World of Crap gets cancelled.

So, its come to pass. That a popular non political, twitter page and blog about Rainbow, I follow, has come out in favour of Trump in the most mildest way possible. A milquetoast argument about having a fair election has predictably descended into the usual "she must be a Nazi, shut her down."

There is an opinion piece up on Russia's Toady setting out that it is the media that defines wokeness, and cancel culture is a symptom of this, plus a demonization of the working class.

There is general don't let the proles speak about this from the trendy London media set (though as a Londoner far away from the general Hampstead and Islington ponces that they're actually describing, my opinion counts for less). 

Also there is a few bits and pieces about how the Labour party (which I've voted for in the past) has lost the working class from its demographic focusing on race, gender and other middle class issues.

My own views are a match to this, to some extent. I swing more rightwards and am a liberal voter normally, albeit one that wants Brexit and some dialogue about immigration that doesn't get bogged down in feelings or accusations about being a Nazi, because bad people get deported.

I don't know who is behind the explosion of far left views, possibly academia, possibly not. I've been part of this for 5 years now, since gamergate. I know, I know, flogging that old, dead horse, but its a slow slide into politicizing everything, and you cannot dissent, or put a foot wrong (and as a monumental fuck up, this scares me more, I'm human I make mistakes.) or the left will eat you.

It's not just the left mind. There is a certain snowflakery about the right too. All Jesus freaks and god weirdos. Plus Trumps outburst and general unsportsmanlike refusal to concede in an election he lost fair and square, finally put him off me, more than any of his racist, sexist shit he did. Which means that all you see from them now is, count the ballots, and the election was stolen from us.

Which it wasn't though.  

Hounslow Junk Tour

Decided to go on another junk tour and this is one that I've wanted to do for some years now.

In a similar vein to my trip to Peckham this is another trip back to my childhood but this time its on my mum's side of the family as my granddad lived there for most his life. 

I can remember getting the train down with mum and dad and getting off  and going down piggy alley (probably not its real name) and head toward Cromwell Road. They built a massive hindu temple there in the mid 90's about the same time my granddad passed on.

Anyway this didn't actually turn out to be a trip to Hounslow itself to begin with. I wanted to go to Ealing but seeing as I had a choice of Richmond or waiting for the Ealing train, decided I'd visit there and have a look around. Their charity shop choices are limited and coming out to rain and seeing a bus for Hounslow decided I have fuck all to lose by getting on board and heading off there.

They still have a few places I remember as I came in. The bus station and the Treaty Centre which I remember opening as we got balloons, to take home. There is also a Blenheim Centre too which houses an Asda, a Bum (B+M) and a Barnardos. I could have gotten a CD dedicated to Gurbani Fonts which I guess is to do with Sikhism. Pity there wasn't 9 other CD's I wanted for a £1 as I'd have whacked it up on Archive.org for everyone.

Still raining as I came out and found my way to the main drag. Found the Cex where my cousin's kid worked. They have some communist little cunt out by the main entrance to the centre with a sign saying how wonderful Cuba is as a socialist paradise (It's not.) And came across the worlds grimmest game shop with an entire top row of DS games dedicated to 42 board games and brain training.

Working down we bought a ton of techno in the Princess Alice to make up for it and decided to call it a day and seemingly took the longest route back home which sucked.

555 Junk Tour

Went to Peckham Saturday, and instantly regretted it. Croydon is rightly thought of as the arsehole of south London but Peckham is this minus the trams. 

Can remember going there with my Nan for a good few years as an uncle lived up in the flats there. Can remember taking a dislike to the town hall clock as I remember it being remarkably ugly. Also I was possibly eating cold chips then as we had stopped off for fish and chips at another Aunts in Kennington.

As its been, what 30 odd years and there is a direct bus there, thought, well, lets see if  it's not absolutely awful.  Guess what, it's awful. 

I judge a place on whether it has:

A W H Smiths.

Or failing that any Charity shops. 

Peckham does not have a Smiths but does have a few charity shops. We picked up a few Reggae CD's which is kind of apt seeing its up there with Brixton for having a large and diverse community. Which is probably why it looks so run down, plenty of barbers, butcher shops,graffiti and fly posters everywhere. 

