Mobile Twonks

I like a good walk and Edinburgh is one of the world's great walking cities. Obviously being a mudge I find plenty of reasons to grumble whilst out and about. Which brings me to the above mentioned Twonks.

Twonks: An irritating individual - example - the person in front of you in the supermarket who pays with small change when you are in a hurry.

On the street there are a plethora of Twonks. Obviously all students and to save time lets include schoolkids as well are twonks. They gather in groups in the middle of the pavement shouting (not talking) at (not to) each other. They smoke and gesticulate so the very real danger exists of being burnt in the face or, depending how young the schoolkids are, your nether regions. Also they never get out of your way. I'm 6ft 2 and fairly large if I saw me coming I'd make some space but no they just stand there gums-a-flapping until I give a mudgly "excuse me" and they grudgingly move.

Then there are the "Salesmen". They are usually short men, very very shiny and appear to have some sort of symbiotic relationship with their mobile phones. However it's not any of that which bugs me, it's the walk, not just the cocky strut but the fact that, possibly because the mobile phone unbalances them, they push their free arm out at an angle (approximately 37%) thereby preventing me from getting past them. I tend to walk at a reasonable pace so being blocked is most frustrating, As I try in vain to circumvent them the little voice inside my head is screaming PUT YOUR FREAKING ARM DOWN YOU SHINY SHINY MIDGET TWONK!!! however what I actually do is make an harumphing sound behind them.

Of course there is a multiplicity of twonk-kind out there but it would take too long to describe them all so I'll end with the one category which leaves me less than fully gruntled more than any other; dawdlers. Those people who walk down the street at a snails pace clearly with their minds on other things "did I leave the gas on? Do I have gas? I wonder who first called it gas? If it's pronounced gas why is gaseous pronounced gay-see-us?" Now I admit I often go for a wander inside my mind but the difference is I can do and still be in MOTION!!

I am beset by twonks on a daily basis but I have a plan. I will go to a joke shop and buy one of those plastic cavemen clubs - the ones that squeak when you hit someone then I will buy a costume and go round the town smiting twonks " you sir or madam are a Twonk" I will say in a loud and clear voice "squeak" will go my club of justice. I may even call myself the Twonkinator. On second thoughts I think I'll just do some quiet seething instead.

Shakespeare's worst line

As I took my lunchtime stroll I passed the Royal Lyceum Theatre where they are putting on a performance of The Merchant Of Venice which reminded me that in the middle of one of the greatest speeches in the history of theatre is the worst line Shaky ever wrote. "If you tickle us will we not laugh". On either side of it you have great lines "If you prick us will we not bleed" and "If you wrong us will we not revenge" but tickle us.....not so much.

Now don't get me wrong you can't argue with it as a statement (although I've never actually tickled a Jew so can't swear to it empirically) and you certainly can't argue with the speech as a whole but somehow it just doesn't sit well within it.

So there it is my nominee for Shakespeare's worst line. If anyone else has a candidate feel free to put it forward.

More from the world of advertisting

I should have added this to my last post but sod it I'll take a fresh blog to have a quick rant. Last night I saw an advert for a product that actually made my jaw drop I will give you the basic voice over: "For children who really, really hate crusts. New Kingsmill Crusts Away" Dear God what's next? "For children who really, really hate school new - Bunking Off" "For children who really, really hate their fathers new - Patricide". Surely it's hard enough for parents to deal with kid's food likes and dislikes without the food industry (and with Kingsmill I use the word food loosely) adding to the problem.

I'm no fan of victorian parenting techniques but when I read of this ridiculous pandering I swear I can feel my muttonchops growing.

There are more questions than answers

I had a head cold over the weekend which meant taking to my bed with a hot lemsip instead of a hot nympho which made a change as normally it's a hot chocolate instead of a hot nympho. As I sat in bed moaning to myself and occasionally sneezing my fillings out; I channel hopped, my brain unable to focus for more than a few seconds on any one thing. After a while I got the distinct impression that the TV was talking to me, it seemed to be illiciting my views on numberous topics which I had never really displayed an interest in.

At first I thought I'd gone on a Lockets based trip of some kind but slowly it dawned on me that it was the adverts, almost every second one started with a question - "does searching for car insurance drive you crazy?" "do you want more shine in your hair?" "does your partner suffer from erectile dysfunction?" and on and on. In case you're wondering my answers to the above are: No. I don't drive. Possibly it's manageable but it could do with a little more shine and no, my partner is female and made of rubber so I hope not. What I don't get is why advertisers feel the need. Their job is to convince us to use the products not come to us like Oliver Twist asking for more.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I demand more Machiavelian scheming and psychological trickery from the ad men, to make me purchase things I have no possible use for, and less requests for my opinion. Otherwise how can I continue to feel morally superior to them? - Well? I'm asking you a question!

