Procrastinating Genius

It's been a while since I last wrote anything (285 days according to Blog.co.uk) and I thought I should take the time to jot down a few things about what has been happening since my last entry. I can tell by the lack of visitors that everyone is REALLY interested so here goes.

I continue to be as confused about my "career plan" as I ever was and despite everyone I speak to telling me that "something will turn up": it never does.

I still laugh and chortle at every innapropriate moment,causing the missus great embarrassment.

I still have grave reservations about the people running this country although I have come to the conclusion that It doesn't matter where I live; I'm still going to hate "the man" regardless of whether they are doing a good job or not. I think that human beings have an innate drive for rebellion.

After spending varying lengths of time surrounded by optimists I noticed that I often counter their rosy views with something grey and miserable in order to maintain a healthy sense of perspective.

I watch/read a forever shrinking amount of news - this pursuit I have been able to keep up as I have conditioned myself to feel sick whenever I see an incredulous BBC news reader or news website.

That's all I can think of for now, but rest assured I will try to return soon to inflict more crushing dissapointment and bleakness on your innocent souls.

I don't want to go on and on about this as the media is doing a great job making sure we don't forget about it, but it does seem strange that Manuel would be embarrassed and upset about crude answerphone messages when his sweeter than sweet little Grand-daughter's chosen occupation is that of a "Satanic Slut".

 Which is more embarrassing and upsetting?

 The knowledge that Mr Brand has tupped her

  or

 That she is a willing servant of Satan?

 
I'll let you decide as I have nothing more to say on the issue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7670006.stm

After exhaustive investigation, Studd of the Met found that "such clubs were usually "well-run" and had a "high staff ratio to customers"". Unlike many local constabularies which are quite the opposite - perhaps they're all on special assignment at the Spearmint Rhino.

Due to holidays and general malaise I haven't posted in a while so to any regular readers (yeah right)I apologise. A few posts ago I mentioned subjecting myself to a news blackout. All went well for a few days but I soon found myself feeling ostracized from the world around me. Forcing myself into self-imposed news exile was liberating for a little while but I do like knowing whats going on in the world but hate feeling like we're one step away from Armageddon.

Ive decided to only take notice of stories that act as little rays of sunshine therefore proving that despite what the broadcasters say, being alive and living in England is actually a good thing.

So for my first story I have decided to post a link to an article which first appeared a few years ago and which every man will rejoice in reading.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3072021.stm

So if you had any doubt that what you were doing whilst watching Hollyoaks was immoral you can rest easy in the knowledge that you are reducing the chance of your kids growing up without a father. You might end up blind and unable to see them but at least you won't be dead.

P.S. Please note that if you don't want a visit from Social Services then make sure the kids are out of the room before self medicating.

I have tried many times to "get into" football but each attempt has ended in failure. My Father and Brother have been avid fans of the game for as long as I can remember and on numerous occasions I have attempted to do a bit of male bonding with them and watch a game with them. During the last world cup - whenever that was - I watched the first of England's games in their presence. I sat on the sofa with a can of beer in hand with every intention of giving it my undivided attention for the full 90 minutes. This was obviously a very important occasion for them. Seemingly as important as the birth of their first children.

By the end of the first half I had fallen asleep.

I was awoken by the pair of them standing over me, obviously irked by my lack of interest. I tried explaining that if footballers were female and ran around in bra's and thongs then I might be able to stay awake and actually finish watching a game but I don't think saying this was particularly helpful. They reminded me of the fact that the country's reputation was on the line and that I should take more note of what was going on. It's a sad state of affairs when England's reputation hinges on the performance of our sporting teams. Having an already shaky reputation abroad I tried persuading them that relying on our lacklustre sporting teams to bolster foreign public opinion was like betting your house on number 27 at the local casino - bloody marvellous if it worked but inherently flawed as the chances of finding yourself living under a bridge are better than a Jihadist getting peeved at another danish cartoonist.

Oh what joy - I have a French work experience student working with me this week.

A young chap of 20, he is polite and speaks exceptional English as opposed to my infantile French. One thing I have always regretted is giving up languages at school as I now feel like an ignoramus when I meet people from the continent who can speak at least two languages. Anyway, I'm struggling to think of things that he can be doing whilst in my charge and I'm sure that he is spending the majority of his time playing World of Warcraft and looking at french-titties.com .

I'm not sure how I feel being lumbered with him. One side of me thinks that I should take the young fellow under my wing and show him a great time and give him an experience that will stand him in good stead in days to come and the other side of me thinks, "This little fucker could be taking my job in a few years so make sure he learns fuck-all".

This morning I have given him the rather riveting job of noting down the serial numbers from every computer, printer, and monitor in the building. This won't take him too long as we only have 20 of each. This afternoon I think I'll get him counting how many plastic cups we have - I know for a fact that the number runs into the thousands. If he finishes that then I'm sure that I'll be able to find him something even more worthy of his talents like counting the number of staples we have in the stationery cupboard or getting him to reconstruct a shredded letter. You may think me cruel but I'm sure he will benefit greatly from the valuable experience I will give him thus making him a valuable asset to any future employer.

