That's Entertainment

Someone has to comment on the latest non-news item - Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross being abusive on the telephone to old people.

Should they lose their jobs - or are we over-reacting?

Who cares? The key thing is; these two guys are paid Entertainers, they are required to entertain.

Would it be more entertaining if:
a) they apologise and keep their jobs or
b) get sacked and jailed for breaking some Privacy/Obscenity laws?

Of course, it's "b". We'll get months of entertainment out of this scandal; their dismissal, incarceration, release, re-hab and re-integration into the BBC.

Plus, all the saucy stories of the pair of them being asked to pick up the soap. Personally, I find both of them hysterically funny. But, alas, I grow bored easily.

So Entertain us on her majesties pleasure - you lisping, dickless wonders!! It is, after all, your job.

Nearly Killed

I just stepped outside the front door and went ass over tit. Some twat had conveniently left what looks like a couple of old fish boxes right in front of the door.

Luckily they just about managed to fit in the bin.

It's Not Our Fault

So the Isle of Man depositors compensation scheme that was a waste of space is going to get changed to include other non personal depositors, up to a maximum of £20,000. On top of that the amount the banks will pay in has been reduced (because they didn't like it) and the income tax paying public will chuck in £150,000,000 instead. That is half of the governments reserves. More on that later.

The thing is that this new scheme will only be in place for 12 months. I think it has been worked out to try and do as much damage limitation as is possible for the customers of KSF and to salvage some of the Isle of Man's reputation. Will it work, only time will tell? One thing is for sure though it's certainly not a long term solution or guarantee against deposits in the Isle of Man. The government must be praying that another bank doesn't go under in the mean time because how many £150 millions can we afford, not many! Another bank going under will finish us off in my opinion.

This is what happens when you bank offshore, but it's not our fault. Not so long ago the Isle of Man had booming tourism and fishing industries, I'm not talking about hundreds of years here, just a few decades ago. Boats from other countries pillaged our fish stocks and with the advent of cheap foreign holidays to Spain the tourism industry almost vanished over night. As a country what are you supposed to do? We took the step that any other small country with no viable export/industry would do, we set ourselves up as a finance centre/tax heaven. We tried to attract business by offering them a low tax regime under which to work. It has worked very well, up to now.

The trouble is that with all deposits under management going well over 100 billion we don't have the economy in other areas to support that, it's impossible with an island with only 80,000 inhabitants, only 40,000 of which work and only 30,000 that aren't on the government payroll. There is no way that our economy can support those deposits if things go wrong. Even with all those billions on deposit for so many years we still only have a reserve fund of £300 million. Our government lives almost hand to mouth in terms of income/expenditure in order to provide the best environment for business. Just look at Douglas for example, it's a shit hole! With all the money kept here if the government was really raking it in do you not think that might do something about at least making the place look clean? Instead we borrow big for our big projects and get ripped off left and right by consultants. Our government is run by shop keepers FFS!

When our other industries were taken away the Isle of Man had 2 choices. Mass emigration and die or do whatever it takes to survive. The island took the second option and established one of the most well regulated finance centres in the world. You want to see the shit we have to go through just to open a bank account! BUT, there will always be more risk in depositing money in economies that can't afford to shaw up failing financial institutes, it's just a case of economies of scale. We are totally dependent on the finance sector as a country, if you deposit £2 million here and the bank goes bust then I'm sorry but we can't afford to give you free money, blame the bank for not operating a suitable business plan, and blame yourself for chasing the highest interest rate instead of using any form of caution. Blame anybody but us, because it's not our fault.

Remember This Day Well...

Everybody on the Isle of Man should make a note of this day, it's the day that the islands financial services industry (the finance sector) started its swift route to doom.

The manx government have just approved a new depositors protection scheme that will protect PERSONAL savings up to £50k. This new scheme offers no security at all to corporate/trust accounts. How much of our ecomony is based on corporate/trust work, shifting numbers on spreadsheets between banks? Shit loads. Who in their right mind will risk their money in such a small economy in the current environment? The shockwaves are already travelling around the internet at lightning speed at the news of the "local" savers at Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander (IoM)Ltd who have just been screwed. Like most of our banks, they are seperate entities to their UK/intl counterparts. Great when you're looking at tax saving when things are good not so great when things go tits up! If you're doing business in the Isle of Man you'll need a local account and all the risks that go with it.

