We're stuffed full of flu, you swine.

The common pink, curly tailed, oinking piggie is a versatile producer of many things. Pork chops, bacon sandwiches, or pigs trotter (if Marco Pierre White is cooking for you).

As I write, I am currently being advised by the NHS to stay indoors and away from Joe public if I feel a sniffle. You see, pigs also seem to produce a nasty flu virus that has killed a number of people in Mexico over the last few days. It is lamentable that anyone dies of disease anywhere in the world and ye gods' know people are dieing of an exhausting array of horrible diseases. However, there is something about the whole swine flu scenario that I find hard to swallow. This has something to do with another product attributed to the humble pig...

Swine are also a provider of tripe -this pig I speak of is the sort of little blighter that just keeps giving and giving. Although I am more concerned with the steaming hot piles of tripe that the 24 hour party media people are serving. This tripe is a dish that's served just a little too often and is leaving a similar emotion in me that occurs when I have been frequenting my local baker's sausage roles a few times too many. In other words, it's leaving me tired, bloated and slightly sick. In fact, scrap that. It's making me quite angry ('Ahh Shite... not again...' I hear you sigh - I'm not always on the verge of manic displays of grammatically poor rage, it just seem that way).

Before I pursue this line any further I will offer you a disclaimer. Yes, I am fully aware that I am using a medium of the very thing I am going to be ranting against when I criticise the mass media . Blogs can be part of the problem or the solution and are a measure of the human traits I'm going to mull over. Thanks for pointing out my stinking and overwhelming hypocrisy, but sadly I'm going to do it regardless and I'm rather unapologetic about it in all reality.

The way I see it, is that we are being served a large amount of very stinky tripe at the hands of the mass media - or, if you like, technology savvy swine. Now, this is not a rant against the perception of an evil 'mass media machine' that is out to control us for the good of its own endeavour. It's more simplistic and realistic than that. The mass media is confined by its own seemingly infinite boundaries. It is the very fact that mass media operates over a relentless 24/7 existence - which could well be seen to bring unlimited scope - that actually serves as the scenario that restricts the media's substance and betrays it's purpose. The advent of twenty four hour mass media has brought about a culture that regards news not as fact for mass understanding or mass acknowledgement but rather more a case of mass consumption. The reporting of news is being taken so far out of context that it has become a produce than can be consumed via many sources: television, Internet or in print. There are no boundaries to this consumption, news can be accessed at anytime and subsequently digested, processed and eventually defecated out of the system by way of unconscious indifference. This path is subtlely walked and is exactly the same as the journey of consumption taken by a can of coke or a sausage role from the baker.

To take the consumer process taken by food a bit further in comparision, if I walk past a baker and spot a sign with two for one on the sausage roles you can make a very safe bet that I will grab the advertised product, digest, process and then consign it eventually into both the bottom of a toilet (hopefully) and to a fate of limbo. The sausage role, after it has been consumed, is disposed of and forgotten about. I am indifferent once it has served its role.

I've noticed that I have been consuming news stories in the same way. I am taken in by a headline, I digest the information (the product) and then discard - unlikely to not be thought about again too much, a fate of complete indifference and subsequently a total lack of importance. In order to make the product more appealing and sell more, the shop counter of news - the mass media - has to bring in its own type of deal. Just the same as a two for one offer on sausage roles. So, make the news story that little bit more interesting - like over hyping an obviously nasty disease that has yet to make a global pandemic impact. This is the sweetener, the billboard, the furniture sale. We go for it, we consume it and eventually, we once again shite it out and forget about it.

Swine flu is tripe. Believe me. If I'm wrong then may the good lord have mercy on my mucus-riven, sweaty soul. It is a product, no longer a reality. It has been stripped of all substance by the mass media and put out to tender in the swill trough for the piggies to munch on, get what they need and then forget about it. We are the pigs that create this swine and in turn we eat ourselves. It is cannibalistic in the sense that we are eating the parts of our existence that create notions of common-sense, senses of proportion and any idea of relevance. In other words, we eat our own brains.

Think of a very real pandemic, one that has been around for decades. It was consumed as a product at the time the shop counter was just being established. AIDS is killing people. It's killing people every single day, without fail. However, as a society we have forgotten about AIDS as its newsworthy status has been eroded. We consumed stories about AIDS, got our feelings of satisfaction that we knew about it and would do something and ultimately we forgot about it, moved on and consumed the next rave product - the next big news story.

