Anarchy In The UK: 2

I really don't know what Britain is coming to.
I've just been browsing the BBC news 24 website and I'm genuinely shocked and angered at the level of violent crime in this country. It's staggering.

Shakilus Townsend, 16, stabbed and murdered in broad daylight.
Ben Kinsella, 16, stabbed and murdered in the street.
Hamouda Bessaad, 34, stabbed and murdered in Old Kent Road, London.
Dee Willis, 28, stabbed and murdered in Peckham, London.
And the most horrific:
Laurent Bonomo & Gabriel Ferez, both 23, stabbed, in their own home, over 240 times then set on fire.

Those are all just from London and from the last week.

Where do I begin?

I suppose I should feel lucky. I live in a nice town, with a good record against violent crime. The local beat constable is The Demon's brother, so is often to be seen at my home, thereby (possibly) deterring a criminal or two. If only those same criminal masterminds knew that he usually drops in to take a shit in my toilet because the one in his station has "the wrong kind of paper"!

But I don't feel lucky. I feel fucking blind rage that the government in this country has allowed our society to degenerate to the stage where jail is no longer a deterrent, where offenders carrying out community service cannot be singled out by bright orange jumpsuits for fear of psychologically damaging them, and where a prison inmate can successfully take the Government to court because he has to slop out his own shit from his cell.

ITS. ALL. FUCKING. WRONG.

No one should be afraid to walk down their own street, and I apologise for sounding like my dad, but things were different when I were a lad. The thought of punishment for doing something wrong, be it by the police or my dad, scared the shit out of me, still does, but today couldn't be further from that 1970's truth.

Jail is no longer a deterrent, it's an inconvenience.
Community service has never been a deterrent, it's just a chore.
Fines aren't a deterrent if you don't have the money to pay in the first place.

I don't know the answer, but maybe Jaggy wasn't far off the mark with Jaggy Island.
It's not a deterrent if it's easy.

"But what can I do, I'm just an ordinary member of the community?" I hear you say dear reader.

Well, here's what I'm going to do. Come the general election in 18 months or so, my vote will be based solely on antisocial behaviour and what the main parties propose to do about it.
Forget the economy, that's the Bank of England's job.
Forget Afghanistan, we're already there, have to make the best of a bad job.
Forget the environment, that's a job for business, industry, and God.
Forget the NHS, it's terminally ill itself.
Make your voice heard. Make this the number 1 priority. Let these lying fuckers that play Monopoly with us know that an ASBO or an electronic tag doesn't constitute punishment.

Here endeth the sermon.

P.S. - I'm now on holiday for a week. Sweet.
P.P.S. - This week I'm liking 'Time To Pretend' by MGMT.

The Garden

Next week looms large in front of me.

Myself and The Demon are both off work for a week, where we shall be 'doing the garden'.
I'm not entirely sure what this entails, I haven't asked, but it seems to be something that older people, like Jaggy, do.

"I've got a few days off work and I'm planning on doing the garden"

I know there are some bushes that she doesn't like, and that a man with a hammer is coming to make a fence, but that's the sum total of the information that has been passed on to me.
I keep seeing her sniffing around The Shed Of Dreams, but there's no God-damn way she's getting anywhere near it, I have jurisdiction there.

I must say, I've had other holidays that I've looked forward to a bit more than this.
I will endeavour to keep you, my adoring public, abreast of my garden-related shenanigans, but I'm pretty sure you'll nod off.

Toodle pip.

Andymonium

3 hours and 57 minutes.

That's how long I've been rooted to the couch watching Andy Murray's comeback against Richard Gasquet. I ran a bath around half past 8, it's now 10pm - still not been in it.

A clearly emotional Murray described his win as "the best moment he's ever had on a tennis court" and it's certainly the most entertaining match I've watched in a long time.

Get in!

Hell . . .

. . . is a three year old's birthday party, over and over again, for all eternity.

It was The Demon's nephew's 3rd birthday yesterday, which of course meant we had to attend the ritual kids birthday party, something I've never been truly comfortable with. Let me explain:

We don't have kids.

There. I've said it. I feel so much better now.
Being at a kids birthday party when you yourself have no children is like being at a Volkswagen Beetle owners club meeting, and having no Beetle. You feel like you shouldn't be there. You feel like a charlatan. You can't contribute to, or even understand, any of the conversations. The house is full of young couples, the male half of which you've perhaps met on stag nights or nights in the pub, who have suddenly transformed from being normal blokes into some sort of bizarre 'proud young father' spouting nonsense like ". . . and if you put on Kasabian, he'll dance all day! It's SO funny!"

Even worse is when a parent who you don't know gets chatting to you in the kitchen and asks the inevitable question . . .

"So, which one is yours?"

