|
BofDate – 31st May 2007
Once upon a time, the only place where rubbish was regularly
a hot potato was in the bins behind ‘Spud-U-Like’. But at the moment,
everyone’s talking rubbish – and we’re not talking about ill-informed, overly
opinionated views on the merits of immigration. No, were talking about local
authorities wanting you to bin less and recycle more. Now, the more
cynical/realistic realise that councils’ new-found environmental stance has
less to do with ice caps melting quicker than a toddlers 99 cornet, and more to
do with rubbish dumps filling up. And that’s your fault for thoughtlessly and
maliciously chucking things in the bin. In a bid to combat this, rubbish will
now only be collected fortnightly. Mmm…hygienic. The alternate week is recycling
week. Hooray for separating out your used sweepings and being socially
responsible! Unfortunately, many people are not on board with the idea of
saving the planet via the magic rinsed-out bean cans. The official Can’t Be
Arsed crew will find a plethora of reasons why it shouldn’t happen, all of
which boil down to a basic ‘because I’m an idle bastard’. The same people can
be seen turning their nose up at recycled paper, accompanied by the classic
‘Ughhh, I’m not using someone else’s used bog-roll’ line. This has fascinated
us at the BoF for some considerable time. Do the same people know of facilities
where it is possible to recycle toilet paper? There is no part of the sewage
treatment programme that we are aware of that is entitled ‘Fish out the shitty paper
to make some wine carriers’, or indeed a man who’s job title is ‘Chief
crap-trawler: Paper division’. Public conveniences do indeed not have a ‘brown
bin’ for recycling. In short, they don’t recycle toilet paper. Although the
merits of household recycling are obvious, there is one aspect of the whole
kerbside box process that can be a little difficult. Putting out your empties
is akin to a public shaming. If your night-time routing involves 8 cans of
Carling, or a perusal through The Daily Star accompanied by a tin of Asda
economy-cola, everyone in your street is going to know about it. Those members
of the public with a legitimate grievance about all of this should try playing
the council at their own game. Perhaps they can offer to pay their council tax
in money one month, and in radishes the next, thus ensuring that key members of
the Council are receiving adequate amounts of ascorbic acid, folic acid and
potassium. Of course, the council would have to collect the radishes
themselves. Every other Wednesday. Between the hours of 7am and 5pm.
A Dutch TV channel is to run a programme where the prize is
a human kidney for someone who desperately needs one. Whilst this all sounds
like innocent fun that in no way crosses the line between acceptable entertainment
and inhumane travesty, the makers of Big Brother must be thinking how they can
trump that. Perhaps three of the contestants can be injected with a flesh
eating disease and members of the public can vote for one of them to receive
the antidote! Maybe they could cut off a contestants legs and force vegetarian
housemates to choose between cannibalism and starvation! Maybe those jokers at
Big Brother will wait till the contestants are asleep before locking the doors
and starting a large fire! What’s more likely however is putting a dozen of the
country’s most unlikeable morons in a house for several weeks and watch them
emotionally capitulate of the course of several weeks. That’s entertainment,
apparently.
Iron Brew sausages are a reality and a good hangover cure
apparently. Perhaps someone can use one of that last remaining cans of Steven
Seagal’s Lightening Bolt energy drink (yes it is real, but sadly decommissioned
in January) to make a competitor.
