Sit down, shut up, and listen to my weekend.

I have been uncharacteristically detached from the news this week, despite reading the papers and watching some news, I haven't really absorbed any of it to really take any notice or even have anything news worthy to tangibly speak about. Apparently Libyan rebels have 'captured' Gaddafi's home town [The Guardian], and 250,000 people had a march in London about cuts or something [The Telegraph]. The latter resulted in a minority of people predictably shooting themselves up to the eyeballs on testosterone and break a few windows. And again, for some reason, the Star thinks that a front page headline about Jordan is more important for people to know about than what is the domestic news  headlines this weekend; if anybody can be bothered to look up today's Star headline you would probably reel in disbelief. I hope poor Alex doesn't read it. Most papers have a political orientation, the Star has a celebrity orientation.

Oh, and apparently Michael Barrymore was booed off stage in a comedy comeback attempt [Mail Online]. The highly talented and respected individual, Daily Mail Reporter, publised this. Of course backed up with the usual onslaught of degrading and embarrasing photographs. Like this:



Did I do that properly?

Anyway, due to me presenting the absorbtion qualites of a wet sponge last week regarding the news, I find myself with nothing important to face you will other than to attempt to make you jealous at how packed full of jam that my weekend was.

Thursday and Friday night was punctuated with lovely midnight adventure walks with a friend who I spoken to properly for a while with her new dog. I use the word 'dog' lightly, it's an Old English Sheepdog puppy; that shows every bit of intellegence of your average Essex bimbo. Was still  nice to just blabber the toss about nothing in particular in the darkness of the night.

Saturday's dull starchy sustinance was work. But it was polite to fly over and with the one bliddy time that I actually arranged to meet somebody outside the doors after my shift, is the one time where management decided to keep us all back 30 minutes to tidy the mess that was left by lazy, ignorant and stupid customers whom seemingly fail to possess the simply ability to hang something back up properly. So yeah, me and The Persistance of Memory eventually met, and under the false pretence of having a pint at the pub, the deceptive shit brought another one of our mates along and we ended up going to see a Faith No More tribute band, Faith No Man. Apparently this was what was planned all along, she did well to keep it from me. But then I have been mincing around in my own little bubble of late, so that probably is more my fault.

Faith No More were a pretty damn decent band back in the day, and this tribute band went a long way to doing them justice. Despite only knowing 'Epic' and vaguely recognising 'Falling to Pieces' from Black Hawk Down (I told you that it was in that film, guys)  I was severly impressed at how well they played. Good vocal work, and some pretty nifty finger work from the bassest and guitarist brought through the vibes of the classic rock band nicely. Furthermore, the drummer managed to flawlessly beat out the puccussion with enough politeness to vibrate the bones you stood with. One thing I would like to point out, would be that the keyboard player seemed to be there just for show half the time.

Bumped into a couple of people of whom I hadn't seen for a while, one of which I was really hoping I hadn't, but fortunately, it was only in passing. But the night was remembered by the absolute legend of a DJ that put on a whole host of songs so old-school my Gran would've been happy pulling some shapes to them - Jackson 5, that's right.

Didn't actually get around to going to sleep until 4.30am- I mean, 5.30am. The clocks went forward, did I mention that? I didn't know for sure until the Taxi driver confirmed it.

Sunday was easily one of the worst days of work in my life (so far), but I did buy a funky new shirt and a banging Thomas The Tank Engine cap for the bairn because he's suddenly developed a well placed love for the little blue engine, just like his daddy when I was his age.

So that's my blog about the key news events of the past week. You know when you've been informed. Thank you and until next time.

William Hague: A blundering buffoon, cleverly disguised as a responsible person.

The beginning of this week saw the media headlines filled with articles titled with news of our SAS heroes' 'failure' and 'humiliation' in Libya. Here are just a few of these said headlines:

"SAS rounded up and booted out as Libyan mission turns to farce" - Daily Mail
"SAS-backed Libyan diplomatic mission ends in humiliation" - The Guardian
"Libya: SAS mission that began and ended in error" - The Telegraph

William Hague

From the outset, it would appear that it was our Special Forces that were solely to be put to blame here. Wrong. If one would invest a little time into reading a little further into the stories, it would turn out to be painstakingly obvious that it wasn't. It was in fact our superbly fantastical Foreign Secertary, William Hague. 
Yes, the SAS went in with weapons, fake passports and currency by method of a secret landing in the middle of the desert. But this is the SAS - their primary overseas roles are normally to win 'Hearts and Minds' of the locals. But they're in a potentially hostile environment,  you think they are going to just walk in with umbrellas, bowler hats and wearing pin-striped suits after asking for a letter of invitation?

