2012 - 15

Conspiracy Theory

You know how it is; you're flicking through the 450 channels of shit on the TV and you stumble across something interesting. This being cable TV there's a good chance that whatever you're watching has been shown on some terrestrial station in the last 30 years, so, essentially, whatever you're watching is old news.

My main problem with paying Virgin Media loads of money for 450 channels of shit is that 440 of them really are shit and the chances of you actually thinking, "Oh, there's a documentary on fish that wear knickers on The Community Channel, I must watch that," probably wouldn't even register on you (although, I can think of a few people who would go out of their way to watch a programme about knicker-wearing fish). This was compounded by the fact that 98,000 people watched Mad Men on Sky Atlantic (that's a 75% drop on BBC2 figures). Even corporate cable stations are never going to be as popular as they would hope to be. But, this is an aside; nothing at all to do with why I'm telling you this.

So, there I am, last night, after the pub quiz, flicking through the channels because I've missed Family Guy (which I'd seen already) and there were no 90s blockbuster films to endure. I stumbled across this programme, which was on something like PBS or TCC or Discovery Clunge about the Roswell Incident...

Of course, the problem with Virgin is that sometimes they're more shit than normal; so when I hit the i button to find out what I was watching, I had a simple 'No information about this programme available' notification - bugger.

Anyhow, whether it's true or not; been disproved or was just simple anti-conspiracy theory, I don't know. Doing a Google search brought up about 20 different documentaries, all of which could have been the last 15 minutes of the one I watched. So, what made this good TV? Well, nothing really; it was a documentary, with a number of talking heads, photos and grainy footage - possibly staged to look like 1949 New Mexico. The thing was, this ex-army colonel (I presume he was a colonel because he referred to himself as 'colonel' at least three times when telling of events) produced evidence to suggest that Roswell was indeed a massive cover-up. That six months before the infamous 'incident', the US Senate withdrew weather balloon funding from the USAF, because it had monstrously over spent. The guy in charge of the famous base believed that the scientists working there were close to being able to understand how the weather works and whether or not man could have control over it (they obviously weren't), so authorised more weather balloon shots against his superiors' orders.

On the day of the alien arrival; a plane from another air base reported seeing something strange in the sky and one thing led to another and the whole myth surrounding Roswell grew. The wreckage found was not an alien space craft but a camouflaged weather balloon! The colonel went on to suggest that the US Government not only knew about it, but were very careful to ensure that the true facts weren't revealed, especially with the Second World War and growing Cold War in everyone's memories. So, said the colonel, Roswell was a cover-up, just not the one all the romantics wanted. What made this man even more likeable was the very last thing he said; "Of course, all the conspiracy theorists out there will just say I'm part of the alien cover-up. Some people, eh?"

Be funny though, wouldn't it?

Faecal Wars

Dog shit - a contentious issue. Most people I know who own dogs clean it up and put it in the proper place (although I hope to God that they just incinerate it, because I'd hate to be the person having to remove the pooh from each plastic bag in the sorting process - 'Pooh in that bin; plastics in the other'). However, whenever I take the dogs out - now during school holidays and weekends - I'm amazed at the amount of dog shit left by uncaring owners.

I don't know what it is; perhaps some people don't like carrying a little black bag full dog waste around with them; perhaps they don't like the idea of scooping it up, in case the bag splits and they're left miles from the nearest hot water tap to scrub their hands clean; or perhaps they're just lazy fucktards? I admit to ignoring my dogs' shit, if they take a dump in the middle of the woods or I don't see it or if they do it in a way that makes it impossible to pick up (dog owners will know exactly what I mean by this - ever tried eating soup with a fork?).

But the wankers who don't clear up their doggy doo-doo aside, most people fill those green or red bins up to the hilt with foul smelling, noxious crap - which appear to get emptied by someone. For the responsible dog owner, shit is merely the unpleasant part of a good walk.

Now, I was pointed to an article on a web page yesterday about a sickness bug that has been hitting dogs and senior vets believe that it is being caused by... cat shit. yes, I know, I should be saying right about now that any animal that eats cat shit fully deserves to get an upset stomach; I mean any normal animal just wouldn't go near the foul smelling fishy mess; but dogs... well, they lick their own arses, so you get a rough idea of how base they tend to me - instinct animals that have adapted to lick faces as well as bums...

Three of my dogs have succumbed to an unknown malady in the last week and the wife has noticed that not only have the hordes of semi-feral cats in the area taken to crapping on my newly tilled soil, but now all four of them have been partaking in the ingestion of said crap.

The point is, about 20-odd years ago there was a big hoo-hah about the toxic affects of cat shit. It was a prominent thing in our then circle of friends because there was essentially a 50-50 split between dog lovers and cat lovers and one of our number was pregnant with her first child and owned two cats, which not only shat in a box in the kitchen, but also outside, in their garden and, more importantly, most other people's gardens. The pregnant woman was being irrational about going to houses with dogs, so the wife, pissed off about this bitching, moaning and whingeing, showed the article to the other woman - which stated that pregnant women could give their unborn children brain damage, blind or deafness and all manner of other maladies if they come into contact with cat shit and it somehow gets into their system. She waved this away like all cat lovers by suggesting that her cats shit smelled of roses and you could eat it with honey if your hungry enough (incidentally, this is also the same woman who thought breastfeeding should be compulsory for children up to the age of 21).

The article didn't suggest that dog shit was any better than cat shit, but it did say that humans are responsible for disposing of their dog's shit, while cat owners allow their cats to roam around the gardens of all their neighbours and take craps wherever they fancy. Say for argument sake in the garden of the family with no cats or dogs, whose children play in the garden all the time, especially in their sandbox. Now, unless you have a completely unruly dog, it isn't likely to get out at night and take a dump in the garden of a house ½ a mile away - yes, sometimes you wish it would, but...

For all the problems with owning a four-legged shit making machine; if you are responsible for it, then you should be held responsible. However, if you own a cat, your first line of defence is that it is an independent animal; usually the second response, when asked about the amount of shit it deposits in others gardens is to shrug or be dismissive or use the first line of defence again. Cat owners are not responsible; they don't have to be, normally. The cat will come for food when it wants it; cuddles when it wants them; in fact, cats are far more mercenary than dogs - in general - having a dog is like having a moral-less 6 year old; having a cat is like having a sullen teenager.

Mundo de Servicios

Do you want to know where there's more shit than any dog or cat could muster? Yes?

Then go to Al's Toilet World.

Govern This

I was watching Cameron waffle on about the Big Society for a few minutes this morning and it dawned on me why the Tories are so keen on privatising this, decentralising that and generally trying to get everyone else to do their jobs. It's because they actually don't have any idea how to run the country and are hoping that unelected officials can take up the strain in local communities; the kind of place that any Tory MP will only have visited near a general election and because the party ordered him or her to go there.

Boy Oh Aboyne

Yeah, okay, this is filler and most everyone knows this already; but pity the folk of Aboyne in Aberdeenshire. Last week it was so warm (even hot) there was more flesh on show in March than had ever been seen north of Newcastle and yesterday they woke up to 6 inches of snow!

What made me shake my head in despair was the BBC's attempt to make yet another Global Warming story from it, when it's simple - this is Scotland; you know the place that originated the saying Four Seasons in One Day. It is perfectly normal for this part of the British Isles to go from sunny and warm to blizzard conditions; it has happened since people first lived there!

That said, it is blummin' taters in Shoesville today.

Stuff

• This week I have been mainly listening to: Jon Hopkins, Gary Numan, Carmina Burana, House of Love, Hybrid and something called the Immersion version of Pink Floyd's The Wall.
• I have just started reading Chavs by Owen Jones.
• I planted 5 rows of spuds yesterday: 2 rows of Mayan Gold; 2 rows of Kerr's Pink and a row of potatoes I dug up that were chitting after being left in the ground after last year's harvest (despite digging the ground over half a dozen times, I still managed to miss 9 potatoes). If these are anything to go by on previous years, I'll get twice as much from them as I will from the others - these oddments are: 3 Golden Wonder; 2 old Kerr's Pink; 2 Nadine and 2 Kestrel.
• My niece appears to have opened her own tattoo parlour!
• It's nice to know that toffs like Boris Johnson can shout 'you fucking liar' several times in a lift. For Ken Livingstone, who was on the receiving end, it must have been a bit like being back where he was born.
• Was quite amazed to know that in Victorian times; women used to be administered a 'vibrator' to ease hysteria and drain excess fluids from their wombs. In a time when only women actually knew they could have orgasms, this must have been quite fillip for them, even if it had to be done under 'medical' conditions.
• Is disappointed that it's already Wednesday...