We Are Fucking Angry

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is this piece of news.

Obviously I'm not surprised, the police will always have an institutionalised advantage in these reviews. It was initially ruled that the officer who, during the 2009 G20 protests, pushed Ian Tomlinson (a newspaper seller who had the audacity to walk past) to the ground, would not be prosecuted. Fortunately, it was ruled a few days ago that the officer is now to be charged. Hopefully the same will happen in the Jody McIntyre case, but I highly doubt it.

Today's report is almost as sickening as the event itself, the footage of which, along with the BBC interview, I suggest you watch if you haven't already. Apparently the police were justified in tipping someone from their wheelchair, dragging them across a road and hitting them with a baton due to the "perceived risk" to him. So this was for McIntyre's own safety? How compassionate of the police to protect him. By lovingly tipping him from a wheelchair and benevolently dragging him across a street. I don't know what he was at risk of, but it seems unlikely to be worse than what the police did. It's also horribly offensive to suggest that he needed their "help." But to even indulge the ridiculous idea that the police were acting in McIntyre's best interest is to do them a service they do not deserve.

Initially, the police justified their actions by suggesting that McIntyre was a threat. Obviously they ditched this excuse because it's difficult to see how a man in a wheelchair can be a threat to riot police, as he himself argued: "Do you really think a person with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair can pose a threat to a police officer who is armed with weapons?" To which the BBC newsreader Ben Brown replied: "But you do say that you're a revolutionary." Oh, he says he's a revolutionary?! Well that changes everything! The police were right, in fact I'm impressed by quite how restrained they were considering they were dealing with a revolutionary! In fact, Brown's line of questioning and tone throughout the interview is dubious, as he attempts to justify the actions of the police. At one point he accuses McIntyre of threateningly rolling towards the police, a ludicrous justification that is best tackled by Mark Steel's brilliant article:

Presumably the police turned to each other in shock, spluttering: "Oh my God, he's rolling straight for us. These riot shields and helmets with visors offer woefully inadequate protection against such a persistent rolling machine. If we're lucky our batons can buy us some time, but his momentum is terrifying, it's like a cerebral palsy tsunami."

So because the whole wheelchair-bound-man-as-threat argument was clearly ridiculous, they've changed their story and gone with the whole we-dragged-him-from-his-wheelchair-to-protect-him argument. Find an offensively absurd argument and stick to it.

As for hitting the wheelchair-bound man with a baton, that was justified because it was "inadvertent." I read that and thought, "I thought inadvertent meant accidental. I must just be stupid. They can't seriously be trying to justify hitting him with a baton by claiming that it was an accident. That would be laughable. If it wasn't so disgusting." So I looked the word up, and I was right. How exactly does one hit a wheelchair-bound man with a baton inadvertently? They're justifying it because the police officer was careless. So careless that he hit a man in a wheelchair with a baton. To misquote Oscar Wilde, "to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to hit a wheelchair-bound man with a baton is FUCKING INEXCUSABLE YOU MORALLY REPUGNANT CUNT." He was a shouty man. But therein lies his famous wit. If the police consider that behaviour careless then they have more serious problems than I thought. But again, to accept for a moment that it was "inadvertent" grants these police a level of respect of which they've proved themselves unworthy.

Finally, we learn that: "Following the investigation, internal guidelines will be drawn up on the most appropriate way to move a wheelchair user in such circumstances." Might I suggest that the guideline "hit them with a baton, tip them from their wheelchair and drag them across the road" is omitted? As I said, I sincerely hope, but sincerely doubt, that these disgraceful findings are overturned. Even if just on health and safety grounds, as in the case of Jean Charles de Menezes. I will leave you with the appropriate angry, punk, protest song (and video) by The King Blues that this blog is named after. Enjoy!

Batnight

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is a bat.

Of course this building has bats. It's old, it's creepy, it's labyrinthine, it's full of asbestos, it's probably haunted. Not that I believe in such things. I mean in haunted houses, obviously I believe in asbestos. I know that exists because on the door of the room directly below mine is a sign that says: 'Danger, Asbestos, Do Not Enter.' Which is reassuring.

