[It might be because it's 5am and I'm drunk (okay, to clarify: IT IS 5am and I AM drunk) but this is a rare serious point. Enjoy?!]
...Hello.
Y'alright?!
I open like that because it's all in the intonation.
What I just wrote was exactly how a court stenographer would record it.
Now let's do it again, in the style of someone speaking to a woman in her late eighties:
Helloooooo!!
Y'ALRIIIIGHT?!
I'm out on a limb, here, but I'm pretty sure court stenography doesn't allow for elongated vowels and volume of speech, which is why it's patently ridiculous that, according to the 4am news, it's being suggested that patronising language be made illegal when dealing with the elderly.
Two nights ago, Christopher Plumber, aged 82, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and, in his acceptance, pointed out that the award itself was only two years older than he was. It was a pithy, charming, totally coherent speech by an octagenarian.
I bring Christopher Plummer up for a reason, too: He's my old man.
We're not related - he's not my dad and we're not married - but for some reason, whenever I read a work of fiction that describes an old man, I see Chriustopher Plummer in my head. It's either him, or Max Von Sydow, probably because they look very similar - at least these days, anyway - and are the same age (82) and when I'm reading a story and asked to picture an old man, I picture one or the other or an amalgamation of both. Christophax Von Plummow, I guess.
I should stress, also, that this only happens in my head when the old man in question is a prominent character. One who has importance to the story and important lines and such like.
It wasn't a conscious choice, for me, but, through numerous movies, Plummer and Von Sydow became prominent older actors in my experience, and therefore I cast them in my head whenever I'm asked to picture an old man.
I wouldn't dream of patronising either of these guys, and neither would I patronise, say, Clint Eastwood (82 as well, come May), but that's probably a lie because I patronise everyone. I did it in the column below by explaining what weasel words are, in the assumption that you, you fucking idiot, wouldn't already know.
Possibly because you're old.
More likely because patronising language cannot, by definition, be made illegal, as it's one of those things that we all do from time to time.
I'll give you an example: At the time of writing, I'm twenty-six. I run a bar. When I get to making small talk with customers, I often hear the phrase "So...... Are you studying anything?!"
No, I'm not. I worked for a living since the age of 18, thanks very much, and never attended a university. In fact, the only time I entered the halls of Bristol University was to move some furniture, when I was working as a van driver.
Queue the next bit of this conversation: "Really? You seem quite intelligent..."
Well, thanks. I make fire and use tools, which is a big deal. I'm even writing a blog as we speak, although this should never normally be taken as an indication of the ability to use fire or tools*.
Still, the assumption that I must be something more than a barman is insulting and belittling. I can make literally any drink a customer can name, from memory, eithout hesitation. I can count all the times I've been stumped with a request on the fingers of one hand.
So the inference that I'm "just a barman" is incredibly patronising to me, but nobody tries to make a law against it.
If you catch a London taxi and consider the driver to be "just a cab driver," that's immensely patronising, too, whether he's twenty-two or seventy-seven. Making laws against "being patronising" is the same as making laws against "being offensive." The criteria are so wide-ranging, and the resultant laws so flimsy, that it's a waste of everyone's time. Indeed, the most patronising thing about this whole idea is that it's only the elderly who should be protected.
I only have two heroes in life. One is Bruce Springsteen, which is a whole seperate issue, and the other is James Randi, a man who once said that "it is better to educate against stupidity than it is to legislate against it."
James Randi turns eighty-four this year. And he's right.
* 97% of the blogosphere is created by monkeys with typewriters, or by humans so stupid that they coin words like "blogosphere," and who envy said monkeys.
Wednesday 29 February 2012
Monday 27 February 2012
I would kill you all for a cigarette...
I don’t think anybody is arguing that we live in a period of literary or journalistic brilliance. We’re barely even in an age of literacy. Last week I bought a ticket in a car park, and the advert on the back was from the city council, warning me about “enforcement camera’s.” Not making that up. Camera’s.
Still, no matter how much bad writing I come across, sometimes the perfect storm of my mood and someone else’s stupidity leads me to fly into a gnashing, high-pitched fury and complain to disinterested friends, co-workers and now - through the magic of technology - the whole internet!!
Today it’s weasel words.
Weasel words, briefly, are words that are designed to disguise something as fact, despite the fact that it’s actually totally made up. “Allegedly” is always a good one.
The Daily Mirror, the most respectable still-standing red-top tabloid (which is a lot like being a respectable member of the Fritzl family) went on sale on Saturday with the front-page headline “Lord Lucan DID Flee To Africa.”
The article then begins: “Lord Lucan fled to Africa and could still be alive…”
Sensational stuff. A man may have lived to be 77. He also may not. What IS clear is that this story might be relevant. If he’s still alive. Which he could be. Probably.
Anyway, if the fact that someone who committed a murder fled to the most likely location, and is possibly still alive, constitutes front page news, I’ve taken the time to write some Mirror headlines of my own, in case there’s a slow news week again.
Lord Lucan Reportedly Also Keyser Soze, Tyler Durden
“Not Harvey the Rabbit,” though, says a close source.
Lord Lucan’s Phone Probably Hacked By NewsCorp
Fuck it, everyone else’s was.
Lord Lucan Allegedly Called You a Pussy
Although you probably are.
“The Phantom Menace” Conceivably Created By Lucan
It’s only one letter away from Lucas. Think about it.
Lord Lucan Might Have Killed Nanny To Prevent Robot Apocalypse
Most likely just lamped her one with a pipe ‘cause he’s mental.
Lord Lucan Theoretically Behind You Right Fucking Now!!
You can’t prove he isn’t until you look!
Lord Lucan Can’t-Be-Proved-Not-To-Be Having Affair With Schroedinger’s Cat
The pair met somewhere in that last headline, says friend.
Lord Lucan Most Likely Returning to Britain
Says he’d rather face prison than another of these stupid fucking headlines.
Still, no matter how much bad writing I come across, sometimes the perfect storm of my mood and someone else’s stupidity leads me to fly into a gnashing, high-pitched fury and complain to disinterested friends, co-workers and now - through the magic of technology - the whole internet!!
Today it’s weasel words.
Weasel words, briefly, are words that are designed to disguise something as fact, despite the fact that it’s actually totally made up. “Allegedly” is always a good one.
The Daily Mirror, the most respectable still-standing red-top tabloid (which is a lot like being a respectable member of the Fritzl family) went on sale on Saturday with the front-page headline “Lord Lucan DID Flee To Africa.”
The article then begins: “Lord Lucan fled to Africa and could still be alive…”
Sensational stuff. A man may have lived to be 77. He also may not. What IS clear is that this story might be relevant. If he’s still alive. Which he could be. Probably.
Anyway, if the fact that someone who committed a murder fled to the most likely location, and is possibly still alive, constitutes front page news, I’ve taken the time to write some Mirror headlines of my own, in case there’s a slow news week again.
Lord Lucan Reportedly Also Keyser Soze, Tyler Durden
“Not Harvey the Rabbit,” though, says a close source.
Lord Lucan’s Phone Probably Hacked By NewsCorp
Fuck it, everyone else’s was.
Lord Lucan Allegedly Called You a Pussy
Although you probably are.
