Mr Hicks, Me Arse

It's a shame this arrived so late in the day, but it still brought a lump to my throat at 7.15am this morning. But maybe Hicks & Gillette will see it, do the right thing and let the proposed sale to New England Sports Ventures,  who own the Boston Red Sox, go through. 

Hurricane Higgins: Wasted talent hangs up his cue

I met this git half a dozen times in the 1990s. He, in combination with his entourage of lowlife mates, acted the maggot on every occasion. I hated him and I'm glad the woman-beating twat is dead. He was a sad and pathetic bastard who would have done better to top himself after he came back against  Jimmy White in 1982. Then at least the 'people's champion' legend might have meant something in a Kurt Cobain kind of way. He was a sad, fucked up Northern Prod who hated his fans almost as much as he hated himself. He got a lot more out of a handful of games of snooker than he ever gave back to the game and he didn't even have a sense of humour. At least George Best, another famously self-destructive Northern Prod, could take the piss out of himself and never approached the level of arrogance I saw Higgins adopt on more than one occasion.

I expect there will be all the usual 'he was a twat, but he was a genius too' beatification shite, but take my word for it, the world of snooker won't be a poorer place for his passing.

Anyone got any travel sickness tablets?

At last, a band named after me



The Beasts of Bourbon, Aussie bastard offspring of an orgy involving Nick Cave, Tom Waits and the New York Dolls by the look/sound of it. De-lovely!

He just smiled and gave me a caviare sandwich

Red Army Choir do Aussie National Anthem

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'Intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm'

Allons enfants de la Patrie.....

The deputies retired, the people rushed against the place, and almost in an instant were in possession of a fortification, defended by 100 men, of infinite strength, which in other times had stood several regular sieges and had never been taken. How they got in, has as yet been impossible to discover.

Thomas Jefferson, 14th July 1789

Mad songs on the ukele: No 2 in an occasional series

These odd young people live here  and those of you who prefer the original,have a lookee here

Modern Times: The Great Inventions

Personal grooming aids for real men

From Hyperbole and a half  (via Sociological Images)

Homophobia and racism: 2 Birds 1 Stone; Only in the Daily Express

In its self-appointed role of holding back the hordes of queer immigrants, it's nice to see that the 'Ryanair of Fleet Street' is maintaining its usual high standards when it comes to equality issues. Expect a 'Gay asylum seekers in Diana assassination plot' headline any day now.

Still, at least when this camp tsunami of huddled masses washes over the nation's threshold they won't be stealing our women (except to take them shopping, perhaps).

And yes, presiding judge-monkey Lord Rodger did come out with all that auld polari about cocktails and Kylie gigs:

"Just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates," 

This interesting vignette of the world of gaydomness leads me to suspect that his judgeness didn't attend one of the nation's major public schools. If he thinks it's all Kylie and cocktails, he needs to put his oglefakes on and take a bona vada round and about the next time he's down the Old Bailey cottage.

The original untweaked photograph above came from Gossi's Twitpics. He has my undying gratitude

Some days you just wake up feeling like this

He's C.W. Stoneking. He's Australian (tho' you'd never guess it), he lives here and he sounds like this:


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Publish Post

Skies turned gray, no clean underpants, prospect of cuts getting you down? Try this for size

Western Psychology is Shite - Official

Behavioral scientists routinely publish broad claims about human psychology and behavior in the world's top journals based on samples drawn entirely from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Researchers – often implicitly – assume that either there is little variation across human populations, or that these “standard subjects” are as representative of the species as any other population....The findings suggest that members of WEIRD societies, including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans. Many of these findings involve domains that are associated with fundamental aspects of psychology, motivation, and behavior – hence, there are no obvious a priori grounds for claiming that a particular behavioral phenomenon is universal based on sampling from a single subpopulation.

Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan (2010)

In other words, if you believe that research studies based on the reactions and interactions of US sophomores can tell us anything meaningful about human beings in general, then consider this a wake-up call.

Purple popster calls time out on t'internet

c

His Madnesty. the Royal Badness, the purple pope of Paisley Park, the artist formerly known as little Prince Rogers  Nelson appears finally to have formally disconnected from the contemporary world of music distribution.

In an interview with Peter Willis in today's on-line Daily Mirror, His Purpleness demonstrates the very same obdurate unwillingness to embrace (or even acknowledge) music's digital age and its consequences as those  coke-snorting, Armani clad idiots from the music industry  whom he has been challenging for years. As he says:

The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it.

While I agree with the sentiments about iTunes, sticking a free copy of your CD to the front cover of this Saturday's Mirror isn't going to turn the tide on the internet, me old mate, now is it? It's big. It's very big. And even in your platforms, you are very small. Anyway so, last time you did that there were copies changing hands on eBay for a king's ransom before the paper boy had reached the end of me garden path.

Why don't you get with the programme, do a  Radiohead or better yet a Nine Inch Nails and slap your new stuff up on a website someplace where your adoring fans can lay their sweaty paws on it? They'll even hand over their hard-earned cash money  if you ask them nicely. And you won't have to pay a penny to those vampires at Sony or CBS. And if it's advances you're after worrying about, try a bit of crowdfunding with these lads.

There now, problem solved.

And to celebrate, here's something from happier times. I expect the take-down notice will arrive by carrier pigeon or something, perhaps a dove with tears in its eyes.

Happy Birthday, America

I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says that all of us have an equal right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality — and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that.

 Howard Zinn

Who's the Daddy? Bambi's mum, that's who

Warning: Not for the sensitive of heart. Bambi's mum gives Lassie a right pasting.

