Tumble…? Oh, for f**k's sake!

There is, I hope, a dark and stinking, cockroach-infested pit in the deepest part of Hades for those people at the BBC (and at all the other channels) who seem hell-bent on subjecting us to an endless stream of utterly shite 'celebrity entertainment' programmes on Saturday evenings.
Personally, I'm sick to the back teeth and beyond with the never-ending procession of so-called celebrities on which these imagination-less TV executives spend the license-fee-payers hard earned cash…and whilst were on the subject, I reiterate my hatred at the way the word 'celebrity' has been bastardised so that where it once related to people or things that were genuinely worth celebrating, it is now a catch-all for that despicable breed of utterly vacuous, talentless, publicity-seeking parasites that seem to now exist solely as 'contestants' on such total bollocks as Celebrity Big Brother and I'm a Pointless Twat, Get Me out of Here!
If Strictly Come Dancing wasn't bad enough (and how I loathe to my core the way all the luvvies at the Beeb now refer to it as 'Strictly'), we also had all that fucking nonsense with ice skating (where Torvill & Dean sold their souls to Beelzebub).
And then, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse…?
Tumble.
Oh, for fuck's sake, spare me!
A bunch of has-beens, ex-whatevers and should-know-better sportspeople trying to master…what is it this time…?
Gymnastics.

It's no doubt the same formula as all the other crap we've been subjected to for the last God-knows-how-long. Tedious footage of the contestants and their trainers (whom several will no doubt be allegedly shagging by the end of the series, because gossip creates interest creates viewers) - then the 'prance off', followed by the mindless ramblings of pompous, preening, self-important judges before some supposedly momentous final decision (about which no-one really gives a shit)…but, of course, not before there's that utterly infuriating ten-seconds-too-long pause that is supposed to build tension but only results in people eventually shouting 'Oh, for fuck's sake, get on with it!' at the TV. On Celebrity Masterchef, a 'pause for effect' in the last series actually lasted two minutes and twenty seconds, I swear to God!!
Oh, and don't forget the voting...

So what's next, you begin to wonder? What else can those tits at the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 come up with for 'celebrities' to have a go at for our supposed delectation and entertainment?
Well, at the risk of someone actually taking one of these seriously, here are my suggestions:
Bleed - a group of celebrities are invited to work in A&E and are judged on their abilities to stitch up wounds, take blood, mop up vomit and do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Coffin - oh, how we'll laugh as we watch our celebrities have a go at undertaking.
Plod - after three weeks 'intensive' training, a group of ten celebrities are kitted out with a nightstick and a  whistle and asked to deal with drunken louts and tarts on Saturday nights in a selection of Britain's inner cities. Guest judge will be John Stalker.
Boom - 13 celebrities have a go at mastering the art of bomb disposal. At the end of each show there's a  live IED for the celebrities to defuse…possibly no need for judges, as it'll be pretty obvious as to who hasn't got it right!
Air - a dozen celebs learn how to keep the planes from crashing into each other in the skies over Heathrow.
Feel free to suggest your own!

Why so much f**king talking???

Just a couple of days in to the 2014 Commonwealth Games from Glasgow and I'm already frustrated.
Why?
So   much   fucking   talking!!!!
Take yesterday evening, for example, at the swimming. We have a minute or two of athletes battling for gold, silver and bronze…and then we have to endure something like ten minutes of Claire 'I'm Everywhere' Balding, along with Mark Foster and Rebecca Adlington, prattling on inanely, trying (and failing) to offer insightful  and thoughtful comment...
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for useful and informative explanations which enlighten me about why one individual has succeeded whilst another has failed; something in their technique, perhaps, or in their mental or physical preparation. The problem is, with the BBC and all its countless commentators and summarisers (and there must be hundreds of them), is that that sort of perceptive analysis is virtually non-existent.
Instead, all we get is the grinning, gurneying experts spouting a seemingly endless torrent of tired old cliches about such-and-such having 'run her own race' or such-and-such having 'been unlucky' or 'not been their day'. Christ, it's only a matter of time before one of them says 'the boy done good'.
So, come on, BBC - if you're going to spend tens of thousands of pounds of license-fee-payers money on this never-ending procession of past champions and medallists, then at least let's give them the opportunity to 'thrill us with their acumen'. Otherwise, cut the pointless chit-chat and show us more of the sport that's going on.

Why Dave secretly wants the Scots to vote YES

I've made a point of staying pretty quiet on the thorny issue of Scottish independence…
...and I'm going to continue to do so, at least from the perspective of whether I think it is a good idea or not (too many vested interests, and relatives, north of the border, I guess!)

Instead, I'm going to enter into the debate from a totally non-personal perspective and suggest something just a little bit controversial; that is that although good old David 'hug a hoodie' Cameron is openly supporting the 'Better Together' campaign (fronted by Alistair 'my eyebrows down match' Darling because he has a Scottish accent and isn't Gordon Brown), the Prime Minister is, in fact, secretly praying that the Scots vote YES on the 18th September.
Why?
Well, just have a look at this graphic, which I've copied from the following BBC website:
Scottish independence: How would the UK fare without Scotland?

