In Which I Note that the Americans Aren't Very Grateful

Oscar Wilde said it best when he was describing the difference between the British and our transatlantic cousins: "The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, they're all mad fat bastards." I might be paraphrasing slightly there, I don't remember the exact quote. But they ARE a bit different from us, aren't they? So let's look at the differences. The Americans have shorter memories than us, which is why they keep on forgetting that there are many pubs over here older than their country. I hope this is an apocryphal tale, but I heard that an American couple went to see some 15th century castle in England, and they were very impressed with everything. They had only one question- how did we manage to get everything to look so old?

How did you get him to look so senile?

Americans also show their amnesia when it comes to foreign policy. What you may not know about the War of Independence is that it was the French who won it for the Americans. We spent about £80,000,000 on the war, which today comes in at around £10,757,101,449. The French put in 70% of that for the Americans and sent troops to fight for them, and the Americans' financial contribution? They had a whip round and put a few dollars together. Nevertheless, the French prevailed and did the United States the most concrete of solids. So how did the fledgling United States reward the French who had won their war for them? Why, she made Britain her main trading partner and told the French to go fuck themselves, leaving France bankrupt. Very bad short term memories, or total bastards. You decide.

And what about their long term memories? The Americans' betrayal of France created a broken state. Bonaparte took advantage of this and hilarity ensued, by which I mean 5 million Europeans were killed, a third of them French. France got past this, though, and tried so hard to make friends with Americans, so they had a church raffle and a bake sale or two to pay for the Statue of Liberty. Credit where credit's due, they did a nice job. However, many years down the line, France made the crucial mistake of refusing America's kind invitation to make war on a country simply for the fact that there was no reason to. And how did the Americans show their displeasure? By rebranding French Fries as Freedom Fries. 

Never mind that to the rest of the world this would look like a petty action. Never mind that associating the word freedom with a thinly sliced deep fried potato cheapens it somewhat. The Americans had to show their displeasure to the French by taking the French out of French Fries. Also, they decided to chuck champagne and other French wines down the drain. This is another difference between us and the Americans. They are exceptionally wasteful. Now I don't know about you, but even if I was pissed off at the French, I would happily drink my cellars dry of their alcohol. I mean, the stuff's already bought, the French vineyard owners who of course single-handedly prevented the U.N from permitting this war won't get any richer if you drink the plonk you've already bought from them. Actually, the Americans have form for this. In Boston, they had a load of tea on a ship that they refused to buy because they'd have to pay an ickle bit of tax on it. They took a measured response and bowled on board and chucked the stuff in the sea. What a bunch of idiots. You could have drunk that! Even if you don't like the stuff you could flog it on the black market. If there's demand but no supply then you could clean up, especially if your operating costs are zero because you nicked it. I mean, for God's sake, that would be like a rioter going into Currys and smashing a telly instead of nabbing it. However, I in no way endorse stealing. Unless it's in 18th century Massachusetts.

Here endeth the lesson. Another one on the same topic tomorrow, I fancy. 

Today's Tune

In Which I Blog Poorly

Hullo campers, not much to write about today. Just a few snippets... I'm still awaiting 3 test results- they're an accumulated 63 days late, which is nice. By the time the bastards tell me I'm terminal I'll be long dead. I am having to distract myself from this wait for news by continuing this betting malarkey with D.  Remember the Deadliest Warrior thing, with a pound bet on each fight? So far, there have been seven fights, of which I have won six. This is an excellent thing.

Next Friday through to Wednesday I shall be socialising with the bright young things of London. I would therefore be incapable of achieving the heights that I have convinced myself that this blog has been constantly reaching, and as such have decided a sojourn, until Odin's day, is in order. To try and counterbalance that (no promises, mind) I shall try and get some pictures taken of me dressed and made up like a New Romantic. C assures me that she will bring the make up and the "hair-gel-that-you-have-ten-minutes-to-get-the-styling-right-or-else-you'll-have-a-style-you-don't-like-that's-harder-to-remove-than-an-American-from-an-all-you-can-eat-buffet." Actually, tomorrow I should do a proper blog, and so I shall try and measure up the good and bad points of Americans off the top of my head. Mm.

