Because everyone needs a real-life Garfield in their life.

Best feline obesity photo ever.

Post 84 - sponsored by something or other.

Can't help but vent my irritation that on leaving the telly on while I try to make a wage filling out surveys about Smirnoff vodka, I was unexpectedly contributing to the ratings of Big Bang Theory and some cutting edge' bollocks on C4+1 with that one with the hair from McFly and standard soul-destroying T4 presenters.

However, it was not the poor quality of the programming permeating my subconcious and almost definitely damaging my psyche that bothered me so, it was the fact that upon checking what the hell I was watching after some twat in a pink hoodie and scrunchie came bounding on stage rapping to Ian Van Dahl or some other instantly-recognisable Balearic noise, I was disgusted to discover that legally, a programme on a terrestrial channel can be named after a fast food chain semi-frozen drink.

The offending programme, called The Crush with KFC Krushems (don't even get me started on deliberately incorrect spelling for kitsch value or I'll end up passed out in a pool of blood with some poor fast food marketing manager's larynx in my tightly closed fist) and it seems to be showcasing a number of music never-has-beens and primary school children with drumkits.

Oh, and "comedy legend" [which must be used as a prefix by law now] Ricky Gervais is a guest, needed for his expertise in Biffy Clyro, no doubt.

Right, its 1.38 and I need some E45 for the self-inflicted laptop burn I've caused from lack of movement for the last 12 hours. Should probably change the channel on the Virgin box so I don't get pissed off by accident in the morning when I turn the telly back on.

Wicz Hunt

I've been awakened from a 3-month long coma by the Boxing Day furore caused by Peter Serafinowicz and the 'world's worst joke on Twitter'. As I write this, the outrage rolls on, without so much as a sniff of the original tweet that caused the uproar.

Funnily enough, it seems there are hundreds of people out there who are disgusted at his behaviour, a worrying indictment of where entertainment and censorship is heading if the Daily Mail readers have their way. 99%, however are chewing their own hands off in anticipation and curiosity about what simple words could have possibly caused such a volatile reaction.

And here's the rub - this is a superbly-orchestrated hoax. Well-played Peter, although I can't help but think society has lost on this one.

God probably killed a kitten to make up for this.

Lovely.

Tommy Wiseau will act like a retarded dolphin for cash.

Tommy Wiseau, famously terrible director of The Room released his newest short film on Comedy Central in the early hours today. It's called The House that Dripped Blood on Alex and is as bollocks as the title. Instead, I've coined it The Mong that Got Lucky and Made Another Wank Film that Isn't Even Funny Like the First One. Ok, could do with some work but it's 11.15 and I'm eager to get this article done.

Great idea, get a shite director who made a shite film that was meant to be good but ended up being funny to make a horror film that's meant to be shite and funny and is shite but not funny. Wait, does that work? Maybe it does. I haven't a fucking clue anymore.

Oh, then Joey Greco from Cheaters shows up and I have to put down my pizza in digust. Seriously, the guy's a greasy freak. Even more than Tommy Wiseau, who looks and sounds like Christopher Walken after brain death.

The House That Drips Blood On Alex
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It's better because it's looped.

For me, his wife's expression is a remarkable insight.

Apathy

So here I am, sat with nothing on telly and nothing to do, chomping at the bit for bedtime. It's around these times that I start to think 'I need to write in that fucking blog', but more importantly learn some uncomfortable truths about my own state of mind.

Allow me to make myself clear; I am suffering with fever but I feel mentally sound enough to speak with clarity and coherence. Finding something to do can take hours, and then I'll never get that early night I've been planning for about 7 years. As I begin to wonder how to spend my time in a way that isn't 'wasteful', I inadvertently waste that time. All that comes out of this pattern of behaviour is an overly warm laptop and bitten nails.

More worrying is my fussiness over how to spend my time. When not watching 'an important film', reading Russian literature or learning a language/instrument, I begin panicking that I'm wasting good learning time, and ultimately, that I won't know enough 'stuff' before I die.

This pattern of behaviour has led to countless hobbies, soon my knowledge of the Swedish language will be additioned by 'guitar lessons'. All of this recklessly expensive, and most likely a selfish endeavour to make myself more cultured and interesting to the other folk.

True, this article doesn't take the same format to most other entries, although it has to be said that 'a funny vid I found on that website' isn't a format in the strictest sense. Even now, I'm hoping that finishing this article will expand my knowledge in some way, improve me as a human being.

