Shooting Yourself In The Foot

It’s official. Sun beds are as dangerous to one’s health as smoking or asbestos.

Or even smoking asbestos.

Pasty faced scientists all across Europe are unanimous. There is a definite link between the use of sun beds and skin cancer.

Doh.

Like this isn’t bleeding obvious.

I mean, let’s face it, a sun tan is nothing more than toasted skin. When you endeavor to acquire a sun tan you are effectively cooking yourself. This can never be a good thing. Never. Not in anyone’s book.

Well. Not unless that book belongs to the person who is in charge of the multimillion pound industry that thrives on the cheques and credit cards of the “desperate to be brown”.

There was a mini debate about it all on breakfast TV this morning.

In the white corner, fighting the good fight on behalf of all us “pale and interesting” folk was a pretty young blonde thing with perfect skin and the vital glow of good health. If she was a plant she would be a tender young succulent.

In the black corner, emitting no doubt the faint scent of eradiated carbon was the High Priestess of the Sun Beds Association. I won’t embarrass her by revealing her name. Suffice it to say that if the Government wants someone to appear on a warning poster advising people about the dangers of sun bed abuse this lady would be perfect. If she was a plant she would be a charcoal brick.

The words “wizened”, “desiccated” and “smoked kipper” came to mind. One overly dry gust of wind and she would have exploded into a pillar of salt.

After seeing her I didn’t need to hear the details about the scientific research.

I was totally convinced.

Factor 50 for me from now on.

Highs And Lows And Somewhere Stuck In-Between

Apologies for the ragbag nature of this post but (to well and truly mix my metaphors) that’s the way the cookie is crumbling today.

First up on the blog podium is the news that I have at last been awarded my degree. I finally got my results yesterday and have come through over 10 years of part time study to be granted a good 2:1 honours class English degree from Warwick University. And many, many thanks to French Fancy who was kind enough to ask after my results yesterday when the rest of you had clearly forgotten all about them *sniff sniff* I mean it’s not like you have lives or anything...

Second up – and just because you’d have to be dead or in a coma to have missed the news this morning – it seems that reports of Michael Jackson’s death have not been exaggerated... though part of me, the cynical part, is wondering if it’s all a scam and he’s faked his own death.

Isn’t that awful?

I must admit, although it’s sad to hear of his death – he was after all hugely talented (though even a hugely talentless person’s death is sad news) – the news reportage and media accolades are cheesing me off something rotten. This is the same media that only weeks ago was joyously slagging him off for his financial problems and his dodgy history of alleged misconduct with children whose parents were keen to have their kiddie-winks associated with the self proclaimed mega-rich King of Pop.

I mean at one point you couldn’t move on the telly without every celeb going taking a pot-shot at MJ’s rumoured paedophilia. The air waves were full of jokes along the lines of: does Michael like The Backstreet Boys or does he prefer Boyz To Men? And comedians even now still wheel out an obligatory Michael Jackson joke during their many and varied routines. Because let’s face it, it’s easy enough to do.

Suddenly though, today, the media world is full of po-faced accolades and high-falutin’ laurels from all and sundry announcing with fine gravitas that The King Of Pop – the Legend – is dead. Sob. Sob.

Spare me.

*sigh*

Oh I don’t know. If I’ve nothing good to say, maybe I ought to just play it safe and not say anything at all?

Lastly, it’s been a weird old week. I managed to get myself stuck in a lift at work yesterday. First time in my life it’s ever happened. There I am at Council HQ (which thankfully is only 4 storey’s high) and the lift cuts out between floors 3 and 4. From out of a tinny wall speaker I could hear Stephen Hawking announcing that the lift was “out of service”. It was good to have that pointed out.

I followed the instruction printed on the wall. I pressed the button for the operator. I didn’t panic. I kept calm. I spoke clearly. And most important of all I didn’t speak while the operator spoke. The instructions were very clear about that. It seems that in an emergency – although I am the one trapped – what she has to say takes precedence. Well fine. I know my place.

Stuck in a metal box no wider than 6ft and suspended tens of metres above bone shattering concrete.

It wasn’t the best 5 minutes of my life, I must admit, but my work colleagues had me out in a jiffy before I could entertain too many thoughts of making Hollywood style elevator escapes. I was thinking Speed. I was thinking The Matrix. Both of which oddly star Keanu Reeves.

So.

How to wrap this post up?

It’s obvious really.

The only way is up!

P.S. There is no spoon. ;-)

Robotic Bin Men

According to a News24 news item this morning boffins in Italy have developed a robotic rubbish collector.

