Yes, it's job interview time! I don't want to put down too many details in case it doesn't come off, but I can say that I get a perverse sort of pleasure out of the Fear which comes from being interviewed for employment. It's cheaper than dope, at least. Then you get a great endorphin rush when you manage to get through without blabbering about leeches and enormous gila monsters roaming around the place. But the best part is the bus ride home, under the beady threatening glares of evolutionary mistakes which all seem to get off at Stanley. Weird, that.

Posted by Jack at 09:35 PM | Permalink

You'd think that unemployment would mean this thing would be updated a bit more regularly, but apparently not. Watching Jeremy Kyle and trying to synthesise narcotics from oregano and nutmeg keeps you busy.

I know what I can talk about here - films! The second trailer for Iron Man just hit the web a few days ago. And it looks brilliant. They've really nailed the look of the armour - no embarrassing Batman & Robin style plastic nipples here. And Robert Downey Jr. looks to have perfected the dry, sardonic wit of Tony Stark. May can't roll around quick enough.

As for my recent sightings, here's some short impressions;

Diary of the Dead - Fun enough to watch, but it doesn't have the sense that the whole world's gone to hell. There never seems to be any more than ten zombies on screen at any one time (and interestingly enough, they're never actually referred to with the Z-word). Luckily, Romero's dark humour is still sharp, and there's some inventive ways to dispatch the shambling undead displayed within.

[REC] - More or less the same idea as Diary of the Dead, but confined to one building. It's a lot more visceral than the above film, with a slightly more supernatural flavouring towards the end. Very creepy, and worth checking out when it hits the UK next month.

A L'Interieur - a French horror film about a pregnant woman being stalked on the night before she gives birth. This isn't a film with cheap scares that you watch with someone on a date. This is pure, straight-up graphic violence which will disturb you and leave you feeling horrified, nauseous, or some combination of the two. Stuff like Saw and Hostel is nothing compared to this. If you're a fan of the genre and want to be tested by a film which isn't afraid to push you beyond your limits, definitely check it out.

Meet The Spartans - Alright, I haven't seen it, but I was subjected to the five-minute trailer for this, and if you're willing to hand over money to watch this, you should instead spend the money on a large quantity of downers and take them with some cheap wine. It'll be a much better artistic endeavour than this piece of vapid junk, and it'll smell better too.

Posted by Jack at 09:56 PM | Permalink

So I didn't make it to the lulzfest. But a whole bunch of other Anonymous did. Inspiring stuff. There's something really heartwarming about hundreds of nerds in V for Vendetta masks singing Rick Astley songs in unison.

Posted by Jack at 11:16 AM | Permalink

So you deny killing someone, but you do admit to boning their corpse. Clearly going for the sympathy vote from the jury there - it takes a desperate man to stand up in court and say "M'lud, I can't get any at all, and dead girls don't say no...".

I went to see Cloverfield the other day. I thought it was excellent. I'm really pleased that new ideas and techniques are being used in blockbuster films, it restores my faith in big budget cinema. I like how the characters don't have any majorly likable personality traits, they're just people. And most of all, I really liked how some things weren't explicitly explained, and actually required you to think. When the credits came up at the screening I was at, I heard a few people going "Eh? What was it then? Did they survive?" Makes it easy to see who was actually watching the film, and who just came to be entertained by a series of flashing lights for ninety minutes.

Posted by Jack at 09:50 PM | Permalink

Is it wrong that I'm actually considering travelling across the country for this? I do have a V mask lying around somewhere. And it's Serious Business too, Sky News picked up the story of Anonymous versus Hubbard. In the past week, all kinds of Scientology literature and classified material has been leaked by Anonymous. Just today, a set of CDs for high level members were ripped and released. They were worth $900 each, according to the Church of Scientology. Not anymore! Really, I just love how normally Anonymous are a bunch of vaguely-paedophilic keyboard warriors, but they wreck all kinds of shit when they put their minds to it. They are the sexual predators you're warned about when you're in primary school.

