Shiny Happy People

Usually when I am on a flight, I hear from the captain and the flight crew during the course of the flight. These fine people speak to the passengers in a professional and informative manner and we all understand what they say and are happy, informed and reassured.

Some flight companies adopt a slightly different approach. I recently returned from a holiday in Croatia with one of them (I’m not saying which).

Rather than letting the flight crew speak, we were subjected to messages pre-recorded by what I can only describe as “shiny happy people”.

The messages alternated between a man who seemed high on euphoria and a women totally immersed in rapture. I can kind of sense why these recordings exist and what they are meant to achieve but I get the feeling, looking around at my fellow passengers, that their goals weren’t quite met.

The airline is a budget airline that is striving to get people in the mood for their holiday while at the same time trying to raise their spirits about the two and a half hour flight ahead. It worked better on the journey out but not so well on the journey back.

I heard one guy say “What do they mean welcoming us home as if it is the best thing since sliced bread? I don’t WANT to come home! I was on holiday and I want to STAY THERE!”

It didn’t bother me too much because deep down I prefer happy people to miserable buggers (even though I can be a bit of a miserable bugger myself sometimes).  However, it got me thinking – always a dangerous thing.

What if the plane had a fault and both engines failed? What would happen as the aircraft started to dive towards the sea? Do they have a pre-recorded message for that?

Happy Man:  “Hey holiday makers! We hope you are enjoying our AMAZING flight but we do have a slight problem. Nothing to worry about but the aircraft is now plummeting towards the Atlantic Ocean as a rate of knots.”

Happy Woman: “Yes – the water is REALLY WARM at this time of year and to make sure that you fully enjoy it, please BRACE now! If you don’t know how to BRACE, our WONDERFUL flight crew will help you. IF you hear your fellow passengers SCREAMING, rest assured that they are screams of EXCITEMENT at a plunge into the warm wonderful water!”

Happy Man: “And after impact we will do our very best to get any survivors out of the aircraft as quickly as possible!”

Okay – that’s a bit extreme, I admit, but there are a lot of shiny happy people around, particularly on the radio and our telly boxes.

I no longer listen to the radio, apart from the news channel when I wake up, but in the past I recall overly happy DJs laughing at – well – nothing - in such a forced way that I thought they were all having a seizure.

I know things haven’t changed because this morning I saw an advert for the breakfast show on a local bus with pictures of demented looking DJs guffawing at something that was out of shot with a line that explained that their show was a mixture of music and “banter”. 

I assume that "banter" means lots of in-jokes from the DJ team that result in bouts of hysterical laughter at their own expense that the general public don't really find funny at all, especially while stuck in traffic, driving to a mundane job on a miserable, cold, dark Manchester Monday morning in the middle of January.

Similarly light entertainment programmes on TV are full of presenters who seem to have taken some form of drug to make them laugh hysterically at dull items and equally dull celebrity guests that I have never heard of as they try to plug their latest projects.

I am sure that you are now reading this thinking “You miserable bastard! Why don’t you just lighten up?”

The truth is that I provide my own form of entertainment on a daily basis at work by ranting mercilessly about things like reality TV, music, politics and shiny happy celebrities, causing joyous merriment amongst my co-workers as they realise that I am just a cantankerous old git who doesn’t understand modern culture.

And they are right.

But at least their laughter is genuine.

I’ll leave you with the song that inspired the title of this post.

I’m the grumpy git peddling at the start of the video.

Please don’t laugh.

The Mutants Are Coming

I accidentally caught an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show” the other day and it scared me half to death.

I saw three humanoids, two male and one female (although to be honest it was difficult to work out their sex AND their species) being baited by a crowd of crazy Americans to the chant:

“Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”

The two men were pissed off with each other. One said something like:


Mutant One: Ah protected you ‘cos you dun slept with other guys’ women!

Mutant Two: Yeah ah know! And ah thenk ya forrit!

Mutant One: BUT NAH YA SLEPT WIT MAH WOMAN! AH'M GONNA KICK YEURR BUTT!


The crowd chanted:


“JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!”


And a bell clanged and the two mutants hurled themselves at each other. I almost hurled myself.

I thought they were speaking English but then they uttered a kind of weird beeping sound, peppered with the odd English sounding word.

Mutant One screamed:

AH’M GONNA BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP YOUR BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP HEAD IN, YOU BLEEP BLEEP

Obviously he reverted back to his primitive language when he became agitated. What amazed me though, was the fact that these two humanoid freaks were fighting over a woman who was possibly the ugliest thing on the entire planet. Were they blind? Were they MAD??

And then the ugly mutant woman turned to audience and said to the first mutant:

He wanted a piece of me! He wanted a piece of BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP


before taking off what little clothing was covering her fat arse. The crowd loved it and whooped in delight as she paraded around the stage, showing her naughty bits.

Thankfully the TV producers, valuing the sanity of their TV audience, pixelated the exposed flesh, sparing me a trip to the toilet.

Did you know that some people think I am related to Jerry Springer?

Judge for yourself:


If it is true, what is a relative of mine doing presenting mutant after mutant on American TV to a baying crowd of weirdos?

It’s beyond belief.

It really is like watching a car crash in slow motion.

Sadly, the mutants aren’t just from America.

My home, the country of my birth, my small beautiful island, is also a breeding ground for invading mutants who want to wash their dirty laundry in public.

And Britain has its very own Jerry Springer – a hostile, arrogant ringmaster called Jeremy Kyle. Are all of these champions against the mutant race called Jerry or Jeremy?

Our own Jeremy Kyle fights injustice and weirdness like a man possessed.

But he doesn’t rely on the crowd to provoke them – he is quite happy to do that himself.

Jeremy Kyle (aka Mr Angry) spends most of his show bellowing at these British mutants, screaming:

“GET OFF MY STAGE!”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY, YOU IDIOT?”

“THIS IS MY SHOW!!!”

We have a name for British mutants. We call them chavs.

Unlike my American uncle Jerry, Mr Angry doesn’t take any shit whatsoever from chavs.

Here is an example:



Can YOU tell what the chav is saying? I’m struggling and I’m British.

Here’s another clip. I can understand this guy but I’m sure you will agree that he is not of this Earth. And he has the audacity to challenge Mr Angry.

How dare he!!!



I am not a fan of Jeremy Kyle at all and the fact that he bellows at the mutants and chavs doesn’t help matters. To be perfectly honest I don’t want to see them on my tellybox any more.

So thank you, uncle Jerry and Mr Angry Kyle – but no thanks. Please get off the air and take all of these mutants with you.

One final note I have to add. I prefer the X-Men mutants myself (yes I know I am a hypocrite). Take a look at this:






I’m sure you agree – and I can safely say that blue IS my favorite colour.