just smile to myself and walk through the crowds of happy young people Reaching for The Stars like a playmobil version of Rave Culture and look in the other room to see what music was on in there...

Usually it was Everybody (Backstreet's Back....)
Alright?

Day 28: Carefree Tax (Or, Why YOUR Child means I can't sleep with a Dinosaur Tonight)

Now, anyone who has read yesterday's post will probably imagine me an emotionally maladjusted 'child man' who giggles inanely at clouds and wants only to eat sweets and draw with crayons.

If that is this the case, I'm afraid this post will do nothing to disabuse of that Incorrect Notion. Sure, I do want to do those things, but I do grown up things as well, just that they aren't suitable for this Blog.

I have no children. Again the people who have read this blog before are probably relieved. I don't seem the type to be able to handle having an utterly dependent, (Near Parasitic maybe) organ attached to me, sucking away my life force in order to live. Of course they are right, and that unpleasantly skewed description of being a parent I just wrote proves that. I probably would be a rotten father. I don't know though, and the only evidence I have for this is based upon my perception of YOUR children

Yes Yours. Anyone who has children.
Frankly I resent them.

I don't hate them, or dislike them personally. I just resent what they mean to my life.

I don't mind that you get free money and tax breaks to help raise them. It's clearly a costly job and will last until you die, and since the whole make up of the world is dependent on you doing it correctly, I'm happy for any assistance that stops future generations from turning into mewling, self important douchebags. I'm happy to have a monetary Tax on my 'wonderfully selfish' carefree life. It's worth it frankly.

So it isn't that. What I resent is when they directly impact on my life. Ie. When some idiot wants to ban a game/film/book/comic/decorative fez/series of saucy etchings etc that is clearly marketed to adults because some dumb ass parent has let their over sensitive groundrat get traumatized by it.

'Oh, but we must think of the Children' was the cry that made the Texas Chainsaw Massacre ILLEGAL for so many years, and if you're a parent who looked at that film and got it confused with the Rainbow Bright Christmas Special, it is you they should come for, not my video...

So, keep the kids out of adult entertainment if you're worried. But equally pernicious to me and my Joyful/Child-Man Mindset (Delete as you see fit) is when it works the other way. Some wonderful entertainments are deemed just for children, or (and this is the unfair bit) to any adult who happens to have a clutch of these gurgling bed-moisteners to hand.

The fact that I don't have children is what is preventing me from going to a sleepover at the national history museum tonight.
Yes.. a FUCKING Sleepover at the National History Museum. And yes, you sleep in the shadow of the giant dinosaur skeleton.
(Incidentally if that doesn't sound like an amazing way to spend the saturday night that I'd usually spend in a club, please leave this blog now and have a cardiac specialist xray the lump of cold, dead carbon in your chest)
I can't do that because you need to have a group of kids with you. Now I don't particularly want to go there because I deal kids pretty much how a rational person deals with wasps. If they aren't in my face I ignore them. If they get in my face I try and shoo them away, but if they are on mass I get the fuck out of there.

Sadly, for some reason, they don't see this as an activity that requires an 'adults' night... so I would have just plugged in my earphones to drown out the amassed child-babble and fallen into a smiling sleep whilst focusing on the dinosaur bones and feeling that I was somehow fulfilling an ambition from when I was an equally nauseating brat. This is happening at other museums too, and Kew gardens and the like... all with the additional fee on top of the ticket price, of spending some time looking after a smaller person who might urinate on themselves.

This has impacted on my life before. At one of the last Big Chill festivals, before that once mighty gathering reached its sad and ignoble end (Which I attended, and wept) they advertised a petting zoo. My Then Girlfriend was particularly thrilled by this idea, and while there was no music on we decided to venture towards the 'kids field' an expanse that took up a third of the entire site, and was incredibly sparsely populated. When we arrived we were told we couldn't come in, because we hadn't decided to jumble our DNA together, squirt it into a skin sack and carry it around with us for the rest of our natural lives.

Funnily enough, I don't remember the one third discount from the ticket price for not being able to use that proportion of the field. I also don't remember that the tickets for 'non-breeders' were exclusively made available to 'rampant child-abductors who desperately want the sod of smug little sod-child who would be at the Big Chill' or that kind of 'Giant from Jack and The Beanstalk who Grinds Kids Bones to make their bread'

Ok, Rant over.
I don't begrudge you your child. Just don't expect me to share your delight in them and definitely don't expect me to give enough of a shit to want to harm them in any way.