Next: Finish a Dostoevsky, learn to use Ableton Live, improve my French and groom the cat. Life is meaningless without a 'to do' list.

Dim.

Absolutely brilliant little gem here with Sky News' resident wanker Kay Burley taking a beating from an MP re: phone hacking scandal. Seeing as her boss has a vested interested in the scandal involving the News of the World, it's hardly surprising that Kay attempts to derail the argument with her usual tactics.

However Chris Bryant is fully readied for the interview and turns the situation into a fascinating exchange between the two.



I was shocked, it even makes Chris Bryant come across as 'likeable'.

Indeterminate Sexual Preference.

This is cool, I think.

See You Next Tuesday.

Welcome to Peckham.

Joke.

M. Night Shyamalan has mentioned in the past that his 'European sensibilities' are the reason a lot of Americans don't 'get' his films.

So it's not that they're just getting steadily less recognisable as coherent sources of entertainment?

Unfortunately his recent efforts have proved that he is clearly clutching at straws. Cheese straws if his comments are to be believed. If you're really so in tune with Britain, why would you call your most recent film The Last Airbender?

Oh Manny, don't lean on us Brits for support. We hated The Village, we mocked The Happening and we don't know what happened in The Lady in the Water, but it's probably not worth knowing.

Shyamalan's latest film was met with giggles and smirks, until the dialogue got too much for audiences who broke down in hysterics. Can you blame us with corkers like this?

"I could tell at once that you were a bender, and that you would realise your destiny."

If you expect anything other than blatant laughter after that, you're expecting too much.


I like to look at this and think that this might be the moment after they told him.

The killer blow for Shyamalan, however, came from his lead actor, the British Dev Patel. When asked why he didn't mention that 'bender' is a slang term for 'homosexual' to him at SOME POINT during the filming process, he simply said that it was 'too integral' to the dialogue.

Is that just a diplomatic way of saying 'cause it'd be a laugh'?

Euthanasia

So... what in shitting hell was Grandma's House?

I say this, ironically, as someone who has seen two episodes with no plans to stop. It's one of the weirdest phenomenon's I've experienced with such a sub-par sitcom.

Now the writing isn't as bad as most people think, I can kind of see where they're coming from:

"Remember the 'Royle Family'? Let's just do that, but give them money, make them Jewish, and force Simon Amstell to act at gunpoint. If he makes any attempt at anything other than twatty smugness, blow his face off.'

And to be honest, it sort of works, but not in the way they expected. The script ticks all the boxes to get a BBC commission (it seems ex. NMTB presenters and contestants are mandatory nowadays in all broadcasts), but ends up just being one of the most appalling examples of a sitcom I've ever seen. And this statement should not be taken lightly; I've spent a lot of my youth watching ITV.

However, that's not to say that it's not enjoyable. I cannot deny the significant entertainment that is derived from watching a leading actor so out of his depth. And when you consider that 'out of his depth' equates to playing himself, all the more the joy. I would even venture to say that the episodes are made up of nothing but outtakes due to spending hours trying to convince him that he should probably try and pretend the camera isn't there, then thinking 'oh fuck it, it's only braindead Simon Amstell fanboys watching this shit anyway'.

And don't even get me started on the approach to the darker subjects, which creep into the scenes like an elephant clambering through their double-glazed patio doors. The words 'prostate cancer' are thrown around in increasingly frequency, only being met with a blank stare from a vacant ex T4 presenter. I just don't know what it all means, and I'm not sure I want to. Talk of 'bagels' as a vague reference to an unknown racial slur, just came across as deeply unsettling rather than awkwardly funny.



Something that keeps me coming back to this, however, is the thought I can't shake off that the writers are more clever than we realise. Simon is playing (supposedly) an alternative version of himself, a Larry David of sorts, but ends up revealing that he is probably not that different from the character he's playing after all.

Vacuous, narcisstic and unable to fathom any conversation that isn't aided by an autocue. Is this a sitcom? Seems to me like we're a fly on the wall watching a fascinatingly ironic personality car crash.

Leffe-Tennant

I am repeatedly reminded of my own naivety when I express my dismay at articles in 'newspapers' such as the Daily Mail. Moreover, the thing that shocks me most is the placement and precedence of these non-stories.

Move aside, sodden Pakistanis, one of OUR BOYS couldn't even get booze at his Co-Op!

So thousands dead in the worst floods in decades is dutifully bumped for a story of no interest to anyone. Except everyone, it seems.

For anyone not familiar, a soldier visiting his local Co-Op in uniform attempted to purchase some beer, but was turned away by two members of staff who had confused the rule about not serving police officers in uniform, and applied it to the soldier. Even typing this has become rather tedious so I'll move swiftly on without further ado.

So about 4 minutes after getting wind of the story, the Daily Mail has some sort of massive journalistic orgasm and immediately turns this gentleman into some kind of national hero.

I can taste the irony from here.

But the thing that worries me here, or rather, terrifies me to the core of my deepest soul, is not that publications like the Daily Mail leap on these stories with such rabid intensity, but the frenzy they whip up in the warped individuals that lurk on these shadowed pages.




Wow, 3 comments and nothing about 'the bloody Muslims yet'. Or... fuck:




Actually, maybe I'm being dramatic. There must be worse out there than the Daily Mail. Oh, wait! Here it is:


According to verified mentalists, both Co-Op employees were soldier-hating, anti-war, Islamic suicide bombers. Currently claiming JSA and council houses, so I hear.

It's been 4 days and still the saga carries on. Can someone just buy this man a beer so we can have 'the news' back?

PhuckD.

The absence of Twitter for three days whilst abroad last weekend finally ended as I touched down on the grim tarmac at London's very own Aldi of airports, Stansted. I'm so glad I chose that moment to load Tweetdeck, as I felt genuinely pleased to catch the first rumbles of what would become a massive PR storm, complete in a popular social broadcasting teacup.

After a fairly innocuous comment from a relative unknown regarding their anticipation of watching the new Bad Science episode featuring Gillian "That Awful Poo Lady" McKeith, she was subjected to no less than 4 (unanswered) attacks by McKeith after she took offence the 'no PhD' remark at the end of the original tweet.


Cue the Twitter bandwagon phenomenon and hey presto, #gillianmckeithhasnophd is trending. Now, this is where it gets interesting.

Unable to deal with the subject gracefully, McKeith has been backpedalling furiously (must be the alfalfa) and resorting to anything to try and make this ugly mess go away. Except for retraction, of course. Starting to make herself come across as slightly unhinged, Gillian has begun to make comments in the third person and even tried to deny owning the profile. It's all very embarrassing really, especially as pedestrians like this bright spark have managed to screengrab evidence of the page being official. She's also blocking anyone who mentions the infamous PhD, including Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science, referring to him as an 'ass' and 'liar'.

Unfortunately, McKeith's eagerness to defend her PhD has only shed more light on the dubious nature of her doctorate, which was bought from a non-accredited U.S. college. In fact, Goldacre even managed to buy the same degree for $60. For his cat. Which is dead.


I don't know about you, but I felt comfortable with making a judgement call on Gillian before this event even occurred. Oh well, poo-gate rolls on.

What Women Want.

Holy shit, it's a total Meldown. That infamous phonecall just went online, so here's a quickly-downloaded copy of it before the legal team get their hands on the YouTube vids milling around.

As torrents of abuse go, it's pretty all-encompassing, although his trouble breathing between sentences probably renders him impotent when trying to carry out his threats.

Warning: not suitable for normal people, but if you're a returning visitor, you're probably not in that category anyway.

iPrick.

Traversing the perils of Oxford Street on Thursday was somewhat more precarious than usual as I dodged swathes of rather desperate-looking individuals queuing for the new iPhone4.

Out of the loop as I am, I assumed that no event could cause such frenzied behaviour other than a revival of the old 'methadone at Boots' rehabilitation programmes, except this time taking place at the Carphone Warehouse. Young and self-assured city boys looked eager and alert, whilst older, balding men peered at me through weary and bloodshot eyes, conveying a panic at the thought of failing in their hunter-gatherer task and meeting disapproval and ridicule from their colleagues and friends as a result.

Oh, what have we become?

What can be so good as to drive a man (and, it IS men, or men and their extremely irritated looking girlfriends) to queue from the wee hours of the morning to get one of these things first? Do the ends really justify the means?

There's probably a deeper question here about the way we as consumers are regularly coerced with the promise of adoration should we flash a handheld device more sophisticated than most can afford. And it seems that the luxury of being able to do this for the few days before the world catches on comes at the price of looking like a bit of a prick sitting on the pavement at 5am in a suit and tie. I wish I could laugh and find it entertaining, but I can't.

I own a 3G. I feel sick and uncool. I need to go and buy an iPad before I have a panic attack.

Demons.

I feel naive, like I'm discovering the wicked ways of the world tragically too late. After the seismic activity surrounding 'Bigotgate', I stupidly thought that a news story surrounding a popular Tory MP conducting 'cure sessions' for homosexuals would be considered news for the major tabloids.



Unfortunately for those who regard rampant homophobia within the Conservatives as in the public interest, searches for 'Philippa Stroud' ended in 0 results on the following websites:

News of the World
The Sun
The Express
The Daily Mail
The Telegraph
BBC
Channel 4

It appears only the Guardian and the Independent are acknowledging this story exists at all. As a result I feel lost and alone in a world too large for me, desperately hugging my copy of yesterday's Guardian, my tears marking a trail in the rapidly fading newsprint.

Of course, there is light in all of this, maybe that stuff about the Tories being in the lead isn't true after all. And besides, with this being the first election with genuinely strong social networking between the young in things of this matter, they haven't felt the full force of the Twitter hammer yet.

So here's my threat, vote Tory and I'll block you from my Facebook.

Bikinis don't cause paedos... paedos do.

It has been almost impossible to avoid the Sun's very own 'Paedogeddon', even if you (like me) try and avoid it at all costs. Walking past a newsagents every day this week, my retinas have been scorched by MASSIVE EMBOLDENED BLACK TEXT containing helpfully abbreviated words for the small-minded or intellectually underdeveloped. Over 50% of the words used in this week's headlines have been 'paedo'. Second to that is 'bikini', with one headline simply 'Paedo-bikini banned'.



Sorry, what? A bikini for paedophiles? I'm sorry, it's just when you abbreviate so much that you miss out important facts, people like myself who are literate have trouble understanding what the fuck is going on.

Apparently Primark, bastion of good quality and highly sophisticated apparel as it is, has been helpfully busted by the Sun selling padded bikinis that could possibly maybe be worn by [a slim adult] or a child. Whether you're the kind of parent who wants to dress their child like a whore is no concern of mine, but where do the paedo bits come in? I sometimes feel that the p-word is somewhat of a failsafe for the Sun, who seem to have developed some form of Tourette's through fond love of hunting out paedophiles that only exist in the warped and twisted minds of the editors.

The thing I can't quite fathom is how exactly these items of clothing attract paedophiles. As logic suggests, if you are of that persuasion, surely, that's just how it is? A padded bra or a short skirt is not likely going to push a normal person to that way of thinking, similarly to someone who aims to prey on a child, isn't the dress irrelevant?

Or could it be that the Sun is once again desperately seeking a campaign in order to unite a bunch of primates in hatred against a group of people that evidence suggests do not even exist?

I guess it must be a slow news week, what with the volcanic eruption, the closure of UK airspace, and the election. It's no wonder they've dug out the 'paedo' file.

Feeling better?

I fucking love this video. Directed by Peter Serafinowicz and starring Ross Lee as radioactive Mr Burns. Not to mention lasers and mass genocide as well, which are always important.



I'd like to see JLS die in this manner. But that's a personal thing.

Dear George, take your money and fuck off please.

Yours sincerely, FILM.

Star Wars reminds me of a lovable pet. A family friend and companion. However, some way into its promising life it was taken out back and shot in the head for corporate greed. Then its body was beaten out of recognition with sticks, stones and cuddly toy franchises until it liquidified into a puddle of over-commercialised viscous fluid.

Now the rotten and stinking remains of the corpse have been uncovered and put on display again as Lucas announces he is bringing back Star Wars. No, not the marauding Avatar-envying 3D bastard, that was 4 whole minutes ago. It's the animated series for pre-school children.

I'm sure now you understand the convoluted metaphor used earlier and saw that it was good. There are two working titles at present, which are Star Wars: Galactic Heroes and Squishies. The latter seems to be a reference to the soft toy empire made completely without irony by a man convinced that the world needs more milk from a cow that died in the mid-eighties. Maybe also because Lucas is running out of post-colon suffixes for Star Wars.


Photographic evidence suggests that the profits from new Star Wars bastardisations are being stored in Lucas' chin; his 'moolah pouch', if you will.



My personal belief is that in an ironic twist of fate, he's becoming allergic to his own franchises, and will die as his mouth and nose are swallowed up by his own grotesquely swollen throat after 11 long years of slow anaphylaxis.

Ill.

On the rare occasions I am able to indulge in the satisfying, yet completely nutrition-free delights of morning talk shows, I am often surprised how much they've changed in my absence.

Jeremy Kyle, Giro Overlord is celebrating his 1000th show this week by incorporating a new show feature in order to assist the poor, vulnerable and emotionally stunted to get their lives back on the straight and narrow.

Somehow, the man has convinced two medical professionals to perform anything from blood tests to ultrasounds on guests to determine if they are pregnant, alcoholics or terminally ill. All this on stage in front of a live studio audience. One poor fucker was forced to stare at his self-inflicted liver damage on a monitor, whilst simultaneously being derided and humiliated by a twat perched on a step like some kind of cross between Jesus Christ and David Cameron.

Another girl had to undergo similar treatment in order to test for pregnancy. I can only thank god they decided to go for an (expensive and unnecessary) ultrasound, rather than getting the poor bitch to piss on a stick on national television.



Is this the beginning of the end for our healthcare system? Trading our dignity for essential medical treatment? It's this kind of thing that makes me thank Christ I'm with BUPA.

Fuxed.

Out of sheer morbid curiosity I have spent the last few months searching for that infamous Fox remake of Spaced, going even so far to stalk Edgar Wright on Twitter and persuade the already heartbroken young chap into handing over the link.

This evening purely through chance I was able to witness the damned thing. I thought I was prepared. I knew the concept was untransferrable to a US format as it was. I knew the performances would be pallid in comparison. I knew it was not for me. Now I know how those victims in The Ring felt. Frightened, confused and compelled, all to their demise.

It shakes me to my core that even a man who assigns himself a three-letter name with no vowels can fuck something up quite so badly. McG? McGimp. McGreatBigWankshaft. The list goes on. I take a number of issues with this whole thing. This will be a long article. Those who know me, know why.

Firstly, I am confused about this human's ability to call himself a fan. A man who effectively stole a format and the publicity of the creative team in order to further his piracy. Worse still, in an act of misogyny not out of place in... the Fox Network, denied all knowledge of Jessica Hyne (née Stevenson)'s creative influence.

On to the piece, I realise I am defending the genre with terminal intensity, however bastardisation would be an innappropriately mild way of describing this. Well, we have to trust this man's creative interpretation. He was the brains behind Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle after all. However, I am genuinely impressed with this gentleman's ability to strip away all the good bits and stick with... the dialogue. Snappy jump-cuts and ethereal imagery was well-replaced with a tram disappearing for no particular reason in a Friends-esque interlude, complete with a 4-second musical sting from the Rembrandts or some other 'commercially indie' bullshit. Turning Mike into a real-life Homer Simpson simplified to a love of doughnuts and guns (in that order) I'm sure was an effective way to get the fat jokes across to the salivating drones.

I can see where there would be difficulty conveying a platonic friendship between members of the opposite gender without marriage and children ensuing, so it has been duly simplified to make whoever the hell these people are hate each other but inexplicably live together. I guess it ticks enough boxes for the Christian Mothers association to not find fault at least. This remake is one of the most redundant examples of cross-Atlantic plagiarism I've seen since birth. The 'odd couple' pretence has been around for as long as The Odd Couple. The bare bones plot was not the point of the original, it only anchored the opportunity to push the boundaries of television. Now, like everything else is and will be, it has been reduced to stereotypical storylines, transparent and unlovable characters, and meaningless half-hour voids to fill our sorry lives.

Welcome, dear friends, to the world Fox and McG would have us live in. And worse still, this is what they describe as 'edgy'.





Support the independent arts or invest in a shotgun. You're going to need one of them.

Nom.

I'm tired, and it was this or the YouTube video with the Japanese cat in a business suit.

Are you a devout follower of the 3 second rule? Or is it 5 seconds? Are there mitigating circumstances? What about in front of a boss or someone you respect? Shit, this is a social minefield!

Luckily I have discovered a flow chart to help with this gastronomical dilemma.

To eat, or not to eat floorfood.



Oh fuck it, have the cat as well. It was quite cute.