December 2004 Archives

In February 2004 teenagter Stefan Pakeerah was stabbed to death by a friend. Pakeerah's father blamed the videogame ManHunt for the killer's actions. No link between the game and the killing was established in court.

Now Pakeerah is suing the game's maker RockStar North over the incident.

In the spirit of Christmas harmony, I thought it appropriate to send a message to Mr Pakeerah: Money will not bring back your son. The videogame was cleared of any part in the incident. The only reason you could POSSIBLY be persuing this claim is in the hope of screwing a few quid out a company un-connected with your son's death - while you're atit why not sue the council for providing the park or the knife company for making the weapon while you're at it?

Happy New Year Mr Pakeerah, should you persue the action and win, I hope the money chokes you, you greedy son-of-a-bitch. Obviously the cash means more to you than anything else. I hope it makes you utterly miserable.

England! Home to two thousand years of world history. England! Once one of the most respected military and diplomatic powers ever seen. England! Scene of tens-of-thousands of pissed-up people who once a year don party hats and disrupt normal office life by reviving an arcane practice known only to a few hallowed souls as … "Secret Santa".

Yes folks it's Christmas time once again, time to celebrate the end of the old year and the start of the new, time to reflect on how much turkey it's possible to cram into the average distended belly and most of all time to "thank God it's them instead of yoooooooooou" (will there ever be an end to Band Aid ??)

'Tis currently the night-before the night-before-Christmas and looking out of the window I can see office workers everywhere with hope on their faces (and some with a bit of cake too by all accounts). But it's not the hope that Santa will bring toys to all the good girls and boys, more the hope that Amex and Visa won't realise they've massively overspent on their credit cards and present them with an indigestion inducing bill rather than the Rolls Royce they were hoping for.

What is it, I wonder, that makes people so bloody happy? I for one have a 120 mile trip home round the M25 ahead of me tomorrow before I face the holiday period and I would like nothing more than to spend it smashed off my face and surrounded by good-looking, nubile bisexual women who all want a nibble of my Christmas Log before they set about each other … or something.

Anyways, in celebration of the end of the year, here's a handful of things that always cause me to reflect on the spirit of Christmas …

1. Why is turkey the traditional dish of the day on December 25? I've read the bible stories many times and seem to remember the three wise men bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus - not a couple of slices of breast, some parsnips and a helping of chestnut stuffing.
   
2. Egg nog - WHY?
   
3. When the three wise men (see #1) had delivered their gifts to the King of Kings, did they nip off round the back of The Innâ„¢ and get off with a bird called Sharon who was on her office party from the Roman Office of Forced Relocation?
   
4. Is there a world record for the longest period of time the pointy bits that fall off Xmas trees can hide in interesting crevices around the living room?
   
5. Why aren't sales of socks, ties and slippers banned during the month of December?
   
6. Could someone please explain to all those blank-faced people who drive around supermarket car parks on Christmas Day that the shops are CLOSED and they'll just have to do without that tin of dried tomatoes/pickled chilis/spam that seemed so important when they woke up.
   
7. Cat shit still smells on Christmas Day (see earlier postings for cat excrement-related musings)
   
8. I really don't have to wear a paper crown from a cracker to enjoy myself. Also, I will not swap my glass monkey for your pathetic thimble and don't think about stealing it while I'm puking egg nog down the lavatory.
   
9. You can see the Two Ronnies on any given day of the year - really!!
   
10. Boxing Day is so named because by December 26th couples across the country would rather punch the living daylights out of each other than spend another minute listening to Auntie Marge tell everyone what a bastard Uncle Frank is while granddad quietly wees himself all over the new sofa.
    

Footnote: For the record, I'll be spending the latter part of Xmas and New Year in Las Vegas and if I don't get the nubile, good-looking bisexual ladies I asked Santa for, I'll damn-well buy some for a couple of hours!!! After all, I have been a Very. Good. Boy. This year …

I am currently sitting in the living room of a company house, deep in the heart of Cambridge. CSI is on TV and a rat just crawled out of the mouth of a corpse.

The rat I can stand, but what;s really getting on my proverbials is quite possibly the world's most irritating advertisement. Brit readers might have seen it, it tries to sell mobile phone ringtones, and one in particular that's so utterly, utterly, utterly irritating I now want to smash the television in.

It's that BLOODY MOTORCYCLE-NOISE-MAKING FROG. Now, Im an animal lover – I give to animal charities, I'm owned by three catsand Wibbly Pig rocks but that bloody frog makes me want to commit murder – and it's not even real!

So, if you read in the news of any frog-related homicides in the Cambridge area, it wasn't me. No way. Not ever. I wasn't there officer, honest ...

And while I'm on the subject of things that really piss me off – how about those Seikhs in Birmingham who didn't like a play that was on at the local theatre, so they held a mini “protest” that saw property damaged and three police officers injured?

Obviously, it's totally illegal to say anything inflammatory about the situation so let me say hurrah little Seikh fellas, good work on proving that you can get whatever you want, however you want, as long as you can claim it upsets your religion. It makes me feel so good inside to know that the ordinary people of the UK have no right to say or do anything that offends you personally or your religion.

