Pressing All the Wrong Buttons

Posted on June 27, 2009 by The Ed

You know how it is. You spend all day on the turps, watching cricket with your mates, then come home and turn on your laptop and accidentally delete the last blog you wrote. Bugger. Don’t know how I did it but I did.

So for those of you who haven’t logged on for a while the was a blog on Michael Jackson. It was basically a rant on about how everyone seems to have forgotten he was a kiddy-fiddler who paid hush money to his victims and yes he was a genius but a perv is a perv de daa de daa de daa… And I thought it wasn’t a bad blog at all- especially when you consider that I was smashed out of my face and writing it at midnight on the night he died. There were even more typos that usual but, hey, I was drunk and in a hurry. But like MJ himself, that blog has now gone. I think I was trying to delete some spam, but deleted the whole story instead. And, to be honest, I feel no compulsion to write it again. We’re entering something like the 36th-straight hour of blanket coverage of this story and I don’t feel the need to add my little contribution. You’ve had enough, right? Yes it’s a big story, obviously, I just feel absolutely no emotion over him whatsoever. So I shall leave you with one last thought:

MichaelJacksonMillen_sm

Kiddy Fiddler Dies. Fuck him..

It’ll Never Stand Up in Court

Posted on June 8, 2009 by The Ed

Was Carradine killed by kung fu assassins?
Yahoo: Mon 08 Jun 11:17 AM
David Carradine was killed because he was investigating kung fu crime lords, his family have suggested. The Kill Bill star, 73, was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room last week, with a rope tied around his neck and manhood. While Thai police initially suggested it was a sex act gone horribly wrong, the actor’s family have claimed that he was killed for investigating secret societies in that area.

The lawyer to Carradine’s family, Mark Geragos, was asked on Larry King’s US chat show if the Kung Fu star was “interested in investigating and disclosing secret societies?”
To which, Geragos replied, “Absolutely. And so there is a suspicion that if there was some foul play, that may be the first area they should look.”
Geragos has also revealed that the actor’s family have urged the FBI to investigate Carradine’s death.

First up, the answer to that headline is : No

Secondly, if I ever end up dead, and my body is found next to a copy of Wisden and I’m wearing a mink glove, please do not call in the FBI to investigate my death. I am not investigating any secret societies in the Blackheath area, and the only contact I have from Asia is the delivery bloke from the Golden Dragon who never fails to add free prawn crackers to my weekly delivery.

It never ceases to amaze me what people are doing to themselves (and others) in the comfort of their own homes or hotel bedroom, and indeed how many of these deviant sexual practices end up in someone snuffing it. It’s true that I do experience some arousal at the sight of a cover-drive, or a leg-spinner plying his trade at The Oval, but I’d like to think that whatever the degree of excitement I thrash myself into, I would pull up short, as it were, of coming to a sticky end.

MP Stephen Milligan’s body was found in rather embarrassing circumstances after his apparent penchant for electric flex and satsumas had done for him. But, again, there are those who believe he was the victim of foul play. I’m sorry but if I’d murdered someone, I think I’d be getting away from the scene of the crime soonest, rather than dressing up the corpse in stockings, relieving the kettle of its lead and raiding the fruit bowl. And anyway, did they run out of bananas—the pervert’s friend???

You can’t legislate for what people strap onto and insert into themselves to get their kicks, and anyone who says you can deserves a good spanking. I remember Carradine had to put his wrists on a red-hot bowl every week while Kung Fu was on, so presumably his pain threshold was higher than most. Please leave us with the image of him in that ridiculous bald wig, as well as the memory of his nasty bastard Bill. If he happened to like a little bit of how’s-yer-father, that’s his funeral.

Anyway, must dash—Australia vrs Sri Lanka is on the telly. Oh God!!! Quick Nurse, the screens! It’s happened again.