I'm of to buy a gun and a fishing rod. Not worth worrying about money, cos fairly soon none of us are going to have any.

The Killing Fields

Fat Bastards Breaking Cash Machines

Why is it that every time I queue behind some morbidly obscene fat knacker at the cash point they break it? Do really fat people have a special talent for breaking the hole in the wall or is it just fat fingers confusing the electronics? Either way a solution needs to be found urgently.

What Financial Crisis?

I was watching the BBC news this morning and they were doing a sterling job of explaining the current banking difficulties.

From what I can gather it all comes down to a lack of confidence resulting in the banks being unwilling to lend money, what's the problem here?

I was brought up with the notion that being in debt was wrong. Even worse borrowing more to sort out your debt is never a solution. You want nicer things? Get another job, ask for a pay rise, work harder, save. If the banks aren't willing to lend money to people who can't afford it then surely that is a good thing?

Same goes for businesses. I thought the first rule of business 101 is watch your cash flow. Money in before money out. You shouldn't have to borrow except for when you want to expand quickly, a shrinking economy wouldn't be a time for expansion anyway so I take it the businesses that want to borrow just have bad cash flow? If they can't get that most basic part of business right then I woulnd't want to lend them money either!

I can understand it being a crisis if suddenly everybody's current debt repayments tripled overnight (which I don't think they have?) but just not being able to borrow even more, I just don't get it? I MUST have this all wrong, obviously I'm stupid and don't understand economics at all but I don't understand where the crisis is in not being able to borrow.

Characterture Artists: Bastards

Have you ever met such low life’s?

They sit there in the middle of the street all pompous and twatish waiting for the next victim.

Some self conscious individual sits down as they want a memento of their time in the big city and everyone is egging them on.

So this “Artist” or piss taking bullying twat as they prefer to be called begins their ritual humiliation of subject.

They find anything that the person may feel insecure or even suicidal about and enlarge it by 10 whilst the gathered crowd just laugh and point.

You can here the whispers, “Christ he has got sticky out ears, I hadn’t noticed till this umber perceptive street artist pointed out the error of my ways, how can that poor bloke live with himself, freak”

All the while they give you that sit there and take it bitch look.

You are then expected to hand over £30 and smile, rush home and put the dam thing above the fireplace to allow all your visitors to laugh at you in the one place you would normally feel safe.

I put it to you: Artist or Degradation Terrorist?

Is Halo 3 a Good Teaching Aid or Bad Parenting

Daniel and I have just finished the Campaign on Halo 3, and he often plays it when there is nothing left to do; as for some reason it never stops raining.

Is this bad parenting on my behalf or is he learning valuable skills for life?

I mean he is gaining:
1. Eye Hand Co-ordination
2. Team Playing
3. Advance to contact skills
4. Sniper skills
5. Military vehicle skills
6. Computer Skills
7. Parental bonding

I don’t mean he’s on it all the time, but the last week it was fair bit. We did spend 2 hours messing on the beach last Saturday in the Wind and Rain (we were soaked to the skin and cold, but happy)

So am I bad parent or ground breaking educator?

White Van Man

The local Police, known as the Mickey Mouse police to those in the know. They're not exactly very pro-active to put it lightly.

Take this van for example. Every morning it comes and parks on the zig-zags of a pedestrian crossing where it stops for half an hour. It's a pain in the hole, he conveniently parks it in just the right place that it completely blocks the view of traffic approaching and people wanting to cross the road. Every morning the same. Most mornings there is some sort of incident where either somebody crossing has gambled or a car has approached too fast without being able to see. There is a real somebody getting hurt accident waiting to happen. It's bone idle, there are dozens of parks within a 30 second walk, he's just a lazy twat.




The annoying part (other than White Van Man) is that less than 200 yards down the road is one of the main police stations on the island. All they'd have to do is look out the bloody window.

It's hardly the biggest offence in the world really but it's just a little example. It would take 2 minutes for somebody to nip out and tell him to shift it.

Genius.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Killer Seagulls

The Isle of Man have developed a rare bread of Seagull that targets humans as for food. All attempts at driving them away have failed, DO NOT COME TO THE ISLE OF MAN (Like there is much danger of that)

Killer Gulls
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Have they never heard of shotguns? A nice long barrelled (31"-32") shotgun for a tight grouping, BB or AAA shot. Not that I would ever do such a thing but just say if at any point in the past farmers were having problems with black backed gulls preying on lambs if I wanted to get rid of them that's the route I would have gone. I would guess that the gulls would pretty soon come to associate humans with death rather than a free lunch. If scraggy arsed shite hawks are now sitting above us on the food chain then something has gone very wrong with the world.

