Glob-a-log

God knows why but the BBC decided to make (and worse: to broadcast) yet another tedious version of Charles Dickens’ truly atrocious book ‘The Old Curiosity Shop.’

Brief summary, in T.O.C.S. a virtuous virgin called Little Nell dies because her gormless grandfather is bad at playing cards.

Oscar Wilde famously wrote about this heroine’s demise:

‘At the death of Little Nell, it would have taken a heart of stone not to laugh out loud.’

The only good thing to come out of this BBC remake was a piece written by The Times’ food (and occasional TV) critic AA Gill.

He wasn’t impressed with the play but he had at least something positive to say about actor Derek Jacobi, who played the grandfather.

Well, sort of positive…:

Derek Jacobi has pared down his dramatic repertoire simply to juggling his eyes and occasionally twinkling. They rather resemble the currant-like minces of a small rodent. His most successful and repeated thespian trick is to imitate the startled look of a homosexual mouse caught in flagrante by a marmalade cat with halitosis: a canny mixture of camp terror and disgust, which, frankly, I could watch for hours. I just wish they didn’t trouble him with all the talking and walking about.

Anyway, enough of Dickens already. Quite frankly, if it weren’t for ‘The Muppet’s Christmas Carol’, the festive season would be a lot more festive without this weird nostalgia for the more mawkish works of this excellent writer.

Still, you know how they say that, occasionally, life imitates art?

At times, it even outshines art. Forget about stupid grandfathers being the death of their equally stupid granddaughters.

Forget about Dickens altogether - even Shakespeare, who has form when it comes to playing happy murderous families, could not have come up with the following scenario:

A Spartanburg mother is accused of stabbing her son several times Christmas morning, but her son is the person facing charges.

The city does not plan to charge the mother unless the solicitor’s office sees otherwise.

As Gilbert & Sullivan wrote in ‘The Pirates of Penzanes’, it is not easy wearing blue:

‘When a felon’s not engaged in his employment –
Or maturing his felonious little plans –
His capacity for innocent enjoyment –
Is just as great as any honest man’s –

Our feelings we with difficulty smother –
When constabulary duty’s to be done –
Ah, take one consideration with another –
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’

I’m sure that the sentiment expressed here is a universal one but in Bangkok it seems that policemen are having an even harder time of it than their colleagues elsewhere.

So much so that their superiors have come up with the following strategy:

More than 1,000 Bangkok traffic policemen are currently receiving laughing lessons in order to ease the stress of working on the dirty streets of the capital.

In the two-hour therapy sessions, participants are taught how to laugh from their face, their head, their fingers and how to use their diaphragms to have a good chortle.

It is, of course, easy to see how policemen can become quite depressed. Especially since they have to deal with all kinds of antisocial idiots on a daily basis.

Therapists earn good wages from the fact that most people need to be in a relationship as much as a pyromaniac needs a Zippo.

The police though are always first on the scene to pick up the more picturesque pieces:

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) - A 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.

The police report said the woman punched him in the face several times and the man dislocated his shoulder when the naked couple grappled. He told police his girlfriend threw a picture frame, which broke and cut him.

Still, even the most grumpiest of cops would smile when he heard the following explanation for yet another stupid traffic accident.

It’s definitely different from the usual ‘Some big boys did it and then ran away.’ variant:

WENATCHEE — Wenatchee police cited a 29-year-old Wenatchee man with first-degree negligent driving. A breathalyzer test showed “a minimal amount of alcohol,” said Wenatchee police Sgt. Cherie Smith.

When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was “pterodactyl.”

Yes, however much grief the punters may give our long-suffering cops, occasionally there will be criminals who are so breathtakingly stupid and entertaining that even the dourest pig will snort with happy, healing laughter:

Bungling burglar Peter Addison was nabbed by police - because he scrawled “Peter Addison was here” at the scene of his crime.

They checked his details on a computer system and when they caught up with him, he was found to be wearing a T shirt stolen from campsite during the burglary.

The human brain is a marvellous instrument. It comes up with truly amazing inventions like the wheel, alcohol and the Virgin Birth.

Archimedes supposedly said, ‘Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world.’

And he might very well have done that if he hadn’t spent all his time lolling about in the bath. Still, however useful a tool our brain can be at times, at others its wild workings will merely leave us without a leg to stand on - and in a world of hurt:

Police in southern India are hunting for two men who attacked a Hindu holy man, cut off his right leg and then made off with it. The 80-year-old holy man, Yanadi Kondaiah, claimed to have healing powers in the leg. He is now recovering from his ordeal in hospital in the city of Tirupati in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

“As the old man had the weakness of drinking, he accepted their invitation to have drinks with them. They took him to a deserted spot in the outskirts of the village. After the old man had passed out under the influence of liquor, they cut off his right leg from the knee.”

Mind you, it may all have been a terrible waste of time - for the old man had claimed to have yet another equally amazing magical talent:

Local people believed they could be healed of spiritual and physical problems if they touched his leg. They also believed in Mr Kondaiah’s predictions of the future.

Such a pity then that he didn’t see all of this coming.

Not all people claim that they have the magic, healing touch or can see the future. Which, obviously doesn’t mean they don’t share the old guy’s ‘weakness of drinking’ - and it certainly doesn’t stop them from seeing things…:

SPRING HILL - Two Lema Drive residents were startled Sunday morning when a woman knocked on their door and asked for a ride home because the abominable snowman was chasing her.

Zillifro, 36, was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace.

Which is a little bit harsh. First you get assaulted by a Yeti and then you get done by the pigs.

be that as it may, of course not all people who are mad get abducted by UFOs, become Elvis imitators or support Ron Paul. Some just call their local chapter of the RSPCA:

The RSPCA answers more than a million queries every year… but it seems that many callers simply have bats in the belfry. Most of the telephone calls involve reports of cruelty or requests for help. But some have raised a few eyebrows.

The call centre could only agree when one person rang to say: “I want to cancel the call - the pig has flown off.”

All of the above was meant to prove or highlight something but by now my brain is hurting too much and I need to lie down for a bit.

Still, as long as there are humans out there I’m sure I can leave you with the promise, ‘To be continued…’

I’ve talked before about man’s inventiveness - and how our inquisitive brain tends to get us in all sorts of highly entertaining trouble.

When you think about homo sapiens you always come up with the same kinds of buzz words: playful, wilful and, of course those old stand-bys: stupid and perverse.

The old prayer goes, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’

That one really could use the following disclaimer:

‘But when You do, please don’t also lead us into any truly embarrassing situations.’

Keen observators of humanity know neither of these prayers actually ever seem to do us any blind bit of good:

A school custodian’s impromptu after-hours karaoke performance prompted a police response when a teacher thought she was being threatened over the loudspeaker.

State police say the teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N’ Roses song over the public address system for a threat.

Six troopers and three police dogs showed up and found three teenagers, one of them a custodian at the school, who had been playing with the public address system. Police say one of them sang “Welcome to the Jungle” into the microphone. The song contains the lyrics “You’re in the jungle baby; you’re gonna die.”

The teenagers were cuffed for about 15 minutes while police investigated. They didn’t realize anyone else was in the school at the time. No charges will be filed, said state police Sgt. Brian Ness.

Of course, the above story is a relatively mild example of the kinds of embarrassments our playful, wilful and inquisitive minds can cause us.

I’ve said it before but nothing - not even wearing a ‘Mohammed is a pig’ T-shirt in your average Muslim holiday resort - gets a person faster into very deep shit than the human brain’s weird love affair with DIY interventions.

Into very serious and deep shit indeed:

Where did you spend Christmas Eve? Wherever it was, it had to be a lot better than the place Robert Schoff found himself in.

The 77-year-old Des Moines, Iowa man began his holiday with a toilet problem. So he went out to his septic tank and tried to remove the clog. Instead, it removed him. The senior lost his balance and fell into the slop, with his head trapped inside and his feet kicking wildly in the air. The 5′5″, 135-lbs. man tried yelling for help at the top of his lungs but no one heard him.

He stayed that way for about an hour unable to escape his smelly predicament until his wife began to wonder where her husband disappeared to. Toni Schoff walked by a window, saw his feet emerging from the opening and quickly rushed outside. But even that didn’t help. “I saw these kicking feet and ran out, but couldn’t get him out,” she recalls.

