20 minutes ago this blog would have been positive and mellow.
Now it’s full of venom and anger.
What changed ?
3 minutes of “question time”.
How Robin Cook, Tony Fucking Blair and Jack Cocksucker Straw sleep at night is beyond me. A few years ago I used to get pissed off with people slagging off Labour, because I knew that they were socialists and socialists are nice. My dad was a communist and I love him, and I love his politics. His friends are sound and I agree with them. Then I realised that you can’t trust anyone. Despite this I still trust him. He feels betrayed by the Russian communist party. Hardly surprising when you consider what a shitbag Joe Stalin was. The worst thing is that while Joe Stalin was masscring his people and lying through his teeth, the western communists defended him – and I’m convinced it’s because they believed. They believed that communism was the way, and that other communists were therefore righteous. Joe would never do that.
But he did. The socialists surrounding me as I grew up weren’t like Stalin – they were genuinely sound, and genuinely believed that people should be equal [ yes that is what socialism is about – equality. If you think that socialism is about dictatoriship then you are wrong. The problem is that so far all socialist societies have been far from socialist.]
The reason for the problems is power:
“Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
This is why I’m now totally convinced of my political outlook: I am an anarchist. To me, “anarchist” means nothing more than “being against rulers”. That’s it. If you are against rulers, you are an anarchist. If you disagree with my definition then let me know. I can help you 🙂

When Jack Straw was a student, he was your typical public-school lefty. PC to a bizarre degree and all surface. As soon as het got a taste of the power he turned into the worst sort of fascist. Fuck you Jack. Fuck you Tony I hate Margaret Thatcher more than I can tell you – but I would prefer her in power now that these cunts. At least when she tells you she’s going to close the hospitals, cut the working-class’ income and piss over the miners, you can believe her. Tony and the rest of the Labour cabinet are a bunch of weak-kneed lying bastards. The only reasons I would ever vote labour again (even though I probably will never vote for them) are:

• There are still rightous people in the party, stuck there because they think it will, one day, change
• er…that’s it

Tony – you’re supposedly a Christian. In that case, according to your own doctrine, you will burn in hell for killing so many people unjustly. You won’t tho’ because God is just as much of a cunt as you. I know – I’ve read the Bible.

Saturday night – shit telly night!

Both Michele and I quite enjoy shit telly and it doesn’t get much shitter than “ant and dec” followed by “who wants to be a millionaire”. The viewing audience of the latter can be equally divided into two groups: those that want the contestants to win and those that want then to walk away with 100 quid and feel totally humiliated. I’m with the first lot – every time someone wins a large sum of money I feel really uplifted – how sad is that ? Just knowing that they’re going to have a really fucking good night celebrating and then giving family and friends a way out of their shitty debts…ahhh!
But it’s on ITV which means ads. I hate every add more than the one before. This means that by the end of the night I am swearing out loud and breaking things and my wife had her finger poised over the ‘9’ button on the phone. It’s a family trait you know. My dad even told his (NHS) psychiatrist about how worried he was about the anger they generated within him. If an advertising executive were to turn up at the door at the right time (like during a Vodaphone picture message ad, or a “get out more” bloody car ad) I would have no qualms about sliding a knitting needle through their heart and laughing as they crumple in agony.

Come to mention it, that vodaophone add is extra irritating as it uses a piece of late 20th century pap indy music called “can u dig it”. Any tune called “can u dig it” better be funkier than the love child of James Brown and Aretha Franklin or so rock-and-roll that cocaine shoots out your speakers. But this is that unspeakable shit that looks like rock and roll (floppy hair, guitars, lights and drums) but sounds like Barbie and Ken humming to the test-card. WANKERS! Get some self respect! Listen to some proper music…Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zep, Public Enemy, Prodigy.. or something.. before you even look at a fucking guitar. Grrrrrr.

After a hard days work rewriting perfectly good bits of PIC assembler, a yummy dinner (chicken and date spicy stew sort of thing) we’re going to watch “Moulin Rouge” in bed.

Good night.

I forgot to mention what a good selection of films BA had on the flight back. Thankfully they’re sorting out 747-400s with personal TVs as opposed to those bloody projector film things that you can only see if you are right at the front of the cabin. Christ I hate those. Economy air travel is bad enough to get you irritated by your fellow passengers at the best of times…what you really don’t need is an extra reason to hate the tall bastard in the seat in front of you with elongated head for 8 fucking hours…
Anyway…
Outwards I got a chance to see S1m0ne – not bad at all. I was hoping that Kate Winslett was watching it two seats away, what with it being an entire film about replacing primadonna actors with computer simulations. But I don’t think she was; she certainly wasn’t laughing whan I was…but that could be because I was drinking quite a lot and laughing at most things.

