Time To Grow Old?

I was wondering at what age you get old? I'm now in my 40's and have 2 grandchildren, but still feel and act like someone who's half my age.
Is there a point you reach when you suddenly start disliking modern music and stop playing games and go buy yourself some slippers?
Am I embarrassing to my kids, they haven't said anything and still ask my advice on what bands are hot at the moment and how to use computers and the internet.
Although I'm older than my wife she seems to have aged much more than me, mentally and physically and much as I love her it's becoming a pain not being able to do the things I want to do as she is not as fit as she used to be.
Maybe it'll hit me soon and I can age gracefully?

Bank Scams

One of the many bank scam e-mails I've received this week, this one took my notice due to the really obvious error of pretending to be from the Abbey bank and using a Nationwide e-mail address?
The "Security advice" banner is from the Nat West and the link to verify your account details points to jhallman.com who if you google them are supposed to be suppliers of "Back to the Future" props!!
Strictly amateur stuff, scammers should at least try a bit harder if they hope to rip off people.

Lee Evans

Went to see Lee Evans at the Wembley Arena last night (the wife is a big fan) and mostly he was as manic and funny as always.
The "Big" show was 3 hours (with a 20 minute break in the middle) and Lee was his hyperactive self throughout, getting through 3 suits in that time he reminds me of the guy from the Lynx advert with the gushing armpits, he certainly sweats a lot.
It was the first time I'd been to the Wembley Arena since the refit and although looking fresh it hasn't really improved as a place to watch live acts, like a lot of venues they seem to think everyone is about 5 foot tall as the small seats and narrow aisles make it really cramped for someone like me who is over 6 foot.

Having seen him live once before on the "XL" tour about 3 years back I thought this one wasn't quite as good, still really funny but lacking the depth of the previous show, the opening half was Lee at his best with his take on topical news and life in general but in the second half I thought he overdid the "my wife" jokes although every one was a good take on the realities of a long term relationship.
The encore was a bit disappointing with him coming back with 2 songs, the first featuring him strumming frantically on a miniature guitar and the second a topical/political song sung at the piano which started well but the lyrics lacked any real humour.
He saved the encore at the end with the old favourite "Bohemian rhapsody" which is always funny.
Overall impression was that if you've never seen him live you should make the effort as it's a really good experience, but I'm not sure if this particular show was worth the £30 ticket.

Fallout

Over 50% of the TV news taken up again by the Ross/Brand story (sigh!).
Latest is the BBC are being urged to censor some of it's best shows to please the moral minority, with the brilliant "Mock the week" the latest target.
MTW star turn Frankie Boyle (pictured) is in my opinion the funniest comedian to be seen on TV at the moment and his irreverant comments have me in stitches every week, but as it's bash the BBC week I suppose they want a few more heads to roll.

I find many things really offensive, every time I see people like David Cameron and Anne Widdecombe on the box I get the urge to throw a brick through the telly (not really I turn it over), but the point is everyone has a different view of what they like and what they don't like so why should a few people (who have their own hidden agenda for regulating the BBC) be given so much air time to slag off the station and try to force changes, when the majority of the British people never heard the offending broadcast and probably didn't care if they did.

Story What Story

The credit crunch, the American election, Bombings in India, Freak weather and flooding in Devon, The Menezes trial, The Congo crisis, Earthquakes in Pakistan, All are worthy news stories to justify coverage on news programmes this week.
So what do we get taking up most of the allocated news time? Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross's prank calls to Andrew Sachs!!
Does anyone actually give a toss? and why is it taking up so much air time.
Surely Ross could have chucked him a million and said sorry in private to save us having to put up with this drivel all week.
Or have news programs just dropped into the same sewer as newspapers where news is tucked away behind the front page headlines of "Kerry Katona's alcohol hell" or "Victoria Beckham broke a nail" type stories that dominate most front pages.

In The Dark

Just to show how up with the news I am, I've only just read that Gordon Brown (UK prime minister) is blind in one eye and has been for 42 years.
The fact I haven't bought a newspaper in over 10 years, and that I rarely watch TV news has probably got something to do with that.
Although the truth was always the main thing missing from newspapers so they probably didn't know either.

Good Causes

It seems I've won £850,000 from the UK lottery board ... yipee!!
But then I ask the question if it's the UK lottery board, why does the e-mail eminate from westga.edu (which is supposed to be the University of West Georgia in the USA) and if I Google the claims department phone number it seems I am only one of thousands of people that have won £850,000 and have reported this e-mail as suspicious?

They only want the following details from me to send me my prize -
1.full name: 2.Home Address: 3.Age: 4.Sex: 5.Tele: 6.Occupation: 7.Country Of Residence: 8.Nationality: 9.Amount Won: 10.Religon
I wonder if we can all get together and help out third world poverty? if anyone knows of a worthy charity and they are willing to supply the details required we could send our Billion pounds to them.

e.g
Claims Requirements:
1.full name: Gordon Brown
2.Home Address: 10 Downing Street, London
3.Age: 57
4.Sex: M
5.Tele: 0207 270 3000
6.Occupation: Politician
7.Country Of Residence: United Kingdom
8.Nationality: British
9.Amount Won: £850,000
10.Religon: Church Of Scotland

That would help a country who are up to their eyes in debt.

Of course this just might be a scam!!

Healthy Food

Probably mentioned this before but I eat what is considered to be an unhealthy diet, no fruit, veg eaten rarely and lots of white bread etc.
The outcome of this is although I'm a bit fatter than I should be I'm never ill.
Just spent a couple of days last week at the in-laws who eat "healthy food" no white bread, lots of veg salad and fruit.
From the second day there I had sickness and diarrhea and a constant headache which has taken 5 days to clear, so how on earth can this be healthy?

Bank Scammers

I'm sure none of you are dumb enough to fall for the recent upsurge in Bank details scams, using the banking crisis to increase the number of attempts to phish people's details.
But sadly I know a few people who would believe this!!
The picture above is one E-mail I've just received and it's well written without the obvious spelling mistakes that some have, the picture of the Lloyds horse is from the official Lloyds page, and the line "Failure to do so may result in temporary account suspension" is usually enough for some people to panic and click the link.
If you check the link at first it looks legit "http://online-lloydstsb...." it's only when you see it's followed by " .tk" you can actually guarantee it's a scam, as far as I know Lloyds TSB aren't based in Tokelau (a territory of New Zealand) although with all this investment in foreign markets they could be!! :)
A page I've read about Tokelau (.tk) gives more than enough evidence of scamming -
Quote "By most measures New Zealand's remote colony of Tokelau is paradise but on the internet it has become the world's most dangerous domain for surfers.
Californian based internet security company McAfee this week said websites with Tokelau's dot-TK domain were "unusually risky".
Many of the fake websites and emails offering "security alerts" from banks around the world arrive via a Tokelau or Niue top level domain (TLD) address.
A senior New Zealand diplomat trying to help Tokelau and Niue told Fairfax Media both have lost control of their internet domains and, along with New Zealand, risk losing their international reputations.
Niue's site has become infamous for hardcore pornography while Tokelau, which has just 1300 people, no airport and no capital, is synonymous with computer viruses, spyware and malicious software covertly dumped onto computer main drives."
You have been warned.

Although for me the fact I'm receiving e-mails from the scumbags at Lloyds was enough of a clue, as it was this bunch of crooks who repeatedly tried to rip me off for years with double loan payments and unfair bank charges before giving me an unrequested overdraft which once I used it they took it away and hit me with another ton of bank charges before blacklisting me, so there is no way I'd have an account with them as in my opinion they are only marginally better than the scammers (sorry into another personal rant there!).
They might make good train adverts but they would be the last bank on earth etc .....

Personally I have never used internet banking, I don't trust it.
So when I receive the 5-10 E-mails a week asking me to update my bank details for every bank and building society in the land I can dismiss them straight away, but I know a lot of people do use internet banking so the chances are one of the scam mails might be from your bank.
Unless something has changed recently Banks will never ever ask for your details in an e-mail, they already have them and if you do need to change something you will usually be asked by letter to go to your branch.

Public service announcment over :)

Sorry

Just reading through this blog and realised I haven't done a decent blog post this year :(
I think some of my earlier posts were pretty good, well thought out, sarcastic and backed by good facts but recent ones have been self obsessed pathetic rants?
Maybe I'm just not bitter and twisted anymore or maybe I (like the rest of the world) really don't give a fuck anymore?
Maybe it's just that I don't mix with the sort of morons that used to wind me up so much before, I don't know?

D- Must try Harder

Esther Rantzen's Second Thoughts

Interesting to watch a programme last week by Esther Rantzen who started the Childline charity to offer help to abused children many years back.
Probably seems two-faced to bring this up after a post about kids getting a beating for doing wrong, but I'm sure you'll realise the difference.
There is no excuse for the type of people who abuse children (physically, mentally or sexually), and these people should be caught and exposed.
The basis of the programme was that Esther was actually blaming herself for the rise of over the top Political correctness that we see today, although her motives were good at the time she didn't anticipate the steps that are currently in place.

