down on the corner...

In defense of Sudoku

2005-05-25T10:14:00.001Z

The year of the Japanese number puzzle is with us. Up and down the country we anxiously scribble numbers into little boxes while all the time the liberal press denounce it. Odd, I thought that the Guardian would have so many articles written against this innocent puzzle.

I can imagine many a 'typical' educated, liberal minded guardian reader pondering a challenging Sudoku over a mug of steamed latté. However, the gargantuan effort on behalf of The Sun to abuse this little number game in order to sell papers places the more likely image of a balding builder scratching his paint-speckled head over a pint of Stella.

Perhaps this is the reason for the Guardian's spite; it's a puzzle for the lower classes. The simple nature of Sudoku is hardly a match for a cryptic crossword.

Despite this the Guardian has finally succumbed to the nations latest craze and, in resplendent hypocrisy, they print theirs on page 2.

Election blues...

2005-05-06T12:29:00.000Z

Well, it's been a while. To anyone who actually reads this, I'm very sorry but university work reared its ugly head. Normal service will now resume.

The votes have been cast, counted and already forgotten about but the results of yesterday's election have landed us with the bloody Tories, again. Both where my vote was counted (Essex) and where I live (Surrey SW) the Tories won, great.

As a Lib-Dem supporter for the whole of the campaign it was good to see them gain more seats but alas, Farnham will remain under the oppressive yoke of a middle-England, middle-class, xenophobic party.

"It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can." Jean- Jacque Rousseau

Blog Wars.

2005-04-16T12:45:00.000Z

I would like to draw attention to a piece published (but since removed) by the angry dome and contested by little brown baby relating to the oh so delicate subject of dyslexia. It's true that it's contested as to what dyslexia actually is, and it's rarely taken seriously.

However, the point I would like to make is that out here on this great expanse of information and porn that we like to call the internet, we can write what we damn well please. I'm not condoning this argument from either side; I'm simply condoning the right of each and every one of us to rustle each others feathers from time to time.

It would have been far better to vent the anger at the institute and its supposed bungling of the magazine production and not simply rant on about dyslexia. However, the point here is free speech.

To be fired from the job of editor of a magazine simply for writing a frustrated and misguided blog post is, of course, ridiculous – especially when it has since been removed and grovelling apologies written. However, this is what happened as a result.

I smell the sordid stench of blood flowing from a wound in the back.

It seems that someone, somewhere was out to get him and presented his post to the powers that be. Surely that's a worse crime.

Bowling for Florida.

2005-04-10T11:45:00.000Z

Something I read in the Guardian yesterday proves just how backward, desperate and bloodthirsty Americans really are.

Somewhere deep within a Florida state government building Jeb Bush had a thought. It may have hurt but then it wasn't a very big one.

Perhaps he was acting on 'advice' and 'evidence' presented to him by his big bro. That or it came to him during 'story time' with his hot milk and cookies.

This thought, requiring all two of Jeb's retired brain cells was that it would be a good idea to allow people to shoot other people on the street if they felt their life was threatened. All you have to do now to get away with murder in Florida is simply say: 'I felt threatened,' and that's it.

Ok, so the law is supposed to have those in mind who may get raped or mugged. But somehow I can't see many women and old people carrying weapons on the streets. Is it really the Wild West or is Jeb just making it more like his Texan home?

Well, the six million registered gun owners in the state can sleep peacefully in the knowledge that they've been given a licence to kill. "Yee ha, I'm a gonna go shoot me a nigga."

For God's sake, wear condoms.

2005-04-04T11:47:00.000Z

Why are millions of people world-wide mourning the death of the pope?

His right wing papacy can be said to have increased the spread of AIDS and brought famine, death and hardship to many poor families across the globe.

Ok, so I'm atheistic and incredibly sceptical when it comes to organised religion, but I'm allowed to rant about this. The biggest catholic population in the world is in the Latin Americas, a region of the globe that also suffers from a very high death rate relating to AIDS. So why tell them that they can't do something as simple as wearing a condom?

That cheap-to-produce latex friend of western civilisation can save lives. But don't use it - you'll go straight to hell.

Oh, and gay marriages are 'evil' too.

I think Terry Eagleton sums him up well in his Guardian article by saying that: 'He was one of the greatest disasters for the Christian Church since Charles Darwin.'

A smoke and a pancake?

2005-04-03T16:08:00.000Z

I'm back and who would've thought it? Amsterdam's coffee shop scene really is dying out.

