Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has revealed he is tearfully close to shutting down his Facebook account in the new year and setting up a page on Bebo instead.
In his emotional Christmas message, the ashen faced millionaire defended the move as a reaction to the new Facebook Timeline and a dramatic drop in friend requests since 2010. Speaking from inside a disused steel mill in his recently abandoned constituency of Sheffield Hallam, he explained:
When I recorded this message last year I had so many Facebook friends I was reaching the limit, and getting new requests every day - even some from students I was openly planning to betray. Now when I scroll down the list there's just Thatcher and Paddy Ashdowns cat. It's time to move forward.
Mr Cleggs wife, who is Spanish and hotter than yours, then stepped in to describe how Bebo has a younger demographic than other social networking sites and therefore using it would make it 'much easier' for her husband to figure out how to really shaft the next generation.
After changing ties several times on camera and referring to the cataclysmic national hatred he now experiences - which has its own Myspace - the MP concluded:
I don't know why so many of you unfriended me. It's probably because I formed a massively unstable coalition with a completely unsuitable political party, created a moral vacuum, totally fucked up the country and greatly increased the chances of an actual apocalypse next year.
He then added: Is it that? Christ, you people are sensitive. I'm only trying to make more money.
Wednesday 28 December 2011
Sunday 11 December 2011
Rich Cat To Sort Out Europe
An Italian moggy will use his newfound windfall to secure a place in the EU and railroad the fucking lot of them, it has emerged.
Tommasino, a third generation Mafia kingpin who inherited nearly £10 million after his owner got animals and humans mixed up, has insisted the time has finally come for suspiciously wealthy domestic pets to be given a voice in the political arena.
Speaking last night at the opening of a new tin of cat food, the former stray told reporters: ‘I’ve always wanted to go to a summit in Brussels and organise the whole thing properly, but it’s been either full up or I’ve not had the capital. Now I can just buy my way in’.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed the news, admitting that although they were trying really really hard, the member states had ‘literally no idea’ how to run a complex crime syndicate like The European Union effectively. It is hoped that the influence of Tommasino will help strengthen stability in key areas such as money laundering, extortion, and beating up countries you don’t like the look of.
The over ambitious feline has denied allegations of bribery, amid reports that he threatened to shit all over the new carpets in the lobby unless at least half of the members sign a treaty declaring Tony The Tiger the new God.
Meanwhile, David Cameron dramatically took Britain out of the EU on Thursday night after a five year old from Pontefract pointed out how he could destroy the country much faster by doing exactly the opposite of what is best for it.
Tommasino, a third generation Mafia kingpin who inherited nearly £10 million after his owner got animals and humans mixed up, has insisted the time has finally come for suspiciously wealthy domestic pets to be given a voice in the political arena.
Speaking last night at the opening of a new tin of cat food, the former stray told reporters: ‘I’ve always wanted to go to a summit in Brussels and organise the whole thing properly, but it’s been either full up or I’ve not had the capital. Now I can just buy my way in’.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed the news, admitting that although they were trying really really hard, the member states had ‘literally no idea’ how to run a complex crime syndicate like The European Union effectively. It is hoped that the influence of Tommasino will help strengthen stability in key areas such as money laundering, extortion, and beating up countries you don’t like the look of.
The over ambitious feline has denied allegations of bribery, amid reports that he threatened to shit all over the new carpets in the lobby unless at least half of the members sign a treaty declaring Tony The Tiger the new God.
Meanwhile, David Cameron dramatically took Britain out of the EU on Thursday night after a five year old from Pontefract pointed out how he could destroy the country much faster by doing exactly the opposite of what is best for it.
Saturday 10 December 2011
Homeless lemur revealed as Reality TV reject
A lemur who was discovered sleeping rough on Tooting Common earlier this week has been outed as a former hopeful on Britain’s leading cultural extinction initiative.
