Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Iz Nice, I Like Very Much

Published on April 30, 2008 in Glasgow, Humour, Teh Madness and Whiiiit!?. 0 Comments

With apologies to Borat…

In my country there is problem,
And that problem is transport.
It take very very long,
Because the bus is full of bams.

Throw the bams down the well,
So my country can be free.
We must make travel easy,
Then we have big party!

In my country there is problem,
And that problem is the Neds.
They take everybody’s money,
They never give it back.

Throw the Neds down the well,
So my country can be free.
You must grab him by his tracksuit,
Then we have big party.

If you see the Neds coming,
You must be careful of their knives.
You must grab him by his cap,
And I tell you what to do…

Everybody!

Throw the Neds down the well
So my country can be free
You must grab him by his cap
Then we have big party

Throw the Neds down the well
So my country can be free
You must grab him by his cap
Then we have big party!

Don’t Have A Scooby

Published on April 29, 2008 in Glasgow, Humour, Pictures, Teh Madness and Whiiiit!?. 1 Comment

As you know from reading this blog I often spot things on my travels that amuse me. Some of these things are outright funny to anyone and some of the others take a bit of work to see what I’m getting at. In the latter category I present this picture:

It’s a decent enough representation of Scooby Doo that can be found in the window of a wee snack bar called The Filling Station on Elderslie Street. So I hear you ask, what’s funny about it? Well for a start I know that it’s supposed to be Scooby Doo sniffing a delicious burger or maybe a hot filled roll. Deep down in my subconscious mind however, all I can see is something like this:

That’s right it looks like Scooby Doo sniffing a horse’s arse…. very appetising…

Incidentally, just along the road from it you can find this place:

I still can’t figure out why they called it The Elvis Cafe? It doesn’t even have a picture of The King :-(

Mugabe’s Ragtime Band

Published on April 28, 2008 in Teh Madness and Whiiiit!?. 1 Comment

There are two types of people out there on the internet. Those who’ll get this:

And those who wont.

Nineteen Eichty Fower

Published on April 27, 2008 in Politics and Ranting. 3 Comments

This very Orwellian advert has been turning up on billboards all across Glasgow to warn us all of the dangers of not having a television license:

I don’t know about you, but the whole advert seems fairly sinister to me. I understand the whole argument that the TV license pays for the BBC and all the quality programming that comes with it. Naturally I’m totally unconvinced by this argument and the more I look at the BBC’s schedules the less convinced I become.

According to the BBC’s own annual report they took in a total of roughly £3,720,600,000 between household and business licenses. This is balanced by a yearly expenditure of roughly £3,237,000,000. That’s a difference of around £483,600,000. Wonder where that money goes to eh? The same place it always goes, to the government down in that there London. The BBC etc claim that the license fee keeps the BBC channels free of advertising, but that’s a subjective argument. They might not have the reams of brain cell killing commercial adverts found on say Channel 4, but they do manage to squeeze in advert breaks between each show for whatever is flavour of the month for them.

The concept of a TV License seems to be purely a revenue generating mechanism for the government and the BBC. I propose a better solution. Pay as you view subscription television with different bands of charging. We’ve already got the technology to make it a happen.

Band One – Channel Subscription – You pay to view the channel(s) of your choice, as long as you keep paying you can keep watching.

Band Two – Pay as you view – Maybe there’s only one show on a particular channel that you ever watch so you pay to watch that show.

Naturally you would have to fix the costs of these subscriptions through legislation. It wouldn’t do if they could start charging a hundred bucks and showing nothing but tat. Maybe ten or fifteen quid year per channel would be fair? The channels would very quickly have to start making the most of their revenue. It would become a cutthroat world where every flop program could mean the loss of views and ultimately the loss of revenue. You put out a stinker of a show like headcases and you’ll sink like a stone. Equally if you don’t pay to watch, then you can’t watch. Sure like any technology some people will find a way round it, but most people will just stump up the cash and get on with it. If someone doesn’t want to have a television or never watches anything on it why should they pay the same as a jobless waster that sits all day watching the damn thing? It’s like paying the admission fee to a film just for standing outside the cinema.

The License Fee doesn’t seem historically that different from the Income Tax inflicted upon everyone that goes out and does an honest days work. Let’s not forget that Income Tax was introduced by Pitt the Younger back in 1798 to allow Britain to pay for arms and equipment for the looming war against Napoleon. It was abolished and reinstated half a dozen times over the next half century. It finally came home to roost under the Tory government of Sir Robert Peel in 1842. The tax was brought back specifically because of huge black hole in the Treasury had left the government on the verge of bankruptcy. The TV License meanwhile pays for a black hole that pretends to be providing quality entertainment.

That being said, you’ll no doubt be aware that TV Licensing itself isn’t even run directly by the government anymore. It’s operated by “TV Licensing” which is a trading name for a multitude of companies that carry out the actual work of administering, providing and enforcing the licensing laws. The main company involved is Capita Business Services Ltd. Capita specialise in outsourced administration and a lot of their business comes from administering local and national government projects. Currently they’re wholly or partly responsible for the administration of TV Licensing, Network Rail and the Driving Standards Agency. I assume that at least part of the fee that’s supposed to be paying for quality programming is going to each of the companies under this nebulous umbrella.