Anyway, this morning on my way from the shower back to my room, I saw it. I didn't know what it was at first, it was just a brown lump on my door frame. Sounds like I'm describing a pile of faeces, doesn't it? Well that's what it looked like. Until it started to move.

I don't think I'd ever seen a bat up close in real life before. My only experience of them had been seeing flickering things whizzing past streetlights at night. And vampire films. But there I was, staring at a bat, just outside my room. It was small and furry, like a rat, with leathery wings wrapped around its body, and what I could just make out as ears pointing towards the ground. Because it was upside down. Like a bat.

How had I not seen it when I went from my room to the shower? Well, I'm completely useless before my shower. There could have been an entire zoo in the flat and I'd have completely missed it until I'd showered. I wondered how it had got there. Maybe it reads my blog and had been pissed off by my constant ridiculing of Christopher Nolan's Batman. Maybe it was a test from the Vegetarian Society, checking to see if I responded in an animal-friendly way. Possibly it had been sent by Nicky Campbell. I hadn't seen one of my flatmates in a while, perhaps he's secretly a bat-based superhero. Whatever that would be called. Batboy, presumably.

I decided that the best course of action would be to alert the university's accommodation staff, who deal with such things. Well, I assumed they did. I don't imagine it was something they had to deal with very often. Infestations. Of one. But anyway, this was essentially a maintenance issue. But with a bat. I pictured myself explaining the situation at the help desk, only to have the staff hold up and point at a copy of my accommodation contract, with my signature at the bottom, just above the small print about the pet bat.

So I went into my room to get dressed, and then came back out and looked at the bat. Or rather, at the bit of wall where the bat had been. The bat was gone. You know that creepy feeling of seeing a huge spider, and then looking again to see that it's disappeared? Imagine that, but with a bat.

I looked around, cautiously, and suddenly there was a bat swooping towards me. To put this all into context, my life is pretty dull, and nothing exciting ever really happens. So finding myself with a bat hurtling at my face was probably the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. Pathetic, I know. But the really frightening thing about bats, as I found out at that moment, is that they are fucking fast, and fucking silent.

It flew over my head, and then darted around the flat for a bit. I stood helplessly in the middle, not wanting to leave because I'd lose sight of it again. And the creepiest parts were when I didn't know where it was. Again, sounds pathetic, but I was worried that if I lost track of it, it'd just show up in the shower or something. And neither of us would want that. So I'd rather know where it was. Which is why I was worried when I lost sight of it again.

Someone must have opened a door, because next thing I knew, the bat had flown out of the flat, and up the stairs into the tiny library room above mine. Someone also must have alerted the staff, because men in yellow jackets appeared, with no more idea of what to do than myself. To try to get rid of the bat, the doors were all closed and the windows opened. Well, the windows were sort of opened. None of them open more than a couple of inches, for safety reasons. I've always thought they'd end up causing my death, in a wonderful turn of irony. And now that looked likely. Well, as likely as it was that this bat would kill me.

The tiny crowd that had gathered were sent away, myself included, to allow the yellow-jacketed men to get on with unhindered bat-removal. The men have gone now, so I'm guessing the bat has been dealt with. However I cannot be certain, so if this is my last blog, assume the worst, and call The Joker.

Thanks for reading, I will leave you with the Bossacucanova song that this blog is named after, along with a terrible photo I took of the bat at one of the rare moments that it was stationary. Enjoy!

Down On The Street

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is the BBC programme The Street That Cut Everything.

The first problem was that it was presented by Nick Robinson, a man who seems incapable of reporting the news without incessant attempts at humour which make absolutely no sense. 'The coalition is beginning to present itself as two different dishes, which taste better together, than on their own.' WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!

But last night we saw him go to a street in Preston, where he told the residents that for the next 6 weeks, the council would not exist to them. They were given back 6 weeks of their council tax, with which they'd have to provide the withdrawn services themselves. The idea was to make them see how difficult life was without the council, but it was all ridiculously skewed to make it completely impossible.

Jimmy McGovern's latest character

The programme weirdly made it look as if Nick Robinson was personally responsible for the revocation of council services, to the point where if I ever see him again my immediate response will be to panic and lock up my bins before he gets his Tory hands on them. Because in this programme, Nick Robinson takes away the bins of the residents, because they're council owned, but not before he's emptied the contents of the bins into the street. So the residents have to collect the loose rubbish and keep it in their garages, exactly like councils don't.

Nick Robinson realises he's accidentally thrown away his glasses

He also arranges for some fly-tipping, where sofas and fridges are dumped on the street, and the residents have to deal with it. I thought this experiment was about how people would cope without their council, in which case all you need to do is withdraw the council's services. Don't create more problems by orchestrating your own unrealistic situations, BBC. By doing that, they completely undermined the whole point, whatever that was.

The opening titles of Preston's version of Friends

For some reason, another thing that is withdrawn is the carer of the dad of one of the residents, even though the dad lives on a different street. This experiment is meant to just be affecting one street, yet for some reason the BBC have decided to take away care for a man with no legs who lives somewhere completely different. They also take dogs down the street and make them leave dogshit for the residents to clean up. Because obviously if we didn't have councils, dogs would be encouraged to shit everywhere. Just like how people would be encouraged to graffiti everything, which also happens. And Nick Robinson arranges for some 'youths' to be 'antisocial' in a 'car'. I'm hoping they were the children of Nick Robinson and, I don't know, Andrew Marr. Because they can't phone the council, one of the residents deals with the situation himself. He seems to forget that its all engineered for a TV programme, and threatens to get a crowbar. Which is presumably just what the council would have done.

Well we were all thinking it

For further reasons that are never adequately explained, the residents have to take on council jobs, such as cleaning public toilets. But again, these aren't on the street. The BBC set what are essentially Big Brother style tasks all the way through, in a futile attempt to make it less fucking boring. And in the same reality TV vein, they create human conflict through these tasks and through editing, because TV patronisingly thinks that we need this ridiculous narrative in everything we watch. At one point a woman says she needs money to replace the housing benefit that the council would normally provide, because independently she can't afford to pay for housing, due to having a low income and being a single parent. A cunt then says that he's also a single parent but he manages it just fine. Well done, you have more money than she does, presumably you earn more.

Anyway, I liked what this programme was trying to do. It's main message was that cuts to local councils are a bad thing, and I agree with that. At the start of the experiment a woman says she doesn't think the council's services are worth what she pays in council tax, but by the end she has changed her mind. So that was good. In fact, it's surprising quite how biased this programme was. No wonder some Tories spoke out against it. It was openly anti-cuts. It showed that tax is basically a good thing, and that the Big Society is a bad idea. If it wasn't for the fact that I approve of the message, I'd be annoyed by the lack of impartiality shown by the BBC. But I can't help feeling that by orchestrating these ridiculous situations, by organising fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour and dogshit, and by making it into a Big Brother style reality show, they pushed it so far that the message may have been undermined.

The cunt that cut everything

This blog is named after a song by The Stooges; I will leave you with Rage Against The Machine's brilliant cover version, enjoy!

Smoke And Mirrors

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are five more of them.

As you've probably worked out, I watch a lot of TV, and recently I've been watching a lot of dramas. And I've noticed an annoying amount of unnecessary shots of lead characters, particularly on BBC dramas. These shots are designed to externalise how the character is feeling, but the methods they use are lazy and overdone. I'll explain 5 examples of the kind of thing I mean...

Mirrors: Vampires hate them, directors love them. Need to show how a character is feeling without the dull process of writing a decent script? Simple, just film the character looking in a mirror! If they're happy, they can smile at a mirror. And if they're sad, they can frown at a mirror. And it's realistic, because people do look in mirrors! Plus it's like a visual metaphor, because the character is literally reflecting! Oh hang on, this isn't a GCSE English class, you're just a lazy, boring director.

I've spoken before about the BBC drama 'Dive', a story which will resonate with anyone who has had to juggle teenage pregnancy and olympic diving. It's like... it's like it's talking directly to me. *Sniff* Everything was wrong with Dive, including shots of people just looking in mirrors.

This went on for 12 seconds.

Photographs: Native Americans hate them, directors love them. How can we make it clear that this character's wife is dead, bearing in mind we've spilt coffee on the laptop so can't alter the script? Simple, just have him stare at a photo of her for ages, perhaps tearing up a little! The audience will love that. Providing they're all idiots.

That isn't what's going on in this picture, and I feel bad for using it because the BBC's 'Wallander' is excellent. But you get what I mean.

Cars: Princess Diana hates them, directors love them. Want to set a depressing tone in a modern drama? Simple, have your character drive around at night in the rain! Film through the windscreen, the street lights make a cool visual effect. Plus it's another visual metaphor for how the character is feeling, because they're all alone and aimless and dejected and the rain represents their tears and FUCK OFF.

Last week's 'Exile' on the BBC was one of the best thrillers I've ever seen, with John Simm, Jim Broadbent and Olivia Colman brilliantly bringing Paul Abbott's idea to life. However, the first five minutes consisted of exactly this.

Whisky: Whisky trees hate it, directors love it. This male character is upset and there are no mirrors in this room, what the fuck do we do?! Simple, show him sitting with his head in his hands, nursing a glass of whisky. Or brandy, it doesn't really matter. And I'm not talking about 'Mad Men', in which they're constantly drinking whisky. I just mean when a throwaway shot of a man with a drink is used to convey that he is depressed. This makes me so annoyed that I have to sit with a whisky, so that if anyone saw me they'd know I was upset.

I'm genuinely sorry to use 'Exile' as an example again because I'm making it seem really bad, but I have to stress that it was absolutely amazing. But...

Windows: Steve Jobs hates them, directors love them. Does your character need to show that they're being pensive? Have you already added the line 'I'm pretty pensive about this', only to have it removed by the script editor? Simple, get a shot of them gazing out of the window! It shows they're being thoughtful and detached, and it's another visual metaphor. Probably. And people are always staring out of windows aren't they? NO. People don't do that you fucking idiot.

'The Crimson Petal And The White' was recently on the BBC and it was another superb drama. I highly recommend it, the tone is just right and the cast is perfect, notably Chris O'Dowd from The IT Crowd. But stuff like this did tend to happen...

So please BBC, and TV dramas in general, give us a little more credit; we can pretty much tell how characters are feeling just by stuff that's happening to them. And if the script is good enough, we don't need these lazy, throwaway shots. As you can see from the picture at the top, 30 Rock understands. (As it does everything.) Why can't you? I will leave you with the song that this blog is named after, by the incredible Jamiroquai. Enjoy!

Question!

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are five of them.

I'm posing these all as questions, asking 'Why?' But they're rhetorical, so you don't get a say. Much like our democracy. Zing! Which brings me to...

5. Why did two-thirds of voters vote No to AV? I understand why you'd vote against AV if you're a Tory, but otherwise it just seems like a stupid thing to do. These people denied themselves greater representation, and denied everyone else greater representation in the process. So now, thanks to a Tory-led campaign of misinformation and fear-mongering and lies, we're stuck with a shit, unfair system for the rest of our lives. Because the overwhelming No vote won't be translated as a vote against Nick Clegg or a vote for a more proportional system, it will be translated as a vote for sticking with the status quo. And the only people who benefit are the Tories, with their elitist ideals overriding democracy. Well done, the public. I guess most of you were too busy creating inane fucking Facebook groups about Bin Laden to even bother to vote. And while we're on AV...

4. Why did the New Statesman website have a massive No To AV advert on its home page? The New Statesman openly endorsed the Yes vote. That seems like a ridiculous oversight.

3. Why is Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle on at such an annoying time? As Jack Seale tweeted, a REPEAT of Never Mind The Buzzcocks went out in the primetime 10 o'clock slot, but a BRAND NEW episode of Comedy Vehicle was hidden away at 11.20pm. But then as Andrew Collins said, its amazing that Stewart Lee is on TV at all, so we should probably just be grateful. And I am. Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle is exactly the kind of thing the BBC should be making. Comedy that's fresh and clever. Rather than churning out infinite repeats of lazy panel shows.

2. Why are so many people calling Bin Laden 'evil'? I thought we were beyond thinking in terms of Good vs. Evil. I thought we were pretty much agreed that morality is subjective. But I also thought people weren't so idiotic as to all reject AV, so maybe I should just dramatically lower my expectations of everyone. And talking of Bin Laden, why should we indulge this belief that his death is good because it brings people 'closure'? It's understandable that the families of his victims would be pleased, but its also misguided to think that his death somehow makes it better. And while we're still on Bin Laden...

1. Why does Bin Laden always get called 'Osama'? And the same goes for how Saddam Hussein was always referred to as Saddam. Those are their first names, aren't they? It's like calling the Prime Minister 'David.' You don't get headlines like, 'Vote 2011: David insists coalition can still work.' But you do get headlines like 'Osama's death: What next for al-Qaeda?' Since when have we been on first name terms with 'evil' men? Blair saying, 'the world is a better place with Saddam in prison' is like someone saying, 'the world is a better place with Tony in prison.' You just wouldn't say it. I mean, it would be true, but you wouldn't say 'Tony'. Ha! Eat your nuggets of hypocrisy with my peanutty satire sauce, New Labour.

Thanks for reading my angry blog. And remember how important it is to question everything. Apart from this blog. And you can answer any of those questions, this blog is a democracy. But I will always be in charge, so I guess its like democracy in Zimbabwe. I will leave you with the lovely song about death by System Of A Down, and its cool video, that this blog is named after. Enjoy!

Not Fucking Around

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is David Cameron.

I was going to write a blog about his 'calm down, dear' incident, but then one thing led to another and it turns out I can't be arsed. But if I'd written something, it would have probably gone something like this.

According to Cameron, the left don't have a sense of humour. This is a bizarre generalisation and I'd personally say its wrong, as all the best comedians are on the left. Who do the right have? Jim Davidson? I think I'll stick with people like Robin Ince and Stewart Lee THANKS. The prime minister finding Michael Winner adverts funny is worrying enough, telling people what they should find funny is more worrying still. Especially as his comment was actually, to use Angela Eagle's words, a 'revealing slip'. (Oh, turns out I could be arsed.)

But hey, you know what I do find funny? When politicians swear! I know it's immature but it shows a rare human side to politicians, and actually tends to make me like them more.

So we're obviously all celebrating Cameron's 355 days in office, and I bet the press copy me in 10 days time. Just remember it was my idea first. To celebrate, here are my Top 5 David Cameron Swearing Moments!

5. 'We are heading for a fucking car crash.' (October 2010) Cameron's private prediction of the results of a review of control orders sounds like the worst traffic report ever. It also makes him sound strangely cool, to the point that I'm suspicious of whether he actually said it, or if it was just an elaborate piece of PR...

4. 'Shit happens.' (November 2010) Cameron's speech at the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the year awards ceremony included this gem of a phrase amongst a load of boring phrases. The official line at Number 10 is that he actually said, 'it happens.' Except he didn't, he said 'shit.' See.

3. 'Kate Middleton would fucking get it all the different ways.' (April 2011) Okay, I made that one up. David Cameron definitely did not say that, please do not sue me. He actually did say all the others here though.

2. 'Too many twits might make a twat.' (July 2009) Cameron's explanation for why he's not on twitter, on an interview on Absolute Radio, makes no sense whatsoever. Shortly after, in the same interview, he said, 'the public are rightly pissed off - sorry, I can't say that in the morning.' It's weird that he thinks 'pissed off' isn't appropriate but 'twat' is. What's also strange is that, in the same interview before both instances, he had said, 'politicians do have to think about what we say.' Then he said 'twat' on morning radio. This time I really think it was a deliberate PR move. Have a listen, it's all very odd.

1. 'You fucker!' (April 2011) Cameron's angry outburst at a journalist who had the sheer audacity to report the news makes me warm to him. Then he says 'calm down, dear' and I remember that he's a cunt.

Thanks for reading, I will leave you with the Big D & The Kids Table song that this blog is named after, enjoy!