Jef’s blog

You might like to see if you can do better than me at the Life in the United Kingdom Official Practice Citizenship Test. I'll be holding a special blinks on Sunday, at the end of which those of us who don't know or care how many hours 13-16 year olds are allowed to work in a school week will shuffle off down to the docks to be packed onto a container ship bound for forrin parts whilst being waved off by our more patriotic chums.

Still, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who can make mistakes about such vital pieces of information as how many million teenagers live in the UK  - The writers of this test appear to have forgotten that in Wales (still part of the UK as far as I'm aware) no fucker pays prescription fees (Q9) and that some hospitals have these things called Walk-in Centres where you can literally 'walk in' without the need for a GP's letter (Q14) for a whole range of non-emergency complaints.

I'm not sure what I expected from this test but if it ends up staying in its current form then it's worse than useless.

RIP Swells. I'd like to think that as Jacko was reading one of your old Daphne and Celeste reviews he was struck by the sudden realisation that he was a fraud and his heart gave out under the strain of knowing he'd never write anything as good as "Ooh Stick You". It was probably a preexisting medical condition, mind.

In conversation with a colleague this morning I said "and I might get hit by a bus tomorrow" three times, so now she probably thinks I'm some morbid weirdo who spends his day brooding about that sort of thing. Should I tell her it's not like that, that it's normally trains that do the hitting?

Tanya Gold is disgusted that a contestant on end of the pier talent show Britain's Got Talent (sic) was initially assumed to be a useless singer because she's unattractive. And she's right, it's unfair that based only on an assessment of their looks somebody should be considered to lack certain qualities. In this case though I hope you'll forgive me for being so cynical as to believe that anyone deemed interesting enough to have made it onto the broadcast will have been vetted and the judges made aware of the angle that their 'story' is to take, or at the very least that their reactions and those of the audience are edited to more closely fit the desired narrative. Perhaps whilst this injustice is prominent in her thoughts Tanya might have a word or two with the Tanya Gold who got rather worked up on Monday about the return of "beefcake" men because their Metrosexual predecessors were skinny runts and thus "men by genitals alone".
 
My muttering doesn't stem from thinking that Tanya was wrong in the Guardian piece; there's a very good case to be made that women over the age of 30 and/or women who don't conform to airbrushed images of beauty are more readily assumed unlikely to be very good at much; and I'm neither particularly surprised nor perturbed by the hypocrisy of her writing, but I am annoyed at what I think she represents. The problem as I see it is that her work is a symptom of newspapers' latest decision, seemingly terrified that they've losing their audience to alternative news sources emerging on the internet, to retreat from journalism and rely instead on retyped press releases and a procession of opinion columns designed to either pander to readers' preconceptions or stir up a bit of debate on a trivial issue. Comment pieces aren't new but as they struggle to find a way to make profit from content that is infinitely copyable and available from numerous other free sources, traditional print media are ditching investigation and reporting of stories that don't immediately scream 'front page', downscaling their news rooms and instead asking a Tanya Gold to knock out 1000 words on yesterday's telly, some celebrity guff and a made up new trend.
 
Newspapers seem to have hit upon the idea that they need to be more like bloggers (though they seem to have a shaky view of what blogs are actually like) and it's left me depressed beyond tablets.

I've mentioned before how internet gambling ads make me sick to my balls but I have to admit that even bloody good bloke/professional poker player Joe Hachem couldn't make me as bilious as new kid on the shit advert block, Minxy Bingo. The concept - that playing bingo over the internet for hours on end of a Friday night is not a problem but a glamorous activity - is already enough to bring up your lunch but it's their catchphrase "Release your inner minx" and the font that they use that'll really make you retch yourself inside out. What fucking evil scientist created that font? If Comic Sans is a comedy tie wearing cunt in typeface form then this abomination is a drooling, mouth-breathing moron who laughs at his own farts and thinks the Wayans brothers could do with being a little less highbrow. It's so bad as to immediately render worthless anything typed in it and I'd consider it a service to the world to pour petrol on any classic work reproduced in MinxyFont, even if it were the very last copy. As for "Release your inner minx" - frittering away the kids' pocket money on pixel watching is not fucking seductive and wearing yesterday's underwear, eating cold take away curry and texting your mates "just won £10!" is not the same as being at an exciting party.

A pox on you, Minxy Bingo and a curse on the house of Gala.

There’s a new series of my show The Apprentice just started and those production types (bullshitters the lot of them) have been trying to mess with the format. Apparently these clueless idiots who spend their time in the kissy, kissy, huggy, huggy showbiz world know my business better than I do. “Suralan” they said “A television show where 10 sales wankers and 6 people who laughingly call themselves entrepreneurs prove categorically that convincing grannies to get another credit card is not a transferrable skill, is going to be a hard sell at the moment. It doesn't help that you seem to pick the winner entirely at random. Maybe you could select one of the good ones this year, perhaps even a woman?” “You ‘aven’t got a blaahdy clue. You’re out of your depth.” I told them. “We get 15,000 applicants for this one job and you’re telling me that it isn’t a fair reflection of the current economy. Pathetic.” We did make one change though; I decided it was time that they stopped mentioning my massive £800 million fortune at the start of the show. Not because it’s taken a hit in the last year like those bullshitters in the gutter press are saying, but just because you’ve got to make hard decisions in business and that intro had to go. No, I’ve still got plenty of money. I could write a £100 million cheque right now if I wanted, well, by next week, provided James Murdoch says I can. The important thing to remember is that I’m very, very rich and that’s why I deserve the adulation that I inspire in the swaggering braggarts who make it on my telly show.