Eventually 911 and fire officials rushed to the scene and pulled him to safety. A long shower followed. “I thought it was the end of my life,” he reflects. “Thank God my wife saw me. I don’t think I could have stood staying in there much more.”

Still, the good thing about feeling embarrassed, if it’s not a ‘last few dying seconds’ thing is that, indeed, you’ve survived whatever stupid situation your stupid brain got you into.

In evolutionary terms embarrassment might even be a good thing - as it encourages those who land in the shit to avoid doing so again.

Well, that should work in principle, anyway. Some people though don’t seem to be inclined to learn anything at all from whatever harsh and embarrassing lessons life tries to teach them:

Ronald A. Dotson, 39, of Detroit was arrested Oct. 9 after police say he smashed a window at a cleaning-supply company to get at a female mannequin dressed in a black and white French maid’s uniform. He had been out of prison for less than a week.
Kar
Dotson faces up to life in prison if convicted. The potential life sentence is because prosecutors charged him as a habitual offender. Authorities say he has at least six convictions for breaking and entering and a stint in state prison over the last 13 years.

Dotson was arrested in Ferndale in July 2000 and later convicted for breaking and entering at a women’s clothing shop to get at a mannequin in a pink dress with bobbed hair.

Ferndale police also arrested Dotson in 1993 after finding him in an alley behind a woman’s store with three lingerie-clad mannequins. He also has similar convictions in Detroit and suburban Oak Park.

There’s an old Dylan song, called ‘Idiot Wind’. For the purist and anal and crusader fans out there: I changed one word in the following quote:

“The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building burned.

Idiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb,
Blowing through the curtains in your room.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You’re an idiot, babe.
It’s a wonder that you still know how to preach.”

Anyway, sometimes you do not need to change or add any words. Occasionally, you’ll read a story that doesn’t need any asides or embellishments to make it a near perfect parable.

Humanity does have a lot of these ‘Oops I did it again’ moments, doesn’t it?

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) - Robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity on Thursday as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning.

Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly wounded.

In my last post I was somewhat critical of John Lennon - as a human being much more than as an artist. I’m not taking any of that back but since I seriously like a lot of the things he did, this post will just celebrate a few of those.

First, the song I ended last post with. A political/feminist song, called ‘Woman is the nigger of the world.’ An ugly title, yes - but it’s still an ugly reality.

Secondly, one of the songs he recorded with Phil Spector, for his ‘Rock-n-Roll’ album - which was a tribute to all the music Lennon grew up with: ‘Stand by me’.

Thirdly, a harrowing song called ‘Mother.’ The story goes that Lennon went to a psychoanalyst in order to come to terms with some old stuff. Instead of mining this ex-Beatle’s mother load for all it was worth the analyst supposedly said, “Why come to me? You’re John Lennon. So, write songs about it.”

Fourthly, a song first recorded on the Beatles’ famous ‘White Album’ - when most of what they were doing was already, in fact, solo work. ‘Yer blues’ was and is a true John Lennon song.

Fifthly, one of his many anthem-like songs, ‘Working class hero.’ Great song.

Still, in a way, the importance of artists can also be judged by the amount of covers other bands make of their songs.

There are a lot of Lennon covers - but I’ll end with this one, because I truly believe it is even better than the original. It’s Marianne Faithfull’s version of ‘Working class hero.’

“So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young”

Yes, that was John Lennon - or at least the rather uninspiring start of his famous (but still quite lame) Christmas song, ‘So this is Christmas (war is over)’.

Mind you, at least he tried to get into the spirit of things. You can’t say that, for instance, for Her Majesty’s Court Service:

FINE-dodgers across Bromsgrove will be getting special Christmas cards courtesy of Her Majesty’s Court Service (HMCS) warning them to pay-up or face arrest.

Operation Tick Tock targets convicted and sentenced criminals who owe thousands of pounds, having failed to pay court fines or compensation, despite previous warnings from the courts service.

People will be given one last opportunity to pay immediately when teams of court enforcement officers blitz homes in Bromsgrove - failure to pay will result in immediate arrest.

Special dedicated court sittings at Redditch Magistrates will be arranged to deal with the culprits at the time.

