The best paragraph ever?

I know I have said it a thousand times, but A.A. Gill is simply the greatest writer of our age ::

A pair of lunching, scarlet-gobbed, Botoxed, overweight over-forties, dressed in outfits that might have been appropriate on a 17-year-old Serb in a Mykonos disco. Billowing breast implants and sagging stomachs, spray-tanned, bubble-wrap thighs and french-polished toenails in gladiator sandals, jangling jewellery like kitchen utensils constructed solely out of interlocking logos. Their ferociously yellow blonded hair extensions and flabby faces with Marlboro Light-lined lips gobbing inanities, constantly dipping into gaudy handbags full of BlackBerries and iPhones and antidepressants. They were such a strikingly vulgar pair of brazenly Scottische trollopy jades. There is, in Edinburgh, a culturally cringing plagiarism, a fawning desire to take on English fashion, and in doing so, get it completely ass about tit. These two imagined themselves as up-for-it Wilmslow Wags and had achieved precisely the opposite effect. They stared at each other as comforting mirrors.

A touch misogynistic? Maybe.

Who cares? Not me.

How to survive the Aporkalypse

Obviously the swine flu is very worrying. I mean, who really wants trotters, a snout, and wiry hair on their neck? Anyway, rather than spending your life in terror and looking suspiciously at sausage rolls, why not use the epidemic to your advantage?

Below are a few ideas. Feel free to add your own in the comments. The best one gets a bag of pork scratchings.

Carry a pack of bacon at all times. If someone annoys you simply rub it in their face and watch them freak out.

Start historically informed rumours. For example: Apparently, the U.S. is considering the forcible internment of people with slightly upturned noses.

Wrap a piglet in a towel and carry it under your arm. Find that queues at the supermarket dissolve as you approach, and that getting an empty seat on the bus is a doddle.

Show that you’re internets-cool by tagging your flu-related tweets with a look-at-me-I’m-clever hashtag. Try #epigdemic, #aporkalypse, #snoutbreak, #swineflu, or my favourite, #hamdemic.

Take random days off work by claiming that you have a runny nose, achy bones, and a strange compulsion to roll around in your own faeces.

Rehash those oh-so-lame pig jokes.

Make the case to cancel that stressful family holiday on the continent. Spend a fortnight vegetating on the couch watching sports and adding to your collection of belly-button fluff.

Finally you have a socially acceptable excuse for forgoing that vile custom of shaking people’s hand. YES!

If your wife catches you in a bar without your wedding ring, tell her that it’s unhygienic and harbours the virus.

Start ill-informed superstitions. For example: I heard that, if you wash your genitals in rose-oil after having full-sex with a pig, you won’t catch the flu.

Write openly hateful comments about pigs (pigist?) on the websites of national newspapers and the Big British Castle.

Demand that Five cancels Peppa Pig, if only to desperately discourage your 2-year-old daughter from demanding every piece of cat-shit merchandise it inspires.

Finally, remember this, some people you don’t like might die.

Now *that’s* a word

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

Everyone must see this

Charlie Brooker ponders MSM coverage of mass shootings ::

via. via.

Gamey times

Edge reports that US video game hawkers, GameStop, have increased sales despite our current economic clusterfuck. A surprise? Well, not really.

GameStop — an American gaming chain — has proven with $8.8bn sales, and a 24% year-on-year increase in business, that when times are tough, we have a habit of turning to smoting Zombies .

Now if you’re an appalling gaming whore like me, it’s arguably always Halo-time. But you have to admit, while difficult times usually, in my experience at least, put people off spending, stress and economic uncertainty tends to make people slaughter each other online all the more.

Hell, if we can’t afford that trip to Agent Provocateur or a weekly night out at a fancy restaurant, the least we can expect is a session with the Master Chief, a pastrami-sandwich, and frag-fest of the highest order .

I mean, that’s cheap (well, sort of).

Sexy times

The Guardian reports that pricey lingerie hawkers, Agent Provocateur, have increased sales despite our current economic clusterfuck. A surprise? Well, not really.

