building, bongo and bacon (plus bus)

hi there

nothing, really - i was just cleaning out my blueberry thing and that and thought i would pop a few more pictures up. regular readers will be aware that i have threatened to clean up the blueberry for a while now, so this should not be too much of a surprise.

4 or 5 months of pictures were on it, if you are asking. yes, quite a few were selfies. none of these are.

anyway, here's a building.

i thought i might do one of them arty "angle" ones of it, but then i remembered i had the blueberry that really does not care for doing pictures at all, and this is the best it took. sorry.

yeah, that was a particularly grey, or if you like gray, day that was - brooding sky sort of thing, a touch of rain too, from what i recall.

a significant number of people i know - well, Spiros - are quite excited about the idea of Club Bongo International, known locally as "the Bongo". here then, for all of you (well, Spiros), here's a previously unpublished picture of it.

have i been in it recently? no, not at all. from a historical perspective, i am going to go right ahead and do that Payney "i don't want to talk about it" thing in answer.

i may well take and upload more Bongo pictures in the future. actually, i may well do so and add some scrolling text around it, what with me skipping the scroll for this one.

meanwhile, i have probably posted this one before, but what the heck, as i am getting to eat what one can only describe as a substantial amount of bacon these days, here is some bacon.

nice date on it, i note.

and finally, as an afterthought, or something that i thought of after i had started this blog post, the world of bus passes. 

pictured here, bus pass fanatics and fans, are the one that i bought at the bus station, along with another one that arrived in the post after i ordered it and that.

i am imagining that the person who requested the above is happy with this, but may be disappointed to see that it perhaps is not quite as shiny as i suggested. oh.

anyway, me tired. bed.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

behold the batfleck

hi there

i suppose for the most part it does not really matter what i write here, as mostly this will be viewed by people looking for the image released today that shows off Ben Affleck as Batman.

so here is Ben Affleck as Batman

no one will particularly be too bothered about what i have to say on the subject of this, if we are honest. the rabid fanboy set are out in full force on Batman vs Superman, spewing their bile in volumes not seen since Star Wars.

that said, my views are that the problem is not Ben Affleck, the problem with the film is that they seem to be throwing about 20 villains at the film, along with a dozen or so heroes. i suspect this could get quite messy.

anyway, happy viewing!



ben affleck to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UFO (also known as Alien Uprising)

hello there

well, after the great excitement of Eurovision 2014 last night i found myself with a trifle of adrenalin, or whatever it is that means you don't really feel of a mind to go to sleep even though it is near midnight. i decided, then, to have a gander at one of the films i bought yesterday; specifically the one that my (considerably) better half said i should watch without her being present. perfect timing, then, as she went to bed before even ladybeard out of Austria (or wherever) won.

looking at the screen grabs i have done i suspect i may be writing more on the subject of the film UFO than it warrants, which is kind of a quick review for you if you like. bit no spoiler warning just yet.

before we get to the actual film, let's have a look at the sensational trailer on the front of the DVD. here, see if this grabs your attention.

yes. the first trailer (i skipped the rest) featured a trailer for a "re-imagining" of Moby Dick. what did they have in place of a Whale? you can sort of see in that screenshot if you look carefully, but if you can't spot it or simply cannot be bothered to try, the trailer is for a film called Age Of The Dragons. so i am imagining the idea is that it is Moby Dick with dragons.

if that idea is not awesome in itself, have a look at this.

yes. it stars, if "stars" is indeed the right and respectful way of describing it, Vinnie Jones. everyone likes Vinnie. well, i do. quite a varied film career he has had, with a fair few highs and not as many lows as you might think. i am assuming that this film is a particular high, mostly because in just about every scene featuring him in the trailer he does have that class, Gandalf like pipe on the go.

also it is probably class as it has Danny Glover in it, presumably in the Captain Ahab role.

little is known of what Danny Glover has been doing of late, at least by me since i - frankly - could not be bothered to google him. in my imagination he has probably been sitting around waiting for Mel to sort out one or two personal problems so they can, at last, get on with Lethal Weapon 5.

yes indeed i have ordered Age Of The Dragons on the basis of this trailer, so you can look forward to a review of it one of these days. my (considerably) better half may well watch it with me too, seeing as it has Vinnie and dragons in it. that's a winner. but in the mean time, off to the world of UFO, or that other name that it seems to have.

short and sweet review - it's perhaps not quite as bad as made out in some of the comments and reviews over on that imdb thing, but it is far from being even "average, let alone good. if for some reason you are fanatical about any of the cast, or children of famous actors, then go for it. i cannot, however, think of a specific reason why you should either go out of your way to see it, or settle to watch it when browsing through channels. i spent £1 on the disc of it and, in this era of "hey why don't we just give it all away" internet business, that was just about on the spot for value.

*** SPOILER ALERT IN PLACE FOR THE REST OF THIS ***
the film starts, and i imagine that this is in a way that baffles everyone beyond writer/director Dominic Burns, with a whole load of disjointed, linear lacking jumps throughout the rest of the film you are about to see. the only way to describe this that i can think of is Carlito's Way gone oh so very bad.

very bad because, other than in essence giving you the entire film, it all suggests this film is not, in fact, going to be worth your time watching it. unless you like the idea of seeing guns being waved about by people wearing class Bono sunglasses.

when the film, or Mr Burns, gets bored of this, we cut to one of them class nightclub / rave scenes for the credits, the kind which have been popular ever since Blade did this trick and showed people would forgive much of the film that followed if you apply a bangin' bass track to the start of it.

yes, pictured here is Sean Brosnan, sone of Pierce or however you sell it, that one that brought the qualities of a girlie, nancy boy voice to the role of James Bond.

this whole nightclub sequence takes up far, far, far too much of the film. it's like they were making a rip-off of, say, Human Traffic, and opted to change it at the last minute to some sort of space thing.

you of course get all the class elements of a "nightclub" based film - pick ups, dancing, close ups of the ladies, failed chat up moves, proposals on the roof of a car and of course punters and bouncers getting a right good kicking.

that lad in the picture above, whose name escapes me which as we will see is rather unfortunate for the purposes of this movie, ends up playing quite a central role in this movie. very, i should warn, badly.

anyway, nightclub done, hidings to bouncers and patrons handed out, off we go back to the one house in which they all seem to live for the obligatory (and reasonably explicit) sex scenes. but, in the interests of keeping some sort of initial plot idea going, for no apparent reason a TV is on, showing the news of some strange things being in the skies. actually, surely that should be "sky". we only have one sky, do we not?

oddly, one of the few triumphs of the film is in the pointless but nonetheless good selling point sex scenes. they intercut, you see, with images of that lonely lad whose name escapes me throwing up in the bathroom. the editing / cutting is strangely effective.

which is very strange when you consider the film is mostly someone just waving a camera around on a strap in respect of cinematography.

it's a bit of a pity that they did not make him a disabled athlete in the light of the above screenshot because then they could have called him Oscar. in fact, why don't we just call him Oscar from now on, right, and then he has a name? whatever the actor or character is supposed to be called does not matter, really.

as for the sex scenes, what can i say other than Dominic Burns really, really likes Sean Brosnan's bum crack. we get shot after shot after shot of it, so it would be wrong of me not to show off here just what got the director all excited, although i have decided to censor it a bit.

so, sex scenes done, everyone passes out, wakes up and the next day it seems there is no electricity on the go. Oscar then goes out to prove that he is not lactose intolerant (no relevance to the plot) and have a chat to his neighbour.

his neighbour who just happens to be married to some top secret Government agent lady who has had to rush down to London (innit) for an emergency of some description. but neighbour does not say what it is, although he reckons he is off on a drive down to London (cor blimey) to see how she is doing. 

he can't phone her, look you see, because as well as the leccy being knacked, all phones have stopped working. radio in the car is also knacked.