Some people think that The Apprentice is a very clever way of discrediting capitalism by showing the movers and shakers at the top to be talentless, narcissistic, souless cunts. Well I’m here to tell those people that they’re wrong, it’s just blaahdy good telly but between you and me, this year’s lot are a bunch of schmucks and no mistake. I’m a straight shooter so I told them all what their problem was from the get go: “You’ve got to be like me, although there’s nobody like me. I could sell snow to Eskimos, chum. I could sell Pork Scratchings in Tel Aviv and get the Iranians going ga-ga for knock off DVDs of ‘Bend-over Boyfriends 6’! I don’t do that, I make crappy set-top boxes for BSkyB but you get my point and that’s that I’m unique and my company needs more of my uniqueness.”

I know you lot think I just sit up in my office bollocking the obsequious little shits that work for me but you’d be wrong there chum because I’ve actually been spending a lot of my time dishing out advice to the government about how to get out of this pathetic mess that they’ve landed us in. You see, selling green-screen computers in the 80’s and managing to tank my company’s share price to 10% of its market peak gives me a unique and valuable insight into the world of international finance. It’s like I told that Gordon Brown: “Listen up you clueless, idiotic, bullshitter; blaahdy old fool that I am, I'm going to take a risk - you're re-hired at the next election but you’ve got to pull your socks up and stop making careless, clueless and idiotic mistakes. It’s pathetic. And while I’m at it, I’m not ‘appy about that Fred Goodwin berk either. Born with a silver spoon in ‘is mouth and now he’s getting a payout? Do me a favour. They should just tell him it’s like my show - You’re fired son, you don’t get a penny.

States that for every action there is a an equal and opposite reaction. Deliberately misinterpreting this law has lead me to understand that Horne and Corden is neutralised by Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle but what's balancing out Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder? Genuine mental illness is funnier.

Exclusive to all broadsheets:

Is Julie Myerson the cruellest woman in Britain? It would seem so. In an exclusive and shocking interview her son reveals that not only did she take no steps to stop the book to which she owed a duty of care from going bad, she cruelly exploited it’s failings in order to get media attention and boost sales. Jake (20) said “She claims she did all she could and that she took it to a specialist editor in the US but I’ve seen the manuscripts and I don’t believe that’s true. I was so proud when she started to write her first ever story about someone she isn’t related to and it seemed to be going well to begin with, but then she let things spiral out of control and before she knew it she was addicted to cramming it with half-truths about our family life before leaving the poor thing to fend for itself.”

All About My Mother

Myerson hit back “I had no idea that writing about my family’s woes could get me into any sort of trouble. After all, it’s only happened to me twice before and of course I absolutely refute any claims that I’m an unreliable witness. When I showed the final draft to Jake as he smoked crack round at Pete Doherty’s house, he told me that it was better than Tolstoy and he was very happy for me to publish it two months early so that sales might benefit from the brouhaha in the press. Of course he wanted to go to the tabloids and sell his own version of events but I told him that wouldn’t work, I’d already spoken to Max Clifford about it and he said they don’t know who I am. Apparently these people don’t even watch Newsnight Review!”

A Clarification Of Our Stance On Drugs

We would like to make it clear that we have always accepted that a little bit of Pot always does/never did anybody any harm (please see/disregard last week’s stories: Skunkin 'Bout My Generation, Reefer Madness and What You Gonna Do With All That Skunk, All That Skunk Inside Yo Trunk?). It’s a deadly game/just a normal part of growing up and it’s liberal parents’ refusal to tackle the issue of Cannabis/draconian adults with their ‘tough love’ that is allowing children to become out of control addicts/demonising ordinary teenagers! [subs, please sort this mess out] We hope this ends any discussion about our confused attitude towards drugs.

Inside

Page 2-55: Should Julie Myerson Be Burnt At The Stake Or Hung, Drawn And Quartered First?

Nowhere: Have We Turned Julie Myerson Into The Broadsheet’s Jade Goody?

Today is the first day of the Season of Lent. Are you giving anything up for the next 40 days?

No! Hah, I bet nobody will have thought of that answer!

http://rainman.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

http://jimmyscott.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

http://rcd.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

http://porter000.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

http://nita440.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

*Harrumph* Fine. I'm just going to give up giving things up then!

http://jillzey.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

http://freespiritbeauty.vox.com/library/post/qotd-lenten-sacrifices.html

Fuck you, Vox.

Internet campaigns are often the preserve of misguided souls who think that when SOMETHING MUST BE DONE it's time to fire up the ol' PC and start a Facebook group called something like 'God Bless You Baby P You Are With Jesus Now In Heaven'. If it's not them then it's usually tedious oddballs 'just doing it for the lulz' who think that getting their favourite target of undeserved attention yet more undeserved attention is interesting and funny so it's time they started up 'Boxxy is a QTPie Lulz!' With that in mind I'm reluctant to point people in the direction of an internet campaign, particularly one that has no direct and immediate relevance to anyone I know (i.e. me). However, the campaign against section 92A in New Zealand is something that I think deserves support if only because it's not a million miles from discussions that the major record companies have been having with many other governments. It's not the most important protest in the world but it's important enough to take a minute out of your day. Oh and there's also a Facebook group to join, if that's your sort of thing...

On a less dull note, we've got Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and now Pride and Predator on the way. Are these the oddest crossovers since Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter?