Pale blue dot

I’m sure I saw Sterling Moss in Cockermouth Sainsbury’s car park yesterday. He was driving a little red Morgan. I looked at him with an expression that said “fuck me, is that Sterling Moss?” He looked back with one that said “What the fuck are you looking at?”

I may be being very naive here, but why does the government have to bail out Northern Rock? They are a private enterprise. Why should my tax help shareholders of a business? This pisses me off. There are thousands of small businesses going to wall every year, but they don’t get a fucking red cent. It could be argued that they are the ones who need the government help the most, not multi billion pound companies. It was the same with Rover a couple of years ago, the government at the time said the intervention was to protect jobs, but that to me sounds like an invitation to other companies to jump on the bandwagon. Give us cash or we’ll fuck off to India will be the cry, and more money will flow from the public purse into the private bank accounts of the already wealthy. Welfare for the rich again. This especially pisses me off when you read this story from the BBC. Funding into scientific research cut, and I’m sure that’s not an isolated incident. GB should get his priorities right, and forget trying to line the pockets of his mates.

In other news, a US spy satellite is going to come crashing back to earth after losing power. The satellite, just short of a tonne in weight and about the size of a minibus also contains Hydrazine, a toxic chemical used for propulsion. Not exactly inconspicuous is it? If you were going to design a spy satellite you would make it look like something else, a rock maybe. That way when it’s in space it looks like an asteroid, and if it has the audacity to crash, it looks like a rock.

I’ve ranted in the past about the hooded scroat that wanders our dog-shit infested streets, making a nuisance of himself and generally contributing fuck all to society. I must be getting old and cantankerous though, because my tolerance of these ineffectual work shy fops has spiraled into something that could be likened to fascist apoplexy. It’s too late to trot out the usual knee-jerk liberal shite. We need to start again. Bring back corporal punishment and national service, give the police carte blanche to beat shifty looking youths, and ensure that any scroat caught breaking the law, in any form, will be dealt with using cruel and unusual methods. All these things will treat the symptom, but what about the cause? Ineffectual parents should be held responsible for the actions of their miscreant offspring. Maybe then the lazy fuckers will take an interest in the whereabouts of their obnoxious little fuckers. Parents who have to take an active roll in the upbringing of their mewling spawn might think twice about inflicting more of the little fucking parasites on our already crumbling society. Unfortunately these new measures wont help us in the short term, it will be three or four generations before order is restored to this green and pleasant land. Until then we should all be armed with tazers, now that’s what I call a short sharp shock.

In other news, mikewhositsoposite has become mikewhositsseventeenmilesaway. I wonder why they split us up? Of course it changes nothing, I still refute his sweeping statements, he’s still a ginger twat.

The government want cookery lessons to be compulsory in secondary schools. This is part of a strategy to curb obesity in children. One hour a week for one term, what the fuck can you teach kids in that amount of time? The teachers are damned either way. If they teach kids how to make things that they like, then they will still get fat, if they teach them to make practical things that are good for them, then the kids wont fucking make it again. When will these fucking pea-brained politicians actually admit that the real problem facing our children are their feckless, ineffectual parents. Lazy parenting is killing this country, and teaching our teenagers how to make fucking bread wont fix it. I may rant a little tomorrow on how we could go about putting things right. It’s my birthday tomorrow, I will have the right to rant like an old twat.

Just a quick question about the lottery and quantum mechanics. Are scratch cards in a state of superposition? Does the act of scratching the little foil patches change what is underneath? If so, then every card’s a winner and every card’s a loser. Which makes Kenny Rogers right after all. I can’t believe for one minute that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle gets Rogers off the hook. Although, Schroedinger’s scratch card is a lot easier to teach to our fat teenagers than that bollocks about cats in boxes.

To continue the music debate started in an earlier thread, I give you shit songs of the 70s. This was instigated by yet another sweeping statement by mikewhositsoposite, who said “All 70s music is great”. The list below proves without any doubt that my oppo needs to waft away the alcohol induced fog from around his brain and think a little more clearly before uttering such ill considered fuckwittery. So, not in any particular order:

Melanie - Brand new key.
Utter pap. Even the Wurzels had to change the lyrics.

Sister Janet Mead - The Lords prayer.
Fuck me this is dire.

Barry Manilow - Mandy.
You came and you sung and you were shit.

Morris Albert - Feelings.
It’s a shame he didn’t have any, maybe we would have been spared this tripe.

Benny Hill - Ernie.
This sack of shit kept Jeepster from reaching number 1.

Captain and Tennille - Muskrat love.
At what point in your music career do you think it’s acceptable to sing about shagging rodents?

Village people - In the navy.
Utter wank, if I never hear this song again it will be a blessing.

Chuck Berry - My ding a ling.
What a come down from one of the founding fathers of rock and roll. This wouldn’t be out of place in a carry on film.

Donny Osmond - Puppy love.
More bestial sick fuckery, this time from a toothy Mormon.

Lena Martell - One day at a time.
More fucking god bothering shite. I despair.

Bobby Fischer, the American chess genius has died aged 64. Love him or hate him, you can’t deny he was a very special player. You can read about him here. The lyric isn’t a cheap joke about his age at death. There are 64 squares on a chess board. Apologies if you didn’t need that explaining to you.

I’ve been thinking about the collected wisdom of humanity. Like you do. It occurred to me that, in realty, we don’t know very much. As a race we’re right fuckin’ know-it-alls, but I would bet that the entire body of human knowledge is so minuscule in relation to all there is to know, that we’ve only just skimmed the surface of an immense ocean of information. Maybe Donald Rumsfelt was on to something when he waffled about unknown unknowns. Someone once said that the larger the searchlight, the greater the circumference of the unknown. So, far from searching for answers, we should first find all the questions.

Put your great unanswered questions in the box, and we shall endevour to search for other questions that shed light on yours.

In other news, The Windermere Amateur Theatrical Society didn’t consider their acronym when they had new T shirts printed. One of my inside sources said “we felt like a right bunch of cunts when they came back blue instead of red”.

How the fuck did Gregg’s manage to get Paddy off Phoenix nights to do do their ads ?

In other news, academics at La Sapienza, a prestigious university in Rome, have forced Pope Ratzinger to cancel his planned speech on Thursday. What could have prompted this Italian academic revolt? The Pope has said he condoned the findings of the 1633 trail of Galileo. He said the trial was “rational and just”. This only a few weeks after the Vatican organised a conference for the world’s top astronomers to look for dark matter and black holes. Rational and just ? I’m beginning to think that David Ike could have been right about the twelve-foot lizards ruling the world. This fucker is a prime candidate, and considering he believes that the Earth is stationary, he is also a candidate for the first Pale Blue Dot thinking monkey for the stupid. (Like seeing dogs for the blind).

Speaking of the high street’s favourite purveyor of pastry products, have you ever noticed the proliferation of Pigeons around these chav palaces ? Our streets are awash with feathered rats, all being fed on flaky pastry and fag ends. This is a work of genius, what better renewable resource for making tomorrow’s pasties than the very creatures that are living off their flaky detritus ? It’s the 21st century Soylent Green. I can see it now, Charlton Heston, standing on the rain-drenched streets of Workington, looking to heaven and shouting the immortal words… ” Gregg’s is Pigeons !”

Allegedly.

The US has suspended all executions by lethal injection after reports it could be inhumane. Am I fucking missing something ? Supporters of the death penalty are now looking for a more benign method of murdering someone. This is another contender for the “you couldn’t make this shit up” category of this blog. Readers of bluetealeaf may remember me ranting about the death penalty in the past, there have been far too many miscarriages of justice to make this form of punishment a viable option. The US is currently one of 55 countries that still practice state sponsored murder, that is if you discount all the people we “free” from oppressive regimes in oil rich war torn countries around the globe. I really think, and so does amnesty international, that you can’t claim to be a civilised country until you stop killing your own people on the off chance they have done something wrong. Especially when your legal system is weighted in favour of those people with shit loads of cash.

A benign death penalty, you have to give them points for not letting common sense get in the way of a good discussion.

I’ve been meaning to write about our recent trip to Jamaica, but then I got caught up in a musical argument that shows no sign of letting up this side of the next decade. The next installment is due any day now.

Anyway, Jamaica. I’ve said before that tourism is all about being there, not about the journey, and Jamaica is probably the most extreme case of this. The flight is a little over ten hours and the vast majority of this is over the Atlantic ocean. I quite enjoy flying, but after a few hours looking at the bald pate of the twat sat in front, you tend to get a little bored. In flight entertainment is always, without fail, utter wank, so I’m left with little else to do. I bet Paul Theroux doesn’t travel with First fucking Choice. Mind you, after reading “The old Patagonian express” it would maybe do him some good.

Considering we were supposed to be going to the Maldives and First Last Choice cancelled us ten days before we were due to fly, we were really looking forward to going to Jamaica. It’s always been on the list of places to go before we start smelling of piss and shouting at cars, but it was below the Maldives. The incompetence, lies and greed of Last Choice catapulted Jamaica to the top of our list and we went with little time to think about it.

I’m not going to bore you with how nice the staff were, or how clean the knives and forks were. The place was fantastic, in fact the hotel was better than we expected. Tracy used her Jedi mind tricks to get us a free upgrade and we were set for two weeks of chilling out.

