A question of perception

In these days of self-imposed exile from news websites I have still been thinking about current affairs but have started to view things slightly differently.

Last night whilst having a smoke in the garden I started to think about why so many people still regard Britain as a nasty piece of work. I came to the conclusion that it is the unfortunate legacy of once having an empire that expanded across the globe killing, plundering, and raping as it went.

In these globalised days where we are all supposed to be much more enlightened Britain still comes in for a lot of flack for being imperialist and putting it's interests before anyone else's. To me this is the way the world is and I really don't think that we should feel all that bad about it because every man and his dog is doing the same. I also think that compared to countries like Saudi Arabia where women aren't allowed to drive or be in the company of unrelated men we are like the Walton Family.

As we try and fix the wrongs that we have done in the past we should remember that as a nation we are on the right path and take comfort in the fact that although we are still involved in conflicts in far-away lands at least we have managed to reduce the number of people we are killing by a massive amount. The number of people unfortunately killed in Iraq and Afghanistan pale into insignificance when compared to the amount of people killed by our fore-fathers in Africa, France, Germany, The Falklands, America, and countless others.

Midnight Mingus

Keeping yourself away from news & current affairs programmes is very difficult. After my first aborted attempt at doing so last year I gave up after a few days on my own volition, but this time I'm determined to maintain as low a level of news input as possible.

This means that when in the car I have to be very careful what I listen to as I run the risk of hearing any doom and gloom that is being broadcast on the airwaves and inadvertently crash into a crowd of nuns; and therefore, perversely contribute to the chronic pessimism that I'm trying to avoid. I now have three options whilst driving.

1. Listen to a CD
2. Turn the radio off every time a news bulletin starts
3. Drive in silence.

Driving with the window down and the radio off allows me to relax alot more than if I have a cd on and I simply can't abide Radio 1 & 2 or any commercial radio station. Radio 4 is all well and good but I have had to ban it on account of it's many current affair's programmes. Driving up the M6 on this Saturday just passed I thought I would do something wacky and listen to Radio 3 as I had no memory of ever doing so before. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that It was a rather pleasurable experience. For the majority of my trip it played Jazz music and as someone who has not heard much Jazz before I found it refreshing to listen to. So instead of going back to doom and gloom news stories I think I'm gong to immerse myself in the world of cool Jazz.

Nice

Costa - profiteering from caffeine addiction?

This weekend just past the unthinkable happened. I had a Latte from Costa that tasted terrible.

I have noticed the quality of Costa's latte slowly going downhill but put had this down to bad luck on my part, after all, even Bob Dylan has written a few stinkers. It has also been several weeks since my last visit to one of the franchise's establishments due to a number of factors.

1. Poor service

2. Condescending staff

3. Dirty toilets

4. Broken high chairs

5. Terrible coffee.

Regular readers to this blog (yeah right!) will remember reading about my love affair with the Italian coffee house but I'm afraid to say that it is now ranked below Starbucks when it comes to serving a decent latte.

The young lady serving me asked if I wanted an extra shot of espresso in my drink which was something that I had never been asked before by any Costa employee. At the time I thought nothing of it but upon pouring the faintly coffee flavoured warm milky drink down my gizzard I realised why she had asked - the coffee content was virtually nill and instead it was a like a drink that my mother used to give me at bed time when I was still a bain. I'm sure that they (Costa) have reduced the standard espresso shot they put into each Latte so that the mug (customer) has to spend extra in order to get their caffeine fix. As a caffeine addict I find this deplorable and will be takng the matter up with the relevant human right department - after Ive finished my coffee that is.

I now proclaim Nero to be the king of the high street coffee house. At least you can taste the coffee that you're paying for.

News Blackout - take 2

After my little rant last week about the coming Apocalypse I'm trying to be more positive as all the negative media I had been reading has left me feeling depressed. Maybe I need another news black out. The last time I did this I felt great for a few days but like anyone whose tried to give up smoking will know, you have to make that you make sure that you have no access to cigarettes at all. This will mean forbidding the good woman from watching any news programmes in my presence, and attempting to self-govern which websites I go on.

This second point will perhaps be the hardest one to do as I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to the world wide web. Having my own office and an attention span shorter than a goldfish's makes it extremely likely that, at some point during my working day, I will get the overwhelming urge to flick onto Reuters or the BBC for a quick sneaky peak at the days events. For all the good things it does the Internet is the mother of all distractions. Take this blog for example. Hardly anyone except myself ever reads it but I feel compelled to keep writing - usually as an alternative to doing any work. The same can be said for news websites. They are great at distracting me from what I should be doing but I end up feeling mad about things over which I have no control. So Iran is flexing it's muscles in response to Israel's posturing. In what possible way will I be able to do anything about it other than getting mad about the possibility of another war which will no doubt involve us and the extra money that I will have to pay at the petrol pump.

So as of now I'm having another no news day.

Feel free to join in and feel good about society again!

We're All Doomed I tell ya!