The programme showed instances such as a 2 year old girl who died after falling in a fish pond after wandering out of a nursery, she was seen by a guy going past before her death but he didn't stop to check for fear of being labelled a paedophile if he was seen talking to her, another was a little girl who was out on a school trip and ended up with serious sunburn, her parents had supplied her with sun cream and told her to ask a teacher to put some on her back if it was sunny, it had got hot that day so the child asked the teacher who refused as she wasn't allowed to touch the children for fear of being sued or worse?
An experiment was set up using child actors in a shopping centre, the kids were asked to pretend to be lost and in a state of distress, hundreds of people walked by before a woman actually stopped, when asked if she was worried about asking the kid if they were alright she said she was in case people had the wrong idea, virtually every man that was asked said they didn't stop for the same reason.
Brought back memories of the James Bulger incident.

Esther's conclusion was that Political Correctness was now becoming a risk to children, the Childline project was set up to help the Children that had no one to turn to, but under today's climate all kids have a lot less people to turn to as everyone is afraid of helping.

Anti Social Behaviour

Anti Social behaviour, is it a growing problem or is it the same as it's always been but just reported more?

When I look back on my youth I see a lot of similarities.
I first had a knife held at my throat at age 14, although knives were everywhere throughout my childhood, virtually everyone carried one (including me) but almost no-one would dream of using them.
Fights were commonplace but were mostly fought with fists, very rarely were weapons seen or used during one, it was considered cowardly if you couldn't defend yourself without resorting to the threat of the knife.
Indeed the knife at the throat incident was sorted out using fists, I still have the scar on my thumb where I'd grabbed the blade before knocking the kid out.
I saw my first gun at 15, a school friend I met at the weekend in a local town turned up with one in his pocket, it looked real and he said it was and I wasn't going ask him to prove it, The estate he lived on was renowned for trouble, my uncle lived there and he would tell me of the usual weekend gang fights, but I don't recall anyone actually being shot despite guns being available, and this was Seventies Essex not inner city London.
Football matches attended usually had a dark overtone with fights breaking out in the ground, outside the ground or at the station, but we'd still go every week.
When I left school at 16 I started drinking and going out, no need to stand around on street corners when pubs never worried about age and the beer was cheap, strangely there was hardly any trouble at pubs, people would get drunk but everyone seemed to be happy.
Disco's on the other hand seemed to attract the troublemakers, rarely would a night out end peacefully without at least one person threatening you or trying to fight you or a riot breaking out.
The only time I was actually stabbed was at one of these Seventies disco's, after some drunken idiot accused me of staring at his girlfriend, I didn't remember staring at any girl but he decided to knife me anyway, luckily I saw it coming and managed to dodge most of his lunge just ending up with a small wound above my hip, I grabbed his knife hand and kicked him in the nuts, when he went down I carried on until one of the bouncers grabbed me, the bouncer told me to clear off and a little while later the guy was dragged out by the bouncers and thrown into the street.

One noticable change with today's teens seems to be the lack of respect to adults and Police, my friends and I all respected our parents and almost all other adults, if someone came out and told us to clear off we would usually do it and say sorry.
The respect of the Police was born out of fear, a couple of my mates got arrested one for fighting and another for TDA (car theft), both were taken in and given a going over while handcuffed followed by a night in the cells, no one ever questioned the bruises and cuts and both ended up doing six months on the carrot farm (or young offenders centre), So if the police said move on, you moved on without any backchat.
Sadly today's political correctness which sees most adults afraid to say anything to kids has a lot to do with it.
The gobby twisted kids of my youth who would talk about doing some of the more unsavoury aspects that happen today would not risk actually going ahead with it for fear that someone would sort them out if they did.
People were able to sort out their own problems, I saw many incidents of adults giving kids a "thick ear" if they had done things like throwing stones or shouting abuse, the Police were never called and your parents were likely to do the same if you told them about it.

So to sum up as I see it the majority of kids are no worse than those of my youth, but where they would be made to think about the consequences of their actions and what would happen to them, that dissuading factor has been removed for all but the most serious offences nowadays so kids will push it to the limit and I imagine it will only get worse.

Crunch 3

Something that used to be a bit of a joke (or maybe the truth?) was that when financial institutions were having a bad time it was worth looking up when going near any of their buildings, in case another businessman who's investments had failed decided to end it all by jumping out of the window and ending it all.
Might have missed it if it has happened recently, but as far as I know none of them have, which to me says that none of them actually give a toss and they know they'll be bailed out by the government to start ripping us off again soon enough.

Crunch 2

I'm finding it hard to feel sorry for all these people that appear on television complaining that their saving aren't safe despite the government's 50 grand guarantee.
What are you doing with over 50 grand in savings? to my mind the only people with that sort of spare cash are drug dealers, high class prostitutes and the scum that have been reaping the profits from ripping everyone else off.