"None of them, we don't have kids."

"Oh . . . right."

There then follows an awkward silence where you can see said parent looking at you with a combination of confusion and sympathy.

Meanwhile, there is anarchy breaking loose all over the house. There are kids in EVERY single room, there is crayon all over the table, at least two children are crying at any one time, tempers are raised at the BBQ because it won't fucking light, children are fighting over the toys, the carpet looks like the floor of a concert hall after a Motorhead gig, the gazebo in the garden has been caught by the wind and is making a bid for freedom, kids have got into the garage and are playing with power tools, somebody's child insists on showing me 'Diamondhead' from the cartoon 'Ben 10' over and over again, and some bright spark has decided to give a toy gun (with lifelike battery powered sounds) as a present!

DRRRRRR! DRRRRRR!

8 1/2 hours I was there for.
It felt like a fucking week.

Wanted

Hmmmm . . .

Much has been made of young James McAvoy being cast in the action hero role, and having now seen 'Wanted' I'd have to say he acts the part very well. In fact, he seems to be the only person acting at all. Morgan Freeman walks around looking important and being Morgan Freeman, and Angelina Jolie looks like she's recently graduated top of her class at The Roger Moore School For Minimalist Actors. Seriously, all she does throughout the entire film is shoot guns, pout quite a bit, and raise the odd eyebrow, allbeit in an incredibly sexy, lets-adopt-more-brown-babies, sort of way. Having said all that, I loved it. It's exciting, violent, sexy, with plenty of high octane action.

There's just one problem. Well two actually. 'The Matrix' and 'Equilibrium'.
Basically if these two films had a quick shag at a party one night, 9 months later 'Wanted' would have popped out. All the way through the film I kept thinking 'This is a bit Matrixy' or 'That's the Gun Katta from Equilibrium'. No bad thing I suppose, imitation is the sincerest . . . yada yada yada.

In a nutshell then.
'Wanted'. You'll love it, but as you leave your girlfriend/wife will tell you that she doesn't know what all the fuss is about over Angelina Jolie. She's not THAT attractive. At which point you'll lie, and say "Well she does nothing for me".
Have a pizza and a few beers before you go to see it, you won't have to concentrate too much.

8/10

PS - You get to see her arse.

Ever The Optimist

Good news folks. A new Gary Glitter album is imminent.

Oh joy of joys.

Apparently, the 63 year old 'glam rocker' has ". . . an incomplete album that I want to finish. I have been thinking about the plan during my days in jail."

Surely he should have been thinking 'who the fuck is going to buy my album?'.
Can you see Virgin (no pun intended, honest!) stocking a new Gary Glitter album on their shelves?
Do you think it'll feature in iTunes 'most downloaded' list?

That's optimism for you. Hounded out of his homeland and convicted of child sex offences in Vietnam, yet all that Uncle Gary can think about is his fans. That's the spirit.

"Do ya wanna be in my gang?"

Do I fuck.

Raping And Pillaging

This is Kid Rock.
You may not be aware of his work, but he was briefly married to Pamela Anderson and he's the white guy who 'raps' over rock tracks, and I'd like to thank him for abusing a couple of my favourite songs with his new track 'All Summer Long'.

Not only does he have the cheek to rip huge chunks out of 'Sweet Home Alabama' by Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he's pulled the whole tune to his song from the greatest song of all time (in my opinion) 'Werewolves Of London' by the late, great, Warren Zevon!

The bastard!

Mr Z must be burling* in his grave!

* I'm not really sure, but I think that 'burling' may be a word that doesn't really exist outside Scotland. Please substitute 'spinning' instead.

You can view the original here.

Angry

I've found myself to be quite angry over the last week or so, yet I have no idea why.
I've been extremely annoyed by the slightest small thing, and have been quite sarcastic to anyone to offers any help (my apologies to The Demon). Again, I'm not sure why.
I kinda feel like smashing a window, kicking over a plant pot, just doing something destructive to alleviate my anger.

I thought getting out on my mountain bike last night would help me to burn off some of this rage, but my bike broke down after about 30 minutes and this just poured more fuel onto the anger fire, but when I got home and found out the price of a new part, I was angrier still!

Then I get behind the wheel of a car.
Lets not go there.

What the fuck is going on?!

Male menopause?
Mid-life crisis?
Nervous breakdown?

Be warned, Jaggy.

In My head . . .

. . . this is me . . .


. . . but in reality, this is me!

TV Theme Tunes: 2

Be honest, they definitely don't write theme tunes like they used to.

Hawaii 5-O


The Man From uncle


The New Avengers


The High Chaparral


Magnum P.I.


You liked Magnum best, didn't you?
That's ok, everyone does. It's great.

Easy Cash

I don't smoke. Never have, never will. Yet I was flabbergasted, yes, flabbergasted, to find out that NHS bosses in Dundee are actually going to pay 1800 people nearly £50 a month to give up.

Are you fucking kidding me!?

Pay people to stop smoking?

Has the world suddenly shifted on it's axis slightly?
Have I woken up in another dimension?
Is this the Twilight Zone?

Why don't we just give Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty a couple of grand to quit smack, or lob some cash at Chris Langham if he gives up kiddie porn?!

Everyone knows the health risks that you run by smoking, and everyone knows that smoking related conditions are a fucking HUGE burden on the NHS. If you're aware of all this, yet wish to continue puffing away, by all means do so, but I don't see why my hard earned tax cash should be used to bail you out. Fuck that.

This leads into a whole other Pandora's Box of issues.
Should you be refused treatment if you continue to behave in a manner detrimental to your health? It's a bit of a gray area, but broadly speaking, yes.

Drank your life away and fucked your liver? Ok, here's a new one. Stop drinking.
Smoked 60 a day? Fine, here's your treatment. Give up.

It's not rocket science. If it causes an injury every time you bang your head off a wall, don't bang your head off a wall. If it makes you worse every time you smoke, don't smoke.

Or...

I know you like banging your head off walls, but I'll give you £12.50 a week if you don't do it.

Get real.

Ride Me, Baby!

Calling all UK mountain bikers!

You may be aware of the UK governments 'Cycle To Work' scheme that The Jagmeister was blogging about yesterday, but if you're clever, you can blag yourself some tasty new machinery at ridiculously low prices!

For example, if I were to try and replace my Morewood up there with a brand new complete bike, then it'd probably cost me the thick end of £2000+ or so (difficult to work out as Morewood don't supply complete bikes, you'd have to build your own), but going through the CycleScheme policy, you'd get the same bike for £1174.47.

No brainer!

Let the good times roll!

Ring Rang-A-Dong For A Holiday

Sometimes, just sometimes, something can be SO bad that it becomes priceless.
I think this qualifies.

The (not very much) Happening

Oh dear.

M. Night Shamalamadingdong, you promised me SO much in the trailer!

I can't believe what I've just sat through. 90 minutes that would barely make into a Hammer House Of Horror script. 'The Happening' is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. From half way through, when the plot is starting to unravel, I found myself thinking "He better not be planning on ending this film the way I think he's going to?!", and he did. I don't really want to spoil it for anyone, but if I did you'd be thanking me. As for the cast, well, you know things are bad when John Leguizamo is the best actor in the film! Mark Wahlberg is as wooden as a 12 foot dining table, and Zooey Deschanel (Trillian from Hitchikers) is to acting what the drummer from Def Leppard is to juggling.

I liked 'The Village' and 'Unbreakable', and I loved 'Signs', but I've had urinary tract infections that are better than this film.

Avoid at all costs. 1/10

Anticlimax

Firefox 3.
It's finally here.
I have it. Right now.

Can someone please explain to me what all the fuss was about?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in The Mozilla Foundation and I've used their excellent web browser, Firefox, and email client, Thunderbird, for some years now, but F/Fox3 looks exactly like the old one, which it's supposed to I suppose, but I'm completely in the dark as to what improvements have been made 'under the hood' so to speak.

Can any geeks out there enlighten me? In queens english please.

Charidee: Part 2

Let me clarify something before I go any further:

I do not do sentimentality.

With that out of the way, let's continue.
I've just popped my blood sample in the post and it's winging its way to the secret underground bunker that houses the laboratories of The Anthony Nolan Trust as we speak.
I've been a registered organ donor and blood donor for as long as I've been legally allowed to. All it took was seeing my friend's dad as he waited for a liver transplant and that was me, signed up and take whatever still works. I'd forgotten about the bone marrow register but then I stumbled upon Adrian Sudbury's blog. Adrian's blog is one of the most popular you're likely to come accross. His writing is inventive and witty, with no sense of self pity. I say self pity because his Leukaemia is probably going to kill him soon.

Now I'm not a preacher. I'm not asking anyone to rally to the cause. I don't think badly of people who say things like "Oh no, there's no way they're cutting me open when I'm gone".

Ok, I lied about the last one, I think they're total arseholes, but my point is this:

If you have it in your power to save someone, why the fuck wouldn't you do it?

All it takes is 5 minutes on a questionaire, then another 5 with your GP for the blood sample a week or so later. Job done.
Once again, this isn't sentimentality. It's a no brainer.

I love my life, I'm having a blast, and it's great to be alive. So many mountains to ride my bike down, so many gigs to bounce around at, so many books to consume, so many films to digest, but if it were all to come crashing down, I'd like to believe that someone out there would help me when I needed it most. So it's my own selfishness that's driving me. I'm a donor because I damn well want to live. No hypocrisy.

