Bignjuicy

If you want to understand the contemporary values of our nation, one way might be to determine what is most interesting to those who like to idle away time looking at news website videos.

Lo and behold, I bring you today’s top five most watched videos on BBC News.

	Fast food and violence. Yum yum.
	Voyeurism and the promise of witnessing death and destruction. Yeah!
	Fast moving traffic, voyeurism and the promise of witnessing death and destruction AND women - Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
	Bizarre B-movie voyeuristic destructo sensationalism. Just the thing for a lunch break gosstopic.
	Property. Hmm, maybe Sarah Beeny might feature…

Did you know that the street named in the famous Beatles song, Penny Lane, was named after one James Penny? Did you know that James Penny, who died in 1799, was active in the slave trade until the American War of Independence and later took up the trade again when the war ended?  Furthermore, Penny spoke in defence of the slave trade to Parliament in 1788; he argued that abolition of the trade would destroy the economy of Liverpool;

“it would not only greatly affect the commercial interest, but also the landed property of the County of Lancaster and more particularly, the Town of Liverpool; whose fall, in that case, would be as rapid as its rise has been astonishing.”

Thankfully Penny was proved wrong, Liverpool survives still. A policy of changing the name of Liverpool streets associated with the slave trade deliberately excluded Penny Lane from the process. Like Penny, the city knows where its bread is buttered.

I’ve always been a big fan of certain high street store.
These are the things I like about them:

Good quality merchandise.
Good customer service.
Sexually suggestive adverts for food.
Wide selection of knickers in all capacities and configurations.
Gusset guarantee.
Individual foil wrapped delicious chocolate digestives that remind me of when I was 6.
Hand polished strawberries that taste of strawberry.
Soft bread for pensioners with no teeth (I am not one of them).
Employed Twiggy  when she was about to join Eastenders in desperation .
Nice Swiss chocolate in  bulk packs.
Giant photos of fish and chips next to the tills.

These are the things I don’t like about them:

Their Executive Chairman has revealed himself to be a raving Tory nutjob.

As a raving unreconstructed socialist loony leftie, I now feel the urge to boycott the store so as to make a protest against the unacceptable intrusion of politics into my underwear. The only trouble with this is that I would miss the chocolate. A lot.

What should I do Marje? As you were also a lifelong raving unreconstructed socialist loony leftie I’m sure you can help.

Yours drD

Farewell Blogger / Bloogle / Gloogle / Goggle or whatever you call yourself now. Thanks for the email telling me you were going to discontinue servicing my requirements due to being amazingly huge and indifferent to mere prawns such as I. I have logged off and bogged off from you for the last time. I wiped my feet on the way out.

Farewell Haloscan / Halitosis / Hall of Fame / Echobeach  or whatever you call yourself now. Thanks for the email telling me you were going to discontinue servicing my requirements due to being amazingly cheap and unwilling to be free anymore to mere prawns such as I. I have logged off and bogged off from you for the last time. I exported my bits on the way out but you didn’t supply any instructions on how to glue them back together again. I can’t say I blame you; you’ve obviously got a load of work on divesting yourself of freeloaders such as I once was.

Hello WordPress. I’m growing fonder by the moment. I feel somehow that we are going places together. You have given me so many buttons and things and widgets to play with. Somehow I feel more in control of my own destiny and less at the mercy of  the blogglecloud or the halistasisphere. This may be a delusion. I’ve probably already uploaded my DNA to the CIA without even realising. So silkily sexily smooth was your installation. I like you WordPress. You press my buttons baby.