Exactly how would we know if Jesus had returned?

He would have to do something really impressive in order to convince people he was the real deal that's for sure. He wouldn't be able to play the walking-on-water card that he did way back in the day as we've seen it done hundreds of times on T.V and we'd all think he was a David Blaine wannabe. Turning water into Smirnoff Ice would certainly get the attention of Friday night binge drinkers but would they remember on Saturday morning? I suppose he could record it on his mobile phone and post it on you-tube but he'll have his work cut out if wants to compete with face plants and happy-slaps.

Tony Blair recently said that he kept his faith secret whilst in office because he believed that people think you're a nutter iff you talk about you're religious faith in this country. If Jesus did start telling people he was the resurrected Messiah then he would be pumped full of drugs, put in a straight jacket, and sectioned under the mental health act.

The last person I can remember professing to be the reincarnation of Jesus was David Icke and he's really gone on to great things hasn't he!

Keeping yourself away from news & current affairs programmes is very difficult. After my first aborted attempt at doing so last year I gave up after a few days on my own volition, but this time I'm determined to maintain as low a level of news input as possible.

This means that when in the car I have to be very careful what I listen to as I run the risk of hearing any doom and gloom that is being broadcast on the airwaves and inadvertently crash into a crowd of nuns; and therefore, perversely contribute to the chronic pessimism that I'm trying to avoid. I now have three options whilst driving.

1. Listen to a CD
2. Turn the radio off every time a news bulletin starts
3. Drive in silence.

Driving with the window down and the radio off allows me to relax alot more than if I have a cd on and I simply can't abide Radio 1 & 2 or any commercial radio station. Radio 4 is all well and good but I have had to ban it on account of it's many current affair's programmes. Driving up the M6 on this Saturday just passed I thought I would do something wacky and listen to Radio 3 as I had no memory of ever doing so before. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that It was a rather pleasurable experience. For the majority of my trip it played Jazz music and as someone who has not heard much Jazz before I found it refreshing to listen to. So instead of going back to doom and gloom news stories I think I'm gong to immerse myself in the world of cool Jazz.

Nice

This weekend just past I had a Latte from Costa that tasted terrible.

I have noticed the quality of Costa's latte slowly going downhill but put had this down to bad luck on my part, after all, even Bob Dylan has written a few stinkers. It has also been several weeks since my last visit to one of the franchise's establishments due to a number of factors.

1. Poor service

2. Condescending staff

3. Dirty toilets

4. Broken high chairs

5. Terrible coffee.

I have had abit of a love affair with all things Costa but I'm afraid to say that it is now ranked below Starbucks on the hight street coffee shop list.

The young lady serving me asked if I wanted an extra shot of espresso in my drink which was something that I had never been asked before by any Costa employee. At the time I thought nothing of it but upon pouring the faintly coffee flavoured warm milky drink down my gizzard I realised why she had asked - the coffee content was virtually nill and instead it was like the drink that my mother used to give me at bed time when I was still a bain. I'm sure that they (Costa) have reduced the standard espresso shot they put into each Latte so that the mug (customer) has to spend extra in order to get their caffeine fix. As a caffeine addict I find this deplorable and will be takng the matter up with the relevant human right department - after Ive finished my coffee that is.

I now proclaim Nero to be the king of the high street coffee house. At least you can taste the coffee that you're paying for.

I'm one of those people who can't go more than an hour without checking a news website such as bbc or reuters. After a while however I'm left with the impression that the apocalyspe is just around the corner.

For every news item that details yet another teenager being stabbed there is one telling us that our houses aren't worth as much as duck turd, that we're all clinically obese and couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without collapsing, the ice caps are melting and the only way of combating it is to pay more tax, or that our hospitals are dirty and infect more people than they cure, and that we're either all going to die or need a small mortgage inorder to fill up our cars because Iran, Israel, and the USA seem intent on having a contest to see who's got the biggest WMD's.

I'm in desperate need of a news black out. I tried this last year and felt great while it lasted but like anyone who has tried to give up smoking will know, you have to make sure that you have no access to cigarettes at all. This will mean forbidding my good woman from watching any news programmes in my presence, and attempting to self-govern which websites I go on.

This second point will perhaps be the hardest one to do as I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to the world wide web. Having my own office and an attention span shorter than a goldfish's makes it extremely likely that, at some point during my working day, I will get the overwhelming urge to flick onto Reuters or the BBC for a quick sneaky peak at the days events. For all the good things it does the Internet is the mother of all distractions. Take this blog for example. Hardly anyone except myself (and the kind person who left me a comment on my last post) will ever read it. The same can be said for news websites. They are great at distracting me from what I should be doing but I end up feeling mad about things over which I have no control.

So as of now I'm burying my head in the sand - metaphorically speaking.

Feel free to join in and feel good about society again!