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Cheers,

BB

Strictly no BBC1

Well, I must have been a happy bunny for the last few weeks, as I haven't posted for a while. But today was a dark, dark day for me. Note the date: 26th August.

Today I heard the first mention of a new series of 'Strictly Come Dancing'. It was on the Breakfast news this morning, although quite what it has to do with news is beyond me. I have no doubt this programme is going to get blanket coverage on BBC1 for several months to come (see my previous post).

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Da da da da, da da daa, Da da da da, daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhh!!!

Bowls of wood???

I'm out of work at the moment and every time the little lady walks out the door on her way to work I must admit that I do feel little pangs of guilt (now and then). So, yesterday I decided I'd better do my bit and make an effort to help around the house. I'd do the vacuuming and dusting.

Now, it's not exactly hard work, but fuck is it fiddly!. By fiddly, I mean all those bloody ornaments scattered all over the house. They all have to be moved to dust underneath them, then all dusted individually as well.

And there's loads of them - I counted 103 to be precise, all without function. Lanterns, candles, pictures, dolls, bottles, bowls of dried wood. Bowls of dried wood!!! What the fuck's all that about?

Well, I did it this time, but that's dusting ruled out of my life from now on. If she wants to keep bowls of dried wood, she can dust 'em herself.

How do they know?

Now here's one that's been bugging me for years. Perhaps someone out there knows the answer. If so PLEEEEASE post a comment!

You know when there's a big accident or a grizzly murder and there is hardly anything left of the poor bugger to name them from? So the forensic peeps turn to dental records to identify the body - you hear it quite often on the news.

Now here's the thing: If they can't identify the body, how do they know who their dentist is?

The Holywood Swallow.

Who shall I have a go at today? I know! Those idiots who throw their heads back when swallowing an aspirin or some such other pill. What the fuck's all that about?

"Oooh, it's hard to get down", I'm told. Bollocks! An aspirin's about as small as you can get (except for a microdot... so I'm told!). What about when you've a gob full of mashed potato at the dinner table? - You don't keep on throwing your head back every time you swallow, like some sort of demented lizard or a blood-crazed T.Rex off Jurassic Park.

No, I think you've seen it on telly. I think it's a Hollywood swallow, designed so that viewers actually know that the actor is supposed to be swallowing something. The same kind of point that I made about Hollywood gun holding in my previous post. Bloody Yanks. They've a lot to answer for.

Superstitious?

Well I'm not, but...

As I was getting out the shower yesterday, there was a hair in the bath formed into a perfect pound symbol. Now does that mean I have money coming to me, or a big bill to pay? I'll let you know when it happens.

Meanwhile, back to the Twilight Zone. Do do do do, do do do do....

Bloody bees!

There has been a recent report by scientists about the alarming drop in the number of the bee population. The reason for the demise of bee colonies, they say, is unexplained. Well, they haven't looked very far. For I can reveal today where all the bees have disappeared to.

Now the warmer weather is coming, I have started opening the conservatory doors out onto the garden so I can enjoy the fresh air of a spring day. Within 30 seconds of opening the doors, a bee has magically flown in and is buzzing around the windows, unable to find the exit - how come they find their way in so easily but can't get out? Another mystery for scientists.

Anyway, this happens every time the doors are opened. As the things are too thick to get out, they buzz themselves silly until they're lying belly up on the window sill, getting frazzled by the sun. So my conservatory is a mass bee cemetery and that's where they've gone to. Simple, really.

What's happened to fruit?

I was walking past the market yesterday and was enticed by all the lovely displays of fruit. Now, I don't buy much fruit any more because it's generally shit. But this looked so good, I succumbed to the appetising display of colours - reds and yellows and pinks and greens, orange and purples and blues - thank you Cilla. I bought some plums and strawberries.

I should have known better. These things were so big they might have been grown for the set on a science fiction film. This kind of fruit just shouldn't be that big. So what did they taste like? Nothing. No flavour. Just bigness. And colour. Pleasing to the eye, shit on the pallet. I had been suckered again.