One redeeming feature is that after accepting a leaflet that I thought was from the Mormons but later found it to be Baptist shit and worse co opting anti SJW views to reel in the suckers. We found a poster hidden alluding to a record fair off Blenheim Road. Wondering where the hell it could be we found that by aimless wandering down the High street we had come to the exact street we needed.

Indeed the fair itself was under the arches and I nearly chickened out, but glad I stuck with it.  There is a few good things there including some disco Black Ark reissues for a tenner and a bunch of Dance records for around £8. We grabbed a bootleg of an old Reese track and a Jared Wilson stuff on Dixon Avenue Basement Jams. 

To top it off we were stuck with some fidgeting little black kids and their mum, visiting dad in jail at Belmarsh, so stuck with them for the remainder of the ride back home. 

Necrolog Castro Gtx.

Fidel Castro is dead, the communist cunt who looked like a tramp has finally gone.  His brother runs Cuba now but let that sink in the monster is dead.  I never liked him or Guevara that you saw so much on T shirts and the like (personally I wanted Guevara's head on a pike), truly the only good communist is a dead communist. 

He killed dissidents and made the gays work in the plantations and worst of all kept Cuba in some 50's hellhole due to ideology.   The left will moan on about him supporting anti apartheid and the like but many people of all political sides of the spectrum did that, its not just virtue signalling wankers in CND shirts and sandals. 

Its a weird thing to see especially on Twitter and the like where such virtue signalling is de rigeur. The amount of salty rage that came out thanks to stuff like Brexit or Trumps Election is immense. Add in pub bore Nigel Farage to mix and its the perfect storm of outrage and stupidity. No other opinion is entertained as they are all deemed correct and if you contradict this you are a racist little Englander or too stupid to understand, and therefore vote "correctly".

Anyway back to Castro dead, there are parallels when Thatch died although some were in grief there were a lot of cheering from the more undesirable unwashed members of public.

There are brilliant scenes of people in South Miami cheering his death, who genuinely remember what a total shit he was.  Latin communities who were devastated through his policies and had to escape illegally to the US (remember Elian Gonzalez) a lot of those escaping never made it.  You can mourn him but for me he'll always be the one person who ruined Cuba.

Remembrance and Election 16

Rather ill today, a roaming migraine that I normally get from jet lag has occurred, and worst of it all I've been nowhere.  Up in time to observe a minutes silence for breakfast and Theresa May and the Royals lay poppy wreaths at the cenotaph.  Oddly enough (and if you know this blog, we like oddities here) there is a wreath made of native flora from what is left of our glorious empire, the overseas territories.  It was a bit manhandled by Boris Johnson as it was set down but I thought it was a nice touch from what are still very loyal and dedicated communites.

Presidential election.

OK who had Donald Duck Trump down as the next president, because it certainly wasn't me.  I was fully expecting a sick liar and notorious crook to be the first female US president not some overbearing thin skinned oaf.  Of course Trump isn't the worst of it, people overlook his VP Pence or I kept seeing when it was on TV Vote Tuppence.  He's the worse kind of narrow minded Christian, who thinks queers can be cured, abortion is wrong and evolution is just a theory.  In other words he's a cock.  A cock with the finger on the nuke button and who gets to make policy.

I really wished it had been between Bernie Winters and Marco Rubio but Hilary knifed poor old Bernie and Marco didn't stand a chance against Ted Cruz.

Also with Trump as president I've got my yearly dose of salt simply by logging into twitter.  The amount of tweets I've seen, either really, really outraged or just downright mean have made me question peoples sanity.  We even have a rent a mob of pricks outside the US Embassy here protesting about racism and riots in the US (Quelle Suprise) since Trump came to power.  I think its fucking funny, watching the crybullies saying its like another 9/11 (it was here thanks to UK dating) and overshadowing a genuine tragedy in the process.

Personally I'll see how bad it gets, like Brexit I'm not going to lose sleep over it and see what this brave new world brings.

All hell breaking loose.

I was going to be writing about something different for this post, but if you've seen the news you'll know what I'll be talking about.  Maybe tomorrow as its bank holiday, clue it involves love and marriage and that, oh and Nick "don't have nightmares" Ross.

Hopefully he'll be killed in jail.

