Archive for the 'Ranting' Category

Cadbury, I’m Very Disappointed In You

I bought a Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted bar the other day. It was substandard. So I wrote this letter.

Dear Lovely Cadbury’s Consumer Relations People

Whilst travelling to Bradford recently Elizabeth and I decided to stop at a motorway service station to purchase some snack products for our journey. As I was in charge of the purchases I decided upon the following:

  • One 500ml bottle of Diet Coke
  • One 500ml bottle Dr Pepper
  • Two Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted bars

The choice of the Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted bars was obvious. Both Elizabeth and I are big fans of your famous Cadbury’s Creme Eggs but given that we were in a car hurtling up the motorway I felt it prudent to enjoy the Cadbury’s Creme Egg experience in bar form.

Now, I have nothing against your Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, it’s just that they are a little difficult to eat sometimes and are a snack better suited to the home environment (on the sofa, in the lounge when watching Ashes To Ashes for example). Sorry, I digress; I’ll get to the point.

Upon biting in to her Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted bar Elizabeth’s delight was obvious, the noises alone indicated enjoyment far above the norm! However it was a very different story when I bit into my bar, a very different story indeed.

It was solid!

That’s right solid. You can imagine my surprise when that happened. The enclosed picture was taken when I returned home.

Additionally I have retained the part of the bar that was left (it was a struggle to stop Elizabeth from eating it I can tell you!) and enclose a small chunk (wrapped in cling film) for your forensic analysis. I can tell you this much though, it was definitely the same type of chocolate that you make your Cadbury’s Creme Eggs out of (delicious and tasty).

I would very dearly love to know exactly what happened in your Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted factory when this bar was being produced. Was it sabotage by a rival firm? A disgruntled former employee interfering with the fondant injector perhaps? Or could it have been an escaped experiment, the result of a secret project with a special ‘black budget’, set up to research new and innovative products? Who knows, all I know is I was shocked and a little disappointed.

I don’t like to talk about money but I fear given the current economic climate I must. I am obviously now out of pocket to the tune of approximately 65p, if you factor in my time and the cost of producing this letter it rises to a whopping £1.40.

I’m not going to claim damages for emotional distress though so don’t worry. I would settle out of court for the following:

  • An explanation of why my Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted bar was hewn from solid (solid!) chocolate
  • A trip for two around the Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted factory
  • One box of Cadbury’s Creme Egg Twisted bars
  • A signed photo of Trevor Bond (your Managing Director, he must have had a hand in this if it was a secret project?)

I await your response with baited breath.

Keep on trucking!

Jon

PS This little incident has in no way affected my view of your products, as I type I’m tucking in to a delicious bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk!

PPS My phone number, if you need to call me, is 07939 325 186.

PPPS If it was a secret project my discretion is assured. Please don’t send the heavies around, I have a weak ankle.

Not had a response yet…

Joanna Lumley: Queen Of The Naive

I love Joanna Lumley, she’s foxy, dignified and not altogether unlikeable. She is also sadly cringingly naive. After having heard her talking on Radio 4 this morning I became less and less inclined to be bothered about the whole Gurkha thing.

Don’t leave here under the wrong impression, I really believe all the Gurkhas that fight in wars on behalf of the United Kingdom should be allowed citizenship and a decent pension, it’s just that both sides are being a bit on the wank side with their arguments.

The Government is giving the impression that it doesn’t care and is pathetically inefficient (which it may well be) and the Lumley contingent are tub thumping without concern for due process or any concern at all about setting legal precedent.

You see that’s the bit that worries me, if we change the rules for one group of individuals it opens the floodgates for legal challenges from every other fucker.

All the rhetoric about our letting in asylum seekers/Polish builders/Belgian paedophiles and not our noble, brave Gurkha chums is horseshit. At the end of it all I’m fairly certain if citizenship was a game of musical chairs and it came down to a fight between Joanna Lumley and a Gurkha for the last chair, I’m certain Lumley would be up for a fight for it.

I’m also fairly certain the Gurkha would win. Ayo Gorkhali!

A Word Or Two On Swine Flu

Even if the Israeli Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman thinks the name swine flu is offensive, and if he does I’d question exactly where his priorities actually lie, I’m certain of one thing; human beings are a skittish bunch.

So I have three words of advice. Are you ready for them?

Stop fucking panicking.

Thus ends this public service announcement.

G20 Protester Horse Shit

Now as anybody that knows me will readily admit, money and me don’t get on. I don’t respect it and it does its best to get away from me as quickly as possible, complicit in this little game are the banks, so consequently I’m not a fan of them either.

However they have a place in the world and without them we’d be pretty fucked, that much is true. If we want to change the banking system we need to make sure it’s equitable and fair, with no ridiculous APRs (60% anyone?) and no ludicrous charging models (£25 per infraction, come on!).

What we don’t need to do is smash up a bank in Threadneedle Street under the misguided illusion that it’s political activism, it’s not you stupid bitch it’s criminal damage.

That’s not really the way to get the message across is it? People see smashed glass and broken bits of computer and immediately you’ve lost all credibility. It might be that you have any number of amazing points to make about the banking system and how it should be changed but because of what you’ve just done you’re just another lout.

That’s part of the problem though isn’t it? How do you get your message across? Where is the forum for debate?

Well of course there isn’t one. So you get rebellious teenage girls, who’re under some illusion that they’re the bastard love child of Che Guevara and Jeanne d’Arc, smashing up banks.

Saddest part of it is is that she’s being misled by a group of people (the people she more than likely shares her Brighton squat/commune/double decker bus on bricks with) who have as much of an agenda as the bankers and politicians she despises. She’s as much a pawn in their game as she is The Man’s.

Silly girl.

Twitter And The Cult Of Celebrity

I joined Twitter about a year ago and used to really enjoy using it, making the occasional little update here and there, reading my friends updates, engaging in some funny banter, that sort of thing.

Then the celebrities arrived.

The sheer volume of tweets that the likes of Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry post is ridiculous. When you’re reading your Twitter feed on an iPhone and out of all the updates you get ninety five percent of them come from Jonathan Ross and each of those is in reply to some unseen comment, then you get really bored, really quickly.

The Twitter-shitters are one thing but at least they’re funny and/or interesting. It’s when the boring, band wagon jumpers get on board that you have to start worrying. Enter Chris Moyles self styled saviour of Radio One.

Chris Moyles is the least amusing man on the planet but, as I am certain he would point out to me, he does earn way more money than me. I’m fairly certain he’d follow that keen observation up with something about my poxy blog and lack of a breakfast radio show. I guess it’s these two things that makes him think people care about what he has to say.

His show bores me, he bores me and I’m really not interested in anything he has to say so why would I want his boorish, obnoxious musings when I’m on the move? Not only that but everytime he says twittering instead of tweeting (which he does a fair amount on the half hour monologue he does every fucking morning) he’s getting it wrong. No surprise there though is there?

The long and short of it is that I’m going off Twitter, where I was once a staunch advocate. Still I intend to keep tweeting just a little bit longer just to see what happens, I’ve removed all the celebs though, well except Stephen Fry, how could I?

Hen Do’s Terrify Me

I snapped this while I was out getting some coffee the other day.

Hen do. Shudder.

Hen do’s seem to be viewed as a great excuse for overweight heifers to trot around cities they’d never normally dare visit, dressed like chubby prostitutes, shouting their fat northern mouths off and generally indulging in their usual small town, gobshite behaviour, just on a bigger canvas.

There are normally an abundance of cock shaped novelty items floating around too.

Oh and just before any smart arse (Tony I’m looking at you) decides to put a comment on this page about my apostrophe use in ‘do’s’, I’ve checked before.

It’s acceptable as typographical embellishment to add clarity.

So there.

I Can Be Outraged Too!

I feel compelled to complain to the BBC about the cruel mockery, in Fawlty Towers, of Spanish speaking migrant workers.

It is high time that the BBC prevented this sort of thing from happening in the past.

Clearly I would have complained at the time of broadcast back in 1975 but I was not aware of the outrage I would have felt, had I been watching it then, up until recently, when I saw a rerun on UK Gold.

From what I understand it was originally screened on BBC Two in the early evening. This is entirely unacceptable in my opinion.

