Archive for August, 2010

I am a child abuser

August 11th, 2010

I really am getting very tired of all this.

Yet another wanker is adding his name to the list of Health Nazis.

No less a person than the Chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners is giving everyone a slap on the wrist and, what’s worse, is accusing every parent of being a child abuser.

According to Professor Field, smoking in front of small children in a car, is a form of child abuse.  If you are overweight then you are abusing your offspring.  But then, by the same logic, you are committing child abuse just by having your child in the car in the first place?  Cars are dangerous things, so the act of bringing your child for a drive is putting that child in danger of injury or death.  In fact, having a child at all is child abuse by Field’s definition, because that child is condemned to death from the moment it’s born.  Conceiving a child in the sure knowledge that that child is going to die [after a normal lifespan] is surely the most heinous act of abuse?

Field is one of those arseholes who is of the opinion that we should all live our lives with the sole purpose of being healthy.  His world is a world of plenty exercise, healthy diet and no alcohol or tobacco.  In other words, a miserable fucking world where we live like Stepford wives and endure our misery in the knowledge that it is ‘for our own good’.

What worries me about all of this is that fuckwads like Field are getting unquestioned publicity with stunts like this.  Just because he is a fucking professor, people lap up every word.  Even worse, his idiotic thoughts have a nasty tendency to become government policy.

If I were a young lad, I would be very very worried by all these unchallenged statements.  They are going to lead to a world that would be the envy of any horror science fiction writer.  I am talking about a world where children will be immediately removed from their parents if the parents aren’t feeding that child a properly regulated, government approved diet.  I am talking about a world where CCTV monitors all families within their homes in case they do anything that may cause a potential hazard in that child’s future.

You laugh.  That will never happen, you say.  I am being melodramatic, you sneer.

Twenty years ago, you all would have laughed if I had suggested that smoking would be banned virtually everywhere?  Twenty years ago you would have said I was scaremongering if I said that people would be refused life saving operations because they smoked or were too fat?

You mark my words.  We are rapidly heading for a world that would make North Korea look like a holiday camp – a world where every move we make is monitored [for our own safety] and where all our food has to be approved [for the sake of our health].  We will be encouraged to spy on our neighbours and to report them if they transgress government regulations.  Anything deemed to be high risk [which includes most, if not all leisure activities] will be banned.

We will be miserable.

We will be terrified of putting a foot wrong.

But we will be healthy.

Wherefore art thou Tobacconist?

August 10th, 2010

One of the signs of a civilised society seems to have vanished almost entirely from the landscape.

I refer of course to the Tobacconist.

I’m not talking about the sweetshop come newsagent that sells fags as a sideline.  No.  I am talking about the shop that is dedicated to that bastion of the cultured world – the smoker.

There was a time when you could walk through a town in the sure knowledge that you would come across a tobacco emporium.  These shops sold cigarettes, of course, but they also had a wonderful selection of pipe tobacco, cigars and snuff, and the walls would be lined with glass cases containing pipes, lighters and other delightful items.

I remember once coming across a shop in Tralee, in Kerry that was a haven for the smoker.  It was a tiny dark shop, with an old woman behind the counter.  The aroma in the shop rivalled the smell of freshly cut hay.  That shop sold just about every known brand of cigarette or tobacco known to man and beast.  It was a wonderful place.  Sadly, as far as I know, the only remaining outposts of the smoking world that remain are in the city centre, and I ain’t goin’ there.

Smoking a pipe isn’t just about sticking it in your mouth and puffing it.  It has to be lit, and cleaned as well.  Walk into any modern shop and ask for pipe cleaners, and you’ll be met with a blank stare. The only lighters available are those horrid disposable yokes.

I am tired of those disposable pieces of crap.  I would like a decent refillable lighter, but where do I get one?  Decent lighters are surprisingly rare these days.

I suppose I will have to resort to the Interweb again.

I hate to buy things I haven’t seen with my own eyes first.

There are times when the modern world is a massive pain in the hole.

*sigh*

Of chests, nuts and chestnuts

August 9th, 2010

I see that tedious old chestnut is doing the rounds again.

Ireland’s ranking for female politicians is dismal.”

I don’t know what they are worried about.

Every single member of our government is a useless cunt.

Citzalia

August 8th, 2010

Have you heard of Citzalia?

I hadn’t until yesterday.

So what is this Citzalia?  Well, to use their own words it is –

Democracy in action: whether you’re a student, a journalist, or even an MEP, there is a role for you to play in this virtual version of the European Parliament.”

Yup.  Citzalia is a role playing computer game. 

Now, I have nothing against games, though I don’t tend to play many, and have dabbled in the past in such games as SimCity and The Sims.  This one however is different.  You see, it’s based on the European Parliament and the writers are all excited about how you might even recognise some of the buildings.  Even more startling, this game was commissioned by the European Parliament themselves at a cost of somewhere between €250,000 and €4,000,000.

What are the European Parliament commissioning games for, you ask?

It’s quite simple really.

Having built themselves up into one of the most undemocratic institutions on the planet, they are now giving us a say.  They are letting us propose resolutions and vote on them.  The snag is that it is a fucking game, and fuck all to do with reality.  It is a virtual world.  Having robbed nearly all Europe of the democratic vote in the Lisbon fiasco, they are returning the right to vote in a fucking game?

I would like to know just how realistic this game is.  Am I going to be able to grant myself an exorbitant wage?  Am I going to be able to claim massive allowances for playing [whether I actually play or not]?  Am I going to be able to fuck over whole nations by imposing secret laws on them, through the back door?  Am I going to have access to enormous quantities of cash that I can then lose so no one knows where it is gone?

Maybe this is the view of the ruling elite?  Maybe they think that as long as we have a fucking game to play with, that we won’t notice what’s going on in the real world?  We will be so busy shoving our little fucking avatars around the screen that we won’t see the hundreds of new laws and taxes imposed on us by Brussels?

The EU are all excited about this game and how we are all going to love it.

“Let them eat cake” they say.

They can go fuck themselves.

I’m about as happy as a pizza on Mary Harney’s plate.

Wiping a snatch

August 7th, 2010

Occasionally, I get a snatch of music running through my hesd.

Depending on the piece, I’m not usually too bothered by it.  Sometimes it’s a nice piece, and sometimes it’s a piece I could do without.

The worst is when it’s a fucking advertising jingle.  That really annoys me, and it’s one of the many reasons I mute advertisements on the television.  Unfortunately, I can’t do that on the radio, as I then don’t know when the ad break ends, so I have to suffer those commercial inanities.

If a piece begins to annoy me, I find I have to go off searching for it on the Interweb, where I play it a couple of times, and that does the trick.  But suppose I don’t know what the piece is?  Or even worse, suppose it is an advertisement?  I’ll be fucked if I’m going to search the Interweb foe some fucking advertisement.  So now I have some snatch of music running through my head, and I don’t know what to do with it.

A long time ago, I was in such a dilemma.  It was a strange but haunting piece of music, and I eventually managed to track it down.  I played it and that cured the snatch.

A while after that, I fell foul of some other rhythm that I couldn’t identify, so in desperation, I played my strange piece in the hopes that it would replace whatever was in my head.  It didn’t.  It erased it altogether.

I keep my haunting little piece to hand now.  If ever I am troubled by any repetitive snatch, I play my wee sound track.  It never fails.  It erases both the irritating piece, and also itself.  I am left with a clear, unmelodic head.

Now, I know what the piece is called, and who plays it, but do you?

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