Julien King - who was found at 3am on Tuesday morning by a local resident engaging in completely legal activities - was at first thought to be evening wear accidentally discarded by the wife of Prime Minister David Cameron. It was later confirmed by paramedics that the delusional primate had been living on the streets for some time after failing to secure a spot on the X Factor live final.
Mark Bossley, head of the Immigration Department at Blue Cross animal hospital, said ‘When they first brought him in I thought it was just another typical midweek customer, you know. A fox who’d overdone it on a stag do, or maybe a badger on crack pissing around with glitter and spray paint. We get a lot of that at Christmas. It wasn’t ‘til I saw him practising vocal scales on a Fisher Price miniature keyboard that I recognised him from the boot camp bit on telly and realised who we were dealing with’.
Louis Walsh, who is one of the X Factors main judges and the highest paid Leprechaun on television, issued the following statement on behalf of the show:
We’re deeply saddened to hear about Julien and remember him with great affection. As soon as he came into the audition process there was something different about him, he was original, there was that spark of real talent there. So obviously he had to immediately leave the competition. We kept his voting line open for a few weeks afterwards though, which paid for my new car.
Mr King is now recovering at Do You Know What It Is Yet, the rehab clinic founded by Rolf Harris which caters exclusively for animals most people have never heard of. He is reportedly considering a career advertising insurance. Meanwhile, tabloid articles claiming he can regularly be found cruising Wimbledon Common for oral sex with a Womble have been dismissed as ‘pure speculation‘ by a solicitor.
The X Factor final will be broadcast live this weekend from the London Horrordome, and is expected to be barely tolerated by over half a billion people.
Julien King - who was found at 3am on Tuesday morning by a local resident engaging in completely legal activities - was at first thought to be evening wear accidentally discarded by the wife of Prime Minister David Cameron. It was later confirmed by paramedics that the delusional primate had been living on the streets for some time after failing to secure a spot on the X Factor live final.
Mark Bossley, head of the Immigration Department at Blue Cross animal hospital, said ‘When they first brought him in I thought it was just another typical midweek customer, you know. A fox who’d overdone it on a stag do, or maybe a badger on crack pissing around with glitter and spray paint. We get a lot of that at Christmas. It wasn’t ‘til I saw him practising vocal scales on a Fisher Price miniature keyboard that I recognised him from the boot camp bit on telly and realised who we were dealing with’.
Louis Walsh, who is one of the X Factors main judges and the highest paid Leprechaun on television, issued the following statement on behalf of the show:
We’re deeply saddened to hear about Julien and remember him with great affection. As soon as he came into the audition process there was something different about him, he was original, there was that spark of real talent there. So obviously he had to immediately leave the competition. We kept his voting line open for a few weeks afterwards though, which paid for my new car.
Mr King is now recovering at Do You Know What It Is Yet, the rehab clinic founded by Rolf Harris which caters exclusively for animals most people have never heard of. He is reportedly considering a career advertising insurance. Meanwhile, tabloid articles claiming he can regularly be found cruising Wimbledon Common for oral sex with a Womble have been dismissed as ‘pure speculation‘ by a solicitor.
The X Factor final will be broadcast live this weekend from the London Horrordome, and is expected to be barely tolerated by over half a billion people.
Tuesday 9 August 2011
Something Fine - rambling thoughts on the riots
When presented with an inescapably relevent situation, certain people are hardwired to ignore our more pragmatic response mechanisms and instead look immediately to the purest reflection on the human condition - art - as a way to examine current circumstance. Nietzsche once said ‘We have art, so as not to die from the truth’ but I think the opposite might be true.
When you endure or witness anything, whether intensely personal or impacting on the wider world that shifts your internal consciousness somehow, the linking of that experience to something in the creative realm - a passage from a book, a character in a film, a scene from a painting - is a way of searching for truth rather than masking it. If life is just a mirror we hold up to our origin, then every artistic endeavour we undertake is another shard of glass we hope will finally complete the reflection.