I demand that the creator of this racist filth and anyone involved in its portrayal be executed and that the BBC pay Spain a fine of at least €1,000,000.

This is probably the only thing that would enable me to sleep at night knowing that racist, so called, ‘comedy’ like this had at some point been created.

What’s more Aubrey Singer, who I believe was controller of BBC Two at the time, should be exhumed and his corpse made to give a public apology.

Death cannot be tolerated as an excuse for allowing this sort of filth onto our television screens 33 years ago.

It is high time the BBC and its disgusting former performers and controllers realised that the very fabric of space and time itself is liable to rip apart should this sort of thing be allowed to happen at unspecified dates in the past.

Brand And Ross: Enemies Of The People

Another week and another ridiculous overblown hoo-hah in the press about some poor sod or other.

This week it’s the turn of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to be on the receiving end of the tabloid press’ moral indignation. How journalists can consider themselves moral is beyond me, still that’s a rant for another day.

As you are no doubt aware by now, given that it’s the top story on every news channel at the moment (wonder if Al Jazeera have covered it?), Russell Brand had Jonathan Ross on his Radio 2 show and they left Andrew Sachs a series of rather misjudged and ill advised answer phone messages.

The gist of it is that Andrew Sachs was due to give an interview on Brand’s show but for one reason or another when he was called they got his answer phone, Brand being Brand and Ross being Ross this lead to an ideal opportunity for a spot of tomfoolery. Let’s be honest though it’s kind of what you expect from a stand up comic who hosts a radio show, we’re not talking about Jimmy Young here are we?

Unfortunately the message got out of hand very quickly and three things happened.

  1. Ross said ‘fucked’.
  2. It was made clear that Brand had slept with Sach’s granddaughter.
  3. An impromptu and bawdy song was sung about the liaison into Sach’s answer phone.

I happened to hear it live and whilst I didn’t think it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard, I didn’t think it was anything that anyone should have lost their job over.

Of course the media being the media were falling over themselves to expose Brand for the filthmongering, sex obsessed, junkie scum bag he so clearly is. I half expect to wake up and read calls for Ross to have his tongue cut out and for Brand to be castrated!

So far the result of all this has been:

  • Russell Brand has resigned.
  • Lesley Douglas has resigned as controller of Radio 2.
  • Jonathan Ross has been suspended for 12 weeks.
  • Gordon Brown has made a statement about it.
  • Amazingly, despite the answer phone message, the world still continues to spin on its axis.

That the show only garnered two complaints at the time of its broadcast, yet has since received over 37,000, stands as testament to the media circus that has developed. Of course most of that can be attributed to the Mail On Sunday’s front page article about it. I think the very fact that only 0.00003% of complaints were received from actual listeners speaks volumes.

Meanwhile Georgina Baillie, the outraged granddaughter in question (you’ll probably know her best as Voluptua from the Satanic Sluts), is rubbing her hands in anticipation of the deals she’ll receive as a result of the publicity.

Judging by the number of videos of her on the news sites already (every one of them with her droning on about how outraged she is, whilst at the same time maintaining her doe eyed, smoky makeup, big-titted temptress look), she’s milking it for every last drop.

All the publicity seems like quite a good return on her initial investment of letting Brand fuck her because he was famous. Of course her new line is that,

I will be speaking to him [Sachs] to ask whether we should complain to the police and we’ll be making the decision as a family.

Oh come on! Let’s put this in perspective, no one died nothing in that call was malicious, stupid yes, malicious no. Is this the best use of police time? Do you think the CPS should even entertain this?

What’s more all of Baillie’s comments around the event are so hollow it’s unbelievable. That they’re being given any form of credence at all astonishes me! The best I’ve come across so far is this belter on the news that Brand and Ross had been suspended.

I’m really happy with the investigation. Me and my grandad are both really happy because it could have damaged our reputation permanently.

Sorry love? Your reputation? What reputation would this be? Your reputation as a woman who flashes her flange for money? Is that the reputation you concerned about damaging?

Please.

I do have a great deal of sympathy for Andrew Sachs, it wasn’t a nice message, I wouldn’t have liked to receive it. At the end of it all though everyone has admitted it was stupid and apologised for it, on top of which Sachs has accepted the apologies. There is no reason for this to be getting the attention it is.

