New Years Eve Revellers

Revellers will 'flock' tonight and 'gather' and 'brave the cold' etc, we are told by the media (wonderful media).

But what the hell is a Reveller?

Is it a person in a crowd - or the actual crowd itself - who/that gathers in a public place to wave and shout at TV cameras?

I think it's both.

These Revellers surface at various times of the year, for example when the England football team play a big (usually losing as it happens) game, or recently the X Factor final night, and of course there is tonight, the big one, the Revellers Revellers night - New Years Eve.

So, if you're out and about tonight you'll see them (whooping and shouting and often throwing bottles or glasses) or if you're in and you happen to catch the TV news you'll also see them - in Trafalgar Square, Times Square in New York and in every town centre in Britain - some with TV cameras or local newspaper photographers present, some without - so, look out for them and happy revelling!

Personally I'd rather stay in blogging...

USA Holidays With Barack Obama

Apparently 13% of Britons that have booked a holiday to the USA recently have done so because of Barack Obama's election victory (why do I keep getting his name mixed up with Osama Bin Laden?).

This scares me.
How can people think like this?

Are we becoming a little bit like American tourists, some of whom (rumour has it) come over here on holiday in the hope of getting a glimpse of the Queen?

Or is it that somehow people think that the USA is suddenly going to become a much better place since the election of his holiness?

I don't know but I think one way or another the whole Obama cult thing will end in tears.

Last Christmas

I pulled my settee out from the wall at home today to retrieve something - and amazingly found a Christmas present that had been there since last Christmas!

I opened it, it was a puppy.......

The Queen's Christmas Message

I'm not going to go into details of this years Queens Christmas Message or any other years for that matter.

What I'm concerned with is just the Queens Christmas Message in principal.

I know she doesn't write the thing herself and just pretty much goes along with the order of the day and more or less toes the party line of whatever government is in at the time.

So that makes me wonder if a real bunch of true nutters got in and ordered the Queen to say absolutely anything, would she?

For example would she say that her legs were made of chocolate? 'My legs are made of chocolate'

or, perhaps, that goats are in control of us all and that they have written the speech for her?

Would she say these things (and with a straight face)?

I think she probably would.

Remember that if you listen to her message this year.

BBC News

I have just watched the BBC Six O'clock News, not something I often do - and now I know why!

The 'headlines' tonight were the story of the British hostages in Iraq who have been held for something like nineteen months.

Now this is a sad story for the families of these men granted, but there were no new developments today and the story was pretty much just reminding people of the plight of those involved - but it was NOT the main news story of the day in my opinion.

Another report on the news was about Dementia - and the reporter for this one, for some bizarre reason was standing on the street!

Why? Did she hope to grab a chance interview with a passing Dementia sufferer? I don't know.

And then, when reporting the fact that car giant Toyota has made a loss for the first time in history the newsreader referred to our current economic catastrophe as 'an economic slowdown'!

Wow!

A very sudden and disastrous slowdown I'd say - like what happens when a car hits a brick wall.

BBC News? I don't think I'll bother again for a little while...

Rachel Nickel and Crackers Police

It seems that the police investigating the Rachel Nickel murder used a psychological offender profile put together by the "real-life Cracker", psychologist Paul Britton to pursue and trap the innocent Colin Stagg.

Oh dear. The poor fools.

A year later the real killer Robert Napper, struck again killing Samantha Bisset and her young daughter Jazmine.

Good old fashioned honest police hard work would have caught Napper before he killed Nickel or Bisset because his mother had tipped off police that Napper had admitted to a rape.

They didn't follow that up of course.

But my real annoyance with all of this is that instead of police getting stuck in and grafting so to speak to find Nickel's killer they went for the glamorous option of using the aforementioned 'real life Cracker'.

Now we all know that watching too much TV is bad for you but the police took this to the limits by copying this faddy populist bullshit.

Shame on them all.

Blind Sign

I was sitting in a hospital waiting room today (long story) when I noticed on the wall a sign with a telephone number for blind people to ring.

But how would they know about it?

House Price Madness

House prices are falling and will, according to reports today, probably plummet next year.

Now forgive me if I'm wrong but to my way of thinking this whole fiasco has been caused by estate agents (rather than the usual suspects the banks).

The higher a property sells for the more money an estate agent earns - and who values the properties? Why estate agents of course!

So they are actually writing their own pay checks with other peoples money.

How could this ever work?

But who's to say that when things recover that it won't happen again?

It will.

X Factor Winner

Alexandra - no surprises there then.

Let's just hope that she turns out better than previous winners Steve, Shane and Leon.

She can't do any worse.

X Factor

Watching the X Factor final tonight (it's now 'half time) a few thoughts have struck me.

Cheryl Cole is a false bitch with fake tears a fake smile a fake 'long blink' and a fake hug.

JLS are probably the best act, Alexandra a shouter and Yogan (I know) an almost perfect stereotypical Irishman.

Thinking back to a previous episode when Britney Spears was the guest and refused to mentor the acts and refused to have her picture taken and refused to allow anyone on set to make eye contact with her.

Then when she finally appeared on stage on the night she mimed really badly and was amazingly given a standing ovation by the judges - the false creeping shallow bastards!

If I was Simon Cowell and Britney had been playing up then I'd have said to her 'fuck off Britney' and have had a Slade night or something.

Spineless X Factor twats!

Soap Opera Rubbish

This has long been apparent to me but I think I need to share it.

Every plot and story line in every soap opera is centred around one basic principle. And that principle is this:

we, the viewer know something that a key character in the story line does not, ie: Bill is having an affair with Bob's wife. We know about it but Bob doesn't, so we watch and wait to see Bob's reaction when he finds out.

And, just before Bob finds out he will be in a really good mood!

Think of any plot in any soap and it's the same.

I don't watch soaps (but I used to) and I've sussed this out - why can't regular viewers suss it out and dump the brainwashing rubbish?

Kidnapping Her Own Daughter??

Karen Mathews, the mother of Shannon Mathews has been found guilty of kidnapping her own daughter.

Kidnapping her own daughter - how does that work?!

We all know what a bad egg she is, and what she did, but surely the offence must be attempting to receive money by deception or maybe endangering her daughter or attempted fraud or wasting police time etc.

But kidnapping her own daughter how does that work ???

Severe Weather Warnings

So once again we have severe weather warnings that to say the very least are WAY over the top.

Heavy snow and high winds (ie: blizzards) and of course 'The Big Freeze'.

The severe weather of this weeks warnings only really happened in Scotland and the north (nothing unusual there) and it is after all winter!

What do we expect in winter anyhow?!

The met office have been on the defensive since the Michael Fish 'it's not a hurricane' forecast of 1997.

But Fish was of course technically right - the severe winds we had back then were NOT officially a hurricane - but he/they were very blase in not making enough of the storm force winds that were to cause chaos and death the next day.

So since then, afraid of being caught out again, the met office have over egged every weather pudding they've cooked. And the sensationalist media are only too happy to go along with them.

But I fear we shall soon see a 'cry wolf' scenario if they're not careful.

Crazy West Ham Solution!

In this weeks Mail on Sunday, respected sports writer Ian Ridley has come up with a 'solution' for the long running and bitter Sheffield United v West Ham legal battle.
Briefly (very briefly) Sheff United have been awarded £30 million (and rising) against West Ham.
Ridley's solution to all of this is for West Ham to give some players to Sheff Utd on loan, until the end of the season, free of charge.
That would be instead of the £30 million of course.
Do that he thinks, and all will be sorted.
Sounds good to me, BUT...
For starters does he really think that Sheff Utd would accept that over the £30 million?
Does he think also that the Sheff Utd supporters would really take to the (of course by now hated) West Ham players?
And does he think that the West Ham players would willingly go and then give of their best?
Speaking as an avid West Ham fan I think that in all honsety while admittedly saving the Hammers a packet the idea stinks!
I think we should pay the £30 million and have done with it.
Possibly in instalments.
How about forty quid a week?

Quantum of Solace Editing

Big film of the last few weeks at the cinema - Quantum of Solace.
It's been pretty much slated by the critics but I went to see it yesterday and I think a lot of the criticism is a bit unfair.
Having said that I have a major beef with the film.
And that beef is the quick 'cut cut' type editing thing going on in the action scenes.Each shot in any of the action scenes lasted no more than two seconds with most of them (yes I timed them) about one second or less!
This technique made it impossible to actually make out what was going on.
It was like having a load of photo's thrown in front of you very quickly - confusing!
This technique seems to be all the rage in action films at the moment (can you imagine them trying to film an action scene with one camera in one take like it was being done on the stage!) but I've never seen it done to this extent or so badly really.
To sum up - a half decent film with crazy, flashing, fit inducing, eyeball spinning, baffling action scenes!

No More UFO's?

During the 1950's up until the 1990's really, UFO sightings were all the rage.
They would crop up on the news and in the papers every week.
People would even be interviewed on (mostly local) news saying how they'd seen lights in the sky etc or 'discs'.
But then, something changed that has pretty much (as far as I can make out) stopped the sightings.
And this thing is? Mobile phones with cameras.
Most mobile phones nowadays have cameras on them, and nearly everyone nowadays has a mobile phone, so, if someone 'sees' a UFO the question will be asked of them 'why didn't you film it with your phone?'
Good question. No answer.
So people have stopped seeing them - which would suggest that it was all aload of bollocks in the first place.

Phoning Bin Laden

A radical preacher - Abu Qatada - who has been dubbed Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, has been returned to jail (in Britain) after judges agreed he might abscond.

So far so good.

Nothing odd about that, (except for the fact of course that he seems to be getting locked up for something that he might do) but what caught my eye about this story was the original bail conditions dating back to June.

One of those bail conditions (there were many) was that he does not phone Osama Bin Laden!

What!?

Don't phone Osama Bin Laden?!

How would the police know if he did?

Would they nick his phone off him and have a look at the address book for 'Osama' or perhaps 'Oz' or maybe 'Bin' and see if he'd phoned him.

Maybe they could check for text messages (also not allowed) to 'Oz' 'hi oz, txt bk plz cul8r. ab'

Come to think of it would the authorities honestly allow anyone to freely phone Osama Bin Laden?

And would Bin Laden himself happily take the calls anway?

A bizarre case all round.

Chemical Ali to Hang Again

It has been announced today that Ali Hassan al-Majid also known as Chemical Ali has been sentenced to death - again!

He's already been given a death sentence in February and today gets another one!

How does it work?

Will they hang his corpse after the first hanging has been carried out?

I wouldn't bet against it.

Embrace The Dark!

I've just been for a walk round and about my local town.

At night that is.

And in my part of Wales a walk at night, even in a built up area means a walk in the dark.
The local council (Powys) have turned two out of three street lights off to save money.
And do you know what - it's brilliant!

We've read (well I have at least) plenty of articles in recent years about light pollution - well my local council is doing something about it!

We've heard plenty recently about the depleting natural resources of the planet - well my local council is doing something about it!

We've heard for many years about our money being wasted - well my local council is doing something about it! (£230,000 saved by turning the lights off to be exact).

You don't need so many street lights as we've been used to having - two out of three turned off is about the right level of light as far as I'm concerned.

We've become coddled pussy cat's.

We leave our boiling hot centrally heated houses and get into our stuffy heated cars and drive to our stuffy heated offices and then back into our stuffy heated cars and drive back to our boiling hot centrally heated houses - we've become detached from reality.

And of course we even expect it to be light at night!

Fill the world with lights eh?

Let's have no dark.

NO.

We are a part of the planet, like it or not.

The earth turns, it goes dark, get over it.

So get back to reality - and embrace the dark!

And well done of course to my local council!