If you didn't guess its the callous murder of a soldier down in Rectory Lane, by two Islamic extremists.  I didn't pay much attention to this story when I heard it first on the radio as they were vague and said south London, its only when the papers and rolling news got into it that what they actually meant was Woolwich.

I've spent most of my life here and this is the first time anything like this has happened here.  True there have been some horrible shit such as the Stephen Lawrence Murder and a bomb attempt by the IRA but nothing like this.  

There was a march by the loony right wing EDL afterwards on the night and later a sponsored walk today (warning Nutter alert).  Culminating in Boris and Hamfaced dillweed David Cameron coming here to talk about it.

To be fair watching the rolling news of this I found Russia Today to have the best recap of it  even though they weren't local.  I'm trying to find footage of either Barack Obama talking about Woolwich or the CNN report according to a mate where they mispronouced Woolwich (I've given up on them mispronouncing Greenwich, its Grinidge not Grenitch).  The BBC had a outside broadcast from the mosque on Plumstead High Street and basically just spouted what a diverse area it was in a patronising voice (it was then I switched over before I kicked a hole in the TV).  Its diverse, i'll give you that with a few muslims and that but its largely african christians or Gurkhas, some of the Indians and Pakistanis I grew up with are still around but are fewer in number now.

We have yet to see the site where it happened but would imagine it to be a sea of tributes, they hold the Meridian bootsale up at the back of the hospital site and during the games cut through past the barracks, and come down that way to reach home, so I'm not unfamiliar with the area at all.  Would go up there but decided to hold off as a mark of respect.

Room 101 pt 2

We did one of these way back, looking at Jehovahs Witlesses, Marzipan, Storms, N Dubz and our Cilla (who lets be fair wasn't that bad).  The show has had a bit of a redesign so in order to comply with the new rules it we'll add a further three to the list and go into more details.

 Incidentally, the show itself is a bit meh now, Frank Skinners the host now and  there are now 3 people argue their cause instead of one guest with a list of stuff.  Its still funny but has its own problems.  Most of the guests are rank and its locked down to certain approved genres rather than a general whinge.

For those that keep track of such things here are how its gone down over the years.

The Original with Nick Hancock and Frank Skinner as guest.

The later version with:
Paul Merton as Host and Stephen Fry as guest.

and finally:
 Frank Skinner with old vinegar tits Craig Revel Horwood as one of the guests the other is some comedian and Sheila Hancock.

You'll see a sharp decline in quality here as both Paul Merton and Nick Hancock are supremely watchable whereas Frank Skinners internship, while still boss, is noticeably crapper.

Thats enough about the show I'll add my further three things to exile for oblivion here.

Paloma Faith.

The new format gave us an unholy nexus of evil that had Michael McIntyre and her as guests on the new series.  The last guest I've forgotten but could have been Pol Pot for balance sake.  Anyway McIntyre is of course an Insincere Dave a telemarketer posing as a comedian with a plastic soul and bugger all funny and he's still runner up to her.

Imagine if Janet Street Porter and Polly Toybee from the Guardian spawned a child, so left wing and irritating in both voice (a little girl voice thats enough to drive you mad) and politics (Socialist nonsense), that the only sane response would be to kill it with fire.  Room 101 only lasted 30 minutes but when she was on I'm sure it lasted a whole millennium.  She's the reason I can safely demote Cilla Black to only a harmless Irritant. 

In App Purchases.

Do you play games on facebook or smartphone, you'll know what you mean.  They are the optional bollocks you get so you can add custom tat to your farm in Farmville, or give yourself extra lives or do anything in Candy Crush Saga.  They're a cancer ruining decent games, often giving you a massive paywall so you either pay up to proceed and gain better stuff or you get left behind.  I may write more about this, but so far its the singlest most unappealing thing about modern games.

A Question of Sport.

 I'm no lover of Sue Barker, so this goes in.  Nick Hancock used to do a show called They Think Its All Over, a sports quiz that pisses over this from a great height.  I see its reusing some of the rounds that were on there but with its trademark Forced Bonhomie.  In fact that would be an enjoyable rebranding A Question of Forced Bonhomie.  Its been going on since the mid 80's (it had David Colemanballs as host and was enjoyable) and seems stuck in a timewarp of bad puns, smugness and bloody Sue Barker draining the life out of everything she touches.

