Reality tv again ...

To quote this weeks 'Private Eye' comments on reality Tv

'But anyone who regrets the domination of ITV1 peak-time by 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' should be grateful that the main evening series is a pinnacle of innovation and intelligence'

I totally agree but I know that my friend Pat would not!

We need more reality tv and we need it fast!

Oblique

When the nights are purest dark
When the days are grey and bleak
My mind seems numb
Life’s meaning leans to the oblique

Everything seems an obstacle
Most things are a chore
I lose all direction
Purpose seems a bore

I battle with my demons
Fight an unseen fight
The world around me lacks feeling
It all seems cold
My thoughts turn black
When I wish they were bright

King of the Jungle

The rumble in the jungle is over and Joe Pasquale has been crowned ‘King of the jungle’ in ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ (itv 9pm). He wasn’t my favourite, I thought he was perhaps a little bland at times but on reflection I’m glad he’s won. It show’s the British public have voted for a seemingly regular guy, it’s a victory for Mr Average and personally I like that. The main factor was that Joe was himself, he didn’t sensationalise or hype it up, he didn’t swear, act camp, be a victim or name drop – He was simply Joe Pasquale – mediocre comedian from recent times. Everyone would want a friend like Joe because he has that likeable appeal (squeaky voice aside).

The one thing immediately noticeable was all the celeb’s, has been’s and wannabe’s actually gained from the experience of living rough in the jungle. Oh well, it’s another year till we return. When can we have a dedicated reality tv channel?

Fuzzy face

I didn’t really want to talk ‘shop’ in my blog but work is a part of life we have to address at some point, like every day! As I plan to escape my current line of work I’m not really too fussed about the fate of the company I work at, though I wouldn’t want anyone to lose their job. The atmosphere of late has been of doom and gloom as we’ve lost some major contracts but we have a saviour and he’s called ‘Fuzzy Face’.

Fuzzy face is self styled cockney geezer come wide boy approaching 50 something, he has a neatly trimmed beard (never trust men with beards) and is usually caparisoned in a silver suit. He tries unconvincingly to tell you in his broad London accent that he’s embraced Yorkshire as his new home and now he’s in fact a ‘Yorkshire man’. To save us all from certain doom he’s introducing a bonus scheme to the office so we can earn more but he hasn’t really told us of the catches yet. I sat with him as he showed me his new ideas on figures on his lap top but all he kept doing was licking his lips a lot and saying ‘yeah’ a lot as if he demanded you agree with him – of course I didn’t and in true managerial fashion he didn’t listen to my rational objections either. Then later I found out that Fuzzy Face had told a ‘would be’ client to go away because they seemed to be dragging their heels over contractual matters - pop went another contract. His bonus scheme smacks of some Thatcherite plan (and we all remember the poll tax don’t we?) and I think it will fail shortly after it is implemented, mainly due to mass apathy in the office – all we wanted was a normal pay rise! So time will tell about the fate of where I work, I sincerely hope we get through this lean time. Call me a cynic but Fuzzy Face keeps telling us the bonus scheme is too good to be true and when someone tells you that, well…

I would just like to say no cockneys were harmed in the making of this blog

Cockney Definition;

1. Non standard dialect of natives of the east end of London
2. adj. Relating to or resembling a cockney; "cockney street urchins"

Weekend blues

Well my weekend sucked really. Friday after work I went to pay some bills only to find I was short of cash for one of them, it was quite surreal as I was sure I had the right money in my pocket beforehand. As town was busy I’d planned my route back through it in military fashion but as I needed a haircut I did a slight detour and popped into a barbers I used to use years ago. The same guy was still there only this time he had a shiny lap top he was playing on, I peered around the door and asked if he was open before seating my self in his plush chair. In no time the haircut was over and he was asking for £8.50 (I usually pay £4.50) so I wasn’t best pleased. Sulking of into town I was accosted by three chav’s, the middle half cast one began singing the ‘umpa lumpa’ song to me whilst keeping his bull terrier under control. His jibe didn’t sink in till after they’d passed by but I just smiled thinking of my counselling studies about diversity, there was a half cast chav calling me names, of course if I’d have insulted him I would have most likely been beaten to a pulp and then berated after by some ‘do gooder’ for remarking about his skin colour, not that I am racist anyway. Still, Chav’s are so prevalent in my town now they are renaming the local rag from the ‘The Chad’ to ‘The Chav’.
On getting back from the trials of town I treated my self to a bottle of wine from the local off licence only to have a bad headache the next morning. Saturday I geared myself up to a complete state of non motivation and did a minimal amount around the flat. I’d ordered some cream that is supposed to remove scratches from mobile phone screens but it just didn’t work, so again I felt ripped off. The rest of the weekend was too dull to really mention in my blog, I’ve already bored you all now but I can’t do happy blog’s all the time!