Actually, it reminds me of a song lyric from “You Can't Bring Me Down” by Suicidial Tendencies:

Have I offended you?
Oh I'm sorry but maybe you need to be offended,
Well here's my apology and one more thing -
FUCK YOU

Should I wait to see if this blog gets surrounded by Seikhs in the next few days ?

Hoorah! it seems the great British public have come to their senses and finally realised what the Internet is all about. A survey published today by ISP Homecall shows that 23% of all Britons who are signing up for broadband accounts are doing so in order to download porn faster!!!

So while the Americans are idealists, the French surrealists and the Germans elitists it seems the Brits are total realists.

And for any porn surfing Brits who fell over my site by accident, here's a list of must-have titles to set your broadband connection buzzing ...

* Sperms of Endearment * Romancing the Bone * On Golden Blonde * The Loin King * Schindler's Fist * The Bone Ranger

An open entry to all overweight Americans ...

Dear Fatty, Please eat less cream buns and stop breaking our ships ...

[From the Herald Sun Online edition]

DOZENS of seats on the world's most luxurious cruise liner have collapsed under the weight of obese American passengers. The chairs -- on the Queen Mary 2 -- are being replaced or repaired. The seating is mainly in the bar and restaurant areas.

A spokesman said: "There are some problems with the chairs because some of our passengers are heavier than we imagined.

"It's not an English problem, it's probably more American."

Facts about the Queen Mary 2 * The QM2 is three times heavier than the Titanic. *  the QM2 has been constructed from steel twice as thick as that of a battlecruiser ... AND ... * With a gross tonnage of 150,000 tonnes, the QM2 is built to withstand the harshest weather the Atlantic can throw at it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be able to stand the harshest arse that America can throw at it!! - and does the phrase "gross tonnage" refer to the ship or to the blobs of lard that sail on her? On the other side of the coin, I suppose if it did a Titanic, all the skinny Brits would flounder and die but the Americans would simply float away like water-borne weebles.

I can see it now :

"My name's Clark Rosenzeigenstockenheim and I'm reporting live for WAN-Q TV news from the beaches of New England, where the latest in a series of disaster victims has just washed up on shore.

"The survivor, named by authorities as 28-year old Frank Lardbag, was rolled into the back of a reinforced anbulance and taken to a local hospital for treatment, a burger and super-sized coke. Coastguards say Mr Lardbag, a professional guzzler from Missouri, survived by eating his own cheeks for the three months he was cast adrift.

"Emergency services, who carried out extensive searches of the Eastern seaboard twice missed him after he was mistaken for a stray lump of pack ice drifting down from the North Pole.

"Officials say the injured man is a shadow of his former self and it will take several hours to regain the 15 stones he lost during his ordeal.

"A spokesman for  Mr Lardbag said the survivor would definitely sue over the incident, but during the short trip to hospital he could only come up with a list of around 15,000 names ..."

Hoorah for the crazy Welsh! Not only do they have a strange affinity for sheep, it seems they also have a talent for avoiding  paying their TV licenses (for all you non-Brits it's a tax you have to pay just for owning a television set, or radio).

According to a report released today, some of the more "interesting" excuses for not having a license include:

1. "No, that's not a TV you can hear in the background, it's a tape of adverts I play to entertain the children." 2. "The TV is to keep the cat warm - we don't watch it." 3. "That's not the Weakest Link in the background. Anne Robinson is a friend who is visiting for tea."

Wholly impressive, I'm sure you'll agree. However, some of last years choice excuses are even better !

1. "Just because I have a satellite dish on my house, doesn't mean I've got a TV - I've got two pints of milk on my doorstep, but no cow in my garden." 2. "God told me I must buy the television as he had a very important message for me - he didn't tell me to buy a license though." 3. "You'll never get me in court, I'll say I'm insane and pretend to be a helicopter."

So ladies and gentlemen, let's raise a glass during the Yule tide season to the Welsh. Possibly the only race in the world who make the French look like lunatics ...

Odd things that spring to mind at 2.30am:

Does Fidel Castro make New Year Revolutions ?

Insomnia strikes yet again, which is why I'm still here at 5am - I've been sitting in front of my PC since lunchtime (yesterday!) so I guess yo ucould call it a pretty hardcore session.

In the intervening time I have re-designed WorldOfCrussell and added a new section, namely a sharp dig at the UK Government's ever-so-helpful leaflet on what to do in case of a "major incident" ie terror attack, earthquake or accidental re-run of CrossRoads on ITV.

If you're interested, go here.

Other than that it's pretty quiet really *sigh*. I'm currently backing up a gazillion megs of data from my hard drives and waiting for breakfast time so my body can then decide it's tired and I can remain comatose for the rest of the day.

Dull eh ?

FINALLY ... the Internet comes up with some information that's actually educational.

Here's P.J O'Rourke's 1979 essay on How to drive fast on drugs while getting your wing-wang squeezed and not spill your drink.

It's so much more fun to read then the dismal document the UK government sent to every home in the country telling us what to do if there's a terrorist attack.