gibberish

This bad?  I found this on Steven Tait’s increasingly excellent blog and laughed out loud almost throughout it.

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I was delighted with some recent shots I got of the Rail Bridge with a foreground of oil rapeseed.

Until that is, my Mate Doug Cook stuck one in the back of the net.

This is great photograh by anyone’s standards.

I rather like this ad to encourage kids to cycle to school.  It made me laugh out loud when I saw it.

The target audience, of course, will hate it because they won’t empathise with the geek in the shot.

I think the research was a bit misplaced too because we all know that green and yellow are Catholic School colours (indeed this was my school uniform at Holy Cross) and the ginger hair of the wee lad also has massive catholic symbolism.

Not smart.

So, The Apprentice would-bes get sent on a shopping trip to a Souk.

The perfect recipe for lies and ‘espionage’.

For me the episode revolved around Jen and Michael’s total disregard for honesty and decency - a pair of lying twats quite frankly. We’ve oft discussed Jen’s bootishness in the past on this site, but her decision to engulf herself in a pink headscarve only made her look like Miss Piggy on her dabs.

Now she looks like an ex-Apprentice.

Quite right.

(We can put the mirrors back up in the living room again.)

Her decision to try to boycott Team Alpha’s progress by stage whispering a pathetic bribe to a local tennis stringing ace was pathetic and for that reason alone she had to go.

Michael Sophocles survived somehow, despite being a wee wank. He makes Raef (amazingly no twit ups AT ALL this week) look like a normal member of society - in fact I’m beginning to think Raef might even be a contender!

The teams were great. It really was the battle of the boots and assholes versus the normals (and Raef).

Increasingly my money is piling onto Lucinda who put in another good performance. She even let slip a wee “Och” when she slipped running across a shopping centre forecourt in a subconscious attempt to prove that she is indeed a true blue Scot.

Lee’s leadership was mainly based on different ways of exclaiming ‘Fuck!” very loudly and encouraging his team mates to join in. They did. With gusto.

The highlight of the week followed the unravelling of Michael’s pathetic attempt to ingratiate himself with Sir Alan by describing himself in his CV as a “good Jewish boy” when in reality he was only “Half Jewish” - which explained why he didn’t know what Kosher was. On hearing this Sir Alan suggesting Michael drop his pants to show if he’d circumcised his plonker.

I think he was just pulling it myself.

Oh and Jennifer got fired too. Fair enough. She was shite.

Breaking news.

Based on Rudyard Kipling’s iconic poem the new Irn Bru commercial has landed. Set in various locations across Scotland and somewhere abroad it features some lovely vignettes. Some work brilliantly, like the Loony Dooking pensioners (at 33 seconds) which struck a real chord with me, also the kissing Celtic and Rangers fans, the despondent Scotland fan with his wee lassie and the way folk choose the wrong descriptor for their meal times are all great.

Others are  less succesful and I’d question Martin Compston’s voiceover.

But three cheers for the choice of South Queensferry for two of the settings!

I feel the whole campaign suffers from being shackled by a weak strapline. Phenomenal does nothing for me. It’s unphenomenal frankly.

Overall it’s a nice, rather touching return to form.

But judge for yourselves.

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I have supported Rangers’ dogged and boring progress through Europe but I am not, repeat not, a closet Hun. And they couldn’t have achieved it without ripping the guts out of The Hibees first 11.

This is funny. Thanks Mike.

One thing I am 100% behind them on is condemnation of the stance that the SFA have done nothing to further the cause of the Scottish game.

Exactly.

SFA.

So.

10,000 folk turn up at Hampden Park to audition for the X Factor yesterday, despite the fact that the programme producers knew, full well, that unlike Engerland the Scottish exam season is in full swing.

A friend of mine’s daughter got through to the judging stages - at the expense of her English Standard Grade exam. Same day, different place. (That’s the equivelant of an O grade if you happen to be an English X Factor producer).

It’s a fucking disgrace.

Enjoy watching the auditions when they come along and maybe you might think about how a slightly more sympathetic timing might have got someone’s son or daughter an extra qualification.

Then again…

(Actually, you know what?  That photo says it all.)

Here’s another two that James McLaughlin did when he should have been working - if he was working late. Outstanding

So’s this. Damn. I’ll need to think of some myself.

made by tlkmngstyrslvs

Originally uploaded by boyshapedbox.

From a Blur song. Great.

made by sftekbear

Originally uploaded by boyshapedbox.

Kenneth Fowler pointed me in this direction via his blog. It’s a really funny set of Flickr ‘artworks’ on boyshapedbox’s Flickr sirte and turns well known songs, like this one, into graphs, Pie charts and the likes. Hugely clever and rather amusing. Well done Boyshapedbox. Check it out by clicking on the image. It’ll take you straight through to his Flickr site.

There are over 100 of them.

Jeana works at Suntrap Garden near Ratho.

So, I’d like to suggest that you make a date in your diary for a trip out for its Open Day on 25th May, 10.30 am - 4.30 pm.  If the weather stays like it is just now it’ll be a fantastic day out in a beautiful spot with money going to charity.

Here’s the link.

These shots were taken last year at the Open day.

A remake of The Shining. Really scary.

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A wee tip from Alan.

The Stevie Wonder of birdland.

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Jamesy sent me this. Sweet.

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Whoa.  Stop right there.  What the fuck is this?  I’ll tell you what it is - it’s a beast.  The most finely concieved, played and produced African album I have ever heard.

It is an absolutely stunning mashup of tribal rythm from Mali an extended family of Saharan nomads who are quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen or heard in your life.

Count yoursef blessed that you have stumbled upon this post because the track I have for you, the first from their third album, is an absolute stonewall classic.  This stuff takes your breath away and played back to back with The Very Best of Ethiopiques it shows the quality of music coming out of Northern Africa is nothing short of sublime

Please do yourself a favour.  Buy this record.  And Pick up The Very Best of Ethiopiques while you’re at it.

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The new Portishead album has been ten years in the making. I read a review that said it was “nice background listening”. It may have been written by a monkey stabbing randomly at keys until this particular sentence appeared because nothing could be further from the truth; as this track demonstrates.

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This, the fourth on the album, is the best song they have ever written. It is a thing of intense beauty.

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Throughout the record Beth Gibbons’ vocals are used sparingly above an electronic symphony. Cool, funky, orchestral but all synth driven with utterly astounding drumming. This is so good that I thought I was going to cry just listening to it on the train home from Glasgow on Thursday night.

Album of the year so far.

No question.

I told you this was a great event.  Particularly because Alfredo Marcantonio showed us a reel of commercials that were all low budget but brilliant.  Here are a few of them.

I’d never seen this VW Karmann Ghia ad before but it really is a classic.

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He showed this too.  Which made us all laugh.

And this cracker for Carling Black label.

He showed a different ad from this one for the x show.  But this is a pretty good alternative…

I think it is.  Unfortunately it’s the German version but the voiceover is short and very very sweet.  It says.

“What does the man who drives the snowplough drive to get to the snowplough?

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By a tory fucking idiot.  Well, London, you chose him.  You suffer the consequences you bunch of berks.

He ran a great, really great, IPA AGM gig tonight.  I’ll tell you about it soon.