The Ranttag:,2008:/3802007-12-31T11:32:01ZWe all need a good rant, so here it isMovable Type 3.31All I want for Christmastag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.346002007-12-31T09:47:07Z2007-12-31T11:32:01ZANYONE not been ill this Christmas?...Admin
ANYONE not been ill this Christmas?
Back to work today and as I tried to hack a week's dried Cupasoup off my mug, it struck me that just about everyone in the office is either coughing or spluttering.
One colleague sounds like a blocked plughole, another is threatening to drown in his own snot and a third is coughing so regularly he needs putting in a sealed polythene bag and leaving somewhere quiet.
Christmas is usually great - I'm not so cynical that I don't appreciate lots of food drink and pressies.
And there were lots of the above this year. Too much in some cases. But somehow there was just a lack of magic. Dunno what it was but a distinct lack of fairy dust about this festive season.
At least it's almost over so now we no longer have to put up with B list TV news readers and second choice radio presenters during that strange becalmed period between Christmas and New Yer when the world goes itno hibernation.
But at least the roads are empty in a 28 Days Later style.
Go to go, my nose is running.
If the Cap fits ...tag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.332262007-12-13T12:58:27Z2007-12-13T13:16:50ZFA CHIEF executive Brian Barwick believes he has secured the services of a "world class manager" in Italian Fabio Capello....Admin
FA CHIEF executive Brian Barwick believes he has secured the services of a "world class manager" in Italian Fabio Capello.
Great!
Like most of us, I'd rather we had an English bloke in charge but I'd rather be watch England in South Africa in two years' time under Capello than spend another summer mowing the lawn.
It might seem an odd career move for Capello who has a golden pedigree as a European manager - taking charge of a set of perennial under-achievers, inflated egos and media madams all the while under the malevolent eye of the national press.
But, as Mrs Merton might say, "So Fabio what first attracted you to this £6m-a-year job?"
To go back to Barwick's point, let's have a world class manager - and so what if they're Italian.
And next up, let's see if the Italian FA Chief Executive is available?
Worth their salt (and vinegar)tag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.329132007-12-10T15:16:37Z2007-12-10T15:40:18ZWHAT'S happened with salt and vinegar crisps?...Admin
WHAT'S happened with salt and vinegar crisps?
Once they were everyone's first choice (or at least in the top three) now you can hardly buy them
Our staff snack dispenser which carries the usual array of artery clogging potato snacks - cheese puffs, Quavers as well as the standard salted, cheese and onion and Bovril crisps. But no salt and vinegar. To be fair they do do salt and vinegar French Fries but somehow that's not the same.
The sandwich shop opposite the Rat and Ratchet pub stopped stocking them months ago - no demand they said.
Today, I couldn't get a packet anywhere in Huddersfield Market. Ready Salted Cheese and Onion but no salt and vinegar.
Why? Salty-vinegar is easily the best flavour. The top brands - like Seabrooks - are the Capstan Full Strength of potato chips.
You know when you've had them because your cheeks suck in and any cuts on your fingers start to hurt.
I suspect the rot set in when there was dissent over the brand colours for salt and vinegar.
As a kid I always associated light and dark blue with S&V. Might be a Golden Wonder thing.
But then Walkers took over the world and now they're green.
Well. it's time to fight back. Everyone must buy salt and vinegar. Let's re-establish this once proud flavour to it's rightful place.
Law of the Jungletag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.317922007-11-29T12:51:14Z2007-11-29T13:03:53ZTOUGH love practised by the Newquay Zoo in Cornwall....Admin
TOUGH love practised by the Newquay Zoo in Cornwall.
Two Sulawesi monkeys have caused a problem by repeatedly fighting.
(At moment it's not entirely clear if it was with each other or they nipped round to the meerkat pen - they always look soft to me - to dish out a bit of monkey madness.)
So the Zoo put them down. Simple as that. A couple of lethal injections and it's problem solved.
Couldn't they have spoken to their parents, threatened them with an ASBO (Ape Social Behaviour Order) or ultimately issued an electronic tag?
As a plan you have to say it is pretty effective.
But given that there are only 100,000 Sulawesi monkeys in existence, it's not the most forward looking of solutions in a long term ecological context.
However in the binge drinking world, there must be at least two million humans (or at least I believe they're human) up for a fight on Friday night.
And that's plenty of room for manouevre
Born to be mildtag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.309482007-11-20T15:05:47Z2007-11-20T15:26:11ZIt's been a bad day .. take a bow the M62!...Admin
It's been a bad day .. take a bow the M62!