BoFdate – 24th May 2007
For most, motoring is a necessary task. It’s not something
which people do for the unbridled joy of it, or to maliciously damage the
environment as some white people with dreadlocks would have you believe. You do
it, and by goodness do you pay for it. And coming soon to a town near you: road
pricing; where you pay to travel on the nation’s most exciting roads. It’s
funny, because we at The BoF were already convinced that a pay-as-you-drive
system was in place. When I handed over £40 to the unnecessarily chirpy
attendant at the petrol station, I did so knowing that two-thirds of it was
going straight into the taxman’s coffers. And in addition to fuel duty, there’s
road tax. When this was last up for renewal I ventured down to the post office
(online? Where’s the fun in that? I want the real-life experience of mingling
with moaning pensioners and browsing attractive holiday insurance offers) and
came in for a nasty shock. I handed over the reams of documentation deemed
necessary to tax ones car, awaiting the possibility of a DNA test or retina
scan. Just at the point where I’d become convinced I was to be sent to a
curtained-off booth with a plastic cup and a copy of Playboy, the lady behind
the counter seemed to suffer some kind of spasm. Pulling an expression usually
reserved for the death of a distant relative or family pet, she informed me
that “there’s been a budget y’know…it’s gone up y’know…you’ll need more money
(y’know)”. I resisted the temptation to throttle her with the ‘Please Q here’
rope and fight off the inevitable army of security guards and police by using
pens-on-chains as nunchucks. I handed over the cash and muttered quietly. The
point (remember that?) here is that we pay tax already. A lot of it. So why
should we pay more? Well, it seems we use our cars too much. Important people
need their cars to go to important places and crap people are blocking up the
roads in pursuit of the futile activities that fulfil their mundane lives. If
we tax all the crap people off the roads and onto the pavement/gutter etc. then
important people can carry on with their more worthwhile existence without
being inconvenienced. Of course, this could all be divine retribution, brought
about by God (or PM Brown as he likes to be called nowadays) for not being
nicer to each other on Britain’s
highways. It’s a jungle out there. Without tigers and tropical disease
obviously, but with mopeds and signs that say ‘no through road’. Anyway, it’s a
scary place. You may find yourself sat behind a dithering chappy at a junction
who fails to notice a change of the traffic lights. You offer the chappy a
friendly reminder by way of a short tootle on the horn or your car. Instead of
offering a slightly embarrassed ‘thank you’ and driving away, the driver will get
out of the car, Crook Lock in hand, and prepare to physically assault you for
pointing out his relative idiocy. Recently a motorcyclist attempted to kill
himself by pulling out in front of me without bothering to look. Unimpressed, I
gave him a honk of the horn which was cue for him to pull along side me, shake
his fist and offering to kill me. Henceforth, I’m mulling the safety campaign
stance of "THINK! Take longer to look for bikes – ensure you hit the
bastards". The road is an expensive place, both physically and
emotionally. Until the glorious day when we can all travel by solar-powered
hand gliders it will remain a costly experience for all involved.
They said it was a waste of money. They said I’d never see
it through. And they were right, but still I have the last laugh. ‘Building The
Cutty Sark’ was issued fortnightly and consisted of 120 issues. I may have only
made it to issue 16, but my version looks remarkably like the actual boat does
now…
Mars were forced to back down from their newly adopted role
as the purveyors of meatilicious chocolate bars. We at the BoF take only
partial credit for this, as modesty prevents us from taking all the credit we
deserve. Perhaps word will spread forth: anger The BoF, anger the people.
Perhaps.
BoFdate –
17th May 2007
Fresh off the back of last weeks Red Rum-in-a-bun horse meat
ramblings, Gordon Ramsay found a tonne of horse manure dumped at his door by
Friends of The Horse or someone like them. Not heeding the warning about not
messing with the animals-in-food balance this week were Mars. They’ve decided
that the world can survive no longer with chocolate that is suitable for
vegetarians, so they must, someway, somehow, cram some meaty goodness into
them. This is bad news as its not only Mars Bars that are now off limits for
veggies, but also Bounty Bars, Minstrels (the chocolate kind as oppose to
musicians from the middle ages, which we’re led to believe have been off limits
for a while) and Maltesers. It is the latter which will likely cause the
biggest ruckus. Maltesers are a big favourite of pathetic, lonely single
females - a demographic which accounts for 82% of vegetarians. The irony is
that Mars could not have chosen a worse time to make such a move. Never have
the public been so self-conscious about what they tuck into. Jamie Oliver has
kids goose-stepping to the fruit n’ veg aisle, everyone buys organic because ‘more
expensive = must be better for me’ and there are even reduced sugar Frosties.
