Trumpa Loompa

Donald Trump!

What a man!

What a legend!

I am astonished by what he has achieved in recent years and find myself gaping in wonder at his triumphs.

Donald Trump is President of the United States of America, elected by promising to make America great again. Having been a frequent visitor to the US I wonder how this is possible but clearly he has seen something the rest of the world hasn’t. I realise that there are people out there who doubt this and my own personal theory is that he is doing his best to bring America to its knees in his first term in order to make the country rise up like a phoenix when the next President has to pick up the pieces. Clearly he thinks it will take a few terms to achieve his goals of rebuilding this self-proclaimed greatest country in the world.

And he has God on his side. At the inauguration ceremony, where it was clearly raining, Donald told the world that God made the sun shine. The rest of us saw pissing rain – but Donald saw God. The rest of us saw a below average crowd of witnesses to this event whereas Donald saw billions of people – the greatest number of people in history to witness the inauguration of a President.

Donald also has the ability to run the government on social media. Twitter has become the means of making the country amazing again with policy statement after policy statement crammed into 140 letters. He even invents new words like ”covfefe” – a true genius at work.

Talking of genius, nobody has taken Donald up on his challenge to have an IQ test. They are running scared because Donald has a higher IQ than anybody in the world. He doesn’t have to prove himself. He’s the President for heaven’s sake.

I am also envious of his hair. Yes – you read that correctly. My hair is a sentient beast and leaps at every opportunity to humiliate me.  Donald has the BALLS to face his own sentient beast and march out to face his loyal people with his head held high even when his own hair has appalling ideas of its own.

Moreover, while we’re on the subject of physical appearance, Donald is a trendsetter. His skin colour is amazing and redefines the word “orange”. We all know that “orange is the new black”, a phrase I am certain that Donald invented via Twitter sometime in the past. Either he wants to be an influential leader or he is simply an orange alien with crazy hair. You decide.

Donald also trying to redefine “misogyny” because (he says) he respects all women. All the talk about grabbing women in  intimate places has to be fake news – surely. Surely his quip about dating his own daughter was a joke, When he said way back in 1992 that “you have to treat ‘em like shit!” that had to be fake news too, didn’t it?

Okay – who am I kidding here? All the buffoonery above is total bollocks!

The man is a bloody arse. Everybody knows it but nobody will admit it.

Surely America has sussed this guy out.

Surely?

There are numerous examples of him talking utter bollocks, boasting, lying, contradicting himself, being nasty to anyone who criticises him, hiring incompetents and firing people who challenge him.

There must be millions of Americans who voted for him saying “What on earth possessed me?”

Make America great again? Really?

Donald Trump has made America a laughing stock. But it isn’t funny any more. All he does in the White House is massage his own ego, something he cares about much more than his country.

Worse, his bullshit is taking a sinister turn. Here are some disturbing quotes:

“Rocket man is on a suicide mission for him and his regime.”

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!”

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen ... he has been very threatening beyond a normal state. They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

And what about this scary exchange when Trump recently posed with a room full of military leaders:

Trump: Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. Could be, the calm. The calm before the storm.

Press: What do you mean, Mr President?

Trump: We have the world's great military people in this room, I will tell you that. And uh, we're gonna have a great evening.

Press: But what do you mean by “calm before the storm”, Mr President?

Trump: You’ll find out.

What the bloody hell is THAT supposed to mean?

Is he going to authorise a major military offensive?

Is he making threats to a deranged power-hungry lunatic in North Korea who just happens to be testing missiles that may soon reach the United States armed with a nuke?

Will this be the start of World War 3?

Oh my God!

I tell you what: there has never been a President like Donald Trump – and I hope to God that there will never be another one.

Here are some thoughts from British comedians:

I hope that's cheered you up a bit.

Smart Conversation

The art of conversation is slowly dying.

The only people who are currently keeping it active are those above a certain age, like me, who like to have a good old fashioned conversation (or a “chinwag”) with one or more people in pleasant surroundings such as a restaurant, pub of coffee shop.

However, there are a certain group of people (to whom I shall refer as the youth of today) who prefer other means of communication.

I am referring to the smartphone.

Actually, it’s not just the youth of today – some people my age are equally guilty of this crime against humanity.

Picture the scene:

Mrs PM and I walk into a pub and approach the bar. After ordering our drinks we find a seat and chat to each other about our day at work, next year’s holiday plans, what a great guy I am and how lucky she is to have me – you know the kind of thing.

On the table next to us are three people all with drinks who obviously know each other. None of them are talking to each other. Instead, each one of them has a smartphone in their hand and each one of them is doing something like:

(1) Surfing the internet looking at crazy You Tube videos

(2) Posting their status in Facebook (“I’m having a great time with Kate and Paul in The Blue Hippo and am just about to quaff a pint of Old Skunkwarbler”)

(3) Posting their status on Twitter (“Drnkng Old Skunkwarbler with m8s in pub – LOL - #Drunkasskunk)

(4) Texting other friends who aren’t there (“CU L8er @BlueHippo – wot’s ur eta?”)

We sat there watching them and nobody spoke until one of them ran out of beer and asked whose round it was.

A more extreme case occurred in my own house. I was with Mrs PM, my son and his girlfriend. Mrs PM and I were watching TV and the kids were busy typing on their phones. Suddenly, my lad’s phone chirped – he had received a text message. That text message was from his girlfriend who was sitting a yard away and had texted him asking for a drink.

