Local newspaper disappointment

This site was suggested to me recently. And it has quickly become a huge favourite of mine.

It’s in Swedish, so feel free to slip out the back door if you want.

So, it’s a blog called “Dagens Lokaltidningsbesvikelse” or “The day’s local newspaper disappointment”.

It specialises in those pathetic articles from small newspapers concerning idiots and the trivial things that make them sad.

You know the ones I mean:

“Billy, 53, had to wait three weeks for his phone to be repaired”.

Or: ”Alice is annoyed by the ducks in the garden.” That kind of thing, but worse.

The site gives four basic rules for the articles it will accept. They must:

1. Concern a trivial problem
2. Have a photo of the affected person, with family if possible
3. Who will have a forced look, head askew, and a pathetic sad face
4. Must be from a local paper or, in a pinch, a national gutter rag

Examples of the side-splitting misery from this site include the guy who doesn’t like dog shit, the ladies who were expelled from the sushi buffet for eating only the fish, the woman who cries because of the pile of snow outside her window, and the guy in a wheelchair who is made feel handicapped by the excess of snow.

It just goes to show that newspapers, as if we didn’t already know, are shit, and that the vast majority of “news” in them is meaningless crap that only is there to fill space. But if we don’t feel sorry for these everyday morons, then at least we can have a good laugh at them.

See moron. See moron run. Run moron run.

(Except the wheelchair guy, obviously.)

/ paddy

Rice

Metro Sweden, that gushing fountain of shite news, published a story on Tuesday (warning: PDF link!) concerning two ladies and their adventures at a sushi buffet.

The ladies can be seen here looking all “sad for the photo” and expecting us to feel sorry for them. Here’s why:

They entered a sushi buffet at lunchtime. They took sushi but proceeded to poke out the rice, which then was wasted, and eat only the fish.

This meant they went through much more sushi than a normal person would, leaving a pile of unusable rice behind them.

When the staff pointed out to the ladies that they would have to order something more expensive (sashimi) if they only wanted fish, they became all stroppy and refused. And the staff asked them to leave. Which they did. Only to contact a newspaper and pose for the above “we are victims oh pity us” photo.

Now, if these ladies are looking for sympathy, they have come to the wrong blog. The restaurant, if you ask me, was completely right to throw out their moany arses. People seem to believe that they can behave however they want, anywhere, or demand whatever they like, and it’s ok.

But listen ladies, if you want the fish, then pay for the fucking fish, or else get the hell out. The owner and the staff decides. Your power in this is simply not to go back, and tell your friends not to do so either. And not just run to the newspapers like somebody just stole your fucking lollipop.

In their defence the ladies explain that they are “on a special diet”, which means basically, they don’t like rice, or refuse to eat it for magical reasons. Which helps their case not at all.

And the restaurant involved? Where the ladies who couldn’t eat rice went for lunch?  It was called Rice. Irony doesn’t begin to cover it. Stupidity and arrogance probably does.

People, I must once again conclude, are sometimes as thick as shit.

/ paddy

Reporting the “News”

Now it’s not often I express my love for another man (not in a public forum anyway) but I must say that I fucking love Charlie Brooker. Yes, I love you Charlie, from your brilliant Guardian column, to your various TV exploits, to your unabashed love of computer games and geekery, and to the fact that you was born the same year as I was.

This however take the biscuit (possibly a Toffee Pop). It is Charlie’s quick and dirty stab at TV news, from his longer and more savage stab at TV news called Newswipe.

Dowdy Kitchen Man for president!

/ paddy

Happy Cyber Goo

One thing that I really hate with computer keyboards is all the gunk that collects between the keys. Many an hour have I spent poking with pointy plastic things and rolled up paper, trying to prise out that hard crumb or tangle of hair.

I even purchased a USB mini vacuum cleaner, which was possibly the most useless thing ever.

In fact, my decision to buy a MacBook last year was partly based on the fact that the keys had no spaces between them to allow for trapping of debris. 

But my work computer has a great big keyboard and a troubling forest of things living inside it. So enter Cyber Clean. This friendly slimy goo is simply pressed hard on the keyboard and squished between the keys.

Then you peel it off in a sticky layer and away with it comes all the crumbs, hair, skin and snot you could ever wish for.

Plus it gives everything a nice lemony scent. Can anything be better than that?

I love Cyber Clean. However, one of the “reviews” I found for it is horriby bad, and done by a complete and utter moron who doesn’t even understand how to use the product (you shove it between the keys, dickless) and instead thinks it is some kind of surface cleaner that removes all of his collected gunk he has smeared there over years of talking shite. This guy is a severe idiot, as you can verify, and fuck knows why he is allowed to review anything when he can barely open the package.

So anyway, go Cyber Clean! The best fucking slime-based cleaning product ever.

(And yes, the company that makes Cyber Clean may indeed send me more, and I will pimp it all over again. I’m kind of cheap that way.)

/ paddy

Pepper, pepper, puke

Now is the high season in Sweden for the wonderfuly named “Vinterkräksjuka” or winter vomiting disease.

And I have noticed that as soon as a person on Facebook (or, indeed, in real life) mentions that they have a family member with the WVD, somebody will suggest that they immediately swallow 10 whole peppercorns, and continue doing this every day as a means of “protection”.

Now, as a sceptic, I am sceptical. It seems unlikey to me that this works, because if it did then somebody would isolate the active ingredient and market it as a medicine.

And all “evidence” I have seen on the web in favour of this is purely anecdotal, which is to say, worse than useless.

Also, a search for “winter vomiting peppercorn” gives NO mention of this being used as a preventative in the English-speaking world.

Stories such as, “I have done this every day for twenty years and have never been sick” abound, but since a percentage of the population is anyway immune to the calicivirus that causes the WVD, this means nothing.

So my question is: does anybody have any actual evidence one way or the other? And actual EVIDENCE, not just “my mum used to swear by it” or “they always do this in my kid’s school” or “I always do it and never get sick”?

And question 2: is this believed only in Sweden or in other countries too? And if so, then why?

Or is it, as I suspect, just a rumour started by pepper importers..?

/ paddy

Stylee

I have over 100 partial blog posts and ideas in my drafts folder. Occasionally, when there is nothing to complain about (which, to be honest, isn’t very often) I go in, have a poke around and rescue something.

Yesterday I found this one from 2008, which I will now publish exactly as it appears in my drafts – holes, spaces, partial ideas, incomplete sentences and all. And please excuse the cliffhanger, because I completely forget what happened next.

Alright then, I’ve been moping around for long enough. Time to get my head out of my arse and shake off the ennui

And so I have decided to cure my various French disesases of the soul by the simplest of **procedures** – let’s go fucking shopping.

So I needed a new style, quite simply. I am not (nor ever was, actually) a spring chicken so I feel it is time to get out there and get it on, old school.

Yes, we’re talking shirts that cost more than a night out. Yes, we are talking black shoes with tiny laces, so shiny that you could use them to send signals to the moon. Yes we are talking

And today, at my very first attempt at wearing this new style in public, the following happened:

Sucks, doesn’t it?

/ paddy

Puppies

Puppies, eh? Aren’t they lovely?

Soft, cuddly, happy little puppies, just running around and doing all that puppy stuff?

Nobody could dislike puppies surely, be they Catholic, Protestant, Sikh or whatever. They’re just puppies.

And they’re bloody lovely. Alright?

/ paddy (hoping for some peace and quiet for a change)

Catholic vs. Protestant vs. Reality

During a heated discussion in the comments of my blog recently, I was accused of being anti-Catholic. This was because I was being negative to the Catholic church, their power structure, their influence over democratic institutions and their suppression of free thought.

That conversation I cut short when the other person freely admitted that he hated Protestants, which made the whole “you’re an anti-Catholic bigot” argument sort of redundant.

He thought I was being specifically anti-Catholic, when if fact I was being anti-religion. I am negative to the Catholic Church in particular because I know them the best, having being forced to suffer them during my childhood.

So Catholics believers shouldn’t feel special – I dislike all religious ideas equally. And to make the point once more – I have nothing whatsoever against Catholic PEOPLE, just against the ideas that they think I should respect even though these ideas are clearly insane.

Once again – I don’t dislike religious people because of what they believe. It’s mainly other religious people who do that. I try and treat everybody by how they are and how they treat me, and not based on what sky fairy they may or may not mutter to.

So I respect people. I respect the right of people to believe whatever the hell they want in the confines of their own heads. But I do NOT and never will respect ideas just because they exist.

Ideas should be able to stand up for themselves and bear scrutiny. If an idea makes no sense, and cannot be backed up by solid evidence, then I will not accept it and I will not respect it. Believe it if you want, that is your right, but don’t get all huffy when I point out that it is rubbish.

Give me a good argument, and don’t just toddle about like a five-year old whining about the “respect” you think your idea is due. Convince me, and I will respect it.

But that, handily enough, is the thing about religion – it just can’t be proved using reason. You jut have to “believe” it. And why should you “believe”? Well if you do, you will live forever and ever. If you don’t you will be tortured for all of eternity.

Doesn’t this sound a bit over the top to anybody else? A bit like it was originally designed to convince a bunch of simpletons? Not the promise of a better car, or a pay rise, or a good view, or a nice brunch, but utter joy and contentment until the end of the universe but only if you do what we say?

Please people, spare me your doctrines and spare me your moral values. Religion, if were anything else other than religion, would be treated as mental illness, and more than likely bringing up children to believe what the Catholic and other churches tells us would be seen as child abuse.

But it’s religion, so it’s exempt from reason and normal standards of proof. Religion is special. Why? Because it just is.

Okay then, rant done. And to balance things a bit, here’s what I LIKE about Catholicism:

• Their old churches and stained glass windows are wonderful
• Their outfits are stylish and very dashing at parties
• They stick to their ideas (as strange as they are) and don’t give in to trends
• They practise ritual cannibalism which I think you will agree is very neat
• And the Catholic schoolgirl outfits…well…

And just so the other groups of mumblers out there don’t get left out, let me add that I think you are all just as mad, but I totally repect your right to be mad, just don’t hoist your morals on me and demand “respect” for your own internal mumblings. Okay?

And if I’m wrong and you’re right, then you’ll live forever and I’ll burn in hell. So just relax, put the magic book down and enjoy your victory.

/ paddy

Brass Monkeys

It’s cold. It’s bluddy cold, let me add.

That irritating 23 degree slant on the Earth’s axis has led to a very cold and dark time up at the north pole, and freezing winds from that area are now pouring down on us, pushing the mercury to an unlikely minus 20 C over the last week.

Americans: that means “very cold indeed” in your funny F system.

And the same annoying axial slant has led to less sunlight reaching the ground in Stockholm, leading in turn to days that last about 17 minutes and might be missed entirely if one spends too long on the toilet with a good book.

Of course the cold winter is taken by a whole boatload of idiots as proof that global warming is not real.

In fact, as soon as an idiot opens his mouth, these words will invariably tumble from his lips, along with “isn’t football super” and “that pope’s really doing a good job, isn’t he”.

With the same reasoning I could claim that people who believe in the rotation of the Earth are way off the mark since, right now, it happens to be dark outside.

Or that the number of idiots is on the decrease because the room where I now sit does not contain as many idiots as it should.

Anyway, I for one welcome the cold since it makes life in Stockholm interesting, what with the chapped lips, long baths, lethal icicles toppling from rooftops and lots of time indoors watching Buffy.

And more Buffy is good Buffy, I think you will agree.

/ paddy

Rumbled!

So my family has caught me with my Internet pants down.

My enterprising niece, while looking for information on “Catholic control in Irish schools” came across my blog and quickly worked out that it was me. So needless to say it wasn’t long before the whole family knew about it.

Now even though I do not write about my family directly, I DO write the occasional piece which is hardly child and/or family friendly. So what can I do?

Well, nothing obviously. This is my playground, I make the rules and I have a certain level of sleaze to uphold. If you want family-friendly try Hallmark channel or talk to a priest.

Or no, wait, don’t do that. Obviously. Priests should be pitied and marginalised, not talked to. It’s better for all of us that way.

So all I can do is just wave at the family and say “welcome” and remind them to remove their shoes at the door.

And please try and ignore all of the dick jokes.

/ paddy

Post-Christmassy

I won’t rant I won’t rant I won’t rant…

Irish Christmas. Idiot Catholic priests. Grrrr. Horrible Irish architecture. Gzzrrrr. Potatoes done in a billion ways. Mmrrtrtrt. Total lack of physical motion. Hmmrrrrt. Horribly depressing English soap operas. Nnnggggggn.

And the rain the rain the rain the damp the rain…

So, yes, I was in Ireland for Christmas, and it was great to hang out with the family and chill to some good trashy TV and get a nostalgia kick and bitch about the Catholic church with my brilliant 12-year old niece and have people cook food for me and drown in tea.

But I missed the Interwebs. I missed cappuccino. I missed pasta. I missed the gym. I missed secular people. And I missed you lot.

So here I am, back with a few new years resolutions.

And they are:

• Learn to touch-type
• Learn to read music and get piano lessons
• Run a bloody marathon
• Do something musical (besides the piano lessons)
• Get something published that I will be paid for
• And a 4-letter acronym that I will not, at this time, make public

So happy new year, and good luck getting rid of those extra kilos with your hastily purchased post-Christmas gym card, you big chubby git.

/ paddy

Happy Julething

Tomorrow sees me and H10 heading off to Ireland for the Christmas.

The last time such a thing was attempted was five years ago, when after two days in Kerry the lad came down with a very bad stomach bug and had to be transported to the hospital in Tralee where he lay with a drip in his arm for four days.  

Irish hospitals, between the 24th and 28th of December, are not very jolly places, I don’t think I need to add.

And then, just to make it all a bit more cheery, the big Tsunami happened and the deaths of 300,000 people was the only thing to watch on TV.

And the only person to talk to was the chain-smoking 35-year-old grandmother from Limerick, with the intellectual level of a bowl of sprouts, whose asthmatic son lay in the next bed.

That was, without any competition, the worst Christmas ever. But I suspect that this one may be better. The whole Irish family are there, and the TV as usual will be brilliant, and the crisps and Baileys will flow like, um, some strange creamy sludge.

And I can immerse myself in books, and write as much as I want, and watch every trashy movie ever made, and stay up until 2 am with my unexpectedly night-owl parents, getting tipsy and talking about cats, EU grants and the neighbours. 

And what do I want for Christmas? Actually just that will do fine, thanks. With just a bit more Baileys.

There are no Internets available in my parents’ house, so you’ll hear from me again in a week or so. And please, for me, have a very good one indeed.

/ paddy