Senior enforcement manager for HMCS West Mercia, Andrew Williams, said: “People who have unpaid fines should take action now or face arrest in the next few days - the message we are sending out is:’Your time is up, pay up or face the consequences’.

Back to Lennon though - and his express wish that we shared Christmas with our nearest and our supposedly dearest.

Since fairly recently Mr Shawn Fay Johnson may not share this sentiment exactly:

A woman stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife following an argument that began when she accused him of opening a Christmas present early, authorities said Friday.

Misty Johnson, 34, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery, a felony, and misdemeanor domestic battery. Her husband, Shawn Fay Johnson, 34, was treated at a hospital for a wound to the chest, police said.

Misty Johnson made an initial court appearance Thursday in which she requested a court-appointed attorney, authorities said. She was released after posting bail, which was set at $7,500.

One more word about John Lennon. He was quite famously in for all manner of good causes. Which resulted in some terrible and self-promoting fluff, as when he was doing his ‘bed-in’ for peace, in the Amsterdam Hilton - and with hindsight his near enthusiasm for the ‘kids in the IRA’ was as simplistically stupid as it was hypocritical, what with his loudly proclaimed pacifism and all.

He also treated his first wife like absolute shit: while he was married and after he ran out on her and begrudged her and their son any of the insane amounts of money he made as a lovable Beatle - and that while writing and singing absolutely wonderful feminist anthems like ‘Woman is the nigger of the world.’

In other words, Lennon could be a self-promoting, hypocritical and simplistic piece of shit - but a very talented one. And yes, he did some great work.

Which brings us to ‘Friends of the Earth’.

An environmental organisation that, in the spirit of John Lennon, has done if not great then at least some very useful work. However, like the former Beatle, it can be self-obsessed to the point of total, humourless zombiehood - that and a talent for simplistic and, in truth, rather stupid stunts to boot.

Lennon is no longer with us, so I can only address this to Friends of the Earth. So, here goes:

Bravo, you sad clowns, you just handed the most perfect Christmas gift to all those good folks who are still in denial over environmental issues. Way to go!

So, get serious but get human - and please get a life, you frigging morons:

A gift company selling empty packages containing “imaginary friends” has been criticised by green organisations.

Friends of the Earth and Waste Watch say the gifts, sold by the Diabolical Gift People, could be the biggest waste of packaging on shop shelves.

The manufacturers describe the ingredients as “air and imagination” and advise buyers to retain packaging for future use.

A spokesman for the company said the product was meant as a joke.

A Friends of the Earth spokesman said: “We see some pretty absurd wasteful packaging but I don’t think we’ve even seen a gift package which contains nothing before.

“Firms have to be responsible about packaging. But it’s also up to consumers to make wise decisions.

“This sounds like something that is very cheap to make. It actually sounds like something you’d give to someone you don’t like.”

Mike Webster, a consultant with Waste Watch, said: “It’s indicative of this single-use culture we live in. But the packages normally have something inside. Here they seem to be selling nothing for £1.99.”

The Diabolical Gift People spokesman said: “People pay money for it because it’s a joke. There are all sorts of things that are sold that are totally pointless.”

It’s like a retelling of that old Christmas story. How the holiest and most adored couple in the history of man were travelling from a merely pointless point A to decidedly pathetic point B but couldn’t find a respectable hotel that would take them in.

Or you could see it as a cautionary morality tale, in which it ain’t exactly wise men who are obsessed with following stars:

David and Victoria Beckham brought the Spearmint Rhino club to a standstill when they strolled in with the Spice Girls entourage in the early hours of Tuesday morning.Spearmint Rhino is one of the most successful chains of strip clubs, with venues all over the US and UK - celebrity fans include Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. The website for the Vegas venue boasts that it is “the hottest Sin City has to offer”. For £200 you can get a VIP champagne dance which includes a bottle of bubbly and a one-hour dance, with strawberries and cream.

One stripper said: “The moment the Beckhams walked in there was a real buzz around the place. They may not be as big in the US as in the UK but we all knew who they were. All the girls thought it was Christmas come early. When the group chose me to dance for them I couldn’t believe my luck. I put on a really sexy show.”