We like his girlfriend a lot and I have told her that she can help herself to anything in my house (apart from my beer of course!) – and usually she does.

Even my lad was surprised.

He turned to her and said “Get your own drink!”

“What?” I said incredulously. “Have you just texted him to ask for a drink?”

“Yes,” she confessed.

As you can imagine, my soapbox came out and I started ranting about how smartphones are turning people into robotic ignoramuses and that the logical evolutionary conclusion will be that people eventually forget how to speak, only able to communicate with grunts and superfast typing on their devices with their oversized thumbs.

“Ignore him,” said my lad as he got up to fulfil his girlfriend’s request. “He’s old!”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to get her a drink?” I said.

“Shut up!” shouted Mrs PM, bringing my rant to an abrupt end. My lad and his girlfriend just laughed (as they usually do).

I have now banned the use of phones when I am out with Mrs PM and my immediate family and their girlfriends unless they receive an important text or a phone call.

Actually, that’s another thing. People these days communicate by text instead of ringing each other up. If you want to have a serious chat with somebody or arrange something you cannot do it with a text that is written in the stupid abbreviated slangy language, known as text speak.

You can achieve so much in a five minute conversation. If you text to each other it takes hours to do this, and in my case most of that time is taken trying to decipher the idiotic language that’s used.

Does the following really make sense?

OMG RUOK? UR BF is a dick IYKWIM! TIME! TTYL! HAK! Kate

What this means is

“Oh my God! Are you OK? Your boyfriend is a dick, if you know what I mean. There are tears in my eyes. Talk to you later. Hugs and kisses. Kate.”

Actually, she won’t “talk to you later” because she will send you a tweet, post you a message on Facebook or text you.

Don’t get me wrong; I am a technophile who LOVES my smartphone. The difference between me and the youth of today is that I use my phone for learning Spanish, navigating, receiving emails, reading, taking photos, checking the weather, measuring my walking distance and speed, organising my calendar, watching TV via Google Chromecast, converting currencies, translating from English to other languages and vice versa, checking the time, storing useful information, brain training, simulating a torch, reading the news, posting photos on Instagram, checking the names of actors in films, learning other subjects, identifying songs, checking the latest gigs, recording voice notes and looking at You Tube videos.

I hasten to add that I only do this when I am on my own and not when I am in the company of one or more people.

I use my phone in a pub, for example, when Mrs PM has gone to the toilet and I am on my own waiting for her to return. If I am with several people, my phone stays in my pocket.

And that’s the way it should be.

I don’t want the art of conversation to die. While social media has revolutionised communication, it should not be used to communicate with people who are in the same room as you.

People need to talk to each other.

It’s ridiculous.

Anyway, rant over.

I’ve got to go. Mrs PM has just texted me to tell me to start cooking dinner because her favourite television programme is on.

Bloody smartphones!!!

I Wanna Live Forever

I have stopped trying to give up ranting as a New Year’s resolution because usually, within a day, I have exploded when confronted with the fallout from the Cult of Celebrity from the previous year.

I have just watched Most Shocking Celebrity Moments as I always do at the end of each year. You may ask me why I torture myself with this banal nonsense. I do so, simply to educate myself when my peers, and others who are stupidly obsessed with celebrity, start a conversation about their bizarre antics. I have been chastised in the past for being oblivious to people like Kim Kardashian, Cheryl Fernandinho-Vermicelli and Miley Billy-Ray Cyrus and in order to at least appear to feign interest, I research the antics of these show-offs by struggling through a televisual experience, with the aid of my soapbox, that highlights how deep they will plummet into depravity to maintain their status as newsworthy icons.

Kim Kardashian? No - this is Kym Cardassian

I know you can’t wait to hear what I have learned from last year’s Hall of Shame. I shall begin.

The first thing I discovered was that there is such a thing as a "professional reality star”. These are people who degrade themselves on national television in a variety of bizarre and humiliating ways in order to expose themselves to sad fans who love to watch car crash television.

Shows like I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here, Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, Geordie Shore and Keeping Up With The Kardashians are full of these self-important and talentless show-offs whose only purpose in life seems to be is to expose everything about themselves to their baying audience.

These people have no talent, only the balls to make themselves look like the idiots they are. Yes, I know that they are paid a lot of money for doing this but I would not want to show my true self to a thick audience of punters who will watch them spread their vile vitriol all over social media sites like Twitter.

Some people will do anything to get into the news, either celebrity or otherwise.

Who are these people?

Katie Hopkins is one such celebrity wannabe who, in order to annoy religious types, this year declared herself to be “The new Jesus”. Is she that desperate for publicity? She’s not original (John Lennon said something similar years ago). Personally, I was more irritated by her referring to refugees as “plague of cockroaches” and advocating using gunships to send them back where they came from. I hope that in 2016 you get your comeuppance, little Miss Nasty.

Others include the Kardashians, who miraculously have somehow wormed their way into the hearts of an audience of people who I thought had some intelligence. I learned that Bruce Jenner, a former gold medal Olympian, married the widow of Robert Kardashian, the father of the Kardashian women, and has now become a woman called Caitlyn in the second most shocking moment of 2015.

I don’t care!

