Royal Fight Club

Prince Charles - Tyler Durden

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Excellent. Now that they’ve been instructed to avoid reporting civilian death and misery in Fallujah for the time being, there's a lot more space on the news channels and newspapers to cover some other stories from around the world. A couple caught my attention this evening.
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First off, after yesterday's football match between England and Spain in which about 35,000 Spaniards hurled racial abuse and monkey noises at a couple of Black English players, the following headline hit the wires …

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FIFA Wants Explanation Over Racist Abuse
FIFA has demanded an explanation from the Spanish Football Association after England players suffered racist abuse at the international friendly in Madrid
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That's an easy one
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Explanation:

1. There were two Black players in the England squad
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2. Spanish football supporters don't like Black people

Solution

Select some Black people to play in the Spanish squad. OK this is a nation that pushes donkeys off tall buildings for entertainment and thinks filling in an EU subsidy claim form is a hard day's work. However, even people like that might find it difficult to abuse Black people if a couple are scoring goals for their side.
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Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. What's next?
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The Prince Charles story.
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Apparently, an extremely ugly woman is suing Prince Charles' office for sexual harassment and discrimination. Personally, I think she's on sticky ground given that the only person likely to sexual harass her is Benny Hill's character from the Italian job ('Is she big? I like them big') and that the person she has accused of doing the harassment is apparently, and like many of Charles' other boys, gay.
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Actually, aside from that unverified and unrelated story about him being complicit in a gay rape, I don't have very much against Prince Charles. We've only met once. I was having a pee in the basement of a museum in Arnhem ten years ago when his security team hustled me out of the lavatory tout suite so he that he could pinch one off in private. Clearly, he was in a hurry. That salted Dutch liquorice gets you every time.
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Unfortunately, I hadn't finished and found myself involuntarily reenacting the bathroom scene from Robocop.
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However, I've never held him personally responsible for me having to wander around Holland for an hour with a carrier bag covering my crotch.
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Prince Charles should be given due credit for all the good works he does through his youth charities. Years ago now, a friend of mine was in a bit of a bind after failing to complete three first year degree courses in a row. At her moment of greatest need, a timely business start-up grant from the Prince's trust enabled her to buy a home PC and spend a key year of her life smoking dope and playing Lemmings. It helped make her the person she is today.
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In fact I've started warming to Charles, particularly now that it looks very likely that he is, in fact, Tyler Durden. The reason why the harassment story has hit the news as large as it has is not because of the harassment charges but because of the contents of a memo Charles wrote as a result of the accusations. The rest of the World seems upset that Charles holds astonishingly old-fashioned views. I'm stunned because I think he's giving away the secret of his true identity …
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Prince Charles (internal memo)
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"People seem to think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability … This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history."
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Tyler Durden (Fight Club)
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"We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off"

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Is this merely a coincidence? Surely not. Charles is probably rogering Helen Bonham Carter, surrounded by mounds of soap and planning to firebomb a Starbucks as I type. Good on you Charlie and let's forget about that unfortunate little incident with the car and the tunnel shall we.

Explicit Food Porn - touch me, lick me, eat me, let me inside you

You owe me awe!

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The most fantastic news story of the week so far …
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The introduction of the Hardees Monster Thickburger on 16th November 2004; a day that will live in infamy.
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In a similar way to the arrival of the first Boeing 747 or the invention of railways, comparison with existing products on the marketplace is almost meaningless, such is the quantum leap in burger design represented by the Monster Thickburger:

• two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef
• four strips of bacon
• three slices of cheese
• mayonnaise
• 107 grams of fat
• 1,420 calories
• Available at a very reasonable $5.49 for the burger / $7.09 with fries and a soda
• and, yes, a healthy option low-carb version will also be available

Sadly, Hardees don’t operate in the UK.
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I wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago that spoke with grudging admiration about the McDonalds Big and Tasty burger with its 804 calories and 45 grams of fat. Compared to the brutish virility of Monster Thickburger, the McDonalds rival puts on stiletto hears and a dress then parties to Barbra Streisand albums whilst sipping on a refreshing gin and tonic. I have lived to see the future and it is large. At a single stroke, equivalent to a Fast Food Pearl Harbour, all other burgers have been caught dawdling on the runway and are now fit only for inclusion in Happy Meals.
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From the Chief Exec of Hardees:

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"This is not a burger for tree huggers. This is a burger for young hungry guys who want a really big, delicious, juicy, decadent burger," he said. "I hope our competitors keep promoting those healthy products, and we will keep promoting our big, juicy delicious burgers."

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Clearly not the thoughts of an man in any way apologetic about his life's work or planning any sort of redemptive acts. He obviously sleeps well at night.
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The first time I saw a picture of the Thickburger I just sat staring at my monitor, dumbstruck, for a couple of minutes. Looking over the specs of this baby I inevitably thought about that line from Francis Dolarhyde, the psycho in Red Dragon …

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'To me, you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great becoming but you recognise nothing ... Before me you rightly tremble. But you owe me more than fear. YOU OWE ME AWE!'

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www.hardees.com

Totally rubbish Joke of the Week

Just found this image acidentally captured on my camera memory card. That's my left leg. The question bugging me is how did I manage to take this picture?

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Which is the odd-number-out in this sequence: 2, 4, 8, 16, 33, 64?

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No.16. It's the only one that comes with fried rice.
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Forgive me Tiscali for I have sinned

Really? I hadn't heard ...

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Today I had dealings with the two entities who, with the possible exception of God, know more about me than any other in this World; my local supermarket and my ISP.

Given that I was off to Tesco's this morning I opened the last letter they sent me and perused the enclosed vouchers. Those guys have really got my number. Every single offer and discount coupon was tailored to my shopping habits as recorded by my customer loyalty card. All in all, my record with Tesco's is pretty virtuous and I marched off to the supermarket armed with money off vouchers for dried pasta, citrus fruits, fresh vegetables, speciality cheeses and yoghurts.

A couple of thoughts occurred to me on the way to Tesco's. Firstly, given what I see in the mirror each morning, eating healthy is clearly no guarantee of a desirable physique. Secondly, I was a little concerned that a supermarket had profiled me so accurately. The money off vouchers are getting increasingly specific and I expect the next batch to include coupons offering something like '50p off Tesco's own-brand spaghetti but only if stop snorting at the people buying lottery tickets in your local store, change your socks at least every two days and buy Tracy a birthday card for a change you tight arse'.

In fairness to Tesco's, I did opt into the customer loyalty card scheme and I do use the vouchers but the price is that they have a little part of my soul recorded in their database.

My record with my ISP is a lot less virtuous. For most of today I could not make a connection. I eventually cracked and called Tiscali customer support; Italian company name, UK customer, Indian call centre. After a few minutes spent chatting to a pleasant woman in Rawalpindi, who was vainly pretending to be in Birmingham, we established that Tiscali had been undertaking maintenance in my area and that service would be resumed by the end of the day. I suppose I should have complained, but I didn't. Throughout our conversation I had a mental picture of a sari-clad woman, sitting at a workstation several thousand miles away, chatting with me whilst simultaneously browsing my surfing habits. Given that my computer had been connected to a Croatian file-sharing network for something like 40 out of the previous 48 hours, I had half-suspected that my account had been blocked for some reason. I was so relieved that the connection failure wasn't a result of my naughtiness that I ended the call brusquely and thanked my lucky stars.

Tiscali knows all and I was sure the customer service rep could sense my guilt, as well as having access to a real-time itemised listing of the reasons for that guilt.

As a lapsed Catholic I should be accustomed to this.

Throughout the call I was saying to myself 'Don't worry Stef, she's like a chemist, she's seen it all before. Maybe she's never heard of Russ Meyer. She probably hasn’t the faintest idea what Japanese Helicopter porn is all about. I'm sure that she knows of plenty of legitimate reasons to be hooked up to Eastern European file sharing services' and so on.

And what if Tiscali start sending me money off vouchers and information about services I might be interested in based on my surfing habits? It doesn’t bear thinking about. There aren't enough brown envelopes in all the World. What if Tesco's merges with Tiscali? After all they're quite close together in the alphabet. All they would need is a tissue sample and a passport photograph and they could clone me perfectly.

Time to start buying leg waxing products, eating more processed foods and visiting itunes.com for a while methinks.

The Guantanamo Collection

Confess! Confess!

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Tracy mentioned to me that the US apology site I posted earlier was sweet but a bit left-wing, drippy wet and right-on. To which I commented that leftie liberals are generally preferable to tanks, missiles and death.
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... or Barney the Dinosaur singing 'I love you. You love me'
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I remember when the Barney story first broke. Iraqi prisoners were being held in 40ft shipping containers and blasted with unbearably loud music 24/7 whilst search lights were played on them. When first reported, in the US and UK, the story that Iraqis were being tortured with 'I love Barney' and the Sesame Street theme was presented as being somehow humorous.
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There's an old saying that God only permits you as much pain as you can bear. I saw some recently cleared pictures of the Iraqis in those containers. Looking at their contorted faces it was clear that someone, not God, had subjected them to as much as they could bear and kept on going.
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They had really shot their wad, big time.
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... and, as one commentator observed, the Iraqis hadn't even learned any new letters or numbers.
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If only they had a combined protective psychic helmet / vegetable drainer like I do.
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In the British Army our soldiers break people by hooding them, placing them in stress postures and subjecting them to white noise for a few days. I've always believed that this was morally preferable to physical torture but still a pretty horrible thing to do and only justifiable in extreme circumstances. However, compared to the Barney treatment, British interrogation techniques start to look like a school disco.
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No-one has been held accountable for the Barney torture incident. The colossal sound system used was provided by an American psywar unit but they maintained they were only following orders from a local commander. Apparently, 1,000,000 watts US army psywar PA systems are not intended for torture and are primarily used for propaganda messages and, presumably, the occasional wedding reception.
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Back in WW2, psywar was largely restricted to playing better music than the enemy on the radio and dropping pornographic leaflets, illustrating what their wives were up to back at home, onto enemy soldiers. Techniques progressed and by Vietnam, US aircraft were flying over Vietcong positions playing the sound of babies crying and the moans of wounded men
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... and dropping pornographic leaflets illustrating what Vietcong wives were up to back at home.
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Then, in the 1980s and 1990s things started to get quite strange.
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I recall watching footage of the US invasion of Panama. For some reason, not made entirely clear at the time, the invasion force included jeep-mounted PA systems playing 'Don't stand so close me' by The Police REALLY LOUD outside General Noriega's compound.
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Then there was Waco. What was going on there? Was it really such a good idea to keep a compound full of armed religious lunatics awake night after night with searchlights and Nancy Sinatra records?
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Apparently, there was an army plan to hide subliminal messages in the music blasted into the compound. Charlton Heston had been booked to play the voice of God to speak to Koresh directly ordering him to surrender. All things considered this must score a maximum 10 marks on anyone's bizarro rating index. Nothing came of the idea in the end. Personally, after seeing 'Bowling for Columbine', I can't take Chas seriously anymore and would have booked James Earl Jones instead ...

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'(snort) David (snort) I am your Father'

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I'm currently putting together a compilation CD based on American psywar classics. Hopefully, it will be ready for the Christmas market and will be released under the title 'The Guantanamo Collection'. The provisional track list so far ...
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Enter Sandman - Metallica (Iraq)
The Best of Fleetwood Mac (Cuba)
I Love You Barney - Barney and Friends (Iraq)
Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police (Panama)
These Boots Were Made for Walking - Nancy Sinatra (Waco)
Kris Kristofferson Greatest Hits (Cuba)
XXX Soundtrack (Iraq)
I Am God - Charlton Heston (Waco)
Theme from Sesame Street (Iraq)
Unwell - Matchbox 20 (Cuba/ Iraq)
Common People - William Shatner/ Joe Jackson (not actually used by the US Army to my knowledge but should be given that's it's one really weird record)
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And now the good news. According to the woman with the clipboard who recently tried to hustle money out of my brother for leaving his radio on in his cafe, you would normally have to pay performance royalties if you played this CD in a public place. However, use of pre-recorded popular music in an interrogation situation is not covered by existing performance rights agreements which means you won't have to pay any royalties if you use my CD as part of torture. I know this because the man who composed both The Sesame Street Theme and I Love You Barney was on TV with his agent last week and let slip that he hadn't received a penny for the use of his music in Iraq.
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The really fascinating question is how do the psywar specialists know what record to play in a given situation? 'When overthrowing Panamanian Drug Lords play The Police. When coercing Messianic lunatics into believing you are God try Nancy Sinatra'. That's one manual I'd love to read. Given the result of playing 'These boots were made for walking' at Waco was fire, destruction, mayhem and death I presume the guidelines are subject to periodic revision.
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All these thoughts on acoustic psywar remind me of I guy I met many years ago whilst a geology student. He was a vibroseis unit operator. A vibroseis unit is a vibrating metal plate used in seismic surveys. The really big vibroseis plates are truck mounted and powered by an enormous generator. As a surveying technique it's nowhere near as nifty as using explosive charges but it's usable in populated locations and also offers an additional benefit not mentioned in the user's manual. My acquaintance reckoned, quite reasonably, that every part of the human body had a resonant frequency. His interest was focused on a particular part of the female anatomy, quite tiny and normally impossible to find, which, as I recall, resonates at something like 80-85hz (it wasn't the female brain which is much larger and I believe vibrates at something like 30hz). He maintained that he could set his unit up next to an office building, twiddle with a couple of dials and reduce every woman in the building to quivering jelly. Try doing that with gelignite. The last time I spoke to him he was thinking about some way of opening a night-club with a vibroseis dance floor.
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He wasn't the only geologist I've met who was harnessing the power of acoustics in pursuit of love not torture. Another acquaintance swore by personal massager units, fine tuned to hit the magic frequency. Yes, there's more to geology than giggling at lecturers talking about blue veins and colouring-in dinosaur pictures with crayons. Be careful when investing in vibroseis units or personal massagers though. You need to buy the ones with the rotary controllers, rather than a simple on/off switch, so that you can hit the exact resonant frequency. In use it's a bit like tuning a radio until you get the little red 'optimum reception' light, or so I'm told. Once you've tuned in it's a good idea to make an index mark for future reference with a felt tip pen. If you're feeling naughty you can test your partner's sense of humour by adding several additional random marks and write a different girl's name against each.
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Another top tip, and this is based on personal experience, is to wash your hands thoroughly before trying this technique out, particularly if you've been chopping chillies earlier in the evening
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Right, I'm off to the shops.

Americans plead for forgiveness

Oh, OK I forgive you ...

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Thanks to Ryan for this rather excellent link here
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http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/

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which is basically a website filled with hundreds, thousands of pictures of Americans apologising for that whole George Bush re-election thing.
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On a personal level this is well-timed as, after many years and many visits to America, a second term of office for George 'I'm the retarded, Satin worshipping, cowardly gimp of the Dark Forces that would smother us all' Bush had depressed me thoroughly and I'd pretty much given up on ever visiting the States again. I'm sure America wouldn't notice but I would.
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... and then, to cap it all, Colin Powell resigned to be replaced by Condoleezza 'The only black thing about me is my heart' Rice. Yup, that bodes well for America's relations around the World.
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When the news of Rice's appointment as Secretary of State broke I saw several biographies of Ms Rice on different UK news channels 'blah blah bla academic blah concert standard pianist blah blah grew up in Alabama'. None of the News Channels, not a single one, saw fit to mention that she is a) insane and b) was a director of Chevron Oil for 10 years until she was appointed as National Security Adviser in 2001. Now that Colin Powell has left, that basically means every senior US Government Official is closely linked with the oil industry. Spooky coincidence or what? Chevron loved her ass so much they named their biggest tanker after her in 1995. The ship was later renamed the Altair Voyager in 2001 at the request of the White House. Presumably the existence of a 136,000 ton supertanker named after a member of the cabinet was too much of a give-away for even the Bush administration.
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To my knowledge, Colin Powell is the only global figure to have performed a Karaoke version of 'YMCA', backed by four suitably dressed officials, as a means of wrapping up an International Security Conference. A man rather adverse to making war on the basis that, unlike George Bush, he'd been wounded in and also managed a few.
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Imagine a world where Colin Powell were President. Wouldn't that have been something?
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Anyway, check that site out and remind yourselves that many Americans do understand how the World works.

London to host 2012 Olympics? Please God no!

Concrete Lemon

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London has just submitted its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games
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Ho ho
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Joking aside, I'm scared. Scared that 'we' might win.
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I say 'we' in inverted commas because I have yet to meet a Londoner who wants the 2012 Olympics to be hosted here.
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In itself, that's pretty sad. We should all want to host such a prestigious event but the reality is most Londoners are fearful of the prospect. There are good reasons to be so.
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The truth is that Londoners have become sadly accustomed to unrepresentative taxation, corruption and incompetence over the last six or seven years. Can anyone blame us? Every single major public project undertaken in this city in recent memory has been severely flawed in one way or another and cost the Earth. No-one has ever been held to account. No explanation has ever been given as to where the money went …

• Millennium Bridge - had to be closed because it wobbled
• Princess Diana Memorial - had to be closed because it was injuring people
• Wembley Stadium Project - years behind completion, millions down the drain
• The Dome - £1 billion plus thrown away on an empty white elephant, complete with colossal, multi-million pound tube station with a dozen empty escalators leading to nowhere
• The British Library - years late, millions over budget, the building's rubbish
• Etc etc; dozens and dozens of concrete lemons sprouting around the City like, er, mushrooms

The Erotic Gherkin Building and the London Eye don’t count because they weren't paid for out of taxation and the people spending the money monitored the spend. Strangely, both came in more or less on time, to budget and they work properly.

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The potential nightmare associated with a successful Olympic Bid would make The Dome fiasco look positively heart-warming. Initial reports are that the cost of a successful bid to rate paying Londoners would be moderate; something like £20-£30. Whether that would be for one year or a thousand hasn't been made clear. Nobody believes the final cost will be so low. Some 'Londoners' have been interviewed on TV and expressed a desire for the Olympics; most of them can, at best, be described as 'New Londoners' in that they mostly fall into the category of recent arrivals who claim benefits or undertake black market labour within the sound of Bow Bells.

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We live in a crowded, expensive, dirty, chaotically organised and increasingly nasty city. Our trains don’t work, our drains don’t work. Strangers are vile to each other on the street. We don’t trust our public servants to spend our money wisely or honestly. We really don’t need this.

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Yet somehow, someone, and it's not clear who, decided to fund an Olympic Bid and underwrite the potential cost of a successful bid in my, and other Londoners, names. Apparently, there was no need to ask us first.

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Kim Il Sung would have been impressed with this outstanding example of 21st century British representative democracy.

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As things stand, the chances of London winning appear to be slim. The Olympic Committee clearly has an idea of how terrible things are in this city. My one worry is that the French and the Spanish might just throw the contest for a laugh and watch us squirming in pain across the Channel for the next eight years and beyond.

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Nobody would be that sick or cruel. Would they?

Bridget Jones' Fallujah diary

Haven't received this photo as an email attachment for ages ...

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The news has been dominated by two big stories this week; the assault of Fallujah and Bridget Jones' Diary II.
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Dealing the least important of the two first, the assault on Fallujah appears to be proceeding to plan. The news is full of desperate Iraqi Red Crescent Aid workers begging for food, water and medical supplies. Apparently, thousands of civilians are starving and bleeding but no relief supplies can be trucked into the town because of fighting.
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Yes, that's what winning hearts and minds is all about. Blowing the daylights out of mosques, hospitals and water treatment plants then watching the civilian population die from starvation, blood loss and cholera. I imagine the survivors will put on a party for their liberators as soon as they can get their hands on paper hats and bunting along with food and bandages.
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One expatriate Iraqi mournfully pointed out that the UK Government wouldn’t dream of launching a full scale military assault, with 20,000 soldiers and armour, on Hackney just to clear out a few hundred foreign criminals.
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No, but it's a bloody excellent idea though. I think I might stroll over to Green Lanes tomorrow with a GPS, compass and my free Happy Meal pedometer and start drafting a rough fire control schematic, on the off-chance we get a change of government. After Hackney they could start on the Oval/ Kennington/ Brixton Triangle of Death here in South London. I'd happily pick up a radio and call in airstrikes and close fire support.
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'Zulu Zulu Tango. Your target co-ordinates coincide with your own location. Please confirm. Over'