Customers can send a text message to the robot when they leave out their bin bags and then he/she/it will happily trundle along, scoop up their bin bags and take them to the appropriate trash sorting centre. It sounds great. Bin men on demand. No more rubbish lying around rotting for days on end while we wait for the bin men to finally get round to performing their weekly pick up. One text and you get instant service.

Presumably as many times a day as you need it.

Of course for it to work in the UK there are certain modifications that would have to be made and certain social problems that would have to be overcome.

You just know that the poor little robot would end up mercilessly tagged with graffiti as it went about its business or, worst case scenario, hoofed into the nearest river or dropped off a railway bridge to be neatly (trash) compacted by the 9.25 to Birmingham Moor Street.

So security for the Brit version would have to be beefed up. Armour of some kind. Anti tamper mechanisms. Anti graffiti paint. Smoke canisters and rubber bullets fired out of its electronic anus. A direct line to the ASBO department of the local constabulary. Possibly a random selection of Gene Hunt quotes broadcast through an on-board amplifier to deter potential attackers.

“You’re making as much progress as a spastic in a magnet factory...”

"You look as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot...”

"You so much as belch out of line and I'll have your scrotum on a barbed wire plate..."

That sort of thing.

As for modifying its behaviour to fit in with British bin man culture, this should be easy enough to do.

It would need to be reprogrammed to be as untidy as possible – to spill litter everywhere and not bother to return your bin properly. Instead it could dump your bin in another street entirely so you can play “hunt the bin” for a couple of hours to get it back.

It would have to sing as loudly as possible in a voice so atonal it makes Piers Morgan sound like Frank Sinatra. Something by Brittany Spears. Only with alternative lyrics – rhymes that would make a rugby player blush. And all songs must be sung between 8.30 and 9.00 in the morning so every school kid in the land can receive a true education in uncouthness and vulgarity.

Finally of course the bin bot must be programmed to sift through your rubbish in search of old porno mags and rogue copies of The Sunday Sport that it can wave about in the street and call to its robotic colleagues about.

“Blimey, look at the trash compactor on ‘er...”

“Cor, I wouldn’t mind land-filling that one...”

Etc. Etc.

Yeah. Then it would fit right in. Perfect integration. Nobody would even notice any difference.

See, I should have been a scientist, me.

Burglary With Style

Robin Hood had it. The Great Train Robbers had it. Bonnie and Clyde had it in spades. Prometheus. The Artful Dodger… the list could go on.

Great thieves, ladies and gentlemen. Robbers with style. Bandits with a bit of class.

You can’t help admiring them. The guts. The arrogance. The sheer chutzpah of their endeavours.

They have now been joined by an as yet unnamed fellow from India who managed to hypnotize (yes, you read that right – HYPNOTIZE) a Mumbai jewellery store worker out of £160,000 dollars worth of loot.

Yahoo news reports it thus:

“Indian police are hunting a conman who hypnotised a Mumbai jewellery store worker before stealing 160,000 dollars worth of diamond necklaces and bracelets.

Katrina Sunil Purswami, who works at the Seres store in the upmarket Bandra West suburb, was told by the man on Saturday that he wanted to give the gems as a present and persuaded her to bring them to a nearby hotel.

"When the employee went to the hotel, the accused acted like he was the owner," senior police inspector Prakash George was quoted as saying by the Daily News and Analysis newspaper on Monday.

"As Purswami was showing him the sets, he asked her to write the details of the sets for him. He then hypnotised her and decamped with the ornaments. Purswami was left confused and could not understand what was going on."

The officer said the jeweller's store was newly opened and the owner allowed the employee to visit the hotel with the diamonds because he thought he was in line for a large sale.

Police are studying CCTV from the hotel to try to identify the conman but cameras at the shop were not working, George said.”

I think this is marvellous.

I know theft is wrong but there is just something so brilliant about this story. Nobody got hurt. I’m sure the jeweller had insurance. Property and person were not injured. I’m not advocating what has happened but, by God, I’d like to shake the thief by the hand (whilst avoiding his mesmeric gaze lest my cheap wristwatch find itself inveigled into his back pocket while I perform chicken impressions to the bemusement of all on-lookers).

I just wonder how he did it.

Did he swing a pocket watch in front of the hapless shop assistant? “I’m sorry miss, but I think my watch is skipping a second or two… could you keep a close eye on it for a minute and see what you think?”

Did he stare intensely into her eyes, soul locked to soul, and speak in a voice lower than Barry White’s gonads and impel her helplessly to do as he said?

Or did he fire lightning bolts into her from his fingertips like The Emperor from Star Wars and cackle evilly as her body, stiffened into a sub-zombie state, staggered around the room and dropped a hundred thousand pounds worth of Tom Foolery into his lap… candy from a baby style.