If he wants to be a woman that’s up to him. What I don’t understand is why anybody else outside the Kardashian family would even consider this to be a newsworthy item.

Another thing I learned was that some so-called A-List celebrities consider themselves to be far more important than anybody else. In their minds, they are gods and we, the plebs, are meant to worship them. Now I like the character Iron Man and I love Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of his eccentric alter-ego, Tony Stark. Yet when he was interviewed by a Channel 4 news reporter called Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the latest Avengers film, there were rules about the questions that could be asked. Of course, being a news reporter, Krishnan Guru-Murthy deviated from the rules and started asking more personal questions about the actor’s rather controversial past and, like a diva, Robert Downey Jr. stormed out and later referred to the reporter as a “syphilitic parasite”.

I also learned that Mariah Carey has entered the world of online dating, presumably because she cannot find a man who will surrender to her diva demands. Whether or not the myths about her are true or not, I can’t imagine any sane man wanting to enter a relationship with her.

Here are a couple of the most outrageous demands she is alleged to have made:

• She wanted eleven bodyguards to surround her table in a restaurant so that the plebs could not see her eating.
• She only drinks soft drinks through a straw, the glass having to be held by one of her minions.
• She rented every single penthouse in a luxury London hotel “for privacy” and demanded a red carpet lined with white candles so that she could make a dramatic arrival.

I wouldn’t mind – her music is absolutely shockingly bad and she has done nothing to deserve such wanton acts of greed and egomania.

Talking of egomania, the next diva is one of my favourite persons of ridicule, Mr Kanye West who, this year at Glastonbury, declared himself to be “the greatest living rock star on the planet” having just absolutely murdered Bohemian Rhapsody. Worse, at a later event, he declared that he is going to run for President of the United States in 2020. I have to say, this man has either got balls of steel of is genuinely deluded and should seek help.

In other lowlights of 2015, there were a couple of high profile separations and divorces, most notably Ben Affleck who allegedly left Jennifer Garner for a babysitter and Gwen Stefani whose husband, coincidentally, left her for a babysitter.

This is one of the main reasons I would not want to be famous. If you seek fame and fortune you have to sacrifice your privacy and, in my opinion, your love life. If you think about how long the average celebrity marriage lasts, you would never want to enter into such a relationship. I may mock Mariah Carey’s diva attitude but the truth is that I feel sorry for her, as I do any famous person whose life is there for public scrutiny. It’s like a double-edged sword. You have the adoration of your fans (no matter how sad some of them are) but the moment you make a fool of yourself in public or your life starts to fall apart, then your downfall is plastered over all the rags all over the world for all to enjoy.

Have people really enjoyed watching Charlie Sheen self-destruct over the years? Are they happy now that he has admitted being HIV positive? What about all the speculation about Cheryl Ferdinand-Vavavoom and her body size? If she is losing weight because of stress, what do you think seeing terrible stories written in tabloid media are going to do for that stress?

The poor woman cannot win.

Such a lifestyle stinks. If I were famous, I would be a recluse – which kind of defeats the object really.

I wouldn’t even want to be a politician. David Cameron was in hot water because, allegedly, he did something disgusting in his youth, as an initiation to become a member of a posh Oxford Dining Club, involving an intimate part of his anatomy and a dead pig’s head. If you want more information, please watch the following video (it’s a bit rude so reader discretion is advised):

Worse, in my view, were the words of Donald Trump, a man who wants to be President of the United States of America. He wasn’t mentioned in the shocking moments programme but some of the outrageous claims and promises he is making scare me to death.

Please, please, please don’t give this man any power.

And if he stands, please, please, please don't give Kanye West any power.

Anyway, enough negativity.

Some celebrities have shone this year. The first I would like to mention is Barry Manilow. Okay, he has made an arse of himself over the years with plastic surgery, but this year he got married – to a man! After all this time, and presumably to the horror of every Fanilow, he has admitted his sexuality.

Good for him!

The other celebrity who continues to prove that he is the nicest guy in rock is Dave Grohl. Madonna was the most shocking moment according to the TV programme because she was dragged off stage at the Brit Awards.

People praised Madonna for continuing but Dave Grohl surpassed that. He fell off the stage in Sweden and broke his leg. However, instead of cancelling the show, his band mates in the Foo Fighters carried on playing cover versions until Dave Grohl returned, his leg now in plaster and apparently in a lot of pain, to finish the concert.

That’s not all. Over a thousand people in the city of Cesena in Italy recorded a version of Learn To Fly in an attempt to persuade the Foo Fighters to play a concert there:

Dave replied in Italian and promised to visit and play a gig:

And he made good his promise (complete with broken leg) – excuse the rather fruity language:

Now that’s what I call celebrity, not despicable diva behaviour, nasty controversial vitriol or professional humiliation.

Anybody who wants fame for the right reasons, look at the example of somebody like Dave Grohl, not the egomania of Mariah Carey and Kanye West or the nastiness of Katie Hopkins and scary rhetoric of wannabe politicians like Donald Trump.

Unanswered Questions

When I think about things seriously, I mean really start to think, my brain begins to hurt with pain and despair at the state of the human race.

That’s why I try not to think too deeply.

Well – apart from yesterday when something prompted me to rant again.