Here's what http://www.urbandictionary.com/ says about chav's in one of its many 'chav' entries.

1. Chav

Picture this a young lad about 12 years of age and 4 ½ feet high baseball cap at ninety degrees in a imitation addidas tracksuit, with trouser legs tucked into his socks (of course, is definitely the height of fashion). This lad is strutting around, fag in one hand jewellery all over, outside McDonalds acting as if he is 8 foot tall and built like a rugby player, when some poor unsuspecting adult (about 17/18) walks round the corner wanting to go to mcdonalds for his lunch glances at the young lad, the young thug jumps up in complete disgust and says “Whats your problem? Wanna make sommin of it? Bling Bling” when the adult starts to walk towards the young lad, the young lad pisses himself and runs off to either his pregnant 14-year-old girlfriend or his brother in the army crying his eyes out.

My mate has become a chav what can i do? answer is shoot him before it is too late

Bad Apple

A complaint that Apple's music download service is "ripping off" UK customers by charging them more than users in France and Germany has been referred to the European Commission. The consumer body Which? wrote to the Office of Fair Trading in September, asking it to investigate why prices for using the iTunes service are 20 per cent higher in the UK than in France and Germany. The OFT, the competition watchdog in the UK, has now asked the European Commission to look into the matter. Phil Evans, principal policy adviser at Which?, formerly the Consumers' Association, said: "UK consumers are getting a raw deal from Apple."

I was actually going to get an ipod but looking at the growing market for mp3 players there's alot about with better ability than the 'fashion icon' ipod. Creative Labs are releasing a similar model called the 'Zen' which is very like the ipod but with more features. It's just hard to choose with such a myriad of models about. I think I'll stick with my existing model at the moment.

Height discrimination

I found this interesting piece whilst browsing on the web, wrote by an American guy called Glenn Beard and I felt compelled to put it in my blog, not being the tallest person myself!

'Height Discrimination is quite simply the regarding of a person as lesser on account of their height.

A macho undercurrent holds, which tells us that disputes can often be won with a physical fight if all else fails. Western thinking teaches us that we may pursue an argument to its end for short term advantage, in any way that we can. Even if a finger is not raised in anger, assumptions of the strength of argument are weighted with posturing. To fail to match this posturing is seen as weakness in a small man. To match it, aggressiveness and the "Napoleon complex" is assumed. So in many situations, short men, whatever they do, will be labelled as having "short man's syndrome," with all the baggage and circular arguments for its confirmation attached.
Entertainment and global politics confirm this notion, even in the face of a more enlightened society. An ability to perform comfortably with those at the top is an essential requirement to succeed in business or government, indeed in leadership generally. If taller is taken as more confident, and more confident as more likely to succeed, then assumptions about a candidate's likelihood to succeed is going to be based on their height.

A notable recent example is the treatment of the "seriousness" of Democratic party nominees. John Kerry was the tallest at 6'4", and also won. Not much was mentioned about contenders at the other end of scale. Out of the first-round survivors, comments about "diminutive" Howard Dean were to be found in the New York Times (from 5'3" writer Adam Nagourney), together with ponderings over whether a man of his height might have "anger problems." Such examples are numerous. The US is not alone, Britain is catching up rapidly. Michael Howard was declared leader of the Conservative party in the UK, a move which had The Telegraph and even The Guardian gushing about his attributes: "He's tall" was first amongst the points of praise.'

Formidable Maiden

After being paid mid week I drifted into town and ultimately into Hmv, not to purchase an over priced cd but to peruse offers etc. I ended up in the rock section and found myself flicking through Iron Maiden cd's, memories of familiar tunes circled in my head as I browsed each cd. I'd once had a decent collection of Iron Maiden on vinyl and now my cd collection of their stuff only consisted of the 'Live after death' cd which I often listen to.

Meanwhile in the shop I stumbled across a collection of their greatest hits called 'Edward the Great' priced at £5.99 so I decided to indulge, mainly so I could listen to it at work on nights and liven the place a little. On listening to the cd it struck me how good they still sound today, fresh, loud and bursting with rock energy. I'm really enjoying listening to it and also chuffed that these guys are still around. They don't appear in the charts these days but then again Legends don't have to...