I agree to not swear in their presence, or watch Hardcore porn where they might see, or watch Driller Killer in a nursery, and you can agree to keep them well out of my life.

Oh, and don't let them stand between me and having some quality time with a dinosaur... Deal?

Day 27: Quirksome (Or, it was a duck made out of Balloons... What would you expect me to do?)

I have been having a busy and utterly stressful week at work. When I'm having a busy and utterly stressful week at work I like to do something that I wouldn't do under other circumstances. I eat a lunch.

To that end I went to the delightfully run down Elephant and castle Shopping centre, they have a cafe there that does good decaff tea, and sells samosas that taste wonderful but always have me feeling sick and regretful within 20 minutes.

On my way into the centre I saw a small lady dressed as a clown. Normally anything clownlike immediately incites my most primitive flight or fight instincts, and because she was so small, what she was doing was all that saved her from being the victim of a good ol' fashioned darwinian clown stomping...

She was making Balloon animals... and she made me this.

Isn't she adorable?
She's a duck made of Balloons... a combination of two of the greatest things in this universe.
So I bought it and took it to lunch with me. How could I, or anyone, walk past it?

As I walked around the centre I had great fun subtly moving it so it had the appearance of watching people as they passed (A trick I perfected when carrying a puppet around a festival for a whole weekend). The technique is to make sure it doesn't look like you're looking, but then appear to notice that the duck is staring at someone. They Smile, I smile and everyone has a slightly more fun day... Then we sat and had lunch together, as the picture shows (It's a lady-duck incidentally, the mascara is a dead giveaway). She was delightful company and judging by her happy expression, she enjoyed it too...

When I got back  to the office I was questioned. 'Were they giving those out for free?' Who did you get that for?', 'Why did you buy it?' You know, the usual thing you'd ask a grown man without a child who had bought a balloon animal... and then someone suggested that it proved I was 'one of them'. I had done it to fit in because they're all 'so crazy' in that office.

I smiled politely, but what I should have said was:

"Fuck fucking off you bloody fool. I am not 'crazy' (which in reality isn't a very fun thing at all) I'm not Zany or madcap or quirky, I didn't do it to fit in with anyone. In fact I didn't buy it for any other reason than I simply couldn't ignore something that would give me that much simple joy...  I don't act any way for any effect, but for my own amusement. It's a duck made of balloons. Were I to walk past that a small part of me would have died forever... I could no more have walked past that than I could a low wall without wanting to jump up and 'tightrope' along it, or smile at someone eating an ice cream..."

Does that make me childish?
Perhaps... But I'm not fucking Zany.. or Quirky...
But I will be taking my duck friend out nightclubbing tomorrow...

So... There.

Day 26: The once yearly Internet Ticket Scrum (or, Why do I put myself through this every year.. oh that's why.. because the result is fucking awesome...)

It's nearly that time again.

Nearly time for the Glastonbury ticket sale... that time where anyone with any sense is clicking on a mouse until they get a crippling repetitive strain injury, with a phone pressed to the ear so hard that it burrows through to the centre of your skull and deep into your brain meat...

I take this kind of thing seriously...
Ever since I saw the David Bowie set where he performed heroes and I wanted to fucking cry until my eyes popped at having missed it I've fought like a fucking cornered and pissed of lion to get tickets.

I've not missed one in over ten years. I'd love there to be a kind of season ticket arrangement, but since there isn't I really put the effort in. My longest stint was 12 straight hours. I had meals brought to me, and tea. I only stopped for toilet breaks. Other than that I hit redial and pressed refresh the whole time. I failed. But only until the festival started when I managed to use subterfuge to get in, a matter of great pride since it possibly the last year that was possible since they began giving photo ID's to all of the workers... I got in AFTER the 'superfence'...

I wouldn't try that now, I'm too old to be sneaking miles out of my way in a field at night, with half a ton of goods on my back and pretending to be someone else...

No, I have to get those tickets legit. And so I'm putting everything in place.
I'm going to the ol' family home, because they have a more stable internet connection. I will take a laptop, because I usually do this with at least 2 computers and a phone. I set up several browsers on a one second refresh and then set them going...

...and I must succeed. Not because Fleetwood Mac might be playing, (Because I hate them), Not because the Rolling Stones were so amazing last year (I saw them, they weren't, I left and went to see Public Enemy instead... now they WERE Amazing) Not even because the rumour that Prince might be playing (Which comes around every year and is almost certainly wrong).

No I have to get tickets because I love it. I wish I could buy a 'life ticket'. If I won the lottery I'd donate a ludicrous amount to whatever charity Eavis wanted in order to get one... It's the greatest festival in the world... in fact it's the greatest thing in the world...

...and I WILL be going!

(This will have a very tearful and enraged update if I fail...)

Day 25: The feeling of inevitable Failure (Or, Brinksmanship? Pah!)

I recently got a job. I was brought into a university to assist with the implementation of a large scale I.T project.

Now don't worry, I won't give all the boring details, suffice to say that they'd tried it before and it didn't work... so they got me.

I'm good at this kind of thing incidentally. I can't really make computers do anything they weren't doing already, but I'm quite good at figuring out how best to use systems, and pretty good at getting other people to use them properly as well... I've done it in a number of jobs, always leading to a degree of success varying from 'partial' to 'dance in the street you've fucking nailed this one boy'

I have never failed at this kind of thing. Well not completely...
But then again I've never been brought in to get something working that just.. well.. doesn't...

yes. It's not working. The system itself is not designed to do what we want it to do. The other University faculties who claim they are using it aren't really.. and now I'm beginning to get pitying looks from my colleagues. When I joke that I have been parachuted in to the Titanic to look after the 'Iceberg' bit, they laugh.. but in a sympathetic way, not because it's a lame joke (It's pretty much a banger for our office) but because it's right on the money.

The IT department have refused to meet with me since I started, now they refuse to even take my calls. It's almost as if they knew it wasn't going to work when they bounced the project out of their hands like the hottest of hot potatoes, with a filling of grief and human excrement. I call and they howl 'It isn't our project, the registry is looking after it' before slamming the phone down so fast I can here the sonic boom of collapsing air in it's wake...

So how do I feel about it?
Strangely energised, excited even.. certainly not despondent (Although I do put it on at work a bit, otherwise they might think I was playing to lose). Despite the fact that I will box this one out to the end, the idea of it fucking up so royally has a curious fascination for me. I literally have no idea what will happen if the whole thing, and I'm afraid I may have to use a technical term here, 'Goes Tits'

I've failed at other things of course, but never something at work, something this big, something that literally has no alternative. If this doesn't work, there is no 'Plan B', no Deus Ex Machina will arrive to lift me out of harms way in a ludicrous contrivance. No I will be left 'naked' in the office, holding the Metaphorical equivalent of amy flaccid cock in my hand...

If you think the feeling of brinksmanship is exciting, of staying on the cusp of the whirlpool, just out of range of the fatal drag, is exhilarating, imagine what the heart rate does when your swirling into it's eye...

...and that's what I'm doing at the moment.

Of course I could still clutch a glorious victory from the jaws of this particularly large and hulking defeat. Sadly this is less likely that the next Pope being selected from the 'Mr Gay UK' finalists, no I may manage to clutch a slightly less overwhelming defeat from the jaws of annihilation... but for me that will be enough... If I end up with one shell shocked soldier, stemming the wounds on the bloody hamburger that used to be his legs, but alive enough to roll his eyes I will consider this one a triumph of bloody-mindedness over adversity...

Or More Literally, a triumph of me over an IT department who are the dictionary definition of the phrase 'Clutch of useless mimsy douchepumps'

Day 24: Sickies! (Or, why Man Flu is worse than face aids)

Today I woke up 'Mildly Ill'
The worst kind of ill... at least for me*.

When I get proper ill, I usually go all out... I once left a sore throat long enough that I ended up in hospital, with my throat closed and suffering hallucinations. I once had a flu that ended up with three days of bed sweating and hallucinations.. when I.. well.. basically, you can guess where this is going when I get badly ill I usually hallucinate... and of course you get a few days off work to pretend it's a day off school... you can watch rubbish TV and generally feel really really really sorry for yourself...

But Mildly Ill is terrible. It doesn't stop you going to work, so you go, all snuffly and fed up.. and if you work in an office that is majority women, like mine, woe betide you if you so much as mention that you are feeling under the weather... The shriek goes up from all corners of the room. 'Man Flu'...

Ok, I understand there is some science about Male and female immune systems at play here, but I've had girlfriends. I know the Advert stereotype where the 'can-do' lady does all the jobs while her loser husband slopes around red faced, huffing lines of beechams powder are pretty much bollocks... Go on, try it.. You're both ill.. try putting all the jobs on your partner, whatever their sex.. you won't be ill soon... you'll be dead... and single... but most importantly, dead...

But I digress. I don't want sympathy, or even empathy.. I just don't want that 'mockery'. They have been given a license to laugh at my watery eyes and sneezing, knowing that I have no equivalent. If they're ill I can't shout, hahaha, Girl Sick.. or if it's the Time when Ladies are at their most fragile, I can't prod them with implications that they are somehow 'faking it'.. mainly because I wouldn't dare.. I've seen how quickly 'Fragile' can turn to 'Terrifying'

So it's an early night tonight, and plenty of fruit. But If I'm still feeling ill tomorrow. Well. Then it's hankyless sneezing time. If it's so funny this 'Man-Flu' they won't mind me sharing it...

(*Yeah Yeah, I know... I'll This excludes almost all illness more serious than colds or flu which I have never had, and hopefully never will, I genuinely do feel sorry for anyone struggling with real stuff and I'm a total baby when it comes to doctors and all that.. although my ear did close over once and I had to have a new auditory canal drilled through my skull... Cool eh?)

Day 23: Best Blog EVER, 5 stars! (Or, The law finally discovers that reviews aren't always trustworthy online, also that Pope appears Catholic and that bears.. oh you know the rest...)

Something beautiful is happening in internet-world.
Something that has been a long time coming.
Something that could finally bring peace to large sections of this war-torn land, whilst decimating acres of free and useless 'content'

Yes, people are finally getting 'Tough' on people who post fake reviews. And by Tough, I mean taking them to court for hundreds of thousands of dollars.. Hurrah!

Yes in New York, generally known for being a 'Don't fuck around' kind of town the dagger is finally being put to companies that supply those fake reviews as well as their clients. Of course it's about time, and for the good of the universe it would be lovely if it was successful...

But there are some fun game to be had with fake reviews. Firstly the obvious spot the fake.
This can be great because they range from the blindingly obvious ones (usually containing the words: For the Record, I am not an employee). These are usually found on a host of rubbish restaurants, after 30 1 star reviews a whole raft of top mark reviews flow in to attempt to balance them up, saying things like 'I don't know what the other reviewers are thinking' or my favourite ever, a Dodgy Landlord who attacked reviewers of his shifty practices and counter-reviewed them, their clothes, their hair-style, their hygiene and claiming they worked for other landlords... he was later caught out posting hooky reviews of other landlords...

Which brings us on to the second fun game, which is based on the legendary Internet Game: 'Fake!' If you don't know Fake it simply involves finding a picture, youtube Video, or anything upon which you can comment, the more innocuous the better, and leaving one word 'Fake!' and then watching the poster tie themselves in knots of apoplectic fury explaining exactly why it couldn't be a fake. This variant works on the same premise, you find the most reasonable, balanced and downright fair review you can, and simply reply 'Well anyone who works for the company would say that'.. and then sit back and watch the mayhem...

The strange thing about this is that it's news at all.. Firstly this is totally illegal anyway. Fraud is still fraud, even on the internet.. That's why those 'This can enlarge your penis' emails go in the spam filters. They aren't legal advertising (Believe me, if anything other than painful surgery could genuinely enlarge a penis, most men would be carrying theirs in a wheelbarrow by now). It's fraud, you get caught, you get busted. So why has fraudulent impersonation taken so long to be taken seriously, particularly when most long time users can spot them a mile off. (Not that means they are ineffective, do you read all the reviews, or just look at the average star rating?)

At least it's a step in the right direction. And it has led to one of the most amusing piece of pure 'Meta' I have read in a long time. One of the 'Astroturfers' caught up in the New York 'Cease and Desist' writ had their internet presence announced by a glowing review, containing those immortal lines "For the Record, I am not an employee"

You can guess the rest...

Day 22: A Night Bus with 'Doctor Hemp' (Or, As soon as 'Alt-Med' starts working consistently they drop the 'Alt')

When in London you may find yourself on a night Bus. The temptation is always to put in earphones and doze away the creeping hangover and/or party induced nausea that is almost certainly occurring if you're on that bus in the first place.

This can be a mistake, because you rarely get as strange a conversation as you might overhear

For example, as I was trundling towards Oxford Circus after a pretty boozy night, a couple got on. They were in the middle of a heated debate. Well, he sounded 'heated' she was obviously just getting a bit bored with continuing this conversation. I tuned in, because they were right behind me and tried to figure out what the cause of contention was...

I have to say, it surprised me. It wasn't the usual Saturday night relationship fall out. No, he was trying to get her to 'Promise to never get chemotherapy'. Yes. Never. No matter what the condition, or the prognosis. She quite reasonably, but certainly wearily, responded. 'Well, it's not part of my life.. so I don't really want to think about it now'. Now, a more subtle student of the feminine mind (Such as my good self) might have read the slight double use of words in that sentence, where 'think' also stands for 'talk'. 

But he continued, explaining all about cellular damage and how it never worked, painting a lurid picture of tubes and lost hair. She again said 'Well, it's not really part of my life, so I can't really commit to that decision'. A very sensible position to take. It isn't in her life and so she doesn't have any evidence as to it's necessity in the future, therefore a promise to her jackass boyfriend would be ludicrous. But still he persisted, going on about how there was a new extract from hemp that could.. blah blah blee blah...

Now I know hemp and it's extracts does have many useful medicinal properties and furthermore is great for almost everything and if we committed solely to just using that then the 60s utopia would spring from the concrete and we'd all join hands and sing 'Let the Sunshine in' naked, but this is the point where I snapped... I turned round and bellowed into his face

"Wow, you must really love that girl... trying to protect her from a treatment to an illness that she doesn't have and hopefully never will.. it really shows your caring side that you are at 5am browbeating her into giving a potentially fatal promise... and I know that a 20-young man in skinny jeans and a t-shirt on a nightbus at 5am probably does have the medical credentials necessary to diagnose hemp for an illness that hasn't even happened yet, but in the future, if something terrible did happen she might decide she wants a second opinion from someone who has done some training, perhaps even actually has a job doing this kind of thing, has an actual condition to diagnose, rather than a hypothetical one and has the most resources to make it a reality rather than sucking on a hemp bag for the extracts... and then if that happened, and they chose targeted chemotherapy, which has saved the lives of people in my own family, she would be torn between surviving, albeit with possible side effects, or keeping a promise to a douchebag flash-in-the-pan ex-boyfriend that she, hopefully, split up with on a night bus on the morning of the 22nd September 2013 for being an utter utter utter bellend."

Of course, I didn't say that. I put in my earphones so I didn't have to.

They got off at the next stop. I'd like to think they are spending today apart. I also really hope that neither of them ever have to choose between chemo and hemp.

(Yeah Yeah I know, Big Pharma Shill blah blah blee... Of course not. Big Pharma USE Hemp by the way, where it's benefit has been established. They aren't perfect by any stretch, and should be constantly questioned and challenged, but that doesn't mean that something is bad just because they use it.. oh and they DEFINITELY save more lives than you ever will)

Day 21 Why so Serious? (Or, U-Kip if you like, I'm staying awake and vigilant against Migrants Puffs and Wimmen!)

Oh it's an interesting time to be driving the Ukip bus.
Once it was all so easy, you just had to pretend to not be too much of a posho and spout rhetoric that you think your imaginary audience of 'common men' (Who drive a white Van, reads the Sun and hates 'Puffs') might like and try not to let it slip that your interest is actually a mix of establishment conservatism, xenophobia and business interests...

The trick was to not look too serious, not too slick. You could fall over in an amusing way (learnt, of course, from Boris) you could say risque cliches, you could always be photographed holding a pint of lager with all the natural ease of someone holding a pot of live snakes and as long as you didn't say anything overtly racist that might get wide interest, you could imply things that were...

Now it's all gone a bit serious though, with a member having the whip withdrawn just for the tiny misstep of calling all of the women in a room at the Ukip Party conference 'Action for Women' type thing; 'Sluts'. Why, because they didn't clean behind the fridge... or something.

Now he says it's a joke. You know what, I'm pretty sure it is... and to be honest they probably did laugh. They're at a Ukip thing... chuckles must be hard to come by.  But what it indicates to me is how much the rules have changed. Farage has his deep set eyes on some glittery prize somewhere down the line now... a pact with Tories in marginals perhaps, or even the prospect of replacing the Lib Dems as the traditional protest vote for people who can't be arsed to find out about politics...

So Farage is cleaning house, but some of the members don't seem to have got the memo.. they think it's just the same ol' ragtag of elite pub-bore Poshos, who think Jeremy Clarkson isn't acting and like the idea of bossing about real working people who they have essentially conned into believing they work in their interests (Little Heads up. Nobody is working in your interest, that's not the way to look at politics folks.. pick a side and get with it, but never be fooled into thinking they're looking out for you)

So what could a slick Ukip do?

Actually less, they are essentially the 'Boris' party. People trust them because they appear to be a shambles. The moment they start getting slick and polished, getting rid of the ludicrous 'Poundland' style logo perhaps, or ironing out Farage's perpetually pub-crumpled face on billboards they will lose the one trick that holds them together.. The idea that this lot are too dumb to be conning us...

I'm not a fan of them Ukipers... they seem to have a bad attitude to Women and Homosexuals as well as Migrants... I mainly feel sorry for them though, they are a party based on fear and neophobia... and one thing you can never hold back is the 'new'

Interesting side point. I've heard on the ol' grapevine that BNP and Ukip have a fundamental disagreement. Apparently The BNP don't like the Ukip policy on migration from Eastern Europe, because although they are migrants and thus less than a British born man with more Bulldogs carved into his flesh than battersea dogs home 3 days after christmas, but at least they are 'White' people who are less than a British born etc etc etc...

If anyone can confirm this I would be grateful, because despite being ignorant and bizarre, the fact that at some point a group of morons might have had that discussion with another group of morons is somehow delightful...

Day 20: The Worst Nurse? (Or why why why do parents hand certain labels around their baby's neck when they are too young to defend themselves)

Please note: All names in this following piece have been mildly fictionalised in order to not break any Data protection laws at the place I work. Also out of common decency, because I'm about to offer some juvenile sniggering about them...

I think we'd all agree that there are few crimes as unthinkable as matricide or patricide. Not only is it murder, it's also staggeringly ungrateful and show's that worse than being a mere psychotic, you're also incredibly rude. There are however exceptions to this, the Fritzel's would probably have been applauded, or perhaps that kid who was put on Wogan as a Hooky Antique expert who then lost the plot a bit... but none more than those poor sods who have been given an utterly ridiculous name...

Now I have an unusual name. I really don't mind it, and due to nomenclative determinism it has led me to be an unusual person, at least I hope it's that... I can't really imagine that my parents were sat around looking at my pudgy face and goggling eyes and thought 'Oooh he looks a but of a rum 'un... better make sure the branding matches the style'. But at least my name is a name. Well, my first name is a name... a Surname perhaps, but a name and my second is a barnyard fowl, but family name's are really nobody's fault except history. What I'm saying is, I don't judge people for having odd names.. I can sympathise.

Nowadays I work with huge lists of prospective employees for Healthcare providers and therefore I get to see a whole lot of names. There are a surprising amount of girls named 'Precious', 'Princess' or 'Queen'.. I even had a 'Beautiful' yesterday. Sadly these names sometimes seem to have been attached based on the emotion of having a child you love, rather than with any descriptive intent.. it would have been like me being called 'Butch' or 'Rambo'.. at worst it can seem sarcastic...

This is all understandable though. Everyone's child is beautiful to themselves, and so your biased eyes will see the reality behind the fiction of the name. It is more unusual when seeming to imply other talents like the honest to goodness (But still slightly fictionalised) Lyrical Jones. Yes. That is a name. That is a name given to a child for whom the parents had a dream of one day being a rapper, but that dream became the less moniker specific, but more socially useful placement as a health visitor.

The fact that I deal mainly with health leads to some particularly interesting combinations.

A Student specialising in Geriatric care called Marcus Death.
A Trauma Ward specialist called Annette Raper.

But my favourite at the moment... and the perfect argument for nomenclature Determinism is a lady called Isabelle Nurse.
Yes a Nurse 'Nurse'

Now if I was to make up* that name in a book I'd be roundly mocked, but the universe seems to do this all the time...
(*of course I did slightly make it up... Blah blah blee blah law and decency)

It is these kinds of things that get me through the day while I steer a massive and leaky IT project through a gauntlet of Icebergs and dodgy metaphors...

Day 19: It's international Let everyone know you're a Douchebag who works in a design Company Day (Or, Why is everyone talking Somali?)