An American Sampler

I meant this to be the first thing I posted when I started my blogging escapades so here it is my favourite poem it sums up my weltangshuung (world view). See I give translations.

Resume by Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acid stains you;

And drugs cause cramp;

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Save The Hamster

I turned on the news this morning and found myself half way through a report about Richard (Hamster) Hammond. From the sombre tone I thought he had died however no, he was merely fighting for his life. Of course within a few hours all the nay sayers were on to say how dangerous and reckless Top Gear is and now of course the Health and Safety Executive are going to investigate. But the point about Top Gear is it is dangerous, what it supplies is a vicarious thrill to people like me who would as much drive a jet powered drag racer as kick a Tiger in the nuts and then put my head in its mouth and who will probably never be in the same room as a Bugatti Veron let alone drive one. Hammond, May and Clarkson are doing the job they love and if Hammond does die he will have done so engaging in something he was passionate about which is something most of us would surely wish. So I say it would be a tragedy of the first order if it was taken off the air. Lets get pre-emptive and start the Save Top Gear campaign now.

A short note on the Thai coup.

Lets get the politics out of the way. From what I can tell this looks more like the 1974 Portuguese coup where a corrupt and vicious regime was overthrown and replaced relatively quickly with a democratic system ( interesting sidebar the signal for the coup to begin was the singing of the Portuguese entry in the Eurovison Song Contest) than the 1973 Chilean coup which of course led to nearly 20 years of brutal dictatorship. Of course only time will tell.

Now to the important stuff. When I heard about the coup my heart skipped a little beat at the thought of all the "travellers" being crushed under the heel of the military. Ha ha thought I is that a real enough experience for you? Is that Ethnic enough? Do you feel you've really connected with the country? fantasies of floppy haired ponces from the South East being herded into compounds, the sound of jackboots matched by the sound of thousands of flip flops as they are prodded with bayonets. Trust me I have a huge imagination so the many and various tortures I created in my head kept me up much of last night. However now that I think on it it will in fact only make them even more insufferable. "Yah it was really cool I mean obviously if you've never been hung by your thumbs and beaten with bamboo sticks you really can't relate but it was a totally spiritual thing".

Aaaaargh!! I hate "travellers" let me clarify I don't hate backpackers who are a different species. Backpackers go to new and interesting places and get drunk in them - "and here's a picture of of Dave vomiting in front of the Sphinx". Backpackers make no pretence of being any more enlightened or connected with the world as a whole, they simply travel for fun and experience and to meet new people and of course get drunk with them. "Travellers" on the other hand talk as if they have acquired a new and greater understanding of the world by spending 2 weeks sleeping in a youth hostel in Cambodia. Their belief is that anyone who has not patronised some of the poorest people on earth by beating them down to the lowest price for a rickshaw ride cannot possibly understand poverty and oppression. So if they survive the coup they will be back to give us all the breadth of their experience and accumulated wisdom. Well I say shun them. Turn your back on them. When they start to pontificate hum loudly (I find the Dambusters March works particulary well) eventually they will leave you alone. It might take a while but eventually they will get the message and when they do you can go out and get drunk with some backpackers.

Crucifixion's too good for them

I hate to be negative (stop laughing) but isn't the world going to hell in a handbasket? Do you know who I blame?....Well you're right, pretty much everyone on the planet other than myself but if I had to boil it down to one group of people I think I'd lay it at the door of TV executives. Now don't get me wrong I'm not one of those people who kvetch about violence and bad language (unless it's from the young ruffians who hang about at the top of my street) no I like a gory murder and I like to think of myself as one of Scotland's most flamboyant swearers (I'm a positive Oscar Wilde of the invective). My complaint is the sheer lack of imagination and creativity in modern television.

In 1963 Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "The Banality of Evil" well I'd like to twist that around to give you "The Evil of Banality". Lets take a trip through the televisual day, We'll ignore breakfast TV as banal as it is it's normally only on in the background whilst you make your porridge or if you're lucky have some early morning coitus. Let's, assuming like myself you often have time on your hands, tranport ourselves to the mid morning the land of what I like to call "photocopier TV". These are programmes which are pale copies of what were perfectly adequate filler TV progs such as Changing Rooms and Bargain Hunt. Each channel has produced their even lower budget copies which have in their turn spawned more copies until the morning schedule is filled with Cashinthehomesunderthehammerbeattheburglar60minutemakeover and your head eventually explodes. Ah but I hear you say "why don't you switch off your television set and go and do something less annoying instead" well I say to you SOD OFF! No, what I actually say is; I do. I read, I go out and do my daily tasks and at the moment I'm employed so I manage to avoid the nonsense. However not everyone is so lucky the housebound, the elderly the chronically lazy are forced to literally watch paint dry, or hideous teapots be offloaded at car boot sales. Sure they could always turn to intravenous drug use or taxidermy but why should they. I say give the sad shut ins some decent telly. Let us travel further forward in time to land of childrens TV. I come from the time when there were many British made childrens programmes on TV not to mention many fine imported progs which lasted 68 episodes and often featured infant mortality and/or industrial dystopias. They were great, they forced children out in to the parks to play. Sure many of us were molested but damn it it was character building. Now what is on? The braying ass that is Neil Buchanan on Art Attack a Grange Hill that due to being filmed in Liverpool but set in London has a huge amount of unexplained scousers on it and many many Japanese animations that move so fast that anyone watching over the age of 25 is in danger of bleeding from the eyeballs. ITV has recently announced that they will no longer make any more children's content and in fact want to cut down the hours they show so that they can make more room for extended verions of The Sharon Osbourne show and the like. Yes what a fine idea because of course this will mean children will, instead of wasting their time in front of the boob tube, go to their rooms with an improving book. Finally on our journey we reach the evening, This once was the time when families would gather round the TV and put aside their mutual loathing to sit and enjoy such family fare as The Black and White Minstrel Show and Seaside Special (Tonight featuring Brotherhood of Man) . Ok perhaps not the best examples but my point is that todays multichannel world has fractured the audience and yet not really provided the width of choice it promised. We have channels that supposedly appeal to people's "lifestyle" choices, so we have Men & Motors for men who get tumescent over engine blocks, UKTV Gold for the 6 people who haven't already seen every episode of Only Fools and Horses, the actual "lifestyle" channels where all the drek from morning tv is neatly packaged so you can see the same episodes of Cash in The Attic 3 times a month. Then of course there are channels like Bravo designed primarily to give a vicarious thrill to accountants from Neasden by showing football hooligans and cage fighting competitions. Now obviously many of the channels feature repeats from programmes shown on terrestrial TV mainly BBC but it's not just a way of channels making a quick buck on old programmes now the terrestrial channels are complicit by making programmes with inbuilt points for advertising breaks, if you don't believe me watch a documentary on the BBC and see the unnecessary fades, cutaways, even verbal breaks in narration. Despair not however because......I have a solution.

Every year in August the top executives in British TV meet in my fair city of Edinburgh for the TV festival. Most of them drink their expense accounts dry at the George Hotel. So what we do is organise a mob, not some organised protest I mean a 1930's Frankenstein movie sort of a mob, pitchforks and torches (which I'm sure can be purchased at a reasonable price from B&Q or Homebase). We'll lay seige to them, eventually they will run out of room service sandwiches and bar nuts (obviously they're TV executives so cannibalism is always a possibility - my guess is they'll start with the shopping channel executives) but eventually they will have to come out and face the mob and then we will force them to their knees (not an unusual position for telly people) and make them listen to our demands: Less reality TV, documentaries about important subjects rather than "World's fattest Marmoset". Less formulaic dramas i.e. Holby City, Heartbeat etc and significant investment in proper drama and comedy specifically in terms of discovering new talent. Oh and while we're at it drop the soap volume down to one episode a week (actually I'm not sure the mob would agree on that one) Anyway thats the problem with the world today and that's my solution if anyone can come up with a better one then I'm a Dutchman - Now where did I put my clogs.

All hail the grumpy man, the man who sees the world through a prism of disgruntledment and bleakness. All hail the man who not only doesn't see the glass as half full but sees the fact that it's completely empty and has a bloody great crack in it.

I AM CURMUDGEON HEAR ME GRUNT!

I am an equal opportunity curmudgeon. I have issues with individuals of all colours, creeds, classes, ideologies, sporting affiliations, genders, ages, sexualities, and hat sizes. The things people do annoy me. The things people say annoy me and even the things that people don't do or say annoy me. So now to some examples:

Children who cry in supermarkets - annoying. Adults who allow children to cry in supermarkets - even more annoying. Local government stopping children playing for seemingly politically correct reasons - quite annoying. People saying "it's political correctness gone mad" much much more annoying (and yes I mean you Richard Madeley). The fact that Americans say Eye-raq and Eye-ran and A-rabs very annoying. People who constantly bring up how annoying that is (and I include myself) really very annoying indeed. That thing where they push the end titles of a show to one side of the screen in order to show a trailer on the other half just when you are trying to see who played "Man with limp" in Midsomer Murders - seriously annoying. Articles in broadsheet newspapers particularly the Sundays where the writer throws in quotes and phrases in other languages without translation - you know what I mean "James Smiths new novel contains many examples of what Schiller called Pferd Unterseite Hatsheln" Oh thats so f******g annoying (pardon my French). The fact that Guy Ritchie is still allowed to make movies - seriously thats very annoying you slags. Anyone younger than you are. Anyone older than you are. Anyone who 's the same age as you but who is doing better with their life than you are. And finally Russell Brand - he's not big, he's not clever, he's not funny and he's very very very

ANNOYING!