Posted by Jack at 12:01 AM | Permalink

So apparently Madeleine McCann was abducted by Danny Trejo. I don't buy it. No way someone that cool would be involved in something as thoroughly retarded as the Case Of The Parents Who Did It. I'm also not convinced because the McCann's partner in crime friend Jane Tanner said that this is the man she saw, despite previously saying she never saw his face. 2007's comedy event of the year isn't doing much to continue its successful run.

Posted by Jack at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Sure, it looks nice, but £1,200 for it? Not with a five hours non-swappable battery and the Americans getting it for £300 cheaper. I'd have liked to have seen an Apple take on the Eee PC, but what we got was a more expensive Macbook for people who buy small manbags. Mind you though, the new Apple TV stuff looks good. Makes the pissing contest between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray look more laughable than it already is.

Posted by Jack at 12:59 AM | Permalink

So the UK boss of McDonald's says that video games are the cause of childhood obesity. So that definitely wouldn't be anything to do with selling burgers which are 50% pure fat then, or using toys to lure kids in to buy said burgers. Nope. Definitely not. No sir.

Posted by Jack at 10:58 AM | Permalink

By the beard of Blunkett, that was one fast year. My favourite moments included losing a stone in weight about a week after I finished University (Thanks a lot, stupid metabolism), graduating from said University and looking like a total tit in my gown/robe/dress/thing, seeing my favourite band twice, amassing a worryingly large comic book collection, amassing a worryingly large Nintendo collection, amassing a worryingly large World of Warcraft item collection, and being told by my best friend's girlfriend that if I hadn't introduced her to him, she'd be going out with me now. But enough about my beautiful disaster of a life; it's pithy comments about world events that you come here for. All six of you. So here's my worn-out run-down of the year's biggest events.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Maddy World
My favourite kind of hysteria is the kind involving children. Apparently the nation loses all control of sanity and logic when something happens to an under-twelve. The only thing more baffling than why the public has spent half a year gibbering and wailing over one missing child when dozens disappear every day is why no-one suspected her killers parents from the off.

al-Qaeda's Amateur Hour
Not one, but two failed terrorist attacks, and the only casualties were the terrorists themselves. If I didn't know better, I'd think the whole thing was rigged by Rupert Murdoch for a new line of reality shows on Sky - sort of post-modern version of You've Been Framed, only instead of sending in home video of grandparents falling over, you get footage of terrorists burning to death in their own cars, taken on a camera phone.

The Year's Finest Trailer
Ohohohohoho yes. I've been waiting for over ten years for this to happen.

Happy New Year, you disgusting monsters.

Posted by Jack at 07:13 PM | Permalink

It makes my brain hurt.

When asked by the RIAA's lead counsel whether it was wrong for consumers to make copies of CDs they have purchased, Jennifer Pariser replied in the negative. "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song," said Pariser. Making "a copy" of a song you own is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'," according to Pariser.

So, according to the RIAA, it's actually possible to steal your own property. That's some deep zen shit right there.

Posted by Jack at 05:06 PM | Permalink

Gosh. Almost a month without an entry. What can I say, I've been busy. Working at HMV is still fun, and I get more and more humour-fodder every day. Someone came to return a copy of the original Miracle On 34th Street with the complaint that "it must be broken, it's all in black and white". That's just one of many titbits of joy that I get thrown every day. Think of the lulz, etc.

Posted by Jack at 11:32 PM | Permalink

I know it's an easy target, but I can't resist. It's like picking at a scab which is worried about house prices.

Re: What would you do if you thought you saw maddy? Posted by: daisy cutter on 10/11/07 at 05:07 AM

Grab her, look in her eyes, if its her, shout my head off for other Europeans and just Dont Let GO!

Conveniently forgetting that the three suspects the police have named are all European, which doesn't do much good for the continent's appearance as a whole.