Sean Brosnan does what anyone would do in these circumstances. yes, with his "conquest" from the night before, Bianca Bree, the real life daughter of Jean Claude Van Damme, or if you like TRLDOJCVD, he goes for a stroll around the local precinct, presumably to show off what a twat he looks like with the collar of his jacket up and maybe to do a bit of light shopping too.

there he meets one of his army buddies, Dave or something, and Dave has knowledge that helps the plot. despite you having absolutely no f*****g clue whatsoever where in England this film is set, Dave (or whatever) informs Sean that the power being out "stretches as far as Leeds". wow. so we know the film is not set in London or Leeds, at the least.

on this stroll about, Sean and TRLDOJVCD meet another Sean that is the son of a famous actor, in this case Sean Pertwee.

Sean Pertwee plays one of those mad, deranged, mumbling tramp sort of characters that tries to imbue wisdom, warnings and advice on everyone. a sort of quasi-reverse Falstaff off of Shakespeare plays, if you like, except he isn't. that just sounded like a class way to describe him.

it sounds more class, at least, than saying he just turns up in a hoodie with a load of biro over his face.

i hope you are enjoying all of this thus far, really. i imagine that people reading this have no intention of seeing the film. if you have seen it you won't want to read of it, at the least.

for those of you wondering if i have missed out JCVD, yes and no. he appears in some of the flashforward sequences, but that's about it. patience, he is coming.

anyway, after a day of no electricity and no radio, everything is still all pleasant and calm, with everyone just chilling during the day, whereas at night it is all back to that house they live in for a jolly game of charades. well, Oscar at the least is playing charades.

a nice bit of a tribute to popular 70s and 80s TV show Give Us A Clue, this is, except it introduces a mild dose of homophobia to it all. it is probably the somewhat homophobic overtones that might well have seen Una Stubbs refuse to do a cameo in the film. she is probably quite well known for her liberalism and thus would want no part of it, what with elements of attempted narrow-minded humour on the go.

the internet says that Una Stubbs is alive, so she could have been in it if they had offered her a part in it, i suppose. Lionel Blair is alive too, apparently, and i think he was in Give Us A Clue too. quite strange an unusual to find the internet saying two celebrities are alive, but there you have it.

that making UFO a bizarre tribute, or tip of the hat, to Give Us A Clue would have improved the film considerably probably tells you all that you need to know of the film.

anyway, day two comes along, and the nice, calm, English sensibilities of just getting on with things goes out the window with everyone deciding to have smart food riots whilst indulging in minor racism.

in the interests of a minimalist cast, however, these riots and that are not all widespread, as Sean and TRLDOJCVD can go driving around empty streets and towns, looking for "things". at one point they decide to have a look for some petrol, which allows for a cameo sort of thing off of actor Julian Glover.

because when you need to add a touch of class to a film, nothing says prestige more than getting Julian Glover to play a petrol station owner. 1987 saw him appear in not 1, not 3 but an incredible 2 films relating to South Africa. 2012 (or whenever this was made) sees him playing a petrol station owner. go figure. 

i am assuming that this casting was done to strengthen the advertising credentials of the film. Julian Glover was, after all, a minor and mostly ignored character in Remington Steele, a TV series that featured the father of Sean Brosnan. "come and see our film, look at how many people in it are connected to Pierce Brosnan". that seems to have been the general idea. 

now that i think i am not sure that Lionel Blair had anything to do with Give Us A Clue. he may have been a partial, incidental guest every now and then, but i don't think he was a host, captain or champion. maybe he was a patron of charades or something, probably still is. oh hang on i checked and yes he was one of the captains. 

just how far panic has set in features in one of the more disturbing scenes in the movie - and rather well made ones, to a degree - when Sean Brosnan and TRLDOJCVD are in a car that gets knacked by another car. them two are OK, right, but the people in the other car are mostly knacked.

Sean, with no evidence at all, decides that all hospitals and that will be really busy or just broken, and thus decides it would be best to simply do a spot of minor murder on the injured driver rather than try and help him.

lovely, that. a scene of gravitas and drama that is somewhat out of place with the dire drivel that makes up the rest of the movie. presumably this was thrown in to show off that Dominic Burns, and indeed elements of the cast, could make a proper movie but just opted not to at this stage. either that or it was a total fluke.

another dazzling scene - the last such thing in the movie - happens at the same time as the above, back in that mega-house they all seem to live in. for reasons i could not quite work out the one lass, Maya Grant (unsure if she is related to any celebrity), is left alone in the house. this leads to a pretty dynamic scene of fear and terror as she walks through a darkened, is-it-empty house.

it might well be easy to make a tense, taunt scene involving darkness, in fairness, but this one is really effective and again is far, far superior to anything else in the rest of the movie. if you were a film student, or wanting to make a spooky scary film of some description, then UFO is possibly worth a £1 flutter. considering how much people in England throw at bookies for fun and amusement, actually this might be a halfway decent gamble.

and after that brief glimmer of hope that the film might be decent, let's get back to the last part of it, which is all really rather rubbish, alas.

rather rubbish is perhaps also this review, really. sorry if it is all disjointed and features far too much of Una Stubbs for the liking of the average reader.

anyway, at some point - and i will not say why to not give all of the film away - Sean Brosnan and TRLDOJVCD decide to go to a chemist. interestingly, it is guraded by a lone copper for no given reason. no reason that you can work out either, really, as he tells them that the chemist has already been looted 2 or 3 times. except it looks quite well stocked.

actually, the reason why the scene is in is for some fancy fighting, probably to show off how class, for the benefit of potential casting agents who have somehow made it this far into the film, Sean Brosnan is at doing all that kung fu stuff, especially in slow motion.

as is required by law, this film does have a certificate classification. a "15" no less, meaning that no one under the age of 15 is legally allowed to watch it. this also means that some poor bustard at the BBFC had to actually sit through this sh!t and determine what "qualities" it had and who it should be appropriate for. i would not be shocked if they quit not long after.

the copper, it seems, was probably one of the invading aliens. them that are you would have thought the main point of the film but are seldom featured or mentioned. i think it is something to do with having a purple triangle on their body, or a proclivity to guard chemists in the hope of twatting someone that was related to a supporting cast member of Mrs Doubtfire, that lets the audience know they are aliens.

anyhow, Sean Bean (or indeed Brosnan, according to the Child of the Condiment Phoenix) (but the Child of the Condiment Phoenix says that Bean is a better idea) and TRLDOJCVD decide to just skip whatever it was they wanted at the chemist and go back to the house. where Sean Pertwee returns, steals Sean Brosnan's gun and starts doing some fancy waving about with it whilst urging everyone to read a particular passage out of the Bible. something in Matthew, i believe.

after the gun waving, some unfortunate casualties of gun waving, some procrastinating and a bit of general standing around in the rain looking cool, Sean Brosnan suggests that it would be a really good idea to go and see his old mate, who happens to live closeish on a farm and was a dead excellent, super supreme leader of all sorts of "Black Ops" hardcore military stuff.

yes, Jean Claude Van Damme turns up proper, about an hour into the movie. here he is, looking hardcore in a kitchen.

to explain the part of JCVD in this movie, other than the presence of TRLDOJCVD, one really only has to refer to the advice given by Bruce Campbell in the magnificent film They Call Me Bruce. his advice to young filmmakers in that is to scrape together a budget of US$1million and throw a fair bit of that at a recognized but minor and possibly rubbish actor to ensure that their movie gets noticed. henced Ron Jeremy appearing in a number of mainstream movies. and Larry Fishburne (or however you spell it) in Predators.