For the record, yes I do have a TV licence and I definitely resent being partly responsible for the very gay resurrection of Dr Who. Even if I still watch it every Saturday. What can I say, I love a car crash.

Say what?

Published on April 27, 2008 in Glasgow, Pictures and Teh Madness. 0 Comments

Most of the time the Graffiti about the town is pretty much either half assed gang tags or drawings of cartoon cocks. Hardly worth the time and effort it took to put it up there in the first place. However, occassionally there’s a spark of comic genius out there and we get things like this:

Many thanks to Wee Ross who originally pointed this one out.

Upgradezzzz

Published on April 20, 2008 in Jabber and Teh Madness. 3 Comments

It looks like Priceless Computing’s shop in Finnieston could do with some upgrades to bring their frontage into the 21st century.

If I remember rightly 3DFX went bust sometime around 2002 and Pentium III’s have long been eclipsed by Pentium 4 and the might of multi-core CPUs. Maybe the demise of Infiniti Computers back in 2004 has made Priceless grow complacent?

Fortunes Told, Jabber Sold

Published on April 19, 2008 in News, People Be Fools and Whiiiit!?. 1 Comment

I noticed a recent news story on the BBC that indicated the UK government are looking into amending the Fraudulent Mediums Act. I don’t know what surprised me more; the fact that the government were considering amending it or the fact that such an act existed in the first place.

The act itself is a delicious piece of statue that seeks to protect members of the public from those falsely claiming to be mediums, psychics or spiritualist. It specifically targets those who make these claims in an effort to wilfully deceive or make money through said deception. According to the short Wikipedia article on the act it also repealed the earlier Witchcraft Act.

Apparently the rumours of amendments to the act have stirred up protests amongst the spiritualists, mediums and healers. Under the proposed alterations to the legislation they would have to prove that they were capable.

I’ve always viewed astrology, Horoscopes and fortunetelling with a healthy degree of scepticism. I’ve never been one given to blind faith and acceptance. If you tell me the sky is blue, I’ll look up to check. It’s not that I don’t believe what you said if you actually stop and read a lot of the horoscopes out there they’re either so general you could apply them to anything or so bizarre your mind shuts down and fills in the blanks for you.

Take for example my Horoscope in the Daily Record today:

Leo July 24 to Aug 23

Mercury has been asking you to get your CV out there, phone calls made and e-mails sent, but have you?

I hope so Leo, from this week your lovely ruler the Sun is backing Mercury up with some action and bringing those interviews your way. That will be hard if you haven’t made any effort, leaving the Sun with no other option but to make you the winner at the annual bring and buy. So which would you rather have; that dream job or a year’s supply of bin-liners?

Sunday sees a to-do at home or should that be a to-don’t? The law is being laid down and it seems that this time someone means it.

Sound’s pretty specific doesn’t it? Those damn Leos need to get their finger out and get a new job before Mercury kicks their asses. Though to be honest my job isn’t’ all that bad and I sure could use some bin liners… Who doesn’t want a better job though? Everyone entertains the notion of escaping the drudgery of the day to day, we don’t need someone wrapped in their grandma’s curtains with a crystal ball to tell us how to get a new one.

The last paragraph however is total nonsense, it could refer to anything. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a Groucho Marx quote.

Some of it is just too far out there to give credence to. The idea that the movement of the stars and planets can define the mood of everyone born within a certain month hardly seems likely to me. To quote a famous line “No mystical energy field controls my destiny kid.” Various very comprehensive and well published studies have shown that the so called Lunar Effect is little more than a pseudoscientific myth.

While I’ve little time for spiritual mumbo-jumbo of this type I’m sure there are a fairly large group of people out there who find comfort in it. As long as they’re not doing any real harm I don’t see a problem in letting these people bring a little comfort to those who need it. After all what’s the difference between an Astrologer telling you things are going to work out because a spirit told them and a minister doing the same? After all, people will always turn to the unseen when they are thrown a curve ball.

What Space Ship?

Published on April 19, 2008 in Whiiiit!? and Writing. 0 Comments

For reasons that will remain unexplained I found myself wondering exactly what a 120m long space ship might look like hovering over Glasgow Green. Strangely I thought it would look quite a bit bigger than it turned out. For comparisons sake, the ship is almost the same length and width as the Clyde Auditorium.

Asus EEEPC

Published on April 18, 2008 in Computers and Technowhiiit. 0 Comments

I was tempted for a while to invest in one of the Asus EEE PC‘s for writing as I feel that games and other stuff tends to draw me in when I’m on my main PC. The EEE’s are compact and at around £220 for the 4GB model they’re far cheaper than a normal laptop. They seem ok in principle but having taken one for a test drive in PC World a few weeks ago I found them to be ironically too small from me to be confortable with. The unit also has an uncomfortable resemblance to those old fake laptops that argos sell for nursery school weans.

That said, do you think Toys ‘R’ Us would give me a discount on this one:

After all, I’ll probably need to vivisect some weans to get the keys back…

Buste Imbottite?

Published on April 18, 2008 in Whiiiit!?. 0 Comments

Continuing the theme of vaguely amusing pictures I have this gem discovered in the store cupboard at work:

Even though it sounds like some kinky foreign porn star Buste Imbottite appears to be italian for padded envelopes. Damn those Italians, they even make their stationery sound exciting.