Squinting through the plumes of spliff smoke billowing forth from shop doorways it's hard to imagine the truth in what I was told by one dealer:

"My boss says that the coffee shops will all be gone in five years. If this government stays and Bush stays in the U.S. then it will all be over soon. It's crazy; this is a Dutch way of life." He shrugs and gives me a forlorn look that portrays a man sick of the bureaucracy surrounding this issue. It's also a look that says: 'Hey, have a bang on this shit....fancy a smoke and a pancake?'

You have to hand it to the Dutch really. What other nation boasts citizens who can speak four languages, legalise prostitution, reclaim miles and miles of land from the sea and smoke marijuana?

Perhaps without the 'demon weed' they'll invent a cure for cancer, end world poverty and find a way to stop microsoft taking over the world? Just a thought.

To Amsterdam and beyond...

2005-03-25T13:14:00.000Z

Well, about a week has gone past since my last post. This is a mixture of technical problems (don't ever get an internet connection with Wanadoo) and depression at the loss of my car. I had a mechanic look at it for what it was worth and it turns out that those noises it made were more serious than I thought. It has spluttered its last, poor thing.

Oh well, off to Amsterdam! I fly on Sunday for a few days of clogs, Amstel lager and hookers. It turns out that the city’s biggest and bestest attraction, the ability to consume your body weight in cannabis on the pavement outside a café, is coming to an end.

The international narcotics control board have seen fit to harass the Dutch government to come into line with 'international' (read American) drug policy and so the infamous coffee shop may be about to go up in smoke.

Oh, and Michael Howard in his infinite wisdom is talking about reclassifying the drug to class B again if, God forbid, he gets into power in May. Why? The whole point was to free up police time and stop PC Plod arresting and imprisoning the spliff smoking public, of which there are many. I probably shouldn't condone drugs on here but in the words of Bill Hicks:

'let me tell you something here that you never get told. I've taken drugs before and you know what, I had a good time. Didn't rob anybody, didn't steal, didn't kill, didn't rape anyone, didn't lose.....one fucking job, I laughed my ass off.'

A leader in the Guardian summed it up well:

Mr. Howard needs to realise that doing this would be waging war on 50% of young people. He would willingly give criminal records to thousands just for doing something that 2 million do quite happily every year.

Tescos, tow ropes and traffic.

2005-03-19T12:26:00.000Z

*shudder...shudder...clunk...splutter......* silence.

"Shit," I thought as I was driving home. My poor little mini had died. My pride and joy, the light of my life and object of my complete devotion had let me down a few yards from my house and just to top it all off, on a roundabout, fantastic.

At first I couldn't quite believe it, and anyone who's ever had a car brake down on them will testify to this. You just sit there gunning the engine, the whirring noise getting slower and slower whilst you constantly talk to the car. "Fucking start! Please, oh what's wrong? I promise to look after you better and even clean you if you'll just get me home. Please, it's only up the hill. I love you..."

Despite my best efforts at talking my car into working and randomly touching things under the bonnet I came to terms with the fact that it just wasn't going to work, not today. It was time to make the phone call nobody ever wants to make. I called my insurance people.

Apparently all the dosh that I've been plying them with for nearly a year wasn't enough. They told me that because I was within a mile of my house, they wouldn't come and tow me for free, bastards, and that I would need to shell out an extortionate £72. I told them to go fuck themselves - back to square one.

I'd just like to mention at this point that my insurance is with Tesco. Says it all really, they're cheap but you can't expect wonders from a company that sells tins of baked beans for 3p.

So, whilst sitting in my clapped out motor enjoying the disapproving sideways glances of passing motorists (you know, the type that implies it's your fault you've broken down), a piece of luck came my way. Dressed in full army camos, a guy pulled up and offered to help. He explained he was a royal marine from Aldershot and that he towed vehicles all the time.

We may whinge and gripe about the squadies but this guy saved me. He saved me having to leave my car on a roundabout, the looming possibility of waiting till midnight and pushing the thing up a hill and most importantly to a hard up student, he saved me money. Nice chap.

Who's brought the craic?

2005-03-17T23:29:00.000Z

I worked in a pub on 'Paddies day' last year and having done the same again this year I have to say that it never fails to amuse me.

Staunch, set-in-their-way lager drinkers happily swill pint after pint of Guinness, dance to awful screeching didly-dee music and sport bright vomit-green leprechaun hats. Such a stigma has been attached to the compulsive act of drinking 'the black stuff' that somebody once told me of his unfortunate aftermath of a paddies night drink; the dreaded 'Guinness poo'.

In a truly British way, the 'any excuse for a piss-up' line rules the day.

Why do we do this? Theoretically we're drinking to the health of a 4th century Welsh bloke who taught the Irish about Jesus. That's all there is to it. He didn't even drive snakes into the sea; that's just a metaphor for him banishing paganism.

Perhaps it's merely one of those holidays that are only kept alive because of commercial greed. In the same way that card companies cash in on St Valentines day and Christmas, St Patrick's day holds the pay check for Guinness.

Or maybe it's just one of those rare moments of national pride so exciting that it spread around the world, capturing our hearts, minds and of course, our livers.

2005-03-08T21:08:00.000Z

Homo dead duck rape.

The homosexual, necrophiliac duck

2005-03-08T20:40:00.000Z

Nature can be cruel.

The old dictum of 'survival of the fittest' ensures the death of many weak animals. The runt of a litter is often left for dead, a gerbil will quite happily eat its own mother if starved of food and there are some species of jellyfish so poisonous that they can kill in seconds. However, all this pales in the shadow of research recently carried out by Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker.

An article on Guardian Unlimited explains how Mr Moeliker won the Ig Nobel prize for Biology for observing something truly, unbelievably cruel.

Who would have thought that a male mallard, of the type swimming in duck ponds all over the country would not only shag another male mallard but one that is dead - a homosexual, necrophiliac duck- wonderful.

More money should definitely be spent on research that is as pointless and funny as this.

Hunter Murdered?

2005-03-04T12:12:00.000Z

During the evening of Sunday 20th February Hunter S Thompson sat down at his faithful typewriter at his family home in Colorado and took a gun to his head. Or did he?

In his Globe and Mail article of 26th February, Alexander Pope writes:

Hunter telephoned me on Feb. 19, the night before his death. He sounded scared. It wasn't always easy to understand what he said, particularly over the phone, he mumbled, yet when there was something he really wanted you to understand, you did. He'd been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by explosive charges set off in their foundations. Now he thought someone was out to stop him publishing it: "They're gonna make it look like suicide," he said. "I know how these bastards think . . ."

Also, great article by Paul Carr on Guardian Unlimited. The bloggers shall indeed inherit the gonzo. He wrote of Hunter as the original blogger:

'If he wasn't the archetypal blogger I don't know who was...George W Bush is our Richard Nixon, Google is our Rolling Stone, the going has got weird - and it's time for the weird to turn pro.'

Beer

2005-03-01T20:54:00.000Z

At some point during the middle ages a monk sat down and decided to boil some of that year's harvest of grain. He mashed it all up, put it in a barrel somewhere and chucked some yeast into it. He would have noticed froth, a nasty smell and when it was ready he would have drunk it and probably fallen over. He had invented beer, and it's that simple to make that I thought I'd give it a go.
I've recently brewed a batch for fun and being a student, it's a cheep way to drink. Yes it can be messy and it could end up being so potent that you lose the feeling in your legs, but what could be better than creating 40 pints for about seven quid?
Luckily I didn't have to buy anything as I used old equipment that my dad had lying around in his house.

If religion has given us anything worthwhile it has been beer.

Cheers to those legless monks of yore.

Guilty until proven innocent

2005-02-27T12:58:00.000Z

'Justice is blind' reads the old saying. It's that great bulwark of our constitution that provides a separation between the various 'estates of the realm' and allows us to know that quite simply, government doesn't get involved in legal proceedings. Well, thanks to Blair this is becoming meaningless; another cornerstone of democracy torn from the foundations.

The prevention of terrorism bill, set to hit the Commons for a second time this week flies in the face of European human rights law, allowing the detention without trial of anyone 'suspected' of being a terrorist threat. All that's needed is for the home secretary to click his magic fingers and any Muslim (and lets face it, under today's climate of fear this will only apply to Islamic people) can and will be rounded up and placed under house arrest.

This changes our legal system to 'guilty until proven innocent', allows a cabinet member to impose legal restrictions and, according to the parliamentary joint committee on human rights, would be "highly unlikely" to be compatible with Britain's international obligations.

But we can all sleep at night safe in the knowledge that president Blair is doing what he thinks is right.
"I'm just trying to protect the security of our country." Thanks Tony.

RIP Dr Gonzo

2005-02-24T12:13:00.000Z

"I have no taste for either poverty or honest labour, so writing is the only recourse left for me."
(Hunter S Thompson)

I will begin this blog with a nod to a man who inspired generations. His wide-eyed and drug-addled ramblings for over half a century have served to expose the primal, slavering beast within our society. He always claimed that 'the death of the American dream' was his specialist subject, never drawing an overall conclusion on the state of the modern world but laying down bite-sized morsels of truth in a constant stream of journalistic scribling.

you taught us to 'fear and loath', took us into the depths of an ether binge and gave us 'gonzo', your own brand of journalism.

Thank you Duke. R.I.P.