Give me a break!

There are some truly evil people in this world that must must be hunted down and stopped. Robert Mugabe. Osama Bin Laden. Radovan Karadzic. Nick Griffin. Noel Edmonds.

Above all of these demonspawn, however, is the most evil man ever to draw breath upon this planet:

I've been poorly a lot lately (hence the lack of updates) and I've been stuck at home in front of the telly. And every time I put the bloody thing on, this fat pillock turns up and ruins my day. He doesn't exactly make me feel better. And there's not just one advert now. There are many. Do advertising agencies really think that an annoying advert sells the product? Well, it doesn't sell it to me. In fact, I now steadfastly refuse to use the poxy website. If you 've not seen it, this is how it goes. Two blokes are in a coffee shop, each drinking those big mugs of coffee that cost three quid. These blokes are talking about car insurance. As you do. The one topic the whole nation is talking about is car insurance. At this juncture, the wanker in the picture above leaps up and sings a mock-operatic song about the virtues of a certain price comparison website. He's then accompanied by everyone else in the coffee shop, because they've either a) been convinced by him that his price-comparison website is indeed the best way to save money on your car insurance, or b) they're all suffering from Stockholm Syndrome because Gio Compario (apparently, that's his name. No, it's not Damien. I agree, it's a terrible name. I reckon they should have called him Juan Kerr.) has kept them all hostage in a dungeon underneath the coffee shop and has told them all that it'll be their children next if they don't follow him blindly. After the song and dance, it's all topped off with a god-awful, Bruce Forsyth-quality joke. If these blokes are really that skint that they have to save forty-seven pounds fifty on insurance, why don't they stay out of them bloody rip-off coffee shops and make it at home with a jar of Gold Blend?
It's not just Go Compare either. Every other advert seems to be about insurance or price comparison websites. There's Confused.com, Churchills, Compare The Market, Direct Line, Swiftcover and so on. Where are the adverts actually advertising tangible stuff I might actually want or need?
Actually, I'm probably being unfair to the comparison websites. There are lots of adverts advertising 'tangible stuff' that are just as annoying. There's that McDonald's one with a poetry voiceover about how everyone's 'just passing by', when really it should be saying 'just passing over from coronary disease'. There's that really badly dubbed one (another bugbear of mine; dubbed adverts. Just make your advert in English! If you can't be bothered to spend the extra money on an english version, then I can't be bothered to spend my hard-earned on your poxy bathroom wipes.) about that kid who 'wants to do a poo at Paul's'. Now, if that was me, I'd happily send him off to defecate at Paul's house if his arse stinks that badly. I certainly wouldn't pander to him by buying an air-freshener that disguises the smell of the little shit's shit, just because he told me to. Like my mother used to say (when she was sober, anyway) 'I want doesn't get.' What's also odd about that advert is that the young kid is chinese, and his mother is caucasian. I understand that he might be adopted, but we're not told. And if that is the case, surely it's going to put some people off adopting. They'll watch that and think, 'I was seriously considering giving a home to a poor unfortunate orphan asian baby, but I'm not going to now, because they stink out the house every time they poo. Actually, sod it! I will adopt, but they'll have to go round to Paul's every time they need to park their breakfast.'
A more recent addition to the annoying adverts canon are those new ones for Nintendo starring Ant and Dec. The Wii adverts were crap before when they had the Redknapp family or that bloke from 'My Beautiful Launderette' who isn't Daniel Day-Lewis flogging them to us. As I said, they were crap before, but they've taken on a whole new aura of shiteness. There's a family (all card-carrying members of Equity) playing Nintendo Wii. When I say family, I mean family. There's Nan and Granddad, Mom and Dad, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and cousins, even the fucking milkman and all, probably, all sitting on the sofa playing Mario Kart. This is unrealistic for a start. That scene might happen for twenty minutes on Christmas Day, and that's only because dad wants to see if it actually works seeing he's spent so much money on the bloody thing, and they'll have fun playing on it until Nan demands they watch the Christmas edition of EastEnders (thus killing off any fun, or indeed, Christmas Spirit.)and she has to watch it on the big telly because she's 'only bought her readers'. Like I said, unrealistic. Then, they act all surprised when Ant and Dec walk in, despite the fact that they've just walked in without knocking the door or anything, and also the fact that there's a camera crew filming them playing Mario Kart. Then it ends on a cliffhanger. Ant (or is it Dec?) challenge one of the family to a race on Mario Kart, and then it stops! Who wins?! Go to the nintendo website to find out! Like I give a fuck whether or not one of the fabulous forehead twins wins his go on a video game. It's not even a good cliffhanger, they should've put an anvil on a fraying rope above Ant's (or is it Dec's) head and he has to finish his go before the anvil plummets down and smashes his giant bonce into porridge, like they did with the old Batman TV show. As cliffhangers go, it's probably up there with the following clip:

Makes you wonder how Doctor Who ever got cancelled in the first place, doesn't it?
Anyway, all this ranting has made me ill again. Poxy commercial television. I'm off for a Lemsip. Ta-ra a bit.

"Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like f**king Shaft!"

I read somewhere the other day that it's been ten years since Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out. And this got me thinking;those prequels were a load of old shit, weren't they? I was so excited, at the time, being a child of the original Star Wars generation, and the trailer got me all excited, but then I went to see it. It was shit. You think I might've been warned by the 'fix it 'til it's broke' original trilogy special editions. You might be arguing with me in your head now, but read on, and I'll prove to you the prequels were shit:

The Baddies in Episode I are a Trade Federation. Yeah, the bad guys are a corporation! Stick it to the man, multi-billionaire George Lucas!

The aliens in the trade federation talk in rubbish 'We So Velly Solly' Japanese accents. You see, all evil businessmen are Japanese! Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!!

The bad guy droids are all linked to a central computer, so why do they talk to each other? And why do they say 'Roger roger' all the bloody time?

The Gungans all talk in rubbish 'Yaaa mon' Jamaican accents. Giant rasta frogs must've sounded brilliant in the scripting stages. They're basically just spacey Uncle Toms. Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!

Having Brian Blessed as their leader must've also sounded brilliant in the planning stages. Didn't turn out that way, did it?

Jar Jar Binks. Everything he says and does. He was the first major CGI 'synthespian'. What a missed opportunity.

Watto, the owner of the Skywalker slaves, talks in a rubbish 'Oy Vey' New York Jewish accent. He's a corrupt businessman. Way to reinforce stereotypes, George!

Queen Amidala's scary voice when she addresses anyone important.

Jake Lloyd as Anakin. I can't imagine the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the whole universe ever said 'yippee!'

I also can't imagine that the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the whole universe built C-3PO, either.

I also can't imagine that the young man who grows up to be the biggest baddest bastard in the universe is called 'Annie' by his friends and family.

I used to think Jedis had some special ability that made them be able to use the Force, but no, it's because they have Midichlorians in their bloodstream. I hate the whole notion of Midichlorians. If they could make a clone army, why not clone midichlorian infested blood too and have yourself an army of thousands of soldiers with Jedi-like abilities?

Anakin didn't have a dad. He was a virgin birth, apparently. Eh?! Is it a Christ allegory? Only, in this version of the New Testament, Jesus goes bad and throttles his pregnant missus? Nope, it's those pesky Midichlorians again, fertilising poor old Shmi Skywalker. I reckon Lucas just couldn't be arsed to write about Anakin's dad, he was too busy fucking about with rasta frogs.

That two-headed alien that commentates on the podrace is one of the crappiest-designed aliens I've ever seen.

The best characters, Qui-Gon Jinn, Sebulba (Yeah, I know he's an essentially one-dimensional cartoon bully, but I think he was a fantastically designed and realised alien) and especially Darth Maul (the best thing about the prequels, in my opinion) all die in the first episode, leaving all the shit ones behind to try and hold our interest.

Darth Maul's two bladed lightsabre might've been a cool surprise, if only they'd left it out of the sodding trailer!

Ewan MacGregor's piss-poor vocal impersonation of Sir Alec Guinness.

How come all the technology on show is much more advanced than the stuff we saw in the original trilogy? This is suppose to be set before those. Also, the people in Star Wars' past were far more equal opportunities, with more women being fighter pilots, etc. I can't remember any female fighter pilots in A New Hope. That's not a criticism, though.

The casting of Hayden Christensen as Anakin for Episode II. He's possibly the worst actor in the world after that bloke who plays Nick Cotton. Not unfairly is he referred to as 'Mannequin Skywalker' in Clerks 2.

Episode II is supposed to be ten years after Episode I?! Nobody looks ten years older, except Anakin, and if it is ten years after the first one, this makes Padmé a bit of a cradle-snatcher, doesn't it? Aren't there any Jedis her own age she can fall in love with and make them turn to the Dark Side?

I liked it when we didn't know that much about Boba Fett. It made him a much cooler character. Now we know he looks like that bloke from Shortland Street and Barb Wire under his helmet.
Jango Fett was a cool character, though, but like all the best characters in the prequels, he gets killed.