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'Yes, affirmative. We are in an over-run situation. Repeat over-run situation. Drop everything you have on my position. I'm gagging for your full load of Snake and Nape, Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium, bolied sweets and anything else you might happen to have in your glove compartment. Over'
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It's difficult to know what's going on in Iraq at the moment as all the news stories are subject to military censorship. I do wonder what the more intelligent journalists think they're doing out there. Clearly, at least some of them are in harm's way, but why? What's the point of risking an RPG round in the chest just to report stories that are double-filtered by the military and the news organisation ownership?
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'Yes, I'm in the centre [boom] of Fallujah now [rata tata tata]. Lots of insurgents [kablam] have been killed [crunch], coalition casualties are light [badading badading badading] and the civilian population appears to be hosting a celebratory street festival … [kapow]'
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Those same journalists are reporting that the US military controls 80%+ of Fallujah yet for some reason is unable to get humanitarian supplies or party hats into the town. Mmmmm, I love the smell of bullsh*t in the morning.
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It's a shame about the military reporting restrictions because that means we don’t get to see any footage of white phosphorous (WP) munitions in action. Apparently, the marines are dusting off surplus Vietnam stock and pumping it into Fallujah. I like phosphorus, not only because it is a key ingredient in Coke, but because it also makes pretty patterns when it explodes. There's a classic clip of Vietnam footage that is frequently shown in documentatries; taken from the back of a bomber than is dropping alternating napalm and WP ordnance onto a jungle. The 'palm blows up all orange and globular, the WP blasts are white with lots of smoky tendrils scattering off in all sorts of directions. The WP is my favourite.
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The US Military likes WP because:

• Even though it's just as effective (i.e. lethal) as napalm on soft targets (i.e. human beings) in wide area (i.e. indiscriminate) scenarios it doesn't have quite such a bad reputation in the media
• You can’t put out a WP fire with water. In fact, water makes it burn hotter. If you get peppered with one of those babies you're in a world of pain. The rationale being that if WP doesn’t kill people immediately they'll writhe in agony for a few hours, distracting their comrades' aim a little
• In sufficient doses, WP melts people
• WP rounds make pretty patterns when they explode.

Yup, 'Willy Peter will make yuh a believah'
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Just like meeting someone with an obvious wig and feeling powerfully driven towards making oblique reference to that wig in conversation, I just know that there are middle-ranking officers throughout the Marine Corps just itching to say:

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'We had to destroy Fallujah in order to save it'

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The first American to use that line was referring to village called Ben Tre in Vietnam and the number of parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are multiplying daily. At the start of the Fallujah assault an American general at the first press conference wisely refused to discuss preliminary Vietnam-style body counts as they were not meaningful. Five days later the newspapers are packing headlines like:

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'600 insurgents killed in Fallujah. US reports 18 combat fatalities'

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Oh dear, guerrilla warfare reduced to the level of a football result. Unfortunately, the game doesn't work like that. The final score in Vietnam was something like 57,000 to 1,000,000, on the Eastern Front in WW2 the result was 6m to 25m when the final whistle blew. In both instances, the side with the greatest casualties won, decisively.
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Anyway, for a more accurate account of what's taking place in Fallujah, everyone would be better off grabbing a copy of Despatches by Michael Herr and read his account of the fighting in Hue in 1968. This is easily the best description of Americans at war post WW2. Believe me, I've read them all.
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One book I haven't read is Bridget Jones' Diary
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For most of this week the UK media has consisted solely of the following two messages:

• The fighting in Fallujah is going well
• See the latest Bridget Jones movie

... punctuated by commercials, many of which are for the Bridget Jones movie
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Over the last couple of days I have been exposed to:

• The making of Bridget Jones II documentary
• Free Bridget Jones promotional CDs with today's newspapers
• The title song from Bridget Jones on Top of the Pops, even though it hasn’t charted yet
• Numerous interviews with cast, crew and author of Bridget Jones on TV, Radio and newspapers
• News programs reporting on surveys (commissioned by BJ PR people) about Bridget Jones type lifestyles in the context of being 'hard news' stories
• Tonight, Channel 4 is showing … the first Bridget Jones Movie

Given that I'm not operating a Cheltenham style spy facility that is simultaneously monitoring all communications traffic, I must conclude that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Aside from the inevitable contrast between the inane and the shocking that comes from watching coverage of a war followed by plugs for a trivial movie, I have several problems with this assault on the senses.
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Firstly, by all accounts, the movie sucks arse. Secondly, we pay £130 a year for a TV licence; the justification for that is that it supports a non-commercial national broadcasting company, the BBC. By blatantly plugging a movie in its 'news' programmes and music chart shows, the BBC is taking the piss out of each and every licence payer. Presumably, several senior BBC execs got a nice rubbing-off in a massage parlour in West London somewhere in return. I'm pleased for them, but they are paid enough through a monopolistic tax to fund their own horizontal refreshment. Thirdly, the Bridget Jones PR campaign makes me despair over the stupidity of the British public. Clearly this kind of media blitz works, otherwise it wouldn't happen. All over the country, thousands of people will pay money to watch a pants film, specifically because the puppet masters told them to.
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Coming soon …