Hells Teeth.

Hello viewers, you find us not so great today.  I have the dilemma of having a wisdom tooth out tomorrow, and to say I'm not looking forward to this at all is a major understatement.  It has been causing trouble for ages but crucially it didn't keep me up at night or was as painful as fuck, just a little discoloured.  Sadly its come to this, and at an emergency appointment on friday they made me a deal I couldn't refuse either they refill it and to be honest wisdom teeth are expendable (hold overs from the time when we were less evolved and had more jaw space for mighty molars) or remove it all together, what with them being a bugger to clean and that we decided on the latter. 

Like I say I haven't looked up purposefully what this operation entails but I trust my dentist on this.

Last PS2 rolls off of the plant in Japan.

In slightly less sad news, it looks like Japan is shutting down production of the PS2,  according to the Grauniad the PS2 is ceasing production after 12 years due to it not being commercially viable.  I've had great times with my own PS2, even going so far as to get a network adaptor and soft mod it with FreeMCBoot.

Crucially they are still making games for PS2 though this is just annual FIFA updates and an expansion pack for FFX1.  We also hear reports that its still popular in second / third world countries so there maybe life yet in the old dog, be interesting to see what India and Brazil software companies make of the PS2.

Ambient track is best relaxing track ever.

In other news bears shit in woods and the Pope is confirmed to be a Catholic after serious doubts.

To be fair we havent heard of Marconi Union before and if it wasn't for this spurious top ten for Radox Shower gel then I probably wouldn't have either, to put you out of your misery the track can be listened to here.  If you are wondering about the rest of the list if its made out of  Oophoi or Lustmord tracks then you're SOL.  Though Adele Someone like you is there which is intriguing as its in the running for my favourite track of the year.

Something else that is entirely relaxing, and we've fully romanized the title for this, was the Mystery Playstation game for our Yokai game round up.  It is Ore no Shikabane o Koete Yuke, and yeah thanks to my shit Japanese we had to fix up our translation in JDICT so we could google it.  It looks really nice and has a relaxing theme song.  If you speak Japanese and or just dig a nice acapella the homepage is here.    Made by Alfa System who if memory serves correct did the excellent Shikigami no Shiro series of shmups for Naomi hardware and PS2 (we have a Pal localisation courtesy of Play it under the name Castle Shikigami 2).

Translated loosely as something like And My Corpse Transcends Me, its a mix of RPG and Sim where you are cursed by a Demon and all your resultant offspring have really short lives, you have to manage them to try and break the demons curse. You can download the original Playstation version here, where we culled most of the info from.   Looks pretty good as far as yokai games go, but a word of warning it was never localised so you'll need pretty hefty Japanese skills to get anything out of this.

F You.

I really don't get You magazine. For the uninitiated / unaware its a Sunday supplement to the Mail on Sunday, Britain's premier middle England mouthpiece and general home of immigrant scare stories and Jonathan Ross lynching petitions.
Whereas Live, its male equivalent is all expensive consumer goods, TV listings with the occasional interesting story, You is something more sinister.

Its mainly articles about women with a few bits of fashion and cookery that have that old school women's mag feel, coupled with new school women's mags (mainly homeopathic / alternative medicine,) they used to integrated health at one time, with Dr Ali and wildly surreal pictures by Martin Haake.

The articles fit into two camps, Sloane type moves to the country and finds solace in arts and crafts, middle class worry Du jour, includes economic troubles modern etiquette and bukkake (OK not bukkake).

There's further arts and crafts stuff in the homebuyers bit and the only good bit (a crossword) before it all goes to hell. I really can't stand Liz Jones and both magazines end with total cunts (Live has Britain's got Talent judge Piers Morgan). It seems to end with her bemoaning her cheating ex and slowly going mad on Exmoor with her extended menagerie of creatures. Kind of like an Equine version of the Shining, but with less Jack Nicholson.

There's also a cartoon called Demented that seems to be the fevered ravings of Viz's Millie Tant. Its normally either politician hatred or banker hatred, with a few non male bashing strips added to it. We normally doctor them in pencil to make them more surreal or draw stuff on them. See above for a rework.