gibberish

Ok.  Let’s get Raef out of the way early.

He dressed up like this…

…to sell thongs.

Prick.

He said “People who are size 16 are that size for a reason, because they eat cake.”  Well, as Marie Antoinette said “Let him eat cake.” Tittyboy. (She didn’t say the last bit).

Aside from that he was just your average run of the mill, run of the mill posh contestant.

Lucinda, on the other hand, rises above her poshness increasingly and is my current idea of the winner.

Claire has been on a “debooting” regime and is becoming not only marginally likeable but a contender too.

Michael Sophocles however is the real villian of the piece this, and pretty much every, week.

When, having gained a six hour “passion” for selling Wedding cakes, someone said no to his extremely hard sell approach that lacked entirely in sympathy, he exclaimed “You’re making a mistake.  I mean God above…” and then gave the camera a wee insight by claiming they were all “dum dums.”  Takes one to know one Michael.

Frankly there is only one word for this tosspot.

“Goodbye.”

I don’t like this little nyaf very much.  He has a habit of making you want to punch him, very hard, very often, in the testicles and follow that up with a bit of bashing them between breeze blocks.

Sarah had to go, in due course, but not this week.

Her only crime was averageness.

Whatever.

I’ve been itching to write about this for months but have been worried about displaying political niaivety. However, even I cannot be accused of that in the face of Wendy Alexander’s kindergarten politics

It would seem that in attempting to raise a referendum bill she is simply not permitted to do so by Holyrood protocol because Smiley Alec Salmond beat her to it! Now that’s a silly wee mistake to make. Just like accepting £900 of unrecorded political support was.

But by taking a personal independence agenda into the public domain at total odds with the Labour party in Millbank she has managed to piss off Gordon Brown and most of the National Executive of the Labour Party, the Scottish Labour Party, John Prescott, The Lib Dems - who may or may not be Labour’s allies - and most amusingly of all, the Scottish Tory Leader, Annabel Goldie, who sees her behaviour as tantamount to destroying the Union.

Needless to say Alex Salmond must think he’s died and gone to heaven.

But what underpins this ‘car crash’ politics? I think it must be ego. She is well known for having zero people skills and has dodged and ducked her way through political minefields for a while and bottled a leadership contest with Jack McConnell.

She’s just not good enough. Intellectually brilliant perhaps: as the author of the Smart Successful Scotland strategy I have to say I admired the way in which this document seemed to lucidly capture the issues facing the nation. But her job is not an academic one, it’s a political one and politics appears to be the least of her talents.

A bit of a handicap as a party political leader.

You know what Wendy?

As Sir Alan should be urging Big Goggsy to say…

“You’re fired!”

This is brilliant.  Click on the interview panel on the BBC sports page at this link.

Craig Levien, Dundee Utd’s manager, letting off steam after losing a crucial game to Rangers today. Now, when I say letting off steam I mean totally losing it. I like and respect Craig Levien - even if he is a Jambo - and I know exactly how he must feel

And oh what joy to find this old school photo of him on google…

And this one…

Yes, that’s right. It is yours truly on the left. A vision in black. And not overly gaylordish.

Now, we all know that referees favour Celtic and Rangers, but according to Levien, Mike McCurry’s performance today was nothing short of a scandal. He calls him a cheat - which will get him in big trouble with the numpties that run our game - but he is almost certainly right. I haven’t seen the incidents in question, but judging from this outburst I think he probably has a point.

Listening to discussion about it on Five Live’s 606-phone in a Rangers fan brushed it off by saying…

“They’re getting all excited about this one game. Maybe if they’d tried this hard all season against lesser teams this would be less of an issue.”

A neat body swerve I have to say, but, you know what? Totally true!

And that applies to every other team in this shitty league.

And Hibs are no exception.

They turn up for the old firm and Hearts matches and don’t bother their arses against the likes of Aberdeen, Motherwell, St Mirren…

That’s why I don’t go along any more.

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

]

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.

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.

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.)

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.

]

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…

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

Got a nice cheeky note from an old friend and mentor, Roger Stanier, who now works at Lowe in Londinium this morning.

It made me laugh.  The cheeky monkey.

If I was a reasonable person, and I’m not - or else you wouldn’t be reading this - I would not slag off twitty Raef at all in this post because the volume of alternative quality material on tonight’s Apprentice leaves him trailing.

But, and it’s a big but, he did say…

“The spoken word is my tool.” (Well, we all know he IS A TOOL, but this was a different take on that thought.)