Most important of all: did he have a long thin moustache which he twirled wickedly before tossing his black silk cape over his shoulder and fleeing from the scene of his crime?

There is surely a great novel in this story and if I wasn’t 180,000 words into one already I’d be musing on the plot and the characters and trying to acquire an agent.

I only hope that when the police find him – as they surely will (a trail of people clucking like chickens is hard to miss) – he isn’t found with a Paul Mckenna self help book sticking out of his back pocket (along with my watch).

That would be so disappointing.

Spokesperson For A Generation

Good old Parky.

Now in his 70’s he’s reached that glorious age where you think, “oh bugger it, I’ll just say whatever the hell I like and the consequences and fall out be-damned”.

I’d almost be envious except that – at just over half his age – I appear to have reached that wonderful state already.

Up until now I’ve steered clear of commenting on Jade Goody’s death because I figured my opinions wouldn’t be particularly helpful or palatable for all they’ve been passionately held. I bit my lip when the news channels gave up the whole of Mothering Sunday to eulogize Jade’s passing. I bit my lip at the comparisons with Princess Diana (WTF?)! And I ripped my tongue out by its root when live footage of Jade’s funeral cortege actually made it live onto CNN.

I mean fer Chrissake!

Her death was sad because she was so young but did she really warrant the ridiculous media circus that fogged / dogged the whole event like a miasmic melodrama?

Parky’s recent outburst encapsulates my sentiments exactly. To quote him:

"Jade Goody has her own place in the history of television and, while it's significant, it's nothing to be proud of. Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di. When we clear the media smoke screen from around her death, what we're left with is a woman who came to represent all that's paltry and wretched about Britain today. She was brought up on a sink estate, as a child came to know drugs and crime, was barely educated, ignorant and puerile. Then she was projected to celebrity by Big Brother and became a media chattel to be exploited until the day she died."

Spot on, Parky. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I never liked Jade’s media persona and though I would never have wished death upon her I do frown at her status of celebrity. It was not deserved. It was not earnt.

There are many who will no doubt see Jade Goody as a source of inspiration. Proof that even with the worst start in life you can still “make it big”.

Unfortunately I fear the lesson our young people will take from the Jade phenomenon is that you don’t need any kind of talent or hard work to become a celebrity, that somehow being a celebrity wipes the slate clean, forgives every ugly misdemeanor and glosses over every personality defect.

Essentially you can hit the big time without lifting a ruddy finger.

Well that ain’t a lesson I want my kids to learn.

I realize I’m elitist (and proud of it) but I do sincerely believe that celebrity – like any kind of status – should be earnt and earnt by hard work, dedication and a sincere and enduring sense of vocation. I want my celebrities to be famous and lauded for things that I could not possibly do. I want them to be special and amazing.

Not famous for being gobby, uncouth and adhering to the worst of all stereotypes. Or for displaying their “kebab” on live television. Or, worst of all, showcasing their voluminous and depressing ignorance like it was something to be proud of.

I feel heart sorry for Jade’s sons. Heart sorry. That Jade, in the end, mercilessly used the media to extract every last drop of money from the ridiculous furore for the future well-being of those poor little boys is something I can completely understand and even approve of.

But the mawkish deifying of Jade Goody that the press is currently indulging in is unforgivable, shallow, insincere and just plain bad journalism.

It serves nobody. Nobody at all.

Least of all Jade’s children.

Google Gail

More earth shattering news this week from these greenly septred isles...

Oxford's Corpus Christi College, who stormed to victory a few weeks ago on the BBC’s University Challenge, have had their memorable victory wiped from the annals of the immortal, their victor’s trophy rudely snatched back from it’s silk pedestal (leaving a hole like a wound in the college’s trophy cabinet) and their academic street-cred irreversibly soiled.

It seems they fielded a ringer.

One of their team members, Sam Kay (no relation to Peter), was no longer a member of the college when the final was recorded and thus was illegible to take part.

Thus the sacrosanct rules of University Challenge were broken rather like the stone slab in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and now all the magic has been overturned.

Manchester University, who put up a good fight but were ultimately trounced have now been awarded a rather specious victory which, I’m sure, tastes just as much like ash in the mouth as their actual defeat.

I think it’s a great shame: (a) because Mr Kay pretty much did bugger all to secure Oxford the victory and (b) the real star and unbeatable information engine on the team was the legendary Gail Trimble whose intellectual superiority cannot be denied.

Her depth of knowledge was so all-encompassing she has now been nicknamed “Google Gail” and her hair flicks so enticing she has been approached by sundry lad’s mags to do “tasteful photo shoots” (which she has sadly – but probably wisely – declined).

A lot of people found Gail pompous and aloof. But I kind of liked her. She was intelligent. She was articulate. She was confident. Role model stuff. And she’d undoubtedly worked hard to get where she was and her team worked damned hard to win.

I actually think it’s wrong to strip them of their title.

I know, I know. Rules have to be adhered to... but really nobody is a winner in this situation. I bet Manchester are just as gutted by the circumstances as Oxford.

Why not just have a rematch? You can’t get fairer than that, surely?

I know it will cost money – film crews, studio time, Paxman to read out a few more brain-bashing questions, etc – but if the BBC can afford to pay Jonathan Ross £6 million they can afford one more episode of University Challenge.

Come on! Let’s give Trimble a chance!

And with more time in the limelight Nuts may yet make her an offer that she can’t refuse...

Abilities

Knickers have been a little twisted in the UK this week over an issue which, quite frankly, has not merited the amount of column space given over to it.

And here I am adding to the word count when other bloggers have written about it at least half as well as I am about to (ha ha ha)...!

To clarify for my international readers: we have a kids channel here in the UK called CBeebies and they have employed a lovely blonde presenter called Cerrie Burnell to do the fill-in slots between the various kid’s programmes.

She’s warm voiced, gentle, enthusiastic, obviously a mum herself (you can just tell) and she was born with only one hand. Her other arms finishes just below the elbow.

And neither of my boys – Ben who is 7 and Tom who is 16 months – care a damned fig about it.

Sadly a very small minority of “well meaning parents” (i.e. sentimental bigots) have written in to the BBC’s various online forums to complain that Cerrie’s physical differences could “scare” their young children.

Oh please.

My first reaction was to shake my head with pity that such small minded people not only exist in the world but are also polluting their own children with their xenophobic and ridiculously neurotic points of view.

But as the newsworthiness of this debate has grown with more and more press coverage and Cerrie herself being called in to take part in worthy “spread the message” interviews my pity has turned to exasperation and annoyance.

Poor girl.

She’s a presenter and an actress doing a job like everybody else. Her physicality in this day and age should just not be an issue for anybody.

It’s certainly not an issue for my boys. I think Ben commented with vague interest once about Cerrie’s arm but didn’t really seem that bothered. As for Tom. He’s pretty much accepting of all that goes on around him and doesn’t see anything at all as “abnormal” or out of the ordinary. It is all new. All part of the adventure. And all entertaining.

If only our species could retain the mindset of a 16 month old baby... how much happier the world would be.

The only positive to come out of all this is, I suppose, the debate it has sparked and the huge wave of support that Cerrie has received from the majority of the population who are well balanced, intelligent, cogent and capable of coherent thought processes. As she says, if kids ask questions about her hand then just tell them the truth – she was born with it like many other people in the world and it doesn’t stop her from doing anything at all. It’s a good opportunity to try and educate them gently about such issues and nurture them into well balanced, emotionally sound adults.

I doubt that a single one of them will have nightmares about it... unless the parent completely mishandles the situation, of course... and that responsibility is hardly Cerrie’s or the BBC’s...

But it is a shame to have such a sweet, innocent children’s programme marred with such heavy-duty adult issues. But then again I suspect it is only us adults who are picking up on that anyway. The kids just want to get on to the cartoons and the fluffy puppets.

Well, don’t we all?

To my mind then, Cerrie’s only (to use an old 70’s word) handicap is her co-presenter, Alex Winters, who is so wet, bland and lifeless he looks like he spends his free-time taking part in Agatha Christie Murder Weekends playing the corpse. I’ve never seen a man on TV so damned dreary. It’s as if he’s constantly holding back, afraid to commit himself to the nursery rhymes or the baby talk in case his RADA mates see him and rip the pee out of him later in the pub.

If anyone is physically unable to do the job it is him.

As for Cerrie, she can read me a bedtime story and stroke my furry teddy any night of the week...

Photo Opportunity

This from Yahoo news this morning:

"Former Big Brother contestant Charley Uchea was threatened at gunpoint last night."

"Charley was attacked by four men who tried to carjack her Mercedes when she left nightclub Funky Buddha."

"A witness revealed that one man jumped on the bonnet of Charley's car while the others attacked her and her friend Sisi. The attackers then told the pair they were armed and would kill them if they didn't hand over the keys to the £35,000 car."

"Police escorted the 22 year old away in a police van and her car was taken to West End Central police station for further examination."

There you have it. Further proof that intelligence levels in this country are sinking to an all time low.

A man. A gun. And Charley "I'm a big BB mega star I am" Uchea.

The perfect opportunity and no one pulls the trigger.

Doh!