“The Phantom Menace” Conceivably Created By Lucan
It’s only one letter away from Lucas. Think about it.
Lord Lucan Might Have Killed Nanny To Prevent Robot Apocalypse
Most likely just lamped her one with a pipe ‘cause he’s mental.
Lord Lucan Theoretically Behind You Right Fucking Now!!
You can’t prove he isn’t until you look!
Lord Lucan Can’t-Be-Proved-Not-To-Be Having Affair With Schroedinger’s Cat
The pair met somewhere in that last headline, says friend.
Lord Lucan Most Likely Returning to Britain
Says he’d rather face prison than another of these stupid fucking headlines.
Thursday 23 February 2012
The Grey: A shit movie for fuckheads.
I don’t want to bias anybody, here but- What? Title of this one is already hugely biased? Awesome, okay. That’s a time saver.
So, “The Grey.” If you like it, you’re ugly and smell of piss.
…Fine. Look, I don’t generally review films. The absolute stone-cold last thing the internet needs is another asshole spouting off about movies he’s seen, but lately, Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey” has become a minor obsession of mine.
Briefly, for those who missed the trailers, Liam Neeson’s plane crashes in Alaska and he and the other survivors start getting hunted by wolves, and have to escape.
In case you’re a little slow on the uptake, I didn’t like the movie much. That’s okay; there are plenty of movies I don’t like. It wasn’t anywhere near the worst film I’ve ever seen (stand up, “American Ninja”) and I didn’t utterly hate it the way I hate needles or the Chris Moyles show. I just didn’t think it was worth seeing.
What’s bothering me, however, isn’t that I didn’t like it. What’s bothering me is how much other people liked it. How rampantly, desperately, screamingly in love with this movie they are, to the point where, to date, three projectionists have been trampled to death as “The Grey” fans barrelled over them on their way to try to have sex with the raw celluloid that comprises this epic masterpiece. [Edit: This isn’t true.]
Not only do some people really, really love this film, they love it in a uniquely irritating, smug way. The more I saw glowing reviews of “The Grey”, the more I started wondering if I’d missed something, so I started looking at reviews. Professional ones, not just what some asshole on the internet thinks.
Amazingly, every time I found a review that tallied with my own impression of the movie, the comments section was littered with angry fans saying that the reviewer “didn’t get it” and, usually, that they shouldn’t be employed as a movie reviewer in the first place. Ignoring the meta-review quality of reviewing a reviewer, it takes a special type of dickhead to say “I, who do not get paid to comment on movies, understood this movie better than you, and do not think you are qualified to do your job because you disagree with me.” People who demonstrably couldn’t work as film reviewers are calling for the sacking of professionals based on this shitpile of a film? What’s wrong with people?! Did this movie really have that much of an impact on the dreary lives of uppity wankers? Are the glowing reviews and angry comments coming from people who’ve only ever seen one film?! Did I see a different cut of “The Grey” to the rest of the planet?!
Like I say, it’s becoming a minor obsession. I just don’t get how anyone can love this movie so much. Don’t worry, I’m not going to sit here and give you my blow-by-blow objections to the film (it doesn’t make any sense, it’s boring, the ending is shit), but do worry: I’m going to give you my blow-by-blow objections to why people seem to think it’s great.
1: “The characters are compelling and well drawn.”
No, they’re not. A lot of people have commented on how subtle the character development is. There seems to be some confusion, therefore, on the difference between “subtle” and “not there at all.” Based on this, I’m going to work bollock naked today and hoping I can just call it a “subtle” outfit. The characters in this movie have a few conversations about their normal lives (ie: when they’re not lost in the woods being eaten by wolves) in the same way that characters in old war movies talk about “a girl back home” that they’re going to marry. It’s been done, it all feels by-the-numbers, and nobody does anything interesting. Example: The guy with tattoos is a hard case and kind of an asshole, the guy with glasses is timid, and so on.
2. “It’s really hardcore and violent.”
I think somewhere around the twenty-third “Saw” sequel, movie violence as a concept kinda jumped the shark. In the era of human centipedes, you really have to go a long way to shock viewers. Or maybe just a long way to shock me, I don’t know. The point is, a lot of people have commented on how brutal and bloody the wolf attacks are.
Except that they’re neither. There were far more graphic wolf attacks in “An American Werewolf in London,” a movie that was a) made thirty years ago and b) actually entertaining.
3. “You just don’t get it!”
I’m not going to have any ego on this one: I went to see “The Grey” because I thought Liam Neeson punching a wolf to death would be fucking awesome. I didn’t think it would be smart or meaningful, but Evel Kinevel wasn’t smart or meaningful either and he still drew a crowd, so let’s not judge.
In reality, however, “The Grey” aims to be a deep, artistic movie and doesn’t contain any wolf-punching. And I’m fine with that. I really am. I don’t mind being surprised when something has more depth than I expected. “Unforgiven” is one of my favourite films, and on the surface that’s just about Clint Eastwood shooting people and riding a horse. The fact that “The Grey” aspired to art wasn’t lost on me, I just thought it failed and sucked. According to fans, however, anybody who didn’t like this movie just isn’t intellectual enough to get it.
They also use this argument to excuse any of the many, many instances where a bunch of stupid shit happens. It doesn’t need to be logical, because it’s art. Taking that as our mantra, I propose a re-jigged ending where Liam Neeson escapes on a multicoloured Pegasus whilst playing the banjo. And if that doesn’t make any sense to you, it’s because I’m just so, so much deeper than you are.
4. “It’s all one big, mind-blowing metaphor!”
Fans of “The Grey” make a big deal out of the fact that the whole film is about death; the wolves are meant to be an incarnation of fate and the whole movie is about the struggle to survive in the face of inevitable mortality.
You know what else was about the struggle to succeed or survive when all seems futile?
Fucking everything.
Seriously,“Die Hard”, “Bambi”, “Rocky IV”, “Jurassic Park”, “Henry V”, “Aliens”, that episode of “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” where Frank Spencer roller skates across a busy traffic intersection, “Spartacus”, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “The Thing”, “Debbie Does Dallas”… They’re all about the human spirit’s struggle to endure in the face of overwhelming odds.
Fans will say that “The Grey” is different because it’s more about accepting death, but the only way that can seem interesting to me is if you’ve never considered your own mortality before. Everyone dies in “The Grey”, and it’s supposed to be about facing death on your own terms, but even that seems trite and tacky to me. Death doesn’t let you have “your own terms.” If you’re trying to make a realistic movie about the inevitability of death, you might as well spend two hours filming an office worker and then have him get hit by a bus, not have Liam Neeson reciting shit poetry and fighting a wolf with a bottle. I know I’m going to die; I’m sure you do as well. There’s no sense in navel-gazing, even less so in doing it through the medium of boring movies.
5. “Liam Neeson is awesome.”
I’ve got nothing against Liam Neeson, but his character in this movie was a fucking idiot.
At the start of the film, Neeson’s character Ottway is suicidally depressed. This isn’t hyperbole, he’s actually seen sticking a gun in his mouth and considering pulling the trigger.
As soon as the plane has crashed and the wolves show up, he advocates moving to the woods so the survivors can better defend themselves. Ottway apparently thinks that wolves can’t hunt you in a forest. For future reference, that’s sharks. Sharks aren’t good in a forest, wolves tend to be alright.
