Charlie Brooker must be the only man in England who isn’t completely full of shit. If I had my own TV show, then ‘Screenwipe’ is what I’d want it to be like: smart *and* stupid, scathing, funny, informative, entertaining.
And when he swears, he puts some fucking weight behind it, yeah? Behold the master at the top of his game –
A Thing of Beauty: Charlie Brooker’s full-blooded swears rip through those bleeps like a rikishi piling into a shoji.
There’s been a bit of an escalation recently in my ongoing chemical warfare against the house’s resurgent flea population. Unfortunately, despite dousing everything in generous lashings of pyrethrin, some of the little fuckers evidently didn’t get the memo, and they’re still happily sproinging about the place in the unseasonal winter sunshine.
So it’s back to hand-to-hand (ie fingernail-to-resin) combat. Today’s tally amounted to 2 dozen fleas, 3 mosquitoes, and — for fuck’s sake — a leech. All this before breakfast.
The leech was a bugger to kill (popped, squished and diced, since you ask), and it was also something of a rarity. Occasionally I’ve encountered the odd Hirudinean straggler outside in the damper corners of the yard, swaying and waving its paws around like some demented Christian mystic as it ‘quests’ like a tick for its next blood meal. But this is only the second time I’ve seen one in the house — the first time was a couple years ago when I caught one doing laps in the bathtub.
Seriously though, this is getting silly. What the fuck will it be next? A plague of fracking vampires?
Apparently this is supposed to be good for you. Welcome to the 14th century 3rd millenium.
Today in Rupert Murdoch’s Times, there’s a heartfelt open letter from 100 media luminaries lamenting the UK’s 98 million ‘illegal’ downloads in 2007 while simultaneously boasting that the production of pictures and TV ‘comprises 7 per cent of the total economy, and is growing faster than any other sector’; and that their glorious industry ‘employs tens of thousands in the UK’s creative sector, attracts foreign direct investment, wins awards and creates billions in revenue.’
Of course, they fail to consider that there just might be some kind of synergy here. No. They just want all the bad interwebs to be stopped and all the nice dosh to keep flowing in.
And they’re so convinced that they’re right that they’re demanding this madness be enforced by law.
And oh dear, there’s people whose work I admire on this list, even if they are all socialists — Richard Curtis, Kenneth Branagh, Jim Sheridan, Mike Leigh, Lynne Ramsey, Alan Parker, Terry Jones for fuck’s sake, and even poor mad Ken Loach. But screw that. If a thriving industry and billions of pounds isn’t enough for them, then they can fuck off and Diana Fire along with all the other signatories.
And lest we forget: kudos to all those unsung media luminaries who were asked but who didn’t sign up to this batshit insanity.
One thing about Ken Loach is that at least he walks the fucking walk. So I’d like to think that he might have signed the petition by mistake, thinking it was for something else.
What’s the first thing you think of when I say the word ‘chess’?
Oh, OK. Well, how about this: What’s the first thing you think of when I say the word ‘business’?
Really? So you don’t see any connection between chess and business? Well, you can fuck off then, because this is our concept and we’re sticking with it.
Yet more evidence that the Chinese ‘thinking way’ (想法) is even more inscrutable than you ever suspected.