Join the party.


This week I'm listening to 'Brothers On A Hotel Bed' by Death Cab For Cutie.

My 15 Minutes

As Cilla Black did sing "Surprise, surprise. The unexpected hits you between the eyes" and it was a surprise indeed to find out that my blog has received a brief mention in no less an esteemed tome than The Sunday Mail. Now I'd like to think that they selected me because of my piercing insight and keen intellect, but it's more likely to be random chance, but, never one to knock back some publicity, I'll now be listing my blog as The Sunday Mail 'editors choice'!

Thanks Misssy for the heads up.

Upstanding Member Of The Community

Read it and weep, Jaggy!

Women And Other Minorities.

Woman.
God knows, I love you all as a species, but I really don't have a clue what goes on in your heads.
Let's look at the lovely Reese Witherspoon for example, shown above parading her United Nations Women's Empowerment bracelet. She made her first appearance on the big screen at the age of 15 in the 1991 movie 'The Man In The Moon' and has seen her career grow to the point where she's now one of Hollywood's highest earning stars, making between 15 - 20 million dollars a movie, so what she knows about the struggle of oppressed women across the world is completely lost on me.

While we're at it, women fire fighters.
WTF is that all about?
Let's be clear about one thing. If my house is on fire, I want a fireMAN who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'Commando' except with more steroids, a man who can knock down walls with his bare hands, a man who looks like he can carry a whole bus to safety, to smash down the door of my house and lift my unconscious body to sanctuary. Mr Jaggy, for example, is not what you would call 'slight of build', and were he to find himself overcome by fumes in the upstairs of his burning house, I reckon his chances of survival would be slim at best if Fire Fighter Judy was sent in to save him.

Female Soldiers.
Yes you can point a gun, yes you can throw a grenade, yes you can climb up that wall on the assault course using the rope like Richard Gere did, but lets see you tackle a knife-wielding Somalian militia man when your gun jams, or drag your wounded comrade onto that Blackhawk whilst hefting your M240 and letting off a few rounds at the insurgents. It ain't happening.

I fully realise that my opinions may offend some of the fairer sex, but that's not my intention. I just think that political correctness is creating more problems than it fixes. I mean you no disrespect, but the reality is that just because you legally can do a thing, doesn't mean you should.

Blokes On Bikes

I've just returned from the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup races at Fort William, and what a top weekend it was. Lets start at the beginning.

The road from the central belt of Scotland up into the Highlands and on to Fort William itself passes through some of the most incredible landscape in the UK, possibly even the world. If you're passing through here, bring a camera.

We arrived at the Nevis Bank Hotel in Fort William on Saturday afternoon, and from the outside it looks like the respectable, family run, two star hotel that the website claims. Well that would be true if your family were all Polish, and the two star rating was optimistic at best!
Anyway, it had a bed, which was all we really wanted.
Inevitably, the beers started flowing around 6ish in the afternoon and that's where everything started to go Pete Tong. Some fucking bright spark, I'll not say who it was but he is rather freckly, decided that we should try some of the local beers, including one flavoured with Elderflower. It was like drinking fabric softener. To cut a long story short, we found ourselves at a caleigh dance in the town hall along with several hundred other heavily intoxicated mountain bikers. All was going well until two of my friends, I won't name them but one is a 'relationship manager' and the other looks like The Edge from U2, sat on one of the tables scattered around the hall, promptly snapping the leg off of it, and depositing them and everyone's drinks all over the floor. The rest of the night is a bit fuzzy, but as it drew to a close we found ourselves wandering back along the main road to our hotel past a house that had a trampoline in the front garden. You don't have to be Mystic Meg to work out what happened next. Some of the group, I won't reveal who it was but one is freckly, one is a 'relationship manager', one looks like The Edge, and one has a lot of product in his hair, decided that the lure of said trampoline was too much to resist and invaded the garden of the house . . . just as a police car was driving past. It was around this point that I was doubled over, laughing SO hard that it was actually painful. I should point out that we're all approaching 40!

Time passes.
I woke up on the Sunday with a monumental hangover, and even the thought of any kind of cooked breakfast was enough to have me heading for the toilet, and I wasn't the only one.
It took some time, and a few venison burgers, before some semblance of normality was resumed.

The racing.
The downhill course at Fort William has to be seen to be believed. Huge speed, big air, and that's just the women! Some parts of the course scare the hell out of me, but the competitors seem to have no regard for life or limb and throw themselves and their machinery down the hill with seemingly reckless abandon. Having said that, they are mostly a lot younger than me.
The event itself is run much like downhill skiing. A timed semi-final has an eventual group of the fastest riders, 21 for the women, 70 for the men, who then make their run at 1 minute intervals, slowest riders first. This makes for a great finish, with the fastest runs coming towards the end of each event.

The womens event was a very popular home win for Britain's Tracy Moseley, who fired herself and her KONA down the course in a time that would have beaten more than a few of the male competitors!

The mens race was a belter, with the lead being swapped between at least 8 or 9 riders. Crowd favourite Steve Peat looked like he was going to take home the silverware for a time, but eventually South Africa's Greg Minaar defied gravity and physics long enough on his Santa Cruz to win.

'Exciting' doesn't even begin to describe the downhill event. I thought it was incredible, and I'm damn sure I'll be back next year.

Where Are They Now?

As I was driving home today I happened upon a soundbite from John Craven on the radio (for those not from our shores, John presented a kids news show on UK television when I was growing up), which got me wondering where he was now. Now I know he does a programme called 'Countyfile', but this got me to thinking about other tv personalities that have left an imprint on me as I was growing up:

Judith Hann.
Presenter of the late, great, 'Tomorrow's World'. The Gadget Show of the eighties.

Sally James.
Presenter of 'Tiswas', and the first woman that ever had an effect on my gentleman's area.

Paul Darrow.
Played 'Avon' in the 70's/80's tv show 'Blake's 7'

Daley Thompson.
For a brief time in my life, I was convinced he was the only black man in Britain, then Benny appeared in Grange Hill.

The bloke who played Alan Carter in 'Space 1999'. Apparently his name is Nick Tate, and he was always my favourite character.

Anyone got any others?

Poofters

Just to show you what a bunch of gay-ass poofters some of this nations Premiership football 'stars' are, I've blatantly ripped off Motorcycle News and compiled a small table of injured 'athletes' compared to young Bradley Smith, Britain's up and coming 125cc racer:

Gary Neville (2002) broken 5th metatarsal, predicted 6-8 week recovery, returned 21 weeks later.

Ashley Cole (2005) broken 5th metatarsal, predicted 6-8 week recovery, returned after 12 weeks.

Michael Owen (2006) broken 5th metatarsal, predicted 6-8 week recovery, returned 12 weeks later.

David Beckham (2002) broken 5th metatarsal, predicted 6-8 week recovery, returned after 7 weeks.

Wayne Rooney (2004) 5th metatarsal, predicted 6-8 week recovery, returned 14 weeks later.

Bradley 'I Feel No Pain' Smith (2008) broken 5th metatarsal, predicted 6-8 week recovery, returned 22 HOURS later!

17 years old and he's a legend already!

Summer's here . . .

. . . so what other excuse do you need to enjoy the greatest song ever written?

Enjoy.

Charidee

Charities. They do a lot of good work, I get it. They need pots of cash to do said good work, I get that too, but one of the charities I support, the Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society are really starting to get on my sizeable man tits. Every few months they call me up, hit me with some sob story about how things are particularly difficult right now and could I up my monthly contribution by another £10 a month?

"No."

Then I get yet more sob story followed by a request to up my contribution by another £5 pounds a month?

"No."

This didn't go down too well, neither did my question about why the charity weren't out recruiting new donors instead of begging to their existing ones like a friend with a crack habit.

I support a few other charities, one of which is Riders For Health, a charity set up by the legend that is Randy Mamola to help medical care get into the wilds of Africa. They never call me begging for more cash, they always thank me for my contribution, they send me a quarterly news letter explaining exactly where my cash goes, and rather than play the guilt card, they actually make donating fun.

I got so pissed of with the whale huggers that I cancelled my monthly donation today. I think the woman on the other end of the phone would have had less contempt for me if I'd called up and told her that I'd just had violent reverse cowgirl intercourse with the entire maternity ward at my local hospital!

It looks like Sparta, my adopted Humpback whale, is on her own.

Swim Sparta, swim!
Swim away from men with slanty eyes and Kung Po Chicken, my cetacean friend!!

Black Gold

I hope all the environmentalists out there will be relieved to know that the diesel leak that the Exxon Valdez sprung last week has now been fixed, and all it took was a twist of the wrist and two sharp bangs with a big hammer. Fiscal disaster averted.

Car Sick

This guy really needs to get out more.

Polish My Helmet: Part 2

There's a good chance that even if you've never even so much as looked at a motorcycle, you'll know who Valentino Rossi is. He's the greatest motorcycle racer that's ever walked the face of the earth, he's the 9th highest earning athlete in the world, he has the largest fan club of ANY sportsman or woman, and as far as I'm concerned he's a god that walks amongst us. One of the good things about Rossi is that he is an open book. When things are going bad for him in racing, he keeps to himself and acts like the true professional that he is, but when things go his way, as they very often do, he turns into a teenager again and becomes a comedian.

Tomorrows race at Mugello in Italy is his home race and has one of the longest straights of any track that the MotoGP circus visits, well over 200mph on the straight. With this in mind, the clown prince of bike racing unveiled a new helmet design today, and I pissed myself laughing everytime his gurning mug appeared on the tv screen! Click here to see what I mean.

I've had all I can stands, I can't stands no more!

The cost of fuel in this country is now becoming ridiculous. I filled up yesterday, a task that I carry out three times a month just to get to work, at the exorbitant price of £1.27.9 a litre of Diesel (for those in the US I think this equates to approximately $9.58 a gallon).

This simply cannot continue. I've watched the price of a litre of diesel rise by over 10p in the last three weeks, and only the very naive would believe that this price will ever drop, it's here to stay. Yet the government continues to push for a 2p increase in fuel tax! What the fuck is going on!?

I've been with my current employer now for seven years, and I'm now having to look for a new job closer to home because I can't afford to buy a house nearer my work and I can't afford to stay here and drive the 80 miles a day that I currently commute!

I get the environment message, I get the fact that we need to be weaned off oil, I can see the big picture, but punishing the motorist in the short term is NOT the fucking answer.
I work shifts so there's no public transport available at the times I work, therefore I MUST take my car. I have a car that does over 50mpg, and yet my road tax has went up, my insurance has went up, Diesel has went up. I'm rapidly approaching the point where 1/5 of my net pay goes simply to get me to my place of work.

I try to keep politics out of my blog as I think that ALL politicians are self-obsessed, conniving, egotistical, lying bastards, but this is the final straw. Gordon Brown is fucked. Dead man walking.

Now where did I put that car that runs on water . . .

Indiana Jones and The Milking Of The Golden Cash Cow

Myself and The Demon went to see 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull' at the weekend and I have a message for Steven Spielberg. After hearing him pontificating on tv about how this movie was "for the fans", I'm afraid I have to tell him that I'm a fan and I thought it was rubbish.
Don't get me wrong, in isolation it's an ok action/adventure movie, but after watching the original three Indiana Jones movies in the weeks up to the release of the new one, I have to say that it's easily the poorest of the four.
I think the problem lies with the fact that they have deviated from the tried and trusted path that the originals followed, a path worn by the best of the 60's and 70's adventure movies like 'Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze'. The thing I always enjoyed about the original Indy movies was that you could almost believe the plot, you could stretch your imagination round the Ark of The Covenant, or The Holy Grail, but the new movie is just one great big fantasy CGI festival.
Gone are the days of filming in places that I have actually been to, and hello to pixel manipulation of the highest order. Not even the token gesture of including Karen Allen to reprise her role as 'Marion Ravenwood' or Ray Winstone as the pointless character 'Mac' can lift the rather slow plot, and I have to say that this is the only Indy move where I didn't want to be Indiana Jones. He looks every one of his 65 years, yet is still able to take a beating like Joe Calzaghe!

You'd really think that after 'The Phantom Menace' debacle, George Lucas might have whispered in Steven Spielberg's ear "Hey Steve, you can never go back.", but no, here we are again, flogging the dead horse, milking the cash cow, and pissing off real Indy fans.
Like the dinosaurs, some things are better left dead.

Poor.
6/10

Brains

Genius.

I can think of no other word to describe this.

"Take her in slowly, Sulu"

Sulu is gay?!

Where the fuck did that come from??
All these years watching Star Trek and now Heroes, I didn't see that one coming!


This week I'm liking 'This Is An Emergency' by The Pigeon Detectives.

Good vs Evil

I'm definitely rocking more than I used to. I dunno if it's may age, or maybe some latent anger building up in me, but I've been kneeling at the altar of the great AC/DC all weekend, and verily, a good weekend it has surely been.
Therefore, I'd like to submit what I consider to be the greatest 4 minutes and 20 seconds of guitar based popular music that there has ever been. Enjoy.


PS - See below for blasphemy of the highest magnitude!

Retirement

Its always a bitter-sweet moment when you get a new car. The passing of an old friend and the welcoming of a new one.
So say hello to the new member of the Inch fleet. She's a year 2000 Citroen Xsara 2.0 HDi that I picked up on ebay for the princely sum of £900. She's destined to replace my old Citroen Xantia TD that you can see in the background, which has easily been the best car I've ever had. Over the last 7 years and 130,000 miles I came to love 'The Taxi' as the old girl is affectionately known as, but time moves on. Au revoir, mon ami.