Anybody who knows anything at all about… well, anything at all, should already be aware that the golden rule in these situations is never to leave the crash site. A crashed plane is easy to find and would give you enough makeshift weapons to fend off attack. I know that it wouldn’t be very entertaining to just have a bunch of people sat in a plane fuselage throwing suitcases at wolves*, but this movie wasn’t very entertaining anyway, so they might as well have made it realistic.
I’m also pretty sure nobody would have followed Ottway into the forest had he admitted that he was thinking about killing himself anyway. It’s one of those situations where full disclosure is important. If an openly suicidal man says “I’m just off to those woods in the distance, anyone want to come with me?” you can normally predict a chorus of “Fuck, no!” as a response. As it is, everyone tags along with this bell-end and ends up either getting eaten or otherwise fatally maimed.
I could go on and on (I’m pretty sure I have) but there’s little point. Fans of this movie think it’s bulletproof. Any criticism, even from professional critics, is met with abuse and accusations of ignorance or stupidity.
Ultimately, however, in the same way that one can judge a society by it's prisoners, so too can you judge a movie by it's fans. So I'm glad I didn't like "The Grey", because it means I'd have to be a prick.
*Actually, that sounds like a fucking brilliant film...
So, “The Grey.” If you like it, you’re ugly and smell of piss.
…Fine. Look, I don’t generally review films. The absolute stone-cold last thing the internet needs is another asshole spouting off about movies he’s seen, but lately, Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey” has become a minor obsession of mine.
Briefly, for those who missed the trailers, Liam Neeson’s plane crashes in Alaska and he and the other survivors start getting hunted by wolves, and have to escape.
In case you’re a little slow on the uptake, I didn’t like the movie much. That’s okay; there are plenty of movies I don’t like. It wasn’t anywhere near the worst film I’ve ever seen (stand up, “American Ninja”) and I didn’t utterly hate it the way I hate needles or the Chris Moyles show. I just didn’t think it was worth seeing.
What’s bothering me, however, isn’t that I didn’t like it. What’s bothering me is how much other people liked it. How rampantly, desperately, screamingly in love with this movie they are, to the point where, to date, three projectionists have been trampled to death as “The Grey” fans barrelled over them on their way to try to have sex with the raw celluloid that comprises this epic masterpiece. [Edit: This isn’t true.]
Not only do some people really, really love this film, they love it in a uniquely irritating, smug way. The more I saw glowing reviews of “The Grey”, the more I started wondering if I’d missed something, so I started looking at reviews. Professional ones, not just what some asshole on the internet thinks.
Amazingly, every time I found a review that tallied with my own impression of the movie, the comments section was littered with angry fans saying that the reviewer “didn’t get it” and, usually, that they shouldn’t be employed as a movie reviewer in the first place. Ignoring the meta-review quality of reviewing a reviewer, it takes a special type of dickhead to say “I, who do not get paid to comment on movies, understood this movie better than you, and do not think you are qualified to do your job because you disagree with me.” People who demonstrably couldn’t work as film reviewers are calling for the sacking of professionals based on this shitpile of a film? What’s wrong with people?! Did this movie really have that much of an impact on the dreary lives of uppity wankers? Are the glowing reviews and angry comments coming from people who’ve only ever seen one film?! Did I see a different cut of “The Grey” to the rest of the planet?!
Like I say, it’s becoming a minor obsession. I just don’t get how anyone can love this movie so much. Don’t worry, I’m not going to sit here and give you my blow-by-blow objections to the film (it doesn’t make any sense, it’s boring, the ending is shit), but do worry: I’m going to give you my blow-by-blow objections to why people seem to think it’s great.
1: “The characters are compelling and well drawn.”
No, they’re not. A lot of people have commented on how subtle the character development is. There seems to be some confusion, therefore, on the difference between “subtle” and “not there at all.” Based on this, I’m going to work bollock naked today and hoping I can just call it a “subtle” outfit. The characters in this movie have a few conversations about their normal lives (ie: when they’re not lost in the woods being eaten by wolves) in the same way that characters in old war movies talk about “a girl back home” that they’re going to marry. It’s been done, it all feels by-the-numbers, and nobody does anything interesting. Example: The guy with tattoos is a hard case and kind of an asshole, the guy with glasses is timid, and so on.
2. “It’s really hardcore and violent.”
I think somewhere around the twenty-third “Saw” sequel, movie violence as a concept kinda jumped the shark. In the era of human centipedes, you really have to go a long way to shock viewers. Or maybe just a long way to shock me, I don’t know. The point is, a lot of people have commented on how brutal and bloody the wolf attacks are.
Except that they’re neither. There were far more graphic wolf attacks in “An American Werewolf in London,” a movie that was a) made thirty years ago and b) actually entertaining.
3. “You just don’t get it!”
I’m not going to have any ego on this one: I went to see “The Grey” because I thought Liam Neeson punching a wolf to death would be fucking awesome. I didn’t think it would be smart or meaningful, but Evel Kinevel wasn’t smart or meaningful either and he still drew a crowd, so let’s not judge.
In reality, however, “The Grey” aims to be a deep, artistic movie and doesn’t contain any wolf-punching. And I’m fine with that. I really am. I don’t mind being surprised when something has more depth than I expected. “Unforgiven” is one of my favourite films, and on the surface that’s just about Clint Eastwood shooting people and riding a horse. The fact that “The Grey” aspired to art wasn’t lost on me, I just thought it failed and sucked. According to fans, however, anybody who didn’t like this movie just isn’t intellectual enough to get it.
They also use this argument to excuse any of the many, many instances where a bunch of stupid shit happens. It doesn’t need to be logical, because it’s art. Taking that as our mantra, I propose a re-jigged ending where Liam Neeson escapes on a multicoloured Pegasus whilst playing the banjo. And if that doesn’t make any sense to you, it’s because I’m just so, so much deeper than you are.
4. “It’s all one big, mind-blowing metaphor!”
Fans of “The Grey” make a big deal out of the fact that the whole film is about death; the wolves are meant to be an incarnation of fate and the whole movie is about the struggle to survive in the face of inevitable mortality.
You know what else was about the struggle to succeed or survive when all seems futile?
Fucking everything.
Seriously,“Die Hard”, “Bambi”, “Rocky IV”, “Jurassic Park”, “Henry V”, “Aliens”, that episode of “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em” where Frank Spencer roller skates across a busy traffic intersection, “Spartacus”, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “The Thing”, “Debbie Does Dallas”… They’re all about the human spirit’s struggle to endure in the face of overwhelming odds.
Fans will say that “The Grey” is different because it’s more about accepting death, but the only way that can seem interesting to me is if you’ve never considered your own mortality before. Everyone dies in “The Grey”, and it’s supposed to be about facing death on your own terms, but even that seems trite and tacky to me. Death doesn’t let you have “your own terms.” If you’re trying to make a realistic movie about the inevitability of death, you might as well spend two hours filming an office worker and then have him get hit by a bus, not have Liam Neeson reciting shit poetry and fighting a wolf with a bottle. I know I’m going to die; I’m sure you do as well. There’s no sense in navel-gazing, even less so in doing it through the medium of boring movies.
