05 Sep 2008
Posted in News, Rants at 6:11 pm by alby
A couple of great things in the local paper today.
First was a comment on their website about their story of a huge new shopping centre opening in Leicester yeterday.
The Highcroft shopping centre is all I have ever dreamed of. The credit crunch is resigned to history with the opening of what will surely put Leicester along side London, New York, Paris & Bangor in the world of fashion. My only disappointment is that Leicester’s greatest ever celebrity, Mr Willie Thorne, was not there to conduct the opening…shame on you Highcroft.
Marvellous. I thought at first it was a proper comment; then I got to “Bangor”.
The next bit was a letter printed in it today.
It was about the “Creationism vs evolution” “debate”.
Some choice picks:
In Psalms 14 and 53 God says: “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.”
Ah so that’s the not at all circular logic ploy. “The book that says there’s a god, says there’s a god therefore there is a god”.
I prepared the ingredient for a cake. There was a big bang and, hey presto! the ingredients came together, and lo and behold, there was a cake! Really?
Well then, if a small thing like a cake or a wristwatch need a maker, then surely the massive universe with all its minute details must have a designer and a maker more powerful and mightier than mere man. It is far easier to believe in a super-human God, than to believe the made-up tales that evolutionists teach.
Argument from ignorance. “I can’t understand this therefore I don’t believe it.”
Incidentally, did you know that on his death-bed Darwin became a Christian; denounced his theory; and regretted that he had ever written it? So why do people cling on to it when he himself said it was all a mistake.
This is just not true. It’s an oft repeated story but apparently his daughter was at his bedside when he died and she later stated that he did no such thing. So there’s an argument from fallacy.
I’m sure this guy’s god will be very pleased that he has managed to not only fail to understand a damn thing about the topic but that he has also broken one of the god’s own 10 commandments (Do not bear false witness). I seem to remember the commandments being quite important for believers to follow. Nicely done that idiot.
Oh but look, his piece de resistance:
I am not a religious person, but I am a Christian. Religions are man-made, but Christianity is a God-given gift through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
I love that he’s not religious but still can’t see the irony in the rest of his sentence here. Imbecile or weirdo?
Have fun.
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04 Sep 2008
Posted in News at 5:44 pm by alby
There are plenty of occasions where I and many others make a quick shorthand reference to “Daily Mail readers” and we mean it to mean “unthinking, bigoted, numpty” or some such. Likewise you also hear “Guardianista” meaning “wet, loony, lefty”.
A news story came up a day or so ago which was demonstrative in why I feel that the Mail is a poor publication only concerned with feeding its readers’ prejudices.
One such prejudice is that the government can do no right. This can also be extended to “none of the government’s agencies can do right”. I work for one such agency, the NHS.
There was a good news story for the NHS. You can read the basic story here. I know that the link is to the BBC, that well known liberal, pro-government (how the hell can anyone believe that bollocks I’ll never know - I can’t remember a single pro-government story in the past few months at all) etc etc.. But the story reports the feeling of the RCS - the people who did the study. Good news - the NHS does something very well.
The Mail’s headline for the same story?
“New hip and knee replacements may wear out in just three years”
Same study, same detail in the story, rather different take on the headlne. And when you remember that most people don’t really read beyond the headline and first paragraph or so then it gives a totally misleading impression of what the story actually says.
And they say I’m biased.
(actually I suppose they don’t).
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02 Sep 2008
Posted in Life at 10:57 am by alby
Got my new gas account yesterday. Seems they were happy to accept my reading in the end and my balance has gone from -£100 to a credit of £115.
Marvellous.
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01 Sep 2008
Posted in Grammar! at 11:54 am by alby
And why not?
Here’s a comment from the beeb message boards:
The only time I have thrown up after drinking too much alcohol through a complete stranger’s letterbox
Now what on Earth is going on with that? But well done for getting a correct apostrophe in amongst the dross.
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Posted in Blog, Self-indulgence at 11:16 am by alby
Well done you lot. Not one of you noticed.
In the “Duct Apes” post (last week) I put in 15 references to metals and none of you bleedin’ noticed.
Well there was a prize (which I have now eaten) for whomever got most of them. Pah.
NB On mentioning this to Clurb she spotted a 16th.
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30 Aug 2008
Posted in Blog at 11:29 pm by alby
- grumpy the meerkat
- first time feedee experience
- heavy woman car suspension groan
- sexgoat&man
- bunging monkeys game
- photo of an angry juggler
- fraud@met.police.uk
- geri halliwell virgin megastore
- dot dot dot grammar
- bloody nora
- lack of admin support
- mad max 2 pinnacles google maps
- fire flappers juggling
- you shat yourself?
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Posted in Life, Rants at 10:46 am by alby
Hmm.
I ordered this. They have delivered this.
Amazon marketplace eh?
Tsk.
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28 Aug 2008
Posted in Reviews at 11:58 pm by alby
Well this evening’s entertainment was an eye-opener and no mistake.
Tom had managed to finagle a couple of free seats to see “Aluminum“[sic]. In the end me, Tom, P&C went. Tom’s freebies came from a guy called Matt who turned up with 6 free tickets and 2 companions so we had to buy ourselves 1 ticket. Cue Tom using his student discount.
The show should really have been at the Palladium but as this was Nottingham it was not to be.
We had no idea what to expect really. We’d been lead to believe it was “a bit like Stomp“. Other descriptions mentioned circus arts, illusion and performance. So without a clear definition we went in a bit blind. Magic - just how shows should be. So we steeled ourselves and headed in.
We ended up in the 3rd row of the stalls. And I was right in the middle. Top seat!