This is true with most fruit now. Apples taste like cardboard. Peaches are fibrous with no juice whatsoever. I could go on. What happened to the days when you bought a (single!) peach, bit into it and the juice ran down your chin (ooooer)? They are usually so hard that you lose your crowns when you bite into the fuckers!

So you bin the first one 'cos you can't eat it and put the rest into the fruit bowl and wait for them to ripen.

And wait. And wait. And wait. Then you test them again and they're still hard. So you go and do something that takes about three minutes, turn back to the fruit bowl and the fuckers have turned into a mouldy, mushy mess!

Fruit? Forget it.

Goody - do we really need it?

The TV news is at it again this morning, no doubt the radio too but I haven't listened. Jade Goody has died of cancer. This story took up the first 13 minutes of BBC News 24's bulletin this morning and was mentioned another three times in the next half hour. Why?

Check the stats. About 425 people die from this awful disease EVERY DAY in the UK. Why didn't the other 424 get a mention on the news? What makes JG special? From what I could make out, she was a fat, gobby, talentless showoff.

I'm sorry, I just don't understand this 'celebrity culture'. And I think that those that do understand it should also lend a thought to the other 424 people that died today. Better still, go here and make a donation.

Super wank word!

OK, this one completes my week of wankwords, and what a super one it is!

Saturday's (super) wankword is: Standardised Mortality Ratio. WTF?

Anyway, this is getting a bit boring now, so before I leave the subject I'll just let you know about another version of Wankword Bingo I've found. It's the Wankword Challenge. Quite simple really. If you and your colleagues are going into a meeting, you think up before hand some obscure wankword, and then designate one of you to work that word into the meeting. The more obscure the wankword, the harder the challenge. Great fun! Happy wankwording.

Wank word!

Friday's wankword: Empowering Technology.

Don't hurt its legs!

There was a shriek from the bathroom this morning. The little lady had discovered a 'tarantula' in the bath. "It's that big" she says, holding hands out that would easily encirle a dustbin lid (the old-fashioned corrugated type, not a wheely bin). The offending creature was, in fact, about an inch wide.

Anyway, I ejected the helpless thing out of the bathroom window onto the conservatory roof - it's probably climbed back into the bathroom by now - and I got thinking. Why can't spiders get out of the bath when they can easily walk upside-down on ceilings?

And also, after almost bringing down the house walls by the power of their screams, why do girls suddenly get all protective of the spider's welfare? Stuff like "don't trap its legs" or "don't drop it too far". Why are you bothered?

I once had a girlfriend who was petrified of spiders, but when she saw one stuck in the bath she used to make a 'spider ladder' - a strip of bog roll draped over the side of the bath - so that it could climb out itself. What's all that about? Women!

Wank word!

Wankword for Thursday is: Keynote.

Natasha Richardson.

I'd never heard of her until three days ago. She's headline news today after dying following a skiing accident. Now that's awful and tragic news, no doubt about it. But should it be the leading story? I think not! After a few seconds research on Google, I found out that dozens of people a year die on slopes in the USA alone. Why don't they get a mention on the news? Because they're not important?

The good old BBC ran the story as the lead item this morning. They even had a reporter outside the hospital where she died in Manhattan. "What's the latest from New York, Heather?". "Well Bill, she's still dead!". Come on... do we really need it?

Super wank word!

Today's (super) wankword is: Consistency of beaconicity. No shit! I heard in on Radio 4's 'Today' programme this morning.

Gissa job!

Well, today was my last day in my present job. I have been made redundant. I have known for a few weeks, having worked out my notice. So have the bosses who made the decision.

Neither of them are here today to say a simple "thanks and good luck". Nor did they find time to say it before today. I think it's disgraceful.

Wank word!

Tuesday's wankword: Buzzword.