The fact that the prequels were filmed in Australia, and so have lots of people that used to be in Neighbours are in it. Except for Jim Robinson, who appears in every other American movie.

Obi-Wan and his 'You're going to be the death me' jokes/predictions when talking to Anakin.

That whole sequence when C-3PO heads gets swapped with a federation droid just isn't funny.

R2-D2 can fly?! Does he forget he can do it by the time he meets up with Luke and Leia?

The whole sequence when Anakin spends time with Padmé on Naboo and tries to chat her up by saying she's not like sand, is clichéd and awful, and illustrates something that's wrong with all the prequels; the god-awful dialogue.

The same old cliché; Anakin gets to his mother the very moment before she snuffs it.

The Death Star was designed by cock-roach people? Eh?

The Clone Wars sounded cool when they were referred to in the older films, but they were a bit of a letdown when we actually got to see them.

Yoda in Episode II doesn't look anything like the Yoda from Episode I, and even though he can't walk without the aid of a stick, as soon as he gets his lightsabre out he starts whizzing about like a giant bluebottle?

In fact, Yoda's cut-and-paste way of talking gets on my tits. In the original ones it was cute, you could explain it by the fact he was very old and he's talking in a second language and he has trouble with sentence structure when he's saying what he's thinking when he's thinking it, but in the prequels, even when he makes a bloody speech he still does it. And the original muppet in Empire still has far more personality than his CGI replacement in Episodes II & III.

Sorry to dwell on him, but Yoda was mates with Chewbacca when he was younger? Did he used to babysit for Han Solo's mum and dad too?

Christopher Lee's Count Dooku is a cool character, as it's Christopher fucking Lee, but again, his character gets killed way too soon.

Padmé dies because her husband tried to force-strangle her when she's heavily pregnant, but even though she's dealing with that and the colossal pain of childbirth, she still knows exactly what to call the babies, even the one she didn't know she was carrying? And even though most Jedis can see into the future, know-one knew she was carrying twins?

I still don't know why the Emperor's face went all lumpy.

The emergence of the black-helmeted Darth Vader should have been the highlight of the prequels, seeing as that was what we were all waiting for, but instead, we got this:


NoooOOOOOooooOOOOO! It's almost Shatneresque.

If you're going to hide a baby from the biggest baddest bastard in the universe, letting him keep the name Skywalker and giving him to his stepbrother on the planet he grew up on isn't really the best plan. It worked, though, so what do I know?

And finally, in A New Hope, Obi-Wan clearly states that he doesn't remember owning a droid. That droid is R2-D2. Surely you'd remember that robot that was by your side when all the bad stuff was happening?

And so I rest my case. the Star Wars prequels were shit. They weren't all bad, the lightsabre duels were much more exciting, the podrace was cool (a bit overlong) and some of the scenes in Revenge Of The Sith (the death of the younglings; the Jedis getting wiped out; Owen and Beru getting baby Luke) pack a dramatic wallop that equals anything in the other films, but there wasn't enough of those to save it from the overall dreck.

Oh, and thanks to Tim Bisley for the title.

Drawing, Vomiting, Woking.

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Dispirited.

Whilst in the cinema the other night, I had a flash of inspiration; I reckon I've found a way to ease the world's environmental woes with a brand new totally green energy source. If we can somehow harness the energy of Will Eisner's rapidly rotating corpse we won't need to worry about fuel price increases.
Yes, I watching Frank Miller's woeful The Spirit. It's one of the worst movies I've seen in a very long time, and I've recently watched Australia! (Not usually the type of film I go and see at the pictures, but my girlfriend, who works in PR, got us some tickets to a special preview put on by the Australian tourism board and there was free food and beer (there was one woman there putting food from the buffet into her handbag for later. How Birmingham is that?), we even got free popcorn to munch while we were watching the film, and we were given free Australia-shaped luggage tags and an Australia pen. If you've seen Out Of Africa, Gone With The Wind, The African Queen, Last Of The Mohicans, Red River, Pearl Harbour, or Walkabout I wouldn't bother. To says it's derivative and unoriginal and clichéd is an understatement.You can tell it's Australian because Bryan Brown is in it. I think he's been in every Aussie movie since about 1981. It looks pretty, though, and there's lots of shots of Hugh Jackman with his shirt off. If you like that sort of thing. My girlfriend does. I don't, makes me feel inadequate.)

