The folly of democracy

Gordon Brown insists that the Pakistani elections must continue despite the ongoing situation.

Let's examine some of the main opposition candidates:
1) Benazir Bhutto - "I'm feeling rather unwell so I think I'll give it a miss".
2) Nawaz Sharif - "I'm going to boycott the election, no I'm not, yes I am, oh I'll decide on the day".
3) Imran Khan - "Oops, I forgot to submit my nomination before the deadline so I can't stand".

Pakistan is a country that tends to be a lot more stable under military rule, as so-called democratically elected governments always descend into bribery and corruption. Democracy for the sake of democracy is less than pointless.


I must say though, Gordon Brown is better at delivering sombre, post-tragic speeches than his predecessor. Whereas Blair used to put on his fake 'deeply saddened' face, Brown is always miserable anyway, so he looks far more natural.

Happy Christmas, you cheap lousy faggot

Santa was very cross. It was Christmas Eve and nothing was going right. Mrs. Claus had burned all the cookies. The elves were complaining about not getting paid for the overtime they had earned while making toys. The reindeer had been drinking all afternoon and were dead drunk. To make matters worse, they had taken the sleigh out for a spin earlier in the day and had crashed it into a tree. Santa was furious. "I can't believe it! I have to deliver millions of presents all over the world in just a few hours--all of my reindeer are drunk, the elves are on strike, and I don't even have a Christmas tree! I sent that stupid Little Angel out hours ago to find a tree and she isn't even back yet. What am I going to do?"

Just then, the Little Angel opened the front door and stepped in from the snowy night, dragging a Christmas tree. She says, "Yo, fat man! Where do you want me to stick the tree this year?"

And thus the tradition of angels atop the Christmas Tree came to pass.

Petrol head

On the news just now, a motorist at a Chelsea petrol station was asked if he knew that he was buying the most expensive petrol in the country.

"Yes, I know it's expensive, but it's the closest one to where I fill up with petrol"

My bum hurts

The result of the Great Gambit Go-Kart Grand Prix is that my left wrist, right forearm to inner elbow, both buttocks, right lower back, left ankle and right calf are all aching today.

The actual race was won by the red-hot favourite Mr Tethys (a.k.a. Monster of Rock/Moon of Satan/Prince of Darkness) who completed 93 laps in the 50 minute endurance race. He won a bottle of champagne, which he hates because "it tastes of piss".

A good showing from the Operations department to take the other two podium positions - Jasper (90 laps), Norm (88 laps).

Don't feed the frenzy

So another lunatic American has on gone on a killing spree in order to fulfil his desire to be famous. Wouldn't it have been nice if the press had decided not to name him? That would've really pissed him off.

Milk them for all they're worth

On the same day that Tesco have been reprimanded for charging too much money for milk, there's another report criticising them for not charging enough for alcohol.

The moral of the story: have whisky with your cornflakes.

i hang around with more wordy friends now

Snippet of an MSN messenger conversation with my teenage niece yesterday, (her latest web name is "ђєคгt รђคקє๔ ๒гยเรєร คภ๔ lคtє ภเﻮђt кเรรєร"):


ђєคгt รђคקє๔ ๒гยเรєร คภ๔ lคtє ภเﻮђt кเรรєร says:
i don't hang around with my chavvy friends any more

mister guts says:
Why not?

ђєคгt รђคקє๔ ๒гยเรєร คภ๔ lคtє ภเﻮђt кเรรєร says:
i'm a few syllables above them.

My wings are like a shield of steel

During the tea break in Kandy, I was flicking through the channels on my TV, fully expecting not to find anything interesting. How wrong I was. Who says there's nothing good on daytime TV?

There were documentaries:
When Disaster Strikes - examining the toxic mould phenomenon plaguing the US.
How It's Made - revealing how everyday items are made. This week: Carousel horses.

There were game-shows:
Takeshi's Castle - I'm not quite sure of the rules, and nor is Craig Charles on commentary.
Iron Chef America - I'm not quite sure of the rules but I think it's all about two sweaty teams of chefs preparing dozens of dishes amidst much shouting and high-fiving.
Extreme Dodgeball - I'm not quite sure of the rules but I think it's all about throwing a ball at your opponents amidst much shouting and high-fiving.

There was drama:
Bergerac - Jim intervenes in a dispute between two families.
Hercules - Legendary Journeys - Lots of big hair and bad acting.

And there was Batfink.

Travel advice

I have some advice for drivers who want to drive from West London to South West London. Go via Aldershot. It won't be pretty, but it will save you time.

I drove from Aldershot to Aldershot yesterday, in 3 legs.

1) Aldershot to Northolt (38 miles) took 45 minutes

2) Northolt to Wimbledon (15 miles) took 110 minutes

3) Wimbledon to Aldershot (32 miles) took 45 minutes


People often ask me why I don't own a car. Well I suppose I could pay lots of money for the privilege of sitting in traffic for hours, whilst refraining from reading, drinking, sleeping and crashing into other cars. But I won't bother for now.