There seems to be a pattern emerging here. To make a wankword, you just add two normal non-wankwords together. Perhaps you could add two or more wankwords together to make a super-wankword. I'll try and make some of my own up and see if I can get people using them.

Wannabe American?

Why do ordinary (i.e. English, not American) people sing in American accents? Geordies, Brummies, carrot crunchers, cider drinkers, all of 'em. They all have almost indecipherable lilts to their voices when speaking, yet when they sing they magically attain an American accent.

The only exceptions I can think of is the lovely Cerys Matthews, boyo, and that geezer out of Blur.

Wankword obsession?

Help! It seems as though I'm becoming wank-word obsessed. I'm listening out for them all the time now. I think I may be developing a wank-word problem. Where do I go? Wankwordaholic's anonymous? Anyone have their number?

Anyway, in my quest to discover more wankwords, I stumbled upon another chap's blog post about tips on things to avoid when writing a resume (or CV as we call it here).

You can read Steve Yegge's full post here.

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Tip #5: Avoid Wank Words

Wank Words are words that inflate your perceived importance (e.g. using "architected" rather than "designed"), or words that have simply become synonyms, such as "Rational UML Process", for the so-called work done by people who sit on their asses and don't know how to code anymore.

Wank Words are worse than just devoid of content; they're active indicators of total inactivity. Resume screeners either delete Wank Words or replace them with the word "wank" (e.g., "Certified Wank Master"), which makes the resume a lot easier to scan.

"Advocate" is a common wank word, when it refers to a title or position. If it's a verb then it's just a weasel word, but if you think it's your title, then you've inflated yourself into Wanker territory. Either way, if you're walking around advocating stuff, it means you're not working. Also, it means nobody listens to you, because if you possessed actual leadership, people would just do what you recommended and then you wouldn't need advocate it anymore. So "advocate" just means "wanker".

"Consultant" is often another absolutely outstanding synonym for "wanker". Now let me just add, before I get stabbed to death by eager members of the heavily armed Consultant Industry, that some consultants are great. The problem is that the odds are completely stacked against you in tech resume screening. It's like fast-food experience when applying to be a waiter at a fancy restaurant. It might have helped you hone your waiter skills, but the odds are against it, and a lot of the art of resume screening is about weighing odds.

The problem with "consultant" is that it has two meanings. It can either mean "person who was hired on a contract basis to fill a coding need in the organization", or it can mean "person hired to 'consult', aka 'wank', because the hiring organization is too clueless to solve their own problems and too incompetent to retain even one full-time staff member capable of helping them, so they turn to paid self-help." When you see the word on a resume, it can be hard to distinguish which kind it is.

The all-time worst Wank Word is probably "Methodologist". It will definitely get your resume circulated around at tech companies, but not for the reasons you were hoping. Any sort of amusing synonym for "Methodologist", such as Scrum Master, generally has the same effect.

Wank Words are a bit like the adjectives on restaurant menus — meaningless fluff words added in an attempt to make the dish sound tasty. You can get a much clearer idea of what the hell it is that you're contemplating eating if you take all the adjectives out, including nouns and noun-strings that serve as adjectives. For instance, House Cured Spice Rubbed Apple Smoked Line Caught Columbia River Coho Salmon, when all the Wank Words are removed, becomes "Salmon", which is of course the only part of the description that you're actually eating. Depending on how you feel about what that winds up being, you can replace all the adjectives with either "icky" or "yummy", e.g. "Yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy yummy Salmon", or "Icky icky icky icky icky icky icky icky Eggplant."

Hence, many wank-filled resumes wind up looking, after the screeners have marked them up a bit, like this: "Senior wanker wanking for the Wank-Wank Institute of Wankology on the wank wank wank project during which I wanked successfully with seven other wanky wankers."

Well, "senior" is also kind of a wank word, but you get the idea.

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Anyway, my wankword for Monday is: Gameplan.

Wank word!

Sunday's wankword is: Workflow.

Wankword bingo.

Further to my post, two articles down, I found a brilliant idea some chap has come up with called 'wankword bingo'. To play, just print off the wankword card from here. Then simply tick off wank words as you hear them and as soon as you have five in a line, vertically, horizontally or diagonally, shout BINGO!

This card's specifically designed for corporate meetings, but you could change the wank words or phrases to suit the occasion, for example a train journey, a night down the pub, or even a CAMRA committee meeting :-) Hours of fun for free!

I'm going to see if I can come up with a wankword-a-day for the next week. I'll post them here as soon as I hear them.

Oh, and while I'm on about my previous post, I counted 37 'absolutely's' on the TV and radio on Thursday without even trying. How sad is that?

Gissa job.

I'm job hunting at the moment. So, I sit down with the job supplement out of the local paper and search through the pages.

What's all this crap I'm faced with? Job titles such as 'Corporate Performance Officer', Crisis Worker', 'Financial Inclusion Officer' and my personal favourite, 'Sector Facilitator'.

Perhaps if I knew what they actually meant, I might apply for them. Gissa job!

Firty-fahsand fevvers.

Shall I tell you what gets on my nerves? Well, loads of stuff actually, but today I'll have a moan about the things people say.

I was listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 on my way to work this morning (I usually pick up a word I've never heard before – today it was 'ululate') and it's amazing how many people respond to a question or statement with the word 'absolutely'. Absolutely what? Everybody's saying it. You just listen out for it. It gets on my friggin' nerves!

What else? Ah, yes! People who follow a statement with 'It really does' or 'I really do'. For example “I like chocolate, I really do”. I know you do, you just fucking told me once!

Other things people say that make my toes curl:- 'err' or 'um' or 'like' at the beginning of every sentence. 'you know' or 'understand' at the end of sentences. Some other tosser phrases I hate:- 'as I say', 'at the end of the day', 'when all said and done'. There are many, many more. I may make a list one day. Or maybe not.

And it's not just what they say, it's how they say it. Why do so many people now pronounce 'th' as 'f' or 'v', as in “firty-fahsand fevvers on a frushes froat” - “How do you spell that, my man?” - “You don't spell it – it's a fuckin' number!”

Now if you were a thick cockney twat off East Enders, I might forgive you for talking like that, but a growing number of kids (and adults) are speaking that way too. Aren't schools teaching the Queen's English any more? And don't get me started on the written word and grammar! Well perhaps in another post.

P.S. Sad bastard as I am, I'm going to monitor the TV and radio tomorrow and count how many times people respond with the word 'absolutely'. Gripping stuff, eh?

Crash!

On this week's '24' one person - ONE single person - deliberately sabotaged and reformatted the entire FBI computer system. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
I love that programme.

Whered' he go?

Hi-vis vests. They're brill! They're designed to be extra glowy like one of those highlighter pens so that the wearer can be seen. And they do what it says on the tin. Or, rather, vest. I thought they were worn for safety reasons originally, which sounds like a good and sensible idea.

However, now it seems everyone wears glowy vests so that you can spot them, rather than for safety reasons - policemen, parking attendants, stewards, window cleaners, dustmen, road sweepers, council officials with clipboards, lollipop ladies, council gardeners, petty criminals doing community service, dog walkers, dogs...

The trouble is, so many people are wearing hi-vis vests now that people without them are becoming a minority and you can't actually see the person you're after because they're lost in a sea of glowy yellow or orange!

I reckon they should invent hats with flashy beacons on, or jackets with in-built telescopic flag poles that project automatically from the shoulders upon the press of a secret button.

What?

Back to the TV show I love to hate... Sky's '24'. This programme is stupid, unfeasible, unbelievable and totally unmissable! I love to watch it and see how many faults I can pick with it. It keeps me going all week.

One of the bits I picked up on in this week's episode, and I'm sure it's not just confined to '24', is that everybody responds to an important piece of information with the word 'what?'.

