Hello and welcome to another Friday edition of the Aldershot Woes, this is the 40th installation of the Woes so expect a mid blog crisis half way through the article where I start going to festivals, wearing trainers, and knobbing my secretary to prove I am still a real blog goddammit!
Its Friday, and as such I was thinking of writing some light hearted musings about cakes or blowing off or something equally unchallenging and brain-dead to help us all kill some time before we all naff off for the weekend, but then I read about how Stephen Hawking called the pope a liar and stupid and gave him a Chinese burn and claimed that only a man with a chewed up dog toy for a brain could possibly believe that god made the universe, so instead I am going to write about the creation of the universe and the existence of god.
Some people like to know they are being looked after, they like security, and they like harmony, so they look at the unknown reason of existence and apply this desired comfort to their outlook of it and decide it’s much easier to live thinking that everything has a purpose and a plan, that people should be good and not complete bastards and above all else there is a point to life. Ahhhhh, relaxing! Other people want to look after life, rather than have it look after them, they want to know why life is like it is and how it got to be that way. They hate the idea that life is not in their hands to control and that they are merely the moving cogs in a divine plan set in motion by some omnipresent deity, they see actions and reactions and the idea of fate scares them to death as it essentially renders them powerless in life. So they look at the unknown reason for existence and apply this outlook to it, and decide it is far easier to live life knowing that one thing only happens as a result of another thing happening and that ultimately life and what we do with it is entirely up to us… Eureka, relaxing! Both of these seem like rational enough courses to take in life, I can see how the idea of God looking after you would comfort you, knowing that no matter what horrendous thing happens ultimately it is for the greater good. I can also see that knowing we can shape and manipulate life for our own gain, knowing that we are the true masters of our destiny also provides a huge amount of relief in your day to day life. The two opposing schools of thought offer purpose of existence depending on your mindset, so every ones happy and its all good, surely? Well no it’s not, its all bloody terrible… apparently.
Science and religion are constantly bickering like brother and sister on a rainy Saturday afternoon, it’s an argument of perpetual one-upmanship, each side occasionally proves a point but eventually it comes back to “yeah butt” and “prove it” as an exercise of futility its probably up their with Heskey’s England career. And the area which creates the greatest amount of furore is existence. Not the why which strikes me as the larger question but the how, the religious say it was all god, he made the universe and everything in it as part of some huge plan we’re all to thick to really understand, but stick with as eternal bliss is waiting for us, provided were not complete arseholes. He even made man in his own image, although not in his skill set as he made the universe and your average human can’t make an Ikea flat-pack chest-of-draws. The scientists believe its all explainable, a series of causes and events for the last squillion years have resulted in our tiny bubble of life, thanks to the right steps in the expansion of the universe we happen to be just the right distance from the sun to not burn or freeze and as a result water and sticks and stuff are around, and then thanks to a fish making a choice about a trillion years ago we were set on a evolutionary chain of events that has left us now as the proud bum scratching i-phone owning leaders of the world. If I am honest neither explanation makes much sense to me. No one knows do they. I mean religious people can say it’s all in some ancient texts or an angel told them or anything really, and well as highly unlikely as it is, I can’t prove them wrong, but what they have to back them up is faith, so it’s open to scepticism. Science people though they have the big bang theory, and they act as if this is real science… but it isn’t. Its scientific faith, and is no more provable than religion. It’s a hypothesis with some manipulated evidence to back it up, and I would not be at all surprised if in 50 years time people snicker at big-bang theorists in the same way Columbus chuckled his tits off at the flat-earth berks…
I think we’d all be better off if religious people focused their do-goodness on some actual causes rather than rowing with a man in a wheel chair, and science cured cancer or gave me hover boots rather than antagonising a bunch of god-botherers. In the end were asking questions we are not equipped to answer, so all were left with is futile bickering. My stance is this, science will take us so far and help us a great deal but some questions need to remain unanswered to make life exciting, the how’s why’s and what the f*cks of life are what its all about. As such I’m starting my own school of thought “Maybeism” we have no core beliefs and anything that is not 100% provable we give it a warm MAYBE, shrug and carry on with life. (I was going to end with it being a portmanteau of religion and science called “reliance” but feared any lactose intolerant readers would die).
Woe.
Friday, 3 September 2010
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Watched
Hello once more and welcome to a post bank holiday Tuesday flavoured Aldershot Woe, god I’ve lost count of where we are but I think this is the 39th Woe and so far I am very proud to have kept a consistent level of ignorance, bias, spite, poor grammar and semi aborted thoughts to each previous Woe, I hope this one doesn’t disappoint… Aldershot Woe episode 39: Watched.
