Don't be a douche!

Humour goes a long way in making a point.

Dive Bomb

I'm not a very sensible boy. It took ten years of thinking about getting a pension before I started one. And since I started it, I haven't thought about it that much. (Although I am pretty sure it's worth less now than it was a year ago. Damn recession!)

What winds me up about the pension scam* is the way pension-providers use more fear-based advertising than the average Republican election campaign. One ad that really bugs me is the one where the female diver is preparing to dive into an empty swimming pool. Filmed in moody black & white, the girl is clearly in (metaphoric) danger until the pool fills up (thanks to an Irish Life pension) and she can land the finish (or whatever you do in a dive)*.

In the current economic climate, I think a remake of the ad is on the cards. Actually, I'll do it myself. I'll need a diver with a death-wish or any of our legion of drugged up competitive swimmers. I think I'll film it in glorious technicolor. The swimmer will mount the ladder (or whatever you do with a ladder) and begin her dive into a water-filled pool. Sadly (due to global warming and sub-prime mortgages) the pool will no longer have any water in it when she lands. The End.

*What you put in may not bear any resemblance to what you get out (unless you understand fractions). Terms and Conditions Apply. Divers may or may not be harmed depending on the levels of drugs in their system. Water is not guaranteed to be pure H2O.

Declan Buckley, Mossad and God are now friends

Oy! Oy! Oy! One of the things that annoys me about religion is the concept of "religious moderates". They're the people who believe (*ahem) that it is entirely feasible to believe in only parts of their faith. (I'm assuming they are those parts that they think make sense or suit their cause).

We all know the type; they don't go to church at the weekends (or ever!) yet they still want the white wedding. Or there's the person who thinks gays should be discriminated against because of something in Leviticus (all the while ignoring the same warnings about shrimp, haircuts and sharing the company of menstruating women - who wrote that shit?!).

It all demonstrates a very shaky belief in any kind of God - particularly the very vengeful God from The Bible, Talmud or Koran. If you genuinely think the God person is real, surely you won't wanna piss her off by being a crap servant, eh?

Recently, I was most disturbed to hear that a good friend of mine regularly prays "when he needs something" (despite not really believing and the absolute lack of any response to previous prayers). It reminded me of that exam I failed as a kid because I spent the time praying I'd pass rather than actually studying!

The reality is that religion serves people well when they want to be selfish. Or impose their political views on others. Or if they are scared (of death, foreigners, women or their desire to sleep with their soccer-coach).

As a wish-granting factory, religion is way down on the list behind Jim'll Fix It or The National Lottery. As a god, God sucks. Either that or he's on lunch for the last 2000 years.

In my opinion, Technology is the new god. It's far more omni-present. When it works, it works in mysterious ways... And it's certainly all-seeing and all knowing.

Take the tale of the Israeli girl who got out of Military service "on religious grounds". The Secret Service snooped around her facebook profile and found that she had been partying on the Sabbath and generally sinning. Bad girl! (More to the point; is anyone else slightly turned on by the fact that hot Mossad operatives could be scoping about our facebook profiles?)

Poor girl has now been forced to sign up for her full military service. I wonder whether she blames an angry, jealous God... or her stupid privacy settings on facebook?

Cunning Stunts: Ya Gotta Get A Gimmick

Sarah Palin's homespun hockey mom bullshit is making me wanna hockey up something serious. The winking, the hokey turn-off phrase and barefaced (stare down the lens) lies are frightening. She's one scary mama.

One thing that struck me was the intro to the debate as they met for the first time. She tried to disarm Joe Biden by asking (live on mic and, in my opinion, for the Legally Blonde effect), "can I call ya Joe?".

As a gentleman, with more important issues on his mind, Joe says, "Of course!". I watched the entire debate (slack-jawed, admittedly) but I didn't hear her call him Joe once. She called him Senator Biden quite a lot.

The more I see of this lady, she reminds me of school debaters and the silly stunts they used to pull to disguise the fact they had a good speaking voice but nothing to say. Scary thing is those debaters often won.

What a cunning stunt!

Child Abuse

I accidentally* watched Esther vs The PC Brigade on ITV1 tonight. Esther (Rantzen rather than Madonna in her Kaballah costume) used to be about sticking it to gas and electricity companies but now she's all about the kids. And she's calling us on our seeming lack of interest.

For her show, Esther brought two child actors to a busy shopping centre and got them to "act lost". She was then horrified when practically nobody stopped to ask the kids if they were okay. Horrified Esther? Thanks to Dakota Fanning, most normal people hate child actors so couldn't care less if those kids were abducted.

But the real issue was that some men admitted that they wanted to help but didn't. Mainly because they didn't want to open themselves to charges of child abduction/molestation/kiddie rape/kidnapping a child from a supermarket and drugging it and then driving it to an abandoned industrial estate etc... Clearly those men are in a dark, dark place. And I suppose that is the point.

In a classic case of overthinking the situation, modern men are circumventing their natural inclination to care for kids and they're stepping back - just in case the world misinterprets their actions. As a gay man, I've often experienced this. At the end of the day, it's a trade off between what's best for the child and what's best for you (or your reputation). I happen to think that the kid comes first.

Besides, I don't care much for my reputation anyway.

*I don't normally watch ITV. I used to work for ITV so I know it's TV made by "mavericks" for "mavericks"... and I use the term in the sense Sarah Palin uses it.

In the Nick of Time

Went to Will Saint-Leger's Art Raid show last night... What a laugh! The show (which Will's done for the Fringe Festival but I never got to see before) is essentially like a gallery launch except you get to nick pieces of art off the walls as the launch descends into anarchy.

Will met us at the door with a couple of cold beers (and assured us there was loads more. Cheers Will!). We then walked around checking out the artworks. Lots of great stuff. Some shite! Usual gallery experience. The difference to a normal gallery viewing was that each of us was sizing up the pieces and planning which one we wanted to rob once the alarm went off.

There was something thrilling (and maybe middle class) about waiting for our chance to nick something. I got quite giddy (and nostalgic for teenage trips to the sweet shop with the half-blind shop assistant). I actually robbed something before the alarm went off. You can take the kid out of Blanch....!

When the alarm finally sounded, it was bedlam. Some artwork was trashed in the chaos. I got about three cool pieces but there was lots there that I loved. It just got a bit push and shove! Next time I'm packing a blade...

Here's last year's show on youtube