A lorry fire at junction 11 meant a two and a half hour drive just for the pleasure of turning around at Warrington because I was hopelessly late for the meeting.
And it's not like the M62 views are particularly attractive around the Eccles interchange. Nor driving nose-to-tail at 2mph much fun.
Even on the way back the traffic slowed to gawp at the accident on the other side of the carriageway. Why? Were they hoping to see bodies?
(Although the lorry did seem to be carrying crates of beer. Hope they weren't ruined)
Plus 2 and a half hours is a long time for a middle aged man who had drunk quite alot of tea before setting off.
So, Birch Service Station and that funny half walk /half John Cleese run to the loos ... where something pleasant awaited.
Not a desperate trucker but some rather pungent toilet block in the urinals (I know, but I don't get out much).
They smelled just like Playdough. Which made me all mellow for schooldays. Playdough was the stuff little kids started on but then graduated to Plasticene.
Although every piece of Plasticene finished up a muddy brown colour... in a strange twist exactly the same colour as the landscape around the M62.
By the time I was back in the car I was almost calm. Almost.
Capital punishmenttag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.307752007-11-19T12:31:34Z2007-11-19T14:41:03ZWENT down to London where - to paraphrase Bill Bryson - they seemed to be having a smoking competition and eveyone was joining in....Admin
WENT down to London where - to paraphrase Bill Bryson - they seemed to be having a smoking competition and eveyone was joining in.
It was a beautiful clear winter's day, the air clear and crisp ... except everyone in the street seemed to be smoking. Maybe it's a fashionable London thing - this year's must-have: a bad cough and yellow teeth.
But strangest was when a cyclist with an anti pollution mask climbed off his bike - and lit up. These Londoners eh?
Only he probably wasn't a Londoner. The most prominent accent was more Dr Zhivago than Dick Van Dyke.
And these weren't your Roman Abramovich visiting tycoon-style Russkis, they were Russian builders, Russian shoppers, Russian hotel workers.
Bad enough trying to figure out the Underground without having to get directions from Leonid Brezhnev's nephew.
********
DRINKING in pubs is down to its lowest levels since the 1930s.
And I think we can assume the problem then was unemployment and rickets rather than the smoking ban and the temptation of 20 bottles of Stella for £6,.99 at Lidl.
It's a future where only mega Wetherspoons and Lloyds bars are left - and then only open at weekends and the quick last orders at the local pub on a Tuesday is but a thing of the past.
And the only other people making money are the manufacturers of bottle banks.
Pain in the necktag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.304122007-11-14T15:34:22Z2007-11-19T11:18:50ZONCE upon a day I could drink all night and play football the next morning. Sometimes without even vomiting....the rant
ONCE upon a day I could drink all night and play football the next morning. Sometimes without even vomiting.
I could manage on four hours sleep without spending the next day dreaming of a hot bath, a good book and an early night .
(Don't you love early nights? My wife suffers from insomnia but what's the problem? Wake up 2am, think fantastic! Four more hours in bed. Being awake at 2am is more fun than being awake at 7am)
But my days of long evenings and short nights are long gone.
Now it sometimes feels like a minor victory just to wake up.
And when I do - which I do most mornings - it's with a stiff neck .
Where does that comes from? What happens? Does the sleep fairy call around especially and wrench the necks of the over 45s through 90 degrees.
It doesn't hurt when I go to sleep. I doesn't hurt if I wake up at 4am but you can be sure at mustard it will hurt when I wander into our delightful en suite for the morning's ablutions.
Sleep-induced injuries are not as sexy as sport-related injuries. They just makes you seem old.
This could be a general body failure starting from the neck and heading downwards.
If so, at least I have a few years pleasure left
Bursting for Wii!tag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.303902007-11-13T08:37:28Z2007-11-19T22:01:58ZThe kids revealed their Christmas shopping wish lists over weekend. And they both have their birthdays in December so it's doubly whammy on the cash front....liam
The kids revealed their Christmas shopping wish lists over weekend. And they both have their birthdays in December so it's doubly whammy on the cash front.
Apparently Wiis are this year's must have gizmo so it's a thankless haul around Currys (nope) and the internet (yes but only if you're prepared to be fleeced) and the wife is getting worried about the little cherubs' faces on Christmas morn.
(For the uninitiated Wiis are the game consoles where you use the hand control like a tennis racquets gold club machine gun)
And there's still more than a month and a half to go.
The days of a tin drum, a tangerine and a bag of nuts have long gone. If this goes on I may have to consolidate my debts into one sustainable loan (yeah, right like that's going to happen)
I suppose I might have been indulged at Christmas. I remember once getting a Johnny Seven which was the Wii of 1967 (I think) with seven guns built into one - and is also unsurprisingly available for a small fortune on ebay. But what isn't?