The other day I was walking back from town, it was a hot day, I was coming down a steep incline on a long boring road pushing a heavy double pushchair when I was struck by a feeling, one that could cause great embarrassment if I were in a busy street or a crowded shop, a feeling I am sure we have all experienced at some time or another and have all had to suffer as a result, I speak about that feeling whose mere mention has you shuffling impatiently and franticly in your seats, I had… an itchy arse. Its never going to be your most dignified moment, but it happens to us all, doesn’t it? And usually in somewhere completely inappropriate, which leaves us awkwardly shifting about in our own skin trying to alleviate the problem via some sort of telekinetic bum-scratch, or worse has us backing up against a wall so we can take a stealth claw to the problem… it’s embarrassing and its horrible and it is unfortunately part of life’s rich tapestry of humbling moment s of idiocy and grossness. But when you’re in the middle of nowhere, walking down a long boring road on hot day, and no ones about, go on, whose going to know, get in and sort the problem, give it a good scratch… which is exactly what I did, the relief was ecstatic, and for a few steps I marched forward with a renewed vigour. Then a car drove past from behind me and I noticed the people were sniggering… at me. For a second I thought, oh who cares, I’ll never see them again anyway. But then I was struck with a sense of absolute fear as I was hit with the realisation that, that is not true anymore, what if they had an iphone, what if they were techno savvy youngsters, it would take them about 4 seconds to publish my embarrassing bum-scratch on you tube and about 8 seconds for it to be emailed across the world as I become the latest “viral” sensation and feature in a series of witty cleverly edited bum-scratch parodies and there’s bum-scratch.com and bum-scratch t-shirts and mouse matt’s and all other spin off merchandise featuring me scratching my chad like a complete berk…
Then slowly the paranoia drifted away, but my little panic attack had opened my eyes. In the UK we are the most watched people in the world, CCTV is everywhere, and if “the man” aint watching our every movement some bell-end with a camera phone is. Last week the nation was in furore over middle aged spinster and cat basher Mary Bale, as her little prank was caught on CCTV and a subsequent witch hunt began on line for her. And with the advent of YouTube and the ever increasing number of cameras watching us, filming our every moment, the chances of YOU ending up being caught on camera acting like a knob and it being put on line for pimply chuckle monkeys to comment on and send to there mates is increasing all the time. We always had “you’ve been framed” and such shows reeling off films of us acting like chumps getting footballs kicked our faces or falling into swimming pools or being savaged by rabid squirrels, or what ever, but they were always reserved for people actually twatty enough to let themselves be filmed, now though we don’t have a choice, now our private moments of embarrassment are pinged around office inboxes and shared with the world. Gone are the days where you could fall over land face first in dog sh!t and simply hate your own guts for a minute, giggle it off, and move on with life… now you run the risk of being “Dog-Sh!t Face” for the rest of your life.
Now I suppose in the case of old Mary “puss-in-bins” Bale it’s a good thing, and let me just say as a cat owner, I thought it was hilarious, but what about all the innocent bozos who gets caught on camera having a bird plop on their heads or scratching their itchy arse on a hot day or any of the other moments of unavoidable embarrassment we’d all be better off forgetting about, what about those poor bastards?
Now as we go about our lives with a thousand tiny robotic eyes fixed on our every movement recording every thing we do, we carry the burden that when we let down our usually cool veneers and act like the ridiculous mugs we really are, even for a second, it could be recorded and we could each live in infamy of our own bone-headedness forever… or at least till an even bigger buffoon is found and filmed. (Mary Bale must be praising the stars about that girl throwing puppies in a river!)
Woe.
The other day I was walking back from town, it was a hot day, I was coming down a steep incline on a long boring road pushing a heavy double pushchair when I was struck by a feeling, one that could cause great embarrassment if I were in a busy street or a crowded shop, a feeling I am sure we have all experienced at some time or another and have all had to suffer as a result, I speak about that feeling whose mere mention has you shuffling impatiently and franticly in your seats, I had… an itchy arse. Its never going to be your most dignified moment, but it happens to us all, doesn’t it? And usually in somewhere completely inappropriate, which leaves us awkwardly shifting about in our own skin trying to alleviate the problem via some sort of telekinetic bum-scratch, or worse has us backing up against a wall so we can take a stealth claw to the problem… it’s embarrassing and its horrible and it is unfortunately part of life’s rich tapestry of humbling moment s of idiocy and grossness. But when you’re in the middle of nowhere, walking down a long boring road on hot day, and no ones about, go on, whose going to know, get in and sort the problem, give it a good scratch… which is exactly what I did, the relief was ecstatic, and for a few steps I marched forward with a renewed vigour. Then a car drove past from behind me and I noticed the people were sniggering… at me. For a second I thought, oh who cares, I’ll never see them again anyway. But then I was struck with a sense of absolute fear as I was hit with the realisation that, that is not true anymore, what if they had an iphone, what if they were techno savvy youngsters, it would take them about 4 seconds to publish my embarrassing bum-scratch on you tube and about 8 seconds for it to be emailed across the world as I become the latest “viral” sensation and feature in a series of witty cleverly edited bum-scratch parodies and there’s bum-scratch.com and bum-scratch t-shirts and mouse matt’s and all other spin off merchandise featuring me scratching my chad like a complete berk…
Then slowly the paranoia drifted away, but my little panic attack had opened my eyes. In the UK we are the most watched people in the world, CCTV is everywhere, and if “the man” aint watching our every movement some bell-end with a camera phone is. Last week the nation was in furore over middle aged spinster and cat basher Mary Bale, as her little prank was caught on CCTV and a subsequent witch hunt began on line for her. And with the advent of YouTube and the ever increasing number of cameras watching us, filming our every moment, the chances of YOU ending up being caught on camera acting like a knob and it being put on line for pimply chuckle monkeys to comment on and send to there mates is increasing all the time. We always had “you’ve been framed” and such shows reeling off films of us acting like chumps getting footballs kicked our faces or falling into swimming pools or being savaged by rabid squirrels, or what ever, but they were always reserved for people actually twatty enough to let themselves be filmed, now though we don’t have a choice, now our private moments of embarrassment are pinged around office inboxes and shared with the world. Gone are the days where you could fall over land face first in dog sh!t and simply hate your own guts for a minute, giggle it off, and move on with life… now you run the risk of being “Dog-Sh!t Face” for the rest of your life.
Now I suppose in the case of old Mary “puss-in-bins” Bale it’s a good thing, and let me just say as a cat owner, I thought it was hilarious, but what about all the innocent bozos who gets caught on camera having a bird plop on their heads or scratching their itchy arse on a hot day or any of the other moments of unavoidable embarrassment we’d all be better off forgetting about, what about those poor bastards?
Now as we go about our lives with a thousand tiny robotic eyes fixed on our every movement recording every thing we do, we carry the burden that when we let down our usually cool veneers and act like the ridiculous mugs we really are, even for a second, it could be recorded and we could each live in infamy of our own bone-headedness forever… or at least till an even bigger buffoon is found and filmed. (Mary Bale must be praising the stars about that girl throwing puppies in a river!)
Woe.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
The Alder-toff Woes
Salutations my loyal and treasured readers, may I once more permit you welcome to the sanctuary of ignorance known by many as the Aldershot Woes, a twice to thrice weekly memorandum on the comedic reverberations of life. This week’s relation: The Alder-toff Woes.