5. “Liam Neeson is awesome.”
I’ve got nothing against Liam Neeson, but his character in this movie was a fucking idiot.
At the start of the film, Neeson’s character Ottway is suicidally depressed. This isn’t hyperbole, he’s actually seen sticking a gun in his mouth and considering pulling the trigger.
As soon as the plane has crashed and the wolves show up, he advocates moving to the woods so the survivors can better defend themselves. Ottway apparently thinks that wolves can’t hunt you in a forest. For future reference, that’s sharks. Sharks aren’t good in a forest, wolves tend to be alright.
Anybody who knows anything at all about… well, anything at all, should already be aware that the golden rule in these situations is never to leave the crash site. A crashed plane is easy to find and would give you enough makeshift weapons to fend off attack. I know that it wouldn’t be very entertaining to just have a bunch of people sat in a plane fuselage throwing suitcases at wolves*, but this movie wasn’t very entertaining anyway, so they might as well have made it realistic.
I’m also pretty sure nobody would have followed Ottway into the forest had he admitted that he was thinking about killing himself anyway. It’s one of those situations where full disclosure is important. If an openly suicidal man says “I’m just off to those woods in the distance, anyone want to come with me?” you can normally predict a chorus of “Fuck, no!” as a response. As it is, everyone tags along with this bell-end and ends up either getting eaten or otherwise fatally maimed.
I could go on and on (I’m pretty sure I have) but there’s little point. Fans of this movie think it’s bulletproof. Any criticism, even from professional critics, is met with abuse and accusations of ignorance or stupidity.
Ultimately, however, in the same way that one can judge a society by it's prisoners, so too can you judge a movie by it's fans. So I'm glad I didn't like "The Grey", because it means I'd have to be a prick.
*Actually, that sounds like a fucking brilliant film...
Saturday 18 February 2012
These Are Not the Headlines
New Polar Bear Fails To Wow
Berlin, Germany
Berlin Zoo unveiled it’s latest arrival yesterday to decidedly mixed reception.
Intended as a replacement mascot for the recently deceased polar bear Knut, who drowned in his pool early last year, zookeepers were given a less than rapturous response when presenting their new bear, Kunt.
“We wanted a bear cub that was reminiscent of Knut, but still with it’s own unique identity,” said head keeper Hans Strupp. “But for some reason, people don’t seem to be enthusiastic about Kunt. Personally, I’m a big Kunt fan.”
Parents were also divided on the issue, with many young children being bought commemorative “I Love Kunt!” t-shirts and then being soundly beaten for wearing them. Shirt sales in general appeared to be heavily split along demographic lines, with thousands being sold to male college students, and exactly none to gay men.
Whilst the German public in general may be unaware of the linguistic awkwardness, it is worth noting that the bear was in fact named by a British zoologist who was visiting the zoo at the time. Reports say he was asked to suggest a name for the newborn cub, and immediately came up with the winning suggestion after having violently stubbed his toe.
As for the cub himself, he is reported to be settling in well, and enjoying his time with the zoo’s other bears, Shitbox and Dicklicker.
Confusion Over TV Drama
Hollywood, CA
Confusion and angry finger-pointing were the order of the day in Hollywood recently when it was discovered that a new legal drama had been heading in entirely the wrong direction.
Due to a mis-typed inter-departmental memo, it was realised too late that half the show’s crew had been working on a high-brow legal drama called “Chief Justice”, whilst the other half were trying to make a show called “Chef Justice”, in which a vigilante cook serves up violent revenge.
Show creator Chris Goldman was quoted in an interview earlier this year as saying “I really wanted to take an in-depth, unflinching look at the nitty gritty of what goes on behind the walls of power, and show how gruelling it can be to work as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”
Meanwhile, on set, Steven Segal has been saying what a great chance it is to show off his cooking skills whilst stabbing people in the throat with a crab fork.
The show premieres next Friday at nine.
Legal Scholars Make Awkward Discovery
Washington, DC
A team of legal scholars made world history earlier today with a shocking discovery about America’s history.
Working deep in the vaults of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institute and the Pentagon, the team have now revealed that Washington, D.C. was mis-named due to a spelling error and is in fact a literal district of Colombia, the South American country.
“It was quite a shock,” admits professor John Abbernathy, who served as head researcher on the project. “Turns out the entire revolutionary war was financed with cocaine money, and as a thankyou, Washington decided to turn over the nation’s capital to the Colombians. One can only presume our first and greatest president was coked off his tits at the time.”
A transcript of the legal proceedings which led to the centuries-old deal reveals that an uncharacteristically twitchy Washington told the Colombians:
“Yeah, man, you can totally have the fucking capital, man. [Sniffs] I’m not even fucking kidding, you’ll love it, it’s so, SO fucking cool, it’s a bit swampy but it’s yours, really, I’m not even fucking with you.”
The President later added “Oh, man, I’m coked off my tits this time.”
More Confusion At Beleaguered TV Studio
Hollywood, CA
Alpine Studios, the TV company who recently made headlines over the unusual production history of their show “Chef Justice,” have today made the news again with their upcoming drama “Bullpen.”
Intended as a hard-hitting, adult drama about the lives of news reporters, a series of misunderstandings has led to the show actually consisting of the Jackass crew being thrown into a pen with a group of angry bovines.
Series creator Chris Goldman was quoted in an interview earlier this year as saying “I really wanted to look at the minutiae of what makes the news, and the high-pressure environment that news men and women make their living in.”
Show’s star Johnny Knoxville, meanwhile, says “I can’t believe we’re signed on for a full series of this. We’ve only filmed one episode and I’ve had more big horny animals after my ass than a new prison inmate.”
Show premieres Friday at nine.
Garden Path Sentence Leads To Calls For Clarity In Steeplechase Classic
Co. Cork, Ireland
Five-to-One outsider “Garden Path Sentence” managed to beat odds-on favourite “To Calls For Clarity” in a nail-biting photo finish on Saturday.
The ageing horse, who was due to be put to pasture within the next six months, put on a spectacular display to edge out the up-and-coming favourite and stun the bookies.
Jockey Paddy Flannagan, 36, says that whilst the result was “joyful” and “astonishing”, he could not fully understand why the headline describing it was written in the present tense.
When questioned as to how he knew how the headline describing a very-recent event would look in the next day’s paper, Mr. Flannagan admitted that he was in fact a 10th Dimensional being with the power to see every possible permutation of every moment in all the histories of all the possible incarnations of the universe, past, present and future, and that he only worked as a jockey on weekends “for a laugh.”
He then winked and vanished in a beam of light, most likely to his other job as a bin man in an alternate dimension.
Political Tensions in New Bogota
New Bogota, DC
An uneasy peace has been reached today in the struggle for power in New Bogota, formerly Washington, D.C.
After legal scholars discovered last week that Washington was a literal district of Colombia, drug cartels were quick to seize power in the nation’s capital, leading to some drastic upheavals.
President Barack Obama says that the arrival of the cartels has been a mixed bag at best. Speaking from his cell in the White House (now the headquarters of Mr. Juan Ramriez), the president said that whilst most of congress had been hacked to death with machetes, “…I promised change when I was elected, and you can’t say we haven’t had it now. Am I right?!”