James Walsh, 25, from Chesham, Bucks, who was in the club at the time, says: “I was having a dance and the girl I was with said she had just been with the Beckhams. I suppose that is the closest I’ll get to dancing with Victoria.”

‘O tempora, o mores’, as one old Roman git once said in the Senate. Which is admittedly both far more eloquent and succinct than what our modern politicos would manage but it still no more than a pop title’s worth of philosophy, ‘The times they are a-changing.’

Old Cicero was still right, of course - and so, each day and age needs its own stories - and parables. Which is why we have David and Victoria instead of Joseph and Maria - and in lieu of the story of the prodigal son this quaint and modern fairytale:

A Briton Ferry man has been reported missing - seven years after his family last saw him.

Police have now launched an appeal to find Ian Glyn Davies, who was last seen in 2000.

The 56-year-old had been living with relatives in London when he told them he was returning to Briton Ferry.

Mr Davies, who owns a house in Regent Street East, had been staying at a property owned by his nephew in Keppel Road, East Ham.He was due to return to Briton Ferry but never did and has not been seen since. But his family did not report his disappearance as they believed he was safe and well at his home.

However, they became concerned when he did not turn up for the funeral of a close friend earlier this year and reported him missing.

A photo of the missing man has been issued, although officers say it was taken around 20 years ago.

Signs of the times, and all of that.

Anyway, a merry Christmas to all of you.

Just a short seasonal message from me today, picked from the Daily News.

Ho, ho, ho and all of that:

If you’ve stood in one line too many at the mall as you watched your bank account dwindle and your credit debt rise this holiday season, you might find a kindred spirit in Art Conrad.

For his far flung friends who may not be able to see the holiday decor up close, Conrad used a photo of his crucified Santa for his Christmas cards, along with the message “Santa died for your MasterCard.”

And I’ll leave you with one of the most terrible Christmas songs ever produced by the commercial pop porn industry: The Cheetah Girls with their ‘Cheatahlicious Christmas’:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel only wanted to meet him in private. The Pope refused to see him at all - and now the Canadian prime minister has compared him, all be it favourably, with a call girl.

Kermit the Frog once sang, ‘It’s not easy being green’. Well, maybe so, but being the Dalai Lama ain’t no picnic either:

OTTAWA (Reuters) - When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried to explain in a year-end interview why he’d met the Dalai Lama in his Ottawa office, it was clear he wanted to show respect for the exiled Tibetan leader.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite come out that way.

“I met the Dalai Lama in my office but I meet everyone in my office. I don’t know why I would sneak off to a hotel room just to meet the Dalai Lama. You know, he’s not a call girl,” Harper told OMNI television.

Still, in terms of gaffs this wasn’t all that bad. An English DJ’s ‘let’s play it for laughs’ choice of records during an item about the Samaritans and the standard seasonal rise in suicides didn’t make him many new friends among the surviving relatives and friends of suicides:

A RADIO station has defended a breakfast DJ who played the Van Halen song ‘Jump’ while discussing efforts by the Samaritans to stop people throwing themselves off the Tyne Bridge.

Tony Horne of the Newcastle-based Metro Radio played the opening notes of the Eighties tune as he talked about the charity putting up signs to reduce suicide.

The region has England’s highest suicide figures and the temporary signs were put up to encourage people at risk to seek help.

Enough of politician and imbecilic DJs though. Like the poor, the socially and morally retarded will always be with us and there is nothing much we can do about that.

So, on to a more uplifting story. TIBU’s Bbstucco recently wrote a piece called ‘Too many charities (What’s a bleeding heart liberal to do?)’, in which he complained that there are, indeed too many good causes to support.

Well, as it says in Romans 10,

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

Yes, indeedy do, for glad tidings I do bring to all the benighted bbstuccos of the world. Behold & hark & hear ye well: you can stop worrying & fretting so. For there is no need for any of these charities anymore.

‘All you need is love’ the Beatles sang - and they were right. All you do indeed need is love. That and a synchronised watch, to join up with the Global Orgasm crowd:

WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone you know.

WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction and places where violence is used in place of mediation.

WHEN? Solstice Day - December 22, at 06:08 Universal Time (GMT)

WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy.