Category Archives: Editorials

Mirror, signal, oh you fucking hit me you cunt!

Snow is falling, all around me, children playing, having fun……..but just where are the neglectful parents?  Bingo!?!?  Someone should call social services in I think?!?

Listening to “I Feel Free” by ‘Cream’ and watching a bit of frozen rain falling outside is probably a fairly obscure thing to be doing on a Tuesday evening; especially when you consider the infinite possibilities of the Universe and all that Showaddywaddy??

Ah ha, now the ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’, “How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing”………don’t I fucking know it?   Up and dahhhhhhn the main road they go, neeee nawww neee nawww, flipping old bill!!!  ::: shakes fist :::

Anyway, something very unexpected happened to me this afternoon; I found out that the chap who kindly fractured my ankle with his Skoda (and left me like a flid for Christmas) has admitted liability to his insurers.  Huzzah.  Fat lady fate has indeed smiled upon my confused skin pigmented face; I certainly didn’t see that coming!  I also found out that the George Foreman Grill knockoff that I bought from Sainsbury’s does rather nice sausages; scronch.

Mr Shitface’s admission of liability essentially means that my insurers can get my bike fixed back to it’s ‘new’ condition; the fact that he’s admitted being a naughty fucker means that I can also pursue a personal injury claim against his insurance. Ker-cockadoodle-ching.

Lets face it; the guy pretty much ruined 6 weeks of my life, cramped my style as well as my leg (gotta love a shit but topical cliche) and has potentially left me with a dodgy ankle needing physiotherapy or even an operation.  Why the hell shouldn’t I be compensated for the injuries that he bestowed upon my person; especially given that I paid my dues for the premium?

Touch wood that me bleedin’ ankle don’t give me jip eh?   My promising career in ballet is in tatters; the Bolshoi never saw me mince my trademark ‘Grand Plie’.  Oh the shame.  I imagine it’ll look more like a very bad ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ doing a drunken version of an “Evenin’ all!” curtsey now?!

I jest, I’m chuffed to bits with the insurance stuff and thinking positively about getting on with whatever comes next.  The only slightly unfortunately development this evening is that the freezing rain has turned into snow; and with 10 inches predicted over the next few days, I doubt I’ll make it to the hospital appointment tomorrow that would have shed some light on the true extent of my injuries and recovery period involved.  Bugger.  Still, you can’t have it all can you?  It’ll happen eventually though!

Right, it’s time to depart; I shall leave you all with a rather funny public information video from the 1960’s about safe motorcycling.  Until next time chums!

LOOK, SIGNAL, MANOEUVER

Starring

Alan as Tom
Kev as Tom’s naughty friend
Ray as Tom’s new friend.

Boxing Day bargain hunt

For Christmas this year I was given a nice wedge of Rupees and decided to take my regular trip to the Croydon sales; gammy leg in tow.

Now then, I expected the vast crowds; what I didn’t expect was that Croydon had turned into a bargain standoff between the entire local Indian community and a healthy chunk of it’s African counterparts.

You had to be there to believe it, my Asian bretheren used several family members to blockade everyone else whilst the matriarchs rifled through the bargains for their men; had I not waded in and reached over my five-foot-nothing ancestors I would have come away empty handed.

I managed to get two pukka coats, a couple of fine silk ties and a rather snazzy shirt; then rapidly left the Maelstrom that was Debenhams!

They’ll probably still be there right now; the whole thing felt like i was watching a cutting-floor reel of a Tarantino film that had stylishly spliced scenes from Zulu and Ghandi!

One thing I couldn’t work out though; where were all the honkeys?!?

Merry Antikrishmas

Merry Christmas one and all!  Ho ho ho and all that old chestnut.

I write this Christmas Day entry somewhat stuffed and in an empty house; My grandfather has had it away on his toes already and Mum has gone next door for a few tipples with the neighbours.

Today was always going to be a quiet affair with just the three of us here, Boxing Day (26th December for all my American fans out there) will involve my Sister Lorraine and her family coming over for dinner, and then the 27th will be more like the Christmas Day I remember as a kid with my brother Brian bringing his family up and Lorraine’s mob all coming up as well.

I shall enjoy the peace and quiet whilst it lasts……………

Mum made a sterling effort today, her roast dinner was absolutely top notch and thought I’d pop up a picture of her ‘slap in the face to third world poverty’ offering; especially considering that I only get one roast dinner out of her a year these days; I intend to savour the memory of it!

As you can see it’s a rather hefty arrangement of Roast Turkey, Roast Pork, Crackling, Pigs in Blankets (little sausages wrapped in bacon), cauliflour, sprouts, peas, roasted potatoes, stuffing and gravy!   And yes, I ate every single last piece!

I hope everyone out there has had a rather funky day with their family, friends or hookers; I shall leave you all with a picture showing what my face looks like after I’ve eaten such a meal.

Happy Yuletide chums.

Snoooooooooow!

Hooray! Finally, a change in season!!!! I love seasonal weather innit?

I mean, who wants the weather to be the same week in week out?!? Spanish people and loons, that’s what I say!

They don’t like it up ’em!!!

Rumours of my death……..

……have been greatly exaggerated.

It was the proverbial “kiss of death”; no sooner had I renewed my blog subscription and made a vow to post more regularly on this glorious site did I then end up having yet another fight with a car. Unbelievable.

A total schmuck decided to careen into me whilst I was established on a roundabout and pushed my leg up against my exhaust with his car; thus fracturing my ankle in two places. I was refused an ambulance given that I’d ridden home after the event and my injuries were not life threatening, my sister swiftly took me to A&E and a doctor decided in his wisdom to pop a plaster cast over my leg from the base of my toes right up to the knee.

This was all great until I realised that they had popped the cast over the friction burn that ran the full length of my shin without dressing it. I can still remember the pain when the cast had to come off two days later when I was referred to the fracture clinic. Ouch.

After my consultant reviewed my x-rays and stuff he encouraged me to wear a stirrup support instead of another plaster cast on the basis that that my fractures were reasonably minor and the main issue appeared to be both swelling and the ‘soft tissue crush’ injury. So I went home.

Excruciating pain followed for the next few days, everytime time I stood up on one leg and dangled the bad one whilst using the crutches I got a severe shooting pain down the damaged one, I tried strapping it, took pain medication regularly; all to no avail. In the end I just laid in bed feeling rather sorry for myself.

Being a very independant chap I suddenly felt trapped, helpless actually and could no longer rely on escaping using my trusty bike when I fancied doing so. I quickly consumed my favourite t.v. shows as they aired; the last ever episode of ‘Monk’ that capped things off nicely, the season finale of ‘Dexter’ with it’s funky twist and of course who can forget daily showings of ‘Diagnosis Murder’.

In reflection, I think that I temporarily become a couch potato? Well, a bed potato at the very least.

Frustrated from lack of sleep and mobility I eventually returned to St Helier hospital the following week to demand better support for my poorely peg and was given a rather fancy inflatable brace support which the nice man in the hospital called the ‘David Beckham Boot’; appropriately named because he wore one when his leg got chuffed. This cheered me up a lot, I could immediately get about a lot more and began to laugh off the the last two weeks of my personal living hell.

The consultant had originally signed me off for 6 weeks, I spoke to my G.P. and used my rather funky powers of pursuasion to get it down to 2 weeks; finally returning to work on Monday, 7th of December, 2009.

This week, I’m happy to report that the swelling has gone down an encouraging amount, the bruising has also begun to vanish and I’ve stopped using the crutches; I even managed to hobble into Croydon high street today to do some Christmas shopping. I do realise that I am rather fortunate not to be injured more than I am, and appreciate that there are a lot of people worse off than I; however, suffice to say that I will be glad when this is all behind me.

I would like to say thanks to David and Jane for managing to get me over to theirs for Sunday lunch before the Monday I returned to work; Ray for chauffeuring me around since I went back to the office and to all my well-wishers.

The healing powers of playing xbox with a good friend and receiving regular texts/phonecalls and messages online are quite underestimated believe me; therefore special thanks go to Angelo and Dave for coming over and cheering me up considerably.

My biggest thanks go to Brian and Lorraine for being there as always when I needed them, and Mumsie who looked after me tirelessly and made me scrambled eggs on toast at 8pm. Goodness, this post is as self indulgent as an Oscar acceptance speech but I want to record my appreciation, so fuck off if you don’t like it.

So there we are, I’m on the path to recovery. Bring on Christmas!

Xbox 360 ban wave

And so we come to it, Microsoft has been carrying out out it’s annual ‘ban wave’ over the last couple of weeks; designed to target the modified console community (or pirates to those in the media) just before the biggest game of the year comes out; oh yes, and Christmas. Pfffftttt.

As per usual, you get the mass media hype saying how pirating is damaging the gaming industry; personally I’d say the damage was done years ago by Sony and it’s aggressive surge into the market but there you are. Alas, I can appreciate how pirating games is naughty, but I can also understand why it brings out a rebellious streak in some who people prefer not to pay £50 a game each time.

What will this mean to those who have had their consoles banned from playing on xbox live? Well, after talking to my friends who have been caught had their legs slapped, I’m of the impression that most will go out and buy a new machine, keep it legit and buy only the very best games to play online; the new Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2 game for example.

Most would probably keep the modded xbox for playing copied games offline and still save a significant amount of money in the long run by doing this. Not a big deal really when you look at it like that is it?

So what have Microsoft gained by doing this? Was it ever about piracy? I don’t really believe it was personally. Who will suffer? US games developers probably because there’s sod all development left in the UK now.

20 million people apparently play xbox live, an estimated 900,000 of those are banned for using modded boxes. If you take the average price of a console as £150.00 then that means that’s £135,000,000 in the coffers IF most go out and buy another machine. £135 million quid!

No, I personally think that this is more about Christmas sales figures, the Nintendo Wii and Slim PS3 have all been flying off the shelves lately, so Microsoft has to get their console sales figures up. What better way to do it than through a ban wave and look to be addressing a piracy issue at the same time? What would be more damaging for the Xbox, 1/20th of it’s online users having modified boxes, or slipping down in the console ranks?

What will I do? Lets just say I intend on writing quite a few ‘early’ game reviews on Antikrish should I have the time 🙂

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr Jim lad!

X-Fucktor

I hate being asked which act I prefer on shows like X-Factor; I don’t watch it and honestly couldn’t give a cats cunt!!!!!!!!

I’m not denying that some of the performers can hold a tune on the show (in their favourite key at least), in fact it’s not the singing I dislike so much; but the cheesy format of the programme.

The sensationalist ‘News Of The World’ style coverage of the artists that always manages to overshadow a performance is what I find impossible to digest.  For example:

“Shaona, tell us why you want to win this competition”

“Well yeah, right, like yeah, well, I’m working 2 jobs and supporting my 7 brothers because my Mum didn’t have the word ‘No’ in her vocabulary; and when I’m famous yeah, all I wanna do is put them through college.  You know?”

Just sing Shaona you tragic twat!!!!  IT’S A TALENT CONTEST, NOT A ‘MY LIFE’S SHIT SO GIVE ME THE SYMPATHY VOTE’ CONTEST!

It’s a shame that a show doesn’t exist which truly showcases undiscovered musical talent in this country, raw talent preferably!  No pre-manufactured bilge please!!! A battle of the bands contest would be pretty cool, but it’ll never happen……..

X-Factor = Wank

‘Throwing shapes’, ‘messy night outs’ and ‘good times’

I got asked tonight when I last “threw some shapes”?  One must confess, the expression meant fuck all to me and I was most confuddled and bamboozled?!!? Eventually I asked what it meant and came to understand that she wanted to know when I had last danced my arse off?   Why didn’t she just say that in the first place instead of trying to be trendy?!

Just for the record, the last time I ‘threw some shapes’ was probably in the Early Learning Centre…………

This person also went on to describe their weekend as ‘messy’.  ‘Messy’!?  By ‘messy’ she meant that she had drunk to excess and stayed out late.  Wooooo, that’s original.  Never done that before.  Snore.  ‘Messy’ to me is more likely to describe a good fuck or helping birth a calf.  The latter is extremely messy; take my word for it.

Another annoying expression that I hear all too often is when someone says ‘good times’ after recalling something that they’ve done; usually nodding at the same time and making a stupid puckered lipped expression to emphasise that the listener should find their statement cool. I refuse to carry an organ donor card until there is a tick box that says ‘I agree to donate my organs upon my death IF the recipient doesn’t say ‘good times’ at the end of a sentence”.

When someone says ‘good times’ after a sentence it makes something potentially interesting become dull almost immediately, forgetful in fact.

“Kev, I went to the Moon at the weekend and found a copy of ‘Readers Wives’………….Good times”.

Yeah?…..great……….zzzzzz.

32 years young and still Looking for Eric

I’ve run out of salutations full of cliche, so I shall just say hello!

Tis my 32nd birthday today, I write this particular entry in the warm confines of my bedroom having spent the morning mooching around the house and chatting to Mum who has been making a royal fuss.  I endured the uncomfortable sensation of opening up my birthday cards (I’ve had a strange phobia of them since I was a small child) but thoroughly appreciated the warm gestures from within them; cash is always welcome.  ::hint hint, nudge nudge, cockney shuffle::

So what to do today?  Well, it’s a Sunday, and Sunday’s are generally a bit rubbish aren’t they?  So I’ve stocked up on films and intend to just chill out in between the occasional visit by family and friends.

I’ve literally just watched ‘Looking for Eric‘ and I honestly could not have watched something more uplifting and appropriate.  It’s gritty, funny, a fantastic social commentary of modern day Manchester and heartily recommend it; even if you aren’t a fan of football.  I’d liken it to an amateur version of ‘Harvey’ crossed with ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ but suspect Baldie would smack my face with a glove when I next see him.  Ooops, too late, I already have.

Eric Cantona is the player I tend to think of most when I recall the many games Dad took me to, he was by far and most Dad’s favourite player and will forever more represent all the gushy and slushy memories that I hold of the old man.

To see this film today was perfect because it reminded me of when my idol met his idol for the upteenth time at a beach football competition in Richmond; was the only time Dad had ever let me pay for the tickets and we met Eric having sneaked into the V.I.P. area (such was our speciality) whilst he was having a massage. Unlike a lot of footballers today, Eric (and a lot of players from that era) had time for his fans, happy to discuss his passion for the game and what inspired him.

If I”m ever lucky enough to meet him again I will thank him for the picture below which always makes me smile.

Legend.

daderic