So to start the Friday to Wednesday excursion, I will be watching England take on the best team yet to grace the new Wembley Stadium, the mighty San Marino. This nation is so good at football that they rank only 207 places from the top country, joint with the Turks and Caicos Islands, which I haven't heard of, and Bhutan, which I have. This will be their 112th international match, and in those 111 others they have managed three draws, and a win against Liechtenstein. They currently have 0 points on FIFA's world ranking system, and their population is around 31,000. If I were a country (and syllabically speaking I'm half-way there), I would have a population of one and still be as good at football as San Marino are. If England don't win by at least six I shall have to cut off Roy Hogdson's head with a pair of secateurs and make it look like suicide... But if they do, then I won't. No pressure, Roy.

Today's Tune

In Which I Rant about What Americans Mispronounce as Twots

One of the most dispiriting things that I can think of is adverts with storylines. I don't mean one solitary advert with a beginning, middle and end, I recognise that most narrative adverts need some sort of structure to sell the goods/services. Although not all of them...

There was once a series of adverts for Nescafé Gold Blend where this posh sod (who later went on to play Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) lends some bint some coffee and then they keep on meeting and eventually shack up and only talk about coffee. The problem is, there are idiots in the world who get taken in by this sort of thing, as this little piece will show.

As Jayne Middlemiss inanely wittered, "it was like these adverts that were like mini-soap operas." Except these adverts were cynically put together to sell coffee to spanners like Jayne Middlemiss. I think what I find particularly offensive is that it's so clear what the advert is trying to do and yet utterly invisible to so many others. I suppose it reminds me of how many idiots there are. But you have questions for me. 

(1) Surely the public can't be taken in by that sort of thing nowadays?

(2) Surely it's a dated practise.

(3) And just how exactly can you remember adverts from the 80's about coffee? You must have had a weird childhood.

These are all good questions (although one and two are sort of the same question), and all deserving of answers. So.

(1) Yes they can.

(2) Yes it is, but one that still goes on as idiocy is timeless.

(3) A lot of coffee adverts filtered through to me in the 80's- I watched a lot of telly because I was an insomniac. Probably due to all the Gold Blend I was drinking.

Yes, reader. This sort of advert does still pervade these days. The classic example is that BT series called "Twat-we-don't-care-about's-relationship-with-older-Twat-woman-we-don't-care-about-and-her-Twat-family." You could not get away from these cocking ads. I actually looked this up- they went on for seven years and there were forty of them. Forty separate adverts for BT to fashion adverts that have to shoehorn in BT's products into family life. Here's what you need to know. Twat is a sociopath. A man who can only interact with people through the medium of BT's products and services. The tragedy is that Twat doesn't realise he is a walking talking advert. Twat is a twat who bought an expensive house based on the fact it had a BT broadband and phone package. Twat is a twat who probably became the stepfather of those Twat kids because their mother's vagina was shaped like a BT landline phone. Here's an example of the two Twats coming across their Twat son watching the television with some friends, and spilling a soft drink. 

 You just know he's about to have the shit beaten out of him because his guardians saw him not advertising BT for a few seconds. "Fetch me the birch, and I will show my son that my prediction for any time spent not advertising BT is PAIN." Towards the end of the campaign, the advertisers were getting so desperate for ideas that they were breaking the fourth wall and imploring the reader to chose Twat woman's wedding dress. They even tried to get the audience to do the advertisers' work for them by having the audience vote for what happens next. BT say 1,600,000 voted. That's very nearly the population of Northern Ireland, which might not be a co-incidence. Did Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party patch up their differences and unite the nation into choosing how Twat and Twat woman's story would progress, because otherwise BT would endlessly be beseeching all of us how what they should do next? The alternative is a lot more unpleasant. A group of idiot bum dribble for a brain fishwives (I suspect most of the 1,600,000 would be women) thinking ZOMG A SOAP OPRA THAT I CAN RITE THATS SEW KOOL LOLOLOL x x x x x.  The crazy thing is, these people don't understand that BT is asking people what is the best way to get them to use BT. 

