WTF? (Again)

Of course the previous coppers arresting the stripper look positively Einsteinian in the intelligence stakes when compared to the complete fuckwits who arrested and fined two teenage girls for using pavement chalks to draw girlie pictures.

How pathetic have we become in the The Land of Dope and Moron when the worst culprits for this title are the very people allegedly serving our needs to keep us safe and crime free.

Has all sense of perspective been totally lost - is there not a senior officer who could have had a quiet word with the twats who decided that this heinous crime needed punishing?

The father of one of the girls has stated that he will not pay the fine and intends to let it go to court in order to show what a waste of tax payers money the whole thing is. For once I'm in favour of this action. Go on mate, waste the money and make the Police live up to picture accompanying this post.

Later, Grocerjack

WTF?

It’s been a bit bloody hectic lately. Too hectic to even moan about stuff.

However, I still have an eye for spotting stories that make my blood boil and here is a typical example

Grampian Police arrested a stripogram for wearing a Police uniform in the street. What a pair of utter tossers the arresting officers must be. What a waste of public money and police time this is. Where is the sense of reality here?

I can only assume that these moronic pricks were wandering around thinking it was all a bit dull and went looking for something top do. How else do you explain the imbecilic actions. And the police wonder why people don’t trust them!

Tomorrow, Grocerjack

He made a mistake, thats all!

Des Browne made a mistake when he allowed the captured sailors and marines to sell their stories on their return to the UK. I agree this might be a bit crass, but frankly I don't have an issue with them making a few quid after getting caught when operating under the orders of "superior" officers. Accepting that my view is in the minority I still don't understand why we have to have the clamour for his resignation? This kind of cheap point scoring politics is exactly the sort of bollocks that distances the puffed up ego of Parliament from the proletariat and the dare I say it, "Bourgeousie" that have to live every day in The Land of Dope and Moron.

In every walk of life people fuck up. The get it wrong. They visit the mystery land of Cockup more often than they'd wish. After all THEY ARE HUMAN. But do they have to resign from their jobs? Is this what society now demands. Make a fuck up and go? A race of automaton like humans who never ever get it wrong? How the hell do you ever learn then? Isn't it a staple fact of our lives that the best lessons learned are often the most painful. In any civilised society shouldn't we be engendering a culture of forgiveness, especially for those who hold their hands up and recognize their error. . And for those who walk amongst us, blessed by the alleged love of an alleged God, don't their religions preach this very forgiveness ethos?

Actually, scrub that last bit. Fundamental God-ism is twisted by the human devotee into a means of oppressing the masses in order to ensure people live to their own twisted and anal ideals.

Anyway, back to Des. Des...mate......fuck 'em. Fuck the Tories, fuck the Lib Dems, fuck the TV companies and most of all fuck the lowlife scumbags of the tabloid hysteria-inducing press (The Sun, The Daily Facist and The Daily Lunatic being the main culprits) who are driving this issue in order to shift print during what is a slow news period. You made a mistake and have publicly apologised and that should be good enough for anyone.

Later, Grocerjack

Bloody blood pressure

I bought a machine to monitor my blood pressure on the advice of my Doctor. Great idea huh? All its done since I bought it has put me into a blind panic as the first reading is always something like 195/105. After 3 or 4 goes this comes down to around 134/90, but apparently the 90 reading is an indicator of potential problems. Oddly enough my resting pulse rate is around 50! I gave up smoking at 40 (I'm 45 now), and generally try to eat sensibly. Once a week I might have a pizza, or a mixed kebab from the local kebab shop. At weekends I might have the odd bacon roll or English breakfast, but generally throughout the week I eat Muesli or Yoghurt for breakfast, salad for lunch with NO meat and chicken or fish and vegetables in the evening (no spuds). I ride an exercise bike every night for 20 minutes on a sweaty fat busting programme with pushes the pulse to 140 and allegedly burns around 600 calories and I'm about to dust down my real bike for the summer. I may even buy a road racer for some early morning road riding (the other bike is better for the evenings when i can go off and on road). I drink once a week on average on a Friday, and yes it is a binge, but I'd be amazed if that was enough to elevate the BP. I think I live a healthier lifestyle than a lot of people my age. Despite all this my battle with my weight is a yo-yo. I seem to have to fight to keep it where it is and yet no matter how few calories i eat, and how much exercise I do, very little seems willing to drop off.