Despite Mr. Obama’s somewhat desperate levity, others are less willing to grin and bear it.
The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was quoted as saying “I'll fucking cut any puta come to fuck wid me, man! We gonna live like fucking kings bro, fucking kings!”
A Columbian warlord, meanwhile, has said “It’s a difficult time for all of us; adjustment on this scale is never easy, and we’ll have to take things one day at a time.” He then went on to criticise the overall uncouthness of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Surprise Ratings Hit For Embattled Studio
Hollywood, CA
In a turn of events that has stunned industry insiders, Alpine Studios posted record profits over the weekend, thanks largely to the surprise success of their new show, “Chef Justice.”
Despite initially being dismissed, the show has gone from strength to strength in recent weeks, becoming a ratings juggernaut and leading to talks of a Golden Globe for Steven Segal.
In a heavily-anticipated move, Alpine have renewed the show for a second season. Early rumours suggest that in the new series, Chef Justice will, through a complex series of events, be elected as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The working title for the new show is rumoured to be “Chef Justice: Chief Justice.”
Show creator Chris Goldman was quoted as saying “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Knorr Fined Over Advertising
London, England
Cooking giant Knorr has been fined by trading standards over breaches in advertising conduct.
A recent TV ad from the company for stock cubes claimed that the cubes in question contained “25% Less Salt,” but an investigation was launched after it was pointed out that there was nothing to quantify the claim.
The company admitted on Friday that what the stock cubes contained 25% less salt than was “A big fucking bag of salt.”
The statement went on to add “like, really fucking big. Big as a cunt.”
With the advertising snafu dealt with, Knorr are now being investigated for their use of language in press releases.
Berlin, Germany
Berlin Zoo unveiled it’s latest arrival yesterday to decidedly mixed reception.
Intended as a replacement mascot for the recently deceased polar bear Knut, who drowned in his pool early last year, zookeepers were given a less than rapturous response when presenting their new bear, Kunt.
“We wanted a bear cub that was reminiscent of Knut, but still with it’s own unique identity,” said head keeper Hans Strupp. “But for some reason, people don’t seem to be enthusiastic about Kunt. Personally, I’m a big Kunt fan.”
Parents were also divided on the issue, with many young children being bought commemorative “I Love Kunt!” t-shirts and then being soundly beaten for wearing them. Shirt sales in general appeared to be heavily split along demographic lines, with thousands being sold to male college students, and exactly none to gay men.
Whilst the German public in general may be unaware of the linguistic awkwardness, it is worth noting that the bear was in fact named by a British zoologist who was visiting the zoo at the time. Reports say he was asked to suggest a name for the newborn cub, and immediately came up with the winning suggestion after having violently stubbed his toe.
As for the cub himself, he is reported to be settling in well, and enjoying his time with the zoo’s other bears, Shitbox and Dicklicker.
Confusion Over TV Drama
Hollywood, CA
Confusion and angry finger-pointing were the order of the day in Hollywood recently when it was discovered that a new legal drama had been heading in entirely the wrong direction.
Due to a mis-typed inter-departmental memo, it was realised too late that half the show’s crew had been working on a high-brow legal drama called “Chief Justice”, whilst the other half were trying to make a show called “Chef Justice”, in which a vigilante cook serves up violent revenge.
Show creator Chris Goldman was quoted in an interview earlier this year as saying “I really wanted to take an in-depth, unflinching look at the nitty gritty of what goes on behind the walls of power, and show how gruelling it can be to work as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”
Meanwhile, on set, Steven Segal has been saying what a great chance it is to show off his cooking skills whilst stabbing people in the throat with a crab fork.
The show premieres next Friday at nine.
Legal Scholars Make Awkward Discovery
Washington, DC
A team of legal scholars made world history earlier today with a shocking discovery about America’s history.
Working deep in the vaults of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institute and the Pentagon, the team have now revealed that Washington, D.C. was mis-named due to a spelling error and is in fact a literal district of Colombia, the South American country.
“It was quite a shock,” admits professor John Abbernathy, who served as head researcher on the project. “Turns out the entire revolutionary war was financed with cocaine money, and as a thankyou, Washington decided to turn over the nation’s capital to the Colombians. One can only presume our first and greatest president was coked off his tits at the time.”
A transcript of the legal proceedings which led to the centuries-old deal reveals that an uncharacteristically twitchy Washington told the Colombians:
“Yeah, man, you can totally have the fucking capital, man. [Sniffs] I’m not even fucking kidding, you’ll love it, it’s so, SO fucking cool, it’s a bit swampy but it’s yours, really, I’m not even fucking with you.”
The President later added “Oh, man, I’m coked off my tits this time.”
More Confusion At Beleaguered TV Studio
Hollywood, CA
Alpine Studios, the TV company who recently made headlines over the unusual production history of their show “Chef Justice,” have today made the news again with their upcoming drama “Bullpen.”
Intended as a hard-hitting, adult drama about the lives of news reporters, a series of misunderstandings has led to the show actually consisting of the Jackass crew being thrown into a pen with a group of angry bovines.
Series creator Chris Goldman was quoted in an interview earlier this year as saying “I really wanted to look at the minutiae of what makes the news, and the high-pressure environment that news men and women make their living in.”
Show’s star Johnny Knoxville, meanwhile, says “I can’t believe we’re signed on for a full series of this. We’ve only filmed one episode and I’ve had more big horny animals after my ass than a new prison inmate.”
Show premieres Friday at nine.
Garden Path Sentence Leads To Calls For Clarity In Steeplechase Classic
Co. Cork, Ireland
Five-to-One outsider “Garden Path Sentence” managed to beat odds-on favourite “To Calls For Clarity” in a nail-biting photo finish on Saturday.
The ageing horse, who was due to be put to pasture within the next six months, put on a spectacular display to edge out the up-and-coming favourite and stun the bookies.
Jockey Paddy Flannagan, 36, says that whilst the result was “joyful” and “astonishing”, he could not fully understand why the headline describing it was written in the present tense.
When questioned as to how he knew how the headline describing a very-recent event would look in the next day’s paper, Mr. Flannagan admitted that he was in fact a 10th Dimensional being with the power to see every possible permutation of every moment in all the histories of all the possible incarnations of the universe, past, present and future, and that he only worked as a jockey on weekends “for a laugh.”
He then winked and vanished in a beam of light, most likely to his other job as a bin man in an alternate dimension.
Political Tensions in New Bogota
New Bogota, DC
An uneasy peace has been reached today in the struggle for power in New Bogota, formerly Washington, D.C.
After legal scholars discovered last week that Washington was a literal district of Colombia, drug cartels were quick to seize power in the nation’s capital, leading to some drastic upheavals.
President Barack Obama says that the arrival of the cartels has been a mixed bag at best. Speaking from his cell in the White House (now the headquarters of Mr. Juan Ramriez), the president said that whilst most of congress had been hacked to death with machetes, “…I promised change when I was elected, and you can’t say we haven’t had it now. Am I right?!”
Despite Mr. Obama’s somewhat desperate levity, others are less willing to grin and bear it.
The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was quoted as saying “I'll fucking cut any puta come to fuck wid me, man! We gonna live like fucking kings bro, fucking kings!”