Now do you see what I'm getting at?
From David Cameron's perspective, it boils down to a couple of simple equations:
   UK + Scotland = most of the power
   UK - Scotland = ALL of the power (and no need to listen to Nick Clegg anymore!)

So would a downsized UK with a Tory majority be better or worse than what we have now?
Who knows?
But one thing I am sure of - if Scotland do decide to go it alone on the 18th September, the rest of us in the UK are sure as hell going to find out!

A missing portrait and the true cost of Rolf and Jimmy

Just a quick update regarding the question I asked yesterday about what would happen to Rolf Harris' portrait of the Queen.
Well, it looks as though someone at the BBC (who no doubt read my blog) has asked the same question:

The BBC article

The BBC doesn't have it.
The Palace doesn't have it.
Apparently, it was last seen in Liverpool in 2012, but then of course an awful lot of things were 'last seen in Liverpool' by their owners…

There is a wider question here though.
There will, in the aftermath of the Harris conviction, be the inevitable clamour for compensation (and the equally inevitable emergence of a mix of genuine victims and those grubby and morally vacant freaks looking to make a quick buck) - and to pay for that compensation, most , if not all, of the Harris estate will need to be sold.
All of which is fine and is something I agree with. People have to pay for their crimes.
What I don't agree with, however, is the worrying precedent set recently with regards to potential compensation for the victims of Jimmy Savile. A High Court ruling has said that victims can make claims of up to £60,000 from either Savile's estate, the BBC or the NHS. Health Secretary Jeremy (rhymes with) Hunt has said that all claims made against the NHS will be paid out of the public purse (and as the BBC is funded by the public through the licence fee, then we'll be paying for any claims against that organisation as well). Savile's estate of £3.3m has already been all but swallowed up by legal leeches, so it's almost certain that claims that would have been made against his estate will be altered so that either the Beeb or the Health Service is seen as culpable. All of which means that Savile, and probably Harris, and maybe countless other paedos who have yet to be unearthed, could add to their list of victims the names of patients denied life-saving medicines or made to wait an extra couple of months for treatment because the NHS has had to fork out millions in compensation for what they've done.

ps I was also going to add a glib remark about the rest of us being victims as well because the BBC will have even less money with which to make half-decent TV programmes; but as they've only been able to produce reality TV shite for the last few years (e.g. The Voice), and would probably have spent that money on pay-offs for top executives, I'm not sure that's anything to get worked up about.

But what exactly IS 'Poverty', Archbishop?

I've moved away from football and instead I'm going to talk about a profoundly important social issue. This of course means that 90% of the people who've been reading my blog recently will go elsewhere for their entertainment, but if I'm to stay true to my aims that this blog should be about what I want to talk about, then that's a price I'm just going to have to pay.

Today there's been an article on the news about how it is, according to Dr John Sentamu (he's the Archbishop of York, by the way) a national scandal that there are millions of people 'working and still living in poverty' because employers are not paying what is termed 'a living wage'.
Living Wage Article on BBC
For those of you who are unaware of what 'a living wage' is, it is (according to the official Living Wage website), 'calculated according to the basic cost of living'. In the UK this is £7.65 an hour, or £8.80 if you live in London. This compares to the minimum wage which is currently £6.31 an hour.

You see, it's the use of the word 'poverty'. What exactly do we mean by this word?
Well, the problem with the word poverty is that it's a relative term - people can be in poverty in relation to their local peers here in the UK because they haven't had a holiday for a year or can't afford an X-Box One or can only afford fish twice a week, but in comparison to people in another country (choose any sub-Saharan hell-hole stricken by famine for the last decade) then the fact they've got food and shelter and clothes and some comforts to enjoy, means they're probably not all that badly off after all, and they certainly aren't in 'poverty'.
Which is where the idea of equating 'poverty' (which Dr Sentamu has done) with being below the basic standard of living (or minimum income standard) is a dangerous thing to do.
Calculate your minimum income standard
Now I had a go at determining what my minimum income standard should be, posing as a couple with no children (because it won't calculate if you say you have others over 18 living at home, which is weird); it says the income we need for a 'basic standard of living' is £26,211. Included in that are:

• £16.65 per week for alcohol (yes, per week!!)
• £19.94 per week for clothing
• £22.27 per week for personal goods and services (whatever they are) and
• £74.73 per week for 'social and cultural activities'!!

And this is the problem. To say that a couple is 'in poverty' because they can't afford to spend £16.65 each week on booze and £74.73 on cultural activities is, in all honesty, an insult to those people who really do struggle to make ends meet, who really don't have enough money to live on and heat their homes and eat healthily.

So until people start differentiating between 'poverty' and 'a lower standard of living' (and yes, I'm talking to you Archbishop!) then we're always going to skew the debate on how much people who are working should earn, which, by the way, should ALWAYS be significantly more than anyone who isn't…but that's fodder for a future blog, methinks.

David Truscott - the man who puts the shit in fetishist

I've tried starting this post eight different ways as a means of introducing this news item but, to be honest, nothing I write can possibly embellish this story regarding what is probably the most disgusting man I have ever heard about.
So, rather than me rambling on inanely, I'll just let you read about it - click on the news headline link below:

Cow slurry fetishist David Truscott given jail term

Please, save me from the BBC's coverage of the Royal Baby!