It's international 'Talk Like a Pirate Day'... celebrated only by self employed design types, the odd celebrity on Youtube, most of Camden and Brian Blessed*

(*Brian Blessed is of course the only person in that list who isn't a Total Douchepump)

Does anyone ever observe this? I mean, really.. are you that keen to show that you have a job that is of no importance, or are unemployed... do you really need to pretend so hard that work in the entertainment industry?

Of course we have no idea how Pirates talked in real life, our conception is entirely based on Robert Newton and a handful of other performers who made it up for films. Newton's performance is a particular joy, a alcoholic mumble with a side order of bulging-eyed insanity that has done more to cement 'Yarrrrgggghh' as the call of the pirate than anything else...

Now, of course, the poster Boy for the eye-patch and parrot brigade is Johnny Depp and his impression of someone doing an impression of David Bowie doing an impression of The Fraggle from the Rolling Stones doing an impression of David Frost doing an impression of Johnny Depp playing Hunter S Thompson in Fear and Loathing.

Initially the idea of Talk Like a Pirate day was a bit of a laugh.. but the joke really is over now... it only exists so that people on Twitter can pretend they are doing it... But they aren't really..

Which is good. Do you want to go to a vet and them bray that 'This Mangy Curr be heading to meet Davey Jones' or visit a Doctor and have them snarl a 'Yarrr' at you before delivering your H.I.V results, all the while referring to the killer condition as 'Scurvy'

But it will go away again for another year, and that's the only good thing about this sort of nonsense...
Oh.. and it gives me something to write about when I'm REALLY struggling to find a subject...

Day 18: The only Gamer not Playing Grand Theft Auto 5... (Or, Why it takes something entirely non Televisual to Make me miss my Telly)

I have been having very vivid and violent dreams recently.
Incredibly violent.
One recently involved me running around with a large circular saw doing antisocial things. It was all very cartoony and slapstick and jolly good fun... and it is just one of many similar dreams I've been having in the past week... (albeit with the usual Odd Dream Logic, even in the Saw Dream I spent a long time looking for loose cables in room as they were a trip hazard that would reflect badly on the Health And Safety Audit I was having that day, before getting back to running around with a saw so big I couldn't even lift it in real life...)

This could be a sign of many things.
It could be that my clean living (Except Weekends) Lifestyle, with a solid sleeping pattern and no caffeine or nicotine is causing me to have vivid dreams in which I lash out. It could be a reaction to the stress of my job, which I have to feign reaction to in the office so nobody can tell how little I actually care. It could just be that I have deep seated psychological issues that can only be worked out with power tools and a shrieking crowd.

But it isn't any of that. It's just that I'm the only male Gamer who isn't playing Grand Theft Auto 5, and my brain is trying to cushion that blow by putting on it's own show of immersive, 'sandbox' ultra violence...

Yes, that Game came out, and whereas a few years ago I would be at the stores waiting for that midnight sale, I was actually in bed dreaming of Saws...

But why not?

Well I could go all beard-strokey and say it's blah blah bleeh blah glamourisation of violence and misogyny and that's why.. but it isn't.. I could try and act all alt-dot and claim I prefer Saints Row, which nobody really does... I could pretend I am too grown up and the activity shames me, which it doesn't... Believe me, I have a strong shame threshold... I could even moan about the price...

But it's none of this. I love the GTA series, have done for years. It was the game I dreamed of having when I used to play Werewolves of London on the old Spectrum.. a city at your command, where you can do anything.. Oh yes. Sign me in. I have GTA3 on my phone, and entertain myself on teh tube by racing around and trying to find all the jumps in Vice City.. I love it utterly, and it really is only getting better...

So why aren't I playing it?

Because I don't have a fucking TV!

I Have a TV license now, because of constant threats from 'The Man'... but No TV to plug my Xbox 360 into...

I was close to buying all 3 items this week, just so I could play. A TV, a new console (Which I already have one of, elsewhere) and the game itself. In fact, it is only the fact that the local shops had sold out of the game that prevented this ludicrous outlay of rent money... TV's, it seems are commonplace. GTA 5, is a rarity...

It will no doubt be the most lucrative entertainment product ever released, and good on it. People get so up in arms about what can be done in it's world.. but so what, even a copy of 'Miracle on 34th Street' can be put to ignoble use if you say... jam it into somebody's anus or something...

So I will soon be going back to the family home and getting out the ol' Xbox. And then I'll be investing in a little TV...

And then.. well and then I'll have to find someone with considerably more patience than me to go through the actual missions and unlock everything...

Any takers?