Is the world crazy or am I?

Politicians love their policy nicknames don’t they and the ‘Big Society’ being flouted by David Cameron is the latest in a long list of nonsensical sounding government initiatives. In a nutshell the Big Society is a new scheme to try and coax the British public into becoming more involved in government, by allowing them to run many local utilities and services themselves. Sounds like a good thing I’m sure, by promoting the good old fashioned ‘can do’ spirit of the British people and giving we, the public, more control over our lives seemedly? Of course that is what I think the coalition government would have us thinking, whilst the reality is that they just want to palm off a load of costly government functions onto us, whilst they happily get back to their ‘important’ tasks like voting themselves another pay rise above inflation, while our pay remains frozen below it. Let’s not forget that it will also remove a lot of accountability from Whitehall if the likes of another Baby P ...

 I found myself watching a strange programme on BBC Two this week called One Man and His Camper Van , which follows Martin Dorey chomping his way around the UK in a moving metal tent. Firstly who is Martin Dorey? According to a quick scan of the web, he is a “foodie” and is said to also enjoy surfing, writing, shrimping and camper van-ing. He has also had a book called The Camper Van Cookbook published, which would explain why this concept has made it onto TV. If it is simple enough to get a cook book published - so long as it has a niche – then I may as well press ahead with my concept for The Bus Top Deck Cook Book , where I can teach readers how to cook sumptuous dishes whilst commuting on the top deck of the bus. Foodie for Thought Now the term “foodie” sets alarm bells ringing for me, as it’s similar to saying “I’m not a chef, I’m a foodie”, which in itself is similar to saying “I’m not a policeman, I’m a justice instructor” – or a PCSO. It also conjures up images o...

I don’t know what it is about Apple. Whether it be the smugness of people who swear by its products, or the increasing ubiquity of the brand; I just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone and iPad are pretty and shiny bits of kit and Steve Jobs is undoubtedly a marketing and computing genius but there is something that alienates me about Apple. Now for one thing, people who worship Jobs get on my nerves. I know the man is infinitely more charismatic and likeable than the likes of Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates and Larry Ellison and as I said before I respect what he’s achieved. Then again, I also equate Jobs to a drug dealer who gets you hooked on his expensive wears. This cartoon explains the matter further. I am not a fan of how restrictive Apple products are. Sure, “there’s an app for everything” and all that, but I dislike the fact that the company keeps trying to make its customers use its own software instead of giving users access to apps and programmes they are familia...

News oligarch Richard Desmond’s Northern and Shell publishing group has left the Press Complaints Commission. Just upped and left it. Not been cast out, not been asked to leave. It has just quit it. In many ways it is a bit like the company has told the PCC that it is taking its proverbial ball and is going home with it as it doesn’t want to play anymore. It’s not like Northern and Shell hasn’t had a scolding from the PCC in the past after all. Cast your mind back a couple of years and you may remember this atrocity , where the Scottish edition of The Express was forced to apologize for chastising the survivors of the Dunblane shootings for basically being teenagers. Also remember the case of OK magazine, who tastelessly published, what can only be described as a pre-posthumous tribute, to then not-yet-dead celeb-felch that was Jade Goody. This development will inevitably leave readers wondering who they should complain to if they dislike or disagree with something in The Daily...

Yes indeed folks, the fleeting period of festivities is over – well, over at least until the shops get their way to start flogging Christmas goods weeks after we take the decorations down, either that or we endure a perpetual Christmas season forced by the shops. Think about it, I’m sure we can use the economy to justify it somewhere. It’s been an odd Christmas this year as it has felt like everyone has been trying to ignore the event so it will go away or have been begrudgingly accepting it at the very least, whilst really not wanting it to be there. Basically Christmas this time around has been a bit like a mangy blind old dog, with bladder problems, that just won’t leave you alone. This year has been a real old-school “hard times” kind of Christmas. I’m quite honestly surprised we didn’t all get assigned regulation fingerless gloves and tatty macs. All the components were there, the snow, the recession, the alcoholism etc. It’s been a real taste of the 1980s. Well, we might...

