Category: News

Skis or heels tonight, darling?

For once this isn’t a rant at skiers, but just a niggle that’s been getting to me the last couple of days. You may have heard about the muppet who slid down a mountain in Turin on a mattress and died when he rammed into a barrier. Silly, but them’s the breaks. My sympathies to his family.

However, every news report I’ve read refers to it as a "skiing accident". Where were the skis? I refer you to the most guilty of parties: Sky News

On another tack footwear-wise (sort of), the BBC report on a story from an Italian urologist. She reckons that high heels can improve your sex life, although probably at the expense of your toes. Apparently the posture you put yourself in when wearing them helps strengthen the pelvic floor muscles. Essentially this means "pussy of steel" which is never a bad thing from a man’s point of view.

Oh, and heels do make a women’s legs look even better. I’ll be the first to confess I like a good pair of pins on a lady. Preferably with the knees located somewhere ear-wards, but that’s for later on in the evening.

Handy hint – don’t wear stilettos on a water bed. I’m all for making a woman wet, but that’s pushing the matter a little too far. Telling your partner you’re “having a gusher” should not extend to drowning the cat as it sleeps on the sofa downstairs.

Oh, for ****’s sake

The News of the World (that reputable piece of **** that any sane person wouldn’t wipe their arse with in case they caught a strange disease) has released a shitty drawing of the man who (allegedly) kidnapped Madelaine McCann. Or maybe they’re just after selling a few more of their turd-rags after interviewing an attention-happy ****-stirrer who happened to stay 600 yard from the McCann’s flat and who needs some more money for next year’s holiday.

Now let’s be fair – the local police have been utterly crap at doing anything so far (at least, so the McCanns have led us to believe), but even so you’d think they’d have interviewed the neighbours before the ******* toilet paper publishers we class as journalists in this country got to them. By now, the person in the pictures would have had a haircut and used the money from selling the child to the child-traffickers in the Middle East to get his buck teeth fixed.

Well done, NotW. You look like a bigger bunch of ***** than usual, dragging this story back into the limelight. Getting desperate, were we?

Protest for the tuk-tuk!

I just sent a mail to Brighton council regarding their insane decision to take Britain’s unique fleet of tuk-tuks off the road. I rode in these vehicles in several countries and the thought of being able to jump back into one makes me genuinely want to go to Brighton. No mean feat, given there’s **** all else there worth bothering with unless you’re retiring.

However, our government and their council are full of pencil-pushing fuckwits who value paperwork and red tape over common ******* sense. By all means, drop them a message. I have:

Hi,

I’m writing regarding recent reports in the press regarding the fate of the “tuk tuk” service being run by an independent contractor.

Firstly, I’ll be honest and say that I have never visited Brighton. However, something that has appealed for a while is the unique fleet of tuk-tuks (or “tuc-tuc”s as the emblem on the front of these vehicles proclaim). I’ve been to many countries which run the vehicles commonly (Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, India and so on) and they’re a great idea.

However, I simply can’t believe that a council can be so narrow-minded as to permit these vehicles to run legally… and then effectively withdraw their license by making it economically infeasible for them to run due to a matter of pathetic red tape – something for which the UK has become justly derided in recent years.

No, wait. I *can* believe it, given the state that my home nation is now in. For crying out loud, open your eyes and realise there’s a lot more out there than stupid safety regulations, bureaucrats, MPs and muppets with nothing better to do with their time than shout down anything that’s remotely “different”.

Give a guy with a new business idea a chance, and let people enjoy their lives without jumping on them like a bunch of politicians with nothing better to do with their lives than spoil everyone else’s.

Yes, I’m annoyed. My whole country is going to the dogs because of pathetic pencil-pushers and lawyers after a fast buck, running after the American example.

Get these vehicles properly licensed and back on the streets before you lose one of the few things that makes Brighton appealing to anyone other than drug-pushers and pensioners.

Yours in disgust at the state of his own country,

Mosh

I so await their reply. If you want to tell them what a bunch of boring, dull, rule-following, red-tape-loving, insensitive, mono-cultural, tax-greedy ***** they are then you can contact them via their contact page (here) or email them direct here.

Thanks.

Money and the buzz

Just to show the opposite sides of the money scale, have a look at the two following stories which both broke today. In the first, British Gas are raising prices by 15% for their gas and electricity (following on from similar rises from their competitors). This is an enormous pricehike, but one which has been expected. I’m glad I don’t have a house back home any more as that would make a huge dent in my income. At least they’ve left it till after winter, so hopefully at a time when heating can be turned down.

So we’ll have people complaining about the price rise, but when you look at the facts it was inevitable and really doesn’t seem about them trying to make a vast profit – just to make a profit given the narrow margins at present.

So while the public bemoan this rise in price, perhaps they should still realise how bloody lucky they are to live somewhere that has electricity and gas, and that they have jobs where they can re-budget to afford it. Because the other story I’m interested in is the Zimbabwean government issuing $10m notes in a bid to catch up with their 50,000% per annum inflation. Sounds impressive, but one of these notes will convert into £2 in the UK, less than $4 American.

Basically, their money is devaluing quicker than they can print and spend it. You get paid, say, a dollar one day. By the next it’s worthless. They were running out of paper money because people needed so many of the small bills to buy the basics. Zimbabwe has the world’s weakest currency (Vietnam’s Dong is the second-weakest, but at least it’s comparatively stable).

So while the poor and the elderly in the UK may certainly feel the pinch at their utilities going up, do have a thought for those in other countries. The amount your fuel bills are rising is probably enough to feed and cloth someone there for six months.

Onto a slightly happier tone, I have to confess that the Bolton game tomorrow is the first time in months I’ve actually been excited about seeing us play. I was gutted that I couldn’t get a ticket to the Stoke home game the other night. Had I still been in the UK I would have gone.

Keggy Keegle might not be the long-term answer to all Newcastle’s problems, but as an immediate-term signing and a moral-boost for the region I seriously doubt there could have been anyone better. I’ve even shifted my work rota for tomorrow so I can make it to the pub to see the match.

Most predictions are, predictably, going for a goal-fest and the majority of those in our favour. I hope that’s the case, but you know what? With King Kev back in charge I at least expect to be entertained and that’s something we’ve been missing for far too long.

"Well, George, we’ve knocked the bastard off."

RIP Sir Edmund Hillary. The quote above is what he told one of his colleagues when he returned to the foot of Everest after becoming the first person to climb it way back in 1953. Anyone who can get made into an honorary Tibetan is OK by me.

On a similar mountaineering-y note, there’s a pretty bad story on the BBC about a volunteer coastguard who’s quit after being investigated for not using safety equipment during a (successful) rescue. Part of me really can’t blame the guy. He’s done what he’s supposed to do – save a life. Had he followed protocol, gone to get his equipment and sorted all that out then the girl involved would likely have plummeted to her death.

He gets roundly thanked, nominated for an award… then investigated. **** ’em. And good on you Paul Waugh. The ******** don’t deserve you.