263985~David-Carradine-Posters

Rogue Traders

Posted on May 13, 2009 by The Ed

DoorbellHeader
The doorbell rang the other day. So I put my trousers on and opened the door.
“Mr Bealing?” asked the lad in an ill-fitting black suit.
“I’ve been called worse, yes”
“Marks and Spencer”
“That’s a big name for a little boy. Is it hyphenated?”
“You bought a shirt from us last month”
“Er..yes, correct”
“You haven’t told us what you thought of it. Nor of our service”
“Come again?”
“You haven’t come back to the shop to tell us how you found our service or how you liked the shirt”
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. You want me to do what?”
“You’re supposed to come back and tell us what your shopping experience with M&S was like”
“It was a white shirt. I wear a lot of em. For work. I went into the shop, went to the white shirt section, chose my size and went and paid for it. Didn’t try it on—it was wrapped. I knew what it was gonna be like cos I have another six at home. What do you want me to say?”
“Can you rate us?”
(I’m starting to get a little peeved now.) “What??”
“You need to come in and rate us—from one to five stars”
“You’re joking?”
“And leave a small comment”
“Ok, here’s a small comment: Fuck off”
“Sorry, sir, but you do. It’s very important for our future trade if customers know what you thought of us”
“Well ok, sonny, on the basis of this little conversation let’s go up there now cos I’m gonna write ‘A pain in the arse’ and give you a rating of minus one”
“Ah no, sir, you can’t do that.”
“But that’s how I feel right now”
“But you mustn’t put bad ratings or comments because that will reflect badly on the company”
“Ok, let’s skip it then, goodbye”

M&S Ultimate Non-Iron Pure Cotton Plain Long Sleeve Shirt (£25.00)

I went to slam the door, but his Autograph Leather Slip-on Gusset Apron Loafers (£45.00) were across the threshold.
“Owwwwww! Bloody hell sir, there’s no need for that”
“I’m sorry, but get your foot out of my door.”
“But you HAVE to rate our store, Mr Bealing, you just must”
“But you only want me to rate it if I give it a positive mark?”
“Yes, sir”
“What about an average score”
“No, that looks bad too”
“Ok, at the risk of repeating myself, Fuck Off”
“Well what about the chicken breasts and the tomatoes you bought at the weekend? I need a mark for those too”
“Sigh. And what if I don’t want to?”
“We’ll just keep coming back and asking you to til you do”
“I shall ignore the doorbell”
“Then you’ll go on the list of ‘bad shoppers’ which we post in all our stores. Now will you mark us please?”
I left my mark by kneeing him in the crotch of his Performance Stormwear™ Wool with Lycra® Single Breasted 3 Button Black Suit (£149.00) and watched him crawling about my lawn, presumably looking for a testicle, as I finally closed my door.

I may have made some of this up. None of us would stand for being hounded and bullied by shops in this way, would we? So why do we allow Ebay and Amazon get away with it?

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

Posted on May 6, 2009 by The Ed

Captain Quint: “Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief… Just delivered the bomb, the Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. … Very first light, chief, sharks came cruising, so we formed ourselves into tight groups… you know, kind of like old squares in a battle like you see in a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo, and the idea was, shark comes to the nearest man and then you start pounding and hollering and screaming. Sometimes the shark goes, sometimes he wouldn’t go away… I don’t know how many sharks. Maybe a thousand, I don’t know how many men, they averaged six an hour.
On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he’d been bitten in half below the waist…Noon the fifth day…a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low… and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down, starts to pick us up…
So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out and the sharks took the rest, June 29th 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
Robert Shaw, Jaws

When the Good Ship Printjournalism was torpedoed just off the coast of Profitability thousands of journalists went into the water and huddled together in tight groups, clinging to the lifeboats of the online editions. Not too long after first light the sharks came cruising. The guys on the outside pounded and hollered and screamed and sometimes the sharks would go away…sometimes they didn’t. One by one journos were picked off and sank to a watery grave. There just wasn’t room for everyone in the lifeboats.

Steady as she goes, Number 1

Similar stories of carnage are commonplace across hundreds of professions—shops and stores are shut down while the company continues trading online with a fraction of the staff. Tens of thousands of workers in small factories, dispatch depts, counting houses, accounts offices and production lines have been let go as technical advances in web transactions and processing speeds have left many redundant. Business and Commerce have caught a cold before, but this is a pandemic.