So it followed that when I read about the continued rioting this morning, I thought of a line in a song. There are plenty of obvious lines from obvious songs to pick from - I Predict A Riot, Guns Of Brixton, Whats Going On, etc - but I didn’t think of those. The song that came to mind for me was by Jackson Browne. It’s called Something Fine, and can be found on his eponymous debut album from 1972. From a distance it might seem an odd choice to relate this quiet folk song to the tumultuous social unrest of the past few days, but as I watched the scenes of looters coming together to inflict violence and stamp their misguided presence on the world, I instantly heard the following line in my head: California shaking like an angry child will, who has asked for love and is unanswered still. To me, that single statement strikes at the heart of the issue of this trouble - the rioters, rather than the riots - more directly than any hastily assembsled political soundbite could ever hope to.
Were the police acting unlawfully when they shot Mark Duggan? Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Only those who were actually there will ever know. But those who caused destruction these past few days weren’t doing so out of a sense of moral outrage. Perhaps, in the beginning, those who saw the spark of an uprising may have attached their very real fear of and disappointment in this government to it. The ongoing chain of events does however point to a bigger problem as encapsulated in the words of Jackson - the young kids commiting these acts are essentially angry children, who have asked for love and remain unanswered, bending any sense of genuine injustice into an excuse to violently vent their rage.
Tolerence, compassion, openness, kindness, humilty, humour, - these are the things that we would see more of in the world were they not already so lacking. Call me a hippy, but I don’t think a five year old child taught well in these principals would be throwing a brick through a shop window to nab a new TV twenty years later.
When you endure or witness anything, whether intensely personal or impacting on the wider world that shifts your internal consciousness somehow, the linking of that experience to something in the creative realm - a passage from a book, a character in a film, a scene from a painting - is a way of searching for truth rather than masking it. If life is just a mirror we hold up to our origin, then every artistic endeavour we undertake is another shard of glass we hope will finally complete the reflection.
So it followed that when I read about the continued rioting this morning, I thought of a line in a song. There are plenty of obvious lines from obvious songs to pick from - I Predict A Riot, Guns Of Brixton, Whats Going On, etc - but I didn’t think of those. The song that came to mind for me was by Jackson Browne. It’s called Something Fine, and can be found on his eponymous debut album from 1972. From a distance it might seem an odd choice to relate this quiet folk song to the tumultuous social unrest of the past few days, but as I watched the scenes of looters coming together to inflict violence and stamp their misguided presence on the world, I instantly heard the following line in my head: California shaking like an angry child will, who has asked for love and is unanswered still. To me, that single statement strikes at the heart of the issue of this trouble - the rioters, rather than the riots - more directly than any hastily assembsled political soundbite could ever hope to.
Were the police acting unlawfully when they shot Mark Duggan? Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. Only those who were actually there will ever know. But those who caused destruction these past few days weren’t doing so out of a sense of moral outrage. Perhaps, in the beginning, those who saw the spark of an uprising may have attached their very real fear of and disappointment in this government to it. The ongoing chain of events does however point to a bigger problem as encapsulated in the words of Jackson - the young kids commiting these acts are essentially angry children, who have asked for love and remain unanswered, bending any sense of genuine injustice into an excuse to violently vent their rage.
Tolerence, compassion, openness, kindness, humilty, humour, - these are the things that we would see more of in the world were they not already so lacking. Call me a hippy, but I don’t think a five year old child taught well in these principals would be throwing a brick through a shop window to nab a new TV twenty years later.
Friday 1 July 2011
U2 at Glastonbury 2011 - the show that could have been
In the week that has passed since U2 headlined Glastonbury, I've watched the performance several times over. I am a massive fan of this band and was really looking forward to their set. However, I'm also convinced they dropped the ball last friday and missed a massive opportunity to silence their (many) detractors.
They had a chance to pull off something unique, to genuinely evoke the original spirit of a pre-corporate Glastonbury and come out fighting as a bare bones, back to basics punk band - a brand new outfit who somehow ended up with a Pyramid Stage headline slot and 34 years of hits behind them.