Wandering therapist

Huggy Bear a.k.a Antonio Fargas has left the jungle, shame as I quite liked the guy. Having been voted out I presume that the majority of the British populace began to see him as boring or thought he was the stereotypical American. Vic Reeves termed Huggy as a 'wandering therapist' which I thought was very apt but for me Huggy was restrained, chilled and retained dignity - he was far from how the Brits portray our yank friends these days.

Maybe people expected Huggy to be like his character on Starsky and Hutch but he played himself, he had wise words of encouragement for the younger members, ironically some of them resented it and thought they knew better. On leaving the show he looked liked a wandering shamanic wise man, a traveller, a gypsy and lastly very cool.

On leaving Huggy tipped Janet Street-Porter to win and I hope he's right, she was once the self styled guru of Brit 'Youff' Tv and to be honest I like her attitude. It's one of 'I take no crap' combined with caring and compassion. Some may find her overbearing at times but she certainly is an icon for women of her generation and indeed of mine! Janet cooks for the camp and fetches fire wood whilst Sophie Anderton who should be an energetic 26 year old sits around stroking her own ego and preening herself.

I hope Janet wins too but I suspect the 'Youff' of today will see to it she won't, it's up to the class of the 80's when she was at her presenting heights to get behind her.

Vote Janet Street-Porter!

I'm a celebrity, well almost....

As friends of mine know, I love reality tv.

I must confess though that the present series of 'I'm a celebrity - get me out of here' (Itv, 9pm)is somewhat lacklustre. It's already predictable who will probably win, the camera's make sure of that with how they are portraying various celeb wannabe's or has beens on the show.

Take for example Huggy Bear and Vic Reeves who went out into the jungle to retrieve a chest and had to do a task of throwing various objects at items in order to knock them over a la fairground stylee. Huggy was seen limp writstedly using a water rifle whilst Vic Reeves was seen using a boomerang in a macho style. The camera pans back to Huggy still wrestling with the water gun and again goes back to Vic using a catapult heroically. They obviously want a Brit to win the show then?

There's no contention in camp this time around, no friction really - they all seem to be the get along gang. You just know the public will vote the loud mouth's off, ironic as they are the ones that make it interesting.

You just know the nice, restrained and stereotyped person will win, that's because we're British and we like that sort of thing.

The voting seem's veiled too, why can't we see ongoing statistics and even react to them by voting accordingly? You get the feeling someone called 'Julian' is in the background, he's a producer calling the shots to his team in a manipulative manner 'Right luvvies we'll have Vic voted out this week, he's getting too good at the tasks!'

The mind boggles, the public love it (hey, I love it too)

Potato Tea

Recipe

• Take one favourite mug with a picture of the Emerald isle on the side.
• Over a period of weeks, never wash it.
• Brew various types of tea - Chai, Lapsang souchong, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Assam, Darjeeling and add to the mug at different intervals.
• Dunk biscuits in it.
• Don't change your water filter for months.
• The result is a refreshing cup of Potato tea, tastes like pure potato !

A feminine interlude

I was parched, this was due to the indulgence of the evening before when I'd joined my dad in drinking several Kronenberg's - more than our normal intake.

There we were, heading back from visiting a retail outlet, my throat was screaming for liquid and I suggested to the old man to pull over at the next oppurtunity so I could slake my thirst. In no time we left the hectic dual carriageway, dad mumbled he needed petrol anyway and I hastily jumped out the car and headed for the beckoning fridges that waited for my eager throat.

As I strode across the garage forcourt I saw her using the speedbank terminal, she sported blue jeans that fitted her feminine contours well but not too tight and looking up her torso was adorned by a creamy coloured sweater. From behind I could see her hair was swept back into a neat pony tail but as I got closer she turned away to count her money, I headed into the garage as my thirst got the better of my male curiosity.

Momentarily she'd left my mind, I paid for the refreshments and as I turned there she was, striding towards me in her white sports trainers - a friendly smile on her face. I smiled back weakly as my eyes feasted on the vision before me. She was of average build, curvy feminine hips that swayed gracefully as she walked and her sweater did little to conceal her full and ripe bosom. Looking again at her visage I could see it was totally natural and without cosmetics, framed by rustic brown hair tapered into a pony tail, it was sheer beauty. As she glided past me I turned to again to drink in her voluptuous contours.

I eased myself back into dads car and we both remained silent as she returned to her large saloon model, then we turned and smiled to each other as she sped off, that knowing manly smile that men often exchange.

Then she was gone, I'd never see her again, know her name or anything about her but for those brief moments that cloudy morning she'd captured my imagination.