We can’t walk around with hammers like 21st Century Luddites; We can’t uninvent the wheel or even the web—not that anyone wants to—we just need Baldrick’s Cunning Plan and the nouse to navigate the way ahead. The way we work and live is changing so fast that those of us still shooting film and playing 45s are often taken by surprise by the mp3 generation, but we can (and do) sit, watch and marvel at the little bits of the New World we manage to understand. I know how to work an ipod, for example, and I’m aware of Google (and who he plays for). If it wasn’t for Tim Berners-Lee‘s pretty smart idea you wouldn’t be reading this. The web can also be entertaining.

But there’s plenty of collateral damage in this Guerre du Gigabyte. Those once-merry stokers belowdecks on HMS Old Media are having to rethink and retrain as the ship is holed below the water line and the lifeboats are manned by a new breed of young whizz-kids and tech-heads. Some of the old seadogs are lucky enough to have been thrown an oar and asked to keep rowing— trouble is there used to be three-times the men manning the rollocks. Some are asked to row, steer and chart a course all at the same time. Shore leave gets cancelled or reduced as the Admiralty hasn’t left itself a full ship’s compliment. The few who are left keep schtum (on the whole) for fear of being tossed overboard. Many of the others already in the water were hit by the Credit Crunch Tsunami before they had a chance to get their Mae Wests on. Many a bloated and battered body of an ex-journo has been washed up on the shores of the world’s job centres.

Having spent too long in the water, survivors emerge bloated and wrinkly

Newspaper and magazine publishers invest more and more cash into their online vessels while barely pumping the bilges of their old, ailing craft. They tell us that one day soon the advertisers will change tack, buy some ads (online or in print—we don’t mind) cruise over in their big, fat PBY and fish us out of the shark-infested waters of recession, but I see no ships. Til then we’re surrounded by friends and colleagues bobbing up and down in the water, having been bitten in half below the waist by an HR missive, or a redundancy notice. Sooner or later someone will realise they can’t leave the tiller in the hands of the Unable Seamen and Very Petty Officers, the green and the graceless. But I fear by the time that it dawns on them all the old hands will be enjoying their grog in Davey Jones’ Lock-in.

Thankfully there are still some Captains willing to hand out commissions but there are not nearly enough lifejackets to go round. The Fleet has been scuppered after nearly 300 years of ruling the waves while across the journalism’s seven seas newspaper after newspaper takes a hit and goes under with all souls lost. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

Farewell and adieu unto you Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain;
For it’s we’ve received orders for to sail for old England,
But we hope very soon we shall see you again.

Just One More Question, Sir…

Posted on May 2, 2009 by The Ed

So I’m sitting in my garden, soaking up the rays while flicking through the papers, when I’m stopped in my tracks by an advert on page 12 of The Times. Dunno why, as I’ve always felt I don’t look at adverts. As any fule no, adverts are just there to make photos smaller in papers and magazines, or to give you something to doodle on while in morning conference. In these dark days of credit crunch and the collapse of the advertising industry, I suppose we should all thank Evans for small Murphys (some more than others) and embrace whatever adverts actually make it into print, and thus keeping us in the poverty to which we’ve so readily become accustomed, but I do fluctuate between annoyance and agnosticism when I see a dirty great Halfords or Waitrose ad where a perfectly good story, or even better, a photo should be.

howard-with-tash1

Anyway, I digress. So the offending item this time is a Samsung colour half-page ad for mobile phones. An attractive young couple grapple with each other next to insets of two mobiles, underneath the legend “Ourselves. Together” whatever that means. But something struck me about those words—they felt rather familiar. So off I popped to the wonderful web world of Wikipedia. Something in the back of my pickled mind led me to believe that Sinn Féin was a translation of just that: Ourselves Together. Was this electronics giant really a front for Irish Republicanism ? Would Chelsea soon be playing their matches in shirts emblazoned with Gerry Adams’ hairy boat ? As I should have known only too well after the week at work I’ve had, the answer was no. I was wrong. But only just.