(via Boing Boing)

Recession over. Can I go home now please?

According to the day's old lady of D'Olier St, the recession in Ireland is officially over. Those of us who beat the rats out of the sinking ship of post Celtic Ireland can now wipe the smirks off our I-told-you-so-gobs and start loading up the auld Hiace for a short hop back across the St George's Channel with a sheepish look on our faces.

Or should we?  Unfortunately, the trumpeted turnaround is just another example of the voodoo economic ideology that passes for cutting edge thinking in capitalism these last few years. Bock the Robber discussed this eloquently on his blog earlier today.

Me, I prefer pictures and I ain't going anywhere until the tails on these graphs start moving in the opposite direction.

This nice cartoon from the estimable Professor David Harvey should explain why I don't expect to be loading up the Hiace anytime soon, either,

Jesse Malin: Love it to Life Tour

Jesse Malin and The St. Marks Social "Burning the Bowery"

Jesse Malin & The St. Marks Social | MySpace Music Videos

I love this guy. He's helped make some hard times bearable with the joys and sadnesses of his music. You can hear more of him here and here.  He's a new album out and is touring this side of the pond now. Dublin on the 4th (that should be good), Liverpool on the 5th and London on the 8th. More venues here. Check him out.

This is his collaboration with The Boss from a couple of years ago:



And this is like a shot of tequila in the morning: 'she liked Tom Waits and Kerouac' Need I say more?


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Tory sport monkey apologises for Hillsborough slur

Jeremy Hunt, Tory Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, has been compelled to issue an apology after suggesting that the 1989 Hillsborough disaster was caused by hooliganism rather than the South Yorkshire police force's somewhat  laissez-faire approach to crowd control.

Apology not withstanding, I suspect that the good people of Liverpool will henceforth exploit the potential of young Jezzer's surname when engaging, as they frequently do, in spirited debate regarding matters of issues of sport and culture, as in 'He was a right Jeremy Hunt that ref'

You can find out more about the Hillsborough disaster and the campaign for justice for the 96 here and here.

The photograph of the Hillsborough memorial was taken by superbfc and is available under a Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0 Licence So thanks for that, mate. And before he gets ideas above his station, it's only here because my almost identical one has vanished into the digital swamp that is the My Documents folder

My success I owe to the little people. Thank you, Thank you, one and all

Well fuck me old boots, I never thought I'd see the day that this would happen:

Who'd have thought that a punctuation error and a dead fictional character could bring this kind of success? Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the royalty checks to roll in (That is how it works, ain't it?)

You can read the post that put me top of the Google dog-pile here

Pete Quaife 1943-2010 RIP

Pete Quaife, the original bass player with The Kinks passed away this week.





There are some really cool pictures of the band in their Mod heyday over to that Yank, hippie publication, The Rolling Stone
Via Dangerous Minds

Sid Perks' death: A mystery resolved

The lack of fanfare surrounding the recent off-air death of actor Alan Devereaux from the long-running BBC Radio 4 rural soap has continued to puzzle Archers' fans across the globe. Both the actor himself and BBC mandarins have remained tight-lipped regarding the reason for his abrupt departure after more than 40 years in the role of Brummie rough diamond Sid Perks.

Where Angels Fear, whose earlier fearless report on this mystery is available here, can  now exclusively reveal that Perks' demise is not quite what it seems and is part of a major shake-up designed to bring the programme into the Age of the Fruitbat  20th Century 21st Century.

According to our moles inside the show, Perks' death was but a sham designed to pave the way for his eventual return to the series as the leader of a mysterious cult of dwarves, elves and small creatures with large appetites and hairy feet. Sid, or Gandalf Greyteeth as he now wishes to be known, is set to re-enter the show in the coming weeks.

Perks' transformation from beer-pusher to cult leader will be explained as a consequence of his visit to the Southern Lakes of New Zealand, the setting of much of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings cinema franchise.  In one story-line, Perks will successfully challenge Ambridge vicar Alan Franks for the spiritual leadership of the village.

The scouring of the shire will begin with the old homophobe's campaign to rid Ambridge of out gay couple Adam Macy and Ian Craig. A purge of the cricket team is set to follow, as Perks attempts to use runic lore to untangle the mystery that is the Duckworth Lewis method. Eventually it is hoped that an internet spin-off of the revamped format will challenge World of Warcraft  for the premier slot amongst MMPORGs

According to sources within the show, such a radical format change has become necessary to attract younger listeners. BBC chiefs are said to be worried that the programme's  demographic is a very elderly one.The average age of an Archer listener is now 107 and its audience may disappear altogether within the next few months, if not weeks. As one insider said 

For too long now, The Archers has concentrated on being a hard hitting documentary of English rural life, full of doom, gloom and agricultural disaster. We're hoping these changes will put the magic back into Ambridge and attract a different  audience more in tune with contemporary pop-culture, or at least one that doesn't need an ear-trumpet.

Other storyline developments being considered to attract younger listeners involve Jill and Josh Archer starting a on-line pornographic video production company specialising in granny porn and 'rural pursuits' (if you get my drift). Our source also said that  Pip Archer and her boyfriend Jude are to embark on a Borchester-wide murder spree after the bloody shotgun killing of  parents David and Ruth in a row over  Pip's decision not to complete her A Levels.

Unconfirmed sources also identified several promising storylines which were rejected in the shake-up. These included the discovery of oil under Grundy's Field (too folksy); a plane crashing in to the Bull (no-one wanted to work with Phil bloody Redmond) and a violent, internecine conflict over the attempt to obtain a wines and spirits licence for the Ambridge Village shop (apparently that had already been done in an earlier cast cull).