Class, we all have an axe to grind about it, I am working class my dad is working class his dad was a layabout, but his dad was working class. I grew up being fairly poor, above breadline but by no means affluent. And for the first 5 years of my life I only saw my dad every other weekend, not because he didn’t live with us, but cos he left for work at 6 and got back from work at 9, and worked every other weekend. He struggled for us to be meagre, and that will always live with me, it’s shaped my perceptions of society it’s given me a good work ethic and an appreciation of the simpler things in life, but above all is given me an intense inbuilt and inherent dislike of middle and upper class people. The floppy haired, Land Rover driving, Barber Jacket wearing, Ski holiday taking, double barrel named, chortling, yah-ing shitbiscuits… every one of them.
However like most inbuilt social level hatreds this exists purely in my head, it airs itself when I am watching television, or if I see some rich twat in a car park or in a shopping centre, when I read the newspaper or anything what-so-ever to do with politicians, then its there, in the back of my head bellowing fourth “posh w@nkers” and other hate slogans aimed solely at my affluent brethren. But in real life, when I meet middle or upper class types I am always open minded, non judgmental and have no more prejudice than when I meet any other human being (which to be fair is still a large amount of prejudice). In fact some of my closest friends are painfully Middle Class, they grew up in large detached houses, went to grammar schools, drive expensive cars and holiday abroad at least twice a year. I can honestly say some of the most welcoming, charming, witty and brilliant people I have met have been from the upper echelons of society, a friend of mine I consider to be more of a brother was a junior Ski Champion for gods sake, that’s surely as posh as it gets. Don’t get me wrong I do rip it out of him for it, but he in turn rips me for being a do-as-you-likey, so it’s all even. But regardless of what we actually practice in our lives, in the back of our minds lying dormant, but ready to pounce the second a floppy haired toff does anything a little bit annoying lives our classist rage. Personally I think it’s a good thing, gives us all a sense of identity and a very useful chip on our shoulders to back us up in times of difficulty. I live in a sh!tty council estate, plagued by junkies and morons and as ridiculous as it seems the thin veil of “being true to my roots” does act as a minor comfort to me and helps me handle life. So classism as far as I can see is just a tribalistic defence mechanism we all trigger to make us feel a little better about our selves, groovy…
But why did I start this meandering blog-guff in the first place? I’ll tell you why as I just read an article that got my working class hackles up about how “Country Life Magazine” or “Fox Killer” or “What Cravat?” or some other posho-toff-mag have lambasted the BBC (the BB effing C of all organisations) as being Oxbridge prejudice, as on some shows they use the terms “Oxbridge” or “Old Etonian” in a detrimental manner… what? That’s like calling McDonalds fattist as it sells salad. Ridiculous…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306237/BBC-turns-Oxbridge-term-abuse--Shows-accused-bigotry.html
Us working class people have had to spend our lives watching former footlights make fun of us and we laugh like drains and lap it up like hungry cats… Sasha Baron Cohen does Ali G, and we make him an Icon, Harry Enfield does Wayne Slob and he’s a genius, that awful ginger woman does that “bovvered” thing and we can’t get enough. Up and down the nation people are uttering ironic “innits” and you know what, its funny. Its much better to laugh at peoples differences than ignore then all together and pretend they aren’t there or worse of all “tolerate” them… you tolerate a head ache you shouldn’t tolerate a human being you should like them or not… We’re all different so lets take the p!ss out of each other about it, beats the hell out of fighting. So my advice to those posho’s horrified by the Beebs ribbing of your privileged background and expensive education is to say to yourself “At least I’m not a stinking chav” then burn some money and guffaw like the inbred madman you probably are…
Woe (innit)
Class, we all have an axe to grind about it, I am working class my dad is working class his dad was a layabout, but his dad was working class. I grew up being fairly poor, above breadline but by no means affluent. And for the first 5 years of my life I only saw my dad every other weekend, not because he didn’t live with us, but cos he left for work at 6 and got back from work at 9, and worked every other weekend. He struggled for us to be meagre, and that will always live with me, it’s shaped my perceptions of society it’s given me a good work ethic and an appreciation of the simpler things in life, but above all is given me an intense inbuilt and inherent dislike of middle and upper class people. The floppy haired, Land Rover driving, Barber Jacket wearing, Ski holiday taking, double barrel named, chortling, yah-ing shitbiscuits… every one of them.