But BT have put a stop to this now. They got married and he made her pregnant and everyone was happy ever after. There wasn't much more they could do, unless they wanted to show Twat using the phone to stalk someone or the daughter getting AIDS off of the internet connection. These would make better adverts in the sense of entertainment, but BT would probably sell less. What they've done instead is put a group of student Twats together. Twat one is a girl, and as such she is the voice of reason and can never be the fall guy- she's essentially Vivian out of The Fresh Prince, but without the sass. Twat two is some dweeb who is trying to use all of BT's services to impress girls so he can stick his dick in them, and failing. Twat three, and I have only just worked this out, is the Twat Son from the previous series of Twatty adverts. Double Twat. Twat within a twat. Twatception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5NjcZRbPrk&feature=player_detailpage#t=45s

Today's Tune

In Which I Dick About

I had one of those simpering blood donor letters through today. "Oh thankyou so much for being a repeat donator, you're simply the tops. Your blood is SO tasty, om nom nom. We love you so much and would tuck you in at night if the terms of the restraining order weren't so restrictive." Or it said something in that area, I may have skim-read it because I was busy looking for NHS types hiding under the bed. They gave me a date to donate, and unusually, I think I shall have to decline- it just so happens to fall on the day immediately after the two day cocktail bender. I fear that if some B positive car crash victim or leukemia sufferer were to be infused with my blood so soon after that, their liver would give out.

I've just found out that Inigo Montoya out of the Princess Bride and Saul Berenson out of Homeland are played by the same bloke. If that doesn't amaze you, you either already knew it or are dead (due to having no metabolism or due to not having lived). If you haven't watched either of these things, please do because you will enjoy them and associate good things with me.

I feel a short entry is in order as I am still trying to get to grips with applications. So. Whilst waiting for a bus replacement service yesterday at some seemingly chosen at random station (yesterday it was Billericay), I had time to think about what I might write today. I thought "What are blogs for?" Well, they're mostly a device to prop up one's ego, and terribly self serving things. They're also inescapably about the person who writes the blog. What I thought I'd do for today is write about myself but try and find some nuggets that won't appear self serving (but of course make me look human and therefore are exactly that). So. One of my chief delights when in a nightclub is to turn the power to the hand dryer off, and go in there half an hour later to see that it's still off and watch guys slowly moving their hands closer to it and then wave them about frantically, and finally shrug their shoulders nonchalantly and say to no-one in particular "Hand dryer's broken". I have seen how long it can  take hundreds of people to work this complex problem of the power switch right next to the hand dryer being off, and the highest score I have achieved is ALL NIGHT. Having achieved that, I then decide who looks like the most unpleasant person trying to dry their hands, and then flip the on switch. The dilemma is whether to do it when they're trying to dry their hands or when they've given up and gone "This fucker's not working." The best way to resolve this is to flip a coin.

Another thing I like to do is confuse foreigners, specifically Germans. No it's NOT racist, the joke wouldn't work on British people, and I only target ze Germans because it's the only foreign language I even slightly speak. So. If there are a few Germans chatting amongst themselves over here and I'm nearby, I will wait for whoever's talking to finish and then go up to them, fix them with a steely gaze and say "Bist du sicher", which means "Are you sure?" I then turn dramatically and leave, before they say things in German that I wouldn't be able to answer, like "What are you on about? Why do you feel so strongly that Baden-Württemberg is more scenic than Schleswig-Holstein? Come back!" It's not an aggressive thing to do, I just like confusing people I suppose. They might have a nice story when they get back to Ulm about how this mysterious stranger/über arschloch appeared and disappeared for no discernable reason. A friend of mine said to me that "You're a lovely man with an unpleasant man's sense of humour." You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment. I'm too busy bullying Germans and switching off other people's electrical appliances.

Today's Tune

In Which I Am a Basket Case

Tomorrow I am joining M and C (and H) to celebrate Irish M's 30th birthday. I probably won't be able to do any blogs then, and maybe not on Sunday.