There were flashes of that spirit at times which is what made the show good, but not enough to make it great. What prevailed for me was a sense of a band who had no idea how to play to a festival crowd, and who've become used to playing for audiences who are perhaps too ready to idolise and indulge them.
There was so much more that could've been made of their 90 minutes on stage. Without the gigantatron staging of the ever rolling 360 tour, there was the nervous energy of a band once again quite literally forced to stand together and play, but ultimately it was the songs lack of suitability for the occasion which left U2 the most confused I've ever seen them. With that in mind, I present:
U2 at Glastonbury 2011 - the alternate setlist (with no encore)
1. Vertigo
2. Beautiful Day
3. Gloria
4. I Will Follow
5. Desire
6. Elevation
7. New Years Day
8. All Because Of You
9. Out Of Control
10. Bad
11. One
12. All I Want Is You
13. Ultra Violet
14. In A Little While
15. Red Hill Mining Town
16. Where The Streets Have No Name
17. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
18. Magnificent
19. Discotheque
20. With Or Without You
21. 40
They had a chance to pull off something unique, to genuinely evoke the original spirit of a pre-corporate Glastonbury and come out fighting as a bare bones, back to basics punk band - a brand new outfit who somehow ended up with a Pyramid Stage headline slot and 34 years of hits behind them.
There were flashes of that spirit at times which is what made the show good, but not enough to make it great. What prevailed for me was a sense of a band who had no idea how to play to a festival crowd, and who've become used to playing for audiences who are perhaps too ready to idolise and indulge them.
There was so much more that could've been made of their 90 minutes on stage. Without the gigantatron staging of the ever rolling 360 tour, there was the nervous energy of a band once again quite literally forced to stand together and play, but ultimately it was the songs lack of suitability for the occasion which left U2 the most confused I've ever seen them. With that in mind, I present:
U2 at Glastonbury 2011 - the alternate setlist (with no encore)
1. Vertigo
2. Beautiful Day
3. Gloria
4. I Will Follow
5. Desire
6. Elevation
7. New Years Day
8. All Because Of You
9. Out Of Control
10. Bad
11. One
12. All I Want Is You
13. Ultra Violet
14. In A Little While
15. Red Hill Mining Town
16. Where The Streets Have No Name
17. Pride (In The Name Of Love)
18. Magnificent
19. Discotheque
20. With Or Without You
21. 40
Thursday 30 June 2011
False Promise
I woke today by the window light
Saw a town filled with strangers on every side
Scared and tired they were ready for a fight
Well they looked just like me and you
When I went down to the streets for a closer look
There was much that I recognised
I heard desperate hearts beating to urgent songs
I knew the fire in their eyes burned true
I saw beggar with preacher
Pupil with teacher
And babes in the arms of the old
Every soul there met a change in the air
The anger of the false promise they were sold
Don't let them fuck us
Support the damn strike
Tell this coalition
To get on thier bike
Saw a town filled with strangers on every side
Scared and tired they were ready for a fight
Well they looked just like me and you
When I went down to the streets for a closer look
There was much that I recognised
I heard desperate hearts beating to urgent songs
I knew the fire in their eyes burned true
I saw beggar with preacher
Pupil with teacher
And babes in the arms of the old
Every soul there met a change in the air
The anger of the false promise they were sold
Don't let them fuck us
Support the damn strike
Tell this coalition
To get on thier bike
God
I don't believe in God, but I can understand why some people find it nessecary to do so. This planet is, at it's core, a completely fucked up and badly run establishment. It's relatively small, it's overcrowded, and we as a race (humans, that is) are ultimately destroying it faster than we can reproduce people to continue the trend. Who wouldn't want a God to believe in, given such circumstances? It makes sense. It is the ultimate way to not only deflect responsibility for our own actions and lives away from ourselves, but also to feel justified - and, crucially, safe - in that deflection. The scapegoat and the pacifier rolled into one.I should make it clear at this point that when I say I don't believe in God, I'm talking about the default Christian image, the one and only almighty who reportedly created the entire universe in a week, 'sent' us his only son and then subjected him to a thankless life and violent death, and has since presided over us all from somewhere in the sky.