Here’s the entry:
Sinn Féin:…The name is Irish for “ourselves” or “we ourselves”,[3][4] although it is frequently mistranslated[5] as “ourselves alone”.

Now given that around 64% of what’s on Wikipedia is a load of old cobblers, I still could be right. Wikipedia is about as reliable as a Jacqui Smith expense claim or an Ant n Dec phone-poll, so perhaps my memory has served me better than I think. Maybe not.

But where did I glean this little nugget of half-truth? Well I knew all those hours on the sofa would pay off in the end: It came to me that there’s an episode of Columbo where he investigates a murder of an Oirish (you should hear the accents in the show) republican sympathiser. The episode was full of begorrahs and to be sure, to be sures and ginger-haired young men, drinking whiskey and stout, wearing aran sweaters. The do-er is an Oirish wroiter who is undone by the fact he inscribes the inside cover of a book at a signing with Together Ourselves (I thought). There, I’ve gone and ruined the ending for you now, haven’t I? No matter— as it’s the wont of the series, you always know who the killer is during the opening credits and the fun is to be had by the in-jokes liberally sprinkled through each episode: his signature whistle of knick-knack-paddy-wack; his endearing habit of ‘just one more question, sir”; his battered Peugeot and the fact that Mrs Columbo is never ever seen on screen. Often she was mentioned in dispatches but the producers occasionally had fun with us by dangling the carrot in front of us that she was about to appear— but she never did. Mrs Columbo is one of man tv spouses who remain unseen: Dad’s Army‘s, Mrs Mainwaring; Rumpole‘s She Who Must be Obeyed; Arthur Daly‘s Er Indoors; Porrige‘s Mrs Barraclough to name a few. What a lovely way to be married— to an anonymous, faceless woman who’s never around. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong?

This old man, he played one...

Peter Falk’s shambolic detective never carried a gun, didn’t even have a truncheon (night stick, y’all) and always showed his badge as identification. Remember those days? The Wire it weren’t. If it wasn’t for his willingness to identify himself, and his lack of violent tendencies Columbo could have joined the Met.
It’s a chilling thought that had Big Crosby not turned down the part when he was offered it, the famous mac might have been replaced by a straw trilby and a pipe, and each case would have revolved around a golf course. Falk, of course, eventually made the part his own (it had been played by 2 other actors in the 60’s) and he became tv’s highest-paid actor for a while. Like Grandpa Simpson and his MacGyver I’ve been addicted to the show for years and was stunned to see one on tv the other day which not only hadn’t I seen before but in which the killer was neither Patrick McGoohan nor Robert Vaughn. McGoohan and Falk were best mates and not only did the former star of The Prisoner win two Emmys for his roles, he also directed quite a few shows. I know there are those who are horrified that USTV has remade The Prisoner starring something called a Jim Caviezel as No.6 and Dame Serena McKellen as either No. 2 or a number 2, it’s not clear. Why do they insist on doing this ? I’m not great fan of the original, but some things surely are sacrosanct ? I’m sure somewhere in managerial meetings within HBO or ABC there’ll be plans to remake Ice Cold in Alex starring Hugh Jackman, or Casablanca with Cate Blanchett as Rick Blaine. If I get a whiff that they’re tee-ing up Owen Wilson to don a scruffy raincoat and play LAPD‘s favourite homicide detective in something called Columbo: the Party-on Years I shall invite you all to join me in a violent bout of civil unrest. Together. Ourselves.

l-r: Hanks, Aniston, Jackman and Ferrell

I’m not the sort of bloke…

Posted on April 23, 2009 by The Ed

…who says “I told you so” but…

Google Street View case rejected
Press Association

The privacy watchdog has rejected a complaint against Google Street View.
Campaign group Privacy International argued that Street View breached the privacy of people accidentally caught on camera by Google’s photo cars.
But David Evans, the ICO’s senior data protection practice manager, compared being captured by the service to passers-by filmed on television news camera or football crowds in the background on televised matches.
It would not be in the public interest to “turn the digital clock back”, he said.

“In the same way, there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people,” he said.
“Google Street View does not contravene the data protection Act and, in many cases, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back.
“In a world where many people Tweet, Facebook and blog, it is important to take a commonsense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause.”
He said Google should routinely blur images of people’s faces and car number plates.

The company was responding “quickly” to requests from people to have particular images deleted, he said.
When the service launched, users discovered a man walking out of a sex shop and another being sick outside a pub.

Told you so !

How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down?

Posted on April 1, 2009 by The Ed

You need militants on a demonstration. You need passion and commitment and a sense of purpose. If you’re undecided or wishy-washy your march is never gonna get off the ground. Can you imagine the leader of the Liberal Party (Simon Pegg, I think his name is) organising a demo? It’d be as effective as a solar panel in Salford. “What do we want?: DON’T KNOW; When do we want it?: SOME TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE, IF IT’S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE” is not gonna get anyone excited.

So you need heart. You need drive. Often, some of this passion boils over into violence which is why we see thousands of Plod on the streets of London this morning, having had Knacker cancel all leave. Shame. But we are (up to a point, Lord Copper) exercising our right to demonstrate, and a march without passion or a smidge of violence becomes a ramble— and the Church organises those, complete with kagools and sponsorship forms. No thanks.

I was 13 when my brother took me on my first demo— The Rock Against Racism/Anti Nazi League march from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park in East London (30th April 1978, for anyone taking notes). Fucking miles! But it was fantastic. Hundreds of thousands (Police estimate:143) of like-minded people marching for a common cause: crush racism in the UK. It was 1978 and the National Front were becoming a little strong for our liking, so we marched in protest. And we sang. “The National Front is a Nazi Front, SMASH THE NATIONAL FRONT“ We sang it all day. For mile after mile. We ALL sang it. It was bleedin tedious.

Google Maps tells me the direct route between Trafalgar Square and the park is 5.9 miles. Well we didn’t go the straight route (Plod diverted us away from the posh bits in the City) and my brilliant 13 yr old mind told me we walked at LEAST 15 miles. 15 miles of singing the same song. It was like listening to a Morrisey Album all afternoon: torture. But it was a thrill for me at a tender age: collecting ANL and RAR badges. AND placards, and leaflets and flyers and pamphlets. Oh! Think of the Trees, Mike, all that wood n paper!!! well this was BGB (Before Geldof and Bono) and no-one gave a monkeys about the planet or the rainforest. A witty cardboard slogan nailed to a lovely bit of 4×2 was the weapon of choice for both pacifist and anarchist.

The Author (back row, third from left), prepares to leave Trafalgar Square. Note bad haircut

I was proud to have my photo taken by the Police snapper when it was my turn to carry the big banner (what DID they think I was gonna do?) waved at the spotters on the roofs, and ran away quickly when some of the bigger boys started lobbing stuff at the police. But on the whole it seemed to me to be a good-natured event, (I swear that copper was smiling as they wiped the blood from his head) and it ended with my first rock concert in the park and my first sight of Joe Strummer and the boys. I was in heaven.
So we had one message and one march. And one song.

Fast forward to today. Sit down, I have something to tell you: One of today’s marches goes from London Bridge to The Bank of England.That’s a distance of less than a mile. I have longer nostril hair than that !!

Come on guys, put a bit of effort in.

And the coalition of beefs these people have is mind-boggling: Anti Banks, Anti War, Anti Welsh, Save the Planet, Reclaim the Streets, Right to Work, Right to Left, Anarchists, Pacifists, Cyclists, Monarchists, Buggerists, Typists the list is endless. What are they gonna sing? Is there a running order? (mind you, by the time the London Bridge mob reach their destination they’d have hardly had time for a couple of lines of We Shall Overcome). As far as I’m aware they won’t be passing a McDonalds, a Shell garage, or a branch of Barclays: all classic targets for the mob (I still mourn the end of South Africa House demos). Perhaps they can get more miles under their belts by marching round and round in circles a la American pickets in episodes of The West Wing, Columbo etc. (Why DO they go round in circles??)

Say Cheese!