Tron, when it arrived on the scene in 1982 was a groundbreaking picture. Whilst it didn’t perform particularly well at the box office, it was the first step on the road to CGI in cinemas, which for better or for worse, is now highly common place in the world of cinema. Tron was indeed influential and now in 2010 the long awaited sequel has finally arrived. Directed by Joseph Kosinski And starring Garrett Hedlund and Jeff Bridges, Tron Legacy picks up on the story twenty years on and delivers a visually stunning and entertaining next gen style reimagining of what proceeded before. The plot is rather by the numbers and follows an establishment, action, development, action, finale set-up, action, finale kind of structure; in short there’s quite an emphasis on action. Despite being relatively standard action movie fare as far as a plot is concerned – especially considering the narrative will normally take a back seat in a film like this, usually to the detriment of the film as a whole...

“The children are our future” so the saying goes. Kids and teens have been pretty hard done by over the years; be it from the fear spread by media such as Reefer Madness in the 1930s, any teenage rebellion movie in the 1950s, or more recently, Waterloo Road. Indeed, on-screen portrayals of adolescents are often just hate-inducing. It is troubling to find that such a grim world view of the big and small screen can have an influence on a persons perception of the tykes, to the point where you feel vindicated to trip-up the next pubescent chap or chappette that you see in the street. It’s not fair or nice and you can’t help but feel manipulated by a cackling writer somewhere, who is idly writing another gormless, unsympathetic teen character into a script somewhere. Here are a few current TV programmes that will turn you into a bitterly vengeful teen-hater: The Season: One of the BBC’s latest attempts at ‘getting down with the kids’, can be found on BBC Switch (a kind of CBBC for...

Flashmobbing has become a fad of late and it is easy to see why; the spontaneous, silly actions are quite funny. Flashmobbing is nothing new either, considering the term was first used back in 2003, I even remember there was a Flashmob society at my university (I heard they once ran into Cardiff town centre for a spontaneous water balloon fight before scarpering). The fun and hilarity is being hijacked by the marketers now however, as T-Mobile continues to ramp up it’s televisual, ‘feelgood’ public transport sing-a-long ad campaign. The phone company has made a few adverts set around public areas already, normally involving a mass group of people singing or dancing, whilst the camera occasionally pans to shots of smiling onlookers clutching their phones and texting with glee. It’s easy to see how this is effective marketing in that sense. The latest offering however, has actually perturbed me a little more than the others. It is set in the Heathrow Terminal 5 international arriv...

Social networking has seen some interesting fads over the years. Whether it be the recent #iamspartacus trend on Twitter or people sending round those dodgy emails proclaiming a virus is going to eat your computer unless you spread the word to your friends, people love following a cause online. I have found myself a bit confused by the recent trend on Facebook of changing a profile picture to that of a favourite childhood cartoon character, all in the name of some vague raising of awareness. The message being spread at the moment on the site claims: ‎"Change your Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same, for the NSPCC. Until Monday (December 6th), there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is a campaign to stop violence against children." Ok fair enough, a good cause indeed and a form of affirmative action is following, fine. But how does this help children exactly?...

At last reality has finally caught up with me and I have recently joined the droves of people who go off to work for 8 hours every day for the rest of their lives. There is a lot to get used to in this time as things rapidly change and the carefree life once known becomes but a distant memory. One such challenge that I have come up against is the commute. Like many people I need to commute to my office and the journey from home to central London takes about an hour door-to-door. Now what I have learned thus far is that if the commute goes well, then it is but a blip on your consciousness and passes quickly. However, if things go wrong then it can be frustrating and horrifying, with every draining second of it becomes a battle against for your very sanity. I have already encountered a number of irritating challenges that crop up in the commute, see if you recognise these nightmares: Delays –  When these happen (and I guarantee you THEY WILL) you are powerless to resist. ...