So what does this particular idea of God prove without question? The power of spinning a good yarn. The Bible is a great work of fiction. I haven't even read it (yet) and I can say that with complete confidence. The themes, the ideas, the tales contained within it (Arks, Cruxifiction, Resurrection, Giants, Sacrifice, Parting Waves, Walking Through Deserts For 40 Years, Plagues etc)....it probably is the greatest story ever told. But that's the key - it's a story, not fact and there is no way that I could go ever along with seeing it as such. I'm sure there are elements of fact because yes they did crucify burglars and whatnot back whenever the hell it was written and yes there were street merchants who would have performed tricks for money (think Derren Brown in sandals) and yes there was a man named Jesus living in Jerusalem at the time but he was, I'd bet, one of several hundred and most definitely NOT the son of God . But what the very clever people who wrote the Bible did was to amalgamate all these different concepts and elements of their daily life into these great fantastical stories, add in the idea of divinity as a way of scaremongering and, hey presto, you have a way of controlling people indefinitely (or at the very least, the next several thousand years). I don't know if that was the authors' original intention but thats pretty much how it ended up.
I mean look at churches in the old days - 'even though you're all poor and your health is wretched, give us all your money. You can't use contraception because it is an insult to the will of God (ok I don't think contraception existed in the very very old days but if it did they'd have said that) and therefore you must keep having lots of children that you can't afford to bring up who'll most likely die very early seen as you live in unimaginable squalor....do it or you'll go to Hell and burn eternally. Oh by the way, there's one sure fire way to make sure that doesn't happen, give us all your money every week and we'll pass it on to the big G in the sky and your place in eternal paradise will be assured'. I mean surely that would've set off alarm bells? God can't be that holy and righteous if you can just buy your way out of purgatory in to his Eternal Kingdom, no matter how heinous your sins.
NB: I wrote this several years before discovering the great George Carlin and his now infamous (at least among my friends) routine in which he basically says the same thing
So what does this particular idea of God prove without question? The power of spinning a good yarn. The Bible is a great work of fiction. I haven't even read it (yet) and I can say that with complete confidence. The themes, the ideas, the tales contained within it (Arks, Cruxifiction, Resurrection, Giants, Sacrifice, Parting Waves, Walking Through Deserts For 40 Years, Plagues etc)....it probably is the greatest story ever told. But that's the key - it's a story, not fact and there is no way that I could go ever along with seeing it as such. I'm sure there are elements of fact because yes they did crucify burglars and whatnot back whenever the hell it was written and yes there were street merchants who would have performed tricks for money (think Derren Brown in sandals) and yes there was a man named Jesus living in Jerusalem at the time but he was, I'd bet, one of several hundred and most definitely NOT the son of God . But what the very clever people who wrote the Bible did was to amalgamate all these different concepts and elements of their daily life into these great fantastical stories, add in the idea of divinity as a way of scaremongering and, hey presto, you have a way of controlling people indefinitely (or at the very least, the next several thousand years). I don't know if that was the authors' original intention but thats pretty much how it ended up.
I mean look at churches in the old days - 'even though you're all poor and your health is wretched, give us all your money. You can't use contraception because it is an insult to the will of God (ok I don't think contraception existed in the very very old days but if it did they'd have said that) and therefore you must keep having lots of children that you can't afford to bring up who'll most likely die very early seen as you live in unimaginable squalor....do it or you'll go to Hell and burn eternally. Oh by the way, there's one sure fire way to make sure that doesn't happen, give us all your money every week and we'll pass it on to the big G in the sky and your place in eternal paradise will be assured'. I mean surely that would've set off alarm bells? God can't be that holy and righteous if you can just buy your way out of purgatory in to his Eternal Kingdom, no matter how heinous your sins.
NB: I wrote this several years before discovering the great George Carlin and his now infamous (at least among my friends) routine in which he basically says the same thing
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