The Grumpy Old Blog

I love when TV interviews people who go to party political conferences. These people fall into three basic categories: a. Someone who has been elected to something in their party b. Someone who wants to be elected to something in their party c. Someone who is out on institutional day-release to attend the conference 1. The Conservative supporter is inevitably a Jacob Rees Mogg clone, in a four, or even five-piece suit, sounding either like Jacob or otherwise sounding like a Gloucestershire country bumpkin who inevitably needs plugging into a slow-speed charger following the interview. 2. The Labour supporter, usually looking like Dave Spart from Private Eye, has great difficulty in pronouncing basic English words. They use “basically” and “essentially” before each sentence, include a “literally” in the middle, and will happily declare Barbara Castle from the Harold Wilson years as the finest Transport Minister who ever was. This, despite the fact that while she was in real life q...

The opening chorus lines of the first song the pop group I was in played in public when I was at college. A one-hit wonder by a group called Jigsaw I believe, if memory serves me right. But I digress. Being chased and nagged by a company to buy their goods or services really is irritating. It’s similar to when you open your email to find a “Dear Beneficiary” scam email from one of the tens of thousands of sons or daughters of the Nigerian Oil Ambassador who has picked you, from one of 65 million Britons, as fitting to receive $12million absolutely free. I receive a physical piece of mail from Sky once a fortnight. Not to mention the pieces that fall out of the supplements and into the bin (recycle of course) from the Sunday Times every week. While I have their phone and broadband services (please note that other suppliers are available, not that I would touch some of them with a barge pole), I elected not to bother with their TV. I felt that it was more cost effective to wat...

I have finally worked out why the radical religionists of the world, especially in Arab lands, are so, er, radical, violent and downright murderous. With their quaintly named groups, such as Ali Baba, Ali Bongo, Ali Pally and Hummous, to name but a few, the moment they hear the slightest whisper that is in disagreement with their narrow-minded and often animalistic (sorry zoos everywhere) point of view, out come the guns, knapsack bombs and the book and flag burners. There is a double-fold reason for this. Connected by out-and-out brilliant Kodak-yellow jealousy. Firstly, they have a natural, built-in envy of the west, in particular of the one-time troubles ( Na Trioblóidí in Irish for those studying the language for A-Level) in Northern Ireland, not that they read of it in history books. Their bearded bystanders who get them to do all the dirty work don't allow them to read Western history books, because there  might be a picture of the half-naked infidel, Kate Moss, an adv...

Maybe I'm just getting older and more miserable, but are quiz shows on television, and in particular on the BBC, - which I might add you and I fund to the tune of almost £200 a year each - becoming more inane and ridiculous? They all seem to follow the same format - a slick-witted presenter presiding over to two teams of "B" stars comprising of the same, old, second-rate stand-up comedians and unemployed soap stars, just because it’s one particular agent who holds sway over the BBC light entertainment department. The format, presenters patter and audience reaction is identical, whichever the show. It's just a great pity the programmes on the BBC aren't as good as their link advertisements between those programmes. Back on commercial stations, banking advertisements have become so solemn, customer-friendly and twee. As the banking institutions take their long-suffering customers even further for a ride on their single journey of increasing dishonesty...