A Columbian warlord, meanwhile, has said “It’s a difficult time for all of us; adjustment on this scale is never easy, and we’ll have to take things one day at a time.” He then went on to criticise the overall uncouthness of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Surprise Ratings Hit For Embattled Studio
Hollywood, CA
In a turn of events that has stunned industry insiders, Alpine Studios posted record profits over the weekend, thanks largely to the surprise success of their new show, “Chef Justice.”
Despite initially being dismissed, the show has gone from strength to strength in recent weeks, becoming a ratings juggernaut and leading to talks of a Golden Globe for Steven Segal.
In a heavily-anticipated move, Alpine have renewed the show for a second season. Early rumours suggest that in the new series, Chef Justice will, through a complex series of events, be elected as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The working title for the new show is rumoured to be “Chef Justice: Chief Justice.”
Show creator Chris Goldman was quoted as saying “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Knorr Fined Over Advertising
London, England
Cooking giant Knorr has been fined by trading standards over breaches in advertising conduct.
A recent TV ad from the company for stock cubes claimed that the cubes in question contained “25% Less Salt,” but an investigation was launched after it was pointed out that there was nothing to quantify the claim.
The company admitted on Friday that what the stock cubes contained 25% less salt than was “A big fucking bag of salt.”
The statement went on to add “like, really fucking big. Big as a cunt.”
With the advertising snafu dealt with, Knorr are now being investigated for their use of language in press releases.
Friday 17 February 2012
The Real Cost
The Tories, for those of you who aren’t following the news (or reality in general) are currently being a bunch of, well, Tories.
They’re indulging in a lot of their favourite hobbies, which I assume include wiping their arses with bank notes and drowning swans in the tears of the destitute poor. The one demonstrable hobby that’s currently bothering me, however, (‘cause I fucking hate swans) is their decades-old passion for ruining the NHS.
Personally, I’m not ill. I’m a smoker and a heavy drinker, and tonight my evening meal consisted of fried chorizo on fried bread (followed by Doritos!) but I’m in decent enough health in spite of it.
So how can I tell that the NHS is in trouble? Because I manage a bar, and bar workers everywhere are society’s first defence against a lot of things.
First, there’s the pandemics. Bar staff spend a vast amount of their time leaning close to the faces of many, many different people. If bird flu had ever kicked off -and I mean properly, End Of Days kicked off - you can bet your bottom dollar the hospitality workers would have been the first to go. (Or not; years of other peoples’ germs have left me with an immune system that can resist almost anything. My doctor recently told me that my level of resilience is somewhere between Keith Richards and Wolverine.)
We’re also, as an industry, in the front line against a far more intractable medical threat than mere disease. We’re the front line against nutters.
Working in a bar, every so often, you get a nutter. Always - and I want to make this clear: ALWAYS - on a quiet night, you’ll get some poor bastard in a plastic army helmet with feathers on it who wants to tell you why the CIA is stealing his thoughts and putting them in JLS lyrics backwards.
The worst part of all this is that they don’t necessarily arrive in full nutter*. They’ll come in looking about 90% like a normal person, order a half (it’s always a half, and Jesus, do they make it last) and then before you know it, you turn around and they’re wanking into a bucket whilst screaming Swedish nursery rhymes.
Lately, this has been happening more and more to me.
(Nutters in the bar, not the wanking thing.)
I don’t know where these people go during daylight hours, although something in my mind wants to say “libraries”, but after dark, the mentally ill like to find a quiet bar to drink in. A guy the other week came into my bar whilst it was empty and proceeded to talk to me about literally everything, for hours. I don’t mean to seem dishonest, so I want to stress: everything.
He told me six times that he was a licensed doorman, presumably in the hopes that I would be impressed. For those who don’t know, obtaining a doorman’s license involves the physical toughness required to sit through a two-day course, and the steely resolve to pass a short multiple choice test. Working the doors is a tough job. Having a license to work the job involves all the gruelling hardship of putting another laminated card in your wallet. (His was expired. I checked.)
He then told me about his whole life, and which products I should be selling that I wasn’t, which buses he had taken to get into town and which ones a less shrewd bus passenger would have taken, before segueing smoothly into the observation that I looked really bored, and that it was probably because there weren’t more customers, which was due to the products I wasn’t selling, which they sold in his local, and that he was a licensed doorman. He then listed all the differences between the door to the bar and the door to his house, which, I promise you, were many.
These are the sort of people you used to get in a bar maybe once a month. There is a great deal of dexterity and artifice required to avoid them. The best method is akin to a magician palming a card; you trick someone else into saying something to them - literally, anything, it doesn’t matter - and then immediately find something to do elsewhere. If you’re of a charitable bent, you can return in half an hour or so and see if the poor sap who spoke to them is still there, glazed over and praying for death, at which point you can begin tag-teaming until your rambling mental case finishes his half and nutters off somewhere else, which will be around closing time.
Lately, however, I’ve had three in two weeks. Three people who were clearly supposed to be under the supervision of someone whose only qualification wasn’t “Makes a pretty good daiquiri.” It’s become obvious to me that, due to deeper and deeper NHS cuts, there are wards closing down and people being inflicted on the public who really should have been kept somewhere else.
So do yourself a favour, Cameron. Stop shafting the NHS, or next time you go for a press-friendly pint in a local pub, you’ll end up having to wait behind twenty gurning headcases who want to tell the barman about the time they saw a unicorn.
*The word “nutter”, like “fuck”, can be an adjective, noun or verb as needs be.
They’re indulging in a lot of their favourite hobbies, which I assume include wiping their arses with bank notes and drowning swans in the tears of the destitute poor. The one demonstrable hobby that’s currently bothering me, however, (‘cause I fucking hate swans) is their decades-old passion for ruining the NHS.
Personally, I’m not ill. I’m a smoker and a heavy drinker, and tonight my evening meal consisted of fried chorizo on fried bread (followed by Doritos!) but I’m in decent enough health in spite of it.
So how can I tell that the NHS is in trouble? Because I manage a bar, and bar workers everywhere are society’s first defence against a lot of things.
First, there’s the pandemics. Bar staff spend a vast amount of their time leaning close to the faces of many, many different people. If bird flu had ever kicked off -and I mean properly, End Of Days kicked off - you can bet your bottom dollar the hospitality workers would have been the first to go. (Or not; years of other peoples’ germs have left me with an immune system that can resist almost anything. My doctor recently told me that my level of resilience is somewhere between Keith Richards and Wolverine.)
We’re also, as an industry, in the front line against a far more intractable medical threat than mere disease. We’re the front line against nutters.
Working in a bar, every so often, you get a nutter. Always - and I want to make this clear: ALWAYS - on a quiet night, you’ll get some poor bastard in a plastic army helmet with feathers on it who wants to tell you why the CIA is stealing his thoughts and putting them in JLS lyrics backwards.
The worst part of all this is that they don’t necessarily arrive in full nutter*. They’ll come in looking about 90% like a normal person, order a half (it’s always a half, and Jesus, do they make it last) and then before you know it, you turn around and they’re wanking into a bucket whilst screaming Swedish nursery rhymes.
Lately, this has been happening more and more to me.
