Thursday 30 July 2009

Tax dodgers

A quick scroll back through some previous posts during my morning coffee break* revealed some particularly negative posts about the recession. (Sorry to be so boring, but this is supposed to be a sort of news-analysis type of blog. EW looks round as several lurkers fall off their chair in surprise.)

So why not something positive for once?

At least this year's batch of students all have a genuine excuse for not getting a job during the summer holidays. Well done to the dirty, tax-dodging lot of you!


* Well, I lie. It was last night during my evening glass of wine - as far too many of my post ideas have been lately. Maybe I should change the name of my blog. The glass of wine? Lady in red (wine). (Hmmmm.) Back on the coffee tomorrow I promise

What a difference a recession makes

So holiday season is upon us (well not me, but the credit crunch impervious middle classes) and parents are desperately scrabbling for countries with good exchange rates to drag the kids to for their summer holidays.

(I'm not a parent, but I remember being as happy as a pig in s**t as a kid down some rain-swept Welsh beach with a broken bucket and spade - what European art gallery? The Mona what? Can we go back to the beach now?)

Gone are the days where luxury and opulence were the topic of conversation at the PTA meeting come September. "Bradley and I thought that extra £200 per person was so worth it for the cruise rooms with the balcony." Not any more.

Now it's become chic to go cheap. Budget is the new black and caravans and campsites up and down the UK are full of well-spoken mothers tottering to the campsite shop to ask the "Garson" behind the counter: "And whom do we talk to to get this awful weather changed?"

Tuesday 28 July 2009

Cardiff Cow Tipping

A group of young teenage boys go into a Greggs pastry shop in a Cardiff suburb.

They emerge some moments later and proceed to eat their hot baked treats while dropping and throwing crumbs on to the pavement.

Before long a group of six or seven seagulls has landed on the pavement of the busy street to eat the offerings, while several more circle overhead.

The noise reaches a crescendo some 30 seconds later, as the skull-cracking shrill of the gulls competes with the sound of traffic and pedestrians and the general bustle of city life.

"Watch this," says one of the boys to his mates. Whereby he rips off a sizable lump of pastry from his pasty and throws it - underarm - deliberately into the path of a passing Cardiff City bus.

There is an almighty bang (well, louder than you'd expect from two birds being slammed into by a ten-ton bus doing at least 25mph).

There was a lot of feathers. And a bit of blood. I laughed.

Monday 27 July 2009

With cheese on

Invisible custard dragons have grabbed my umbrella, and now it is raining purple poo and it's getting all in my hair!

This distresses me, not because it is poo, but because it is purple and I don't like purple. And because it's making my hair messy. And because my comb has turned into a brick.

Not like an artistic, dry-stone something type of brick. But a dusty, concrete-crusted house brick. How boring I think, as I take it out of my pocket and turn it over in my hands. Why would I dream about something as boring as a house brick?

But there's no time to finish that thought though, because just then the green flags of time start blowing upwards and the sky leaves to chase the sun who is getting drunk at the bar on the corner because they have a good offer on cider.

Then I wake up, in a hot sweat, and think maybe the cheese before bed was a bad idea.

Saturday 25 July 2009

Time travel on my expenses

If I have worked the science bit of this blonk thing properly you should be reading this on Saturday. Although I wrote it yesterday; that is today. But you are reading it tomorrow. Which is now today. Hmm. Whenever it was, I had one of those rare double-post-idea days.


If I was a good blogger then I'd just put two posts on my blog in one day and continue as normal. But because I am a half-arsed, too-busy-to-be-imaginative, can't-actually-write-for-toffee, type of blogger, I can't go wasting posts like they were froth on my Saturday morning latte.


So I am hoping some computer jiggery will put this up on Saturday, so good morning to all you lurkers out there. Hope you are having a nice start to your weekend.


The reason for my post today (yesterday, whenever) is that I have been thinking about all this swine flu hullabaloo in the news. In the UK so far, 27 people have died of the virus, which is truly awful, one death, for anything is horrible, and my blonky thoughts go out to their families. But can we have a little perspective please!


12,000 people die a year in the UK of normal flu. 12,000 a year. Every year. Year in, year out.


While we must continue to wash our hands, and all that, against the spread of swine flu, can we please all just calm down a bit.

Have we forgotten about the heinous MP's expenses scandal? Funny how that has been lost on the breeze like an un-tissued sneeze.


Forget tamiflu, we need a good old dose of common sense.

Friday 24 July 2009

Compare the jealous celebrities dot com

All hail common sense.