Anyway, The Spirit! This is not Will Eisner's Spirit, this is most definitely Frank Miller's. I'm not the world's biggest Spirit afficionado (I can recommend Will Eisner's Dropsie Avenue trilogy, referred to in the movie, and his Comics and Sequential Art book is a comic artist's bible), but I've read it, and the movie doesn't resemble what I've read at all. It's trying to be cultish and camp and comedic, but fails miserably.
Eisner was a master visual storyteller, groundbreaking and ahead of his time in his day. The film tries to be visually interesting, but if you've seen Sin City, you've seen it already. And Sin City was a far better movie. Probably because it had a proper director (I know Miller had a co-directing credit, but you know Rodriguez was the real guy in charge.) and decent actors (Jessica Alba excluded, of course) and knew when to use its visual flourishes for maximum effect. The Spirit has the same touches, but are used so inconsistently and for no apparent reason. The acting is terrible (Samuel L. Jackson is so hammy as the villain, The Octopus, I was expecting him to grow a little curly tail at the end) there's only the slimmest of plots and the dialogue is really awful.
It's basically an excuse for Miller to film lots of Hollywood starlets with very little on, and while that's an admirable aim, I'd rather he did his perving in his own time. (I was talking to a colleague about this movie, and he said he thought it was shit, but his teenage son loved it. I can guess why!) It's politically suspect in its portrayal of women ( I know it's supposed to be noirish, but this film is very definitely set in the present day, there's mobile phones and computers and at one point a photocopier on display, doesn't really fit with the look of the film) there are references to paedophilia (not very nice for a supposed kids' movie) and dressing Sam Jackson and Scarlett Johansson up as Nazis is a bit politically suspect as well. They're just dressed like that when they're explaining their grand scheme to our tied-up hero. As if we didn't guess they are bad people by that point, Miller tries to hammer it home by making them dress up as Hitler. And the plot's Macguffins, Heracle's Blood and The Golden Fleece, are not things that should be in a movie based on Will Eisner's comic.
As you can tell, I didn't really like it. It's a bad sign when the best thing about a night out at the cinema is the trailers.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

This morning, I watched a 25-year old edition of ITV's The Big Match. ITV 4 have been showing them on Sunday mornings lately, and they showed me what happened in the world of English football exactly 25 years ago. And on this week a quarter of a century ago, Villa (then European cup holders) were playing Graham Taylor's Watford, and Villa were undone by a goal in the fourth minute of injury time. How times have changed! (Villa were undone by a late injury time goal yesterday as well!)

Anyway, I caught myself saying 'Ahh, them were the days', but were they? There's a big 80's revival happening at the moment, there's kids walking around with big 'Frankie' type slogans on T-shirts, Rambo, Rocky and Indiana Jones back in the cinemas. Knight Rider has made a comeback, and the top toys of the time, Transformers and GI Joe, have been or soon will be big Hollywood movies. And, of course, there's Ashes to Ashes on at the moment as well, cashing in on the current clamour for all things eighties. And there was that shit Calvin Harris record.

You see, I remember the eighties as being generally rubbish. Thatcher, Miner's strikes,Mullets, Reagan, Recession, The Falklands, Stock, Aitken, Waterman, the Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth riots, Careless Whisper, IRA mainland campaigns, Piano-key ties, Greenham Common, Bucks Fizz, The Minipops, Howard's Way and Howard Jones. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. On a personal note, the eighties might've been the decade Villa won the Championship, the European Cup and the Super Cup, but it was also the decade in which we were relegated and we got Deadly Doug back. I did most of my puberty in the eighties, and that was a shit time. Having a squeaky voice and terminal acne is bad enough, but try combining that with having to wear Farah trousers, stonewashed denim jackets and tan leather neckties. Not a good look, especially when topped off with a flat-top haircut. Also, the eighties was the time when my parents split up, so I don't look back on the era that fondly.

But I did live through them, and my memories are first hand. A lot of the kids about now who are re-living the eighties weren't even born in the eighties. People having their first legal pint this year were born in 1990! That makes me feel old. To those people, Michael Jackson's always been a white bloke! Why have they latched onto the '80s? Is it the because the '90s didn't really have an identity?(I recently went to a '90s themed party and I honestly couldn't think of anything to go as, so I just wore an old football shirt. For a so-called comics artist I really do lack imagination! But it proves what a fairly nondescript decade the 90's were.) If the most recognisable star from the 90s is Liam Gallagher, then it really was a shit decade culturally. I really don't see the point of having nostalgia for a decade you weren't around in, and young adults might want to try creating their own cultural movement instead of borrowing one that wasn't that good in the first place.

God, I sound old!