However like most inbuilt social level hatreds this exists purely in my head, it airs itself when I am watching television, or if I see some rich twat in a car park or in a shopping centre, when I read the newspaper or anything what-so-ever to do with politicians, then its there, in the back of my head bellowing fourth “posh w@nkers” and other hate slogans aimed solely at my affluent brethren. But in real life, when I meet middle or upper class types I am always open minded, non judgmental and have no more prejudice than when I meet any other human being (which to be fair is still a large amount of prejudice). In fact some of my closest friends are painfully Middle Class, they grew up in large detached houses, went to grammar schools, drive expensive cars and holiday abroad at least twice a year. I can honestly say some of the most welcoming, charming, witty and brilliant people I have met have been from the upper echelons of society, a friend of mine I consider to be more of a brother was a junior Ski Champion for gods sake, that’s surely as posh as it gets. Don’t get me wrong I do rip it out of him for it, but he in turn rips me for being a do-as-you-likey, so it’s all even. But regardless of what we actually practice in our lives, in the back of our minds lying dormant, but ready to pounce the second a floppy haired toff does anything a little bit annoying lives our classist rage. Personally I think it’s a good thing, gives us all a sense of identity and a very useful chip on our shoulders to back us up in times of difficulty. I live in a sh!tty council estate, plagued by junkies and morons and as ridiculous as it seems the thin veil of “being true to my roots” does act as a minor comfort to me and helps me handle life. So classism as far as I can see is just a tribalistic defence mechanism we all trigger to make us feel a little better about our selves, groovy…
But why did I start this meandering blog-guff in the first place? I’ll tell you why as I just read an article that got my working class hackles up about how “Country Life Magazine” or “Fox Killer” or “What Cravat?” or some other posho-toff-mag have lambasted the BBC (the BB effing C of all organisations) as being Oxbridge prejudice, as on some shows they use the terms “Oxbridge” or “Old Etonian” in a detrimental manner… what? That’s like calling McDonalds fattist as it sells salad. Ridiculous…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306237/BBC-turns-Oxbridge-term-abuse--Shows-accused-bigotry.html
Us working class people have had to spend our lives watching former footlights make fun of us and we laugh like drains and lap it up like hungry cats… Sasha Baron Cohen does Ali G, and we make him an Icon, Harry Enfield does Wayne Slob and he’s a genius, that awful ginger woman does that “bovvered” thing and we can’t get enough. Up and down the nation people are uttering ironic “innits” and you know what, its funny. Its much better to laugh at peoples differences than ignore then all together and pretend they aren’t there or worse of all “tolerate” them… you tolerate a head ache you shouldn’t tolerate a human being you should like them or not… We’re all different so lets take the p!ss out of each other about it, beats the hell out of fighting. So my advice to those posho’s horrified by the Beebs ribbing of your privileged background and expensive education is to say to yourself “At least I’m not a stinking chav” then burn some money and guffaw like the inbred madman you probably are…
Woe (innit)
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Mosque Pit
Hello, well it’s been a while since my last affront to grammar so I figured I’d blow the dust off the old keyboard and type out whatever gibberish is currently floating around my old brain box at THIS exact second… The Aldershot Woes Episode 37: Mosque Pit:
I am an atheist and I have had a hugely unreligious upbringing, I was baptised but only for the reason most people get their kids baptised… it was a good excuse for my folks to have a party. I do not believe like some atheists that religion is the root of all evil, I think greed is a far more suitable culprit for that, and on some levels I am even envious of those with faith, as it must be a big comfort knowing your soul will live on forever on cloud or whatever, I mean it sure beats the hell out of the eternal oblivion waiting for me once I pop-my-clogs. But, there is no doubt that tooooo many people use good old religion for their own ends, and give it a bad name. In fact it’s difficult to think of the religion that doesn’t do this on some level… The most notorious religion at the moment, well since 9/11 is Islam. Yep, thanks to a couple of nut-bars the old Muslims get a pretty hard time these days and unfairly so. I mean old Hitler did his bidding in the name of God, but it didn’t lead to global condemnation of Christianity did it? Nope. So the stigma now attached to being Islamic is unfair and I should think massively insulting… So that’s that, let me be clear I think Muslims are as good as any other religious group, they’re OK in my book… the only religious group you should be wary of are Scientologists, but we’ll save that for another blog… But with all that being said having read about the furore over the proposed Mosque being built at Ground Zero, I have to say… don’t do it.
I am all for religious freedom, as far as I am concerned practice what ever you want, if you want to dress up like an Apache war chief and worship chocolate hobnobs, go for it. If you want to live naked in a tree preying to Ewok deities, well that’s all Kool and the gang with me… what ever floats your boat you should be allowed to do it with out the fear of anyone p!ssing on your parade… But that said, if what you are doing is an affront to a whole group of people or is a threat to society at large then it ought to be curbed right in… Not banned, but controlled to avoid conflict, seems fair enough to me. And as far as I can see building a Mosque on the site of an attack by crazy fundamentalist Muslim zealots, even though regular Muslims are as far detached from that sort of idiocy as your average Nan is from people like Timothy McVeigh it still aint cool. Of course they have a right to build it, that should not be in any doubt, and of course Muslims shouldn’t be punished for the act of a few brainwashed mugs, but the fact remains that a whole bunch of people are gonna be really really p!ssed off about it. And with fairness in mind, Americans aren’t famed for their open mindedness or intelligence are they, just yesterday a black guy in a skull cap was almost hanged as they thought he was a Muslim, he wasn’t he was just a black guy in a skull cap in crowd full of angry opinionated fools. All this Mosque will do is fuel the fire of ignorance by inciting an unneeded hatred from both sides. Idiot Christians will become bigger idiot Christians, and idiot Muslims will become bigger idiot Muslims, and you know what will happen, more Bin Laden douchebags will fight which will breed more reactionary Bu(ll)sh(it) imbeciles to fight back and we all end up hating each other and the world a little bit more.
My advice is build the Mosque down the road, and try to spread a little bit of that religious love around and maybe one day we’ll see people fighting over proper things like football or Tetris high scores or Pie fillings rather than religion, which is you know, all pretty far fetched any way.
Woe
I am an atheist and I have had a hugely unreligious upbringing, I was baptised but only for the reason most people get their kids baptised… it was a good excuse for my folks to have a party. I do not believe like some atheists that religion is the root of all evil, I think greed is a far more suitable culprit for that, and on some levels I am even envious of those with faith, as it must be a big comfort knowing your soul will live on forever on cloud or whatever, I mean it sure beats the hell out of the eternal oblivion waiting for me once I pop-my-clogs. But, there is no doubt that tooooo many people use good old religion for their own ends, and give it a bad name. In fact it’s difficult to think of the religion that doesn’t do this on some level… The most notorious religion at the moment, well since 9/11 is Islam. Yep, thanks to a couple of nut-bars the old Muslims get a pretty hard time these days and unfairly so. I mean old Hitler did his bidding in the name of God, but it didn’t lead to global condemnation of Christianity did it? Nope. So the stigma now attached to being Islamic is unfair and I should think massively insulting… So that’s that, let me be clear I think Muslims are as good as any other religious group, they’re OK in my book… the only religious group you should be wary of are Scientologists, but we’ll save that for another blog… But with all that being said having read about the furore over the proposed Mosque being built at Ground Zero, I have to say… don’t do it.