When I rant, my addled brain spits forth questions about the unfairness and stupidity of life. And these are questions that I simply cannot answer.  Here are some examples.

Why would anybody pay £220,000 for a bottle of brandy? 

Yes – that’s right. A restaurant/bar in Manchester has one for sale.

Why would anybody pay £1600 for a six litre bottle of vodka with a light at the bottom of it?

I asked the barman who jokingly gave us two glasses and pretended he was about to open it for us. The light at the bottom made it look like a nice decoration for a bar but nothing else.

Why do women wear shoes that cripple their feet?

Mrs PM walks to a restaurant on the night out in here plimsolls and then pulls out her high heeled foot butchering shoes just outside and proceeds to hobble in clutching on to me as if she has severely injured herself.

Why do some 60 year old women wear revealing and tight fitting clothes that are designed for 21 year olds? 

A woman in a restaurant who would have looked okay wearing normal older person clothes, chose to wear one of those short, tight fitting dresses that revealed almost everything and left very little to the imagination. What’s more she was plastered in make-up, so much in fact that it probably took an expert interior decorator about three hours to make her look vaguely young. It didn’t; she looked ridiculous as she waddled to the toilet, her blubber hanging over the strategically placed “sexy” holes in the dress. Once seen, you can never unsee a sight like that.

What on earth is the logic of having a full length mirror in front of a toilet so that I can see myself pee?

In the same restaurant, I had a perfect view of myself as I answered a call of nature. Why? I ask again: “WHY????”

Why would anybody consider having a huge tattoo? 

Cheryl Cole/Fernandez-Vermicelli (or whatever her name is) has the most enormous tattoo on her bum. Why? What on earth is she going to look like at the age of 60?

How has Katie Hopkins managed to carve out television career for herself by being offensive?

Yes, that’s right! They’ve given Little Miss Nasty her own TV show finally!



What the flump were they thinking??????

Why hasn’t anybody exiled Piers Morgan to a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Or to the moon?

He is STILL on my tellybox despite my protestations. I thought we had exiled him to America. Well apparently he pissed them off so much they sent him back! Can we send him to Australia now?

Who gives a flying flump about Kim Kardashian or any member of her family?

I am sick of people talking about these people. Stop talking about  them and they will go away.

What is going on in the head of Kanye West?

His ego is bigger than the universe, so much so that he recently declared himself the greatest living rock star on the planet. This after he had murdered Bohemian Rhapsody:



If he’s the greatest living rock star on the planet then I am a cat from outer space.

Why does my cat shit on my doormat?

Talking of cats, my fat lazy cat, Jasper, has recently started dumping his wares on our doormat. I think he’s trying to tell me something. We have had to start spraying the mat with Feliway – a kind of cat pheromone. It’s working but now …

Why do cats wait until you have cleaned their litter tray before immediately dumping their wares back into it? 

It’s summer. The cats should go outside to dump their wares but they are too lazy and prefer to use their trays (which I hate!!!). So there I am, like an idiot, cleaning the last disgusting mess only to find it refilled within seconds!

And why do cats vomit in the worst places?

Cats eat so much of their own fur that it congregates inside their gullets as a repulsive disgusting globule of semi-digested hair which they seem to love chundering up in the middle of my freshly vacuumed and cleaned carpet. Why can’t they go outside to do it? Of do it in the litter tray (I wouldn’t mind if I had just cleaned it).

The Great British Bake Off; what in the name of all that is SANE is this terrible cookery programme doing on prime time British television?

We are all mad in Britain because we watch utter garbage on television and become so obsessed with it that it fills the newspapers and in some cases it becomes all-consuming. We have terrible trailers for this show including one that was banned for copyright infringement, which had 80 year old Mary Berry singing a terrible version of the “Sound of Music”. This programme personifies the stupidity of some of my fellow countrymen who are infatuated with cookery programmes. Put the bloody thing on its own cookery channel  for flump’s sake! What’s worse, people actually complain at so-called funny innuendos that fill the show. People have actually written in to the BBC and complained about the overuse of the phrase “soggy bottom”.

Are these people for real??? I want to complain about the programme itself being so shit. Get the programme off the air before I rant myself into a mad seizure!

Why do people believe everything they read in the newspapers?

The Daily Mail and the Daily Express are the worst newspapers in Britain. They report stories full of scaremongery and have a deep political agenda that people are gullible enough to believe. Almost as bad are the celebrity obsessed tabloids who love to tell us tedious facts like Cheryl Cole/Fernandez-Ventagli (or whatever her name is) has had a tattoo that covers her arse and that we should worry about her because she has lost weight. We are gradually going insane – of that I am convinced.

Why don’t people just stop listening to crap radio stations?

I have listened to radio stations in the car with Mrs PM because we cannot agree on the music we can tolerate, so we search for some common ground and discover that we can both mutually rant about idiotic DJs and the same old dreadful old music that they insist on playing. Please God, give me a radio station. I’ll show them all how it is done and I promise that I won’t spend the time between playing shit songs with banal quizzes and inane uninteresting banter that is not funny and only appeals to morons.

Why does Mrs PM like such shit music?

Why can’t I brainwash her with my fantastic music after being with her for 17 years? There is no depth to Mrs PM’s music. All she listens to is dreadful music including Britney Spears, Cheryl Cole/Flaminez-Vampiri (or whatever her name is). She doesn’t even listen to the words. Even I know the words to the songs that she likes and usually they go something like this:

I see you on the dance floor and I want your love.

If you take me home tonight you can show me all your love.

You can take your love and give it to me all night long.

And then we can beat up the guy who wrote this awful song

Why is the weather in Britain so bloody shit?

Take Friday for example. In the middle of summer I walked about 500 yards from my hotel to take a ride on the legendary “Ferry Across The Mersey” and when I returned, God, in his infinite wisdom, thought I needed a 500 yard shower. I was absolutely drenched by the time I reached the hotel.  I would have been dryer if I had stood fully clothed in my own shower for three hours.

I only went out for five minutes!!

Okay – that’s enough ranting for now.

Thanks for indulging me again.

I’m off to watch the Great British Bake Off and count how many soggy bottoms there are.

How Dare They Cancel My Favourite Shows

I am absolutely fed up of American networks cancelling shows that I love, particularly when the season finale is either a cliffhanger or leaves hooks that lead into a continuation of the story in a new season.

How dare they!

I have just finished watching season three of The Following starring Kevin Bacon as a flawed FBI agent hunting psychopathic serial killers. I was excited because although the story of season was concluded, it left things open for an interesting season four.

“I can’t wait for that,” I said to Mrs PM who also enjoyed it.

Imagine my disgust when I discovered not ten minutes ago, that there would be no season four at all.

Rant? I think I may have redefined the word. My soapbox is struggling under the ferocious assault and the cats are watching my fury, wearing their specially made ear defenders so they can laugh at my antics.

Oh dear - he's off again!!!

 This isn’t the first time shows have been cancelled prematurely. I really hate it when a story doesn’t finish.

It’s like having a book you are reading snatched from your grasp and hurled into an incinerator and then discovering that it was the only copy. Or watching a film and discovering that it was only partly finished.

The behaviour of these faceless people infuriates me.

I can imagine a bunch of suited men in black sitting in an office and deciding whether to continue the season. Just because a few thousand less people watched it, is that truly grounds for pissing me and thousands of other people off?

It doesn’t matter whether the show is a triumph – it’s all to do with money at the end of the day – and that’s a real shame.

Don’t get me wrong; if a series finishes and ties up all of its loose ends to bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion, then I am happy. I may not be happy with the ending, but at least I have some kind of closure, something I desperately need from such a series.

One of my favourite shows ever, Babylon 5, survived for 5 seasons, despite the threat of cancellation lurking over it like an unseen nemesis. As brilliant as the show was, I feel that it seasons three and four were somewhat rushed in order to get as much of the story in as possible. The result was a triumphant season four story arc that thrilled me. It was so good that season five was commissioned and, sadly, didn’t reach the high standards of its predecessor. However, at least the writer managed to conclude the story in a satisfactory manner, leaving one happy Plastic Mancunian.

Some series have been so popular that the television company has persevered and allowed them to run to a conclusion and I’m delighted that they have. One example is Breaking Bad, which Mrs PM and I are currently ploughing our way through. Somebody bought us the DVD box set for Christmas with a recommendation that we should give it a try. We are currently close to finishing season three and are both thoroughly enjoying it, knowing that the series reaches a satisfying conclusion. I am happy that I can watch the remaining episodes in the knowledge that there will be complete closure.

I have to say, that UK TV companies generally allow a series to run its course and seldom cancel a show at the end leaving a massive cliffhanger. It has been known though. The world’s longest running science fiction series, Dr Who, was eventually terminated after 26 years in 1989 and the UK geek world was outraged. Thankfully the BBC had a change of heart, though it did take another 16 years to do it.

I just wish that the US networks, who are meant to provide entertainment, would concentrate less on being so ruthless and look at the bigger picture. There are millions of people outside of the US who love these shows.

Think about that, Fox, NBC and all of you other US networks. Next time you want to cancel a show, ask me first!

How about you, dear reader.

Have you suffered the deep frustration of having your favourite TV shows cancelled?

If so, which ones?

The Evolution Of Ideas

Can I share something with you, dear reader?

I’d like to take you on a journey inside my imagination. Don’t worry - I won’t steer you to the weirder zones (even I don’t want to go there).

I see my own imagination as a universe teeming with ideas and thoughts hurtling around the cosmos, some of which take form and head towards a central point where they can evolve and hopefully make the transition from my mind’s eye to the real world, becoming a Word document, a comment in my notepad or an email to myself to store in my ideas folder.

The pinnacle of this evolutionary process is a blog post.

However, I sometimes have a problem – actually getting these ideas to evolve into something tangible.

Sometimes, I am delighted when I have a thought and convert into a blog post. Yet there are many times when I find it tough. Such ideas are quite good until the point when I try to put pen to paper and at that point they refuse to advance any further.

There are several reasons for this.

Some ideas seem great in my head yet but when converted into real words lose impact and refuse to progress any further.

Other ideas when reviewed at a later stage seem to be ridiculous and are cast back into my imagination in the hope that they can improve.

Yet more ideas are simply too weird to be cast into the limelight.

I equate the process as similar to trying to crowbar an elephant into a garden shed – pointless and impossible.

Yet, bizarrely, the more annoyed I am about an idea, the higher the likelihood that it will be cast onto the internet for you to read, dear reader. It’s almost as if my creative juices are fuelled by an inner rage. I like to think of this as my inner Hulk. 

