sport

not sure when it happened but i fell out of love with sport a ways back.
sure i am still interested in (some) sports.
sure there are some athletes who i take joy in seeing them win, though there are probably more that i find more pleasure in seeing them lose.

most sports stars are over paid prima donnas who seem to have no understanding of just how lucky they are. 'oh woe is me i have to play three games a week', is a bit hard to take seriously when you are working a 40 plus hour week.
or the old favourite it is not about the money it is about the winning - but none of them take a pay cut to play.
or their total self importance - the team has to match my ambition, yet they never put their money on the line, or no stake in the team. or, the even worse, we deserve to be supported in our personal dream because we made sacrifices.
then there are the clubs who just want to buy success with little or no attempts to develope their own players - so much easier to buy them in.
then there are the fans who just want success - but don't want change. they want money pumped into the clubs but they can't accept that money comes with strings.

but what can you expect when sport organisations such as fifa or the ioc appear to be no more than profit making organisations rife with corruption?

then there are the constant calls that these performers to be role models. yes i don't want them to cheat, yes i don't want to see them use drugs - but beyond that i don't expect them to be any different from the rest of us. why should putting on a kit suddenly make you a paragon of virtue?

the problem is we have invested too much importance in sport and its stars, and along with celebrity culture, it harks back to a bread and circus mentality.

we would be better off celebrating the extraordinary, but hidden, scientists, architects, inventors, academics, teachers, explorers  (oh and hairy bloggers) who populate our culture. but we won't.

will i ever fall in love with sport again?
probably not - but i will always have the world wrestling entertainment, at least there is humour and honesty in its pretence.

hope

the thing about elections is the hope.
the hope that your party will win.
the hope that your views and values will carry the day and for the next few years the country will be run more or less in line with your desires and expectations.

come the day you tick that box that aligns closest to your views.
at that moment you believe you have the power to change the world. change it for the best.
hope fills you.

come the end of the day that hope can be battered out of you.

as it stands the news implies that we are heading for a hung parliament.
the worst of all worlds.

hope deflated.

again

been awhile.
not quite an oatesian 'i may be some time' but still far too long.

there has been a practical reason for the break - couldn't remember my password to get on (new laptop and tablet), thus proving that passwords are the bane of modern life

there is also an existential reason - for the last year or so i really just haven't cared or given a toss. have barely paid attention to the election, not really worked up about trump, even worse i have no idea who is the wwe any more.

(but regardless of my ennui for the political sphere - don't forget to go vote and don't forget to vote labour - you know it makes sense, well more sense than voting for the conservatives.)

about the only thing that excites me these days is the madness of the truth movement and the alternative news media - and trying to weave some sense in what they say (it is a fruitless task as their villains keep shifting and they don't really have a solution beyond slogans and harking back to a time that only existed in the fairy tales of their grand parents).

but with the possible, faint chance i admit, shock of a labour win and the fact that i have suddenly realised that we are in june already and the sum total of my achievements of this year can be summed up in managing to get some eye drops actually into my eye and not everywhere else on my face in an act of medical bukkake. while i may give a whoop and holler at such success in the great scheme of things it really is small beer.

so time to rouse myself and see if i can get this thing back on the road again. 

pants

times are hard.

bad times bad choices.

needs must.

do what you have to do to get by.

i get that. i really do.

quite a lot of us are suffering. prices soaring. wages, if you have them, are static. work, if you have it, is no longer as secure as it used to be.

quite a few of us feel powerless in this brave new world of populist austerity. politics no longer makes sense. machines are coming to take our jobs, while we are being told that work is what we need to keep us going. every day is another warning about what to do or eat if we don’t want to die a premature, and probably lonely painful, death. every day a new miracle fad of what to do or eat to keep us healthy and active for longer. celebrities moaning about the state of the world while living in the lap of luxury that the rest of us can only dream about. commentators changing their minds almost as frequently as economic forecasters change their predictions.

it is a strange and harsh world.

i get all of that.

i understand that every now and then we faced with a tough choice. or we just want to stick it to the man in a small, hope filled, gesture of defiance. sometimes this leads to petty theft.

i don’t condone it, but i understand the rationale behind it.

except sometimes i don’t.

this is one of those times.

there are times when all that will do is a bit of late night shopping, and there is only one place for that 24-hour asda, big box retail. now i have no axe to grind with asda (well i do have one – what has happened to your nice cheap 4xl t-shirts? why have you stopped them? why? and no i don’t mean the skinny fit 4xl – as i just don’t understand who needs a skinny fit 4xl – you wear cheap 4xl tees because you are like me a fat bastard – and you really don’t want to show that off. so, there is my one gripe at asda).

however, there are some of their customers i wish biblical plagues on.

one of the things i like to buy from asda is a cheap pack of pants: 5 for a fiver. nice simple pants. they do want i want them to do: cover my bits. sometimes you get 3 white pairs, sometimes you get 3 black pairs – but who really cares? when you are going for cheap and cheerful you are not too worried about the next time you might be lucky and have to drop your trews for a bit of hanky panky.

but. and there is always a but.

but mostly when i rock up at asda to get pants i am faced with the fact that some oik has come along and stolen a pair from a pack. and then stolen another pair from another pack, and lo the little tea leaf has taken yet another pair from yet another pack. in fact, if one pair has been stolen i can guarantee that every pack in my size has one missing. yes, dear reader i could make up a 5 pack – but that is the sort of sensible thing that as you are doing security comes along and you spend hours explaining and arguing.

i go back to my earlier statement of understanding that times are tough, but could you at least just steal from one pack? but no! even worse i have noticed that the theft can be colour coordinated – all the ones taken are of a colour. i can understand the hardship angle, but if you are going to be fashion conscious about it then you deserve to suffer. true it might be about fashion. perhaps you are all klanned up and you don’t want darkie colours near your crown jewels and you don’t want your nearest and dearest getting any ideas about trying a bit of black – just in case it is true: once tried you never go back. or maybe you are all black lives matter and you have decided that white is the way to go so you are sitting on the man, striking a political statement with your skidders in the face of tighty whitey establishment.

i really don’t know.

so asda pant thieves a plea – please just steal your pants from the same pack, allow those of us who are paying for our skimpies the thrill of finding a full pack. If you have to remain a wanker who steals a pair from each pack then you deserve to be struck down by constant vicious boils on your ball sacs and the tip of your ocock needs to seep pus every time you get the idea you want a little fun.

simple effective justice.

stairs

used to be a time when people knew how to use the stairs.
walk up one side, walk down the other.
ah happy times.

now people just charge up and down stairs higgledy piggledy wit no regards for others.happy to walk into you expecting you to move out of their way. the stairs becoming a mini version of death race.

at least those people are moving.
even worse are the ones who haven't quiet realised (or more likely just don't care) that the stairs are busy and so what better place to stop to check their phone or consult their maps. or linger while they wait for someone. oblivious of all the people having to shuffle around them. after all why worry about others.
i know it is busy and lots of people are trying to go up and down so why not sit down. i ask you who is that going to inconvenience? ignore the dirty looks i mean what is their problem?

oh why not just stop at the top or the bottom of the stairs, it is a good place to have a conversation, or check your pockets or just to have a look around.

ah for the gold old days when people just went up and down stairs.