Are we fucked ladies and gentlemen? Probably so, but we are certainly not being fucked by a bunch of snotty nosed piggies. Instead we are consuming everything that matters about ourselves.

Stu

The bro-shake....

We've all been in that position - the greeting of a bro going horribly wrong. You're fist pound becomes a palm sandwich, or you're bro-shake becomes a shaky slap. Fear not no longer Bros, for there is an answer....

http://www.anonymouscontent.com/integrated

Hillsborough.

I wanted to write a great deal about this. But sometimes things are better summed up in one sentence.

It should never have taken this long.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/apr/19/hillsborough-documents

CRAZY

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/celebritynews/5152088/Phil-Spector-found-guilty-of-murdering-actress-Lana-Clarkson.html

The man who dismantles tanks

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/5170686/The-man-who-dismantles-tanks.html

THOR

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-04/16/thor-creates-power-from-scrapped-cars-and-orange-peel.aspx

A trout called Jim

Day to day I tend to get annoyed about stuff and end up ranting. At twenty-two I'm pretty sure this isn't a good thing - my uncle does it and he's sixty-five. The main problem is that once I go off on one I end up very annoyed and loose all clarity of thought and logic. I hasten to add that I can do this sitting on my own and so blogging lets me vent. However when I try to channel my stream of disgust - for one thing or another - I can't coherently sum up my thoughts in such way as makes any sense. But not today. Food is something I like a lot and I have a keen interest in both eating and cooking it. Reading and watching anything involving food these days leaves me with a rather confused taste in the mouth. I'm so happy to see the organic movement getting a kicking in the recession because it makes me sick. To me it is no more than lifestyle conditioning. I feel our sense of where food comes from is so far removed from the source - not tesco - that we've ended coming full circle. I know that beef comes from cows, pork from pigs and chicken from chickens. I doubt that this was a closely guarded secret, but the crux of the matter is that knowing pork comes from a pig is different from thinking about a pig being killed to produce it. I personally have no qualms with animals being killed to produce food, but I do grudge the nonsense that has arisen recently to unnecessarily justify it. In the technologically advanced, globalised world we live in a great comfort seems to be derived from "knowing," where our food comes from. All produce is now branded as fair trade, freedom food, organic and - my favourite - responsibly sourced. What in the name Christ is freedom food? I don't condone cruelty to animals, but a chicken isn't really free if its bred to be eaten. No matter how much cotton wool and liberal niceties you wrap food in, it still doesn't get away from the fact that things are; slaughtered, gutted, skinned and butchered. As I said earlier, I don't have a issue with this, but it seems that everyone ought to feel damned guilty about animals dying in the name of food these days. I wouldn't give any of this a second glance, were it not for one factor; price. Restaurants have latched onto this movement in a big way and it justifies marking up prices. Fish in restaurants sums this up better than any other dish. You will pay more for "line caught," mackerel than you would for mackerel caught by a pelagic fishing vessel but in terms of quality and taste there is no difference. The Market Kitchen had a "yeah! that's so great," piece on Cornish fishermen tagging their fish so that when you order or buy it you can check the name of the fisherman who caught it. Pointless! Other than giving someone with more money than sense the glib satisfaction of telling their buddies that "Their," sea bass was caught by a nice looking chap called Terry. Obviously the deindustrialisedethod and quaint surroundings must improve the product! Rubbish, it just allows the price to go up. I can't understand why after decades of making food available for the masses, there now comes a move to make it unavailable through wanton snobbery. We live in a technologically advanced, globalised world and now everyone wants to pretend - with respect to food - that we're going back to basics and cutting out the big corporations in favour of locally sourced produce. The irony of the whole movement is that it misses the point and assumes that philosophical ramblings and childlike packaging equate to greater quality and thus justify higher prices. Butchers, bakers, grocers and fish mongers sell food of greater quality than that of supermarkets and have done - without the need for jargon and catch-phrases - for generations. If you want good quality local produce buy it from local shops not a massive supermarket chain. If you want to buy a sense of well being to paper over the cracks of unnecessary guilt then the organic movement is the ticket for you. Food is not a philosophy it's food, if its concepts your after then go to an art gallery.