As I grabbed a take-away morning coffee on my way into work today a chirpy young chappy (or it could have been a girl, it's hard to tell Emos apart these days, especially when they're in blue bomber jackets and matching baseball caps) thrust a crisp Metro* into my free hand.


So I stumbled toward work jugging my coffee, bag and metro with my umbrella and jacket - it's British summertime now, which means my half hour walk into work involved three removals and re-wearings of my jacket, getting my sunglasses out twice and opening my umbrella, as the weather changed on a merry-go-round of whim and fancy.


Getting into work and sitting back with my coffee I read with delight that a stuffed animal from a TV advert campaign for car insurance is more popular than a host of top celebrities. The animatronic meerkat with a Russian accent, from the adverts for website compare the market, has a huge online following, including half a million fans on facebook and 200,000 followers on Twitter.


Normally I hate celebrity trash stories, but I LOVE this one.

To think that talented (and yes, I use the word very loosely) celebrities who have worked so hard shagging producers and directors, thrusting themselves (often half-dressed) into our faces with such aplomb for the coverted celebrity prize of being this week's glossy spread in a weekly magazine... have been gazumped by a stuffed rodent in a dressing gown.


Ha ha ha ha. The fickle world of the fake celebrity. Maybe he'll appear in Celebrity Big Brother this year?


*For anyone outside the UK, the Metro is a free newspaper distributed in the centre of large cities, and throughout the London underground network. Aimed at working young professionals it's remit is to be a "15 minute digest of the day's news".

Thursday 23 July 2009

Fighting talk - another week of shame

Two figures from opposite sides of the celebrity sphere are in court in England this week, both facing allegations of violence.


England and Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has admitted hitting a reveller in a nightclub in Liverpool after a row over music - although the star footballer is insisting the act was self-defence. While across the country in London, Back to Black singer Amy Winehouse has appeared in court to face charges of hitting a woman who had asked her for a photograph.


Now celebrities in court is nothing new, but while we are used to the usual forays into drug use, drink driving and the like, acts of violence are not so common.


There are so many examples of famous celebrity brawls that I can't list them all here. The first two that spring to mind are Liam Gallagher and Jamiroquai's hat-wearing JK lashing out at photographers in the 90s. But it's usually a day's worth of blurred and bloodied photographs in the tabloids and doesn't end up in court.


Drugs and wild nights flashing your boobs are one thing. But it is a sad state of affairs to see two young (29 and 25) role models in court for punching and hitting members of the public.

Maybe they need a dose of their own medicine and someone could knock some sense into them both?

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Moon landing hoax - shame on you!

It is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing this week.


Newspapers and news programmes in the UK (and I assume throughout the world) have been full of pictures, interviews and features of the historic landing.


A quick search on the internet will come up with millions (maybe billions?) of sites, articles and videos exploring the event.


However, by now, the "One small step for man" speech is as synonymous with the great feet of human and technological endurance as it is with the 'Moon Landing Hoax'.


Did man really walk on the moon in 1969? Was the technology there? Why are the shadows wrong on the pictures?


While this is not a post to attempt to come to a conclusion on this debate, or explore my own thoughts on the matter, I would like to just say one thing. Will these documentary makers please leave the poor astronauts alone!!


I googled 'did we really land on the moon' this morning while I was having my coffee and found a video of this fat American chasing poor old (and they are all old now) astronauts to get them to swear on the bible that they went to the moon/walked on the moon/walked in space/whatever.
These poor guys, who had no doubt been fantastic pilots and scientists before joining Nasa went on to risk life and limb to further mankind's exploration of space.


Whatever your beliefs on the moon hoax row, the astronauts are not to blame. Why aren't these guys chasing down Nasa, or the government? It was really sad to see film crews chasing these poor, bewildered old men. Shame on you!

Monday 20 July 2009

If you are reading this please help!

I have swine flu. I'm sure of it.

I can't go out in case I infect a pregnant woman who will not be able to visit crowded public places, and I can't live with that on my conscience.

So I am locked up in my flat, washing my hands repeatedly between key strokes. They are starting to get raw and rashed (my hands that is, not my keyboard) and this post is taking a very long time to type as my bathroom is down the hall.

I have a pair of knickers wrapped around my head like a face mask. Don't worry, they are clean.

I rang the NHS helpline but they said I was not to come to the doctors or go to the pharmacy for my tamiflu tablets. Instead I was to ask an uninfected, healthy friend to go and pick them up for me.

But I have no friends. Or a letter box, so even if I did have a friend I would risk infecting them too, jeopardising our relationship and ending my one and only contact with society in my otherwise sad and insular life.

The food is starting to run out and soon I will be reduced to opening the tin of pilchards in tomato sauce I won in a summer fete tombola last year. What else goes with Bovril?

If you are reading this please help!

Thursday 16 July 2009

Like buses.. and all that (always make sure you have clean nickers on in case you get run over by one)

I've been very busy this week with two comedy performances in the space of three days.


I have know about both gigs for more than a month, so in typical 'me' style, was up into the wee hours the night before the first one panicking over what material to do. I eventually staggered to bed completely exhausted - still no closer to sorting out my set - and spent the entire day leading up to the gig stressing about what to do.


Tonight (being the night before the next gig) is set to be the same.


What puzzles me is that I am usually a very organised and prepared person. As a journalist you have to be organised to work towards deadlines. If anything, I am usually accused of over-organising things; nights out, which pubs we meet in, where we go next etc. etc. I am constantly reminding myself to relax and 'go with the flow'.


But when it comes to this comedy stuff, I seem to put it off until the last possible moment. I think, it maybe has something to do with the fact that I am absolutely petrified of getting on stage.


It's like a mental block when it comes to being on stage in front of people. I put the 'normal, sensible, organised me' in a little box and pack it away in the corner of my brain and this sweaty, panicky, disorganised, mess of a person takes over.


Oh, I've just read that last bit back. Isn't that schizophrenia? Yes EW, yes it is. So is answering your own questions on your blog.


And the day started so well..... can I get off now please driver? This is my stop.

Monday 13 July 2009

Looking after the pennies

As I was sipping my cold morning coffee this afternoon there was a programme on BBC Radio 4 about the battle of the discount stores.


Pound shops, we were dully informed to the background noise of (I assume) goods being packed in plastic bags and other assorted 'general shop noises', are popping up everywhere on our high streets.


The bastard love child of a broken economy and an indebted population, they are about the only retail outlets that seem to be 'bucking the trend' of declining consumers amid the recession, by selling bags of jelly tots and packs of dishcloths at incredibly low prices.


But even among the lowest of the low (ok, so the nice lady presenter might have said cheapest of the cheap, but she said it in such a way that it sounded like lowest of the low) there is a retail war going on, as pound shops are undercut by 99p stores.


And now, the new kid on the cheap block is the 89p store.


The lady presenter interviewed the owner/manager of a pound store on a high street where one of these 89p stores had opened up the road. The pound store had seen a decided downturn in trade since the 89p joint opened. This confused the well-spoken Radio 4 woman, who seemed flabbergasted (in her Queen's English) that consumers really would turn their backs on a store "for the sake of a few pence".


And herein, finally, lies my point. "For the sake of a few pence" spat the well-spoken, middle England, daddy's little girl presenter. What, to a woman who's father owns Rolls Royce, or Dunlop, or the local country club, or whatever, is 11 miserly pence?


Why, she probably doesn't even save her coppers anymore, she's the sort of person who can count pound coins as loose change and simply discards the coppers and silvers right there on the street like a cigarette butt or a finished chewing gum.


While most of us are lucky to have survived this recession relatively unscathed (most of us still have jobs, a roof over our heads and can afford to feed ourselves, even if it is the cheaper stores-own brands these days) to a lot of people - are you listening Radio 4 - 11 pence is still 11 pence. Of course you're going to take a few extra steps down the high street if you can get your set of 20 disposable lighters and broken biscuits pack cheaper.


It smacks of "let them eat cake" syndrome, and until it can be beat out of the middle and upper class mentality (preferably with a big, hard stick) then we are never going to get over this recession.

Thursday 2 July 2009

Match point

Like the heartbroken victim of a cheap kiss-and-tell tabloid romp, I have been keeping a dignified silence of late, content to lurk with intent on an array of familiar blogs - and take the time to venture tentatively into some hitherto uncharted territory.

Many events have been reported on in the public arena since my last post, but I am looking to the future now, so for anyone expecting a "here's what's happened so far since the three minute advert break for all of you who are too stupid to remember what the show you have been watching for the last hour is about" you can switch over now.

Green lawns and red strawberries have been the order of the day this week, as the crinkle-free white-clad athletes of the tennis world grunt it out for the Wimbledon crown.

In the UK, our great hope, Andy Murray, takes to the courts tomorrow (Friday) and by the time you read this may have already won or lost his game, set and match, dashing a nation's hopes against the white-topped net of despair.

But I'm sure life, like this blog, will go on.