that imdb thing says the budget for UFO was in fact $2.5million. hence Julian Glover, Sean Pertwee and Jean Claude Van Damme, for no more than 5 or 10 minutes each, being in it.

what does JCVD do with his 8 - 10 minutes of screen action in UFO? things of interest, as it happens. a particular highlight would be when he decides to see if he can't appease all these alien invaders by offering them a gift of a rather smart, perfectly functioning radio set from the 1940s.

the gift idea of JCVD does not work out too well.

yes, that is Oscar in the background, and another girl who i have not mentioned. is she important to the plot? sort of yes, sort of no. if you are all that bothered then you will have to watch the film.

the other thing of interest that JCVD does is have a classy kung fu fight with TRLDOJCVD. yeah, that does kind of leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth too. you have to remember, though, that JCVD is Belgian, and very little is known at all about the society, history and politics of Belgium. in many respects, Belgium remains the last undiscovered place on earth, a final frontier if you like. this might be all perfectly normal in Belgium, then.

it seems that JCVD and TRLDOJVC have made a few films together. do they have class kung fu in all their films together? no idea, maybe i guess. perhaps someone has somehow smuggled the last 6 years of Will Smith films to Belgium, right, and that has led to a decision to turn JCVD into "the Belgian Will Smith", under which it has been determined that JCVD must appear with TRLDOJCVD in all films from now on.

as JCVD has had a career spanning some 30 years it would be strange that now is the time they have decided he must become "the Belgian Will Smith", but then again i suppose that the old saying "better late than never" is true sometimes.

and yes, since you asked, yes you do, in the last few minutes of the film, get to have a look at all these class alien and ufo things that the film promised to deliver.

but bad human actors are, and always will be, cheaper than fancy special effects. so we get to see a lot more of them than we do fancy la-de-dah aliens.

the - to put it bluntly - rejection of JCVD's classy offering of a radio as a gift of appeasement causes everyone (that survives the alien rejection) going totally bonkers, right, with it very graphically and crudely going all very Straw Dogs and the darker moments of something like 28 Days Later or even World War Z.

Oscar in particular, surprise surprise, turns out to be a very nasty character, so you don't mind so much when a soldier type of person tries to bash his head in a bit with a microwave. presumably there was not the time or the budget for a gun and a bathroom door.

that all, to a degree, thankfully gets interrupted and somewhat stopped with the inexplicable and for no good reason arrival of them soldier types wearing class Bono glasses who do some fancy rescue stuff and, indeed, fancy shooting stuff too.

confused, you will be.

the ending of the film has cause some confusion and debate around those 6 or 7 people that have had the audacity, nerve and feeling of absolutely nothing better to do with their lives than to watch UFO all the way through to the end. sort of.

the last, last, last shot of the film, look you see, seems to suggest that this all two sets of aliens having a class battle over Earth. if the two different space ships on display are signs of two different alien cultures.

and that's when the credits and that all start, along with some horrid music.

phew! i think that's a pretty exhaustive and complete a review / rundown of the magic of UFO as you could wish for. if you wanted even more detail, well, best you go and spend £1 on the DVD, or whatever price you can find it for. amazon can sell it to you for more or less than that, but always more when you add the postage costs into it all.

but if you do go and watch it, well, i warned you.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

barbs, jean, eurovision, vote and scroll

hi there

ok so i guess that i am doing another blog post this weekend. mostly because i got an ace bit of Barbs stuff off of my mate Jonathan, but also because my (considerably) better half felt that my showing off of scrolling text was not all that great. so i will do a bit more here

like this, for instance.

i am working on how you do colour and that, bear with me. to be honest i am not at all sure that scrolling text all over is all that brilliant, but hey, why not. onwards, though, more scrolling action later.

many thanks indeed to my mate Jonathan for sending along this most inspirational quote from Barbs. i think it is something we can all learn from, and your life is already much better just by you reading it.

