Head Rambles

Grandad May 29th, 2009

I have been looking forward to this day for a long time.

Ten years in fact.

You see, Herself developed a fondness for the Late Late Show back in the glory days when it was inventing sex and generally causing outrage.

Then The Plank took over, but for some reason her fascination didn’t dwindle that much.  Now she hates The Plank almost as much as I do, but every Friday night she has this strange compulsion to switch over ‘just to see what’s on’.  When she does switch over it is nearly always The Plank making a complete arse of himself with some incredibly boring twat, but that doesn’t stop her doing it.

There have been many Friday evenings where the basball bat met the frying pan in a struggle for the remote control, and I suppose those fun days are over now.

Today, The Plank walks.

It is truly a momentous occasion for Irish Television, and for myself, as I will finally be able to come off my Friday doses of Prozac and Valium. 

I will possibly even watch the last show.

I know it is going to have an astronomically high cringe factor, and doubtless lots of people are going to sing Plank’s praises.  However I know that they are all just saying that for the cameras, and that underneath, they are as glad to see the back of him as I am.

We have yet to see what kind of fist young Twiglet Tubridy will make of it.  He too will probably make a hames of the whole thing.  Unfortunately, I shall miss his baptism as I shall be out of the country in September.

I shall miss The Plank.

His very presence raised the standards of all other programmes.

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Grandad April 3rd, 2009

I phoned Sky Television yesterday.

I don’t often phone them and had forgotten that they have a rather messy menu system on their phone.

I was asked if I was a new customer, an existing customer, an old customer returning to the fold or someone who was just moving house.  I told them I was an existing customer.

I was then given a bewildering array of options, none of which seemed to fit my purposes, so I pressed 7 for ‘other’.  That brought me back to the start again.

I pressed a few numbers at random and ended up talking to a rather tasty sounding girl.  She asked me the usual questions, such as my name, address, what I had for breakfast, what I thought of the G20 talks, and eventually she asked me what I wanted.

I said I wanted to complain about the utter shite on all the channels.  I said that out of all the five hundred or so channels I had available, there was nothing worth while watching on any of them. 

‘You are not happy with the content of the channels?’ she asked.

‘That’s it,’ I said.  ‘They are all crap.’

‘But we only supply the channels.  The broadcasters provide the content.  You would need to complain to them.’

‘No,’ I said.  ‘They are the manufacturers, and you are the supplier, and under the Sale of Goods Act it is the supplier who is responsible.’

She thought about this for a moment and suggested that I subscribe to the Sports Package.

‘I hate sports,’ I said.

There was a long pause.

Eventually she spoke.  ‘You hate sports?’

‘Yup,’ I replied.  ‘Football is the worst but any sport is a complete waste of time.’

‘That is the fist time in my life that I have ever heard a man say that.  Could you repeat it?’

‘I fucking hate sport,’ I said obligingly.

For some reason, she went off into a fit of giggles and it was about two minutes before she could speak again.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ says she.  ‘I never thought I would hear that.  You are unique.’

She got that bit right.

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Grandad March 28th, 2009

I watched the Late Late Show last night.

Well – you never know what strange or startling things you might miss?

At the end of the first segment, which was so boring, I can’t even remember what it was about, Plank gave one of his witty little teasers -

‘I have something to tell you that will please a lot of people and disappoint some others.  Come back after the break.’

‘Good God! He’s quitting the show,’ I shouted in amazement.

‘Don’t be daft. He probably has some tatty prize to give away, or something.’  Herself isn’t Plank’s biggest fan.

When the show resumed after the break, he made his announcement – He is quitting the show.

Of course, I was devastated.

I shall really miss Plank.

I shall miss those classic moments, such as the time he kicked the toy up the arse on the Toy Show and made a little girl cry.  I shall miss those moments where the questions are so embarrassing that the victim interviewee squirms in their seat.  I shall miss his little witty comments.  I shall miss the cute way he tries to put on a different voice when he is phoning someone.

Plank then went on to interview some tart and asked her about her breast reduction operation.  It was patently obvious that she was annoyed at the question and didn’t want to talk about it, but Plank in his own inimitable style pursued the topic to a point where I thought she was going to run off screaming.  It was classic Plank.

Yes.  I’m going to miss him.

The Late Late Show will never be the same again.

Thank God.

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Grandad March 18th, 2009

I took a peek at the RTE website today.

It was just a casual look, more to see if there was any interesting news than anything else.

The first thing that caught my eye was my old friend Lucy Kennedy.  You couldn’t very well miss her as the ad took up about five acres of the screen.  So I clicked on her to see what would happen.

The screen I was presented with asked me to vote for the hottest Irish male.

I am no homophobe, but I feel uneasy about describing any male as ‘hot’.  I had a look at the meat that was on offer.