For example... "The president's just been kidnapped"... "What?"
or "Terrorists have detonated a nuke in L.A."... "What?"

Or "Somebody's just pinched your last Rolo"... "What?"... "I SAID SOMEONE'S JUST NICKED YOUR LAST FUCKING ROLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!".

Jeez! Methinks it's time to fit Jack Bauer up with a hearing aid.

Snooker loopy? Not me!

"Ooooo, did you watch the snooker final?" everyone's asking me. No, I fucking didn't! And shall I tell you why? Well, I'll tell you anyway. It's because all the players feel the need to to wiggle their middle finger whilst cueing up a shot.

What the fuck's all that about? They never used to do it years ago. Now they all do it. It infuriates me. It makes me want to either hack off the offending digit with a professional-sized meat cleaver, or stick it to the baize with industrial strength super glue. But I can't do either.

I could hurl a piece of furniture at the TV set, but that would just be plain daft. So I choose not to watch it. Snooker - what a load of balls!

Ice, Ice, Baby.

I smugly watched all my neighbours this morning scraping ice from the windows of their cars. They all had their motors running, exhaust polluting the atmosphere, while they scraped. And scraped. And scraped.

All of them, to a person, have a garage. And where do they park? On the fucking road, two wheels on the pavement as is standard nowadays, causing an obstruction both on the pavement so that mothers with pushchairs have to step into the road to get around the vehicle, and to road users who have to skilfully weave in and out of the cars parked on either side of the road.

Meanwhile their garages remain full of cardboard boxes and carrier bags full of crap that they will never use but they're either too lazy or stingy to get rid of it. So they park on the pavement. Brilliant!

So, as I watched them scrapety-scraping their screens, I lifted my garage door, got into my warm car and drove straight off. Moral of the tale? - Use your garage for what it was fucking built for. Tossers!

S-L-O-W-L-Y does it...

Have you noticed the really annoying trend that seems to be the growing tendency amongst TV announcers to t-a-l-k r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y when introducing programmes?

"Commming uup onn- Iiiiiiii-Teeeeee-Veeeeee-Twoooo, the stoooory ooof a mootherrr annnd"..... FUCK OFF!!!!

Is this so thickies can keep up, or is it just the patronizing manner of the announcers? Either way, it's bloody annoying. And while I'm at it, have you noticed how loads of actors, especially on the British soaps (not that I watch them) almost always give a deep sigh after their first sentence.

"Oh, Ricky(khaaa)"... "Shut it(khaaa)". Try to talk like that - it's impossible. If you did, people would look at you a bit strange.

On American shows, however, everybody either mumbles or whispers. Take for example the totally unfeasible but highly entertaining '24'. You can go through the whole show with almost all the dialogue being inaudible. So much so, in fact, that you don't actually know what's going on.

And while I'm on about this silly show, what's with all this two-handed holding of pistols that all the cops/robbers/FBI agents/serial killers do now? They move from corner to corner, wielding their guns at arm's length, swinging them around like they're practicing at throwing the hammer.

Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned gun-holding like they did in the early Bond films? Where they just pointed a floppily-held pistol in the general direction of their adversary... and still managed to hit them!

I don't get it...

...trick or treat that is. Can someone tell what's in it for me? Kids come round knocking on the door and announce 'trick or treat'. If I say 'treat', I have to give them something - I lose. If I say 'trick', they play a prank on me - I lose. How fucking fair is that?

Can someone explain the logic of this? I know t-or-t came over from the states, but the origins of it were that the poor used to beg at the doors of the wealthy and, in return for food, would pray for the giver's dead relatives. Fair play, I can understand that. But how did we get to the nonsense we have now? What kind of morals are the kids going to have when they grow up if we allow them to go knocking on doors, demanding treats with threats?

I'm going to start a new 'tradition' where adults go round knocking on doors and when kids answer, they say 'kick up the arse or kick up the arse?'. I think it could catch on.