Frankenstein, Dracula and a Crocodile?!

I had to laugh at the newspaper today. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a monarchist at all. There's this inquest happening at the moment, which has cost upwards of £10 million pounds, just to rule that Lady Di died becaused she was being driven by a pissed up bloke at high speeds and forgetting to clunk click. What a waste of money. Or so I thought, but new evidence has come to light from Mr. Al Fayed that Prince Phillip's real surname is 'Frankenstein', he's a Nazi and a racist (those two do tend to go together, Mr Al Fayed) and this mockery of man stitched together from cadavers* and wearing an SS uniform was head of a conspiracy (that included the secret service, Tony Blair, and Di's own sister!) to kill the Princess Of Hearts, just so his son could bring a crocodile he was shagging into the folds of the 'Dracula' family that is currently ruling Great Britain and the Commonwealth.
I don't know about you, but that sounds reasonable to me. He's never going to get that British passport now. And Fulham are going down. That's probably the Duke Of Edinburgh's fault as well. Scheming Nazi Undead racist bastard!

*I know Frankenstein was the scientist and not the monster. Just thought I'd get that in before some smartarse does.

Oh, and the picture is from a series of strips I did for the 'newspaper strip'-type anthology Lost Property called The Adventures Of Prince Phillip. Check it out if you can!

Tinselitis: Slight Return

Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting morbidly obese, and all that shite. I've left the Christmas shopping extremely late this year, on account of being potless and always at work at either my dull day job, or my glamorous art career. (If you can call it 'glamorous', or a 'career', come to that!)

I made a good start this week, but man, do I hate Christmas shopping and all the annoying crap that surrounds it. Like standing in queues and being cold, and avoiding other shoppers who decide to suddenly change direction, or worse still,just stop dead in front of you, leaving you a braking distance of about four inches. Listening to the same bloody Christmas records over and over and over again, and getting annoyed at the records that aren't Yuletide songs, but end up on these bloody festive compilations just because they had a Christmassy video, and that bothers me, for some reason. Songs like Stay Now by East 17, The Power Of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Keeping The Dream Alive by Freiheit are lyrically nothing to do with the festive season!! Alright?!! Stop bloody playing them!!

I know a sound like a curmudgeonly Scrooge-type, but I hate the forced friendliness that retailers insist their staff use on us, the stressed out customers. I like the normal 'get what you want to buy, take it to the counter, pay for it, and fuck off' system thats employed the other ten months of the year. I don't want to have yuletide smalltalk with shop assistants. They don't really give a toss whether I've finished my Christmas shopping or not. I was in WH Smiths the other day, purchasing a video game for my youngest daughter. The game is based on a popular cartoon character, and the girl serving me was a big fan of this character and was filling me in on the history of him. All well and good, but by that point in my shopping hell, I really wasn't interested, I just wanted to go home. But, lo and behold, the game's barcode wouldn't scan, so she had to bugger off for ten minutes to find it, leaving me standing at the counter like a spare prick. It would've been unbearable but for the girl on the next till who was wearing a rather revealing blouse (apologies for the Sid James-type sexism that will follow) and kept bending down to get carrier bags and showing me her 'goods', so to speak. Smiths have a campaign at the moment in which they donate some money or something to help plant trees every time someone refuses a carrier bag, so I was getting annoyed at the do-gooders who wanted to save the environment, because it meant the girl wasn't bending down to get a bag. I was thinking 'bollocks to the environment!' (I know I'm sounding like an old lech, but you really can't argue with the truth.)
Anyway, the more sombrely dressed girl who was serving me came back with the appropriate barcode and proceeded to tell me all about an old college friend of hers who asked for her mobile number, but she wouldn't give it to him because he didn't phone her up the last time she gave him her number. I don't care, just take my money and let me go home!! For fuck's sake!!

Also, during a shopping expedition, I bumped into my eldest daughter, who was buying gifts for her schoolfriends, and she also happened to be with her boyfriend. Now, the other day, after finding out she had a boyfriend, I jokingly said to her (acting like all the fathers of girls I've been out with, and once, I even met the father of my girlfriend for the first time after I'd already impregnated her. That was fun!) that if I ever met him, I'd rip his balls off. I was only joking, really! Anyway, she told him what I'd said, the devious little cow, so when I bumped into them in the BullRing shopping Mall, he promptly turned about face and fled. Surely I'm not that scary! I feel bad now. I've still not finished my shopping, either.

Anyway, despite all this, I do like Christmas, and I hope all of you out there that actually take the time to read the cobblers I write, have a great Christmas and an even better New Year, and remember, enjoy alcohol responsibly!

