Win A Brand New iPad ...

... on a different site. I'm going to introduce you to two stunning new innovations.

1. The eHammer

Just like a conventional hammer, the eHammer is specifically designed to smash its way through many of the irritating gimmicks that plague modern life.
So yesterday.

Revolutionary ergonomic design.

The eHammer can interface with the full spectrum of modern technology, including:


Smashed.
Knackered.

Completely buggered.

Also compatible with most modern desktops.

2. e.r.Plugs

This fine new device helps the modern consumer ignore gimmicks and friends with complete ease.
Compatible with ignoring both Microsoft and Mac OS X, and all major telecommunications devices, major sporting events, pop music, celebrity scandals ...

By Thunder, It's Cold!

Those of you with access to Google Earth may want to check England for one simple reason: it's not there.

Now, I don't want to alarm you. It's not like we all took the island out for a quick spin round the Adriatic and got lost. Nor has some rabid Bond villain type blasted these fine shores into dust with a Doomsday device that turns our dandruff corrosive, or some such.

No. Instead, you'll see a white triangle shaped blob where England used to be. It's been snowing and with our classic British efficiency, each shop has only one (1) loaf of bread and each city one (1) can of de-icer. We are fuckwits when it comes to emergencies.

According to the weather, last week was as cold as the Arctic circle. I woke up one day with a frozen penguin stuck to my arse. Not good. Tomorrow I may have a polar bear hugging the duvet, who knows. Like this I do not.

School was cancelled for three days as too many penguins were stealing the chalk. Most days I sat inside, safeguarding my stash of baked beans and canned tomatoes in case some rabid hoards decided that absolutely no substitute for pasta was acceptable.

As such, I was watching a great many of those crappy B-movie DVDs nobody wants to admit to owning. Particularly enjoyable are films like Mullet Cop 27 and He Never Spoke Clearly.
What split ends?

There's something about easy trash that I love. Can't beat it. When it's cold and miserable outside, a blazing fire and some televisual swill are a great combination. There's supposed to be more snow. Mullet Cop 28, anyone?

Who's A Nitwit, Then?

For those of you in the US who may not know this, most of England is covered in a blanket of thick snow. Now, while I love Christmas, I have a long drive to and from work, so the frosty yuletide benefits are a little overwhelmed by skidding all over the roads with a windscreen made of ice.

This morning I hit the road at 7 am, not wanting to be caught in a thick mass of overheating drivers ricocheting across the skating rink that is the road.

What happens? An hour and a quarter later, I pull up at the school which is currently blessed with my inestimable teaching abilities (ie it's the place where I pretend to know what I'm doing - more or less successfully). The school is closed, dark and not a light on. A cheery lady from over the road comes over to say, "You'd think they'd have called."

Well, I'm on supply. They don't have my number. I check my phone - the agency rang half an hour ago, but being on the motorway, I didn't hear the damn thing. I have 106.1 Rock Radio on in the car, one of those few stations which plays decent music not crap. I don't want Fuzzy and the Gonads' latest sonic offal, I want Metallica in the morning while I'm muttering under my breath about the whole indecency of alarm clocks and early hours.

First thing in the day to make me crack a smile - scratch that, make that a wall to wall shark grin - is that Rage Against The Machine got to number one. Simon Cowell's shit factory anti-music corporate bastardmobile came unstuck thanks to the dedication of a few hundred thousand rock fans devoted to not listening to that bollocks any more.

This is wonderful. I meant to buy it, but forgot. Not to worry, the right work was done by the right people. Good one. A victory for common sense, people power and a reaction against the usual indifference people offer to the already done deals that pump bland crap across our airwaves. Superb.

I was in a good mood as I drove back, carefully, with cars careening left right and centre, trying hard to duck the fireballs and twisted pieces of blasted wreckage hurtling about like a ... well actually it was a dull slow ride home.

Now I'm sat in my warm house, with a cup of coffee, a doughnut and a cigarette for company. Trouble is, I'm agency - I don't get paid for today. Tomorrow, I may not be in either. I welcome the time but not the lack of cash. Then again, most schools have already finished for Christmas, so if I'd got it, it would be a bonus. As it is, today I don't have to work, so I've a few things to do then, I dunno, cinema?

Tomorrow is a win-win. If there is work, I get paid. If there isn't, I frisbee the alarm and have a late snooze, followed by a lie in and maybe get up in time for forty winks.

Also on the plus side, Purple Haze was playing on the way back. Nice one.


Don't forget, Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death and The Ingredients of a Good Thriller are available now, ideal gifts for people with great taste, or people with bad taste that you don't like.

Yes, But Is It Art?

As I write this, a program about the contemporary world of installation art (or "bollocks," as it's often known) is airing. This follows a bunch of preening, self-satisfied pseuds inspecting the wares of new talents as the latter hope like hell to be discovered, and the former sit there swelling noticeably with ego fuelled glee. It's like watching gigantically conceited people sitting on various sides of the "in/out" divide, where one makes the other dance. In fact, that's exactly what it is.

The works of art in question are of dubious quality. The following examples are not made up.

One involved a handwritten copy of War and Peace (and no, the 'artist' wasn't pretending to have written it - I was rather hoping he would). This was mystifying. Having written the whole book out by hand, onto more than 2,100 pages, what was this inventive buffoon going to do? Eat it? Memorise it? Engrave the Houses of Parliament with an image of him grabbing his wrist in agony? Shove it up his arse?

No. The artistic part was .... copying out somebody else's book, one of the most famous and notoriously difficult to read ever written. This was his piece of art. Talk about a let down. No chance of him chewing it up into spit balls and firing out of his nostrils at passing clowns that have set on fire by enraged tabloid readers who mistook them for immigrants? Nah. Shame.

If that sets the tone for the level of trivial, dull and self-regardingly flatulent offerings, we're in for a fun hour.

One enterprising lass had positioned a branch, held back in place by traffic sign supports and hovering over several rolls of toilet paper, which was dyed yellow. I mean ... words fail me. I'd remind you that these are genuine examples of this level of free fall "anything I pull out of my arse is art" school of thought.

Somebody else made a display out of folding chairs, putting them in a circle. On the floor. By hand. This was his statement on ...

This spectacle was in aid of Charles Saatchi's art collection. Saatchi is an advertising mogul (ie, cunt) who specialises in paying a fortune for weird and silly tat that has a few desperately self regarding dullards cooing in glee, while the rest of the world is staggered at the gall of claiming a crate full of tinsel is in any way art.

A visual installation artist - in this case some bloke with a camcorder and a lot of cheek - is quoted here on making a piece about his father:

" ... I filmed him for a bit but he didn't really do a lot ... he was just sat there, Googling affordable property in North Yorkshire ..." Okay ....

One of the phrases that is cropping up a lot in this navel gazing TV show is, "Tell me why it's art?" Some wannabe with all the trappings of oily self regard (silly glasses, daft beard stylings, hair that looks like a goat has ram-raided the back of his head and got stuck) responded with this stunning reply: "Tell me why it's not art?"

I'll tell you what art is. Art is any activity where the quality of the work is the main reason for doing it. So anything done to a high standard, with that as its main goal, is art. I know. I looked it up once while some similar type of show was on, when people dribbled on about the whole art debate.

Another random quote: "I'm surprised it's not a better drawing ..." In other words, the feller can't draw very well. Or at least his style is not conventionally good. Or something.

The whole "new" school of art has been debated endlessly. At the end of the day, I can see the point of some of these pieces - Hirst's shark suspended in formaldehyde is a daring idea - but a lot of it is just pretentious twaddle.

I raise this subject because the more observant of you will have noticed two new side bars, just to the right of this, advertising books of incredibly high quality (mine). This daring neophyte installation is the work of a newish name in the art world, one Mr Lobo, a groundbreaking talent whose commitment to his craft is such that he spent over four years painstakingly hand-crafting these images from lumps of finest Italian pixel, blessed by the Pope and unblessed again by Mr Terence Worthing of Flixton.

The enormity of effort and commitment these images represent is a bold new statement on the direction of web art the upcoming new decade has to offer. My thanks and a cheque for $400,000 has been sent to Mr Lobo, who is even now reclining exhausted on his artist's couch.

The originals are of course in the Louvre, guarded by savage Parisians wishing to preserve their timeless beauty and face-achingly gorgeous appearance.

Thanks Lobo!

Why Does The End Of The World Feel So Good?

If the world really ends, we all have to speak in cliches. I've just been watching 2012 and it's amazing how hilarious and morbid this film is.

There is an excellence in watching badly written characters experience catastrophes. The director is a genius; he should be put in charge of all reality programming asap.

One character - a plastic surgeon - is copping a feel from his wife in a supermarket when she protests. He says, "Honey, women pay me thousands of dollars to handle their boobs. You get it for free." This smarmy holder of the dream job of millions of men dies. What a tragedy.

Every review I've read of this states how full of special effects and destruction this film is. I disagree. It's over 30 minutes on before anything really happens. This gives us time to set up "character" (minimal) and "plot" (the world ends). If you go and see this, arrive half an hour late. You won't miss anything.

The time spent setting up the story, something not all directors are good at. I'm better at ballet. Here, it all falls so laughably flat on its face I'm surprised more people weren't chuckling. The same (struggling) storyline is rehashed several times over, so it feels like different actors auditioning with a read through of almost the same script. Shame. Plus, I don't think anyone was interested first time round. After that, lots of luck.

Product placement is rife, of course. So we can all look forward to typing avidly on our Sony Vaio laptops as we fall screaming into pools of lava. Why, I'm doing that now.

One plus is that the effects are superb, worth seeing the film for. As to the human side, its blandness is overwhelming and by the end the sheer monotony of this crawling melodrama will have destroyed much of your desire to get up tomorrow and be productive (assuming you had any).

The slow, drawling climax (all 45 minutes of it) is a dribbling hybrid of Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and all those 1970's disaster-a-thons.

The world ended today. I probably shouldn't have been laughing.