poppy

about this time every year i realise i haven't bought a poppy.
i have no problems with buying a poppy. i don't see it as glorifying war. i don't see it as support for imperialist adventures. i see it as a reminder that war costs lives and shouldn't be entered into lightly and if this reminder helps those who are suffering the ill effects of serving in the armed forces - all the better.
this means i just need a bog standard every day poppy.

shouldn't be hard.

my local sainsbury's has a big poster outside it reminding people that the british legion poppy appeal has started. nowhere in my local sainsbury's can i actually get a poppy.
none of my local shops have been selling the poppy.
not seen anyone standing outside the tube station selling them.
someone has mentioned checking out the library.

still it seems if worst comes to worst i may just have to go to canary wharf in order to get my poppy - it is a bit of a trek but it means i can get to take some photos of the area, it is a bit of an adventure and it means i can check out the story about the young ladies who are supposed to be selling the poppies in very tight hot pants and fishnets.
when asked the british legion said there was no dress code for selling the poppy.

so canary wharf here i come (all in the name of research ... of course).

hate

i have tried to turn over a new leaf; i am trying to cut down on the number of people or groups i hate. i am trying to be a calmer nicer person. i am counting to ten and being reasonable, being empathic, trying to see things from other people’s point of view rather than just jumping to conclusions and just hating.

by cutting down on my personal parade of hatred i will be making the world a slightly better place for everyone. i know, i know – but there is no need to thank me. you just need to follow my example.

however like any major undertaking you have to start slowly.

so i am not trying to expunge my hatred of the conservative party, or people who stand in doorways and get sniffy when you ask them , politely, to move, or those people who use umbrellas but have no regard for other users of the pavement. this also holds for cyclists who not only ride on the pavement but seem to think that pedestrians are the ones who are the hindrance.

also i am not trying to soothe old personal hatreds of people i have known. call me petty but some fires smoulder on.

for all of that i have managed to find a new group of people to hate.

to hate with a burning passion.

i give you the supermarket bargain hunters.

as you probably know after a certain time supermarkets reduce the price of some of their food. tesco’s are the best for dropping their prices – they often slash their prices, for some odd reason sainsbury’s just knock a bit off. every now and then you can get a tasty bargain or two. it is always worth a look.

or it would be if it wasn’t for the fucktards who hover around the area while the staff are pricing the goods up and putting them on the shelves. they stand like an impenetrable wall – saddam could have learnt lessons from them when he was erecting his human shields, there are coaches of premiership football teams who wish their ‘walls’ at free kicks were as disciplined.

they stand there and they wait.

and wait.

they stare at the shop assistant, giving the evil eye and geeing them on, lips moving telling them to get a move on.  the stare at the pile of produce thinking about what they want from the pile, like wild west gunslingers they are ready to draw their prized produce from the shelf before it has left the assistants hand.

there is a mix of fear and loathing in the eyes of the assistant – this is punishment duty. the waiters can smell the fear and that just spurs them on. hands shaking the new price tags are printed up and placed on the food and put on the shelves.

some food is snatched up right away. fair enough they have been staring at it long enough while they wait for it to be priced up.

then comes the second phase – where my real hatred begins to kick in.

the assistant has gone back to the safety of giving wrong directions to where the processed peas are being stocked this week.

now begins the phase where the bargain hunters loiter and check everything, and then check it again, and one more time to be sure. they remain an impenetrable wall. sometimes there will a couple there and they will discuss if they really want that ready meal that has had 75p knocked off its original price. or maybe they will wonder about the calorie content of the cold meats they have picked up. do they need that box of yogurt that is going for half price?

items are picked up – contents are read – items are put back – picked up again, as if they had never seen a sainsbury’s cheese sandwich before, or if the concept of a cottage pie ready meal is really the latest thing in food technology.

surely to all they hold dear it can’t be that hard to work out whether or not you want the food on offer at the price they are offering it. it really can’t be something that needs to be discussed that much or mulled over as if it were the purchase of a new family car.

it’s food on sale you arsewipes – do you want it or not?

shit or get off the pot.

simple.

or should be – for this breed of people it is not – they can’t make that choice; they have to dwell, mull, meditate and ponder. just buy it already.

then there is the person who will just buy it all because it is a bargain and then at the checkout complain that have been charged 20p too much when they have just bought £30 worth of food for £2.40.

