Anything, Anywhere But Under Sufferance

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me... ... A partridge in a pear tree... Why? What sodding use is that? I mean other than plucking the bird, roasting it and eating it, then having a pear for afterwards, it's not much use is it? And lets be honest, if you are having partridge for Christmas dinner, then pear to follow, it's hardly traditional is it? On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me... ... Two turtle doves...and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, since the turtle dove is now close to extinction, probably not the best choice of present. Bill Oddie will probably throw a wobbly and lets be honest, if one Partridge in a pear tree was overkill, sending them another is just plain silly isn't it? On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me... ... Three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. I mean why? Why do they have to be French? Are they somehow better at producing eggs? Do they wear beret...

I've got a relatively new client that I've been doing work for (www.gorillagolfblog.com) and I have to say I'm enjoying it. Golf is one of my favourite past-times, so getting paid to write about it in a variety of forms is almost a guilty pleasure. Now as a writer, part of my work involves writing copy that is not only interesting and informative (or dull as shiny shite if you don't like what's written) but which is also search engine optimised. This involves finding out what words people use when they search for and visit the site. Now, this site is about golf in a wide variety of forms and nothing else. It does look at fringe aspects of golf, such as golf club facilities, professional tournaments, opinions on golf etc, but every single post has one clear theme. So, it is somewhat strange to discover that the keywords the most number of people who come to our website use tend to be golf (I know, shocker ain't it?) and ... sex. I know, it surprised me to...

Religion is a thorny subject. Not just for Jesus either. I mean you mention it, or make light of it and you can almost hear the pursing of the lips from people who don't feel it is right to "make fun of people's beliefs". On the contrary, I find humour about such things probably the best way to deal with them. I mean, laughing at the nonsensical spoutings of these Paedophile Catholic Priests, Jihadist Clerics, Mad Mormons and the ever-invasive Jehovah's Witnesses is the best way to ridicule their pathetic burblings. Besides, God has a sense of humour, I saw Bruce Almighty the other night and anybody who designed the male reproductive system has to be a comic genius of Monty Python proportions. So when I'm God, there's going to be changes. 1. Anyone who wants to praise me at the exclusion of others or invoke any kind of trouble in my name will immediately grow a flashing red antennae on their head that flashes "TALKING BOLLOCKS" whenever t...

Dear Mr Gove, I'd like to thank you. No really, I would. In amongst all the condemnation and angst-filled ire that has come your way in recent weeks due to you starting on the long road to privatising state education your education reforms, you have provided something that the country has long needed. A scapegoat. In amongst all your crass, nonsensical and emotive verbal outpourings about how the "poor and needy single parents" will be the ones who suffer most from the forthcoming teacher strike (these are the same single mothers & fathers who you slashed 8.5% off their total income via the last budget, so your concern didn't spread to actually making them any better off did it? http://www.totallymoney.com/news/index.php/2011/06/lone-mothers-bearing-the-brunt-of-cuts/) you have attempted to put teachers in an invidious position. Forcing them to bear the brunt of parental ire, accusing them of not having the children's best interests at heart, accusing the...

It's been depressing of late hasn't it? I mean North Africa's going to pot, as are parts of the Middle East. Japan and China and the two Korea's seem to be gearing up for a bit of feuding, we're busy sending troops to every corner of the globe which has oil (so, Tunisia, Syria & Co can sort themselves out, but Libya we're in like a shot, same as Iraq. I am betting Cameron and co are hoping Venezuela start a revolution soon so they can make a big humanitarian effort over there to). We've had Tornadoes in America, Tsunami's in Japan, unemployment is up, the wonderful equal policies of "we're all in this together" have surprisingly translated into "let the poor masses pay and the rich get wealthier". Who'd have thought that under a Tory led government, eh? So we've had thousands of public sector workers jobs shelved, being told that the private sector will fill the gap. Only nobody seems to have told the private sec...

Top Stories As a child, I was intrigued by ‘the mysterious’ and that curiosity has never left me. I have tonnes of books right here next to me now on all kinds of mysterious topics. Ghosts, UFO’s, Monsters etc. What started this interest was a story my mum told me about our old house, which she said was haunted. She says one night, she went to bed and my dad was working nights. She was fast asleep when the alarm clock went off at some stupid hour o’clock. This was odd as it was always set to 5am for my dad to get up for work and it had also been set to the radio, rather than the beeper. Thinking nothing of it, she clicked it off and went back to sleep. Reset the alarm the next morning and had a moan at my dad for messing it up. He said he hadn’t touched it and as usual, me or my brother got the blame. A week or so later, my mum was downstairs in the early hours making herself a drink as she could not sleep. Oddly enough it was about the same time as the alarm had woken her a few ...

I rather like this image, it is a visual description of just one portion of the internet. I think it's rather beautiful and almost ethereal. Strange really when you consider that the vast number of people on this are using the internet to tweet that they've just taken a dump or are watching cats fall comically into swimming pools. Today, we tackle the internet. It probably wasn't in the minds of the scholars at Stanford University first began to develop the groundwork for what would become the Internet, that their creation would not only be arguably the most important in modern society, but that for many the epitome of it would be to spend the day watching hedgehogs learn to ride a bicycle. A lot of debate on the internet is on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. This is rather a facile and pointless argument. It is like arguing whether humankind is a good or bad thing, or religion is a good or bad thing. There are plus and minuses to every facet of human life. On pl...