On Monday I have to undergo an ECG, and on the 27th I have a blood test for which I have to fast for 12 hours beforehand. I have a theory though. My Mum had an underactive thyroid gland, and my Dad had high blood pressure. The underactive thyroid, if a genetic tendency exists, might explain the inability to lose weight and the slower metabolism/lower pulse rate, whilst the high blood pressure might be a genetic inheritance over which I can do little except try and mitigate the aggravating factors. Watch this space as the next few weeks will hopefully provide a few answers and consequently some answers.


Thanks Mum. Thanks Dad.

Later, Grocerjack

The Best Ever TV Programme ..........ever?

Wow. After 8 weeks or so of following the second series of Life on Mars we at last reached the conclusion. Am I any the wiser? A little I suppose, especially when you read the writers comments here. Fascinating stuff. But as has been pointed out - the series was truly on that was taken over by the fans. To this extent there are web sites dedicated to the show, not least of all The Railway Arms site which is truly an experience, especially when you read some of the wilder theories about the programme.

Previous readers will know that I am a big fan of the BBC. I think it returns fantastic value for money, especially when "multi-channel" means "multi-ad break". If you don't know what I mean then try watching the excellent Heroes on the Sci-Fi Channel - 40 minutes of TV stretched to an hour, that's 1 minute of ads in every 3. It completely fucks up the viewing experience. Wait until June when its on the Beeb, ad free. It's a slow burner but worth it.

Back to Life on Mars though. Despite the writer explaining the ending, the fans are still putting forward their own theories. I am no different in this respect. I found the ending both enigmatic and satisfying and although I do take the writers points, I rather prefer to think that Sam's awakening into 2006/7 was part of the dream from the coma that has put him in 1973. It may well be that Frank Morgan did operate but that the operation didn't revive Sam, but even in his comatose state the event of the operation filtered through, just like the messages from the medical team and his friends and relatives. When he chose to jump of the roof at the end, this was done as part of the dream within the dream inside the coma and his way of returning to a place where he felt real and alive. That's my theory anyway, and it's one that leaves a smile on my face, from a programme that has simultaneously thrilled, entertained, amused and touched me at every turn. As TV goes this is one of the all time classics and will retain it's cult and iconic status much as The Prisoner, Star Trek, Doctor Who etc have.

The red herrings and the references throughout to the Wizard of Oz (Frank Morgan was the name of the actor who played the original wizard, Gene often call Sam by the name Dorothy, the last episode had Somewhere Over The Rainbow in it), and to the marvellous Bowie track from which it took its name were all part of the mystery and the fun. In Gene Hunt, the BBC have created one of TV's greatest ever characters, politically incorrect, mildly racist, very sexist, heavy smoking, heavy drinking...a refreshing change in these days of safe, homogenised, sanitised and anodyne behaviour. Amongst this lies the fact that all of the actors in this were utterly superb, each making the character they portrayed seem real and human. For this programme alone the BBC Licence fee was worth every penny. I await the Gene Hunt sequel, Ashes to Ashes with great anticipation.

Gene Hunt: I think you've forgotten who you're talking to.

Sam Tyler: An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding?

Gene Hunt: You make that sound like a bad thing.

Later, Grocerjack

Yes.....but is it Art?

I’ve talked about the language of Management Gobbledygook Bollocks Talk (MGBT) many a time before. I’ve often maintained that in the world of Management it’s used as a form of academic snobbery in order to underpin a clique. The normal people aren’t allowed to join this clique or club. Membership as stated previously is by invite only.

