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Posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago at 6:49 am. 0 comments
Flicking through the pages of the internet the other day I stumbled upon an interview with rap music’s 50 Cent. 50, known for such songs as “In Da Club” (a ballad about the shortcake inside chocolate biscuits) and, um, that one where he sings about his mum kissing a girl, has a brand new album called ‘Curtis’ coming out on September 11th; the exact same day as dance floor nemesis Kanye “Milk Me” West. Fiddy - real name Curtis James Jackson III - proved to be disparaging of Kanye in talking with Complex Magazine:
“I think it makes good sense for Kanye West to keep his date the same as 50 Cent. First I was like, “What is he doing?” like, “It’s gonna kill him.” … He already knows that he doesn’t mind being number two because he knows he’s going to be number two” 50 Cent, referring to himself in the third person
Curtis, Curtis, Curtis. Have you learnt nothing from your namesake, Curtis Stigers, who so famously predicted himself off of the billboard chart with his overexagerated boasts? (Stigers, in an interview with a surprisingly lucid Cher, told fans ”there’s no need for you, listening to me now, to even buy the single - I’m number one and no shit can change that”; record sales amounted to three copies, at least two of which were bought erroneously according to anecdotal reports)
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Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 9:34 am. 0 comments
As US elections shift ever closer, aides close to the President are growing increasingly frustrated with trying to explain to Bush that he won’t be up for re-election. George W, who was memorably described as “a towering pillock” last year by a tipsy Earl of Lancaster, is seemingly unaware of the constitutional rules describing just two consecutive terms of office.
“It’s got to the point where he’s in my office at least twice a day, rubbing his hands together and saying “Right, when are we hitting the campaign trail?” It’s beginning to get right on my tits. We’ve seriously considered sedating him” Anonymous White House Source
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Posted 11 months, 4 weeks ago at 5:26 am. 0 comments
The world of science is in a turmoil today with the news that donations from middle-class people have no affect on cancer research. The shock discovery, the result of a three year longitudinal study in association with the London School of Economics, has shown, that despite cash injections from guilty benefactors riding a high tide of property prices and a strong pound, medical advancements in fields as diverse as breast and bowel cancer to leukaemia have not been advanced one iota.
“We thought it was a mistake at first … until the test results came back in. Even sterile swaps bought with middle-class money end up a bit dirty. You may as well piss it up the wall; we’ve been buying photocopier paper and beer bongs, it’s bloody useless” Anonymous Researcher, CTSU Oxford University
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Posted 1 year ago at 10:29 am. 0 comments
RnB croonster Ne-Yo ”hit me up” on my “celly” in the early hours of this morning (poor lad can never figure out the timezones) to ask my advice on which flat-screen TV he should purchase for his “crib”. After an hilarious mix-up involving baby cots that went on for at least an hour, we eventually got down to the fact that he was looking for something suitably “bling” in the $2,500 to $3,500 bracket, preferably 48-inches or larger. Of course you don’t have to be a hit-record selling artiste to have trouble deciding on a new tech-toy; I’ve no doubt that many potential buyers have found themselves unpleasantly moist-palmed at the thought of differentiating between dozens of products that ostensibly seem the same.
Choice, then, is crippling us. Once upon a time there were only two choices facing us: plague or no-plague, and only the masochistic or confused went for the former. Now, if you wander into your local plague emporium, you’re faced with bubonic, Ebola-based or any number of genetically-modified derivatives for 100% of the fresh plague taste you love but with only half the calories. A telemarketer tried to sell me a pox very low on the glycemic index last week, and wouldn’t get off the phone until I’d listened to his entire spiel about how own-brand supermarket diseases have been shown to be bulked with inverted sugar syrup.
In fact it seems that the big chain foodstores can do no right at the moment. Only this past Friday did the British media frot themselves into a frenzy of gnashed cellophane at the news that some ready-made sandwiches contain as much salt as eight bags of crisps (that’s chips for my American friends, and кексы for any Russians reading). Jim Winship, director of the British Sandwich Association, balefully retorted that “meat is salty” while saving his tears to pour over a prawn-mayo baguette he was making for some small children.