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Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts star in 'Turd in a Paper Cup', the romantic sequel to 'Dead Hamster in a Paper Cup'. This year's 'must see' movie
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You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll fork out nine quid to see it. You're a Muppet

Why World Leaders Enjoy Dressing Up as Squirrels

Tony Blair relaxing at home

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One of the beliefs that underpins my personal World view and attitude to life is that the humanity is considerably more deranged than you could ever possibly make up as a work of fiction.
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The non-human world always make sense; bound as it is by a series of interlocked, elegantly simple principles, our universe is the product of supreme rationality. It's great.
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People on the other hand, particularly people with power, are totally mental. So mental in fact that it is clear evidence that animals and humans are not in any way the same. Most of us prefer not to consider this prospect, concerned as we are with earning a living, going to the pub and weekend home improvements. We choose to believe that our leaders are as pragmatic, reliable and humane as we generally are. That's why when someone like Tony Blair says 'Trust me, I'm a pretty straight guy, I'm doing the right thing' we are inclined to give him and his like the benefit of the doubt.
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Big Mistake
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When you're responsible for the destiny of 60 million or 350 million people the fate of any individual within that population is about as important to a national leader or multinational CEO as a single grain of flour to a baker. Next time you're in an aeroplane flying over a city, look out of the window and hold the city between your forefinger and thumb; that's what it's like to be Bill Gates or Tony Blair. Living with this kind of reality is inevitably corrosive and if a world leader didn't enter his job a loony, or specifically because he was a loony, he will almost certainly become one whilst in office.
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A friend, Alan, visited me from overseas earlier on in the year. At some point in the conversation I mentioned to him that at that very same moment 2,000 people, including George Bush, most of his cabinet, heads of major corporations, Danny Glover(!) and possibly Tony Blair were gathered in a wood in Northern California called Bohemian Grove. They were dressed in white robes, chanting and making a mock child sacrifice to the Pagan Owl Fire God Molech. In the past, the veteran US News presenter Walter Cronkite narrated the owl's voice but I wasn't sure who's doing it these days, maybe the guy who does the Burger King voice-overs.
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For some reason Alan challenged me on this assertion.
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First off, I assured Alan that this was so and did my now usual trick of rummaging around for a dollar bill in the flat somewhere. Whilst not proof of the goings on in Bohemian Grove there is clear evidence of a US Government owl-fetish on the front of all dollar bills. And, yes, tucked away in the top right hand corner of the front of the bill Alan was forced to concede was a tiny picture of an owl. Now, I've searched the US Treasury and other US Government websites on numerous occasions and at no point, not even in 'The Dollar Bill FAQ' do they address the question 'Why is there a representation of Molech The Child Burning Owl of Ancient Babylon on the front of your money?'. Or the follow-up question, 'Why are the grounds of the Capitol Building landscaped to look like an owl?'
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Anyway, I've finally written a page that explains why I know that the Leader of the Free World dresses up in a white sheet once a year and makes offerings to a Babylonian Fire God and some thoughts on the context here …
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http://www.biscuitgame.com/world/molech/molech.htm

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I've also managed to include a couple of pictures of cute Japanese teens dressed as nurses
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Trust me, it's all true. I'm a pretty straight guy

Visitor Parking Permit Economics

Roupell Street. London SE1 - just like real houses, only smaller.
And without a toilet.

I strolled over to the family shop yesterday. It's a two mile walk and I took the time, as I do, to the walk the parish boundaries and check for general goings on in my manor.

Stopping at one of the fifteen or so estate agents on the Kennigton Road, and stepping over the prostrate figures of a couple of heroin addicts, I checked out the asking price for flats and houses in the area. One particular property caught my attention

'Roupell Street. Excellent Condition Throughout. £575,000 freehold'

You'd have to be familiar with the houses on Roupell Street to understand why this caught my eye. Cheaply mass-produced for poor working people 130 years ago, they are the classic Victorian 'two up two down'. A tiny kitchen and sitting room downstairs and two micro bedrooms upstairs; suitable only for dying slowly from TB and vitamin deficiencies in. No toilet, no bathroom just a small cobbled yard at the back. Working people in those days thought having a toilet inside their house was a pretty disgusting concept. This worked out nicely for the housebuilders who didn't have to worry about fitting silly little luxuries, like a mains water supply.