Re: HOW DARE THEY SUGGEST THE BRITISH PEOPLE TONE DOWN XMAS TO HELP WITH RACE RELATIONS !!! Posted by: rymanskid on 01/11/07 at 10:21 AM

This is to be expected of this bunch of left wing loonitics that now run the country, Whats next on the hit list banning white snow because it upsets black people .

I'd like to hear rymanskid's suggestion on how to ban snow. Possibly some massively convoluted plan involving firing anti-perspirant into the clouds.

IS IT TIME FOR A VOTE ON THE DEATH PENALTY WHAT DO YOU THINK Posted by: 129 STEVE on 23/08/07 at 10:09 AM

where are young people on our streets getting guns and bullets to fire from .
is it not time for a vote on the death penalty for these crimes

i firmly believe if you are old enough to carry a gun and pull the trigger killing another person then you are old enough
to pay the penalty.

I don't think age has anything to do with the ability to fire a gun, Steve - I think the only pre-requisite is opposable digits. We'd best cull any apes that are around, in case they pick up a Magnum and get any ideas.

Posted by Jack at 10:12 PM | Permalink

The epic downtime is over - my quest for employment has been completed. Starting tomorrow, you can find me in the technology department of HMV Newcastle, encouraging people to buy expensive headphones. And you should, because they sound better.

Also, point and laugh at the loser who doesn't understand basic mathematics, and actually wants people to know about it.

Posted by Jack at 09:31 PM | Permalink

So, the popular music sharing website Oink has been shut down. I love how the Internet's been around for ages now, and yet people still don't get it.

Exhibit A: Courtesy of the The Sun:

Around 180,000 people were members of the private www.oink.co.uk website and paid to upload and download music - many of it not even released yet by record companies.

Members joined the www.oink.co.uk website by invitation only and paid a ’donation’ via a debit or credit card to be able to share music with others.

You didn't have to pay to be a member. Donations were entirely optional, and were used to fund the server bandwidth.

Exhibit B: Lord Triesman:

"If creative artists can't earn a living as a result of the work they produce, then we will kill off creative artists and that would be a tragedy."

Because as we all know, throughout the entirety of history, no-one has ever produced art when there was no direct financial incentive involved.

Exhibit C: The Sun again:

Police and music industry investigators were targeting one man who was believed to have been running the website and making hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

In a low key operation, the home of a 24-year-old IT worker was raided in, Middlesbrough.

If you're making that much money, why live in fucking Middlesbrough?

Thankfully, some people get it. The thing that made Oink such a good site was that you could obtain lossless quality copies of stuff which has been unavailable for ages, whether it be live recordings, or out of print. This is the kind of thing that record companies should be trying to replicate, not snuff out.

Once an album goes out of print, it will only become more and more difficult to get a copy of it. I'd like to see an easy to use website which offers lossless quality copies of records, and gives a fair cut of the proceeds to the artists who produced that music, but it's more likely that we'll see yet another DRM-crippled low-bitrate effort, because most record companies aren't bothered about promoting art and culture, and are more concerned with squeezing every last penny out of a fundamentally broken and dying business model.

Posted by Jack at 06:04 PM | Permalink

Really, just fuck off. If you want to convince people that your missing daughter isn't dead, you could do a lot better than saying her ghost visits you in the night. I don't think four year olds can master the science of astral projection.

Posted by Jack at 05:34 PM | Permalink

Come on to fuck, BBC, I did this months ago. Do keep up.

Also, FAO: The Wombats. Just fuck off with your "Let's Dance To Joy Division" shite, the only reason people are paying attention is 'cause you've name dropped a good band in a shit song. It didn't work when Wheatus did it, and it won't work now.

Posted by Jack at 07:49 PM | Permalink

Apparently, Apple's taken a stand against people who don't understand that typing in all capitals is an e-faux-pas. Now all they need to do is add a miniature cattle prod which administers an electric shock to any user who adds unnecessary apostrophes to words, and we'll be halfway there to a better world.

Also, I have recently acquired the world's best pen. The aluminium shell contains a 64MB USB flash drive and a laser pointer, and it also writes on paper! What a time to be alive.

Posted by Jack at 05:19 PM | Permalink

Interesting article on the BBC's Technology section about a move to show video games on television as sports. There will be those who say that this is a pointless move, as video games don't feature a lot of physical movement, and the stars of the sport will be tubby nerds with little social grace or likeability. To those people, I say one word: "darts". Thank you and goodnight.

Also; recognition! Chyars muchly.

Posted by Jack at 01:15 PM | Permalink

The situation in Burma's pretty fucked at the moment - you've got monks wearing sandals and robes getting the shit beaten out of them by soldiers with riot shields and rifles. Add to that, bystanders getting shot and killed (including a journalist now, so it's personal, yo). The support from the public in Burma has been pretty outstanding though - this picture's really inspiring. It really does show that non-violent protest is the best way to do things - if they'd been planting bombs under government officials' cars, they'd have been written off as terrorists and the situation wouldn't have as much attention from the rest of the world. Let's face it - you can't exactly not take notice when monks are getting attacked by soldiers.

Posted by Jack at 08:58 PM | Permalink

Apparently this is what happens if you ask a question to a politician in the US.

You get grabbed by security guards (four, no less) and zapped with a stun gun. As if four people can't hold back one. And the kicker is you even hear Kerry say "That's all right, let me answer his question." I guess this is what happens when you give weapons and a job to people who like hurting people but didn't pass the police entry exam.

Posted by Jack at 12:55 PM | Permalink

I know it's not very scientific and all, but come on to fuck, he laughs and touches his ear when he says "sedatives". That's fucking textbook stuff there.

Better be careful though, this is all very hurtful and unhelpful. And India Knight will kick the shit out of us if we're not careful.

Posted by Jack at 03:43 PM | Permalink

If you want to make people think you're innocent of something, you probably shouldn't hire a genocidal dictator's lawyer. It just looks like overkill. Fingers crossed this sticks around though - I love a good (read: bad) conspiracy theory, and this is an absolute gem.

Posted by Jack at 09:39 PM | Permalink

So the McCanns are now officially suspected of killing their daughter. Is this a case of life imitating art, or what?

Posted by Jack at 01:33 AM | Permalink

I never knew that unemployment was this good. Precisely shit all to do all day but drink tea and listen to very loud music. Ain't it the life.

Also, it turns out that researchers have 'proven' that a rock and roll lifestyle leads to a shorter lifespan. Well, two words decimate their findings - "Keith" and "Richards". But hey, if it rids the world of Amy Winehouse, I'll back this study.

Posted by Jack at 12:35 PM | Permalink

I wish all accident victims were as cool as these guys.

I said my wife could find a rich man in Shenyang. But then I thought, I have two children and my wife is ugly, so it would be hard for her to remarry.

That's just fantastic. Two guys who eat coal, drink piss and disrespect their wives. Truly we have found the men of the year.

Posted by Jack at 01:56 AM | Permalink

Almost two weeks without a blog! My mind is backed up. Prepare for a colossal dump (ha-ha).

I ditched my job at Slaley Hall last night. It was always going to be a temporary thing, but the past couple of weeks made it a lot more temporary. It's been nowhere near as much fun as it was last year. It seems that time has only increased the amount of idiots who come to play golf there. I'd say out of all the customers who come there, only 10% are actually decent people. The rest are disgustingly sweaty, ignorant, overweight, arrogant, loud, crude, vile racist cunts who I have nothing but contempt for. The recent changes in the menu, procedure and decoration of the place have prompted these vile shit-kickers to take it out on the floor staff, who didn't decide on those changes. OK, we get it - you're upset because your loud, ugly, messy children want chicken nuggets instead of actual food. That doesn't mean you have the right to get angry at the people who had nothing to do with it. And speaking of messy - someone actually left shit on the floor outside the toilets. Actual faeces, rubbed into the carpet. That was the final, brown-coloured full stop on my tenure there. I've had it with taking shit from people who think that it's OK to treat the staff like crap because they're paying to be there. If you've ever been abusive to someone because your favourite cheap lager isn't on the pumps, loudly told racist jokes to the rest of your idiot friends when you know that someone from another ethnic group is within earshot, complained that the prices at a five star country hotel are higher than at your local two-bit drinking hole, or worn a pink polo shirt, kill yourself immediately for the good of mankind. Fuck you and goodnight. You won't be seeing me after this Sunday.

To continue in more positive tones, Bioshock is a wonderful little game. It's got a fantastic art-deco style, a genuinely creepy atmosphere, and glorious lashings of ultra-violence all round. I wouldn't expect any less from the System Shock 2 dudes. It looks and sounds utterly fantastic on my newly-overhauled computer which boasts the nickname of "Chiselled Thunder Bastard". And it comes in a snazzy looking tin case, which is bound to get dented and scratched to fuck if I leave it out on the desk. Nice.

And the new Talib Kweli album is great as well. It's a wonderful time for Multimedia™.

Posted by Jack at 11:45 PM | Permalink

A girl who had a provocative photo taken when she was 14 is shocked to find out that it's been used on a porn DVD. The poor lass is so naive - she reckons she didn't "expect [the] image posted on a website to be taken for something like that", but every photograph on the Internet has been used as masturbation fuel. Especially photographs from Apple product launches. The response from the studio was amazing though - they told her that the photo was "to blame" for poor sales.

And speaking of wankers, ISPs reckon the BBC's iPlayer will wreck the Internet for all of us. Personally, I think that charging more cash for a slower, more restricted service than other European countries is more damaging to the Internet than watching Doctor Who on demand, but that's just me. I do like the bit where they say "The internet was not set up with a view to distributing video" though. Considering the web as we know it has been around for nearly twenty years, you'd think they'd have got some practice at shifting video in these two decades, but apparently not.

Posted by Jack at 02:30 PM | Permalink

Proving that idiocy knows no bounds, traffic lights in Scotland are being smashed because they share the same green colour as Celtic's football strip. That's so dumb, it's almost admirable. You'd have to be quite daft to do better than that.

I also went to see The Simpsons Movie the other day. It's not good, but it's not terrible either. It's certainly not as bad as Transformers, but there's very few things on film which are worse than that piece of shit. Still, at least the Iron Man flick looks incredible. There's something to look forward to.

Posted by Jack at 08:58 PM | Permalink

Elton John wants the Internet to be closed down, because it's stifling creativity. That's a bit rich, coming from the man who releases the same wallpaper music on every fucking album.

Speaking of music, I got myself an iPod nano the other day. It's very good. Much quicker than the big one (solid state memory, innit), and it feels much nicer in the hand (haha). Buy five!

Posted by Jack at 10:27 AM | Permalink

But apparently Fox News did. It's got to be real - I doubt there's anyone in the US who could do something this much like a Chris Morris show and not actually be serious.

Posted by Jack at 10:56 AM | Permalink

I'm still working on the words. Here's some photos though. Enjoy.

Posted by Jack at 01:29 PM | Permalink

What's the fucking deal with Second Life? The press seems to want to bum it at every turn. The latest mention of the worst thing on the 'net (Besides Goatse, obviously) is of a Japanese politician who has an office in Second Life. It's like how books in the 1980s described how the Internet would be, only massively shit.

Posted by Jack at 01:19 AM | Permalink

Finally! Settled back in at home. I’m back in my own room, after being forced to share a computer room with a flatulent, grumpy Scissor Sisters fan. It smells of new paint, and is tidy for once. Huzzah.

Cuba was fantastic. Long post coming soon with all the photos and that, but I’ll give you the short story for now. Cuba is hot. VERY hot. Buckets of sweat the second you leave the building. The Cuban people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met. They’ve got IT. And everyone wanted to sell me cigars. Despite decades of disrepair, the buildings still look stunning, and the same goes for the legions of old American cars there. Also, EVERYONE smokes there. EVERYONE. As soon as we got off the plane, I counted half a dozen various airport staff with tabs on the go. Worth going any day of the week.

Posted by Jack at 11:24 PM | Permalink

Alright, so I might be halfway around the globe at this very moment, but you don't think I'm going to let this Glasgow-London thing go by without a sound, do you? Inbetween not one but two car bombs being seized before detonation, and a crap attempt at ramming Glasgow Airport where the only casualties were the terrorists themselves, I'm not convinced that we're in any actual danger. These dudes are probably the Frank Spencers of the criminal underground. Cuba is groovy though - I don't think I'm going to drink anything other than mojitos for a very long time.

Posted by Jack at 11:19 PM | Permalink

Alas, you'll all be bereft of my enlightening presence for the next week or so. In a few hours, I'm off to Cuba for seven nights. Photos are definitely happening. Rum and cigars will be brought back. And I will get to the end of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, even if it fries my consciousness in the process. Toodles!

Posted by Jack at 10:13 PM | Permalink

So I just finished moving back home and out of Sunderland. Freaky to think that I'm now finished with Uni, but due to renovations taking place in my room, I'm currently operating out of a room with four or five computer monitors lying around, and enough cables and gadgetry to make it look like one of the ships out of The Matrix. Sweet.

Also, a quick notice for Russell T Davies in the extremely likely event of him reading this: Never put incredibly gay electro-pop into episodes of Doctor Who, especially at exciting/dramatic bits. Apart from that, carry on.

Posted by Jack at 07:17 PM | Permalink

Unfunny racist dies. Can't say I'll miss him. I don't think I'll ever have any sympathy for anyone who tried to argue that the words "nigger" and "coon" have "respectable roots". And I don't care about the "product of his time" argument - it just makes me all the more glad that I'm not from that time.

Now, here's someone who we could do with again. Hurry back, Mr. Hell!

Posted by Jack at 09:25 AM | Permalink

Here's an interesting one - a Nigerian man is rejected from applying for a job because the employer's dog is racist. Not him, definitely, it's the dog. Yeah. It's an new twist on an old favourite. "I'm not a racist, but... my dog is!" Wonder how the mutt responds to black dogs.

Posted by Jack at 08:46 PM | Permalink

Now that I'm all done with Uni work, I can finally get back into World of Warcraft. Don't worry, I still go outside, but hell, it's a good hobby of mine. As you're all probably aware, I seem to act as a magnet for uncool freaks. The ones who wave "insulin" needles at you while asking for change for the Metro, or the ones who act shocked when you tell them that you don't agree with their views on "brown people". It seems that there's just as much scope for encountering weirdos in World of Warcraft as well.

Just this morning, I was hanging around in the main Alliance capital, Stormwind City. A low level Paladin player walked up to me and asked if I'd "boost" him through a dungeon called the Scarlet Monastery. For the uninitiated, "boosting" is the act of a high level player clearing a low level dungeon while someone too low for that dungeon tags along and reaps the spoils of battle. I don't do this for people I don't know, and I rarely do it for people I do know - it's not a fun pastime.

So I told the guy I wouldn't do it, and he starts begging. "Plzzzzzz take me, plzzzzz", he says. "I neeeeed a rare shield, plzzzz". I gave the guy a firm no, and walked off to complete my other errands in Stormwind. The strange fellow starts following me everywhere I go, begging all the way. "Plzzzzzzzzz, I need to go there". Now, one of the things you can do in World of Warcraft is put annoying players on a block list, so you won't hear anything from them. I don't really like doing this though - I'm such a nosy bugger that I can't stand to be unable to hear people. Well, that and the one time I did put someone on ignore, they just created a new character and kept bugging me. That "Delgado is ignoring you" message kind of gives it away. After I was finished in Stormwind, I headed off out into the world to do more World of Warcraft stuff - killing things, mining, killing things, being frustrated by enemy players, more killing, and all that jazz.

Over the course of the next hour or so, without fail every minute I got a desperate plea message from my mad stalker/beggar. All this time, he had never left Stormwind City and was hounding me for over sixty minutes. One hour of this person's day spent sending futile requests to me. I'm rather glad World of Warcraft doesn't have voice chat - I honestly don't know what I would do if I could hear this guy's tearful voice begging me for a free ride through the Scarlet Monastery.

Posted by Jack at 11:44 PM | Permalink

This one's not one of those sardonic comments on a current event. Sorry! Regular service will resume in a few days, or when I see an amazing story about a politican being molested by an octopus, whichever comes first. No, this one's about the strangeness of my current situation. I'm less than 48 hours and 2000 words away from being completely done with university life. Over. Accomplished. Finito. Beyond a week in Cuba with my dad in July (which promises to be all kinds of amazing), nothing is certain. No job sorted, no plans for any further excursions, nowt. It's a strange feeling that doesn't happen many times in a person's life, but it's a weird one that I dig a lot. I do like the idea of bumming around doing bugger all for a silly amount of time though. I could go tree climbing, put on some Grateful Dead records and absorb nature. Yeah.

Oh, and if anyone's on their way to the Download festival this weekend, two things. One, I'm sorry to hear you're going to the Download festival, and two, if you see a rusted white Mini with a sticker in the back that says "Powered by the Dark Side", you have my permission to beat the ever-loving shite out of it. I'm still owed £70 from a vapid loser with no life skills. Be creative. Get to it, boppers.

Posted by Jack at 10:38 PM | Permalink

Good news for the moaners among us - being miserable is good for happiness. Good to see the article criticises "modern love stories for perpetuating the myth that enjoying a perfect relationship is possible". All the more reason for Hugh Grant to be executed.

Oh, and that dude who went into the Big Brother house? No fucking way is he 26. Iggy Pop's in better shape than this guy, and he's 60!

Posted by Jack at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Apparently Pepsi Max can switch off your DNA. I always knew that faux-healthy soft drink thing was never going to be any good for you. With this, and that whole phenylalanine nonsense in Diet Coke, it looks like I was right for sticking to regular. Mind, my teeth disagree a lot. Quite violently, in fact.

And as for the McCann's search for Madeleine - tabloids, it kind of devalues it when you call it a "European tour". It's also horrific to latch onto one missing person case and cause a media maelstrom for brainless eejits to "grieve" over when dozens of people disappear every day.

Posted by Jack at 10:06 AM | Permalink

Alternative greetings cards. Fantastic.

Posted by Jack at 10:39 PM | Permalink

You know what's better than coming home to a warm bed and good company after a week away? Coming home to a bin that's got a week-and-a-bit's worth of rubbish overflowing from it and left all over the floor. Actually, that's not better. That's total shite.

Posted by Jack at 12:32 AM | Permalink

I've been on a work placement at the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle this week. Most of my time there has been spent idly rewording press releases and desperately trying to scribble down phone conversations with my sub-par shorthand. But not today... this afternoon, I went out with another reporter into Throckley, to do a follow-up piece on this story. For those not in the know, Throckley's not a particularly welcoming place. Arson and burglary are rife. It's been nicknamed "Little Beirut" by its residents. We went along to get opinions from the locals on the stabbing, as well as garner some info on life in the area.

That was the aim, anyway.

After a couple of interviews with some nice people, we started interviewing a fairly rough looking fella. I got the impression that if he sneezed, dust and teeth would go flying everywhere. During our interview, I noticed the other reporter I was with kept glancing up the road. I turned as well, and saw a very angry guy drunkenly stumbling down the street towards us, swearing incoherently all the way. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!", he yelled, his hot, vodka-laced breath stinging my eyes. "Who the fuck do you think you are, coming here and taking pictures of us, and telling people what we do?", as if the job of a journalist is to catalogue the daily activities of the average joe for the amusement of the newspaper buying public. (Well, in a way it is, but less of that - we're on my side here, dammit.)

Despite our protestations that our piece was aimed at improving the public image of Throckley (which it was), the Human Brown-Eye continued to hurl threats of head-smashing, camera-breaking and house-igniting. At the very last second before Mount Chavatoa erupted with all its latent fury into our faces, a policeman arrived to interrupt the proceedings. That's one of the advantages of reporting from near a murder scene, I guess - ample security. After taking our details, the policeman departed to ask our would-be assailant what he was up to, while we checked the camera hadn't been saturated during the constant rain. After the policeman went back to the investigation location, our new friend and some of his cohorts kept an eye on us from the safety of a nearby bus stop.

After a brief moment when we didn't have anyone nearby to interview, one of the guys at the bus stop (a rotund, beastly little sod) yells out "How, if you come round the back of these flats, there's loads of people there who you can get inn-fer-may-shun out of!". Gracefully declining his generous offer to bring us to a prime interview spot which just happened to be out of the nearby police's line of sight, we retreated to the safety of the car to check the photos we got, find out how much more reportage we needed to get, and to laugh it up over the fat guy's mauling of the word "information". Who'd have thought that work placements could be fun?

Posted by Jack at 08:40 PM | Permalink

One of the headlines I least expected to see today was "US evangelist Jerry Falwell dies". Not that it's unwelcome - far from it. I would probably have worded it a little differently though. "Bollock-Brained Reactionary Tool Finally, Finally Dies" would have been my tribute to the fat bonehead.

Posted by Jack at 11:16 PM | Permalink

Here's something that's worth a watch - Panorama investigator John Sweeney "losing it" during an interview with a Scientologist. At least, that's what the video says. Personally, I don't think it looks like he actually goes completely bonkers. He just seems to be talking very, very loudly. And even though it doesn't appear to be a very good way for him to conduct himself, bear in mind that he was speaking to a person trained to wind people up, which is basically all that Scientology is - baiting people and getting a tax break into the bargain. It sounds exactly like the kind of thing I'd go for, but I can't afford the entrance fee.

Posted by Jack at 07:57 PM | Permalink

So yeah, that Eurovision thing. Serbia win with their "Guess The Gender" act, Ukraine come in close behind with Elton-John-After-Conversion-By-The-Cybermen, Russia ends up in third with a clutch of young things straight from their equivalent of Year 10, and the UK doesn't even bother trying again. See you next year!

Posted by Jack at 04:11 PM | Permalink

Less than 24 hours to go till I hand in my dissertation, which explains my partial absence from this fine web-based journal as of late. Rest assured that current events will be mercilessly scrutinised once I've finished the bastard. This whole "working for twelve hours a day" business is extremely over-rated, it must be said. I could never be a World of Warcraft gold farmer, I guess. Quick update, with more in-depth analysis to come later - Spidey 3 - awesome, The Wildhearts - even more amazing than usual, the Iron Man flick pics - wonderful. See you on the other side!

Posted by Jack at 08:58 AM | Permalink

This is all kinds of grim. A teenage girl is pregnant with a child that won't live for more than a few days, but is prevented from having an abortion by Irish law. Not only that, but she can't go out of the country for an abortion. It's so sad that there are people who would rather that she go through nine months of mental and physical torture just to satisfy their own values. I'm amazed that there's not some kind of EU human rights law that's overriding Irish law here - she's basically being forced into giving birth. That's some horrible arse-backwards thinking right there.

Posted by Jack at 11:26 PM | Permalink