It’s the same in other worlds as well. Information Technology dresses its clique language in the elaborately woven dress of acronyms, also known as TLA’s (three letter abbreviations). I’ve heard some ridiculous ones in many places and it makes you wonder what came first – the acronym or the proper name. So insidious are these clique languages that the use of the acronym now pervades the entire English language. So much so that even numerical parts of the language such as dates are affected. After all we now refer to 9/11 instead of September 11th for example and how often do you hear the phrase “twenty four seven”. I too am not immune to this creeping malaise because I’d never get through a day at work if I didn’t use or understand MGBT. I am also a golfer, a sport renowned for its mystifying use of terms
such as Birdie, Double-bogey, fade and draw amongst many others.

But nowhere is the language bastardised into a mystifying clique language more than the world of Art. Here, it is taken to new extremes of pretentiousness and academic snobbery all designed to baffle and bemuse the average art punter like me. Now don’t get me wrong I am not dismissing Art per se – in fact I love all aspects of Art with the exceptions of the ridiculous, such as brick walls or unmade beds. Even some of the Classic painting are best described as …shit. The question “But is it Art?” occasionally needs the answer to be “No! of course it fucking isn’t…it’s a urinal you pompous twat” .

Now read on good people for a prime example of utter pomposity, anally retentive academic
snobbery and utter delusion. The exhibit is a glass of water on a shelf and ….get this…..was
lent to The Tate from a private collection! I am about to become an artist and make loads of
money from spouting utter garbage that explains utter garbage. Dunno why I didn’t think of this before.

Artist : Michael Craig-Martin (born 1941)

The Exhibit – An Oak Tree (1973)

While this appears to be a glass of water on a shelf, the artist states that it is in fact an oak tree. Craig-Martin’s assertion addresses fundamental questions about what we understand to be art and our faith in the power of the artist. The work can be seen as an exploration of Marcel Duchamp’s declaration that any existing object can be declared a work of art. In his accompanying text, Craig-Martin provides the questions as well as the answers, allowing the simultaneous expression of scepticism and belief regarding the transformative power of art.

Q: To begin with, could you describe this work?
A: Yes, of course. What I've done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.

Q: The accidents?
A: Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size...

Q: Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?
A: No. It's not a symbol. I've changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.

Q: It looks like a glass of water...
A: Of course it does. I didn't change its appearance. But it's not a glass of water. It's an oak tree.

Q: Can you prove what you claim to have done?
A: Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water and, as you can see, I have. However, as one normally looks for evidence of physical change in terms of altered form, no such proof exist.

Q: Haven't you simply called this glass of water an oak tree?
A: Absolutely not. It is not a glass of water anymore. I have changed its actual substance. It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree.

Q: Isn't this just a case of the emperor's new clothes?
A: No. With the emperor's new clothes people claimed to see something which wasn't there because they felt they should. I would be very surprised if anyone told me they saw an oak
tree.

Q: Was it difficult to effect the change?
A: No effort at all. But it took me years of work before i realised I could do it.

Q: When precisely did the glass of water become an oak tree?
A: When I put water in the glass.

Q: Does this happen every time you fill a glass with water?
A: No, of course not. Only when I intend to change it into an oak tree.

Q: Then intention causes the change?
A: I would say that it precipitates the change.

Q: You don't know how you do it?
A: It contradicts what feel I know about cause and effect.

Q: It seems to me you're claiming to have worked a miracle. Isn't that the case?
A: I'm flattered that you think so.

Q: But aren't you the only person who can do something like this?
A: How could I know?

Q: Could you teach others to do it?
A: No. It's not something one can teach.

Q: Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak constitutes an artwork?
A: Yes.

Q: What precisely is the artwork? The glass of water?
A: There is no glass of water any more.

Q: The process change?
A: There is no process involved in the change.

Q: The oak tree?
A: Yes. The oak tree.

Q: But the oak tree only exists in the mind.
A: No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water. As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also particular. To conceive the category "oak tree" or to picture a particular oak tree is not to understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it is imperceivable, it is also inconceivable.

Q: Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of the glass of water?
A: No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it does not and will ever have any other form but that of a glass of water.

Q: How long will it continue to be an oak tree?
A: Until I change it.

Later, Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with
a Pict (well if he can do it…..)

This weeks phrase

A toughie this week, which runs to next week due to the day off on Monday.

"I have some ideas I'd like to stir-fry in our think-wok"

Phew.

Later, Grocerjack