THE POWER OF THE BLACK SUN

fuck me, its 2.30am cant sleep and i find this on utube, creepy movie about..................well u will see, happy viewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qukzYFW1uww

UPDATE:

jesus i thought nazi ufos were the icing on the cake, this tops that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDF1Ux_1vwQ

Wonderful art!

http://www.kozyndan.

wee!

NUKES IN SPACE

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=689628960191060384

bugger the chugger?

I realise before writing what I have planned that I might be treading on a few toes in the next few paragraphs, I might even be 'crapping on my own doorstep' as it were. Please bear with me though, I promise there is a point to be found somewhere.

As I arguably frequent the the fine establishment that is the Prince of Wales perhaps a little too often, I often have to run the gauntlet of 'chuggers' (charity muggers) vying for my attention and money for a variety good and just causes - displayed on the very fetching vests that adorn their person. Now, my problem is not that they attempt to take the money I have already sectioned off to be wasted in the Prince, nor is this a rant against political correctness and I am certainly not in any way against fundraising for charity. Not by a long shot bucko.

Charities need to raise funds to survive, it's an undeniable fact. Rather, it's the nature of charity. I work for a charity and I'm aware of how hard funds are to come by, especially as people struggle financially. In a time of economic depressions, charities find it harder than ever to find the capital to carry out the essential work they do. It would be wrong to ever criticise legitimate fundraising. However, I have a real problem with charities hiring agencies to put out young men and women to actively and psuedo-aggressively fund raise from the general public on the streets.

Someone I know was stopped on their way to work today by a street fundraiser who promptly signed them up to give ten pounds a month to a well-known charity. The process was so quick that the chugger had the paper signed before the person had time to know what was happening. It was the patter of the chugger that won the day, he told the person he was 'only raising funds from good looking people that day' and hence they were stopped. Charm is hard to avoid, especially when starving children, the homeless, abuse victims or any other sort of issue is involved.

'Only raising funds from good looking people'? I am perhaps reading too much into innocent flirtation, but I find that statement slightly on sickening side of discomfort. If this fundraiser was indeed aiming to only raise funds from attractive people that day, apart from ignoring numerous ugly people with perfectly legal tender, was he also only aiming to help good looking landmine victims or homeless people who have time to adhere to a strict beauty regime every morning when they wake up on the street? I would really like the to put that question to him. Although I probably couldn't as I would likely be ignored for neither possessing a pair of tits or killer legs. Maybe my luck would be in and I'd catch him on a day where he had a drive to get some ugly cash but I doubt it.

Street fundraisers are most often contracted by the charity through a professional company. It is rare that they are ever volunteers and never should it be assumed that they are. Agreeing to donate by signing up to the charity muggers ('chuggers') does not actually guarantee that all of that ten pounds will go to aid the work of the charity plastered on their vest. According to charityfacts.org, around ninety pounds for each person that signs up on the street. The same website estimates that it actually takes around a year for the monthly contributions to break even and fully go to the charity and because up to 40% of people cease giving after a year, the maths begins to become interesting.

Yes, I find the people who do such work irritating, I really do. But it would be unfair to spew hate all over them. My real gripe is with the whole process. I had a look at some of the companies who recruit street fundraisers. Their adverts were modern, bright and quite attractive - just like the young people they hope to recruit I presume. One compelled me to 'fight desk job drudgery'. Sounds great, but fighting desk job drudgery? Is that really what these fundraisers should be doing? Shouldn't the primary concern be the charity themselves: fighting poverty, injustice and the like? The answer is no. This is business for these companies - charity comes second - and unfortunately (whether they realise it or not) street fundraisers are also putting charities second.

Charities need to fund raise, I understand that. I don't begrudge charities that bring in companies to recruit street fundraisers. However, I fail to see the point and at times find the practice bordering on illegitimate. The more I delve into trying to research this subject, the more it becomes harder to find facts and figures. It is altogether blurry and this only intensifies my suspicions of the process.

I'm an angry man ladies and gentlemen. The more I look, the more I see things that bring the rage...

Stu

http://www.charityfacts.org/

Pretty Self Explanatory

Could be worthy of a rant, but the video speaks for itself...



SJ :)