Art, for art's sake. With a capital F.

A long while ago for reasons that have been lost in time I was part of a quartet who were the Laundry Basket Society. The other three were M, Irish M and C, but when in L.B.S mode they went by the names of Bunny, Roman and I can't remember Irish M's, I shall have to ask him. Dammit, I can't even remember my society name, which is a shocking effort. M, Irish M, C and I were also part of a supersexysecret club and that might be broached on another day. Anyway, the finest hour of the L.B.S was around eight years ago. We decided to go to central London and go to as many landmarks as possible whilst drinking as much port as possible and take pictures of each other wearing laundry baskets on our heads. My personal favourite was when we went to Bucks House and managed by chance to catch the changing of the guard. I got the lads to line up sharpish and bung their baskets on with the palace in the background. Now the Coldstream Guards are meant to look straight ahead as they're marching- for some reason, not all of them did.

Squint and see a basketted C and I atop the bridge.

I swear that the next bit is true. Normally it's not good form for an (auto)biographical author to preface anything by saying it's not a lie, because it calls into question the veracity of every other thing they've ever written. "How do I know it's true if they haven't told me it is?" Well, I do so here because it sounds like I made it up, even to me. So there we were in a place called The Generator, some sort of not quite youth hostel thing in central-ish London. My memories of this place are a fairly grim nightclub, missing breakfast because we got up too late and half naked Australian (Kiwi?) girls sauntering about. So there we were in our four bunked bedroom, light on, donning our baskets and planning our movements for the next day. C might even have been eating Risk infantrymen, as he has a curious habit of doing so. Whole armies have been wiped out inside his belly. I would like to stress for the record that we don't have any pictures of the following events because the only zoom camera we had was in M's phone, and as it was 2004 there was still a ration on pixels across the country. So. Irish M was looking out of the window across to the adjacent flats, Alfred Hitchcock styley, and he slowly and calmly said "I think they're going at it across the way from us." The other guys were a bit doubtful, but this isn't the sort of thing that Irish M would make up. I went over to the window, and sure enough, a few floors down in the building opposite us, there was a couple playing slip and slide on a sofa. We had a particularly clear view of this because it was night and their lights were switched on. I informed the other two that there actually was a pair having a nice fuck, and then suddenly everyone was jostling for space at the window- perhaps this was exacerbated by the fact we were all wearing our laundry baskets. Somewhere at this point Irish M tried to use his camera phone, and was rewarded with classic unclear grainy footage which may or may not have been proof of the Loch Ness monster. I can readily empathise with those people who believe they have seen aliens but their camera has failed them so when they tell people about it andtry and corroborate their story they look mad. I don't remember which one of us spotted it (only that it wasn't me), but the sentence was uttered "Is... Is that a third guy with a camera? They're making a fucking porn film down there!" "I wondered why he was bothering with that much foreplay!" "And all those positions she's been in too, on the bottom AND on top!" Something caught the performer's eyes after that, and all of them, cameraman included looked up towards us. Somewhere, in the making-of section of a U.K porn DVD is a picture of four guys looking out of a window at the camera. Four lads silhouetted against a lightbulb. Four lads jumping up and down with excitement. Wearing laundry baskets.

There was a point to this story, but it has escaped the author's mind.

Today's Tune

In Which I'm Busy Doing a Job Application...

...and so there's nothing more than a token entry for today. Right, these things are meant to be informative or funny, so... Erm...

You know that thing where you find out that a band's/singer's iconic song isn't the original? Here's a bunch of originals to make you go "Really? Well I never."


(1) "Natalie Imbruglia- Torn" This is quite a lot meatier than the final, which is unusual. Most "definitive" versions of songs have juiced up the original somewhat.

 (2) "Tiffany- I Think We're Alone Now." This song is a bit more rapey when it's a group of men instead of one girl serenading you.

 

(3) "The Doors- Alabama Song" This isn't even the original. The original was written for a Bertold Brecht play, and when I found that out my mind imploded.

Token blog entry complete.