Data magicians

Apparently HMRC officials didn't remove sensitive information before they decided to lose a disk full of data because it would have cost too much time and money. Having worked quite a lot with SQL database queries recently, I can fully sympathise.

Typing...

SELECT * FROM BIGDATABASE;

takes far fewer keystrokes than...

SELECT FIELD1, FIELD2, FIELD3 FROM BIGDATABASE;

Doing a Matthew

Went to a TNS leaving do on Friday. The most common question asked of me by ex-colleagues was, "So what are you up to these days, are you doing a Matthew?"

Is that a dance or something?

Should I stay or should I go?

Reasons why Sir Ian Blair shouldn't resign in the wake of the Menezes shooting:

July 15th - no-one died
July 16th - no-one died
July 17th - no-one died
July 18th - no-one died
July 19th - no-one died
July 20th - no-one died
July 21st - no-one died
July 22nd - someone died
July 23rd - no-one died
July 24th - no-one died
July 25th - no-one died
July 26th - no-one died
July 27th - no-one died

....I could go on.

What price the mule?

Apparently we all drink too much alcohol. I've been listening to various suggestions as to how we should tackle this particular demon.

1) Increase tax on alcohol.
Obviously a few extra pence on a pint will stop everyone from drinking

2) Increase the legal drinking age to 23.
Clearly teenagers aren't resourceful enough to find ways to get hold of alcohol

3) Decrease the legal drinking age to 13.
"That will stop it from going underground"

4) Don't let advertisers make alcohol so appealing.
Apparently it's up to advertisers to try not to sell their product

5) Prohibition.
If in doubt, just ban it

But by far the best one..

6) Give everyone vouchers for a certain number of units a week, which they need to display when buying alcohol. Brilliant.

I wonder how transferable these vouchers are, as I'm sure I would make it a personal mission to use up all my family's spare weekly units.

Big up the Peach

There was some English sporting success over the weekend, which seems to have passed most people by. Daryl Peach won the World 9-ball championship in Manila, the first Briton ever to do so.

I look forward to seeing his open-top bus parade when he returns home.

A day in the other office

Last week I spent a day in the traders' office rather than the usual geeks' office. It was no less perplexing, though extremely entertaining. Most conversations were something like the following:

字意字漢字かん字形漢한漢字形字意字じ漢字
意じHahahaha Robbie Keane hahahahaha 形形じ漢字形じ漢字
会象形字か字漢字漢象形한じ形字漢意字じ漢字
意会意字 Muthafaakaah 象形字字かん象字漢じ漢字
字象形漢字한자かじ漢象字字한漢한字象한じ漢象形漢意
字漢形漢한字象象字意Yayaya Spartak Moscow penalty形字漢字
字会意象形字한자んじ漢字字漢字形意字じ漢字
會Aaah shit, lost ten thousand dollaah 意字字字한象じ漢字
意字会字象漢字かじ字形漢한漢한象形한じ字字


[NB The Chinese characters above are intended to represent generic Cantonese chit-chat. Any offence caused by their actual meaning is purely coincidental/serendipitous.]

They don't make cricketers like they used to

Well done to the caption writer on the BBC website ...


"Gatting's new role is wide-reaching"

Vagrant of the day

Without wishing to give the impression that I'm spending all my time carousing with London's homeless community, I've just met an entertaining fellow on Turnham Green. Some of his words of wisdom:

"Today's not yesterday, and yesterday's not today, that's all you need to know"

"So I said to him, excuse me sir, can I marry your daughters."

"I have a short memory. It's good to have a short memory, 'cos that means you never forget"


I think I impressed him - he said to me: "I like you, you're a sarcastic bastard."

Most surprising response ever

Whilst wandering in the West End, I was passing an old sozzled, dishevelled tramp in a doorway. He was approached by a younger but equally sozzled and dishevelled colleague:

"Where's the nearest off licence mate?"
"Dunno mate"

Mind the Gap

So Gap have announced that they will destroy the clothes that were made for them in sweatshops in India. Precisely what does this achieve? Surely it would be more sensible to either donate the clothes to the needy children and their families, or to sell them as normal and then donate the profits accordingly.

I do wonder how many of the people who jumped onto the morality bandwagon, demanding the destruction of the clothes, are the same people who like to jump on the 'we should recycle more' bandwagon.

Incidentally, what is a bandwagon, and why do people like to jump onto it?

Bad day to bury bad news

There's no news today. I've just been listening to a radio phone-in show and these were the main issues:

- People will be discouraged from driving to the 2012 Olympics. No shit.

- Crack cocaine use may be more widespread than official statistics suggest. No shit.

- Supermarkets use too much packaging. Some are worse than others. No shit.

- The announcement of civil service job cuts leads to disgruntlement from staff. No shit.

- If Spurs continue to lose, Martin Jol's job may come under scrutiny. No shit.

- Didier Drogba claims he is happy at the club that pays him large amounts of money. No shit.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Mr Miserable - listen to 'Down the Line' instead.
Fortunately, he hates it when people agree with him.