Category Archives: Kevs Anti-Rants

Knock down ginger

‘Knock down ginger’ is the age old practice of knocking on someone’s front door and running away in a mischievous fashion; something I still enjoy playing to this day when the mood strikes me.

In this increasingly technological age, the practice can also include the ringing of doorbells or flat-entry intercom systems; personally, I still prefer knocking on the door with my knuckles because it makes you sound like a baliff or the old bill! “Open up you naughty slags, it’s the fuzz!”.

‘Knock down ginger’ has absolutely nothing to do with beating up ginger people, nor does it have anything to do with the Weasley family in Harry Potter. ‘Knock, Knock, Ginger’ or ‘Knocky Door Ginger’ were the original names for the game which dates back to the 19th century in England; possibly might even be a Cornish traditional holiday of Nickanan Night according to the intersnot.

Google was a helpful whore as always and gave up her goodies about the origins of the prank on the first date, apparently, the saying ‘Knock down ginger’ comes from an English rhyme:

Ginger, Ginger broke a winder

Hit the winda – Crack!

The baker came out to give ‘im a clout.

And landed on his back

So as you see, I have nothing against Ginger’s whatsoever!

Introducing ‘Sid’- The Innovative Homeless Man Who Lives In A Shelter Opposite My Office

I felt it was appropriate to give ‘The Innovative Homeless Man Who Lives In A Shelter Opposite My Office’ a name; I’d like to go on record and confirm that I mean no disrespect, it’s just easier if I’m going to write a regular thread on this chap and his daily life.  If I see him out and about, I’ll ask him what his real name is!

Several people in my office are equally fascinated with our human goldfish; so I suggested that we put names in a hat and choose the name randomly by drawing one out.  That particular idea was met with the usual token left-wing resistance by over-sensitive types who conveyed their opinion that what I was doing was distasteful.  Yawn.

Some of the verbal suggestions that were aired by the Daily Mail readers were certainly inappropriate; the familiar chorus of ‘Suicide Bomber’ ensued before I walked off and asked Ray for him to provide the name.  Good old Ray, always reliable.

Therefore, I am delighted to announce that ‘The Innovative Homeless Man Who Lives In A Shelter Opposite My Office’ will henceforth be known as Sid.  I asked Ray why he chose this particular name, Ray simply replied “Dunno, like Sid Snot from Kenny Everett, sounds good don’t it?”.  So that’s good enough for me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you; Sid – narrated by Ray.

 

Christmas adverts

Oh dear.   Christmas adverts have started filtering onto our screens, is it mid November already?  Where does the year go?  Eh?  Eh?

I hate Christmas adverts and how incredibly fucking smug they are!  ‘Tum te tum te tum tum tum’ ( jingly music) fake snow, people all smiling and BHAM!  “Walking along, singing a song, walking in a wint…………BUY A SOFA YOU MINDLESS FUCKER!!! IT’S 50% OFF!”.  That’d be MUCH more honest?

Take the new Boots Advert.   Hearing the music kick in……..’Do de de do, do dee dee do, diddidyd doo doo deedy dee do!’……..then “Here come the girls!” opening chorus makes me want to projectile vomit.  I don’t know what I hate more about the adverts; the fact that they’re over a month early and remind me of working in Boots over Christmas back in the day; or the way in which the adverts are trying to suggest that all women in England are sophisticated white middle class empowered ball busters who wouldn’t look out of place in the film ‘Notting Hill’.

Kev’s idea for a Boots Christmas Advert =  ‘Do de de do, do dee dee do, diddidyd doo doo deedy dee do!’…….then…….”here come the girls!” and the camera then pans to a road in Croydon with several rotund pissed middle aged women being sick in the gutter outside Tiger Tiger.  Yes, that’d be far more appropriate.  Here come the girls indeed…….

Then there’s the new Littlewoods advert.  Words almost fail me.  The scene is set, it’s a kids Christmas musical play and a bunch of carefully selected HR tick sheet poster children work their way through a ‘hip’ medley of songs designed to make the impoverished order catalogue goods and spend money they don’t have on their spoilt little bastard children.

If that’s not bad enough, there’s an exceptionally offensive rap that’s probably been written by the whitest person ever (someone like David Cameron) and they get a cute little black kid to say “My muvva’s wicked!” like it’s the 1980’s.  Then they cap it all off by having a little white girl with glasses end the song by saying “……..my lovely lovely muvva” before she disappears behind the stage curtain.  This didn’t evoke me into buying said goods from Littlewoods;  I thought “She’ll be working in McDonalds in 10 years time, the little under-achiever”.

The worst thing about the Littlewoods advert is that I can imagine lots of very bored mothers sitting around thinking that it’s the best advert in the world.  “Ah, look at all the kids, innit luuuuuuuuuuvly!?”.   But then I suppose that is the point of Christmas isn’t it?

The Innovative Homeless Man Who Lives In A Shelter Opposite My Office

Thought I’d dedicate my latest lunchtime blog entry to ‘ The Innovative Homeless Man Who Lives In A Shelter Opposite My Office’.