Holiday Bargains.

During this festive season, it's good to remember the festivals happening in other cultures and faiths, and include them into our own, so we're all one big happy human race celebrating the end of another year. In that respect, it's fantastic that this particular store is trying to sell hams to the Jewish during the busy holiday period.

How to feel up women in shopping centres and get away with it.

This week, after being dumped (it's happening so often lately I may start saying 'splitting up with women' is a hobby of mine!) I was feeling down, totally lacking in self-esteem and confidence. But ITV tonight has shown me the solution! All I need is the right bra! After a trip to La Senza tomorrow I can face the world with a smile again, because I know my 'womble's noses' are properly supported!
I can't believe Trinny and Susannah strung out the fact that most women wear the wrong size bra to fill an hour's worth of telly. I was about to eat my dinner, and needed some shit to watch while I was ingesting, so I thought a programme about tits the ideal choice. It was basically an excuse for these two harridans to go round feeling women up in shopping centres. (It's better than my usual excuse, anyway!) At one point the skinny one (Trinny? I'm not absolutely sure. They don't always stand in alphabetical order like Ant and Dec do.) even put on a prosthetic pair of tits and did exercises and came to the conclusion that it felt strange for her. Well, I'm not a so-called style expert, but even I know that if I tried on a fake pair of plastic tits and jumped around in a park, it would feel pretty fucking strange to me and all!
The fact that I turned a programme about breasts off halfway through also feels strange. Kinda unnatural. Isn't prime-time telly these days a load of old shit, eh?

(This picture came from here. This site is brilliant. The art is so good I may now have to hang up my ink brush for good, as I have witnessed a perfection I cannot hope to match. And I've spent the best part of this year drawing Ray Winstone! I think I may have to start sketching with biros again. I used to do it all the time. This site has re-lit my fire!)

Pumpkin Curry?

I'm not a fan of this imported Yank tradition of having kids going around to strangers' houses and asking for sweets. I was told to do the opposite when I was a nipper. So I went round to friends' houses and didn't ask for sweets. Some people like it, however, so, I'd thought I'd show you this excellent video. it was sent to me by my friend Laura, who has a great love of all things cheesy and naff. Probably why she now works for the Beano. Only kidding, Beano fans (and Laura)!

Anyway, watch this video, It's hallowe'en themed, and it's got Tim Curry in it, and some of the shittest as-long-as-it-rhymes lyrics and video effects I've ever experienced, which makes it head-shakingly great.




A toad in a bass guitar? It's better than a video? Has anybody seen my tambourine? What the devil is he on about?!!

Happy hallowe'en from me, anyway, if you're bothered.

Egg-chucking.

I know this isn't exactly topical, with it all being finished last week (I've been a busy boy), but I'm glad the rugby world cup is over.
I know there's a lot of rugby fans out there. I can understand the appeal, it's a fast, violent sport, and I was pleased England got as far as they did (which pissed off my Scottish girlfriend. Sport's always good for rubbing the sweaty socks' noses in it) and was genuinely disappointed when they didn't win it.
What really pisses me off is the response to the tournament in the newspaper's letters pages that I've read in the last week. It's all been the same old "our football players could learn a lot from our rugby players" cobblers that was being spouted after the last rugby world cup. (These same letters pages were all saying the opposite at the beginning of the tournament, when England were playing shite.) Football , (or 'soccer' if you're from across the pond. I hate that term) is Britain's most popular sport. Always has been. Always will be. Rugby Union may be popular for the next fortnight or so, but it'll soon fade, just as it did four years ago, and that was when we actually won something!
I know a lot of Premier League players misbehave. I also know a lot more of them do loads of charity work and support a lot of schemes helping their clubs' local communities. I also know that, because of football's position as the number one sport, these players are under a lot more scrutiny than their egg-chucking counterparts, so any bad behaviour by a football player is going to turn up immediately in the papers. In fact, I seem to remember Lawrence Dallaglio making the papers for an alleged cocaine scandal, and Will Carling's various alleged trysts with women who weren't his wife, one of whom was the wife of the future king of England. (There goes the knighthood, eh, Will?) so, the paragons of virtues that are rugby union players aren't exactly that pearly white, are they?
And this is what pisses me off. All this moaning about our football players is just downright snobbery. Professional footballers are generally working class men who piss some people off because they make lots of money. (which is only right, in my opinion. I've never believed that footballers shouldn't make a lot of money. They are part of an entetainment industry, which in itself makes a lot of money. It's only right they should see some of the profits, as they're the ones punters are paying to see, and it is a very short career. I don't blame them for trying to make as much money as they can when they can. Hardly anyone moans about Tom Cruise making twenty million dollars a movie, which I think is more abhorrent. Have you seen Days Of Thunder?!)
Rugby players are, on the other hand, mostly middle-class. Until recently, they weren't even paid for playing rugger as they all had posh jobs like being accountants or quantity surveyors or company directors during the week. It seems to me that it's okay for rugby players to get pissed up (with members of the royal family, no less! I think I might join the army, if it's anything like Prince Harry's time in the forces, you get to get pissed as much as you like, go to swanky nightclubs and big sporting events all the time, and not actually do any fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.), as it's just high spirits. If footballers do the same,(especially after losing an important match) it's another indictment of the sorry state of our national sport. It's just out-and-out snobbery and it shows that the class system is alive and well in our country, despite protestations to the contrary.
Right. I'm off to get pissed, now.