So let’s hope for a good clean fight today. We won’t throw lamp posts at you if you put away the CS gas and the horses. We promise not to lynch anyone, if you promise not to lie about the numbers attending. AND if you’re gonna single us out and snap potential “troublemakers” at least make the pics available to us, so that years from now I’ll have a copy of the photo for my blog.
Up the Revolution !!

Camera Obscura

Posted on March 31, 2009 by The Ed

An organization calling itself Privacy International have complained to the Information Commissioner (very 1984) that the new Google Street View infringes people’s privacy because some are identifiable in the photos therein. And? What’s the problem? Every day, all over the world people are innocent bystanders caught a photographer’sviewfinder. Shots of people walking to work, waiting on train stations, shopping in the high street or sitting on beaches are published online ,in newspapers and in magazines to illustrate stories from the state of the economy, the state of the weather.

Now if I could ask you all to sign this form....

It’s common practice and perfectly legal. Those people captured on film are merely part of the landscape of the image. If the good people at PI have their way photo editors would spend more time pixilating or masking-out the faces of those in the frame. The alternative, I guess, would be to have every man jack of them sign a model-release form, allowing their face to be published. Well that’s not gonna happen. It’s not an intrusion of privacy. No-one’s poking their noses into your little lives or keeping track of you. It’s a photo illustrating a scene. Don’t flatter yourself—you AIN’T the subject.

Same goes for the Google bods: they’ve come up with a gadget that let’s you, me and anyone else see almost every street in London, letting us while-away many a dull afternoon in the office, and it gives iPhone owners another chance to bore us rigid with what their new machine can do. And YES there ARE people in some of the images. Of course there are: IT”S THE CAPITAL OF ENGLAND!!!! But that’s not the point of it. And even if it was, WHO CARES???? If you happen to be seen exiting a massage parlour, sitting outside a wine bar, plying your secretary with chardonnay or spewing up on the pavement that’s just tough. Not Google’s problem. If you wanna play-away with Miss Jones or fall over elephants that’s your look-out.

You can almost see the veins in her neck

It’s perfectly acceptable and legal to take photos on a public street OF the public street and almost anything you damn well like. Ok, if you stand outside an army base, or an airport and start shnapping through the barbed wire at people or equipment, you’re liable (and probably deservedly) get your collar felt by Knacker of the Yard. For years Middle England have moaned about photographers and their long, intrusive lenses. Snappers for the redtops sit in bushes or in the back of blacked-out vans, training their lenses on some poor sod or celebrity who they deem to have been up to no good. Street View does nothing of the sort. Google used a 360 degree wide-angle. How much shorter do you want a lens to be????

My local. I must have been at the bar

So who are Privacy International and it’s supporters? It’s website states that they’re “a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations”. Surveillance? Google aren’t putting you under surveillance, they’re just photographing the street where you live, in the same manner tourists the world over photograph Pal Mall, Las Ramblas or that quaint little village near the resort you stayed in last year in Thailand. Does this mean Flickr will be shut down too? Is this the end of your neighbour’s boring holiday-snap evenings? Wait a minute: I’m sure a Japanese family took a photo of me outside The National Gallery the other day. I WANT THEIR NAMES, FILM AND SERIAL NUMBERS.

Five will get you ten that the people who subscribe to PI’s views are also Facebook addicts and Twitter junkies (“just had pony, can’t be arsed to wash hands and now walking around with knickers around ankles, talk later”).Something really odd is happening. One hand the world wants to tell me absolutely everything about themselves and what they’re doing IN REAL TIME, show me photos of their friends, what their dog looks like, who they’ve snogged and what they looked like the last seventeen times they went to a party or a club. But take a photo of them walking down Oxford Street, carrying a H&M bag and all hell breaks loose.

Smile, you're on t'internet

It’s not CCTV, it’s not stalking you (most of these snaps were last summer anyway) it’s a bit of fun which may be of some interest to a few, lonely people. Focus your protests on something else. There’s plenty to be scared of out there—it’s just that this isn’t it. So next time you’re out-and-about, make sure you’re not with someone you shouldn’t be, and PLEASE stop picking your nose.

The Sharp Single

All Done

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