Oh, for fuck’s sake!  Plank is in there.  Here is the one bloke who is guaranteed to make any real woman top herself from sheer boredom and he is supposed to be ‘hot’?  And Martin King?  That idiot that can’t stand still for one second and who looks like he has a cattle prod up his arse?

I wanted to skip that section but I couldn’t.  I had to vote to go any further, so I picked one at random, but being very damned careful to avoid Plank and King.

At last I was into the decent stuff – Irelands hottest females.

There were a few tasty bits on offer, and I’m very glad to see my Sharon in there, so I gave her one before going any further.

I have never heard of quite a few of them.  God preserve us, but I see the Seoige sisters in there.  I can’t understand what other men see in those two bimbos.   Glenda is there, but she is an ex, so I couldn’t vote for her anyway.  And Miriam has too many kids.  I left my mark on Sharon and moved on.

Bloody hell! I have to choose the hottest international male?

I looked through the list and there were about three names that I recognised.  They are the greatest shower of wankers I have ever seen.  They even have that lunatic Brand in there?  As for Gary Lineker – I throw up every time he comes on with that fucking crisps ad on the telly.  Another random click, and on I go.

Now you would think that the line-up for the hottest international female would be the stuff of wet dreams, but just look at them!  There are one or two that have a fairly high shagability factor but the majority look like they have a combined IQ equal to the value of a share in Anglo Irish Bank.  What is worse, I haven’t heard of most of the programmes they are on; or if I have heard of the programme, I wouldn’t stoop to watch it.

I gave up at that stage as I don’t want to run the risk of another dose of the clap.

I have one question though.

Why the fuck am I not in there?

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Grandad January 2nd, 2009

I am utterly sick of television.

It’s too damned cold and dark to walk down to the pub, so I’m at home most evenings.

I can’t read a book, because that just sends me to sleep and if I go near the computer, Herself yells at me.  So I’m stuck with the television.

I’m not complaining about the programs.  We all know they are utter shite and there is just no point in complaining any more.

What’s driving me know are the advertisements.

Sales, sales, sales and more fucking sales.

Every slot that comes up is some fucker yelling at me that they have a sale on, as if they had just invented the concept.  And they are outbidding themselves in their reductions.

50% is considered mean now.  Some are offering 60%, and the brave ones are going for 70%.

If they can sell stuff at 70% off and still stay in business, then they must originally had one hell of a rip off markup?

The stuff they are selling is all useless too.

I am waiting for Guinness to advertise that they are cutting the price of a pint by 70%.  Where is the advertisement offering pipe tobacco at 70% reduction, with interest free credit and no need to pay a cent until 2050?  Oh no.  They want to sell us fucking furniture!

What is it about sitting room suits and beds?  Suddenly there are about fifty companies all frantic to sell us monstrous ten seater couches that would require a hangar to contain them.  There seems to be a craze for couches that won’t fit into any reasonable room.

Maybe that’s the plan?

Suckers see the advertisement, and rush out to buy one of these monstrosities.

They manage to get it home by hiring an articulated lorry.

They then discover that it won’t fit in their house, even if they remove all the internal walls.

They have to move to a bigger house.

See where I’m going?

Yes.

This is a conspiracy to revitalise the housing market.

Do they think I’m stupid?

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Grandad December 13th, 2008

What is this obsession in the meeja with the word ‘perfect’?

Throughout the year it crops up regularly, mostly in connection with weddings.

I have seen a number of programmes in the past few months where people [mostly the brides] are searching for the ‘perfect’ day.  Why can’t they just strive to have a happy day, or a really memorable day, and if something goes wrong then it’s all part of the experience?

For the past few weeks, of course, we are being told how to have the ‘perfect’ Christmas.

Here, we sink from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I have been informed that I won’t have a ‘perfect’ Christmas if I don’t have a new leather five seater couch.

I have been informed that I won’t have a ‘perfect’ Christmas unless I am wearing some grossly overpriced perfume.  [What’s wrong with sweat?]

I have been told that the ‘perfect’ Christmas present is a voucher to some tacky takeaway food hole.

I have even been told that my Christmas will be utterly destroyed and will be an unmitigated disaster if I don’t have the latest mobile phone?

What is wrong with these people?  What kind of pathetic world do they inhabit?  Why can’t they say that it would be nice for us if we had a new hardwood floor laid, but that Christmas would still be a happy occasion if we stuck with the threadbare carpet?

If my Christmas turns out to be a bit of a flop, I suppose I am going to have to examine my conscience?   Was it because I didn’t install that swimming pool in the garden?  Was it because I really should have bought that flat screen television that would have required an extension to the house because it was so big?

Nah!  If my Christmas turns out to be a flop, it will be because I ran out of booze, or the relations that I can’t stand insisted on calling around and staring at us for the evening.  The advertisements don’t tell you how to cope with those things.

I know what would push my Christmas a long way towards perfection though….

If all those tacky advertising people crawled back under the rocks from whence they came.

Yes.

That would be perfect.

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