Batmen on drugs.

Because of the overwhelming response to the film on my last post (all of no comments! Yay! still got it!), I've been digging around YouTube and found some more versions of the 21st Century classic that's called 'Batman On Drugs'. Basically, it takes a clip from the old '6os Batman TV show (the one where he does the 'Batusi' in a Gotham Discotheque!) loops it and adds a song that I don't know the name of, but it makes me smile and it is extremely catchy, although singing it out loud makes you sound like a mental.

Anyway, here's the version I posted last time, just to refresh your jaded minds:



Here is the fantastic Heavy Metal version of the same song:


And here is the Batman Begins update, starring Christian Bale, that welsh bloke with the weird jaw thing that my friend quite fancies...


Thanks for indulging me. Back soon-Same bat-time, same bat-blog!

Pow! Biff! part 8.

This is the return of the occasional series that pokes fun at some comics' ridiculousness. It's been a while. If you click here you will be transported to a site which proves how rubbish Clark Kent's 'If I just put a pair of glasses on, nobody will realise I'm actually Superman' ploy is. I mean, I never wore glasses at school, but if I bump into an old schoolmate now, they instantly remember who I am. That might be because of the odour, though.

Bullying! The Musical!

Monday was one of those nights when it's rubbish being a parent. My youngest is leaving primary school and will be going to what is called 'big school' . To celebrate this fact, her school put on a play that I was emotionally blackmailed into watching. The play was a cautionary taleabout kids going to secondary school and gettting sucked into gang culture and bullying. It was a musical!
My daughter was only in the choir, meaning she was shoved up the side of the hall where I could hardly see her anyway. I went with my other daughter, who thinks she's too cool for this kind of stuff, but if I have to sit through it, so does she. I'm an equal opportunities parent. It pissed down on the way, so I was soaked before I got there, and the hall we watched the play in was roasting hot, very humid and stuffy, so I quickly dried out and starting sweating. The kids have their dinner in the same hall, as well, so the place stunk of fish. It was either the lingering smell of old dinners, or one of the parents or staff had an intimate hygiene problem.
I hate school plays. I generally don't like anything where children are singing. Bugsy Malone is my idea of hell. I'm glad that fat bloke won Britain's Got Talent and not that gappy brummie child. Kids should be out playing on their bikes, not fannying around singing songs about a rat. I think, because I was a young parent, I'm not as far removed from bowel-emptyingly horrible times when I had to sing in public as a child, so I'm feeling embarassed for the kids. don't get me wrong, most of the kids sung their songs well, but some of them didn't. They were really bad. I felt bad for hating them, I felt bad for them. Mostly, I wanted it to be finished so I get my sweaty arse out of the hot halibut halitosis hall and get some fresh air.
Thing is, we had nothing like this when I left primary school, school plays and days out (my daughter went bowling with the school, as well)!) all I got was a brief 'ta-ra' or 'Haven't you fucked off YET, Trimble?' We don't half make a fuss over everything these days.

Mindless Scribble.