The set up was a few ducts dangling from the roof and loads of smaller ducts coiled up on the floor.
It started with some people in weird silver flight attendant style mode telling us not to smoke, drink, eat ore use our phones. And they set the mood as dark and foreboding - lots of low rumbling noise and industrial sounds going on.
Then the dangling ducts started bouncing up and down a bit and throwing themselves around. At the same time it was like the floor came alive and the tangle of smaller ducts started pushing itself off the stage. This bit was cool and slightly spooky. I couldn’t see exactly what was going on and having inanimate objects just pushing themselves out into the world made for an intriguing start.
This was looking good.
Then a piece of fat duct came out (clearly with a performer inside) and another, slightly narrower tube came on as well. These two then “got to know each other” with a bit of mildly pornographic dancing (well the most pornographic dancing 2 tubes can do) and then headed off stage. Shortly to be replaced by a tiny version, clearly the baby, inching its way across stage front. This led to a bizarre piece of puppetry and singing and dance which just seemed wrong to me.
The gloomy and worrying soundtrack vanished into a mess of Bohemian Rhapsody and various classical pieces all mashed up together. The puppetry wasn’t that hot either, poor considering they only had to manipulate a couple of tubes.
And the mood was gone and they never really got it back.
But there were some perfectly decent set pieces. There was a nice bit with a huge inflatable man (made from balloons). And some audience participation with some bouncy balloon stuff (not as fun as Slava’s though).
But the main entertainment for me was just watching the sheer amount of stuff not working properly. At one point they fired bits of foil into the crowd but loads got stuck in a lighting rig. Another bit was using a huge sheet of foil. This tore twice and then got stuck in the same lighting rig. Comedy gold it was.
An audience volunteer came up at one point. He was apparently wrapped in foil and then eaten by a giant duct. Shame was that it was clear that he’d gone before they finished wrapping him and then when he was surrounded by dancing ducts (yes that is as odd as it sounds) the figure that was supposed to be him was standing stock still; clearly a fake as it wasn’t moving a muscle, not even breathing. But then the finale of that little piece was done in the dark but you could still see a stagehand moving around (ironic really). Really poorly done bit of stage magic. And the killer was that the guy never re-appeared. So it wasn’t even the classic disappear - re-appear trick. He just vanished and was never referred back to again.
More stuff didn’t physically work (a cannon failed to shoot its load into the crowd). Other stuff broke (one tube got caught on a light fitting and, alloyed with the dancer not noticing for a while, it unravelled). At one point 4 performers just had to stand and wait for a tube to drop down from the roof while managing to stand in the right place to end up inside said tube. 3 of the 4 managed this leaving the last to scrabble somewhat to get in hers - very ungainly and a bad place to miss your trick. Just poor at times.
But the real turd on the wedding cake was an utterly pointless catwalk section. For reasons known only to themselves the cast stopped doing the inventive stuff with tubes and props and wandered onto stage with a variety of sub-”Buck Roger’s in the 25th Century” “futuristic” outfits, posed for a bit then wandered off. The ultimate outfit was some woman dolled up like a tall ship complete with rigging and sails - awful. The naked bloke wearing a tube was quite entertaining though.
But even that wasn’t the worst of this bit. Towards the finale of this catwalk was a tanned bloke (one might say he was bronzed) coming on with a really obvious “this is mine, isn’t it ace?” face. Completely out of place with the rest of the show and as far as I can tell this whole section was included just to show off some 6th form “fashion” ideas. Truly terrible interlude. It took a brass neck to dare to put this bit in.
It may sound like I’ve not enjoyed this show. That’s not true. I had a massive smile on my face through a lot of it, the rubbish didn’t really tarnish the event too much. The catwalk bit sorely tested my patience but otherwise the exuberance of the piece made up for some of the apparently amateur preparation. And the mistakes themselves were funny enough to compensate for their being there.
In all if I’d paid full price then I’d be annoyed now. As it is though, for a fiver it was definitely worth the trip. (Tom’s discount meant our one ticket cost seven-tin pounds).
No circus, nothing like Stomp, but nothing like I’ve seen before.
Paying for parking was a pain though as the machine wouldn’t accept any coppers.
Then we came home only to find that the ^**&ing Highways Agency had closed off the junction 21 exit without bothering to tell anyone before J22 meaning I (and no doubt plenty of others) had to drive the 20 mile round trip to get back to the North bound junction. Bastards! I shall be writing a very angry letter tomorrow wondering if they’ll reimburse the £5 worth of petrol it cost me.
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Posted in News at 11:29 am by alby
This should be a story for you to identify with.
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24 Aug 2008
Posted in Comedy, People, Reviews at 10:07 pm by alby
This is one of the most amazing pieces of writing I’ve ever seen. It’s a creation vs evolution thing so don’t bother clicking if it’s not your bag.
The author seems to know enough to string sentences together but logic and reason seem anathema to him. It really is some of the most startling bollocks I’ve ever read.
Top bits:
- Evolutionists are largely incompetent
- They are largely unproductive leaches on the productive members of society, else they are totally destructive.
I love the first part of that. Nothing like a radical generalisation to get you started.
The second part is even better. “Largely unproductive leaches” must include huge numbers of scientists in the world, many managing to produce the scientific breakthroughs that for instance mend more damaged humans than prayer ever did.
Then we get to “What should be done with evolutionists?”
Well the obvious answer would be nothing. But this guy’s first (note FIRST) response is
“Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.”
And if that’s not radical enough for you try:
“Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce “Warning: Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent - Potentially Dangerous.”
Marvellous this humility taught by Jesus eh?
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