(Nutters in the bar, not the wanking thing.)
I don’t know where these people go during daylight hours, although something in my mind wants to say “libraries”, but after dark, the mentally ill like to find a quiet bar to drink in. A guy the other week came into my bar whilst it was empty and proceeded to talk to me about literally everything, for hours. I don’t mean to seem dishonest, so I want to stress: everything.
He told me six times that he was a licensed doorman, presumably in the hopes that I would be impressed. For those who don’t know, obtaining a doorman’s license involves the physical toughness required to sit through a two-day course, and the steely resolve to pass a short multiple choice test. Working the doors is a tough job. Having a license to work the job involves all the gruelling hardship of putting another laminated card in your wallet. (His was expired. I checked.)
He then told me about his whole life, and which products I should be selling that I wasn’t, which buses he had taken to get into town and which ones a less shrewd bus passenger would have taken, before segueing smoothly into the observation that I looked really bored, and that it was probably because there weren’t more customers, which was due to the products I wasn’t selling, which they sold in his local, and that he was a licensed doorman. He then listed all the differences between the door to the bar and the door to his house, which, I promise you, were many.
These are the sort of people you used to get in a bar maybe once a month. There is a great deal of dexterity and artifice required to avoid them. The best method is akin to a magician palming a card; you trick someone else into saying something to them - literally, anything, it doesn’t matter - and then immediately find something to do elsewhere. If you’re of a charitable bent, you can return in half an hour or so and see if the poor sap who spoke to them is still there, glazed over and praying for death, at which point you can begin tag-teaming until your rambling mental case finishes his half and nutters off somewhere else, which will be around closing time.
Lately, however, I’ve had three in two weeks. Three people who were clearly supposed to be under the supervision of someone whose only qualification wasn’t “Makes a pretty good daiquiri.” It’s become obvious to me that, due to deeper and deeper NHS cuts, there are wards closing down and people being inflicted on the public who really should have been kept somewhere else.
So do yourself a favour, Cameron. Stop shafting the NHS, or next time you go for a press-friendly pint in a local pub, you’ll end up having to wait behind twenty gurning headcases who want to tell the barman about the time they saw a unicorn.
*The word “nutter”, like “fuck”, can be an adjective, noun or verb as needs be.
It's Sometimes Okay to Laugh
So, here we go again.
The most frustrating thing about any sort of scandal - political, sexual, social, financial - is that everyone and his (or in this case her) dog will try to shoe-horn their own views into the issue, and just now there was another prime example.
Like anyone living in the UK (and probably a lot of people abroad) a lot of people on my Facebook feed post links to articles they read in The Guardian. I don't know if they do this deliberately - I credit most of my friends with the ability to read the news without having to point out that they've done it - or if it's an annoying technological tick that's developed. Either way, whether it's due to my social circle or an aggressive linking policy, The Guardian seems to be the worst offender in terms of news feed clogging.
The article that annoyed me today was on by Eva Wiseman, entitled "Uni Lad website closure highlights the trouble with male banter." (Ms. Wiseman recently won the "Least Catchy Headline" contest at the weekly awards ceremony I hold in my head.)
Her article - which is worth reading to understand her full argument - manages to be uptight and sexist whilst decrying things that are reprehensible (and therefore worth being uptight about) and colossally sexist.
Her basic point, as I understand it, is that "banter" is an inherently male pastime and that it is usually offensive to everyone.
Her jumping-off point for this hypothesis is the recent closure of "unilad.com" after someone posted a piece that pointed out that 85% of rapes go unreported, and that this meant the odds were in your favour as a man.
First and foremost, I'm not ever going to condone that statement. It's horrible, and whoever came up with it is an asshole. Really. There's nothing to be glorified about rape, it's an abhorrent act conducted only by the sort of degenerates who should all be summarily killed.
That being said, Ms. Wiseman clearly thinks that "rape is okay 'cause you'll get away with it" constitutes "banter" and that all attempts at banter should be stopped immediately.
Ms. Wiseman, whilst being completely justified in her outrage at the initial statement, is clearly one of those dreary people who has long ago decided to act as the Comedy Police.
Once again: What was said wasn't funny. At all. But the problem with it isn't that it mentioned rape, or that it was on a "lads'" website. The problem, in it's entirety, was that, “as a joke,” it wasn't funny.
There are plenty of jokes that are cruel and risqué that also happen to be brilliant.
What's the opposite of Christopher Reeve?
Christopher Walken.
I think that's funny, but not because it makes fun of the disabled. I think it's a clever play on words. If I thought someone being crippled was a source of humour, you wouldn't need to put it in joke form, you could just say to me "Some peoples' legs don't work, they have to use a wheelchair!" and I'd laugh. That doesn't work, though, because nobody in their right mind would be brainless enough to draw humour from that. (Whoever wrote the rape joke above would probably think that was killer material, but I digress...)
What's brown and sticky?
A stick.
What's brown and runny?
Linford Christie.
Again, some people cry racism, but I think that's a funny joke. The joke isn't that - haha! - he's of a different racial background to me; the joke is a play on "run." You can call it racist all you like, but at no point does it belittle Linford Christie; it just points out that his skin is brown in colour. Which it is. And that he was famous for running. Which he was.
I'm already killing these jokes by analysing them, because analysis is the death of all humour. Anyone who's ever had to explain a joke will know that as soon as you spell it out, it stops being funny. Even evolutionary psychiatrists agree that the cognitive dissonance between the setup and punchline are what makes something funny. Bridging that gap takes the humour out of anything.
Still, analysing humour to death and making sweeping statements about people seems to be exactly what Ms. Wiseman is about. She picks out one comment poster, Andy, who defended the initial rape joke. Whilst clearly a wanker, she also assumes that Andy is a Top Gear fan (because, despite being one of the most popular programmes in BBC history, Top Gear is exclusively watched by wankers, in her eyes) and surmises that he watches a lot of Dave, which is implied to be an unfunny channel despite featuring the likes of Stephen Fry and Paul Merton, to mention but two. So, if you think rape is funny, you watch a channel that airs a lot of high-brow, satirical material, apparently. People who like satire condone rape. I can only assume the Private Eye offices have a room full of bound and gagged mail-order brides, based on this logic.
She also asks if banter is just "boy talk", which I can happily say it isn't. Almost all of my female friends can give as good as they get - some of them give better - when it comes to a bit of verbal fun-poking. There is never any malice in what's said, and nobody would ever set out to hurt anyone else. I'm confident in saying that whilst I enjoy banter (which isn't a dirty word, by the way) I would be mortified if anything I said ever actually hurt the feelings of anyone I'm talking to, and this is true of everyone I know, female or male.
I have no idea if women joke with each other in the way that men do when they're in same-sex company. I have absolutely no clue what women talk about amongst themselves. I've never been privvy to it, as a long-term penis owner and a fairly clueless one at that. Today I gave my girlfriend some money to get her hair done, and when I saw her later said [sarcastically] "Oh, nice haircut." A girl nearby was flabbergasted that I could actually tell she'd had her hair done, but in reality, I had no idea. She looked exactly the same to me. Women just know these things about each other, and it’s something I’ll never get involved in, in the same way that most girls look lost when men talk about football.