Theyyyy’rrrre Grrrrrreeeaattt! Well, they’re OK. The point being the public is
being told to care about what it eats, so people will stand up and take notice.
In reply, Mars seem to think that the fact they’ve told the public about the
meaty additions means we owe them all a favour. After all, they could have just
lied. ‘Rennet from calves’ stomachs? No, it’s from the, erm, rennet plant…’
Also Mars say that their confectionary is still suitable for those vegetarians
who aren’t as strict. It’s not their problem. It’s your problems for being an
overly passionate vegetarian. The small backlash that accompanied this
announcement by Mars has got the BoF wondering whether meat-eaters are next on
the ‘agenda of shame’. With the upcoming smoking ban, its job done on the
tobacco front; now the propaganda has assured us that all smokers extinguish
cigarettes in the eyes of orphans and exhale deadly gases directly into the
lungs of elderly asthmatics, we know we mustn’t smoke. Or allow others to
smoke. Even people we don’t know. With the ‘meating in public places’ ban
inevitable, we say its time for Mars to make a stand here and now. Let’s see
them produce a Special Edition venison bar in the shape of a freshly clubbed
baby seal and wrapped in mink fur. Is that the smell of a tonne of horse manure
at the gates of BoFTowers…?
Multivitamins could increase your risk of prostate cancer. It’s
just another slap in the face for those people who want to live forever. One
day the latest medical research says drinking tea will make you live for
centuries and improve your libido, the next day they say 2 or more cups a day
increases you risk of pubic lice. Maybe. The point being that people want to
live longer and longer, meaning more years of crown green bowling and watching
Countdown. It’s a primary instinct - like breathing or wanting to punch Jeremy
Beadle – which the human race is ingrained with. The problem is that the advice
is conflicting. It’s like being on ‘Bruce’s Price is Right’ with half your
mates shouting ‘higher!’ and the other half ‘lower!’ whilst one tries to spell
out ‘£4,680’ using just his fingers. Perhaps Bruce Forsyth is God. Hey, makes
more sense than Scientology.
The football season is over for another year, which means
its time to focus on other sports. We’ve got the British-hope-crushing
fortnight that is Wimbledonwaiting. The big
question is can Andy Murray keep himself fit long enough to lose spectacularly
in the third round? You never know, this could be his year (from the people
that brought you perhaps Bruce Forsyth is God…)
BofDate – 10th May 2007
A change, they say, is as good as a rest. ‘They’, however,
are clearly insane as nothing is as good as a rest. The saying should in fact
be ‘a change is marginally better than slogging on with the same old shite for
hours on end, but what you’d actually rather be doing in sitting with your feet
up and a cup of tea’. Admittedly that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as
the more traditional version. But we’re always being told we need to change.
This week Gordon Ramsay told us to eat horse. The idea repulses many as the
concept of chowing down on ‘Mister Ed n’ chips’ is deemed not acceptable.
‘Horse meat is not part of our culture’ say the horse burger neigh-sayers (see
what I did there?!) and it’s hard to disagree, although it is curious to note
the apparent unacceptability of tucking into my little pony. Other animals make
it to the dinner table without the furore and there’d be no picket lines to
cross if you wanted to make a pie out of Bambi and Thumper. But its change and
we fear it. We like horses; they’re our hairy, long faced big-bottomed friends.
We like them so much we send them out with funny little men on their backs and
whip them repeatedly whilst making them run as fast as possible. In the spirit of
change we urge you to indulge in a copy of Issue 2 of the majestic BoF
magazine. Available now!!
Paris Hilton shouldn’t go to jail as she apparently enriches
the otherwise mundane lives of the masses. I imagine those aforementioned
mundane lives would be further enriched by watching the Stupid Spoiled Whore
(kudos to the creators of South Park for the apt
insult/moniker) locked up for a few weeks. Paris told a press conference this week ‘I’m
devastated at having to go to prison. My copy of BoF 2 will sit unread for
weeks. I don’t know if I can go on enriching mundane lives without it…’*
* - May not have happened.
BofDate
3rd May 2007
TV these days has got a lot to answer for. You come home
from 8 hours hard slog/skive at the office/abattoir and expect to be
entertained. By entertainers. But it doesn’t happen. Instead the viewing
schedules are swamped by hour upon hour of ordinary people performing tasks
ranging from mundane to mental in the name of ‘reality TV’. This is a trend
that The BoF had hoped would have petered out like a Vanilla Ice comeback tour
by now. There can only be a finite amount of inane crap that even the TV
worshipping underclass will tolerate. Whether it’s following the bin men of Barrow-in-Furness or the air hostesses of Aberystwyth,
there’s room for it somewhere in the listings. And as the genre evolves, the
public are no longer content to merely watch Mike from the Sanitation
Department talk knowledgably into the camera about ‘a grade II blockage that
needs a special brush’. Oh no, we don’t want to just watch the public doing
things when we could be watching them being emotionally broken. Shows like Big
Brother and The Apprentice fulfil the public’s undying thirst for oven-ready
human misery. We don’t care about the winners – we want to see the losers!
That’s why we get 10 weeks of losers for every 1 week of winner. Seeing people
suffering the crushing embarrassment of failing in front of a viewing nation –
that’s entertainment. Or so it would seem. People risk it all on such shows for
the ultimate prize – fame, and all its trappings. And it didn’t take TV
executive long to realise that, if the public we’re willing to turn moronic
pig-faced racists into reality TV celebrities, surely throwing some actual
celebrities into the formula would be ratings gold! And indeed it is. Now we
have the reality TV structure with celebrities in the mix. There’s I’m a
Celebrity, Love Island, Strictly Come Dancing, and Dancing
On Ice to name but a few. It is overwhelmingly necessary here to draw
attention to the ludicrous title of the BBCs ballroom dancing debacle. The
American version is called Dancing With The Stars, which makes perfect
sense. ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ is a meaningless title. Whilst Strictly
Ballroom was a surprise hit movie some 15 years ago and the BBC obviously
felt the need to differentiate between this new show and the late Sunday night
borefest that was Come Dancing with Rosemary Something-or-other, a title that
actually MADE SENSE would have been more appropriate. Instead we’re left with
something that sounds like ‘Put Down That Pie and Start Dancing Immediately’.
And of course one show is directly responsible for the next. ITV looked at the
BBC effort and its ratings and thought ‘we’ll have some of that thank you’. So
they churned out Dancing On Ice. Surely the next logical step is for the
BBC to bring out Dancing on Fire, only for Channel 5 to go one step too
far and commission Dancing Whilst on Fire. There is one sub-genre of
Reality TV of which The BoF does approve however. Ordinary people being filmed
doing stupid things. And we’re not necessarily talking about amateur footage of
toddlers accidentally punching Granddad in the groin or unemployed
20-somethings having hilarious skateboarding accidents. Why settle for
common-or-garden stupidity when you can have criminally idiotic. When you
listen to Sheriff John Bunnell of World’s Wildest Police Videos
commentating on ‘some law breaking crack-heads who thought they could outrun
the Gainsborough County P.D. going from doing hard drugs to doing hard time’ it
renews your faith both in TV and in society as a whole. So maybe reality TV
isn’t all that bad after all. Although anyone who’s seen The Running Man
may be slightly worried about where we’re heading…
So it’s official. Kind of. Tony Blair has predicted that Britain will have a Scottish Prime-Minister within a matter of weeks. On hearing the news,
bookies slashed the odds on Rod Stewart to 4/1 followed closely by P.C. Plum
from Balamory at 5/1. They both lag far behind the runaway leading candidate of
course. Sources in the know say the 1/66 favourite Jimmy Krankie is a shoe-in.
A planet has been discovered millions of miles away that
could possibly harbour life. Lying in the ‘Goldilocks zone’ the conditions are
just right to cultivate living organisms. It would reputedly take human beings
hundred of years to travel to the planet from earth, but McDonalds are still
hopeful of opening a branch out there by the end of the summer.
|
|