The Secret To A Good Nights Sleep

Work stress, tick. Home stress, tick. Family stress, tick. The end result is weeks, maybe even a couple of months without a decent nights sleep. That was until last night, all you need is beer.

Five or six pints, put the world to rights and then sleep like a baby, only trouble is I slept in till midday so that's even more work stress now! Never mind, at least I'm not feeling tired anymore.

When I Rule The World..

...the first thing I'm going to decree is that anybody who feels that a phone call is more important than the life and limb of those around them should have their ears removed by coating them in sugar and letting mules chew them off.

No less than three of the cunts stopped right in front of me yesterday, one of them slamming on the anchors in the right hand lane not only causing me to skid to a halt but also blocking anybody coming the other way. The stupid 4x4 bint then calmly talked on her phone for a good 3 or 4 minutes before setting of again (Car A in my excellent diagram). Apparently turning on your hazard warning lights makes it ok. I have never ever ever ever felt like hurting somebody so much. You selfish, stupid, retarded, fucked up in the head, if brains were dynamite you wouldn't have enough to blow your hat off uber-cunting bitch.



Here's a life saving tip for you, if your phone rings when you're driving, ignore it. If it's important they'll either phone back later or I shit you not, phones actually store missed numbers and you can call them back. Just a thought.

Manx Myths Number 1

Don't Buy Online, IF Something Goes Wrong You'll Have to Pay to Have it Sent Back, You're much Better Of With A Warranty From A Local Store

Much spewed bullshit from the local traders who expect us to put up with the average 40%-100% mark-up that they decide to put on everything. I recently bought a new TV, I knew which model I wanted and did a lot of research on the net to find the best price. Because of stock shortages online I ended up taking a wander around the local shops (MEA, Waltons, Colebourns). Whilst there I looked at a number of TV's, the average mark-up was about 60% over the best price online. On a £1800 TV that's a shit load. When I asked about this I was told the local warranty, cost of courier bullshit. It was the same in 2 shops, it's like they've got together to compose a speech for ripping of mugs. I was in a buying mood so decided to ask if they actually had any knowledge of ANY online retailers that require you to stump up for the cost of a return. Funnily enough they didn't.

I've been buying stuff online for years, I've bought quite literally tonnes of electrical items, clothes and everything in between. Over that time I've had to do my fair share of returns and without fail it follows the same pattern. Phone up, get sent a return label, box it, apply label and have courier pick it up. The only hassle in any of this is having the courier actually turn up to pick it up (you usually give up and bring it to their warehouse yourself). It costs nada. If you do happen to come across a site that wants to charge you for returns then don't buy, go somewhere else, the great thing about the internet is that there is choice.

Another thing that gets on my tits is the repair thing. You know, you'll have it back quicker. If it's something electrical and modern then chances are they are going to have to send it away for repair anyway, just the same as you would. Also, shopping locally you get the after sales support of being able to go in and speak about what've you've just bought. Like shopkeepers are experts in every product they sell. Yes of course they are. My own choice would be to phone the support of the people who actually made the bloody thing and are being paid solely to know about that.

There are probably good reasons for buying local, enjoying browsing and being able to get credit on some items that you couldn't online being two. Is it worth paying twice the price of online for, I dunno? But the whole warranty, convenience, repair myth is a load of bullshit.

Low Maintenance Kids

My mum and dad split up when I was 11 years old, my big brother was 16, my little brother was 7. I say they split up but in reality it was the beginning of a process that took nearly 4 years to get sorted, during that time my mum was a complete mentalist (she was the cause of the split). She couldn't decide what she wanted, dad moved out and us kids were left to get on with it whilst my mum concentrated on "dating" on and off the bloke from next door. It didn't really bother my big brother that much, he was big enough and old enough to get on with his own thing. For me and my little brother things were very different, stuck between parents who grew to not be able to stand the site of each other very quickly. When the hard choices had to be made, who to live with, for me there was no choice. My mum had all but abandoned us to go after what she wanted, we were left to clean, cook and do everything for ourselves. My younger brother was barely in double figures. I can still remember my dad sitting us down with tears in his eyes and telling us that it would be best if we stayed with mum, his food skills were basic at best, washing clothes and house work was never a priority with him. We were still at school and it would be for the best. Screw that! There was no way I was ever going to stay somewhere where I wasn't welcome. I'd rather eat raw gammon steak somewhere I was welcome that beans on toast somewhere I wasn't any day. I had a hatred for my mum, not the sort of hatred that most teenagers have, this was a very grown up hatred of her for being the selfish bitch she was. My little brother (although he would never admit it now) was still like my little shadow back then and he was going wherever I was going. So me and him moved in with dad, leaving our big brother with mum. He always sided with her, I could never understand why.