If you're one of those people who likes to flick between news channels then you will have noticed that everyday there seems to be more evidence that Britain is now only one step away an Apocalypse.

a few examples:

Kids are now spend more time mugging old ladies and stabbing each than they do playing with lego, If they do decide to stay indoors and play xbox then they become obese,

We're all going to get trampled by some giant carbon foot, the ice caps will melt and warm the planet up (this isn't necessarily a bad thing), we'll all have to start bottling our farts to help preserve the ozone layer,

Immigrants have taken all our jobs and set up refugee camps in our back gardens,

Our house's aren't worth the money we paid for them, and our currency is worth about the same as Duck turd,

The right wing want to deport all people who can't trace their ancestry back to some pre-roman pagan sect, the left wing tell us we're responsible for all the wrongs in the world ever and we should give all our money to some African charity,

All men are bastards who drink too much, smoke too much, eat too much, fight too much, don't spend enough time with their kids, don't pay attention to their woman's "needs",

Women don't get the same amount of pay, can't have children, have too many children, drink too much, smoke too much, fight too much, don't have their "needs" met,

Schools are crap because we don't have enough teachers because they don't want to be prosecuted for raising their voice to a child, they're full of knives, drugs, guns, & pedophiles, exam's aren't marked correctly,

Our Hospitals are under-funded, full of health tourists, voilent, and so dirty that they kill more people than they cure,

We haven't got enough prison places, but we can't build more because we shouldn't be sending people there as it's not their fault they've committed crime, so we give them community sentences which people consider a soft option, meanwhile we prosecute people who defend their homes,

We hate the government and are seriously considering electing another government that we used to hate,

We're racist, homophobic, xenophobic, fattist, thinnist, Islamaphobic, anti christian, & anti-Semitic,

Oh, and it hasn't stopped raining for a whole week!

GTA IV - not realistic shocker!

It's been at least two months since I last switched the Xbox on but yesterday I got the chance to do just that when the nipper decided to take an unexpected two hour nap. GTA 4 was the game of choice and I had a great time acting out the activities of hooded youths up and down the country by shooting innocent bystanders, stealing cars, drug dealing, and procuring the services of prostitutes.

Despite the great graphics and sheer scale of Liberty City I found that it's portrayal of the criminal fraternity to be somewhat lacking.

A few points I noticed:

1. It's not possible to take over street corners with your virtual crew,

2. You can't happy slap anyone whilst being recorded by one of your rat faced mates, and then upload it to you tube,

3. White Lightning is nowhere to be found,

4. There isn't an option to walk around with your hand down the front of your tracksuit,

5. Somewhat confusingly, you actually have to do things in exchange for money rather than recieving an amount of money from the in-game benefit system.

I thought that next-generation games were supposed to be realistic.

I'm giving serious consideration to reporting Rockstar and Microsoft for false advertising.

Fork N Knife

So the pretender to the Prime Ministerial crown, one David "Hug a Hoodie" Cameron, is going to introduce new laws in order to put knife wielding hoodies in gaol if he gets elected. Here I was presuming that it was already illegal to carry one but I guess that's another thing I'm wrong about.

Forgive me for being sceptic but I'm not entirely convinced that this will stop all those teenage stabbings we hear about on an almost nightly basis. Maybe the popular pursuit of banning the selling of tobacco should be stopped and the attention shifted to the sale of knives. This weekend just passed I happened to walk past a shop that had a number of blades on display - all of them looking like they would be a great addition to any hoodrat's arsenal .

It may be difficult for the Burberry massiv to buy 20 L&B but from what I can tell it doesn't require Mensa membership to get legitimately tooled-up.

Red or Blue?

I thought I would take a break from moaning about my employment and turn my grumblings onto a topic that many bloggers feel qualified to talk about - politics.
If current polls are to be believed (not that they ever should) then it looks as if we will have a new government at the next general election - whenever that may be. The problem I have is that I see no point in voting for a party who is obviously not going to get elected namely, The lib dems, The greens, UKIP, The BNP, or some other one issue party. This leaves me with three choices, either I can choose NOT to vote (which isn't an option), or put an X in one of the boxes saying Tory or Labour.
I don't always vote in a bi-election due to factors like apathy, but I do like to make a point of casting my vote in the general election as it makes me feel qualified to talk politics with my friends who went to university.
I like to think that I'm a middle of the road sort of chap but at the moment I'm really not swayed either way .
The last ten years under labour have been alright for me. I've always been able to get a job, I've had opportunities to further educate myself, and I've never been in debt, which gives makes me think that I should back Labour to win. My only experience of Tory rule is that of a politically uninterested child/teenager to whom politics was something you thought about when suffering from insomnia. I can remember talk of sleaze and recession in the early nineties and of the deep unpopularity of one M.Thatcher.
But the last few years I have noticed a real shift in the way that Labour are perceived by myself and my peers. It seems as if everything they touch turns into a shambles and I have an image of them not being able to find any beer in a brewery. Once Tony Blair had gone I thought that Gordon Brown would be a breath of fresh air and bring a bit of dignity back to the labour party but it hasn't quite happened like that has it?!
The Torie's on the other hand seem full of pomp and self importance, a necessary commodity for politicians it seems, with a sack full of soundbites and gimmicks to throw about. They appear to be ticking some of the right boxes with the electorate, but are they going to be able to deliver? As of this moment I'm not convinced and I'm going to have to give much thought to the topic between now and the election.
Just what the blogosphere needs - more political opinion!