Blade Runner

I was pleased to hear that South African athlete Oscar Pistorius has won his appeal to be allowed to compete against able bodied athletes for a place in the Beijing Olympics. I'm pleased because I think that if he can make the qualifying time, which he so far has been unable to do, then he should definitely be allowed to race. There are others however, who think that it's unfair to people with feet if he runs against them.
The debate seems to revolve around whether he's disabled or augmented.
If he's disabled and his carbon fibre blades are helping him to achieve speeds and times that he may well have achieved had he been born with feet, then fine, he's an elite athlete and has every right to make a bid for Olympic glory.
On the other hand, if he's augmented and his blades improve his performance and give him an advantage against able bodied runners, then no, he shouldn't go to Beijing.

Personally, it seems to me that the IAAF, the body that governs world athletics, are out to get the Blade Runner and stop him competing no matter what. I hope he gets to China and wipes the fucking floor with the competition!

Robert Dunlop

Another hero gone.
Another member of the Dunlop family no longer with us.
Sad times indeed.

Robert Dunlop
1960 - 2008

Halfrauds

"Hi, I have a part to pick up. I ordered it yesterday"
"Yes sir, what's the name?"
"I am The Inchmeister."
"Here you are sir."
"Wait a moment, young metrosexual shop assistant, this thermostat was supposed to come with a gasket!"
"Sorry sir, that's all that came with the order."
"I specifically asked if it came with a gasket. Your other metrosexual shop assistant actually phoned and asked if it came with one. He said it did."
"I'm sorry sir, on my screen it says 'no gasket included'."
"Well we are at an impasse, young man."
"I'm sorry, all I can do is give you your £14.60 as a refund?"
"Please do."

Time passes.

"Hello sir, welcome to Citroen Falkirk, how can I help you?"
"I wish to purchase a thermostat AND gasket for a Xantia Turbo Diesel, please."
"Certainly sir, I have it here, and it includes the gasket. That'll be £12.99 please."

Here endeth the lesson.

I Am Livid! . . . . Again!

I have just discovered that the upcoming JJ Abrams film 'Star Trek' will not, I repeat NOT, feature the considerable acting talents of the Worlds Greatest Living Canadian, William Shatner!

I can hear you all now gasp and say "Inchy, what the fuck is the director thinking about?!"

I know!
The Shatner IS captain James Tiberius Kirk, and always will be!
Not only that, but he's been in the tv show with the greatest ever theme tune (featured above), and his 2004 album 'Has Been' is fucking magnificent. Just check out his interpretation of Pulp's 'Common People' bellow (Joe Jackson on vocals, Ben Folds on keyboard).

Come on Mr Abrams, Starfleet won't be saved without the Shatner. He boldly goes where no other 76 year old, horse breeding, poker playing, Canadian has gone before!

Iron Man

'Iron Man' was a Marvel cartoon character that went largely unnoticed in the UK. Unless you lived up here in Scotland and watched Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade on a Sunday afternoon, the chances are you've never really heard of him, but clearly that's all changed now that the Hollywood blockbuster of the same name has hit our screens.
Myself and The Demon watched it last night and I have to say that I enjoyed it, but for all the wrong reasons.

The bad points:
The plot is the traditional action movie fare, the CGI is as obvious as Karl Malden's nose, the action sequences are as far fetched as The Matrix, the Stars & Stripes is everywhere, it's an Audi product placement festival, and anyone who speaks English with a foreign (i.e. not American) accent is clearly evil and must die.

The good points:
Robert Downey Jnr.

The film is entirely carried by Robert Downey Jnr, he's excellent in it. Without him, it would slide into the septic tank of action movie anonymity that films like Daredevil, Electra, and all the Batman movies up until the last one, have plopped into. I actually struggle to think of many other actors, who could have saved this film, because RDJ (it's easier to type) is actually quite a rare thing in Hollywood these days. He's cheeky but likeable. That's the best way I can describe how I think of him, and I hope that's a description that works internationally. Sure, he's damaged goods, but from doing jail time in 1999 and being fired from Ally McBeal in 2001 for substance abuse, he's made a rather spectacular comeback. It just goes to show that, unlike Rob Lowe, the "public" will forgive almost anything as long as you have a nice smile. By all means, get wasted on drugs, just don't fuck a 16 year old.

Squeeze, don't pull.

I'm developing a rather bizarre obsession with machine guns. Military spec fully automatic assault weapons to be exact, and strangely, there may be one or two others who share my love of big bad bang sticks. I'm not really sure where this desire came from or why, but it's there alright. Just looking above at the Heckler & Koch HK417 assault rifle with 12" barrel, telescopic sight, night vision adapter, folding bipod and a sound moderator (silencer), is enough to make me feel all wobbly in my gentleman's area. I find myself browsing 'Guns & Ammo' or 'World Guns' muttering to myself "If I win the Lotto, I'm having me one of those!"