This week I’ll mostly be 47. It only seems a moment ago that I was 42. 42 is sort of old. It’s sort of just over 40 which although ‘old’ when you are 16 is not really that old when you get to be 42. But 47. That’s nearly 50. And I’m noticing that I’m getting crustier and the funny thing is that I don’t care. That’s what mental decline does for you. You become more annoying and argumentative and less willing to put up with sh*t but you don’t really mind too much that people find you annoying. You actually quite enjoy the feeling that you are making an impact. For example, today I had to deal with the unfortunate case of the credit card company that failed to follow their own procedures and then tried to charge me £37.65 for having done so. Not only did I hear myself saying, “This is a terribly disconnected organisation. How much money are they wasting by having you deal with my problem in such an inefficient manner?” I also heard myself saying, “I expect to be compensated for my time in having to come here today when all of this could easily have been sorted out on the phone when I called two weeks ago.” I suspect that the 42 year old me would not have said those things. He might have got the same outcome but in a slightly less abrasive (dare I admit pompous) way. He might have felt a tad more awkward about speaking up for himself than 47 year old me. I still have gnawing uncertainties in these situations but I now believe in myself much more than I did when younger. I’m dangerous, I believe I’m right and I mean to have satisfaction! What has become of me? This week I’ll try to break my recent dearth of postings and get to grips with this final week of my 46thhood. Mainly as a way of creating something to look back on when I’m even more decrepit. Partly as a snapshot illustration of what might lie before you if you are younger. I never saw myself quite as I am now. This week I might see myself even more differently; I’ve not decided yet what to write about. Let’s see what happens.

Unfortunately named energy companies: no 1
Dong

Recent goings on
During the recent bignjuicy interval you may, or may not, have noted the following:
Alternative health care Serbian style: “Would you like the herbal foot massage or the genocidal incarceration in a cow shed?” I’ll never look at my acupuncturist in quite the same way again.
Sophia (Estelle) is gone. I had an aunty who was more like Sophia than Sophia. The world needs more acerbity in its senior citizens.
How a man can make himself irresistible, “I want you now – you smell of manky old flowers and bumholes.”
Courtesy of those wacky dudes at Urinal.net I found out about the 8* mens bog underneath Trafalgar Square. It’s truly astounding – a vision in stainless steel and granite; makes you proud to be British. Why not try out the interactive international urinal map too? [I know]
Matt Baker [spiritual lovechild of John Noakes] actually has more credibility as a gymnastics commentator than as a doggy describer, having been a Junior British Gymnastics squad and a British sports acrobatics champion. Whodathowtit?

Unfortunately named Permanent Secretaries, of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform of the United Kingdom Government no 1
Sir Brian Bender
[ I wonder if he's related to Walter? ]

How you say?
Beijing.
Bay jing or Beigeing?

Unfortunately named potential Prime Ministers of Japan: no 1
Mr Fukuda

Never knew that
Sarah Smith, Channel 4 news presenter, is the daughter of former Labour leader John Smith.

You know you’re addicted to gardening when:
You find yourself watering plants outside in the middle of a downpour; in case they won’t get a good enough soaking.

Different or the same?
1. Treble or triple?
2. e-mail or email?
3. Mormon or Moron?

I’ve been unbelievably slack in posting. Having to confess I’ve been v.busy but also demotivated for a number of reasons. ‘What is the point?’, ‘Why bother?’ etc etc. What to do eh?

Running rings round uranus.
Quite.

Brand free
“Shopping for locally produced, small-scale produce remains a constant struggle in Britain, but the hollow dazzle of the High Street has been replaced by something infinitely more satisfying. I know my local shopkeepers by name. There being little alternatives to branded ready meals and processed food, I have lost almost a stone in weight simply from eating all natural produce. Spending less money overall, my bank balance is back in the black.”
Interesting experience in trying to live a year ‘brand free’. However it’s somewhat undermined by the fact he started off by having a huge bonfire of all his possessions and is now trying to flog his book. Yawn.

Txt < £
If you, like me, aren't tied into a mobile phone contract with inclusive texts you might be interested to know that 18185 have a facility to send SMS texts from your PC to virtually anywhere in the world for 1p. It’s pay as you go and you can use it for sending the same text to multiple numbers simultaneously. Melikey muchly. [ If you want the recipe for making it look as though the texts come from your mobile - just ask nicely... ]

Unfortunately named directors of stem cell biology laboratories: no 1
Dr Minger