emchi.co.uk

So last Friday night we braved the torrential rain to go to Wembley Arena to see Bill Bailey.  I’d missed out on tickets to see his warm up shows, but managed to get tickets to the last night.  I dealt with a rather grumpy R, ok make that incredibly grumpy R to watch the show.  Anyway, it was a complete let down.  I can’t say that I enjoyed it all that much, I don’t remember many of the gags and I can’t say it was anywhere near as good as Part Troll.

Anyway, the title says two comedians, and two you shall get.  I’ve just found out Mark Thomas is playing a small venue in London for the next two weeks.  So tickets have been purchased for Saturday night and that is what we shall be upto. 

We saw Mark Thomas almost exactly two years ago.  I cried with laughter, he was so unbelievably funny.  Glasses came off, tears were wiped and sides were hurting.  How someone can turn something as serious as arms dealing into a comedy show is beyond me, but he got the message home and did so in a Scaryduck style fashion. 

So here’s hoping that he’s as funny as he was two years ago!!  

Still at home.  My hand is loosing more feeling by the day and I was all but thrown out of the doctor’s this morning by some idiot who gave me the impression he got his medical degree on-line.  He managed to diagnose me with no examination to speak of, his idea of examining me was pulling, pushing and prodding me, even thought I told him it hurt when he did so.  Now what’s he done? sent me for blood tests with no reason, I know what they are, but I don’t know why I’m supposed to have them.

My osteopath says one thing, after a thorough examination, this doctor, or should I say “quack” who I saw this morning said my symptoms were not following a normal pattern and implied that I was lying about them.  Yeah, right, I keep loosing feeling in my thumb and two fingers, now spreading to three, it doesn’t fall into his text book definition of what’s right or wrong therefore I must be lying.  I’m furious.  Not to mention starting to get worried because I have no idea what the hell is wrong with me and it’s getting worse.

I would gladly pay for medical treatment by the way of private medical insurance, but the government feels it’s ok to take the money from my pay check to pay for the treatment.  Take that away, and I’ll front up for medical, pension and unemployment.  They won’t do that though will they?  Means test people, if they have the money to pay for medical insurance let them do it.  Give them a tax break for doing it. 

Of course we cannot rely on this government to make any decisions, one minute they say some-thing’s going to happen, the next they change their minds.  Do they honestly feel that by making changes to policy, so it’s more in line with the opposition, that are leading in the polls, will curry favour with people? No it just shows you as weak, spineless, unable to come up with an original idea and utterly incapable of running the country.

Whilst I don’t condone the behavior of the dim witted bimbo’s on that god awful programme on Channel 4 I have to ask if the media’s behavior towards it is symptomatic of the way this country is becoming. On Channel 4 you’ve got Big Brother and Castaway (or wahtever it’s called) and on the news you’ve got the PC who won’t shake her boss’ hand because it’s “against her religion”.

With all of this happening you have to ask whether our “tollerant PC culture” has itself to blame for the mess this has caused? When you bend over backwards to protect people from other cultures at the expense of the people of it’s own culture you have to start expecting things like this to happen. You start getting to a point where people will start speaking their minds because they’re so fed up of keeping their mouths shut. It doesn’t help when a police officer is allowed to refuse to shake the hand of her boss because it’s against the rules of her religion. Well in the UK it’s considered rude not to shake the hand of your supierior if it is required that you do so.

If people of this country are so surprised that there is a racisim problem in Big Brother, then they should perhaps take a look at the furore that the media kicks up by reporting every instance where being “PC” goes over the top. I’d rather not know about these things, because knowing about them seems to make me a bit “BNP” which is not a good thing. The press is making bigoted racists out of people in this country. When the press starts reporting that these things are being said on Big Brother, they should perhaps look to themselves for creating the situation. Big Brother may well be showing what I’m sure a lot of people across the country think on a daily basis.

The government preaches tollerance. However it would appear that it’s conditional tollerance. This is straying away from the point however. Should a TV show illustrate racism to the masses? or in doing so does it highlight an under lying problem with society? Has it caused a can of worms to exploded and in doing so it will be impossible to put them all back again?

Question time: Is lack of education the cause for intollerance and racism? or Is it the press and establishment’s over dosing of Political Correctness breeding a culture of hatred?

So in summary, should Big Brother and other trashy reality TV shows be binned so this kind of behavior doesn’t come to the surface? or should the PC culture go and everyone should develop a tougher skin?

So I finally got around ot buying the book by Mark Thomas (see the post title for the book). Having seen Mark Thomas live just before Chirstmas last year, and cried myself silly with laughter, I couldn’t wait for the book. Ok so it’s not as funny as the stand up show, and a lot of it was really bits about the stand up show, but it also followed a serious theme.

For those of you who don’t know Mark Thomas’ work, he’s a political comedian, and a damn fine one to boot (in the funny sense of the words). Well he decided to take on the arms trade. Trying to find out what it would be like to be an arms dealer. The book covers how ironic the country is at banning certain items. Like for example, you can’t sell ankle chains as their considered torture devices, but if you label them Large Hand Cuffs, then hey, away you go. He even talks about how he worked with two schools, one in England and one in Ireland to set up an arms trading company in order to sell arms, just to prove how easy it is.

I would strongly recommend the book, especially to the reader(s) out there who may or may not have worked in the industry. I’m sure that some paralells (fuck did I just say that), could be drawn (yes, I really did just say that), between his book and the realities.

If you want to read one book this summer that’s not the Da Vinci Code, or one of Richard and Judy’s “must reads”, then I’d suggest this, it’s funny, and educational. Failing that for the illiterate amonst you (not many I’m sure), I would suggest catching one of Mark’s stand up shows, they’re cheap and a bloody good laugh.

