It's here at last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Big Day Arrives

Well, it’s finally here at last.

The one we've been waiting for........

After such a long wait, the tension has been building and building.

The drama will unfold before our very eyes.

The modern day God of TV will capture all of the excitement and beam it directly into our homes and hearts......live....as it happens.

Millions of people will wait in anticipation, sat on the edge of their seats, barely able to contain their excitement.

So many starry eyed dream filled hopefuls entered, and so many failed to make the final stages.

Only one can win of course, so even more will have their hopes and dreams dashed. The nation will watch with bated breath just to see who…………………

Wins the Kit Kat draw to enter the Big Brother House!

Later, Couldn’tGiveAShitJack

Its all a bit gay isn't it?

According to more members of PC Bollocks Brigade, Radio 1's Chris "Fatman" Moyles is guilty of being homophobic by his casual use of the word "gay" to describe a dance as a bit rubbish. In fact some PC prick, Tim Lusher, no doubt from Sensitive Souls R Us wrote an article in yesterdays Guardian stating just as much. Apparently Stonewall and the rest of the hand-wringing " lets all love each other" community object to the misappropriation of the word "gay" from meaning homosexual to meaning " a bit crap, a bit second rate, a bit rubbish" .

Well, here's a bit of news PC Bollocks et al. I object just as strenuously to the homosexual community's misappropriation of the word gay from meaning "happy, carefree, jolly" to meaning "homosexual". In a similar vein your reclamation of the word "queer" pisses me off because I was bought up to believe it meant "odd" or "weird" and not what your favoured sexual activities are.

I have no objection to homosexual people. I do not believe it is a lifestyle choice for the majority (because lets face it some people do choose to be a bit wild) and am happy to accept it is an inherent part of their being. I have no objection to their equal billing in society and am glad that Civil Partnerships are now legal and recognised in the UK (although Marriage in the guise of Matrimony is really a holy Roman Catholic sacrament and as such this is the wrong phrase to use) because that is only fair and right. I may not like the adopted "mincing" of parts of the male "gay" community or the equally horrible "butch" dyke Kwik Fit Fitter image some lesbians choose to adopt, but levels of commitment to each other should be recognised equally in law irrespective of the gender of the related parties.

But please, the message to the fudge packers and bean flickers is stop whining about a teenage fad around the use of the word "gay". You stole the word first, now someone else is stealing it from you! It just highlights the rich flexibility of the glorious English language.

Get over it.

Later GrocerJack

Three Cheers

One dead death worshipping evil twisted motherfucker down, lots more to go. Don't speak ill of the dead?

I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad his mates died. I hope all of his followers die.

Painfully.

So, Farewell then Zarqawi. You were the archetypal evil malevolent cunt and with any luck your body is being greased with pork fat, and covered in bacon rashers as I write.

And to all the PC Bollocks Brigade and your undoubted bleeding heart "fair trial" crap.....its plain and simple. He didn't care who he killed , Christian or Muslim. He represented no-one and reigned by fear and terror. He was a twisted evil prick guilty of bringing nothing but pain and misery to people wherever he went.

He DESERVED to die, and DIDN'T deserve any sort of trial, fair or otherwise. Where terrorists are concerned my objection to the death penalty flies out of the window. Especially where the executuon is summary.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Simple.

Later, SmilingJack

PC PC reporting for duty

What a complete prick this Clive Wolfendale is. Apparently he's some sort of Deputy Chief Constable for North Wales or some such place. When will these people learn that flying the flag of your chosen country is NOT fucking racist unless accompanied by Combat 18/BNP tossers chanting "Blacks Out" or similar? Or if the flag is draped with other blatantly obvious racist slogans.

Unless I'm mistaken, the largest part of the UK (area and population wise) , England, has qualified for the Football World Cup and is the sole representative of the UK. Thats tough for those English haters but hey, life is tough and they just better get used to the fact that in football terms England has been, and probably always will be the most successful nation from the UK.