this has, of course, reminded me of the time i posted something to Barbs, something that i am unaware of getting a response to. it is possible that there was a response, but it is sat languishing in the South African postal system, a system that you will by now be we aware of my thoughts on.

actually, Jonathan and i are thinking of another letter i could send to Barbs, asking her for something in particular. something that is, shall we say, intimate. i pointed out that it was a request that could reasonably lead to arrest, which i followed up with saying we could send the letter anyway, just sign it as being off of Sharpy or someone. a bit of a win-win thing, really. unless you are Sharpy and you don't like the look or the sound of this extradition / rendition thing.  or maybe i could just explain that i have moved and asked if she would not at all mind sending something to me at my new home, as David Cameron has apparently taken a shine to doing. sending stuff to me that is, i am unaware of Daves sending his location details to Barbs.

but let us move on now to things that do not involve Barbs.

although, in truth, i bet the discs that i picked up today would be the sort of thing that Barbs might consider a class double bill of watching. or even she might not, i don't know, maybe Barbs only watches films that Barbs has directed or produced in an executive style.

here, ladies and gents, is what £1.50 of DVD from today looks like. no i didn't go out to spend a specific amount on discs, or with the intent of getting any discs, but this is what happened.

purveyors of quality might be a little bit alarmed to learn that the fine film Fletch cost me 50% less than UFO. some of you might be baffled as to what UFO actually is, unless you have spotted that "and Jean Claude Van Damme" bit just above the title.

UFO cost me £1 which seemed like good business.

i can understand, at this stage, your fears that every blog post i do is now going to feature the magic of scrolling text. all i can say is i promise that i am likely to get bored of it soon, so just bear with it and that for now.

will i be watching either of those films tonight? no. and i think you know why not. it's that night of the year, ladies and gentlemen.

THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST IS ON

and i really, really like it. a good bit of class, pop music fun it is, and anyone that moans and groans about it should just ignore it. you know, like how Star Wars fans who were upset with the prequels just keep quiet and don't bang on and on about what Lucas should have done, and how they as fans would have made much better films if only a major studio had thought to randomly approach someone off of a fan forum and give them US$1billion to make a movie with.

i am, however, very much looking forward to watching UFO at some point, despite the bad reviews it seems to get on the internet. hang on, let me see if i can do a link in a scroll.....

reviews for UFO / 'Alien Uprising'

class if that works, let me check, yes i think it does. happy reading.

for those that think Jean Claude Van Damme is nothing more than the hallmark of a rubbish film, well, i think that is generally disrespecting the world of Belgian art and specifically not giving credit to the supporting cast here. it's got Sean Pertwee in, who i like. also, though, it has Julian Glover, who is usually in films that are either incomprehensible or rubbish, or even a mix of both. also someone called Sean Brosnan, who might be related to that other Brosnan that did Bond and that. internet suggests he is.

but yeah, 50p for Fletch is the deal of the day. class film, that was and indeed probably is. i for some reason seem to think they keep having a good idea around remaking the film, and then have an even better idea in not making a remake of it. leave it be, please.

it stars Chevy Chase, he who was at the forefront of bringing the Family Truckster to the attention of the world. magnificent car, that, would love to get one. from what i remember, Chevy, the Chevs, did one of them Oscar shows and really upset everyone; an event that saw him become pretty much an outcast in the world of Hollywood. hey ho.

but let us move on

regular readers will be aware of Mr David "Daves" Cameron rather recently posting a letter to my (considerably) better half, encouraging her to vote Conservative. or rather encouraging her to "overlook" how tricky they tried to make it for her to join me in coming home, despite being married for only 10 or so years and all that, and vote for them.

well, Daves decided to send me a letter of my own today, different from the one that they sent to her.

blimey rhymey, with all these fancy different styles Daves is doing, poor Nick is never going to get a go on the office photocopier. that is probably why we have had no Liberal Democrat letters yet.