Another update from the Bus Stop From Hell. It's the bus stop situated outside the 'Custard Factory', which is supposed to be an arts complex but these days resembles a collection of empty shops. I've told you before about the mystery graffiti artist who scrawls racist shite all over the bus stop, especially if the advert on the bus stop has a non-white face. In fact, he once defaced an advert for 'Magnum' ice cream by writing 'N*****R SPUNK' on it. It just had a picture of the ice cream on it. I think the cretin was offended by it being dark chocolate. Generally, though, he just scribbles shite like 'Fuck Islam' and draws swastikas on the windows. Anyway, this has made the idiots from the other side (of the race divide, I mean, not the afterlife) write their shite on and around the bus stop. For example : "In Muslim countries there are no homos or lesbians and therefore no AIDS" (Strange to see the word 'therefore' in graffiti) and 'IN YEARS TIME NO WHITES WILL SURVIVE' (of course, 'whites' has been scribbled out and the 'P' word put in, only to be scribbled out again and the original 'whites' put back on', only for that to be scribbled out, and so on)
Anyway, during this Great War of scribble between two idiot factions there is one message that's like the Christmas Day football match. In the middle of all this race hate is the legend: 'BILLIE PIPER WANKER' ,which is so fantastically nonsensical and irrelevant compared to the rest of the drivel written there that I have to smile every time I see it. I'm funny like that. What's not funny is the fact that these idiots who think like that are out there, and the multi-cultural fully integrated happy town that Brum sells itself as is a myth.

T-Shite.(XL,mostly.)

Last night, the pile of black bags full of my clothes in what will become the kids' bedroom finally pissed me off. I'm between wardrobes at the moment. Not, literally, mind."Help! I'm trapped between these wardrobes! And they're fitted! Aaaarghh!" I do however, have some spaces left where I can stick some of my clothes. I was always of the opinion before that I never had any clothes. There's always something I need a new one of. Now I know I'm wrong. I must have about eleventy gazillion T-shirts. Going through them and folding them up last night, I realised what a sad geeky bastard I really am. The sad thing was, I'm geeky enough to count all the different types of T-shirts I've got. I have four Star Wars related shirts. I've two Daredevil shirts. Two of the Hulk. A Silver Surfer. A Punisher. Two Batman. A Captain America. A Bingo Bonanza (a small-press book I did a strip for. It qualified me for a free T-shirt at the last Brighton Expo). A Dalek. A Spidey. A replica of the shirt Sam J. Jones wore in the Flash Gordon movie. A fondue set. A cuddly toy.
How sad is that? I didn't include the loads of music T-shirts I've got, or the scores of Aston Villa related clothing. Thing is, there's a lot of these shirts I probably won't wear very often in case people spot me for the nerd I really am and attack my flat with pitchforks and flaming torches. (in the case of the Villa stuff, seeing as I live in a 'Bluenose' area, I walk around in Claret-and Blue, I will have my lungs handed to me by a group of dirty, tattooed knuckle-dragging Birmingham City supporting Cro-Magnons!) There's some old t-shirts that I've had since I was a teen that I refuse to throw out because of some stupid sentimental attachment, or "I'll keep them to do the decorating in, or summat", despite the fact they've got more holes in than Clyde Barrow, or my expanding beer gut means I can't wear tham without looking like a sack of shit tied in the middle. I really have to start geting ruthless with my hoard of old shite.

Piss Kick.

I thought I was nearly better yesterday, so I ventured into work today just to realise I'm not that much better at all. I feel as rough as a badger's ballbag. So, despite all your 'Get Well' messages, I'm still ill, but thanks anyway. What is worrying about this illness is a weird new symptom I've discovered. My elbows are spotty. I don't know what this signifies. I have all the other 'fluey stuff ie. snot, cough, phlegm and aches, but spotty elbows are a new one on me.
Yesterday, as you all know was St. Valentine's Day, a day made famous by a massacre. Me and the missus don't generally make much of a fuss on Valentine's, but this year I thought I'd treat her, especially after the care she took of me during my illness, so I bought her a nice new bag and a new belt. When I gave them to her, though, she went mental and didn't speak to me all day. Still, the hoover works a treat, now.
Not really. We really don't make much of a fuss, but we do generally get each other a prezzie, have a nice meal, and spend the evening together. This year, however, the light of my life told me she was going to spend St. Valentine's evening in the company of a psychic. How romantic. These people are shysters. You've just got to look at Derek Acorah (see below). They never tell us anything good, like the winning Lotto numbers, or the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, they just tell us sub-horoscope "you'll meet a tall dark stranger" cobblers, and pretend it's not them making it up, it's your dead relatives telling you a revealing truth. Which is a load of shit. I can't believe in an afterlife , and if there is one, I don't reckon it's full of spirits desperate to tell their living relatives that the lamp found on the skip is worth a lot of money. Why otherwise intelligent people want to waste their money on this crap is beyond me.
Anyway, The psychic eventually cancelled (unforeseen circumstances? Her powers are weak!) so we watched a scary film about a psychic with the kids instead, and had our nice evening after all.