£575,000? That's US$1,070,000. 12,171,950 Mexican Pesos. A lot of money in anyone's language.

... for a property barely fit for human habitation by the standards of the 19th let alone the 21st century. Just as well most of the houses on that street are bought by lawyers then.

I remember, back in the early 1980's, when my grandmother was looking to invest part of my grandfather's estate, thought about buying one of them. At the time they were populated almost exclusively by white haired old ladies who had been living there since the last war. My grandmother decided against a purchase on the basis that they were rubbish and nobody would want to live in one. Selling price in 1983 c.£18,000.

In 21 years they have risen in price to £575,000. That's 3,000%.

That's why my family isn't rich. We constantly underestimate other people's stupidity.

But property was not the best investment opportunity available to my grandmother anyway. She should have found a way to sink her money in council tax charges, visitors parking permits, or crisps.

As part of yesterdays' perambulations I picked up a book of visitors parking permits so that some plumbers could park outside my front door today. The permits cost £3.50 per day. A year ago they cost £2.00 per day. A few years ago, they weren't necessary. That's a 75% increase in a year, but wait, if I had bought an asset that returned 75% I would have had to pay income tax or capital gains tax on that of 40%. So, if I had bought a stash of parking permits last year that would have been equivalent to an income return of 125%. Not bad. Now if I compound that over 21 years that's equal to a return of 24,878,997%. Back in 1983 I was tearing tickets in a West End Theatre for £2 a night. At parking permit inflation rates, that job should now be paying £49,760,000 per evening.

In comparison, local property taxes which have risen over the last seven years at 15% per year are a less impressive investment, but still pretty good nevertheless. Out with the calculator - 15%, add back the 40% tax = 25%. 125% ^ 21 = 10,840%. On that basis my old evening job would now only be paying £217 per evening.

Official UK inflation per UK government figures is something like 2% a year; presumably that excludes minor expense items such as house prices, property taxes, public transport, gas, electricity, water and fuel which have all been rising 10%+ per year for years now. Hands up anybody who thinks normal peoples' wages in the UK have risen by anything like that much.

A typical UK building society savings account is currently paying something like 3% a year, before tax.

Yes, the potential returns on hedging expenses rather than saving money in deposit accounts are fabulous.

Of course the fascist, monopolistic institutions that rule our lives are wise to the risks that ordinary people might invest their money wisely by pre-paying their property taxes for the next ten years and stockpiling huge caches of visitors parking permits or tube tickets. They prevent you from doing so. Quite explicitly.

The Golden Rule for any power structure is to keep its population down by keeping them afraid, ignorant and, wherever possible, poor. British people work longer hours, are significantly more stressed, less literate and have a less money in the bank than they did 10 or 20 years ago. So much for the benefits of all that new technology then.

The other significant potential advantage of hedging expenses rather than buying assets, like houses, is that expenses, unlike assets, never ever fall in price. Those houses in Roupell Street are worth £575,000 now but they fell sharply in price between 1988 and 1992 and it's likely they're about the fall in price again in the near future. Expenses on the other hand show a steady and satisfying increase year on year.

But, given that the ordinary person is prevented from hedging their expenses what other investment opportunities are out there that offer steady, positive returns?

Crisps

Like napalm, Agent Orange and Eazy Cheez, crisps were invented by Americans so I really should use the American term to describe them; potato chips.

When I was very small, back in 1971, a packet of potato chips cost 2d in old money; that's 0.8p in new money. A 35g packet of potato chips now costs 35-40p. That's a 4,500% return over 33 years; comparable with UK house price inflation but, crucially, the price of crisps is not subject to recessive influences and has never fallen.

Unlike sugar, coffee and pork bellies there is no crisp futures market on the World's great commodity exchanges. If you want to invest in crisps you have to buy the physical commodity and store it somewhere. Asian shopkeepers have known this investment secret for years which is why they hate sell by dates so much.

Anyway, if anyone can come up with an investment instrument linked to UK property taxes or visitors parking permits could you get in touch with me.

Please.