The English people contribute more to this nations wealth than the others do COMBINED. We (the English) subsidise their education and their health and a whole raft of other economic and socio-political areas of their lives ,whilst they get their own parliaments, with their own votes on their own issues and are encouraged to celebrate their own disitnctive cultures. The minute The English try the same thing, the PC/Bleeding Heart wankers that infest our society come out collectively wringing their sorry hands to denigrate this and to try and make people like me feel guilty for a colonial imperialist past I had fuck all to do with. Blame the father for their sins not their sons. If there's any wringing to be done its normal people who should be wringing the necks of the PC Bollocks brigade.

In my experience the English "culture" has been washed away over the years by PC Bollocks and his ilk. Yes, we're a diverse multi-cultural society and the richer for that (mostly), but underneath Englishness still seems to be treated as the UK's dirtly little secret. Something to be locked away and hidden and not discussed for fear of inciting poor sensitive Scots/Welsh and Northern Irish.

Lets get this straight....England is part of the UK as much as any of the others , but constitutionally is not treated on anywhere near an equal footing. That needs to change or else its just plain discrimination against the English people and that will lead to further disgruntlement and in fact plays right into the hands of the BNP and the far right. Whenever I've been to Wales or Scotland (NI is still an aspiration) I am incessantly subjected to their Welshness or Scottishness from the moment I cross the border, be it with Welsh dragons and leek symbols, or various tartan decorated signs or whatever. I like this , and welcome it and have no reason to resent it. I certainly don't see it as racist, and consequently English or Welsh people flying the flag in Wales isn't racist either. No doubt some racist knobbers somewhere are trying to capitalise on this, but this is probably the only single example of the English proactively and positively reclaiming something that was hijacked by xenophobic bigoted twats.

Clive Wolfendale and his gang of PC cronies should shut the fuck up and wind their collective (as yet unwrung) necks in and allow people to celebrate what could be a great achievement in peace and without any implied or associated guilt.

Later AnglaisJacque

Really bugged!

So, GMD and the gang arrive back from The Money Pit at the weekend. Apparently the weather was glorious and they had a great time. Isn’t it wonderful how people revel in telling you how great their holiday was especially knowing you haven’t been away and that the weather was pretty grim here (until last Friday anyway!)? I don’t want to sound bitter and twisted….but you can imagine how I feel having them return to enjoy something which has cleaned the coffers of Jacks Bank and Shares Account to a level of nothingness comparable to the vast emptiness of the universe. On top of that a colleague from work had rented it for the previous 2 weeks and since his return has done nothing but tell me how great it was, what bars were good, how to get to the bloody beach club and where his favourite restaurants were! So, everyone knows more about The Money Pit and the surrounding locale than me! Oh yeah, keep bringing on the happy feelings…go on rub a few more joyful stories in about how great your holiday was. My turn will come (July 2^nd to be precise) when I’m off to Spain for a weeks golf, drinking and football with some mates), maybe then I’ll come and regale you all with tales of my joyous week and see how you like it!

The cycling fad is still very much about. I went out virtually every night last week, and on Sunday. Monday night I met up with BigSykes again and we hit a 12 mile round trip ride which took in some frankly breathtaking scenery but also managed to get me covered in hundreds of tiny flies and bugs. God only knows how many of the little buggers I swallowed. Who needs an evening meal after a several courses of kamikaze flies? I forgot the camera but will make sure it comes next time so that I can get some mega-snaps of just how lovely the surrounding area to Jack Palace is.

Despite being under GMD orders last week to “not spend any money whilst I’m away” I did buy one or 2 bits and bobs courtesy of Argos and eBay. For the bike I bought a crash helmet (in case I involuntarily take a flyer one day), a decent U-lock so that no thieving scumbag can nick it and leave me with a very long walk home from somewhere remote, a bike computer to help me gauge just how far I’ve ridden and what speed I’ve done and a Belkin Tunecast II device so that I can play my MP3’s back through my car radio. Apparently though, this capability is illegal in the UK because transmitting a radio signal must be licensed. Its not illegal to use these “re-broadcast” devices (which merely lock the output of the player onto an unused FM frequency in the car) in Europe or the US, so why the hell are we different here? Does UK radio work on different laws of physics to every where else. Honestly we really are up our own arses on some issues in the UK. Anyway I look forward to the day a copper pulls me and charges me with flagrantly flouting the 1949 Telegraphy Act of Great Britain, as if he’d even know about such a thing! I just don’t get why the choice for radio across the rest of the civilised world appears so great, and yet here it is so restricted.