A few people had told us that Jamaica was a violent place and that we shouldn’t go out of our hotel. These people have obviously never walked round Maryport after dark, and as Manchester ex pats there isn’t much that would discourage us wandering about and chatting to people. The reality of off-resort Jamaica is that it’s just like everywhere else in the world. It has its nice places and it has places you wouldn’t think of going without a Kevlar vest and an Uzi. A little common sense and you will be ok. The worst thing that happened was the odd offer of weed, which is no different than Workington on an average Saturday night. Not exactly a scary thought, being accosted by a stoner, they aren’t the most organised group of people at the best of times. They did look a little puzzled when we decline their kind offer, but then they forgot what had been said and wandered off.

We hired a taxi for an afternoon so we could see the sights properly, not the tour operator’s sanitised version of the real Jamaica. As well as the famous land marks and tourist areas our driver took us inland on the back roads and through the villages. He showed us native plants and what they were used for, how you cook them and which ones are used as natural remedies. He told us a great deal about Jamaican history and culture. His depth of knowledge was huge and it was obvious he really enjoyed telling us. He finished off by taking us to Rick’s café. He left us there for about three hours to have some food and watch the amazing sunset, then took us back to the hotel.

One missed photo opportunity was the best business sign I have ever seen. The Scrub-a-dub car wash and strip club. Someone else managed to get a shot of it though.

We spent the majority of the nights sat around the bar at our hotel. The beer was excellent, the Margaritas were lethal and the crack was brilliant. More about the Bob Marleys later. From our bar stools we could see the nightly entertainment. This normally sends us running for the nearest taxi, but this time it was great. I especially enjoyed watching the Americans make complete twats of themselves.

The Bob Marley. This drink can be drunk on fire through a straw, or just as a straight shot. Take one shot glass and pour a small amount of Grenadine in the bottom. On top of that, very slowly, pour a similar amount of Crème De Menthe. The Crème De Menthe should float on the Grenadine. The third layer of the Rasta coloured drink is a generous measure of Jamaican rum, Appleton’s is best in my opinion. I tried them both on fire and straight, but if you want to remember anything I suggest you leave out the flame and don’t drink too many.

During the second week I tried scuba diving. Twenty metres below the surface of the Caribbean sea, kneeling on the seabed with a huge coral reef to my right and some of the most amazing fish just wandering about, not in the slightest bit bothered by our being there. It was one of the coolest things I’ve done. I was underwater for about thirty five minutes and it felt like five. I want another go.

All things considered I would go back tomorrow and would recommend Jamaica to anyone.

Check out the pictures here.

During one of many conversations about music with mikewhositsoposite, whilst we are supposed to be working, my oppo’ declared that “all 80s music is shite”. I couldn’t let this go without a fight, so listed below are ten songs from the penultimate decade of the twentieth century that, whilst not making my all-time top ten, are actually decent songs.

Not in any particular order.

1981 - George Harrison - All those years ago.
George’s tribute to John featured the three remaining Beatles.  Haunting lyrics and a class tune, not his best but still a good song.

1989 - B52s - Love shack.
The ultimate summer song. I defy anyone not to feel happy when they hear it.

1984 - Smiths - Please please please, let me get what I want.
Morrissey and Marr at their very best. Awesome lyrics and truly great music, this song does make it into my all-time top 10.

1983 - Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing.
Marvin wrote this song in Ostende in 1981, I was in Ostende in 81 on the pull. Coincidence ? I don’t think so. This is a great song for the end of party smooch. It’s obviously highly influential  when you see how many people have covered it.

1984 - Frankie goes to Hollywood – Relax.
A brilliant dance tune, still as good today as it was then. It would make this list just for pissing off radio 1 do-gooder Simon Mayo.

1986 - Peter Gabriel - In your eyes.
One of the best love songs ever, and featured in one of the best scenes in an 80s movie. John Cussack and his boom box in “Say anything”. Great song.

1984 - U2 - Pride (in the name of love).
The best U2 song, from their best album. Great bass line, and like a lot of U2 stuff a bit preachy, but still a great song.

1984 - Echo and the Bunnymen - The killing moon.
Pure 1980s, self indulgent and brilliant. It got a new lease of life after being on the soundtrack to Donny Darko. Great big 80s sound.

1985 - Brian Adams - Summer of ‘69.
This is a great song for the car, very nostalgic it makes you think of better times, summer and sex and lost youth. Put this on in the car and you’ll be singing along at the top of your lungs.

1987 - The Cure - Just like heaven.
Another sing-along song from one of Britain’s most underrated bands. Great lyrics and brilliant music.