You see it everywhere, you hear it quoted everywhere and yet it’s so, so wrong. Until recently, trying to convince people that London has one, single, area code and not two was like trying to persuade a neo-con to open a non-profit abortion clinic. It’s so simple:
The area code for London is 020. Local London numbers are now 8 digits and not seven. So for me to call, say, Lewisham hospital from my landline I only need to dial ‘83333000’ and not the 020. What is so difficult about that ? Yet, according to Ofcom, as of 2005 only 13% of Londoners knew this. Astonishing really. Almost as astonishing as the number of printers who willingly put incorrect spacing on signs, banners and stationary.
I used to think that as soon as other prefixes came on-line, people would get the hint, but now that the 3 is widely used (eg 020 3xxx xxxx) people still don’t get it. They still believe we have inner and outer London codes…so what’s the 0203 for ? Under-ground offices ? When 4 and 5 start getting used will they be for different heights above ground ?
However, I’ve just discovered this handy-dandy clue stick with which to hit offenders around the head. Next time you see someone tell you their number is ‘0207…’, send them the link and hopefully they’ll stop being such tards.

Sometimes dreams can really pull you to bits and by the morning you feel even more knackered than when you went to bed. My version of those dreams usually involve trying to sort computer problems out and those problems leading to more problems, which lead to more problems. Today I lived one of those dreams and it was just as stressful in real life. From 11am to 8pm with no break, trying to sort out a relatively simple network problem…on a Saturday…but you know what ? The pleasure and relief of finally managing to sort it out is such a pure pleasure that it almost makes it feel worthwhile. And then going home to see my wife and parrot, having a really good curry, with a bottle or two of wine, followed by some Eric B and Rakim…it actually feels abnormally pleasurable.
Michele is one of the only people on earth that I know who can also sing along with the entire lyrics of “Paid in Full” by Eric B and Rakim. Humph is currently refusing to go to bed and is sitting on the arm of this sofa tucking into her apple and carrot; she has a ginger carrot beard. Good bird. All in all my little family is quite happy at present.

Last week was a busy, busy work week. But I got a new pair of front teeth, that look pretty damn nice, my other teeth professionally cleaned and a diagnosis of an enflamed gut. I also had a couple of lovely pub evenings with people. And tomorrow is still the weekend! Woohoo!

Good night

During the festivities of tonight’s British Comedy Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen made a joke about Borat being unable to attend on account of being otherwise engaged, in Iran, at the Holocaust Denial Conference. Now, I like to think of myself as someone who keeps up to date with world affairs but this was clearly a brilliant joke. Then Michele pointed out that he was being serious….about the conference at least.
After a short period of Internet research (don’t take the piss) I realised that it was true. How this escaped my attention over the past few years of preparation is a mystery, but I can only assume that in the past I’ve seen details and thought it was a bit of sledgehammer satire, and then forgotten about it. You would be justified in the alternate point of view that I’m just a simpleton.
Some people think that racist attitudes should be banned from being made in public. I strongly disagree.
When people are forced to keep their genuine racist attitudes under wraps, they simply lie, and water down their rhetoric. Hey presto, the BNP get a bunch of council seats.
If people were allowed to express their real views without fear then there would become such polarisation that our enemies will become:

1. Far easier to spot
2. Fewer

How much easier it is to form an opinion on Iran when they start denying the Holocaust. Please don’t think I’m any sort of fan, or even a defender, of Israel, because I’m not. But whether or not Israel as a state has the right to exist is a very different argument to whether a race of people have the right to exist.
I hate religion.

It’s reassuring to know that our boys in blue are still doing a wonderful job. After the bodies of the fourth and fifth murdered prostitutes have been discovered in Suffolk, the Police have announced that they fear a prostitute killer is on the loose.
Thankfully, the Force are well on the case and have demonstrated their understanding of the case:

“Clearly they were all prostitutes from Ipswich, they were found naked and in an open rural environment.
“We need to catch this person or persons as quickly as possible.”

The people of Ipswich will sleep well tonight.

We so rarely leave the house on a Saturday night, owing to a high concentration of loonies, pissheads, and pisshead loonies on the streets, that this week was quite an occasion for us. Goldsmiths hosted a choir of Gospel, Jazz, and Soul singers, and a friend was involved. After a quick drink in the Rosie we took seats in the Great Hall and watched as a stream of statuesque, beautiful people streamed onto the stage. Our friend Andy was there too 😉
The first couple of tunes were pure Gospel and my first experience of such an event. I had goosebumps throughout and it was so uplifting I could clearly feel the

power of the Looarrrrd!