On the way back I watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Barbershop”. Both made me laugh shockingly loud. Although again I was pretty pissed. The young air steward who had given us the 5 seats obviously took a liking to me because he kept giving me more red wine. Every time I asked for a bottle he handed me two. I wonder why ?

Since returning we’ve been grooving to Marvin Gaye “Got to give it up” because it reminds us of that scene in Barbershop.

A reasonable day at work, despite having a sysnet meeting. Managed a lunch at the pub drinking only grapefruit and soda. What a pain in the arse/gut.

Back in the UK,
Back in the UK,
Back in the shit-ty UK!

But it’s not all bad. Ok we didn’t get upgraded to business class – but at least we got 5 seats for the price of 2. OK I had to go to work all day, but at least I got stuff done. OK I didn’t go to the pub at lunchtime – but at least I got a load of smug satisfaction from the fact.

Being back isn’t nearly as bad as it appeared from 3500 miles away. In fact, once I get the tax return done (no, still) things will be ok…providing the work keeps coming in and I don’t end up dying of TB/Lung Cancer/CJD/or whatever other illness I feel like Iv’e got.

“Happiness” on BBC2 was brilliant BTW.

Passengers are advised to arrive at least two hours prior to departure. Evidently this is so that you can spend two hours in a very, very tedious queue at terminal 4 only to discover that the late arraivals have all been told to go stright to the check-in desk. After two solid hours of queuing I would probably attempt to bite an airline employee if they tried to tell me they’d run out of seats – but I didn’t. I smiled and attempted to exude an air of friendly easy-goingness. Not because I’m a friendly or easy going person, but because “you catch more flies with a spoonfull of sugar than a barrel of vinegar” and I’ve never travelled in business class before. Fuck me, it worked. Myself and another girl, who had also been conned by the two-hour rule, were upgraded. Seven hours of “Club World” luxury, coupled with being two seats away from Kate Winslett, really makes the peasant seats seem very sucky indeed. This must be how capitalism works. You get a taste of honey and become determined never to go back to dry bread. The determination is enough to make you forget all of your morals and ethics in one go. Although I have to say that everyone in business class was quite simply a cunt. But I could do that.

An hour before we landed in Philadelphia it started to snow, heavily. The place looks like fairyland now. Just before typing this message I’d checked my e-mail and read several messages about how South East England has had to stop because of the snow. It’s amazing how unprepared the UK is for weather – odd considering how much of it we get. You’d have thought that we could at least handle rain by now. WRONG! It rains, people get flooded. Two months later there’s a drought. A bit of snow and everyone’s snowed it. Autumn comes and the trains break.

Anyway – I’m staying in Helen and Ralph’s new house. It is gigantic and cost about 2 quid to buy. It’s also a two minute walk from a couple of good bars and “Bob’s diner” where I had my first tast of “Philly Scrapple”; basically mashed pigs bollocks, tails and eyelids, fried. Super yummy.

Oh yes, the parrot plan has fallen through. Several reasons behind this probably not suitable for a blog. However another reason is the spectacularly bizarre bureaucracy insisted upon by the various quangos. For the Record, DEFRA were extremely helpful and got us an import licence within a day. No, the problem was that we needed a second licence from a quango I’d never heard of before. They won’t accept a faxed application. However they helpfully suggested that we get someone in the UK to send it, and forge Michele’s signature (seriously)…then they have to spend a couple of weeks faffing about until they have a completed licence, which they can only mail by post. Even then, they can’t process the form until they have a copy of our….US export licence…..WHAT ? EXPORT LICENCE ? WHAT ?
It’s a fucking pet parrot for fucking fucks sake. Oh yes, each one of these licence applications incurrs a charge. Because they can I suppose. Can anyone set up a quango ?

The day before I left, Ian and I had arranged to go and see The Two Towers in the West End. Because I had a load of stuff to do before flying we arranged to meet at mid-day in a pub on Charing Cross Road. Ian was a tad late due to “feeling sluggish” after the night before (q.v.) – but still, we had plenty of time. So we had a pint in the pub, and then a couple of pints. Then we had a pint or two until Ian suggested we find a cinema. The Odeon Leicester Square had just started showing it, so we looked around for somewhere else – and failed. What choice did we have ? We booked two tickets for 7:20 pm (it’s a 3 hour film) and went off for a few pints…it was a great film….and I got home at midnight 🙂 Just in time to pack, wash clothes, finish some coding for Palms and then get up at 6am to get to the airport by two hours before departure…..

You ever have one of those nights where you were surrounded by people you like and really enjoyed yourself ? That was tonight for me. Lots of laughing. Thanks to Zap, Brodie, Shiney, Ian, Matt, Jay, Cate, Claudia, Beth et al – sometimes I love the pub. Lunch and dinner 🙂 Pity about having to sort out Palms this afternoon – would have been better to fix it a while ago but….well I won’t go on about it.

Laugh today for tomorrow you may be dead.

We’re getting a parrot BTW!