Now I like to think of myself as a level headed sort of chap. I play ultra-violent video games and watch a lot of Hollywood action movies, but to date I've violently killed no one. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
I haven't really been in a fight since high school, and I think it's fair to say that I don't really have a bad bone in my body, and wish no harm to anyone. Except maybe Lily Allen, but she's just asking for it. Yet I still have this yearning for the smell of gun oil and the feel of a big weapon in my hands! (Behave)

I don't want to shoot anything alive, just some baked bean tins and Budweiser bottles.
It's not too much to ask.

. . . is it?

Batteries Included

Whilst driving home today I heard a debate on the radio regarding potentially 50,000 Police men and women in the UK being armed with Taser guns. For anyone who's been living on a kibbutz for the last decade, a Taser gun, like the X26 mounted under the barrel of this rather sexy assault rifle, is a non-lethal weapon capable of incapacitating the most determined violent criminal by pumping 50,000 volts into them.

"But Tasers have been linked to over 70 deaths in the USA and Canada." says the bleeding-heart, limp wristed, tree hugging, human rights campaigner on the radio.

Wow, really? Over 70 deaths, you say?
Well statistically that's not bad considering that Tasers have been in service since 1993 and that that the Police in the US alone probably pop a cap in double that many people in a few days!

"If you Taser someone, you don't know if that person has a pace maker." adds wet-blanket boy.

True, but The Demon's brother is a cop, and I've seen his truncheon (oo er!). It's the tried and trusted method of incapacitation currently favoured by most UK police officers, and pace maker or not, being fucked over the head by a long steel bar is bad news no matter what physical condition you're in!

All of which is, quite frankly, preamble alongside my main point. If you're doing something that warrants a police officer deploying his Taser, then it's you're own fucking fault if your heart explodes in your chest or your brain turns to haggis.
I do believe it's MY human right not to have my shit stolen.
I do believe it's MY human right not to be assaulted.

Zzapp!
Eat pavement, asshole!

Casa Inchy

Feeling energised by Sky Clearbrook's latest post (nice view Mr C) and with very little else happening at the moment, I thought that I'd purloin his idea and show you the view from the kitchen window of Casa Inchy.

I've labelled the main points of interest.

A - The 'Shed Of Dreams'. This is where the magic happens and where the two-wheeled beasts that take up a major part of my life (and my income) sleep. Currently smelling of chips due to the 200 litres of used cooking oil sitting in the corner.

B - The whirlygig. No garden would be complete without one. Directly behind is the brick flowerbed that The Demon's father, Big Gazza Stevens, built during a fit of DIY and Gin. Immediately behind that is the picnic table that The Demon sat down at last week to study German in the sun. The table gave way instantly, depositing The Demon on her arse. How we laughed.

C - Here you can make out two of the three waste bins we have. I haven't got a fucking clue what goes where, so it all goes in the green one.

D - The Demon's shed. This used to be mine before The Batcave was constructed. It is now full of 'nice things'.

E - The remains of a futon that was kindly donated by Jaggy. I'm holding on to the frame because it's what old men describe as "a good bit of wood".

. . . and yes, I know the grass needs cut, but she's not home yet.

Listening to 'Match Box' by The Kooks.

не вызовите нас, мы вызовет вас

Dasvedanya, sayonara, arrivederci, ciao, au revoir, and goodbye, Ken.

Don't look so glum, we'll be sure to call you the next time we want something fucked up beyond all recognition.

Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!

It's not often that my wee country can hold it's head up and shout "Look at us!", but from the 6th to the 8th of June that's exactly what we'll be doing when the mountain bike World Cup comes to Fort William.
Now mountain biking is definitely 'my thing' so I'm not trying to convert anyone, but I think I'm entitled to shout about my homeland and about how good a show we can put on.
Mountain biking is big news in Scotland, mostly due to our landscape seemingly custom designed for it. Bizarrely, we also seem to have the right backing, from the right government agencies, all at the right time! (That means you, Forestry Commission!)
Glentress Forest regularly wins awards, indeed it was voted Worlds Best Trail in 2005, and (thank fuck!) it's only an hour from my home.
So if you found that video exciting, and you fancy a weekend away, come and give us a go. We're not all hoodie wearing, Buckfast swilling, knife carrying, thugs. Honest.

Impregnable

"Hello, you're through to ******* Bank, Shamika speaking, how may I help you?"

"Hi Shamika, I've lost my bank card." (Schoolboy error, I know!)

Ok, I just need to ask you some security questions."

"Fire away."

"Ok, what's your postcode?"

"It's ******."

"Correct. What's your date of birth?"

"It's **/**/****."

"Correct. You've passed your security check."

Well there's no way that the hardened identity thief will ever foil that fortress of security! I may as well just hide all my cash and valuables in the toe of my shoe!

Listening to 'Ride' by The Vines.