It would appear I’ve been tagged by the lovely spacesilver

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: (think more 400 as I’m a contractor)
Pizza Slut… I mean Pizza Hut Waitress / chef… yes I did put chili’s in wankers pizza’s
Helldesk person… yes there often was a case of PEBKAC (problem exists between keyboard and chair for the un-initated)
Shop Girl - WH Smith anyone
Web Change Manager - up hill struggle anyone?

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Weird Science - “Gimme the keys… I’ll drive”
Replacement Killers - “Meg Coburn? Never heard of her”
51st State - “Let me get this straight… bollocks is bad… but the dogs bollocks is cool?”
Layer Cake - Non quoteable, but damn… Daniel Craig!!

Four Places I’ve lived:
Taunton - oh how I miss Somerset
Canterbury - too many French tourists
Newham - In the ghettoooooo (Cartman People)
Mottingham - not bad, but it’s hardly Monaco

Four TV Shows you love to watch:
Lost - WHEN is the next series on over here
CSI - LV or Miami… hurry up next week
ER - Why oh why is Noah Wyle not in it anymore
Scrubs - Sorry, Dr Cox is my idol!

Four Places You’ve been on Holiday:
South of France
South of France
All over Europe
South of France (are you seeing a pattern here?)

Blogs you visit daily:
Spacesilver
Someguyonajourney
Random Acts of Reality - it’s addictive
Bignoseduglyguy

Four Favourite Foods:
Mexican - home made enchilladas
Lentil Soup (well almost any soups)
Roast Lamb
Nigella’s Chocolate cake

Four Places You’d Rather Be:
Monaco
Chamonix
Taunton
Paris

Albums You Can’t Live Without:
Sasha & Digweed - Northern Exposure Vol II Disc 1
My Driving Tunes CD I made - Including She Sells Sanctury by the Cult and My Favourite Game by The Cardigans
The Space Brothers
Godskitchen - Worldwide CD1

Four Cars You’ve Owned / Borrowed / Nicked:
VW Polo Mark 1 - first car… never again
Peugeot 106 - First brand new car… lacked oomf
Clio Sport 172 - Va Va Vooom… although it’s loosing it’s appeal
Honda Civic Type R with too many engine mods to mention - not mine but did get to take it to Sainsburys on Sunday, and damn I love the looks I get when I rev the engine… just don’t tell the owner.

Four Beautiful People to be Tagged:
I’ll tag ‘em but who’ll respond… anyway Spacey got to them first!!
Ok BNUG

Well it’s not quite all gone but it’s a bit shorter and a lot blonder (a few strategic arty streaks). I also have a fringe.

I thought my hair was being cut by the dull russian as my usual stylist was out today and I really wanted it cut. No… I get the fab new stylist who does colour consultations for catwalk shows and has done celebrities hair (don’t ask who as I’ve lost the blinking email with the details on). Anyway he dry cut my hair (a new one on me), convinced me to have a smidge of colour (which I’d been thinking of for ages but didn’t want a conventional set of highlights put through as it’s hassle keeping them maintained).

Well I have a very funky hair cut now that looks great straight or curly (i have naturally annoyingly wavy hair). So anyway you can now queue up the jokes about me being blonde… bring ‘em on :op

I wasn’t joking about my bed, the pic shows just how mahoosive it is. This is my room for the week btw, spot the large mirror for me to be vain in… or more to the point run past quickly so I don’t see how tubby I’m becoming. Speaking of which gotta run, they’ve organised a birthday dinner for me. Or Birthday Version 2.0 as I’m geekily calling it.

Ok so it’s not my name in lights but it is another blogger’s name in lights. As Reynolds didn’t win a bloggie (pft, over rated anyway), I think he did one better and has a piece published in The Times. I think it shows employee blogging in a good light. lets face it there are people out there who do get themselves in hot water for blogging about their job. However I think there are a few cases where blogging about one’s job is a good thing, it puts what some people do into a new light.

Nice piece, well written, not political.

ARGH!! Do you think for the life of me I can get blog rolling to work properly? Can I heck! I will get it working eventually just driving me up the wall at the moment so I feel I will have to give in on it….

Anyway, finished yet another book last night, and it was a good read for a debut novel. Considering the author in question has to live up to an award winning novelest father. The book in question was Judgement Calls by Alafair Burke. It was a bit hard going in a few places but then that could have been down to me being blurry eyed in a few places. However I would say it is a good book, excellent reasoning and a good plot that twists and turns like a french mountain road. It concentrates on the Portland Assistant District Attorney and trying to get someone convicted for attempted murder. Burke cunningly manages to weave two plots into one very smoothly and if you blinked you would most certainly miss it. I’d also say that the characters of the book interact with each other very well, and you tend to end up disliking a few people for various reasons. The book is far from predictable. I’d say she is a budding Linda Fairstein in the making, as I found a few similarities between the two authors writting styles.

I also managed to catch the start of the new series of The Handler. I thought it was going to be bland and un-interesting but it was quite unusual. Considering I’ve never watched an episode of the Sopranos, I only really know Joe Pantaliano from The Matrix and The Fugitive. Nice the way they interwove 4 stories into one rather seemlessly, not giving too much away and having you wanting more. I’m glad I stayed up to watch it, and hopefully will catch some more of the show. I guess they’ve got to have something to replace some of the stuff that’s coming to an end.

There seems to be a lot of new American shows coming to our TV’s, some I don’t watch that people rave about (I’ve mentioned Sopranos), some I just don’t get a chance to watch because I’ve got to share the TV. However I always veto Thursdays in ER/Friends season! And I became addicted to Dead Like Me… ah the new tv season is always something to look forward to.