And

“”Bravo!” after Myleen Klasse’s recital in the house.

And

“”Single people are the forgotten part of society.” (Oh really Raef? How awful for you.)

However, the week’s delights were saved for Kevin Shaw.

Let’s put this all in perspective before we start on the details.

Kevin Shaw is an arse.

For instance he said that he…

“Will do anything to be the most succesful businessman in the world by the time I am 40.”

Which obviously sits squarely with his declaration that

“I always try 150%.” (Not quite sure how one does that actually.)

Kevin Shaw - this is him here…

…put the “laughing at you” into the “I”m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you.”

I mean, if this is the cream of British management potential, I am a potential Chelsea player.

The ineptness of his management of the task, which consisted of him authorising the creation of a greetings card to celebrate being green, was unprecedented. Ria, my 13 year old daughter said, (IMMEDIATELY the idea was raised) “You can’t send a green card! It would need to be an e-card because sending a card isn’t green.”

And so did Sir Alan. But ugly Ginger Spice railroaded him into it.

Claire, who accused Kevin of having “short man syndrome” - that’s rich from someone with “ugly boot syndrome” - spent most of the task being nicer than she’s ever been in her life before (she didn’t actually sever anyone’s head during the making of the programme for a start) and, as a consequence, survived.

Oh, it was a goodun.

Not a classic week really. Raef hardly made an arse of himself at all.

Well, it’s all relative.

He’s been keeping a low profile but still managed to pop up with an absurdism. When Sir Allan challenged one of his prepostrous ideas - selling ice cream to an ice cream maker - Sir Alan suggested that this was like selling the might Sir Alan himself a satellite receiver

Unbelievably ArseRaef didn’t take the bail out option but instead reaffirmed his own oafishness by claiming “If I had absolute belief I’d still turn up [to sell it to Sir Alan].”

Lucinda surprised us all by metamorphosing from a rubbishy, wee, lazy but quite nice, posh bird into a right-on team playing team leader - actually the best in the series so far - and was rewarded with defeat.

Her boardroom performance was not brilliant but she managed to survive Irish bitch Jennifer’s assault. Lindi Mngaza (certainly not “Eyeless in Gaza” if you consider the eye-bling) blew it big style.

The Boot, Claire Young, toned down the bootishness quite well and got a pure spot of luck with a big sale at the last minute to keep her in for a near future firing.

Prick of the week? Oh deffo Michael Sophocles. He may yet out-Raef Raef.

Who’ll win. God knows, they’re all pish in different ways. Actually, for me Lucinda moved significantly up the leaderboard as she showed that she can manage and, you know what? That’s what this series is about.

My mate Mike is a rubbish golfer. He can’t hit a driver to save himself but he’s solid with a 7 iron. Plop, plop , plop goes each shot, down the middle, sinks the putt and it’s a par.

It’s real safety officer stuff but it grinds out results.

So, to Rangers.

Their European campaign, although succesful is like playing golf with a 7 iron. Nothing ventured, nothing ventured.

It makes you weep how dull and unimaginative it is. It’s horrific. But hey, the ends might just justify the means.

Whatever.

I’m grateful to Pat Rodger for sending me this little peach.

From the Townsville Bulletin (on Australia’s Gold Coast)

George Phillips was going up to bed when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window.

George opened the back door to go to turn off the light but saw from the porch that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police and explained what was happening; the controller asked

‘Is someone in your house?’

‘No’ he replied.

The response was that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when available.

George said, ‘Okay,’ hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.

‘Hello’ he said ‘I just called you a minute ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I’ve just shot them.’ Then he hung up.

Within four minutes three police cars, an Armed Response Unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George: ‘I thought you said that you’d shot them!’

To which George replied, ‘I thought you said there was nobody available!’

Interesting story on the news tonight about the porky mayor of Pembroke, Keith McNiffe. (That’s him standing second left of the bloke sitting in the red gown.)

McNiffe has claimed to be disabled and taking payment from the Benefits Agency for the last two years. Apparently he claimed to be such a fat bastard that he couldn’t even walk. However, he was caught on video running (sic) the line at an amatuer football match and had done so 59 times this season.

Given the frequency of his exercise it begs the question. Why did he look like a Walrus in a Matt Lucas cast off costume?

