According to the Lloyd’s List (don’t ask why I have a copy to read):

The Belgian dredging giant Jan de Nul offered to bring an early end to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by deploying its fallpipe vessel Simon Stevino, which has a much broader pipe than the funnel currently being used by BP. However, a law that restricts coastal traffic to US built and flagged vessels has frustrated their offer of help.

Barrack O-fuck-face, set aside the protectionist piece of shite Jones Act for them to help. Either you want this cleaned up or you don’t, personally I don’t give a shit, but stop beating BP for not being responsive enough when you won’t let people with legitimate offers of help actually provide it.

Something else that also tickled me today was that people are wanting Tony Blair to run BP. Obviously not British people as they remember what a shit job he did running a country. Maybe when Barrack O-fuck-face doesn’t get elected he can have a job in one of BP petrol stations, cleaning windscreens or something.

On a lighter note this new iPhone game has an amusing slice of hypocrital irony. There are specific terms in the Apple developers guide that say you cannot hate a specific entity (human or company) and since every bad thing that has happened to the US since September 11 is BP’s fault, this is obviously a case of Apple siding with the BP Blame Storm community. Or… (for the hypocrisy bit) you are not allowed to club seals but you can drown ducks… why?

Oh how I laughed. To be fair though England did play pretty well, and I guess we must have just felt sorry for the Americans so we had to level the score for half time. On the plus side you could argue that England did score both goals in the game.

The thing that annoys me the most though… On the radio yesterday afternoon, a Californian girl said that the final score would be 1-1 and that America would be happy with that, while the Brits would be gutted. First of all, Californian, second of all, Girl… what does she know about football? But she was right.

And so down goes my theory that Football would be a good way to resolve disputes instead of war. Nevermind.

bigoted lady

O.k. the daily mail may have an agenda here, but still, all Gordy had to do [was probably not call her a bigot in the first place but] stand by his words, and I’d have voted for the guy with the spine…. but then he went and apologised.

Spineless, illiterate twat!

What with Clegg wanting to disband the NHS, rock on Tories!!!

…are actually weakly genetic freaks and shouldn’t be allowed to breed.

But that also defines most Americans, French and people from Essex, but they seem to be allowed to breed. Another double standard perhaps?

Oh no, not this again.

I thought we had dealt with the annoying and completely irrelevant point of the pay gap for women. And blacks, and the disabled, and well, I thought we had been though the lot and fair-ificated it all… seems we are slacking again… but why? Are we all just sexists? Did we just do it all in the first place to shut everyone up, hoping no-one would check in the future? Or, is there a reason why women get paid less.

Where I work, my female boss gets paid 100% more than I do – is that fair? Sure she has a great pair of breasticles, but is that really enough? Well, technically she is my boss, so you would expect her to be paid more, isn’t this just a complete load of demographics? On the one hand the BBC article say that the disparity is because there are not so many women reaching the higher positions… this would suggest that the survey performed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission is a complete load of wank. The argument is no longer that women are being passed over for men in the same role, but that women are not being paid enough because, well, I’ll skweem and skweem until I get a pay rise.

I bet that if you find a role that requires general luvy-duvyness, hand holding, wearing less clothing, talking about make-up, cooing over babies, or gossiping about how Dave and Mildred are now sleeping together, then I bet you will also notice a higher than 50% smattering of women in that niche area.

Lets look at some of the issues as I see them.

Multitasking… All women say they do it all the time, and that men are incapable of it… well, it may not actually be a good thing according to the Register relating to a recent stanford report. Sure it’s cool to be thinking about whether you have a suitable amount of cleavage exposed, the weather, what you are going to cook tonight, if your make-up needs refreshing as well as the press release you are about to send – but how much better would that press release be if you concentrated 100% on that.

Nicer place to work… Well, since the introduction of women into my workplace the scenery is a lot better, but that’s about all that’s good. Conversation has dropped, rules about conduct sky-rocket, productivity is in the gutter, and there is a global recession on for god’s sake… You cannot tell me women had no hand in that.

Maternity leave… Ok, my biggest bug-bear. Either we are equal rights, or we are not. Either men and women are equal or they are not… well, guess what… generally they are not. Physically they are different, mentally they are different, emotionally they are different, on what are men and women equal? In an equal world, men would have equal right regarding child care. The courts would weight the case for custody equally when people get divorced. Men would also get 6 months off work at full pay to help look after their new born… but on what planet is this acceptable? Look at the consequence of the converse… That huge oil deal, that huge financial buy, that signing of property rights… what would happen if a company said, “Sorry, can you wait 6 months as the CEO is off on Parental Leave?” Well, women can “promise” that they won’t go and have kids I suppose, but it’s illegal to even ask that, and you certainly cannot enforce it or sack a woman for not turning up. Hell I reckon it’s even illegal these days to temporarily put a man in a woman’s role in case of ‘the message’ this would send.

Support groups… ok, my second biggest bug-bear. In the diverse and inclusive company that I work in we have a “woman’s network”. We were never allowed to have a “Men’s network” as this is sexist and elitist, but a woman’s network isn’t? Sure they let men in, but their mandate is “Supporting women in the workplace”… erm… hello!! Now, women either need “supporting” because they are incompetent/inferior and this is positive discrimination, or this is a simple case of sexism against men.

At the end of the day, sure, there are butch lesbians that can carry a landrover up a ladder and would make excellent builders. Sure, there are raging homo blokes that are ‘colour aware’ and make excellent hair dressers. But are roles really that biased? If someone agrees to a performance contract and meets it, they should be entitled to the rewards it brings. Just because there are not so many women in the higher echelons of the world is this really a problem? Not all men get to the top either but this is deemed fair.

I also seem to remember a very awesome female prime minister, but to be fair in today’s world, would you be comfortable with a person who is psychologically unhinged 5 days per month in charge of the largest arsenal of nuclear weaponry on the planet – there will never be a woman president of the United States of America.

To say I’m unsatisfied with the product is this years understatement of the year. If I’d of had my lump hammer or fubar to hand I would have a nicely painted room (including the floor) and a Dulux PaintPod in about 7 million pieces embedded with the paint. Instead I am going to attempt to take the unit back to B&Q for a refund. This may be my last post for 7 to 10 years as if they don’t refund the unit I may have to drag the guy over the counter and use him to beat the thing into 7 million bits.

Oh, and while I’m critiquing this piece of garbage the “self clean system” is really anything but as well. I put the unit back together and pressed the drain button… since the walls of the tube are covered in paint you don’t really know it has done it… but I followed the instructions. I then put the roller in the cradle thingy, filled it up with warm water and pressed clean… 5 excruciatingly noisy minutes later it had used half the water and done very little except stop. The roller was still covered in paint and it was tricky lifting the used water container out without spilling painty water all over my kitchen – which, like my previously mentioned newly stained wooden floor, does not need painting! The next 2 cleans used up all of the water but were still surprising loaded with paint. I ran the process three more times – a total of 5 and a half clean cycles – and gave up and washed the roller under the tap for another 15 minutes.

When this thing was first released a couple months ago it was retailing at about £90. Some places are still selling it for up to £80 so I thought I had a bargain at £60. Turns out it’s gonna cost me another hundred quid or so to sand and restain my previously mentioned newly stained wood floor – and I still have to paint the flippin walls and ceiling!!!

The doctors rating for this piece of crap:

STAY AWAY FROM THIS PIECE OF CRAP

Bollocks, I worked on some of the English pieces of that and we used metric, which is why you fucked it up. It clearly stated “Metres” (or was it “Meters”) in all of the interface specifications. Grrr!!!

I never thought I’d say it, but today America, you are annoying me more than the French normally do!!!

You are not the ruler of the world. Deal with it!

“I’m fat because I have a hormonal problem and there is nothing the doctors can do”.

Annoying bint, you’re fat because you eat too much!

As a fat person, I really get annoyed when obviously fat people try and hide the fact they are fat. Retaining water, hormonal, big boned… basic biology people, you stick too much crap in your cake hole, you don’t exercise enough to shift it, your body stores it away. You have two options, stop eating crap, or deal with it!

Another really annoying thing is when non-fat people are to ashamed to say “fat”, instead, they go down the “Heavy set”, “big boned”, “chunky”, “gravity challenged”, “outdoorsy” route in case they offend the fat person they are talking about. It’s not politically correct, its stupidity!

Obesity is an interesting phenomenon. Obesity is leading causes of death in the western world, and affects some 25% of the population in the UK, and along with other social diseases like smoking and drinking causes the British tax payers billions per year to treat on the NHS. How long can it last. With the recent buckling of final salary pensions and the government putting pension concerns on the individual, will the NHS be next. As a Brit, I am proud of our free for all health service. O.k. it’s not as good as it used to be but lets face it, immigration and idiots have put a real strain on the country as a whole over the last few years, not just the health service… I’d start going private if I were you

Oh, and according to the World Health Organisation, I am “Super Obese” yay. Of course this is mostly because I am big boned!

So as a movie it actually stand up on it’s own. If you do follow the chronicles of James Tiberius Kirk then you will pick up on the funnier bits from the series, for example the guy in the red uniform the goes down to the planet and always gets killed.

Followers of the rest of the genre are not left out either, everyone on the bridge waits for the captain to get the mission underway with his special ‘word’ to the pilot.

Since you may already know the original series bridge line-up, the writers have cunningly tried to use a time paradox to mix it up a bit. If you’re scratching your head a bit don’t worry, I don’t think it really added to the plot much but basically it means that an enemy from the future comes back at the beginning of the filmand the rest of the film is actually running in an alternate reality… See, still none the wiser and it really doesn’t matter.

The effects are pretty good. There is a lot of camera movement to emphasize things, so if you’re sensitive about such things then this may not be your cupcake Simon Pegg’s accent is disappointing and from completely the wrong side of the country, but he still adds some really good comic effect. There are also strong performances from the rest of the main cast and even future spock’s cameo wasn’t all that bad although Leonard Nimoy is actually 129 years old in real life so be warned!

So, the bad? Well films around time travel bother me, but this one isn’t so bad. Simon Pegg’s accent bothered me. The fast movement can be a pain on the big screen.

And the good? Well let’s face it if that’s all I have to moan about then do you need to ask? It is a good space action movie that stands on it’s own but is enhanced with exposure to the genre.

I’d recommend you go see this at the cinema, or buy a big TV – if you don’t have one already – to watch it on when it gets to DVD.

You tube rock-a-thon

This article has more background.