so these bargain prevaricators are my current hate group.

they are on a par with all those people who always seem surprised that they need a ticket to go through the barriers at tube stations or to get on buses and wait until they are right there before they start to look through their bags to find their tickets. yeah i hate you lot as well.

look i never said turning over a new leaf was going to be easy – but i think you will agree that at least i am keeping my hate groups to deserving groups.

legacy

over the summer the talk was all about legacy.

legacy this, legacy that.

all about getting the kids out playing sport, getting them fit, making them the olympic stars of the future. a lot was said about the need to combat the problem of nationwide obesity epidemic. after the glow of the olympics and paralympics you could see more people out and about trying to get fit. who can blame them?

but.

but.

stop for a minute and let’s have a think.

there is the olympics, the paralympics, the special olympics and let’s not forget the deaflympics  (oh yes – but there is no news about the next games on their website), so i think there is room for a new games. i think my proposed new games will be an instant hit and there will be an army of potential competitors.

i give you the blympics – to be contested only by fat athletes.  there would be a weight qualification – you would have to be obese to be able to enter. once in you would be entered into your class of obesity, so everyone is competing on an equal footing. i expect that some overweight people might complain that they are being discriminated against, but if they want to compete in the blympics they will have to up their game and eat some more doughnuts until they get to obese levels of athleticism.

some sports would have to change freestyle and greco-roman wrestling will be replaced with sumo wrestling. the diving events will become the ‘dive bomb’ event where the scores will go to the largest splash (height, distance and symmetry of the splash being the key to victory).  cycling events will have to take place using the very sturdy boris bikes. the water events will all take place on large ponds using the whitehall style or rowboat – it is safer and had more room for the competitor. the gymnastics will be about being able to do forward and backward rolls and climbing the rope.

a few new events will be added: endurance and speed eating.

i know what you are thinking that this idea is a bit far out – but i tell you this is a guaranteed winner. tell me who doesn’t want to see a bunch of fatties running around panting and sweating in very very tight lycra? who wouldn’t pay great wodges of cash to see them wobble and shake like partly set jelly as they sprint or jump their way to blympic glory?

it may not reduce obesity but it does mean that those of us who like a doughnut or 5 have a chance to win something.

get behind the blympics. you know it makes sense.

definitions

apple have been in the news quite a bit recently.

poor mapping tool.
iphone 5 not being a big new game changer (it's a phone for fuck sake what to do people want it to do?)
ipad (the new one that is 3 but isn't numbered) about to be replaced by a new ipad that is the 4th one but will be called ipad 3 - go figure.
the mini ipad.
the hoohah about labour issues in its chinese factories (because all the other tech companies are using labour that is paid western living wages (but regardless of the stories of the long hours and low pay that chinese workers get the conservatives are saying british workers and companies need to be more like the chinese - yet it takes 'plebgate' to wake people up to the fact that the tories are not singing from the same hymn sheet as the rest of us).
not paying full taxes in the uk.

now they are changing their management team. shaking it up.
one of the reasons that they are doing this is because of their disappointing 4th quarter profits.
their numbers fell short of what analysts were expecting - given that most financial analysts just guess and constantly prove that all they do is pick numbers from a hat this shouldn't be surprising. yet people seem to take what they say as gospel.

remember most of the western world is in recession.
remember apple products are generally at a premium price.

apples 4th quarter profits were: $8.2bn (£5bn). yes that is right five billion pound. five fucking billion pound.
that is a disappointing £5bn.
to be honest with you i wouldn't get out of bed for £5bn a quarter.
just what planet are people on when that is a disappointing amount of profit to be making.

in that 4th quarter they just managed to shift 14 million ipads and even that wasn't what the analysts were expecting (or wanting). so that was disappointing.

it maybe that (and here i might be a tad cynical) that the so called exert analysts are calling it disappointing because they read the numbers wrong and have given their investors false and over inflated information with which to buy stock on. meaning that while apple have turned in pretty good numbers for most people living in the real world - for those living in the financial world they are 'disappointing'.

benefits

if you are unemployed and claiming child benefits it is a terrible thing. such benefits lure and keep the unemployed in the dreaded benefits trap. child benefits are a block to aspiration.

if you are earning over £40,000 a year and your child benefit is cut this is seen to be a bad thing because it stops people from wanting to work. for these above average income earners receiving child benefit is a spur to aspiration.