We finally gave up on the old rubbish dishwasher. It was always leaking and the timer didn’t really work, it often failed to switch itself off at the end of a cycle and could end up washing the dishes all day. I felt there was only so many times you could call the Gas Board out to fix it. (By the way this is the best cover ever for your domestic appliances, they come out on a weekly basis to fix things in this house, if need be.)

So, on Saturday morning, I was doing some weeding in the garden, Mark put the new dishwasher in. There was no swearing, nothing, a very peaceful morning. Mark even managed to lift the old machine into the garden on his own. I was very impressed and told him so.

Then I noticed and said to Mark. “It’s still full of all the dishes.”

“Yeah, but I’ve put the new one in.”

Job done, off he went.

Saw this poster in Salamander St last week.

Not good.

Is this some sort of fascist intelectualism? Because, if it is, it’s probably lost on most people. Myself included

(PS. Having written this post I then found out that it is “art” intended to stimulate debate about global capitalism and Polish immigration. Well, it worked but it’s kind of up itself. - see the explanation in the comments or follow this link to The Collective Gallery’s website.)

Tittyboy Raef kept his profile well below the radar (Yah) until the final seconds this week, when he blew it by being spotted wearing a preposterous pink skinny rib v-neck that only posh folk would be seen dead in as the house awaited the survivors of the eviction coming back.

Clearly Simon (nice but nasty) found himself well out of his depth - surrounded on one side by the barking Doberman that is Claire (by the way what is the difference between a Doberman and a woman with PMT? You can reason with a Doberman) and on the other by ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my handsome blue eyed mouth’ Alex who totally shafted him from the start.

Claire annoyed Sir Alan so much that I sympathised with him. She is a gobby boot. See you as you get fired next week Claire.

Those of you who have been following my discussions with Nationwide Building Society will no doubt be interested in the latest round of this debate. I recieved a letter this morning from a chap further up the food chain in which he stated that my previous letter was “somewhat inappropriate . Whatever the fuck that means. I think actually it meant (fuck off and stop annoying us.) Needless to say it was wholly missing in terms of wit, charm, eloquence and answers. rather it said. We’re passing the buck to Churchill who underwrote the claim. But, of course, I didn’t purchase from Churchill. I purchased from Nationwide who, as we all know are not like the nasty old banks. They’re the good guys, the people’s champions. The only big mutual left

Here’s what I had to say this time round.

17 April 2008

(Name withheld)
Nationwide Building Society
Insurance Claims Department
Kings Park Road
Moulton Park
Northampton
NN3 6NW

Claim No 60980390/01
And CL2152383

Dear (staff name withheld)

I received your letter dated 17 April this morning in which you fail to acknowledge a single point that I made to you in my letter of 11 April to your colleague.

However, you do state that you feel its content was “somewhat inapropriate”.

What does that mean exactly. Do you think it is somewhat innapropriate for me to ask for an explanation as to why either of my claims are not being honoured?

Is there some form of three line whip at Nationwide Building Society whereby staff are taught to stonewall and blank specific, very specific, points made in letters of complaint from their customers.

Actually (staff name withheld), I find your response “somewhat inappropriate”. In fact I find it wholly inappropriate. In fact, I find it dismissive and to be quite honest, timorous.

It’s a bit like you’re saying “Go away you horrible big bully and stop being nasty to us. We don’t know why we won’t pay you. It’s just that the computer says no all the time.”

But I’m afraid I’m not going to go away because (and I’m making an assumption here) I’m in the situation where I’ve paid you insurance premiums for years and my kitchen is burned down and you won’t pay for it to get fixed… and you’re not.

Step outside of the walls of your cosy office in Kings Park Road for a minute, and into the real world, and you might get a hint of why I am not a very happy bunny and why I won’t go away.

So, I’ll ask you again. Could you possibly take the time to explain why you consider payment of half a claim an “Act of goodwill?”

Could you take some time to address my issues?

Could you act in a way which resolves my dispute as opposed to hiding from it?

I note you have opted for the last recourse of the corporation. - hiding behind the Ombudsman. But how can I go to the Ombudsman, as you suggest, when I only have my side of the story? You have given me no reasonable reasons for your refusing to honour my claims.

The point is, I have put forward a case and you have made no defence.

So, please could you defend yourself more effectively - or settle my claim.

I notice that you have passed the buck onto Churchill Insurance, but I didn’t buy it from Churchill Insurance I bought it from Nationwide Building Society. I believe they call that White labelling and I believe my contract (at the very least morally) is with you.

I patiently await your response.

Yours sincerely

Mark Gorman