The gentleman in question has been residing in the abandoned car park opposite my office for the last few months; he’s probably about my age, average height, slim build, and now sports a rather bushy black beard.   He popped up in the Summer and has since built a little shanty town style shelter in the far corner of the abandoned tarmac, fully enclosed by a perimeter fence.

The shack he has built is situated underneath a large tree that has now shed all of it’s leaves; however it must have provided him with cool shelter on the warmer days that we enjoyed. OK, so that’s an exaggeration, Summer skipped us again this year, but it would have been a very good place to build a house had the heat wave kicked in!

The shack’s roof is made from a collection of signs and advertising boards, has no sides to speak of; but it seems to be doing the business.  The other intriguing thing about him is that he has been hanging his washing out over a metallic guard rail that he salvaged, and regularly beats his clothes to air them.  Almost Victorian in his daily living habits!

I have often mused where the man is originally from. He has a dark but grey complexion and high cheek bones with distinguished features; much like you’d see in parts of Iran, Afghanistan or possibly the more mountainous regions of Pakistan.  Maybe he’s from Bromley?  Who knows?  What I do know, is that this guy is living outside and the temperature is beginning to drop. He’s hardcore???

Then there’s also the consideration of his back story; is he a political dissident who has fled his native country perhaps?  Maybe he’s a former member of the armed forces in a country where regime change has kicked in?  For all I know, the guy is a brain surgeon?  I think my imagination has been a little kinder to him than the opinions of those around me, that’s for sure.  Tax dodger, asylum seeker, benefit tourist; you know the usual Daily Mail gumpf that I have to put up with.  So predictable and….zzzzzz.

So, I have decided to keep a regular eye on my new office hamster, I obviously won’t be taking him home during the Summer holidays, but I will try to post regular updates on Croydon’s new residential survivalist.

Here is a picture of him doing the off over the fence!  Off to lunch with local aristocrats perhaps, or just down to McColls to buy his lottery ticket?  Who knows????

Antikrish ‘Music (not ours)’ category…gone, thanks to youtube copyright killjoys

Well that stinks!

I decided to organise and trim down the Antikrish site categories because it’s been ages since I last tidied things up; I eventually noticed that most of the embedded youtube videos on the ‘MUSIC (NOT OURS)’ category posts were no longer available due to various Youtube copyright infringment.  No wonder I can’t find sod all on there these days!

All my favourite music videos……gone…..what a bag of bastards?!

I decided to delete the category completely and salvage a couple of posts where the video still works; in future I’ll just post music (not mine!) related stuff into my ‘Anti-Rant’ category!

Ravish Sitar Pedal – Electro Harmonix

The tech boys over at Electro Harmonix are gods, for they have produced the holy grail of guitar effect pedals; The Ravish Sitar Pedal.

I was lucky enough to cut my teeth on a few original Electro Harmonix pedals when Alex purchased a few back in the nineties, the Big Muff (fuzz), Polyphase (phaser) and Electric Mistress (flange) were used on a couple of our tracks, ‘The Otherside’ and ‘You Stink’ immediately spring to mind!

I stumbled upon the Ravish Sitar pedal by accident whilst searching the net for an idea that I had for a song; having watched the youtube promo video, I went out and bought myself one along with my own Big Muff whilst out in the States!

For those unfamiliar with the brand or for those of you who are are just starting out to experiement with your guitar sound; I’d really recommend Electro Harmonix pedals because they are the absolute puppies privates when it comes to guitar FX pedals.  They are without a doubt the best made products on the market and are highly customisable to get unique and brilliant variations in sound.

The Ravish Sitar pedal is incredible in what it delivers, you can tweak and set up your sound by Key, delay, modulation.  You can also fiddle with several knobs (technical term!) to adjust the sympathetic settings, lead and delay; all of which can give you very different results indeed!

I got mine out the box, played around with the settings for about 30 minutes with the guitar tuned to C Major and this is the result I got!  As you can see, anyone can sound like a shit Ravi Shankar now!  So go out and buy one immediately!  Antikrish commands it!

Samsung Galaxy 10.1 32gb tablet

Yes I know I’ve been going on about it far too much on here already; but I love my Samsung Galaxy 10.1

It’s the sort of gadget that you never know you needed in your life until you’ve got it; and the ease in which you can use the Android operating system is astounding.  I picked it up very quickly.  Browsing the internet is incredibly fast, and the best thing about it is that I can use the WordPress application for my blog!

Using the Galaxy is so much more intuitive than Apple’s iPad 2 and the Apple OS; one of the best things about the Galaxy is that you don’t have to use smeggy iTunes.   So stick that up your arse Steve Jobs!

The Galaxy is a fantastic piece of kit, the screen is vibrant and rich, almost like a mini plasma screen; the battery life is incredible when you think that you can get about 9 hours out of the tablet before you need to recharge.  The amount of applications on offer is improving, and I think the prices are very reasonable!  I also bought the official keyboard dock accessory for $70 USD and that turns it into a very effective laptop.

Think I’ll definitely buy an Android based phone when I upgrade from my 3 year old iPhone!  Samsung are the shit!

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