2010
Basement Jack articles from 2010.
Land of Hope and Glory
Did I miss a meeting, a referendum even? When did it get decided to entitle the previous decade the 'noughties'? You can almost hear the adolescent sniggers from the brainless gimboid responsible for that abomination. It's only missing Kenneth Williams and a dozen utterances of "Oo-er Mrs" to reduce the combined events of ten years to a Carry On film. It is exceeded in its crass impropriety only by the suggested names for our new decade, which include the 'Tweenies' and 'Teenies'. Jesus. It's the first day of the first week back in the new year and already I want to punch existence in the solar plexus and twist its nipple till it bleeds. This mood was not much alleviated by the arrival of another season of meteorological hysteria, nor indeed by the prospect of a torturous six-month run up to the general election.
16 January 2010Minding our manners
It has been my recent pleasure to have engaged in some work with folk from the other side of the Atlantic - Americans, if you will. Being the most disgusting snob, I had entered into this arrangement with a certain amount of reserve let's say. It wasn't that I thought it was going to be all "Golly gee I just love your accent, are you from Lye-cester-shire?" Nor was I concerned about finding myself being plied with nylons, Hershey bars and inaccurate spellings of aluminium by crass and overbearing loudmouths. No, no, no, any enlightened denizen of the Teenies would recognise these as outdated, inaccurate stereotypes.
01 February 2010The calls of the wild
"There's a voice, it keeps on calling me. Down the phone, that's where they'll always be. Every call they make, they lose a new friend. Can't stay for long, just say 'P*ss off' and they're gone again. Maybe tomorrow they'll stop their c**king calls. If I ever caught them, I'd knee them in the balls."
13 February 2010Vice in virtue Virtue in Vice
Every now and again the world makes up for the morose grind and tedium served up under the working title 'Life'. Just once in a while we each get a little gift, a tiny nugget of delight that keeps us grinning like celebrity divorce lawyers. Just such a zinger hit the magazine's inbox this last week and there was much rejoicing. Yea verily. Not since that Northumbrian farmer sprayed four tonnes of slurry over a branch of NatWest Bank with which he had a significant grievance has a news story provoked such enjoyment. It contained the holy trinity of news stories - sex, celebrity and politics - with a welcome, piquant dash of the surreal.
01 March 2010Limps, gimps and a cockerel named dude
If this latest monologue takes on a slightly unusual tone, it may be something to do with the fact that today, as I type, I am not only in a good deal of pain but I am also entirely unable to turn my head to the left (without shrieking like a five-year-old girl anyway). I can't look left, I can't even turn left without shuffling around in the fashion of a brain-fetching horror film gimp in search of a mad scientist. Like the great Derek Zoolander, I am no longer an ambiturner...and I don't even have Blue Steel or Le Tigre as consolation. Adding real insult to actual injury, I have no idea how this ludicrous affliction came to pass. I woke up, I breakfasted, I sat down to work and wallop! Something was French plaiting the muscles in my neck and shoulders.
13 March 2010Hanlon's razor vs Clark's Law
Pondering the human potential for stupidity is something of a hobby - it's almost inescapable given new and varied examples that arise every day of every year. And as hobbies go it's also a lot less expensive than golf. In pursuit of this pastime I have discovered a world of like-minded souls who also like to contemplate our species' capacity for underachievement. Not only that but there are actual laws pertaining to stupidity! For anyone prone to shortness of temper, of which I have on occasion been accused, two such laws particularly strike a chord:
01 April 2010Are we nearly there yet?
Being offered the choice between Gordon Brown and David Cameron is the political equivalent of choosing between being punched in the crotch with an iron gauntlet or a stone club. Neither option is particularly appealing and both are liable to bring tears to the eyes and a sick feeling to the stomach. Just for giggles we have the added spectacle of Nick Clegg hopping up and down like an over-excited Jack Russell at the prospect of having some actual influence - unfamiliar territory for Lib Dem leaders. Just so long as he doesn't piddle on the couch I guess...
17 April 2010Eyjafjallajokull vs Clegg - the real clash of the titans
Who would be a bookmaker? Really, what were the odds that our existence would become so saturated by an entirely unpronounceable Icelandic volcano and a Lib Dem leader who, if he doesn't become Prime Minister looks set for a career in Hollywood? A few weeks back either scenario would have seemed laughable and yet here we are. With any luck (and in all likelihood) by the time you are reading this a certain amount of normality will have been restored; talk of Iceland will again return to the retailer's mean line in party platters and Nick Clegg will return to being the political equivalent of a malted milk biscuit - a little bit dull, a little bit beige and no-one's first choice.
01 May 2010Service with a sneer
As sure as I am that scratch and sniff underwear is a fundamentally flawed fashion concept, so too am I convinced that automatic self-serve tills at supermarkets are good for nothing and nobody - save those with a taste for irritation. They are quite simply devices of the Devil or whichever demon of the Pit oversees getting on people's nerves and fraying tempers.
15 May 2010By the sport divided
Just as we are getting over all that horrible politics business that carved the nation into its various rival tribes, a further raft of rifts is fast flowing towards us. Why so? Well, June and July are set to be a feast, nay a festival, of sporting goodness meaning once again that supplies of war paint are going to be placed under serious strain. Thankfully at the conclusion of the various contests to come the victors are unlikely to skip off hand-in-hand with those in third place saying they'd always been best friends really.
01 June 2010
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