After 6 months of living with my mum my brother decided he couldn't take it anymore and so wanted to move. Being ignored was not something my brother could stand. My dad sorted out a room for him and he moved in with us. We stayed that way for a couple of years, a real lads house, we had great fun. The domestics got taken care of in a round about way but we were always well turned out for school etc. We never really had much money but to be honest I was happy shooting, fishing and all those sorts of things. Whilst my friends were knocking around town in the £100 trainers, drinking cheap beer I'd be out on the boat fishing. Things would have been better if my big brother would have chipped in, he had a good office job but was living totally rent free. All his money was spent on himself.

Eventually my big brother settled down and got married. At the reception (always a difficult thing for a split family) he took the decision to have my mum and her boyfriend on the top table whilst my dad was sat with some of my mums family and us. Even today I can't understand the logic behind it. After all he'd done for him, my brother still decided to do that, wanker.

Jump forward 5 years and I find out the truth of why my brother is such a mummy's boy. My mum and I have found a level of peace with each other. My big brother was actually adopted by my dad, in a twist of fate that put our lives on such a similar playing field that I had no idea about. My dad had gone through almost an identical adoption battle as I went through with my daughter. He'd brought M up as his own to the point where me and S had no idea. Even after spending years of his life bringing him up, having his mum cheat and leave him my dad had still done what was best for my big brother. I was puzzled by why he hated my mum quite soo much at the time, at that exact moment where my mum spurted it out to me whilst she was drunk I knew exactly where the hatred in my dad came from. Never mind understand it, I could share it.

My dad is now married again and happy with his new wife. She has a grown up family, 3 boys in their late 30's, 40's. She dotes on them, they are still like little kids to her and it means my dad spends a lot more time with her family than he does with us. You see my mums actions made us all fiercely independent, well 2 of us anyway. I was living on my own by the time I was 18, only to have my younger brother move in with me eventually. My big brother lives on the other side of the island with his wife, close to her family. I'm now married and living close to my wife’s family, it's just the way things go. My big brother can't accept this though. He thinks my dad should "still" be popping around at weekends or something. He's busy, we're all busy. My brother now has no time for my dad, he will drive past his house every other week to go and see my mum. If I'm around that neck of the woods I make a point of dropping in, even though I might only see them 3 or 4 times a year. I usually phone my dad if I need something manual doing, he's the person I phone if I need something. My mum is the opposite, she phones me. 99% of the time it's because something has gone wrong with either her or somebody she knows computer. I don't mind though, even with all that has gone on, I do most of what I can to live an easy life.

So what was the point of the longest blog post of all time? Well next week is my nieces birthday and I'll drive up to see my brother and drop a present off. The second set of words out of his mouth will be some sort of slagging of our dad. As it always is. The selfish selfish cunt. One day I will lose my temper and set him straight. Not this time though, I'll not tell him that the first question out of our dad's mouth every time I see him is "Have you heard anything from M?" (Not "How's things?") or that he's been around 4 times (it's way out of his way) but nobody is ever in. It's hardly a 5 minute trip either, as things go it's about a big a trip as you can make without driving into the sea. That's 3 times more than my dad has come to see me and my family this year. Why dad feels any guilt I don't know, but he does. Why M think he deserves special treatment I don't know, but he does. All I do know is that it twists my melon, and the great news is that Christmas is approaching fast. That’s when it all gets really fun.

Ammmmmerrriccaaa , Fuck Yeah!

I love America me! It's the way they spread their "culture" around the world via the bastard Disney channel, cool as fuck they are.

Take my daughter for example, she now thinks it's normal to have a huge, no expense spared birthday party when you turn 13, after all you're only 13 once. A normal party will not suffice, you need hundreds of guests and the sort of venue normally reserved for top end wedding receptions. They are 13 after all so I suppose we're meant to lay on complimentary lines of coke as well? I wonder where she got this idea from? Cunts.