So it would appear that the Conservative government have not only thrown away our telephones, gas, electric and train tracks, but our national pride in our special forces too. Granted, the planning of the mission could have been better, it was planned by the SAS; but this doesn't shy away from the fact that the Libyan rebels had openly stated that they didn't want western help at all. Therefore, Hague shouldn't have sanctioned the mission in the first place. Hague's ridiculous excuse was that it was a 'serious misunderstanding'. How can you misunderstand it when somebody clearly says, "We don't want your help." This was a mission that was clearly going to go south from the outset, no matter how it was planned. Mercifully, Hague had the sense to  admit that it was his stupid idea. But then said something about more plans being made for more 'diplomatic' missions into Eastern Libya. If they are any where near as diplomatic as the latest incident; I'm taking a trip to Downing Street myself and introducing some diplomacy to his stupid face, wrapped up in the parcel of my shoe.


Obviously, opposition MPs literally broke world high-jump records at the chance to slate this man who is so bold, that when he wears a Turtle Neck, he looks like Roll on Deodorant. Douglas Alexander, Shadow Foreign Secretary, asked if he would introduce himself to new neighbours 'by ringing the doorbell or instead choose to climb over the fence in the middle of the night'. Former Liberal - Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said that it was 'ill concieved' and that Britain would have to 'restore' its reputation abroad. But by all means my favourite backlash that the Foreign Secretary received was the statement that British troops are being led by 'Tory ministers who have overdosed on James Bond'. There have been calls for William Hague to step down and resign - damn right should he, along with the rest of his blithering government. 

The late HMS Ark Royal

Do you remember a few months ago, back to when parliament were arguing about selling all our Harriers and our only Aircraft Carrier? Do you remember when they said that we don't need them anymore? The ironic thing here is that Iron Woman Thatcher said pretty much the same thing about our whole navy and decommissioned a lot of it back during her deluded and ideological reign of power - and then Argentina thought it would be funny to invade the Falklands. Now relate that to now; how handy would a carrier be right now to be able to sanction a No-Fly Zone over Libya if the UN give the go ahead.  Imagine if we had an offshore bit of kit that offers the sort of logistical support to quickly send aircraft in and out of an area where we don't have any military or civilian airport infrastructure so that we could extract vunerable British nationals with. 


It would seem that our Foreign Secretary is vastly incapable of his task of keeping up good relations with foreign states, and protecting our British nationals abroad. If this is the case, why the hell is he even in this position? How hard can it possibly be to approach British Airways and say "Here, guys, we've got a bunch of people who are stuck in a country that is falling to shit, we'll pay for you to send a few planes over to pick them up." Strewth, even I could do that, and I'm a stupid, lazy student. But at least on the plus side, Hague managed to get the most recent group of British Nationals out nice and speedily. 


I honestly have no idea what Hague was thinking. I mean, he's obviously as deluded as the rest of the Tory ministers that are proposing on moving May Day to October. This is because apparently in doing this, it would make the British tourism season longer, thus creating more revenue for the treasury. Bit of background info for you, May Day is "a day of political demonstrations and celebrations organised by the unions, communists, anarchists, and socialist groups". Of course the silly blue brained twits want to move it - change it's name and try and move it away from its modern meaning.


To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not exactly sure how doing this would accomplish this goal, since I seriously don't think the French or Spanish or Germans look at our calender and think, "Oh look! There's a bank holiday in England in October! Let's all fuck off over there for a couple of weeks and get rained on!". Furthermore, how does this counter the loss of the foreign tourism advertising budget? You know them nice, sunny, perfect looking adverts on telly yabbering on about how awesome New Zealand is (I mean was, it fell over recently), how stereotypical California is (until it falls over again) and how hot it is in Australia (coupled with the HUGE outdoor swimming pool they now have)? WE used to have them for other countries. Well, we did until Cameron said they cost too much and stopped their pocket money. 

Israel

Canada

Thailand

Something else that made some major news today was the issue of 'Sat-Nav Terrorism'. Well done free media. You've pulled a right doozie there. In an attempt to scare the masses into more of a sheltered existance away from technology, you've just told any potential terrorist that didn't know already all about how they can cause yet more havok. Spot on journalism righ' there. 


In more personal news, I am delighted to announce that I am up to Day 11 of being smoke free! I feel great, and I emplore anybody else who is thinking about quitting to do so. It's No Smoking Day tomorrow too (9/3/11) - What better excuse to kerb the habit?


I've also added some contact details on the bottom of this site if you have anything that you would like to contact me about; whether it's ideas on future rant- er, posts, or just want some advice on how to quit smoking - I'll be happy to hear from you. Unless you gonna' troll. Trolls can stay under their bridges, and Youtube. I also have an art blog! Just updated with some more work! 


NOTE: My sister blog has just written a review about the My Chemical Romance gig she attended the other week. It's a fantastic read if you're into that kind of music!