The Grumpy Old Blog

A letter to Qantas: Dear Qantas I read recently that Qantas is to stop offering meals with pork content on certain Middle Eastern routes for fear of insulting those passengers of Islamic origins, a very noble gesture indeed. However, I feel there are certain other ethnic passenger groups that you now need to consider for the avoidance of insult, although why Qantas has not considered these before now, or at least at the same time as the concern for Islamic passengers, is altogether rather puzzling. Sikh and Hindu passengers - beef foods and foods containing derivatives of beef Jewish passengers - will no doubt welcome the banning of pork foods, but are also concerned about the serving of seafood, fish lacking fins and scales, and the concurrent serving of milk and meat foods during any one meal Vegetarians - any meat or fish foods or those contains derivatives of meat or fish Coeliacs - serving of foods containing wheat Vegans - serving of any meat, fish or dairy foods Reforme...

Well, the Cambodians are lovely and hospitable. The Thai people are lovely and hospitable.  The British, Australian, New Zealand, Russian and American tourists are by and large well-behaved, although to be brutally honest, the Americans can be a little loud both of voice and check trousers.  And the Chinese. Yes, the Chinese.  What can be said about the Chinese that won’t have Chairman Mao turning in his ashes’ pot? They are noisy, rude, inconsiderate, thoughtless, and, if China was to get nuked, all that would remain would be hordes of Chinese people glued to their mobile phones.  They mobile at breakfast. They mobile on the plane during take-off and landing. They mobile while eating, shopping, crapping and probably even in their sleep. They mobile while walking busy streets, an oriental equivalent of the living dead. They mobile on tours, on excursions, when having things explained and while the tour guide is trying to get them back on the b...

I have just completed my own exit poll for the General Election , an exit poll based on canvassers entering and exiting my front gate. Results are as follows: CONSERVATIVES - gingerly opens the gate, closes it behind them, gingerly pushes the leaflet through the letterbox ensuring it goes all the way in, gingerly opens the gate once more, exits the garden path and then gingerly closes the gate behind them LABOUR - opens the gate, steams in, noisily forces three identical leaf lets through the letterbox leaving one sticking out, then steams out leaving the gate flapping LIBDEMS - can't actually open the gate so gives up after 18 minutes of trying UKIP - from the public pathway, throw leaflet after leaflet, for a random selection of prospective candidates over the gate at the letterbox, hoping that one might magically make its way through the letterbox. Gives up after 18 minutes and 72 leaflets GREENS - Won't come through the gate as it is imported from Israel ...

Ah. As they say in China. Ah so. The approaching General Erection. Ah so. Private Eye is a great (pardon the approaching, unintended pun) eye-opener as to how the 650 of them (minus the really good and great amongst them, for example Jim Murphy and Alan Johnson to name but two - please note MPs from other other parties are also available from the aforementioned 10%) just have an eye on their five-year, £67060-a-year plus expenses cushty job - unless they get a knee up into the Lords, where they are paid to wear extremely silly wigs, sleep or play Candy Crush. They really don't give a stuff about the rest of us, forever saying "I believe" or occasionally, the even more creative "we believe" at every available opportunity, compromising their Saville Row suits just for the mere few weeks of Purdah to kiss the proletariat's snotty babies or to don high-vis jackets and hard hats and pretend they actually know what is going on in a village bakery. After 7th ...

So Big Dave has been to see Her Majesty to dissolve the government. On the suggestion of Anjem Choudary, he used Nitric Acid rather than the usual Astonish products from his local pound shop, although the Duke of Edinburgh did object to him racing up and down the corridors of Buck House on a Domino Pizza motorbike. All the politicians have wheeled out their headache pills - "I believe" (geddit?) - and there are reports that the sales of Johnson wipes have increased dramatically as canvassers head off to kiss dribbling babies and have toddlers throwing up all over their suits. The public will soon be deluged by politicians charging around in their battle busses (National Express 561 to London) knocking on doors shouting, "I don't know who you are or what you do, and I don't really care. Just give me your vote." Labour will say the Conservatives shouldn't blame UKip for the LibDems being so appalling to the SNP who shouted at the Greens for giving out to P...

What is it with current advertisements on television? Is it that the advertisers themselves are selling such absolute rubbish, or is it simply they don't realise they have saddled themselves with completely uncreative and useless advertising agencies? Meanwhile, Sir Martin Sorrell is waltzing to the bank with $53million for his past year's troubles. I wonder how many awful campaigns his company WPP has come up with recently? Or have they been responsible for originating or copying any of those I'm about to mention? I can't imagine the viewing rooms being full of company directors all wetting themselves with delight at the unveiling of new campaigns like these below that are of such monumental piss-poor proportions. The malaise set in with mobile phone operator O2 and their positively appalling "Be more dog" campaign. Totally meaningless, not to mention grammatically incorrect. Then moneysupermarket.com, already accused along with other comparison sites...

Very depressing news. It would appear that some of the "uneducated masses" who have flocked to Syria on a 'Jihadiholiday' are less than impressed with the brutality of the IS regime and its management. Leaving behind good honest regular meals such as Chicken Cottage and Subway (Halal) in favour of sweet and sour gravel and camel dung au lait is not going down too well. Also, not being allowed to glue to facebook, instagram and twitter (there's the thing to do - bomb the reg ion's phone masts into oblivion) 24 hours a day in favour of praising the local kebab shop Alah's Akbar is really not going down too well at all. Plus, not being allowed lippie, having to wear a black bin-bag 24/7 and the only available TV being "Stars in their Semtex" , "The only way is Sharia", "Breaking Backs" and "I'm an Ayatollah get me out of here" is slightly aggravating some of the nice young female suicide bombers ...