I am all for religious freedom, as far as I am concerned practice what ever you want, if you want to dress up like an Apache war chief and worship chocolate hobnobs, go for it. If you want to live naked in a tree preying to Ewok deities, well that’s all Kool and the gang with me… what ever floats your boat you should be allowed to do it with out the fear of anyone p!ssing on your parade… But that said, if what you are doing is an affront to a whole group of people or is a threat to society at large then it ought to be curbed right in… Not banned, but controlled to avoid conflict, seems fair enough to me. And as far as I can see building a Mosque on the site of an attack by crazy fundamentalist Muslim zealots, even though regular Muslims are as far detached from that sort of idiocy as your average Nan is from people like Timothy McVeigh it still aint cool. Of course they have a right to build it, that should not be in any doubt, and of course Muslims shouldn’t be punished for the act of a few brainwashed mugs, but the fact remains that a whole bunch of people are gonna be really really p!ssed off about it. And with fairness in mind, Americans aren’t famed for their open mindedness or intelligence are they, just yesterday a black guy in a skull cap was almost hanged as they thought he was a Muslim, he wasn’t he was just a black guy in a skull cap in crowd full of angry opinionated fools. All this Mosque will do is fuel the fire of ignorance by inciting an unneeded hatred from both sides. Idiot Christians will become bigger idiot Christians, and idiot Muslims will become bigger idiot Muslims, and you know what will happen, more Bin Laden douchebags will fight which will breed more reactionary Bu(ll)sh(it) imbeciles to fight back and we all end up hating each other and the world a little bit more.
My advice is build the Mosque down the road, and try to spread a little bit of that religious love around and maybe one day we’ll see people fighting over proper things like football or Tetris high scores or Pie fillings rather than religion, which is you know, all pretty far fetched any way.
Woe
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
The Cakeprentice Factor
Greetings and welcome to the midweek misery of the Wednesday Woe, and a particularly miserable Wednesday it is too, so let’s attempt to usher is some sunshine with episode 36 of the Aldershot Woes: The Cakeprentice Factor.
I watched a show last night called “The Great British Bake Off”, essentially it was The Apprentice but with baking, and it all happens in a tent. They had 10 cake makers, each with background stories and cake related ambitions, each week they have to perform bakery tasks and sub-sequentially 2 of these wannabe pastry mongers get booted out of the tent… they are judged by an old lady who invented cake or something and some fella who makes buns for the queen, oh and he’s a hard arse, like a sugar-coated Gordon Ramsey… literally. Its bizarre television it really is but it was also engrossing (or I may have been hungry?) the highlight for me was when old duffer Mark (who was sh!t to be fair) cried because they didn’t like his cakes… but Schadenfreude aside it was mostly bizarre. Has television really got to the stage where a programme about something as innocent as Cakes has to be formatted in to a last man standing apprentice type show, are we now so deluded by television that everything has to be an “event” it has to have winners and losers and background stories and we can not enjoy anything unless at some point we have to see a middle age fat man cry because a bastard TV judge was mean about his cakes. What a world?
And here’s what gets me, when its group of pricks vying for a top salary job with old scrote-face at Amstrad we want to know the ins the outs the backgrounds and foregrounds of the characters involved, if they are arrogant boobs we want to boo them, if they are down –trodden underdogs we want to cheer. If it’s a group of delusional brain-dead entertainers in a talent show, again we want all the details about them, we want to know what they went through when their nan’s dog Ralphy died in 1987. And we’re at a point now where kind faced tubby bakers are at the mercy of tabloid background checks and being edited in to be complete arse-biscuits by some wang-brained producer. And not only do we have to know the contestants but we also have to listen to “experts” deride them, now granted Alan Sugars mum and dad on The Apprentice do appear to know their stuff, but what about the talent shows… We put stock in the words of people who have famous sisters, or were on Blue Peter. But for 3 months at a time we lap it up, we get stuck in and we love it. And we take it all in to consideration before we pick our favourites.
But when it comes to things and people that matter, when we should care about who our favourites are, when we should listen to the experts opinion, when we should no the ins, the outs the backgrounds and foregrounds of someone… we couldn’t care less. I talk of course about politicians, as we approach the 100 day mark of the coalition and the honeymoon period ends the nation is waking up and rolling over to see that its not only banged a minger, but put a ring on her finger as well. I know nothing about who my MP is, I know they are Tory, but I couldn’t tell you a name or anything about his/her background with out researching. And why? Because I didn’t care, although the elections coverage was on overkill on the news, it was handled entirely wrong for our generation, I mean who watches the news?… Squares and Geography teachers that’s who! So in order to cover the next election properly, and make the most of democracy, here’s what we need to do.
1. Only cover the election on one channel on Saturday nights, too many channels dilutes the emphasis, though it is an acceptable news item on other channels.
2. Have weekly background stories on the contestants, show their human side and highlight the honest backgrounds they have, an interview with “call me Dave”s child hood butler could have changed the election massively.
3. Live Studio Audience, not partisan duffers who clap at any old sh!t they spout, an audience of 12,000 chavs booing and cheering like mindless fools, give the populous a voice.
4. Judges who know f*ck all, yeah Andrew Marr might know the history of modern Britain and Nick Robinson (love your blog) might have the political insight to ask the proper questions, but a Cheeky Girl has sucked off Limpet Opalplex, that’s qualification enough the new format.
5. An ITV2/E4/BBC3 after show. No justification it is simply a staple of the format. (They even did it with the apprentice???)
Follow them rules and were sorted, maybe it wont deliver the best Government but it will at least give us one we have a clue about. And if that fails, BRING ON THE WALL!
Woe.
I watched a show last night called “The Great British Bake Off”, essentially it was The Apprentice but with baking, and it all happens in a tent. They had 10 cake makers, each with background stories and cake related ambitions, each week they have to perform bakery tasks and sub-sequentially 2 of these wannabe pastry mongers get booted out of the tent… they are judged by an old lady who invented cake or something and some fella who makes buns for the queen, oh and he’s a hard arse, like a sugar-coated Gordon Ramsey… literally. Its bizarre television it really is but it was also engrossing (or I may have been hungry?) the highlight for me was when old duffer Mark (who was sh!t to be fair) cried because they didn’t like his cakes… but Schadenfreude aside it was mostly bizarre. Has television really got to the stage where a programme about something as innocent as Cakes has to be formatted in to a last man standing apprentice type show, are we now so deluded by television that everything has to be an “event” it has to have winners and losers and background stories and we can not enjoy anything unless at some point we have to see a middle age fat man cry because a bastard TV judge was mean about his cakes. What a world?
And here’s what gets me, when its group of pricks vying for a top salary job with old scrote-face at Amstrad we want to know the ins the outs the backgrounds and foregrounds of the characters involved, if they are arrogant boobs we want to boo them, if they are down –trodden underdogs we want to cheer. If it’s a group of delusional brain-dead entertainers in a talent show, again we want all the details about them, we want to know what they went through when their nan’s dog Ralphy died in 1987. And we’re at a point now where kind faced tubby bakers are at the mercy of tabloid background checks and being edited in to be complete arse-biscuits by some wang-brained producer. And not only do we have to know the contestants but we also have to listen to “experts” deride them, now granted Alan Sugars mum and dad on The Apprentice do appear to know their stuff, but what about the talent shows… We put stock in the words of people who have famous sisters, or were on Blue Peter. But for 3 months at a time we lap it up, we get stuck in and we love it. And we take it all in to consideration before we pick our favourites.
But when it comes to things and people that matter, when we should care about who our favourites are, when we should listen to the experts opinion, when we should no the ins, the outs the backgrounds and foregrounds of someone… we couldn’t care less. I talk of course about politicians, as we approach the 100 day mark of the coalition and the honeymoon period ends the nation is waking up and rolling over to see that its not only banged a minger, but put a ring on her finger as well. I know nothing about who my MP is, I know they are Tory, but I couldn’t tell you a name or anything about his/her background with out researching. And why? Because I didn’t care, although the elections coverage was on overkill on the news, it was handled entirely wrong for our generation, I mean who watches the news?… Squares and Geography teachers that’s who! So in order to cover the next election properly, and make the most of democracy, here’s what we need to do.
1. Only cover the election on one channel on Saturday nights, too many channels dilutes the emphasis, though it is an acceptable news item on other channels.
2. Have weekly background stories on the contestants, show their human side and highlight the honest backgrounds they have, an interview with “call me Dave”s child hood butler could have changed the election massively.
3. Live Studio Audience, not partisan duffers who clap at any old sh!t they spout, an audience of 12,000 chavs booing and cheering like mindless fools, give the populous a voice.
4. Judges who know f*ck all, yeah Andrew Marr might know the history of modern Britain and Nick Robinson (love your blog) might have the political insight to ask the proper questions, but a Cheeky Girl has sucked off Limpet Opalplex, that’s qualification enough the new format.
5. An ITV2/E4/BBC3 after show. No justification it is simply a staple of the format. (They even did it with the apprentice???)
Follow them rules and were sorted, maybe it wont deliver the best Government but it will at least give us one we have a clue about. And if that fails, BRING ON THE WALL!
Woe.
Monday, 16 August 2010
LameHeroes
Hello, and welcome once more to the internet equivalent of an angry child scribbling messages of hate on their parents bedroom wall, that’s right its everybody’s favourite blog called the Aldershot Woes… it’s the Aldershot Woes Episode 35: Lame Heroes.
I just a read a story that has me worried as a parent, and the main reason it worries me is because I think the polar opposite to it. The story was about a report US scientist Sharon Lamb has just published in which she states that today’s boys are at risk from too many “macho” heroes and that essentially today’s cartoon/comicbook/TV/movie heroes are to violent and not human enough, and this is effecting the modern boys progression in to adulthood, unlike the heroes of yesteryear… Well surely that’s a steaming pile of doody-logs? I am more concerned about the opposite, that today’s yoots have no “hard” roll models to follow and that my son will grow up cheering for softy emotional types and will look at me like a caveman who has just clubbed a puppy to death for entertainment when I try to introduce him to the Predator or an early Chan movie…
Today’s roll models are a bloody shambles and they have been for a while now and I think this is the key reason that so many kids these days get to 16 and start knifing the sh!t out of each other. For the last 8-10 years who has been the biggest “hero” for young kids… Harry Potter. When I was at school if you had a bowl-cut and glasses and your best mate was ginger, you were in for a bloody hard time. But no, a generation of kids have grown up thinking that the nicey-nice Hogwarts world of cuddly funny-spelled wonder is the pinnacle of entertainment. And low and behold they get to 15 the hormones kick in, they watch a bit of Commando one night on Bravo get over excited and stab someone in the face the next day in the playground… because they are not taught from a young age that violence is really cool in films and stuff but is really sh!t in real life. As they have never been introduced to it and desensitised to it they can not process it properly, they go from broomsticks to breadknives… What is scarier is that now the kids getting to the stabby age were raised on Tellytubbies as toddlers, then they went on to Harry Potter and now they are cuing up outside cinemas to watch vampires being done all wrong in the eyebrow-centric Twilight saga… Its no wonder kids are all flipping mental.
When I was a boy though my heroes were brave fighters, who used violence to resolve their problems rather than words, but by doing this by the time I was 15 I knew that jamming a screwdriver in to someone’s gums was a bad idea, as I had a glorified comic book notion of violence to fall back on which separated clearly reality and fantasy. Kids now though are nanny state handled to the point they can’t play Conkers with out goggles or Marbles with out 13 inch thick nuke-proof suits on… No wonder the second they get some freedom they have some excess fury to work off, usually in the form of a big old knife to some poor unsuspecting mush’s chops.
We have lost the real-life roll models for boys, footballers, as they are all now fancy Dan, high life tarts who dive over like drunk ballerinas the second they are tackled, so all that is left to encourage a bit of toughness in to your sons developing years and a bit of saneness in to their early adult years is fictional tough guys… So if you are a parent and you care at all about your boys development, sit him down and make him watch the entire 80s Arnie collection, at least 5 Steven Seagal films and anything else with good old fashioned mindless high-gore violence in. When he is getting laid at 15 instead of shedding blood he’ll thank you…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10957590
So there you go for more parenting lessons send a £45 cheque and an SAE to Aldershot Woes, The Internet, Aldershot, and I’ll send you the guide to teaching your kids the importance of not being to gullible…
Woe.
I just a read a story that has me worried as a parent, and the main reason it worries me is because I think the polar opposite to it. The story was about a report US scientist Sharon Lamb has just published in which she states that today’s boys are at risk from too many “macho” heroes and that essentially today’s cartoon/comicbook/TV/movie heroes are to violent and not human enough, and this is effecting the modern boys progression in to adulthood, unlike the heroes of yesteryear… Well surely that’s a steaming pile of doody-logs? I am more concerned about the opposite, that today’s yoots have no “hard” roll models to follow and that my son will grow up cheering for softy emotional types and will look at me like a caveman who has just clubbed a puppy to death for entertainment when I try to introduce him to the Predator or an early Chan movie…
Today’s roll models are a bloody shambles and they have been for a while now and I think this is the key reason that so many kids these days get to 16 and start knifing the sh!t out of each other. For the last 8-10 years who has been the biggest “hero” for young kids… Harry Potter. When I was at school if you had a bowl-cut and glasses and your best mate was ginger, you were in for a bloody hard time. But no, a generation of kids have grown up thinking that the nicey-nice Hogwarts world of cuddly funny-spelled wonder is the pinnacle of entertainment. And low and behold they get to 15 the hormones kick in, they watch a bit of Commando one night on Bravo get over excited and stab someone in the face the next day in the playground… because they are not taught from a young age that violence is really cool in films and stuff but is really sh!t in real life. As they have never been introduced to it and desensitised to it they can not process it properly, they go from broomsticks to breadknives… What is scarier is that now the kids getting to the stabby age were raised on Tellytubbies as toddlers, then they went on to Harry Potter and now they are cuing up outside cinemas to watch vampires being done all wrong in the eyebrow-centric Twilight saga… Its no wonder kids are all flipping mental.
When I was a boy though my heroes were brave fighters, who used violence to resolve their problems rather than words, but by doing this by the time I was 15 I knew that jamming a screwdriver in to someone’s gums was a bad idea, as I had a glorified comic book notion of violence to fall back on which separated clearly reality and fantasy. Kids now though are nanny state handled to the point they can’t play Conkers with out goggles or Marbles with out 13 inch thick nuke-proof suits on… No wonder the second they get some freedom they have some excess fury to work off, usually in the form of a big old knife to some poor unsuspecting mush’s chops.
We have lost the real-life roll models for boys, footballers, as they are all now fancy Dan, high life tarts who dive over like drunk ballerinas the second they are tackled, so all that is left to encourage a bit of toughness in to your sons developing years and a bit of saneness in to their early adult years is fictional tough guys… So if you are a parent and you care at all about your boys development, sit him down and make him watch the entire 80s Arnie collection, at least 5 Steven Seagal films and anything else with good old fashioned mindless high-gore violence in. When he is getting laid at 15 instead of shedding blood he’ll thank you…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10957590
So there you go for more parenting lessons send a £45 cheque and an SAE to Aldershot Woes, The Internet, Aldershot, and I’ll send you the guide to teaching your kids the importance of not being to gullible…
Woe.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Let It Go
Easy now, welcome to the 34th edition of what the Greeks called the “Chaviscum Tragicus” or to what is know to me and the other 5 or 6 people who read it as The Aldershot Woes. An indigestible capsule of festering ignorance and spazza grade literacy… today’s Woe: Let it go!
Like everybody my age I was born in the 80s, and like a lot of other people of varying ages, I remember them well(ish). 2 things which were part of my life in the 80s carried on way past them and in to the early 90s and beyond, one was an irritating cube of frustration which has bested me at every attempt since I first picked it up and the other was well, more of an oblong of frustration that bested me at every chance, I talk of the Rubik’s Cube and the NES.
In around 1987 we acquired a Rubik’s Cube from somewhere, probably a jumble sale and from then on it appeared to haunt my toy box, appearing at random intervals of my childhood to tease and frustrate me, at one point my brother did the trick of moving the stickers and making it seem as if he had completed it, but alas with in minutes it had been fiddled with and was back to being a conundrum block of misery again. I think finally one afternoon during a loft clean out or room tidy we finally destroyed the fiddly bastard which presented a moment of extreme joy but also one of complete sadness as I now knew that I would never complete the blasted thing, cest la vie… One far less annoying and far more brilliant piece of my childhood was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), my neighbour had one before me but a huge part of my life was spent playing Super Mario Brothers, Excitabike, Duck Hunt and the extremely awesome Donkey Kong. To this day I would argue till my last breath that the NES is the best console of them all, mainly because it has led to a generation of people who when faced with any technological problem simply take the offending article, blow it, and try again… if your heart surgeon is in his early thirties, beware!
But why am I boring the tits off of people prattling on about things I liked when I was kid, isn’t this all hideously self indulgent? Well yes it is but I am getting to my vague point. This week I have read 2 stories, one was how a group of mathematicians have crunched numbers to breaking point and found what they call “gods number” the number of moves in which you can complete a Rubik’s cube. They are sure that any Rubik’s cube, with it’s 20 billion-billion combinations can be completed in less than 20 moves… Bullsh!t I say… I know I’ve tried over 20 billion-billion combinations and never got more than a couple of sides done! But alas a group of grown men have spent 20 years compiling the data and they have found that 20 moves or less is all you need to do a Rubik’s Cube… we’re no closer to a cure for cancer but at least the fun has been taken out of the Rubik’s Cube. Yay science.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10929159
The other story which tickled my fancy was about a chap called Billy Mitchell from Hickville, America, although he looks like a hybrid of Joe Dirt and Napoleon Dynamite this guy has dedicated his life to Donkey Kong and achieving the world’s highest score (about 70 zillion) he has had an ongoing feuds with a couple of other arcade junkies, but he has overcome the odds and the repetitive strain injuries to earn the crown of “best at Donkey Kong”… the thing is this battle of his has been raging since the game came out in 1982.. Jesus, that’s nearly 30 years, back then I was but a squint in my father eye, 30 years is lifetime it really is and all for Donkey Kong… I just hope no one gets this guy a PS3 and Grand Theft Auto…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell_(gamer)
These uber dedicated fools and their 30 year crusades to dominate 80s pastimes has led me to think what other hapless mugs are we going to see crawling out the woodwork over the next few years? Are we going to hear about Li Fung Ching, the Chinaman who spent the last 13 years doing the longest Budweiser “Wasssssup” in history? Will we be regaling our office colleagues with the story of Tempest Bedfudge, the New Orleans grandmother with her 45 year old Tamagotchi. Will there be people coming out of the shadows for getting to level 17 billion of Worms on the Amiga 500? Will Nintendo be issuing long service medals and Arthritis medicine to anyone who can take Tetris to level 40,000? How long till we hear about groups of Magic-Eye enthusiasts all going blind, and how long till Suduko fans are all locked up as numbers have taken over their brains? Will we be hearing in 25 years tales of people who have NEVER left Facebook? People right now, that you know, could be embarking on 30 year Guitar Hero Battles that will end only in death (which lets hope comes swiftly)…
The most tragic thing is, this will happen, there are enough Fads and more than enough simpletons and obsessive compulsive savant autistics to make sure of it. So if you find your self unable to walk away from Call of Duty, if you still dig our you old Nokia and have a bash at Snake occasionally and if when you lay in bed at night and all you can think about is your top score on Wii Sports Bowling, please for the love of god, just let it go.
Woe.
Like everybody my age I was born in the 80s, and like a lot of other people of varying ages, I remember them well(ish). 2 things which were part of my life in the 80s carried on way past them and in to the early 90s and beyond, one was an irritating cube of frustration which has bested me at every attempt since I first picked it up and the other was well, more of an oblong of frustration that bested me at every chance, I talk of the Rubik’s Cube and the NES.
In around 1987 we acquired a Rubik’s Cube from somewhere, probably a jumble sale and from then on it appeared to haunt my toy box, appearing at random intervals of my childhood to tease and frustrate me, at one point my brother did the trick of moving the stickers and making it seem as if he had completed it, but alas with in minutes it had been fiddled with and was back to being a conundrum block of misery again. I think finally one afternoon during a loft clean out or room tidy we finally destroyed the fiddly bastard which presented a moment of extreme joy but also one of complete sadness as I now knew that I would never complete the blasted thing, cest la vie… One far less annoying and far more brilliant piece of my childhood was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), my neighbour had one before me but a huge part of my life was spent playing Super Mario Brothers, Excitabike, Duck Hunt and the extremely awesome Donkey Kong. To this day I would argue till my last breath that the NES is the best console of them all, mainly because it has led to a generation of people who when faced with any technological problem simply take the offending article, blow it, and try again… if your heart surgeon is in his early thirties, beware!
But why am I boring the tits off of people prattling on about things I liked when I was kid, isn’t this all hideously self indulgent? Well yes it is but I am getting to my vague point. This week I have read 2 stories, one was how a group of mathematicians have crunched numbers to breaking point and found what they call “gods number” the number of moves in which you can complete a Rubik’s cube. They are sure that any Rubik’s cube, with it’s 20 billion-billion combinations can be completed in less than 20 moves… Bullsh!t I say… I know I’ve tried over 20 billion-billion combinations and never got more than a couple of sides done! But alas a group of grown men have spent 20 years compiling the data and they have found that 20 moves or less is all you need to do a Rubik’s Cube… we’re no closer to a cure for cancer but at least the fun has been taken out of the Rubik’s Cube. Yay science.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10929159
The other story which tickled my fancy was about a chap called Billy Mitchell from Hickville, America, although he looks like a hybrid of Joe Dirt and Napoleon Dynamite this guy has dedicated his life to Donkey Kong and achieving the world’s highest score (about 70 zillion) he has had an ongoing feuds with a couple of other arcade junkies, but he has overcome the odds and the repetitive strain injuries to earn the crown of “best at Donkey Kong”… the thing is this battle of his has been raging since the game came out in 1982.. Jesus, that’s nearly 30 years, back then I was but a squint in my father eye, 30 years is lifetime it really is and all for Donkey Kong… I just hope no one gets this guy a PS3 and Grand Theft Auto…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell_(gamer)
These uber dedicated fools and their 30 year crusades to dominate 80s pastimes has led me to think what other hapless mugs are we going to see crawling out the woodwork over the next few years? Are we going to hear about Li Fung Ching, the Chinaman who spent the last 13 years doing the longest Budweiser “Wasssssup” in history? Will we be regaling our office colleagues with the story of Tempest Bedfudge, the New Orleans grandmother with her 45 year old Tamagotchi. Will there be people coming out of the shadows for getting to level 17 billion of Worms on the Amiga 500? Will Nintendo be issuing long service medals and Arthritis medicine to anyone who can take Tetris to level 40,000? How long till we hear about groups of Magic-Eye enthusiasts all going blind, and how long till Suduko fans are all locked up as numbers have taken over their brains? Will we be hearing in 25 years tales of people who have NEVER left Facebook? People right now, that you know, could be embarking on 30 year Guitar Hero Battles that will end only in death (which lets hope comes swiftly)…
The most tragic thing is, this will happen, there are enough Fads and more than enough simpletons and obsessive compulsive savant autistics to make sure of it. So if you find your self unable to walk away from Call of Duty, if you still dig our you old Nokia and have a bash at Snake occasionally and if when you lay in bed at night and all you can think about is your top score on Wii Sports Bowling, please for the love of god, just let it go.
Woe.
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