The rest of the night consisted of subgroups of the choir singing in a range of musical styles and generally proving themselves to be superb singers.
The second half provided an opportunity for the audience to loose interest in the band, who had, until then, supplied a solid and effective backing to the singers. None of them were bad musicians, in fact they were all really pretty good, but the cracks were highlighted during their overlong intro to the second half.
They played the backing to “Rappers Delight” and it all sounded great for a while except that the bass player couldn’t do that tricky bit around the 4th bar and instead cheated by playing only the easy bits, but hey, he was young and what he did attempt was executed well.
The problems began when they started doing solos. The guitarist, despite looking like an enthusiastic curate, evidently decided he was Jimi fucking Hendrix and went off on one. After the rest of the solos including the obligatory dull drum solo, Jimi was pumped and decided it was his turn to take the stage. Swapping his electric guitar for a miced-up-classical he proudly pranced into the center of the stage and began to have a fit. I pulled out my phone and had managed to dial the second ‘9’ when I realised that his sporadic, spasmodic, behaviour was part of his turn! He was slapping all up his thighs, on the guitar and on his bum, and then started hitting the strings all over the neck whilst adopting a guitar-hero gurn. Michele and I grimaced at each other and then tried again to regard the act with anything but tragic pity. But still he continued. He got a bit of a tune out of the strings by hitting them but persisted to the extent that Michele and I were having trouble keeping our act together. Let me tell you, if her sphincter was as tightly clamped as mine we should both be going to the doctor tomorrow. It was a cross between gut-ripping comedy and tearful misery. About halfway through, Michele managed to whisper “yeah yeah we get the general idea” in my ear which resulted in a sudden, fundamentel, loss of gas.
Shockingly, when he finished his turn, there was a standing ovation! It seems that we were the only people in the considerable crowd not clapping. Now, the fact that we both understood each other is a good sign for our marriage, but the fact we were the only ones who did is a tad worrying; what if we’re just freaks ? Well, neither of us do cocaine and neither of us have a tattoo (even a subtle little tattoo that means something special just to us) so we’re freakish for London 30-somethings. Oh no! I don’t want to be a freak! But it’s quite nice to have another freak to share the experience with.

Pinochet dies! – Hooray!
He never received a sentence or adequate punishment for his crimes against humanity – Boo!
He’s been in quite a bit of pain recently though – Hooray!
“He died surrounded by his family,” – Boo!
Margaret Thatcher is said to be greatly saddened – Hooray!
She’s still not dead – Boo!
She’s confused, insane and utterly bewildered. As a result I personally suspect she shits herself regularly – Hooray!
etc

Astonishing stuff in the news: the British Police have announced that they are treating the murder of the murdered Russian ex-KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, who was recently murdered in London, as murder.

In other news:

• George Bush is told by everyone in the world that the failed war he illegally created in Iraq, that has led to civil war, has caused civil war and failed.
• Pope catholic.
• and so forth…

When I was a boy (and old shep was a pup) everyone in the UK got given a free set of telephone directories. If the number you wanted wasn’t there, or opening and using a book was too much for you, then you could pick up the phone, dial a short, memorable, number (192) and ask them to look it up for you. This service was called “directory enquiries” (DQ for short) and was free.
“Ridiculous!” I hear you cry. “How can the customers benefit from the increased efficiency, competition driven low prices and customer choice afforded by the free market if it’s a free service?”
Well that’s a good point – if there’s only one number and it’s free to use then how can there be any improvement ?
So, the government came up with a simple but brilliant solution that has led to so much room for improvement it’s difficult to see anything else.
Nowadays, instead of an undemocratic single three digit number the consumer has a choice of dozens of six digit numbers, all of which cost a fucking fortune and most of which are subcontracted to overseas (Indian/Pakistani) call centres. The free market does it again.

However, one enterprising company (118118) have introduced a revolutionary new service – “FREE directory enquiries“. What a revolutionary idea! There are three catches:

• You have to listen to adverts.
• It uses voice recognition, which as I am always banging on about, does not work.
• It doesn’t work.

Another free market triumph.
Here’s the BBC’s version.

M&S managed to relaunch themselves by getting a bunch of models (including Twiggy) to dance around in their undies to a few rare grooves. Matalan followed suit with some slightly crapper tunes and Melanie Sykes in Twiggy’s place. Fair enough; Matalan is to Marks and Spencer as Mel Sykes is to Twiggy.
But now, Debenhams have pulled rank on both of them with their latest advertising campaign. It features a “state of the art” Santa who is thin (natch) and wears a red suit (bien sur), has trimmed his beard (yeah – I always thought that original beard was a bit too rrrrock), drives a motorised sleigh (reindeer are so passe), and is dancing to a def version of “Santa Baby” that sounds like it was produced by the DJ equivalent of Ronnie Hazelhurst. It’s impossible to describe how bad this tune is but if I told you it has someone saying “DJ Santa on the Wheels of Steel” over it, perhaps you’ll have some inkling of the enormous distance by which the mark was overshot.

Once upon a time there was an Emperor who was a bit crap. One day he had a thought: “what if I were to be rebranded ? Maybe people would take me more seriously and perhaps I’d be less crap.”
So the Emperor called the finest consultants in the land and gave them a ludicrous amount of his wealth. The consultants returned in 6 months with a small piece of fag packet, onto which was scrawled a badly drawn crown and the phrase “B0 Emperor!”. The Emperor was furious when he saw how little they had produced in return for his great wealth and ordered the guards to kill the consultants.
“No your highness,” pleaded the consultants, “this is no ordinary logo! It’s a magic logo! It will make everyone in the land respect you except for the very, very foolish.”

You know the rest so I won’t bother to continue.

On a totally different topic, Goldsmiths College has recently been rebranded and they have a glorious new logo:

But it’s more than just a logo! It’s a new visual identity! At this point I feel I should stress that just because it’s the same as the previous logo, but in a different font, and cost £143,000 ($224,000), doesn’t mean it’s an obvious fucking con. It also doesn’t mean that the management there are a bunch of pig-ignorant dullards who don’t know their arses from their elbows.
All I’m saying is, if I were to be put in charge of rebranding, I’d want something more impressive like this:

But that’s because I’ve been getting into PimpZilla a bit too much…and GoldAmp.