The call that’s causing the outrage is transcribed after the jump if you fancy reading it.
Continue reading ‘Brand And Ross: Enemies Of The People’

Edge. Just A Little Too Pretentious

I’ve always liked reading Edge, it’s got a more mature outlook on gaming and treats it with the same level of respect that film critics treat their field.

This does of course lead to outrageously pretentious bollocks making its way from mind to paper. Witness this belter from a review of Motorstorm: Pacific Rift where, what they are trying to say is that the ground textures are a little indistinct and are made worse by the use of motion blur.

…which blend into amorphousness mere metres ahead. The problem is only exacerbated by excessive motion blur, further serving to muddy the aesthetic…

Oh, do fuck off.

The writer here clearly felt they had to embellish their writing to the point that it was practically unintelligible.

I like reading Edge but it does have a habit of pulling shit like this from time to time. At least it’s better than Gmaes™ which seems to desperately avoid proof reading and basic grammar in favour release deadlines.

Airports: The Modern Ghetto

As you may have noticed from my recent tweets I’ve just spent most of today sitting in airports and scooting up and down the country in a jet.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, when I say scooting up and down the country in a jet I don’t want anyone picturing Led Zeppelin groupie molestation style craziness or any fighter pilot nonsense.

No, no. I mean getting on a flight at the crack of dawn with other earnest young business men to fly to Edinburgh and then getting back on the reverse flight later that day.

Nothing even vaguely cool. Regardless though it’s not the jet bit that’s of interest, it’s the airports.

When Obi-Wan Kenobi (you might know him as old Ben) says: ‘Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.’, he’d clearly never been to East Midlands Airport at five in the morning.

Fuck me! I’ve never seen such a bedraggled bunch of scummy, fake Louis Vuitton toting, Crocs wearing, inbred half wits.

Every single one of them off to the sun to get shit faced, shag other equally unattractive bottom feeders and return home crawling with STDs, happy that they’d had a splendid time.

I’ll say it again because it bears repeating, it was five in the morning. Five in the morning and I saw people drinking Guinness.

I counted three hen parties and two stag do’s. I’m sure there were countless others it was just that I couldn’t help but notice the stag do’s because of their ‘Boys On Tour’ rugby shirts and the hens thanks to their ever so tasteful penis shaped deely-boppers.

There was also a birthday party flying out to Malaga. They were lovely. Over the strains of Metallica’s latest opus I discovered that Angela was ’shagging her man’s best friend’, that her sister thought (in a sing song voice) she was going to get caught out and that ‘her Mam had give her £150′.

Remember that I heard this over the Metallica that was playing through my headphones. I could hear these people discuss their private lives over the sound of heavy metal. Classy.

What does it say about society that when I was called to board at 06:40 I had to ask people to excuse me to get through the queue for the bar?

Good grief, I like a drink but who in their right mind wants to drink Heineken for breakfast?

People Will Be The Death Of Me

So we’ve made it onto our cruise ship and it’s full of fat people and stupid people. Still it’s a break from the norm and who knows I might even get a tan.

I’ve been reminded by a couple of things today, that in the event of an emergency it won’t be any of my actions that will cause me to die, it’ll be other people. I’ll tell you for why.

At 16:30 today we had the mandatory ship evacuation drill. There were three rules.

  1. Keep right at all times.
  2. Go to the muster station printed on your life jacket.
  3. Don’t put your life jacket on

Fairly straight forward, no?

Still, what did about 50% of these chunky, brain dead bastards manage to do?

That’s right, scramble about the corridors in any old fashion headed for the first muster station they saw, with their life jackets on.

For fuck’s sake people it’s not difficult, just follow the instructions, they were clear enough.

I fear for my safety in the event of a proper evacuation, everyone of these bloody idiots will panic and start waving their flabby arms around and the whole system will fall apart.

God help us all.

It’s, Like, So, Like, Random?

I may have tweeted about this a couple of times but people, especially young women, seem to have some kind of affliction that leads them to use like way too much in regular conversation.

It was heartening then, when I saw this amazing poster linked in Digg.

Like, what?

So it is an epidemic!