Today's Tune

In Which I Discover Another of My Limitations

I was getting "my bits" from the shoppington the other day to facilitate the making of jerked pork belly with potato and pea mash up. Every so often, I will realise another thing that I cannot eat due to having some sort of idiot immune system that thinks that some foods are poison. There are the obvious ones, like I won't be having any pastries or breads or cereals anytime soon. I know this. I mean, I'm still sorry enough for myself to bang on about it, but I know this, I am slowly coming to terms with it. But sometimes I will just think "Oh, _____ is full of gluten, so I can't have that again." It's the more quiet foods, not the ones you subsist off, but the little treats. One day out of nowhere, my brain said to me "D'you know what? You can't ever have a samosa again, so fuck you!". I was reeling from this body blow when my sadistic (masochistic?) mind followed up with "Or onion bhajis, you fucking r-tard!" Coupled with the fact I can't have naan or pitta, my side order options at Indian restaurants are rapidly evaporating. Another time I realised that I can't have flapjacks, you know, what with them essentially being syrup and oats. Now I genuinely can't remember the last time I had flapjacks, but it's always nice to have the option. They're probably amongst the first dishes I concocted. Really easy to do, you know, what with them essentially being syrup and oats.

I don't remember my flapjacks turning out like this, though.

ANYWAY. In the supermarket the other day, for some reason they had eggs, flour, sugar and lemon next to each other... Brain processes this. Something wrong. Ingredients not bad in and of themselves, apart from flour... Yet feel uneasy. Why are they all there together like that, it's not pancake Tueoh FUCK I CAN'T EAT PANCAKES EVER AGAIN! ARGGHHHH!!!... Now pancakes shouldn't be such a big loss- I only eat them on the one legally stipulated day the state sets aside for them. Although it's known by most as Pancake Tuesday, a select few refer to it as Shrove Tuesday, because, y'know, shroves and pancakes. Regardless of what we call it, we're ALL good Christians in Britain. Why else would we all scoff our faces full of pancakes on the day before six weeks of grumbly bellies? This period is called Lent, as in I Lent all my food to that Dawn French and I'm beginning to think I'm not going to get it back. What with us being good Christians, we are obliged to go on a hunger strike for forty days until the day before Christ got murdered by the Romans.  Now you know that there's a certain feeling that some Catholics (whose church is centred in Italy) aren't so keen on the Jews? Mel Gibson should have an honourable mention, and as for his Dad... Well he makes Mel look like the Pope. The point is, the Jews get a lot of bad press. But who was the governing force? It was the Romans, whose centre of administration was in Italy. Essentially, despite the Romans actually nailing the son of God to a two by four and them spearing him in the side to make sure they're dead, despite this they seem to have convinced that the Jews are to blame. There's a shed load of anti-semitism around the world. What do we think when we see an Italian? Nice food, and I hope you don't try and have sex with my daughter. Not fair. Anyway, here is the traditional shirt that all of us good British Christians wear on Easter Friday to celebrate the crucifixion of God's son.  You have to understand, we'd only be doing that to make sure he saves our sins double quick this time. Help your fellow man.

Right. I believe I was procuring ingredients for jerked pork and 'ting. Go to pay and am asked by the checkout monkey if I would like any help packing. There's only five items there, I can put them in the bag I've brought along with me (save the planet, yeah?), so I tell him that I'm all right thanks. Then I ask him "Have you got a mystery shopper coming in or something?" "Mmm?" "It's just that I noticed you asked me if I wanted help with my packing." (Please note, this was more curious in nature than passive aggressive) "Yes, well we're all supposed to ask you..." "I know that, but you actually asked me, most don't bother." "Well, it's better for me just to follow company policy." He paused, seemed to have a think before deciding to confide in me "Actually, we're supposed to offer you help with your packing even if you've only one item." Now this made a part of me feel rather sorry for these poor employees who have to toe the line. It also gave a much bigger part of me an idea- namely going there, buying a stick of gum and then kicking off when they don't offer to pack it for me. I wonder what it's like to not be a bastard?

Today's Tune