On a side note, female haircuts baffle me. I shave my head when my hair gets too long. I do it myself and it costs me nothing, and I come out of it looking totally different. Women book appointments to have their hair altered by a third of a nanometer, and it costs them forty-seven thousand pounds, payable over two years with a 0.02% interest rate, and then they bitch that it wasn't done right anyway.
I should clarify that that was comedic hyperbole. I'm legitimately baffled by womens' haircuts, but I was making light of it in a slightly mean-spirited manner for the purposes of amusement. This is something I often do in writing and in conversation. It's a form of banter, and most people are fine with it, and often even join in.
Unfortunately, Ms. Wiseman seems to inhabit the sort of joyless life where all conversations are either deadly serious discussions of important issues, or twee, Disneyesque platitudes amongst friends.
Frankly, I couldn't live that kind of life without suspecting everyone I talked to was a serial killer.
The ability to take the piss is an invaluable and cherished part of life. We should celebrate it when it's funny, and if it's not funny, the person responsible probably isn't worth talking to in the first place.
Rape isn't ever okay. Jokes are only jokes if they're funny. Eva Wiseman hates men and has a stick up her arse. The end.
The most frustrating thing about any sort of scandal - political, sexual, social, financial - is that everyone and his (or in this case her) dog will try to shoe-horn their own views into the issue, and just now there was another prime example.
Like anyone living in the UK (and probably a lot of people abroad) a lot of people on my Facebook feed post links to articles they read in The Guardian. I don't know if they do this deliberately - I credit most of my friends with the ability to read the news without having to point out that they've done it - or if it's an annoying technological tick that's developed. Either way, whether it's due to my social circle or an aggressive linking policy, The Guardian seems to be the worst offender in terms of news feed clogging.
The article that annoyed me today was on by Eva Wiseman, entitled "Uni Lad website closure highlights the trouble with male banter." (Ms. Wiseman recently won the "Least Catchy Headline" contest at the weekly awards ceremony I hold in my head.)
Her article - which is worth reading to understand her full argument - manages to be uptight and sexist whilst decrying things that are reprehensible (and therefore worth being uptight about) and colossally sexist.
Her basic point, as I understand it, is that "banter" is an inherently male pastime and that it is usually offensive to everyone.
Her jumping-off point for this hypothesis is the recent closure of "unilad.com" after someone posted a piece that pointed out that 85% of rapes go unreported, and that this meant the odds were in your favour as a man.
First and foremost, I'm not ever going to condone that statement. It's horrible, and whoever came up with it is an asshole. Really. There's nothing to be glorified about rape, it's an abhorrent act conducted only by the sort of degenerates who should all be summarily killed.
That being said, Ms. Wiseman clearly thinks that "rape is okay 'cause you'll get away with it" constitutes "banter" and that all attempts at banter should be stopped immediately.
Ms. Wiseman, whilst being completely justified in her outrage at the initial statement, is clearly one of those dreary people who has long ago decided to act as the Comedy Police.
Once again: What was said wasn't funny. At all. But the problem with it isn't that it mentioned rape, or that it was on a "lads'" website. The problem, in it's entirety, was that, “as a joke,” it wasn't funny.
There are plenty of jokes that are cruel and risqué that also happen to be brilliant.
What's the opposite of Christopher Reeve?
Christopher Walken.
I think that's funny, but not because it makes fun of the disabled. I think it's a clever play on words. If I thought someone being crippled was a source of humour, you wouldn't need to put it in joke form, you could just say to me "Some peoples' legs don't work, they have to use a wheelchair!" and I'd laugh. That doesn't work, though, because nobody in their right mind would be brainless enough to draw humour from that. (Whoever wrote the rape joke above would probably think that was killer material, but I digress...)
What's brown and sticky?
A stick.
What's brown and runny?
Linford Christie.
Again, some people cry racism, but I think that's a funny joke. The joke isn't that - haha! - he's of a different racial background to me; the joke is a play on "run." You can call it racist all you like, but at no point does it belittle Linford Christie; it just points out that his skin is brown in colour. Which it is. And that he was famous for running. Which he was.
I'm already killing these jokes by analysing them, because analysis is the death of all humour. Anyone who's ever had to explain a joke will know that as soon as you spell it out, it stops being funny. Even evolutionary psychiatrists agree that the cognitive dissonance between the setup and punchline are what makes something funny. Bridging that gap takes the humour out of anything.
Still, analysing humour to death and making sweeping statements about people seems to be exactly what Ms. Wiseman is about. She picks out one comment poster, Andy, who defended the initial rape joke. Whilst clearly a wanker, she also assumes that Andy is a Top Gear fan (because, despite being one of the most popular programmes in BBC history, Top Gear is exclusively watched by wankers, in her eyes) and surmises that he watches a lot of Dave, which is implied to be an unfunny channel despite featuring the likes of Stephen Fry and Paul Merton, to mention but two. So, if you think rape is funny, you watch a channel that airs a lot of high-brow, satirical material, apparently. People who like satire condone rape. I can only assume the Private Eye offices have a room full of bound and gagged mail-order brides, based on this logic.
She also asks if banter is just "boy talk", which I can happily say it isn't. Almost all of my female friends can give as good as they get - some of them give better - when it comes to a bit of verbal fun-poking. There is never any malice in what's said, and nobody would ever set out to hurt anyone else. I'm confident in saying that whilst I enjoy banter (which isn't a dirty word, by the way) I would be mortified if anything I said ever actually hurt the feelings of anyone I'm talking to, and this is true of everyone I know, female or male.
I have no idea if women joke with each other in the way that men do when they're in same-sex company. I have absolutely no clue what women talk about amongst themselves. I've never been privvy to it, as a long-term penis owner and a fairly clueless one at that. Today I gave my girlfriend some money to get her hair done, and when I saw her later said [sarcastically] "Oh, nice haircut." A girl nearby was flabbergasted that I could actually tell she'd had her hair done, but in reality, I had no idea. She looked exactly the same to me. Women just know these things about each other, and it’s something I’ll never get involved in, in the same way that most girls look lost when men talk about football.
On a side note, female haircuts baffle me. I shave my head when my hair gets too long. I do it myself and it costs me nothing, and I come out of it looking totally different. Women book appointments to have their hair altered by a third of a nanometer, and it costs them forty-seven thousand pounds, payable over two years with a 0.02% interest rate, and then they bitch that it wasn't done right anyway.
I should clarify that that was comedic hyperbole. I'm legitimately baffled by womens' haircuts, but I was making light of it in a slightly mean-spirited manner for the purposes of amusement. This is something I often do in writing and in conversation. It's a form of banter, and most people are fine with it, and often even join in.
Unfortunately, Ms. Wiseman seems to inhabit the sort of joyless life where all conversations are either deadly serious discussions of important issues, or twee, Disneyesque platitudes amongst friends.
Frankly, I couldn't live that kind of life without suspecting everyone I talked to was a serial killer.
The ability to take the piss is an invaluable and cherished part of life. We should celebrate it when it's funny, and if it's not funny, the person responsible probably isn't worth talking to in the first place.
Rape isn't ever okay. Jokes are only jokes if they're funny. Eva Wiseman hates men and has a stick up her arse. The end.
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