quite how conservative politicians and thank tankers (or as they are known to the wider population: wankers) square these two ideas is beyond the ken of mortal man.
all that matters is one is an attack on the proles - and that is fine. the other makes sure that they and their mates are fine.

tory values - you know they work (against the majority).

jimmy

i have a confession to make. it might shock you. so sit down before you go any further.

i did not know i did not suspect that jimmy was a kiddie fiddler.

judging from the numerous people who have come forward to say that they knew it or had deep suspicions about jimmy’s taste in young flesh i think i must have been the only person who had no idea.

if i had been one of those famous people who worked in the entertainment industry who had seen or had heard rumours about jimmy playing with underage children and had done nothing about it in the intervening years i can categorically state now that i would not be coming forward to say anything. if anyone asked me about it i would calmly state:  ‘no. it has all come as a bit of a shock to me to be honest.’

why?

because the simple fact is what mr. savile is supposed to have gotten up to is vile and horrific and i would hate to have anyone think that i could have used my influence to have stopped it from happening by raising my concerns. each of those personalities who come forward now with their “i had my suspicions’ or ‘i heard rumours’ has to shoulder a degree of responsibility for any molestation that took place after they had their suspicions or had heard the rumours.

they may try to fob it off with talk of jimmy savilie’s powerful position in the media, considering that jimmy savile hasn’t been a ‘star’ for years this doesn’t wash.

as bad as the speak no evil personalities are it looks as if various organs of the press also knew about jimmy’s predilections but chose not to say anything at the time or in the years after. after all it is not like the paper’s have ever smeared a celebrity in the name of the public interest. obviously the rumours concerning jimmy savile were not enough to investigate.

i wonder do the various editors feel culpable. probably not.

still we all know who is to blame: the bbc. yes: the bbc is to blame.

not the people who kept quiet. not the news media who did nothing. the bbc is to blame.

now that the story has broken all those celebrity silent witnesses can’t shut up and the news media who ignored the story for so long can’t stop reporting it now.  yet more often than not the reporting takes the form of how rotten the bbc is and how the bbc has to be investigated for its failings. none of them are asking for inquiries to be held into why they did nothing with the information.

far be it for me to say that the savile case is manna from heaven for the various media companies because they are not fans of the bbc and in a perfect world the bbc would be gone. the same goes for the tory politicians who are raising a stink about the bbc – they don’t like the beeb and they would be happy to see it disappear.

what are the chances that they will all be as gung ho when it comes to dealing with the suspected child abuse that is being linked to mrs. thatcher’s conservative government? i doubt it.

the real shame of it all is that many victims of jimmy savile have been forgotten as this becomes a witch hunt against the bbc and a way for several celebrities to make sure they are getting lots of publicity.

the victims have suffered once at the hands of a sexual predator and now they are being sidelined while others follow an agenda that has little to do with justice. looking like the victims are going to get screwed over a second time.

together

the rallying cry of the con/dems is that we are all in it together.

it is all about strivers and doers.

nowhere is this better demonstrated when it comes to people paying their way. the bad people on benefits taking money for nothing – those terrible shirkers, they need to be named, shamed and punished. i mean what are they doing having kids? or living in houses? the cheek of it. (it doesn’t matter that an awful lot of people claiming benefits are working).

too many of them expect something for nothing, believing they are entitled to handouts.

mind you over in the world of corporate finances it looks like one or two very large companies are not paying their way. they are playing the system to make sure that they pay as little tax as possible. for shame! not so much outrage from the political class, not even indignation. just a resigned shrug of the shoulders and a wry smile ‘those pesky wealth creators they are just kidders’.

playing the system is fine if you are starbucks (we haven’t made a profit in the uk for years…) or ebay, or amazon, or apple or anyone of a number of companies you get to slide by that tax payment.

you happen to be out of work and on jobseekers well you are just scum of the earth.

then it struck me that the whole reason the con/dems are so keen on cutting benefits to as many people as possible (as long as they are already poor to start with) is that the money saved on paying the benefits makes up the shortfall from those tax shirking companies.

see we are all in it together – so those on benefits who are having to make hard choices between food and bills can rest easy now because they can bask in the warm glow of knowing that they are helping big companies cut down on their tax bills.

caring compassionate conservatism at work.