You don't see kids with guns these days (at least not outside US campus sites) as it's not politically correct. Yet somehow despite having a Johnny 7 and a Secret Sam (briefcase with hidden guns and daggers) I so far have resisted the urge to carry out small scale massacres.
But while the toy guns are unfashionable, violence isn't. Some of the shoot 'em up video games (Halo 2 fr'instance) contain hideous violence while others involve driving cars around Miami and shooting cops, pimps, hooker and pedestrians. But at £40 a pop psupporting a multi million £ business who's going to ban them?
Merry Christmas, ho ho ho
Smoke and rear view mirrorstag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.303892007-11-12T13:36:03Z2007-11-19T22:05:55ZTOP TIP: Drivers, keep you car ashtrays clean by simply throwing fag ends out of the window. Yes, they will bio degrade eventually but ... a) in this day and age (I sound like my mum now) it's strangely shocking...liam
TOP TIP: Drivers, keep you car ashtrays clean by simply throwing fag ends out of the window.
Yes, they will bio degrade eventually but ... a) in this day and age (I sound like my mum now) it's strangely shocking to watch someone willfully throw litter and b) have you ever seen anyone seen the number of fag ends at the kerbside?
Actually my car doesn't have an ashtray - or if it does, I can't find it. But it does have has two cigarette lighters. Go figure.
Ronald Castreetag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.303872007-11-09T13:34:02Z2007-11-14T15:39:24ZIS there's a more unpleasant man on God's Earth than Ronald Castree ? He killed and sexually assaulted Lesley Molseed then stood by as Stefan Kisko was fitted up for it by the police. No doubt gentle, innocent Stefan made...liam
IS there's a more unpleasant man on God's Earth than Ronald Castree ?
He killed and sexually assaulted Lesley Molseed then stood by as Stefan Kisko was fitted up for it by the police.
No doubt gentle, innocent Stefan made lots of nice friends during his 16 years inside as a convicted paedophile.
And when he was released - because the cops were forced to admit he was infertile and could not have left the DNA 'evidence' at the site - poor Stefan died after two years of freedom. You couldn't say it was of a broken heart but Stefan was certainly a broken man.
And Castree's responsible. He didn't even have the guts to own up once he was faced with million to one DNA evidence. That prolonged the pain for LEsley's family.
Police are delving further into his past to see if he's behind other crimes.
Castree is almost an argument for capital punishment - almost but not quite. If we still had the noose, poor Stefan would have dangled for a crime he couldn't have committed.
What this sorry sad sickening story does show is that we need a national DNA database. And it's not an infiringement on civil liberties. If you haven't done anything, you have nothing to hide.
And it might lead to a few more families like the Molseeds being granted a belated sense of justice.
Bonfire Nighttag:the-rant.examiner.co.uk,2007://380.303862007-11-07T13:32:54Z2007-11-14T15:39:07ZTHANK God Bonfire Night's over with - at least the neighbourhood no longer sounds like the rougher end of Baghdad and the cats can come out from under the bed. We had some Aussie relatives - or "rellys, mate" -...liam
THANK God Bonfire Night's over with - at least the neighbourhood no longer sounds like the rougher end of Baghdad and the cats can come out from under the bed.
We had some Aussie relatives - or "rellys, mate" - over recently and they could not believe we allowed high explosives for sale ... at corner shops ... to 16-year olds.
( Personally I've bever been a fan of cornershop fireworks since Johnny Baldwin put a Little Demon in the hood of my Parka in 1969. )
Down Under it's strictly regulated and exhibition fireworks only and for once the Aussies may have a point.
I love the idea of Bonfire Night . At least its our history some some bloody American import like Trick or Treat.
Plus it's celebrates Papist iniative and that shouldn't be lost but it's also noisy and dangerous.
One night - preferably Nov 5 - is fine but the bangs start the night the things go on sale and end sometime around Jan 2.
We bought some for our kids - which I lit nervously holding an old bin lid - and received nothing but scorn from the ungrateful little bastards having spent the thick end of £20 . If they gave GCSEs for sarcasm, these two would be world beaters. (Actually I bet they probably do give them for sarcasm, only it's called Advanced English or something )
Teens are hard to please outside of Millennium style light shows so the odd Catherine Wheel - which have NEVER worked in 20 years and only burn the fence - doesn't cut the mustard.
Ban the free sale and let's and stick to organised shows. On Nov 5. Then I can get some sleep.