As Rick’s Caberet — an American strip-joint chain — proved last November with a 113% year-on-year increase in business, when times are tough, we have a habit of turning to titties.

Now if you’re an appalling rutting stag like me, it’s arguably always boobie-time. But you have to admit, while difficult times usually, in my experience at least, put women off teh nookie, stress and economic uncertainty tends to make us men even more horny.

Hell, if we can’t afford that new high-def TV or a weekly night out on the sauce, the least we can expect is a session with the Mrs., a peekaboo bra, and the lights on.

I mean, that’s free (well, sort of).

Thought for the day

Why won’t talentless gobshite, Pete Doherty, just go away?

Off to work. Catch you tonight, dweebs.

A daft review

Thanks to John Band, who pointed me in the direction of this review of last night’s Stuart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle.

The reviewer, one Sally McIlhone, contends that Lee’s “intellectual elitism” is pompous, and goes on to make the astonishing claim that Chris Moyles (and Jeremy Clarkson) are “immeasurably funnier than Lee”.

Seriously? People who make claims like that shouldn’t be allowed opinions. It’s beyond ignorant. Next she’ll be telling us that David Beckham’s smarter than Gail Trimble, and that Brooke Burke is nowhere near as hot as Jo Brand.

It’s about time, considering the absolute dog-spunk we’re usually fed on our TV screens, that somebody actually commissioned a programme that picks holes in the fabulously ridiculous circle-jerk that is our contemporary media. Lee’s right, most of the celeb books are complete tat, and the people who buy them are morons. And it’s about time someone said it.

the irregular quote of the day

“Shatterface”, over at LC ::

I have to laugh everytime I read that money from pirate DVD’s goes towards funding the drug trade.

I mean, if you can’t make a profit from selling crack and have to subsidised it with hooky copies of Transformers you are in the wrong business.

Heh.

On car seats

Jesus, getting the kids in and out of the car is a drag.

Child car seats, and now those bastard compulsory booster seats, must be specially designed to make journeys as stressful as possible.

I think companies are mandated to make them dysfunctional. There I am in the back of the car, doubled over like a porn star being drilled by a moustachioed washing-machine repairman, trying to get two pieces of metal into an impossibly small slot while my kids wriggle and squirm like captured fish.

Maybe child car seats are a subtle weapon in the war against climate change. The government, it seems, are committed to making every car journey as painful as possible.

It was raining this morning, and both of my children have the sniffles. It made sense to keep them dry and warm in the car, but I spent all morning dreading the rigmarole of getting the little scamps into their seats.

The wife is over in Paris for a week with her sister, so the opportunity of getting out of the school-run this week is non-existant. Tomorrow I’ll put an extra layer on the kids and brave the winter air sans automobile. I guess you win, Al Gore. You smug big-faced bastard.

BJ the Mayor Bear wrote about car-seats a few years ago, so I’ll leave you with opening paragraphs of his rant ::

Of all the sensations of joy and release that Nature in her kindness has bestowed on the human race, there is little or nothing to beat the moment when you get rid of the baby’s car seat.

It beats getting off a long-haul flight. It beats taking off a pair of ill-fitting ski-boots after a hard day on the slopes. It verges, frankly, on the orgasmic. As you take the wretched thing to Oxfam, you thank your stars that never again will you have to grapple with that incomprehensible buckle.

Never again will you stand sweating over your baby as it screams and writhes and sticks yoghurt in your ear. Never again will you have that struggle of wills, as the child’s efforts to escape become ever more desperate and violent, and you grow later and later in setting off on your journey.

For children and parents alike that precious moment – when it is deemed that the offspring are capable of sitting on their own in the back with only a seat belt – is one of the pleasures of growing up. It is a rite of passage, a moment of pride and childish prestige.

It is, therefore, utterly incredible that the state should now be trying to prolong our national car seat agony. How old do you think they have to be before the nanny state will let your kids sit in the back without a car seat? Did I hear six? Did I hear seven? No, my friends, we are being asked to put our children in plastic booster seats until they reach the ripe old age of 12 or attain a height of 135cm, whichever is the sooner.