Yearly Archives: 2007
Rant: 2012 Olympics Carnival Goes Critical
Insane!
That’s the only adjective to describe today’s news in the Evening Standard (and briefly on the Beeb before it seemed to mysteriously vanish!) that “The organisation in charge of keeping the costs of the 2012 Olympics down is to receive a £10 million bonus in recognition of its success”.
OK…let’s just rewind slightly…
Did I imagine it or isn’t the Olympic budget currently under scrutiny – largely because the estimated cost has exploded to a gobsmacking £9.3 billion – more than 4 times the original estimate (with 5 years still to run)?
+12Rave: NOT a stairLIFT to Heaven!
Well…last night’s Led Zep gig was a bummer to miss (even with all the anti-touting procedures) and on the whole the reviews are pretty good.
The video clip on the Beeb’s website looked awesome.
Gone of course is Robert Plant’s screaming vocal, and from all accounts the band’s more legendary excesses have been replaced with requests for cups of tea. But the band doesn’t seem to have lost any of it’s showmanship and raw, growling sound.
Jimmy Page’s recent finger injury seems to have recovered well and he certainly proved that his talent remains undiminished by time. Likewise, John Paul Jones’ amazing musical versatility has definitely improved with age and Jason Bonner did his dad proud.
*sigh* wish I was THERE.
+14Rant: Religious Sensibilities gone Mad
After the fiasco in Sudan where a teacher has been jailed for 15 days for calling a class teddy bear “Muhammad”, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon too…by starting a new worldwide religion (after all, if L.Ron Hubbard can do it then so can I).
This new religion (which I shall call “Methylated Spiritualism”) will consider the following social groups, items and practices as sacrilegious:-
+21Goin’ Underground
Now that I’m back into the whole London commute thing after a prolonged absence, I’m pleased to see that while a few aspects of the whole rail network have improved, some things are just as I remember them.
But it’s too nice a day to go through the whinge list so instead I browsed around the web and came up with the following ditties, all of which are good for a Friday larf.
+12HMRC Database Fiasco – you couldn’t make it up!
In a recent post, I asked if Americans were truly the most stupid people on the planet.
They may well be, but when it comes to incompetence, it appears that some folks here in Britain are not far behind, at least in the “Whoops! Apocalypse” stakes.
And at least the American morons tend to do us all the dual favours of:
+23Are (some) Americans the most stupid people on the planet?
Posit: How can a country that has given (or made major contributions to) so many technological marvels to the world also be capable of producing morons in ever-increasing numbers and seemingly ever more stupid?
Especially when there are lots of firearms lying about the place.
Take the recent case of the 66 year old man from Washington who injured himself in both legs after attempting to loosen a stiff wheel-nut…by blasting it with his shotgun.
+15Rant: Big Brother lives
An interesting article on the Beeb’s website in which Ministers have played down reports that compulsory ID cards for all Britons are to be scrapped has filled me with hope.
In politics there is a kind of “reverse spin” that seems to be applied whenever MP’s are looking for a way to back out of bad legislation proposals without losing too much face. One of the ways they do this is to insist that plans are proceeding or (the real giveaway) start to “play down” reports of whatever. See the words “play down” and in most cases you can be assured that the legislation being proposed is doomed.
+20