Maybe my outlook on life is different from anyone else in that throughout my adult life I've worked for the simple reason of supporting my family, if we've had any spare cash it would be spent on providing things that had been missed out on when times were hard.

Crunch 1

Just a few brief thoughts without having to think too hard on the ongoing Credit crunch / World market failure.

One thing that's come out of the recent troubles for me is that I actually watch the news on telly, something I got out of the habit of doing years ago.
Not sure why I'm watching it? as it's not as if I've got Millions invested in Icelandic banks or Bradford and Bungley.
I suppose I'm just getting some sick pleasure about seeing these tossers who have lived luxurious lifestyles off the back of the common man finally get their come-uppance, wish they would jail the lot of these frauds and crooks who have played with our money for so long.

Social Networking

My son persauded me to try Facebook recently, and have been on Myspace for a couple of years.
The first thing that strikes me about Facebook is that I'm probably too old for it, the only attraction I can see is if you've got a ton of School / college friends who all add you on to it to relay info or slag people off en-masse.
I'm not that big a fan of MySpace but the fact that you can personalise your page. and that you do come across a hell of a lot of new music on there make it interesting.
Facebook doesn't seem to have any of the redeeming factors mentioned :(

After adding my son to my friends, I have been added by a lot of his friends (some I know, a lot I don't?), so I login and have all these wonderful messages everyday like "i'm gonna get wasted tonight lol" and "xx scored 500 on this game" really interesting stuff!!
I feel like a "Johnny no mates" because I've yet to find any of my friends who use it, I only know a couple of people of my age who used MySpace and that was because they were in bands.
I'll carry on with it for a while just because my boy is away at Uni and doesn't seem to be able to use the phone or e-mail but seems to be able to only use this?
Although I'm still not comfortable with the whole world being able to read any conversations we have.

Neglect

Sorry have been neglecting this blog a bit, I'll try harder :)
Everyday I think of some personal (obscure) take on the news but never get to write it down, as I log onto the PC and end up somewhere else instead.
Sorry.

Music

Do you ever wonder just how much brilliant music is out there that you'll never ever here?
The wonder of the internet and those many thousands of blogs etc that post music have over the years introduced me to tons of bands and musical styles I'd never have heard if I just listened to radio and bought music CD's.
Everytime I download an obscure bands songs from some blog just because I like the name and find out it's really good, or just go browsing through the millions of MySpace band pages and listen to some of their songs it makes you realise that you'll never live long enough to hear everything.
Plus there is over 60 years of stuff already recorded that I'll probably never ever hear, and in amongst it there is probably tons of songs that I would absolutely love.
Many of my favourite ever songs are album tracks that have never been released as singles, so the chance of hearing them on the radio is very small.

I still believe that a lot of artists record music because they want people to enjoy it, but if you've got to pay out over a tenner a time to buy a CD you're going to be choosy and the majority of people won't buy an unknown bands CD if they've never heard it.
I guess there are hundreds if not thousands of new albums released around the world every week so the chances are without the internet 99% of these would never be heard by people other than followers of the specific band.
It's nice to see so many high profile artists cottoning on to the trend such as Prince, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and most recently Iron Maiden all releasing their albums free on the net knowing that if people like the music they're far more likely to want to go and see the band or even buy some back catalogue, clever stuff.
But still the record companies are trying to hang on to their profits by hounding the free music sharers still believing that one day everyone will have to go back to the old method of having to buy all your music and paying the inflated prices charged by record companies.
Those days have gone thankfully, and despite the warnings of P2P etc killing the music industry, it is probably in the healthiest state it's ever been due to the rise of thousands of bands who got their fame due to the quality of their music and the ability of people being able to listen to it for free.

Cynical 'ol me

Might just be me? but I get very cynical about company announcements.

Recent ones have included airlines who despite proof to the contrary have decided to keep their ban on liquids being carried as hand luggage because of terror fears, this ban of course includes all drinks that might be carried on long distance flights forcing passengers to cough up extra for drinks onboard.

Various supermarkets plan to charge for plastic carrier bags to "save the environment" while still overpacking just about everything they sell, nothing to do with not making a profit from the free bags I suppose? incidentaly They tell us these bags survive for thousands of years in landfills which is amazing as those I put some old books in and put in the loft have already crumbled to dust after only a couple of years?

My internet company Virgin are charging me extra to have my bill sent in paper form as they say that this is damaging to the environment and I should set up an internet account, while I receive at least one personal letter a week advertising their wares plus several leaflets from them shoved through my letterbox with the pile of junk mail I (and everyone else) get every week.
Now if they didn't send this crap out wouldn't that be better for the environment?

In some ways I admire inginuity of these people who come up with these ideas of how to turn anything into a profit making excercise, it shows great imagination.
Although stringing the lot of them up would make me happier.