When the inner Hulk speaks,  I stop worrying about how good or bad the post is and focus solely on getting all of the angry words down. As the thoughts cascade around my head and the volume of my inner ranting voice increases, I find that I type faster and before I know it I have a very crude blog post that just needs to be sharpened before publication.

And that worries me slightly.

By nature I am a very laid back person who doesn’t like to be angry. Ranting is therapeutic and helps to disperse the rage – which is a good thing. The problem is that this shouldn’t be the catalyst that helps an embryonic idea develop into a blog post.

I need another more inspirational method to be more creative. I have been exploring the options and there are definite ways to achieve this.

One other method that works is to be passionate about the idea. Regular readers will know that I pepper my inane nonsense with posts about music, something I like to do on a fairly regular basis to bore you into coma. While my inner ranting voice inspires me to write about things that make me angry, another inner voice – the Blind Enthusiast – pours out my inner enthusiasm in a similar way to the inner Hulk.

I reckon that if I allow the Blind Enthusiast to expand his horizons, more of my weird ideas will make it from my imagination onto the internet to bore you even more, dear reader.

With that in mind, I am apologising in advance for the posts that will appear over the coming months – starting with this one.

The Blind Enthusiast is currently in charge and raring to go.

Before I go, let me just ask:

How do you develop ideas into blog posts?

Do you have an Inner Hulk or Blind Enthusiast?

Are you as weird as I am?

Thanks for listening.

The War Against Crap Music

Last night I went to see my current favourite musical hero in concert and this was a euphoric experience in more ways than one.

The artist in question was Steven Wilson, a musical genius in every sense of the phrase.

First, the concert was a triumph. It was everything I thought it would be. The music was perfect and on more than one occasion, I was so lost in the melodies and songs that a tear of joy escaped from my eye and rolled gently down my cheek.

Second, I had persuaded a friend of mine to take a chance and see the concert. His musical taste does not walk hand in hand with mine, but there is an overlap. When I bought the tickets, a few months ago, I suggested that he listen to Steven’s solo music on the internet and also that of his former band (currently on hiatus), Porcupine Tree. 

There was no way he would ever hear the work on the radio so he would have to use the internet. It didn't take him long to find it and since then he has devoured the music. He loves Steven Wilson and, like me, thinks it’s a crime against humanity that this guy is not massively famous. He has already started to delve into his back catalogue.

Finally, the venue for the concert was Manchester Bridgewater Hall, a place usually reserved for classical music concerts. And the place was packed with a wildly varied audience, ranging from the odd rock lover to entire families of music lovers including kids. 

Steven’s music is basically progressive rock but, my God, does the man have an ear for melody. He has experimented with jazz, orchestral arrangements, progressive rock, pop music and heavy metal – sometimes all in the same song. 

What I liked best was the fact that there is a huge audience for his music, people who have turned their backs on shit like the X Factor and radio friendly nonsense that I ranted about earlier this year in A Rant About Music.

I am not the only one.

I have allies in this battle.

It’s not easy though. 

On Friday night, I was in a pub in Manchester, celebrating a friend from work’s fortieth birthday, when I opted to leave early. The reason for leaving was that I wanted a totally clear head to see Steven Wilson and it was the most important event of the weekend for me. 

“Who?” came the incredulous replies as I tried to leave the pub at around 9pm. “Never heard of him!”

I could have stayed and discussed this further with another pint of ale but I chose to leave rather than risking hangover. This was the big event of the weekend for me and nothing was going to ruin it.

As I lay in bed this morning, remembering the concert and trying to describe it to Mrs PM, I discovered that she too had no interest.

“But the music is beautiful,” I said. “I’m not asking you to like it; I’m asking you to listen to the concepts.”

I tried to explain a song called Routine from the latest (and truly brilliant) album called Hand. Cannot. Erase., which describes a woman who uses the routine of the mundane chores every day of her life to keep her going. I didn’t really grasp the full meaning of the song until I saw it performed live, with a very moving animated video being shown in the background. The woman, preparing meals for four, washing, cleaning, ironing to help her sane until towards the end of the song she shrieks finally:

Routine keeps me in line

Helps me pass the time

Concentrate my mind 

Helps me to sleep

And keep making beds and keep the cat fed

Open the Windows let the air in

And keep the house clean and keep the routine

Paintings they make still stuck to the fridge

At this point in the video we learn that her entire family, husband and two children, died in a car crash and the "routine" is how she copes with the loss.

Heart-wrenching stuff that allowed one of my tears to escape.

The song is beautiful, melodic with disturbing undertones and has a truly magnificent guest female vocal and a choir boy and is technically brilliant as well as very intelligent.

The whole album is the same, full of deep emotional songs transcending various genres with a progressive feel but also a couple of, what I would describe as pop songs. Of course, it is progressive rock at the end of the day, but there are no songs that I don’t like.

It is a triumph and to be absolutely frank, should be made available to a wider audience.

I’m not asking you to like Steven Wilson or his music, dear reader; I’m offering it to you as an alternative to the tired old fodder that is spoon-fed to you by corporate executive billionaires who want to peddle crap music that makes them richer. I want to fire a broadside across the bows of radio stations who claim to speak for the population by playing “the music that they love” when in reality they are TELLING the people what music they SHOULD love by limiting the amount they can listen too.

Even Madonna may become an ally in this war as BBC Radio One, the so-called “kids” radio station here in the UK, has removed her current single from their playlist. 

What goes around, comes around, eh Madge? Now you know how the rest of the struggling music makers feel.

I equate this struggle to thinking that McDonald’s is the only place to get food when there is a gourmet restaurant  hidden in the back streets of the city that is not advertised and you have to search around for. Not all these restaurants are good - but most of them are far better than the bland burgers offered by Ronald McDonald.

To complete my role in this analogy, I want to be the man who meets you off the train and says:

"Before you go to McDonalds, take a look at this book, which is full of decent restaurants to try.”

In fact, that's an even better analogy:

Simon Cowell is the Ronald McDonald of the music industry.

Later in the month I will dedicate a meme to Steven Wilson’s solo work and maybe next month, I will do the same for his band Porcupine Tree.

In the meantime, here is a song called Perfect Life from Hand.Cannot.Erase. featuring the spoken words of Katherine Jenkins, the opera singer.

Remember, I’m not asking you to like it; I’m just trying to broaden your horizons and erode the influence of Simon Cowell and his cohorts.

Equally, I am willing to listen to anything you have to offer me, dear reader, and it doesn't matter what genre the music is.

I will champion anything I feel should be out there - even if it's jazz!!

Please join me.

We can do this!

Who’s with me?

A Celebrity Rant

Do you mind if I have a good rant?

Well, I don’t care – I’m going to have one anyway.

At the end of every year, I watch a TV programme called Most Shocking Celebrity Moments simply to learn a little about the so-called celebrities that made the news in the past year for the wrong reasons, mainly so that I know who the bloody hell people are talking about. To be honest, it’s a knee-jerk response to people saying things like:

“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of Kim Kardashian? Have you been living under a rock?”

Thanks to this programme, I now know who Kim Kardashian is but the cost of knowing that has made me dust off my soapbox. The programme was a countdown of the most outrageous behaviour of these people in 2014 and I for one was almost apoplectic; as you would expect, the higher the number in this chart of disgrace, the more outrageous the deed.

For two hours, I screamed at the cats, asking questions like:

“Who is this person?”

“What on Earth was she bloody well thinking?”

“Why do people humiliate themselves so much just to get noticed?”

The cats were equally incredulous.

Here are the lowlights for me.

Robin Thicke (by name and nature) who, not content with writing a song that was a misogynistic pile of crap and allowing Miley Cyrus to thrust her arse into his groin on an awards show, managed to get caught being a very naughty boy, so much so that his wife left him – understandably so. What does he do? He releases an album dedicated to her, in a futile attempt to win her back. It bombed – and I’m glad.

I discovered who Kim Kardashian was because she had a photo shoot in a magazine showing her huge naked arse under the heading “Break the Internet”. As far as I can tell all she is famous for is having a rich father and starring in a terrible reality TV show. Apparently she has an army of fans and it makes me wonder – what in the name of all that is weird do these people see in her? The famous “arse” photo has been seen all over the internet (and I am not going to reproduce it here because the last thing I want to do is give her any more publicity, however, microscopic it would be) and it goes to show that this woman (and sadly many other so-called celebrities) will plumb new chasms in order to add a little more infamy and win more idiotic fans. And the worst thing I discovered about her, is that she is married to Kanye West – arguably the most arrogant and egocentric musical celebrity ever to stagger onto my television screen. He has claimed to be God, the new Shakespeare and the best rock star in the world.

Yeah, Kanye, yeah!

Moving on swiftly (because I could spend an entire post ranting about Kanye West), have you heard of media troll Katie Hopkins? She first hit the headlines on the UK version of The Apprentice and even then her arrogance stood out a thousand miles. It was clear back then, when the post-mortem on her exit from The Apprentice was shown:

That was back in 2006, and since then, particularly recently, she has said outrageous things on Twitter and on TV. Here’s an example where she annoyed the host of a TV show because she judges who her kids can play with based on their names. This is unbelievable:

She’s insulted fat people, other celebrities and even wrote a nasty tweet about a Scottish nurse, who after catching Ebola while treating people in Africa, was transported for treatment from Glasgow to London. She wrote: "Sending us Ebola bombs in the form of sweaty Glaswegians just isn't cricket."

I, personally, would sign a petition to get this woman removed from all forms of media. Is she so desperate for fame that she is happy to offend as many people as possible? Perhaps not because she has just joined “Celebrity Big Brother” and will spend a few weeks in a house with a whole bunch of other celebrities desperate to revive their ailing careers.

Finally, of course, we have Justin Bieber, a kid with the arrogance of Kanye West who considers himself to be above the law and is so consumed by himself that he is oblivious to all of his crimes and misdemeanours.

I simply cannot connect with these people in any way whatsoever. It is almost as if they are a totally different species. They are so consumed by themselves that they simply do not seem to be able to understand the effect of their actions or behaviour. I don’t understand either.

For example, why on earth would a person take a naked photo of themselves and store them on a medium (in this case “the cloud”) that can be hacked and published on the internet? I would never take a photograph of myself naked – not even if I were drunk.

Even when something bad happens in a celebrity’s relationship, it seems to be like a media explosion or, in the case of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, a breakup can be veiled in the most idiotic phraseology to disguise what it really means in an attempt to sugar coat the event and portray the breakup as something sweet.

I mean, what the flump does the phrase “conscious uncoupling” even mean? If I were to go to Mrs PM and say “I want to consciously uncouple”, I think she would rip out my spine and parade it on a huge spike in the centre of Manchester with the banner:

The Plastic Mancunian and his spine have been consciously uncoupled

And, do you know what? I wouldn’t blame her.

My final part of the rant (and it is the final part – I promise) is this obsession with nips, tucks and plastic surgery.

Why do celebrities feel the need to alter their appearance? Why can’t they just grow old gracefully? Actresses in particular should be aware that they can’t play a young sex siren at the age of 50. Instead, we find that they convert themselves to fish by pumping their lips up like balloons. Surely they are aware that as they get older they can play more mature parts? Think about it – movies need older actors and actresses to play older people.

And if you are a pop or rock star, why do you have to be weird (and yes I do mean you Lady Gaga) or kill yourself to still look like a 20 year old at the age of 50? I like the music, not the looks of the bands who play it.

Phew! I’m all ranted out now!

What do you mean “Thank God!”?

I will, of course, punish myself in December 2015 by finding out which celebrities have made complete and utter arses of themselves in the coming twelve months.

It confirms to me at least that I am a happy normal every day person.

Oh – and dear reader – if I somehow become really famous in 2015 and make an arse of myself in public you have my permission to come to Manchester and give me a good slap – although I will be so ashamed I will probably use my new found wealth to exile myself on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

Grumpy Old Man On Board

On my way home from work, I pulled up behind a car at a red traffic light and started to rant to myself, thus shattering yet another successful stint of being a mild-mannered Plastic Mancunian instead of the raging grumpy old git that I have become in my old age.

So why was I ranting?

Had the driver in the car in front driven like a maniac? No!

Had the driver of the car in front violated a traffic law? No!

Had the driver in front been an inconsiderate arse and pressed the road rage button in my brain? No!

Had the driver done something stupid? Well – depending on your viewpoint – yes!

I squinted at the rear windscreen and saw a sticker. The sticker was a small yellow diamond with tiny writing on it and a picture of a baby’s dummy (or pacifier if you live across the pond).

This was the sticker:

I’m sorry but this sticker has annoyed me ever since I started driving. 

Why? 

It seems innocuous enough, doesn’t it? Why should it make me pull out my soapbox and make me rant to myself mercilessly? 

Because it is totally and utterly pointless and assumes that random drivers are psychopaths. The problem  is that, while there may be psychopaths on the road, a stupid and pointless sticker is hardly likely to make him stop and think “I won’t smash into the back of THAT car! I'll choose ANOTHER one without a baby on board.”

First of all, the sticker itself has writing on it that is so small that you have to drive almost up the backside of the car before you can read it. 

Furthermore, if I really did have a crazy urge to smash into the back of the car in front, do you really think that when I was a yard away from it and looking forward to destroying both of our cars in a thoughtless act of road violence, seriously injuring or maybe killing both occupants (including myself) and, that a tiny sticker would make me think twice because there was an infant in the car?

There is only one sticker that makes me rant more – and it is this one:

I may be determined to destroy your car and my car even with a child of unknown gender but will definitely back off if it is a little girl.

It’s ridiculous! I just don’t get the reason for making the stickers so small. If anything they are more likely to make a driver think “What does that say” and drive closer than he would normally. I have driven my car with two young children in it and if anybody had dared to buy me a Baby on Board sticker I would have hurled it into the nearest bin.

That pointless sticker wasn’t the only one that irritated me. As I drove on, I turned away from the Baby on Board car, which was a good thing, but then I found myself behind another car with an equally ridiculous sticker in his back windscreen.

I was on a roll now. I ranted to driver in front, even though I knew that he couldn’t hear me.

“What do you mean Jesus I Trust In You? Are you expecting Jesus to drive up behind you and say “Thanks”? Are you just being smug and think that you are better than me because I am not religious enough to boast about my bond with the Son of God? Do you think anybody cares?”

Personally, I don’t have any car stickers because I simply don’t see the point of them. Some of them are vaguely funny but once you’ve got the joke why bother?

Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Yes, they bring a smile – once! See what I mean? They too are pointless –utterly pointless.

I’d rather have a nodding dog – and I hate those too. At least some of them are cute. Thankfully, they are few and far between these days:

And do you remember furry dice? What was the point of those? Do people actually buy them now? It seems they do:

I think a lot of people go overboard when it comes to pointless car accessories. I mean who in their right mind would buy headlight lashes?

Thankfully I have both taste and common sense. I don’t have a nodding dog and no stupid stickers will ever find their way in or on my car. 

The only thing I need is a music machine of some kind so that I can allow myself to drift into song instead of ranting at Baby On Board stickers.

To any readers who think they serve a purpose – they do not. The chances of them preventing a psychopath from ramming your car are miniscule. 

And they annoy people like me!

Mind you, if you like seeing grumpy old gits like me rant to themselves in a car, maybe you can get a perverse kind of pleasure from it.

I think I like my own sticker at the head of this post, actually. Maybe I will print it off and glue it to the back of my rear windscreen. It will certainly be accurate.

What do you think?