And one last thing for this post…………Heather Mills McCartney was apparently a porn star! Lucky bloke I’d say because these porn stars surely know their business. As Ali G once stated, shouldn’t Porn Stars become Sex teachers so that we all know how to be good at it, having learned from real experts? What made me simultaneously laugh and boil about the whole affair was The Sun’s “holier than thou” attitude to the whole thing. They talked of “depraved acts” and a “filthy past” etc. Hmm……when did The Sun’s hacks become monks then? What do they do in bed then…….lights off, fumbling for discrete flaps in nighties and flies in pyjamas (all flannelette of course) and a peck on cheek afterwards? This coming from a paper that has shown topless women on Page 3, some only teenagers, since time immemorial and has regularly revelled in printing covertly gained pictures of celebs in various stages of undress, whether on beaches or just “popping out” whilst at a ceremony. To think people still read this shite!

Later, GrocerJack.

I've got a Bike, you can ride it if you like,

Hah, Title lyrics by Syd Barrett of the original Floyd.

Brilliant don't you think? The next line is something like .....

"its got a basket, a bell and rings and things to make it look good, I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it. "

Utterly deluded acid induced lunacy of course, as was most of his stuff but endearing in its own spaced out way, but also from my perspective a very creatively torturous , not to say tenuous route into todays post. So whilst I move the writing background track onto the truly magnificent "Set The Controls for the Heart of The Sun" lets move on.

I'm a simple bloke really. Not simple in the head (although some may wish to argue the case that I am, or at least act that way) but simple in taste. I mean I went to Nice the other week and one night, courtesy of a supplier, we ate in The Negresco Hotel, a sort of Nice equivalent to The Ritz complete with a Concierge dressed in a purple top hat with a red feather protuding , matching this purple frock coat, tights and black patent leather buckled shoes. Its the sort of place that when someone like me walks in the swing doors there is usually a couple of heavies holding me under the armpits pushing straight back through it. The Art work on display is truly magnificent and brilliantly avant garde and the food is very nice but fucking miniature in size, and consequently is pathetically unfulfilling and massively overpriced. The whole place drips in money - the type most of us will never have freely available to squander in such ostentacious surroundings. Not my kind of place - give me the glorious market place of Cours Saleya any day, with its rumbustious array of restaurants, cafe's and bars. Even if I was a multi-millionaire this would win over the posh and snotty faux airs and graces type establishment every time.

More proof of my simplicity comes from my hobbies, a bit of golf, a bit of fishing (now lapsed far too long), a bit of writing on this blog and thats about it, unless you include serial loafing as a hobby. Exercise used to feature a bit when I was younger but really I wasn't into any Cardio-Vascular stuff, barring football, and then progressed onto simple weight training because....well it was simple and uncomplicated, as were many of its exponents I got to know at the gym.

A few years ago we visited a Center Parcs in Longleat and my mates son took his push bike. Now anyone who's been to this particular site will know that its built in a very hilly area and previous to its conversion must have been a haven for mountain goats or hill sheep. So I did what any self respecting faux-uncle would do and I nicked this bike. To my amazement I loved it! I hadn't ridden a bike since I'd been 16 because mopeds and cars took over (particularly handy for getting home from the pub when I was too pissed to walk) . I nicked the thing at every opportunity because frankly it was easier than walking "up hill and down dale" constantly, especially as Baby was exactly that and liked to be carried by her Daddy wherever possible. It was so advanced from my day, a mountain bike with 24 Derailleur gears made by Shimano, with lovely big knobbly tyres for "off roading" (gripped...sorted). I immediately ordered GMD to buy me one on our return. We paid around £300 for it and yes...you've guessed it ....after an initial burst of activity it sat in the shed for over 2 years. Then we moved around the corner to a bigger house, nicknamed Graceland by BigSykes, but really just a modest 4 bed detached Acacia Avenue type house. Another burst came about but didn't last. Then last year when baby decided she rather liked cycling and suddenly she wanted me to escort her out and build her skills and confidence I got the cycling bug again. Winter came and the incentive was again lost, but now I've started again and in the last 3 weeks I've regularly been buggering off for between 1 and 2 hours discovering all of the local hidden roads, paths and bridlepaths. And a real eye opener its been as well. Tonight I was joined by BigSykes and we cycled through country lanes and ended up at the peak of Broadhalfpenny Down (see where I live...what fabulously named piece of countryside) next to my beloved local pub. No, we didn't have a pint but we took in the views, got chased by a dog, said hello to horse riders we didn't know, barracked some cows, nearly ran a rabbit over, gave the finger to pig ignorant motorists, shared a laugh with a tractor driver (normally the bane of my life), cycled up hills to kill the legs and down hills to break the skull should you come off. It was bloody marvellous. 2 weeks ago we went across country to the peak of the local country park from where you can see across to the Isle of Wight, and down into Portsmouth Harbour. Breathtaking in more ways than one!

I came back tonight feeling exhiliarated, fresh and most importantly alive. As drugs go, it might not be the wildest but at the moment it feels like a panacea to all my recent blues. Long may it continue and maybe I'll take a camera next time to share some of the views across my part of the country.

Later, GrocerJack

Be Careful What You Wish For....

Oh dear.

It seems The Company has just broken the wrong sort of record again for the second time in 5 years by posting the single biggest ever Corporate loss for a British firm. Our CEO however seems to be saying (internally at least) that the picture is rosy and we're on target to meet our goals. It does have to be said that the press and the media are overblowing the story, when in fact most of the loss is caused by mandatory capital asset write downs and not on the operating performance of The Company.

However it doesn't cover up the fact that according to our CEO and his bunch of ....ahem.....Leaders "bad is the new good" .

We appear to be cutting around 400 jobs on this announcement alongside the recently announced outsourcing deal for huge chunks of out IT department. No doubt the Network department will be next as Ericsson continue their efforts to take over The Company's network operations. This "network outsourcing" would affect me and so I watch this situation with interest. It hasn't happened and may not even happen but The Company does seem to heading down the road to the trendy and frequently discredited outsourcing model.

Although I'm unhappy in my job I do my work willingly in order to support the lifestyle we have chosen, including several holidays per year to The Money Pit, my membership of the golf club, the full package of cable TV, piano, singing and dancing lessons for the girls etc etc. The list goes on and its only when the prospect of losing the income source that funds all of that looms in the dim and distant future that you realise just how lucky you are. I'm hoping that something will come my way in The Company which will re-invigorate me and I made this desire known in a fairly candid (and friendly for once) chat with The Schoolteacher last week.

Of course after over 12 years of service I'm likely to get a reasonable pay off if previous incentives are anything to go by (eg: a month for every year worked, professional CV written, career option training share options cashed in etc) but knowing my luck this would be changed into something crap like one week per year which is a far less tempting sum of money. A years salary would be more than enough to kick off my own business for example, although I've no idea what I would do.....although I do have a hankering for doing something with a visual, tangible product at the end of it. Trades (carpentry, building, electricians etc) are very attractive because apparently youngsters these days all want to work in IT, or the media and no-one is going into these areas. But how do you do this and keep the wolves of the building society and credit card companies at bay? Balance all of this against the fact that my pensions are being consolidated into The Company final salary scheme and that would put me close to 10 years from early retirement and you see the dilemna. I have qualifications and experience but get the feeling my age (44) is seriously against me know. But maybe it would be time to change my life direction again. Who knows? I'll worry if and when it happens. In the meantime, make hay while the sun shines will be my motto.

Later, SunnierJack