It's that spooky time of year, where the leaves are changing and everything is a little bit colder and eerier. Not least because the clocks went back this weekend and we are treated to dusk setting in at nearly 4pm. The atmosphere must suggest that it’s time again for the merchandising clusterfuck that is Halloween. Now I'm probably going to be universally derided as a killjoy for not liking Halloween, which is on the surface a quite innocuous event (unless you are flour bombed), but I just don’t like it. Surprisingly I might not be the silent fist shaking minority I originally thought I was, as I’ve actually been quite pleased by the amount of commentators on the radio and TV who seem to agree with me; implying that maybe I’m not mad but that society is. I don't know what it is about it that riles me so much? Whether it's the fact I hate dressing up because of this costume-party-friendly time, or if it's that I just don’t like the idea of being forced to buy s...

Now I know I won’t be the only online commentator making a reference to this matter this week; but will people please shut up about Wayne Rooney’s desire to leave Manchester United FC. Just stop it, forget it exists and move on! Seriously close your eyes, and think very hard about not thinking about Wayne Rooney. There are so many better things in the world to focus on for example. Flowers come to mind, or kittens etc. Just don’t think about stroppy professional footballers. Rooney is a spud faced, over moneyed, blustering, chest beating little man-child, who is whining because his boss gave him a telling off one too many times. Besides, he hasn’t been playing very well recently, so why does a man of his status and salary deserve any coddling? Rooney’s star has been falling fairly steadily since the disappointing world cup showings. Sure, there have been some flashes of brilliance but ultimately he has been underwhelming. This matter is not helped by his frustrated approach to ma...

  Recently I was invited by some mutual friends to attend a wine tasting at the Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair. Now this was my first attempt at trying to understand wine as well as my first real introduction into a very exclusive crowd. So here goes with my attempt to explain the day. Wine tastings have a very mysterious air about them. The layman would see them as pretentious, odd events where people spout the most nonsensical drivel about a drink that seems to have a similar taste across its range, whilst openly spitting in polite company. It is very hard to penetrate the wine community as it is an exclusive and obtuse industry, full of technical knowhow and well trained pallets. If you don’t know about wine and go to a place where you are greatly outnumbered by wine connoisseurs you will find yourself lost in a sea of grape varieties, subtle tastes and regional nuances. So much so you will feel like you’ve just been told to sit a test about what you’ve learned, whilst being sh...

After months of waiting, and with a suitable amount of hype, the Apprentice has appeared back on British screens at last, as Lord Scowler Sugar (I wonder if he insists that his wife refer to him as Lord Sugar too?) begins the search for a new bootlicker. Firstly let me diffuse a myth, The Apprentice is not a representation of real business in action. I’m pretty sure that anyone who claims that the Apprentice is a representation of real business practice probably still believes in the tooth fairy or Tiger Wood’s fidelity, as most people surely must have realised that real business it ain’t. The candidates this year seem to be an even bigger collection of cocks, back stabbers and self important windbags, which is quite frankly fantastic. The most amusing thing is that quite a few are out of work, as the recession continues to ravage our economy (I know as well as anyone), which means they have less of a credible position to pontificate about how bloody great they are. The task th...

TV and movie Sidekicks are an odd breed. Effectively their only purpose in a film is to prop up, or provide the comic relief to a films hero. They are the wingman, the guy who might have to throw away his life or, more likely, provide a diversion so that the hero succeeds.  Despite their noble job description some of the most irritating and teeth grinding characters ever, have played the part of sidekicks in major movies. Today we’re going to look at a few of the worst. Warning: This list contains characters that will make you lose the will to live. Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars): Any annoying sidekick catalogue cannot be complete without Jar Jar making the list. Perhaps one of the most hated cinema creations of all time, this childish, bumbling, infuriating, racist stereotype, kind of marked the beginning of the end for George Lucus’s credibility. Why he didn’t take the initiative and just kill this stupid waste of space off is anyone’s guess. Let's not forget it is in fact Jar Ja...