Benefits Street

LBC radio have made me mad this morning (and im usually a fan of the 6am show). They were discussing some ew television programme called 'Benefits Street', but I couldn't take it seriously because the amount of bile spouted forth was ridiculous. And let me first say, I don't claim any benefits so this nonsensical rubbish aimed at benefits claimants by pompous radio presenters shouldn't bother me, but even I can see that not everyone on the dole or on sickness benefit are useless scroungers like the one that sounds like are in Benefits Street. I wouldn't watch such garbage so im only going on what callers to the station said about the show.
I have friends on Twitter (I refuse to call them 'followers') who are genuinely disabled, and shame on anyone who would dare called them feckless scroungers. Dear God, I can feel my blood pressure rising with every word I type. Haven't these journalists heard about the tragic stories of disabled folk who have committed suicide because of these government clamp downs on sickness benefits? They ought to have, they've written the stories. Or do they think so little of them that the tales are forgotten as soon as they are in the paper?
Of course the lead swingers and scroungers exist. One only has to see the scruffy urchins swigging lager at 11am outside Weatherspoons on a week day to have proof of this (and these are not workers having a swift pint). Wherever you turn in life, from top to bottom, you will find chancers and the dishonest. Sadly its human nature. But my friends, its not all, how could it be? I don't know the figures of how many are claiming benefits, but are we seriously suggesting they are all cheating the system? Certain presenters on LBC radio seem to be doing so. Methinks their former tabloid urge to shock has completely taken over the rational part of their brains.
Its not as easy as benefits = cheats and the stories are easy to Google: tragic tales of folk with terminal cancer being forced to work due to ATOS passing them fit, disabled soldiers coming home from Afghanistan being denied Welfare assistance, and even working single mothers having housing benefit stopped because they earn £2 over some limit or other. The list is near endless. Are these feckless scroungers? No! Because not everyone is swinging the lead!
I never once imagined I would be speaking out on this subject, or feel so annoyed by certain attitudes toward it, because as I have pointed out, I do not claim benefits and am not in that 'world' but LBC radio have forced my hand. I cannot stay silent while ignorant bullies in mainstream media trample all over these poor people (the honest claimants not the lager louts). Social media has shown me that there IS an honest side to 'Benefits Street' and we, especially government and journalists, wold be unwise to ignore it. Or worse, label everyone as idle layabouts.

Making Me Loaf

The Prime Minister has come under fire after struggling on radio (an interview I heard myself on LBC) to name the price of budget supermarket bread. David Cameron replied: "But you can buy a loaf in a supermarket for well north of £1." And revealed that he preferred to bake his own bread (plugging a local Cotswold flour as he did so).
You cn guess what happened next right? Within an hour of finishing the interview, newspaper were carrying the story online and readers were filling the comments area below with cries of how out of touch with 'real people' the British PM really was. The clueless, rich oaf! The uncaring toff!Why he knows nothing about the daily struggle of hardworking people, the normal man on the street. Pah! *Rummages for pitchforks*
Do people seriously expect a man who works full time, you know, running the country, with very little time to himself, to know the exact cost of a loaf? Do folk really think that the Prime Minister of Great Britain does the weekly shop down his local Morrisons? Stunning ignorance if you do. Must think being a world leader is no different than working any other job. Perhaps Barack Obama hits his local Blockbuster with the kids on a Friday to rent the weekend movie? (I realise Netflix is King these days but you get my point).
Only the lazy thinking and pedantic would honestly believe that men with such important jobs think this way. Maybe because they have too much time on their hands? Im not Cameron's biggest fan (far from it) but feel someone needs to show some support. I don't know the price of everything in the supermarkets, I simply throw whatever it is that takes my fancy on that particular week into my trolley and head to the checkout. I love sliced beef, fresh from the local butchers, but couldn't tell you the price for toffee because I have more important things to keep in my head. So come on! Its a tad harsh to be putting our PM against the wall for this trivial nonsense. Oh and lastly, do remember that Cameron is a man. Shopping lists are not much of our thing.

Prank Too Far

Dai Jakes resisted the urge to air his views on the 'Royal Prank Call' until today because to be honest I have been too angry to get my thoughts in order; and had I published them on the day that the sad news broke it would have come out like a wall of 'white noise', seething with rage and spewing profanities toward anyone in a corked hat, drinking Fosters. But attacking blindly is the fools way so I decided to hold off the blog until I gathered my thoughts some more and calmed down.
We all know the story by now and my heart goes out to the loved ones of Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse who by all accounts was dedicated to her job and a devoted mother. Sad times indeed and I pray they have the strength to get through this awful time. Some cannot understand how a person could take their own life after being 'pranked' by a radio show but not everyone is the same, everyone has a different breaking point. Take internet trolling for instance. It doesn't bother me in the slightest because to me its just words on a screen but others find being trolled a real problem. Mrs Saldanha was humiliated globally by two Australian dimwits and the strain must have been immense, resulting in the tragic consequences.
The thing I don't understand is why prank calls are considered comical in the first place? Seems a very low form of comedy which doesn't need an awful lot of creativity. The type of stunt bored teenagers would do during breaks of Call Of Duty. Cheap humour aimed at those in even cheaper seats.
As for the DJs themselves, well the less said about them the better I feel. Especially when they turned their public apology into a sickening display of "we are victims too, sob". (I can feel anger pricking my skin again.) Victims? No. Halfwits? Definately and I hope their careers in radio are finished for good and we never see or hear from them again. It is supposed to be the season of good will toward all but Dai Jakes is all out in regards to these two. And now i'll sign off to calm down again. Cheerio!

Bass Ache FM

Okay everyone and their pet alien knows that I am a metalhead. (I suspect my brain is actually made of some kind of metal too, lead probably.) Ive been listening to heavy metal since 1980 and for me, nothing comes close to the raw power and imagery it produces. Country music is its closest genre (country musicians make those appalling 'gansta rappers' look like children), and although I do like country (NOT the Shania Twain type), it is to the devil horns my allegiance lies. Play it loud, play it plowed!
Anyway I was surfing my radio app on iPhone earlier and found a German station dedicated to 'hardcore trance bass' music. Intrigued (and tired of talk radio) I tuned in and gave it a listen for thirty minutes. Now Mr Jakes is not going to rubbish another style of music because quite frankly it never achieves anything (other than the complainer looking like a mouthy tool), but I will admit that this music is not for me. Perhaps I listened twenty minutes too long or something because I enjoyed the odd beat and rhythm here and there but could never suffer longer than say 10/15 minutes. It started to sound all the same and indeed I even came away with the conclusion that 'trance bass' is the sound of real insanity. This my friends is what lunacy sounds like. Have a listen for yourselves.

My Television Sits Idle Like Coffins prt II

Evil Edna

Ive touched on this subject before but im not afraid to cover old ground when fresh ideas come knocking. Or no fresh ideas as the case may be on this topic. You for me, television is dead. Ive never been a big fan of it to be honest. Sure it had its time back in the golden days of the 1980s with shows like Chips, Dallas, Streethawk and The A Team but those days are long gone.
I do have giant plasma/LCD screens but I can count on one hand the things I watch on them. Its videogames that get most of my time nowadays (when im not on teh interwebz). I did try to watch Game Of Thrones but lost interest after the third episode. Not because of the show, the show is great, but I just cannot get into the habit of watching television. I feel foolish doing it which will seem silly to the majority of people, seeing as addicted as they are to it. but heres the real deal: I feel as awkward watching television as I would be sitting naked on my doorstep.
The only programmes (are they even called 'programmes' these days?) I could name are the aforementioned Game Of Thrones and Sons Of Anarchy. Thats it. Those two are television heavy metal and being a born MetalHead its only natural I enjoy them but even then I have to wait until the series comes out on Blu Ray boxset in order to see them because sitting on the sofa waiting for a programme to come on is alien to me. I simply don't like doing it. Just thinking about it brings a cloud of boredom over my head. I love videogames because im immersed in the thick of the action, im a part of what is happening and I can more or less dictate a lot of the outcomes, especially in open world sandbox titles.
I dont get this with television. With that im merely an impotent observer, a lurker to the action. Sterile and fiddling with a useless manhood.

RIP the tube

Double Death! World Appalled Shocker!

I will make this as brief as I can because my thoughts on the death penalty are well known by now and I have numerous articles in my blogs about the subject. It does get tiresome, even for a morbid old ghoul like me.
Last week (21st September) Georgia executed Troy Davis. (The Lone Star State, Texas, also offed a racist scumbag but due to Mr Davis he was largely forgotten, as racists should be.) And what a circus did it turn out to be! Largely due to the fact that thousands believed Troy to be innocent. The picture below will show how big of a hulabaloo it stirred up.


A protester in typical pose

Without going into the guilt/innocence issue, this case brought death penalty debates back to the headlines the world over. Even our (UK) radio stations were talking about it, which was interesting as ever since we fell headlong into the European Union's clutches I got the sense that discussing capital punishment was verbotten.
Anyway as usual most of the news (including some US ones) are screaming that execution is a barbaric form of punishment, fit only for the history books and Hollywood. And our lovely British press went along with it.
Excuse me but how Britain and the rest of Europe can slate America is beyond me. (And I am not some blind star spangled supporter who believes nonsense that we were saved by the good ol' US of A in WWII). No this is about Justice, and about how we seem to have binned it while our friends across the Atlantic still believe its actually worth something.
Allow me to make the facts clear, not because I think you dear readers are stupid but to show how good it looks for the United States and how bad it looks for us namby pamby death-is-uncivilsed countries. Imagine both inmates were 100% guilty just for sake of argument. Last wednesday then a racist and a cop killer were put to death in America. They will be no more. They will have no more glimpse of sunshine, or have any feel good endorphins running through their veins on those good days (everyone has good days even in cells). It is at End for these two. There are no more days, good or bad.
Now take a quick imaginary trip over to Britain (imaginary flights are always First Class and theres no jetlag). We are letting murderers and rapists go free after very short sentences almost every other day. One of the 'men' who took part in the murder of Baby Peter is now free after three years and has been pictured by many newspapers (the same ones bleating about the 'barbaric death penalty') wandering in parks, sipping on bottled beer, no care in the world. I believe this cruel thug is only 39, so he has plenty of sunshine left to bask in, plenty of chilled beers to down. For his victim, well Baby Peter's days are no more.
So who are the barbarians here? America? Or Britain (and the rest of the EU)? I would rather have the death of racists and cop killers on my conscience than the death of children and innocence. Sleep easy America and other death penalty countries. Keep a hold of that Justice.