Now I don't want to sound churlish...actually, that's bollocks, because I actually do want to sound churlish...but not about the Royal Baby itself. Personally, I think it's great that old Wills and Kate have had a healthy baby, and good luck to them!
No, what I want to sound churlish about is the way the bloody BBC has gone absolutely and totally over-the-top in their coverage of the royal birth. I mean, we've got old Nick Witchell outside the hospital, musing about anything from the colour of the babies robes to what's happened to the royal placenta, endless interviews with various doctors and nurses (most of whom clearly had nothing to do with the birth), more correspondents outside Kate's parent's house and Kensington Palace giving their 'opinions' on things they can't possibly have a clue about, more interminable interviews with people who seem to have nothing better to do than stand around all day outside Buckingham Palace, an endless procession of 'quirky' stories about people with dogs named Wills and Kate giving birth to puppies on the same day (spooky) and how the birth is being celebrated by children on the Orkneys (as if anyone except the people on the Orkneys actually give a toss!), astrologers telling us what the prince's lucky number and favourite colour will be, blah, blah, blah...and then, to cap it all, we get the 10 o'clock news presented live from in front of Buckingham Palace because that £26 million studio that the BBC have just spent licence-payers money on simply won't do!
In the next few days, we will no doubt have to contend with a 1-hour BBC special in which various celebrities voice their vacuous opinions about the joys and pitfalls of parenthood, followed by a detailed analysis of the baby's features so we will know if he's going to have a bald patch before he reaches 30, then another BBC 'in-depth analysis' of what someone thinks the baby may be fed on, followed by yet another BBC 'in-depth analysis' on what the Royal nursery will contain (apart from a shed load of nannies), and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

And then, just when you think it's all dying down and we can all return to some semblence of normality, the BBC will start gearing up for the Christening, with yet more pointless musings about possible names, what such names might signify, how the letters of the name, when re-arranged, actually spell out an address in Basingstoke...

I guess this all means that, for the time being at least, I'll steer clear of the Bouncing Baby Channel and watch something else instead.
I suggest, for your sanity, you do the same.

So much rant-fodder to choose from...

Well, I've been absent from the blog-iverse for a few days, partly down to having spent a couple of days in the Lake District, and partly because of technological malfunction...and whilst my absence may have left blog followers fearing the worst (or the best, depending upon your bent), the return to the blog after even just this short period of no-blogginess has highlighted to me what an absolute wealth of riches exist in this wonderfully mad and vibrant world of ours on which to comment, about which to moan, or from which to merciless take the proverbial piss.
For instance, we have:

• the first Ashes test and the fact that, for four days, the Australians somehow managed to smuggle a Marais Erasmus lookalike (allegedly from a small town just north of Wollongong) into the third umpire's seat (whereupon he missed a glaring stumping of the Australian wonder-kid named after a type of laboratory jelly and then gave Trotty out even though he couldn't actually check whether he'd hit the ball or not...which is pretty fundamental, methinks) whilst the real Marais Erasmus (who only returned in time to give the last Australian batsman out) was held hostage in a small bungalow on the outskirts of Nottingham, not far from the M1;
• the news that the BBC have spent my licence-fee money (and that of a shed-load of other people as well) on three investigations into why nobody at the BBC spotted that Jimmy Savile was a paedo;
• and still on the BBC, news on severance packages which make me hope (in vain, I suspect) that my current employers would be as generous as the BBC Board in calculating any payout I will get should my services no longer be required;
• and, of course, there's the ongoing nonsense of the European Convention on Human Rights and the fact that, according to the idiot judges in Brussels, we in Britain are not even now within our rights to tell psychotic murderers that they are going to die in prison, because that is seen as 'inhumane' (though not, I suggest, as inhumane as the way Jeremy Bamber butchered five members of his own family...but, then again, the law doesn't really give a toss about the victims of crime, does it...only the perpetrators).

And that's just a few of the things that I could easily rant on about!

There was, however, one story that I thought worthy of a bit of vitriol today, and that's the fact that the government has (at long, fucking last) put a cap on the amount of benefits that non-working families are entitled to...shame it's still so ridiculously high at £26,000 (and remember, that's £26,000 tax-free).
There is talk of getting it down to £20,000 (only talk, mind you), but I maintain that until it is lower than the minimum amount of money that a working family are able to bring home (after tax), sponging off the State will still be seen as a positive career choice for an awful lot of feckless individuals who bizarrely believe they have some God-given right to sit on their arses watching (and dreaming about appearing on) Jeremy Kyle whilst the rest of us have to get up everyday and go and do an honest day's labour (even though we might prefer to spend that day lounging in the garden!).
Even in the most benevolent of societies, the benefits system should be nothing more than a safety net to ensure that those without work, or those genuinely unable to work, are kept healthy, sheltered and fed...but nothing more. It should not, must not, provide them with holidays or Playstations or 70" plasma TVs...such things should be the material rewards for those with the motivation and determination to get a fucking job!

There, rant over...and, by Jove, it did feel good...