or maybe Nick is going to visit us in person, as it were, to discuss it all with us. who knows?

how is this for some fancy scrolling, my (considerably) better half? smart, isn't it?

i am not too sure that Nick is allowed so far out of the office to come and do home visits. especially not, in fairness, when it could theoretically see Daves out of a job. well, i will deal with it if he knocks on the door and says "hello, it is Nick out of the Lib Dems here, can i come in for a bit of a chat please?"

but anyway, if for some reason you have a wish to see the actual DVD discs of them films, then here they are for your gazing consideration.

in many respects it is a shame that i only discovered that UFO DVD today, the night of the Eurovision, as i am really rather eager to see just how bad it is. i suppose i could make it a "super late" night by watching it after the Eurovision has finished. yes, i know, i should rather, if i am doing that, use the time to watch a proper, decent film - such as Fletch - but i really do rather like subjecting myself to rubbish.

anyway, that will do, i think. i am pretty sure i have got the class and decent kind of scrolling that my (considerably) better half was expecting in the other post on in this one. no doubt she will let me know if there is some sort of even better one i could be doing.

enjoy the Eurovision, if you are also watching. or, if after the fact, hope you enjoyed it as much as i will be!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

from a spew to a yawn and cat thing

hi there

not all that much for you, in honest, but on the off (and very good) chance that i do not get time, or simply cannot be bothered, to do an update or 12 over the weekend, here you go, look you see.

first off, and how that poor, misunderstood chap Oscar is getting on. and oh dear, what a shame, he is clearly quite bored with it all now, all that fuss, going on the yawn.

gone, then, it seems are the days of him having a spew when shown images of his handiwork, and indeed gone are the days of him doing all that "oh woe is me" stuff about what he presents as being just a minor murder and only the slightest possible misuse of a firearm.  gone also, it seems, is most of the interest in all of this. well, they have had the election over there and that which has drawn attention, and all the more interesting / juicy stuff has been and gone. it seems the press box is mostly empty these days, which means someone called "Wollie" did not have an audience as he expressed how class bullets are, and there seems to be no fighting to get into the court audience seating area place thing.

it sounds like there might be a verdict in all of this "soon". the approach of the defence in calling witnesses, and forgive me i am no expert, seems to be along the lines of "winging it", although Oscar suggesting that his lawyers take some of the blame for it all is a nice touch. anyhow, i am sure comment to follow as and when it is all over. if, of course, anyone notices, what with the diminishing interest.

meanwhile, one of them cat things that people likes. my friend Jonathan does, and several other people, so here you go.

and that will do for this post, cheers.

hang on a minute

does this scrolling thing work?

wow yes it does!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

election erections

hello there

well, i think it's pretty much a given that politics today, around the world, is - as it always has been - riddled with corruption and shady deals. elections have, to some extent, alwasy been affected by rigging, fixes and arrangements. this is nothing but, but it is also nothing right.

i actually think i am too tired to write this, but off we go.

here, according to a rather unreliable "news" service, is a whole load of dumped or if you like ditched voting ballots from South Africa's general election yesterday. they claim that "most" of the votes were for the DA.

apparently the Independent Electoral Committee, who do not have the best track record, are "investigating the authenticity" of this. because, despite people being up in arms and all at it over this, it could well be that this is an elaborate hoax.

should this turn out to be legit and these are ditched ballots, well, it is not right - far from it - but it also does not look like it would be enough votes to have swayed the direction fo the election. my guess would be these are "spoilt" ballots.