Why Are Buses So Fucking Expensive?

I was up and away early this morning, far too much work to do. I've been getting a lift of the wife recently but wanted to start work before 8, that was a definite no go so it had to be the bus.

It's about a 2 mile ride, would be a bit shorter if it went from A to B in anything like a straight line but it doesn't, it goes around the houses stopping every 100 yards, we don't want people to have to walk too far do we? Anyway the price of this 15 minutes of joy is £1. Use it to and from work every day and that's............(carry the 2).... £10 a week. It's a 2 mile journey. Or 20 miles for the week. It costs £10. Why the fuck does it cost £10 to travel 20 miles on a stinking piece of shit bus?

Our car does roughly 35-40mpg. So even with the starting and stopping we are going to easily use less than a gallon of petrol. Going with a nice extortionate £1.25 a litre that's roughly £5.60 (for the full gallon) to do the same trip in the car and in comfort. Not only that but it gets much worse if you think that there are 2 of us heading for work each day. If we both got the bus that would be £20 a week, or nearly 4 times what it costs to go to work in the car*. It's not even like the buses are adding anything to the experience, they usually stink and they are always slower than driving. Why would anyone want to pay at all to get on a bus, never mind paying more than it costs to drive?

Just to show how shit this situation is the lads and I went for a beery day out to Ramsey the other month. It was £2.50 per person each way, so £20 all in for the 4 of us. Driving to Ramsey and back is about 30 miles or as I prefer to think about it, £4.20 worth of petrol. IF we could find a designated driver that £15 could have gone in to the drinks kitty. Not ever likely to happen but it proves the point, if you had a friend who doesn't drink. Yeah I know the bus driver has to be paid and the bus has to be serviced and tax and yadda yadda but still, I don't care about that. We have a car anyway, if anybody wants people like us to stop using it for work then they'd better come up with something a little bit better than the current bus situation.

The real "thick as pig shit" thing that makes all this even worse is that our bus service is still running a loss. So they are over charging and running at a loss.

So either:-

1. Not enough people use the buses to pay for them
2. There are too many buses on the roads
3. The bus staff are being paid too much

It's the Isle of Man, there's no way that the staff wages are going anyway but up, any attempt to reduce the service will be met by the screeching blue rinse brigade (Another fucking rant just waiting to happen). That only leaves the option of trying to get more people on them, well that's not going to happen as long as it's more expensive to get on a bus than it is to drive.

* I'm not going in to parking, the wife has a free park. I've had free parks with the majority of the places I work as well. If you do have to pay to park, unlucky, that's another huge rip-off where the numbers don't add up either.

What I Did Yesterday

Wrote a fucking awesome utility for finding expired domain names with high value links. Paid for itself within 10 minutes of finishing it.

A great day.

What I've Done Today

9am - Turn up in the office, get plugged into the Matrix, turn up headphones.

9:03am - Start advertising campaigns that were paused over night. Don't want to lose money whilst I'm sleeping!

9:04am - Open tracking software and refresh to see if my newly started campaigns have made any money yet, a tad optimisistic maybe.

9:05am till 9:50am - Hit refresh a lot, not make any money. Surely hitting refresh every minute will make me more money? Hit refresh faster damn you.

9:50am till 10:45am - Bored of refreshing I write a huge blog post about a new ad network I started using last week. Won't get any feedback though until America wakes up in a few hours.

10:45am till 11:57am - Hit refresh lots more times, answer a support e-mail from somebody who is far too stupid to ever be allowed to use a computer.

11:58am - Answer a personal e-mail, begin a debate over who is better Google or Mircosoft

12:00pm till 2:20pm - Emails going backwards and forwards as a mate and I bait each other over the various benefits brought to the world by both Microsoft and Google. I argue in favour of Google, well just cos. I refresh my stats lots, still make no money.

2:21pm till 2:44pm - Write one final big email, forget stats whilst I concentrate. Just before posting I check stats and discover I've just lost a load of money in the last 20 minutes. Damn you bastard internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2:45pm till 15:10pm - Add a load of keywords researched yesterday to a clients advertising campaign. They all look good, very pleased.

15:11pm - Refresh stats, lost more money. Give up for today.

Yep, this online life, it's certainly all rock and roll. Lost money, debated nada and had to bite my tongue answering some useless twat. Here's hoping tomorrow is a little more productive.