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Posted 1 year, 5 months ago at 5:04 am. 0 comments
At the risk of sounding like some sort of Faustian soothsayer, the world appears to be slightly off-kilter. One isolated incident I’m content to write off as an anomaly, an acid-reflux hiccup in the pattern of our dreary lives, but in the words of the great Bonnie Tyler “oh shit, here it comes again”
First off, there’s Joel Johnson and his anti-tech beration of all the gadget world holds holy over at Gizmodo. Now Joel has been called the grand doyenne of those hallowed pages, putting in a two year stint of biting apathy and growing horror reporting on the fabulous breakthroughs in the world of consumer electronics, and currently runs Dethroner complete with beard and attitude. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that he’s proved himself there a harsh, sarcastic SOB with little time for feckless whelps and dregs, and built an adoring audience because of it.
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Posted 1 year, 5 months ago at 4:05 pm. 0 comments
Ah, there’s nothing I like more than to use my Moral Decline tag, especially when tongue is firmly planted in cheek. And with the furore over Catholic adoption agencies and the new UK anti-discrimination legislation, it’s been a whole blizzard of diatribe and vitriol. Tony “does anyone have a spare legacy” Blair has been pushing for an outright ban on any agency, state-led or otherwise, from refusing to place children with same-sex couples merely on the basis of sexual orientation, while the Catholics (as well as a surprising background chorus of other faiths, each with that dear-in-the-headlights look of “maybe I’m next?”) were demanding exemption on the basis that their faith says homosexuality is naughty.
It’s interesting to see the church treat the government as a car dealership. They know what they’re getting in the normal deal - free mats and a full tank of fuel, or the equivalent in tax exemptions and preferential treatment of their schools - but just like you and I when we’re shopping for a new urban runaround, they’re after some freebies from the options list, too. Last year they managed to add exemption for faith schools from having to take non-faith students, primarily by taking the stance of squealing loudly and calling on support from conservative (with a small C) religious politicians. So it’s not all that surprising that they’ve taken the same approach this time round.
Only it looks like the deal has finally been stretched to breaking point, as an incredulous church finds itself without car and distinctly out of favour - the government says “no can do, boys, there’s no profit-margin in that.” And now they’re left bleating about vague impacts on volunteering rates, perhaps all too aware that when you’re responsible for just 4% of all adoptions it’s hard to make yourself sound essential (later the quote was “they placed one-third of the difficult-to-place children”)
It remains to be seen whether this signals the beginning of the end for religious impact on politics, and the way Catholic adoption agencies handle the next 21 months (the period they’ve been given to “get used” to having to treat gays as reasonable parents) will perhaps be key. They can either close - and face being ignored as archaic - or come back to the negotiating table, force a laugh or two about unreasonable demands, and maybe have some hope of swaying future policy.
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 5:46 pm. 0 comments
The British press is frothing violently at the mouth with the news that two paedophiles, one convicted of downloading over 200 explicit images of children and the other bailed pending sentencing after sexually abusing a teenager, have been allowed to walk free thanks to prison overcrowding. Meanwhile, in the United States of America a 29 year old man successfully convinced school authorities that he was, in fact, twelve - attending seventh grade for several months before discovery.
The judges responsible blame recent Home Office edicts that only the most dangerous criminals should be imprisoned, a move which has reduced the militant-pure to tearing at their hair (or the hair of whichever profession has been confused with paedophiles that day: pediatricians beware) and screaming blue-murder. Frankly, it looks like the nation’s love-hate affair with cases of child abuse has faded; today’s fast-paced and fashion conscious world equates “dangerous” with “sexy”. And therein lies the issue: paedophilia just isn’t sexy any more.
Look, for instance, to Britney Spears. Once she was the poster-child for inappropriate lusts, all pig-tails and slutty school uniforms; now she gurns drunkenly at paparazzi, falling out of cars and generally looking loutish. You can’t blame the perverts for going off her. Even the guy who almost finished seventh grade doesn’t look happy: is this the face of a man ecstatic of all the close-proximity to the hairless?
No, if ever there was a ‘philia in need of rebranding, child molestation is it. I took to the streets to ask paedophiles what they thought could put touching kids back on top of every parents’ hate-list; being unable to identify any didn’t stop me.
I found a nation confused and belligerent. One man, who begged desperately to be left nameless, told me that, before they met, his wife of thirty-two years was once a 14 year old, and that physical relations with her is, he fears, a form of latent paedophilia. Another woman described an incident at a municipal pool where she briefly shared a foot-bath with a much younger girl while leaving the changing rooms; she feels unable to return to those premises for fear of vigilante reprisals.
The overwhelming consensus was that I should put my microphone away and sod off, you unpleasant little git. Difficult to analyse in SPSS, for sure, but if an edgy public is a changeable one then perhaps we’ll see that sudden tide-turn in attitudes once more.