UPDATE - they were not dumped before they were counted.


meanwhile at home, the exciting world of European Elections is coming my way. woo and indeed hoooo, for i have not voted in one of them since, what, 91 or 92? i think me and my mate Bamber voted for David Bowe as he sounded like someone else more famous, just shy a letter i cannot, can i, think of.

anyway, here is what we have had through the door so far. yes, they are trying to look like men of action.

what a nice touch it was of the Conservatives to address their one to my (considerably) better half. i assume this means they want nothing to do with me. presumably it also means that they believe she, or i, have "overlooked" the living hell they made our lives as we planned to come home.

i would imagine the one off them Liberal Democrats will be arriving as soon as David lets Nick have a go at the colour copier machine in the office.

anyway, back to the world of the recent (as in yesterday) South African election. it seems that this picture is claimed to show an Independent Electoral Committee member (they are dressed in blue, look you see) carrying a whole load of ballot papers that, it is further claimed, were marked in favour of the ANC.

she was taking them into one of them top secret voting booths, the ones where if you even thought of taking a selfie you got arrested. yes, that is a copper in the hat behind the ballots.

i am not sure, if the above claims are true of the picture, why they went to so much trouble, really. IEC members have been, after all, keeping the ballot boxes in their homes for a while now, as the below picture claims to show. why not just shove the fake ballots in there, rather than carrying them all the way to the voting station?

perhaps faking them at the voting station makes them authentic and legit?

oh yeah, the ballot boxes at home.

eeeeh, and just think, Bono, Jim Kerr and that Springsteen fella did all them songs and protest speeches to bring freedom to South Africa. all three of them, and others, have had their vision betrayed by corrupt political parties. who'd have thought?

i suppose, for Pope Bono and his mates, it is a moral victory of sorts, for as many black political parties are now free to be as corrupt as white ones have. nice one.

look, i got some lovely things in the post today.

that's bus reading, that is. and other things. many, many thanks indeed, the person who sent them on to me, i look forward to having a read of them as i travel on my way ato and afro verk.

many of you will, of course, be aware of how brilliant and excellent the SA Police are via the sterling work they have done in that whole Oscar Pistothingie trial, the one where he's getting knacked for what some consider to me just a minor murder.

here, have your faith restored as this copper takes a break from arresting those suspected of selfie crimes to inspect the election ballot boxes at someone's house.

i have every confidence that he will get to the bottom of the matter.

yeah, i am too tired for all of this, so here's the inside of them pamphlets we got for the Euro Elections.

from what i remember being a Member of European Parliament, or if you like, it a licence to collect an awful lot of money for doing not a great deal beyond turning up in, of all places, Belgium every now and then and sitting down to have a coffee or something.

no, i certainly have not ruled it out as a career option, but i dare say that as a consequence of the above it's quite tricky to get on the list for selection.

actually no, i cannot be bothered with being a member of any Parliament, thanks.

to end, then, an imaginative interpretation of what counts as a safe and fine ballot box to put your vote in. yes, they are some of these IEC people stood proudly by their pioneering breakthrough in modern security.

presumably the ballot box that lady was supposed to put her vote in was either at the house of an IEC official. or maybe in the back of a police car, parked at KFC.

anyway, enough of that. bed. i am busy on the ebook thingie reading the Time Traveler's Almanack, these books above you have looked at will be read dans le bus.


except i can't remember if GIFS work here. pinched off someone, but seems right for here

 i think it does, but here is a video if not.

ta to whoever i pinched that one off of.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Metallica it is, then

hi there

wowee, one of my wild guesses on the subject turned out to be right! Metallica have been confirmed as the third headline act for Glastonbury 2014.

metal in your faces, dude.

i am assuming that the delay in announcing them was over the delicate matter of the BBC expecting to be able to broadcast the full sets of all headliners, and Metallica not really liking this idea too much. presumably some sort of deal has been struck, as - whilst i wish to avoid the moaning and groaning that goes with it - the commercial and broadcast exploitation rights have very much become the single most important thing about Glastonbury. it is still ace, though. in many ways nice that it has stopped pretending to be not all about money.

here's the new poster for it.

nice one indeed for those fortunate enough to get tickets, there are some amazing acts on the bill. i suspect i am rather too old for this sort of thing anyway.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!