Braveheart's Broken Balls

It has been quite a while since I last walked the empty corridors of my virtual Fatal Hope penthouse. Numerous reasons exist for my sabbatical, with the primary one being that I am unfathomably lazy, with a tendency to really not give a shit about this admittedly unhelpful trait.

The reason I set up this blog was to air my opinions on things, be they well informed or horrifically misguided (mostly column B). As with most things I was very enthusiastic early on but as the days and weeks ticked away, I simply found myself not being bothered. But suddenly I have the urge. You know that urge you get for a KFC after going months without tasting the colonel's sweet secret recipe? It's remarkably similar. 

This fried chicken is nothing in comparison to the mastery that is the colonel's chicken. This chicken IS Queen + Paul Rodgers. 

I thought that for a fresh start on here, I'd break myself back in easily with a general rant about anything that popped into my head at the time of writing. Here we go...

Item number one. I think it's mildly obvious that the Scottish independence referendum has been reasonably big news in the UK in recent weeks and I must say I was slightly disappointed that they voted 'no'. Not because I supported the 'yes' campaign. Because I simply thought it would have been funny to see what would have happened.

Of course the first thing you tend to look at is currency. Naff William Wallace impersonator-in-chief Alex Salmond said (alot) that an independent Scotland would retain the pound. The central bank of the pound is the Bank of England,  England being the country that Salmond so desperately wanted a quickie divorce from (assuming Whitehall allowed him to have the pound, of course.) And although he never alluded to a plan B currency, this would have to be the Euro which has gone down a storm in some of Europe's main economies (ask Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain and close neighbours and successful defectors Ireland. Hows the spud farming going, Ireland... better?) 

The image of a rather rotund rabbit in front of set of quickly oncoming headlights comes to mind. It doesn't? You're imagination just isn't as satirically amazing as mine is then. 

There is no oncoming car outside of this photo.

What else... Oh yeah, did you hear about the high-as-fuck drummer who sat on the uncovered stand of his drum stool and sliced his nutsack in half? Apparently he needed thirty-six stitches but on the bright side, his giblets were saved and he is somehow still able to reproduce.  

No popcorn chicken in my bucket, thanks. 

Bring Back Fat Les!

England have already lost a game, the previous winners are already out, Pepe has already headbutted somebody and Adrian Chiles is already trying to pretend he is lifelong pals with every pundit on ITV. Welcome to the World Cup.

First of all, props to Fabio Cannavaro for not acting upon the philosophy from his playing days and kicking Adrian Chiles in the face. I wish he would. Chiles is a complete abhorration of a sports presenter and this was illuminated quite clearly when he revealed live on air that former Northern Ireland footballer Neil Lennon was in fact Scottish. You learn new things every day.

In all fairness, he looks a bit Scottish. Ginger, check. Always angry, check.

I personally find the BBC much more entertaining, if only for watching Rio Ferdinand trying to sound intelligent in the company of legends Clarence Seedorf and Thierry Henry. He still looks like an anthropomorphic lizard that has painstakingly attempted but badly failed to learn and succesfully speak the English language for its entire life. I also hear that Phil Neville was a poor choice of pundit for the England Italy game? I can't pass comment as for some reason I fell asleep in the 1st minute and woke up when it finished. What a rotten bit of luck eh?

Anyway, I should probably talk about football.

So far as I quietly predicted to myself, the following things have come to fruition: Brazil look lost, Germany look frighteningly good, Chile are bloody quick, Netherlands don't look too shabby, Italy are a one man team (albeit in the shape of a hairy man in his mid 30's), Portugal aren't even a one man team with Ronaldo there, Algeria and Iran both have eleven men stood in their goalmouths, Spain are a team of old men looking for a taste of the glory days and England are probably going to go out early. There, done. Next World Cup, please.

I think England have had two very good chances to win the world cup in recent years. In 2002 they boasted a potential starting lineup of:

Seaman, Neville, Campbell, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Gerrard, Scholes, Beckham, Lampard, Joe Cole, Owen.

This lineup would have won that world cup. However Neville, Gerrard and Beckham got injured and for some reason Frank Lampard was left out of the squad. They also had Sven Goran Eriksson as their manager.

'She looks married... That is so hot.'

In 2006, their best lineup was:

Robinson, Neville, Terry, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Beckham, Lampard, Gerrard, Joe Cole, Owen and Rooney.

This lineup should have had a chance at winning the world cup but Wayne Rooney (at his absolute best) got injured. Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard also decided that they were not too fond of playing well together on the same pitch. They too, regrettably, had Sven Goran Eriksson as their manager.

They were two squandered opportunites to win football's biggest tournament and on both occasions this mostly came down to injuries and managerial ineptitude by everybody's favourite ladies man, Sven. If those two teams had current boss Roy Hodgson in charge, they may have had a shot as he seems to vaguely know what he is doing. Even if it does start raining as England are playing poorly, he will have the sense not to grab a cup of coffee and an umbrella while a football match is going on.  

Assuming that Luis Suarez has been well fed and doesn't bite into a medium rare Phil Jagielka during the game, England should win as Uruguay do not have a good team barring Suarez and Edison Cavani and they unequivocally proved this against a bunch of central American part timers in their first game. Let's hope Diego Forlan doesn't forget his zimmer frame or the Uruguay strikers, famed for their particularly unique sense of balance, might win a penalty or two.

Anyway this World Cup has been a thousand times better than the arse-numblingly dull 2010 World Cup, so long may it continue...

Breaking News: A Fat Old Man Says A Word

My girlfriend told me that I had an unhealthy obsession with Top Gear. 
She told me, 'You need to forget about that show and focus more on our relationship!' 'Okay fine', I responded. 'I mean, how hard can it be?'

Top Gear is a staple of British television and has been since James May started buying his shirts from Dunelm. It began with a beard called Noel Edmonds in the late 70's and has evolved into what it is today, a show about two fat post middle aged men and a rodent who prat around for an hour while sometimes driving cars and talking about them. The name of one of the fat dudes is Jeremy Clarkson, who has once again reached the news because of his above average sized mouth. James isn't that fat to be fair. Sorry James. 

'Uh, hullo. Do you have this curtain in a Large please?'

The latest shitstorm has developed because of the resurrection of an unseen piece of cutting room footage that has made people very angry indeed. In this footage Clarkson was standing in between two cars while mumbling, 'eenie, meenie, miney, mo, catch a n****r by it's toe.' There was probably a reason the BBC didn't broadcast this. That would have been idiotic and got Clarkson in all sorts of trouble...

Well somehow the footage got out and as a result the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail are furious! Other than that, nobody else really cares. He did mumble the word and I don't think there is any doubt about what he said, but what he said was never intended to reach the light of day so I don't quite understand why these newspapers are so pissed. Then again, one look at the Mail Online website tells you that they will do anything to get their fascist hands on a story of any note. Hmm, a story about Jeremy Clarkson saying the N word or a story about a pair of identical twins having identical plastic surgery for 15 years. They went with both because, why the fuck not?

We all know the BBC are not going to sack Jezza. He has avoided PC brigade arrest several times through the years 'insulting' Mexicans, Indians, Germans, the Burmese, the French and pretty much every other country with absolutely hilarious national stereotypes. In my opinion Top Gear is one of the only decent, unfiltered TV shows left in this country and it is pretty much the only show I will completely go out of my way to record or patiently watch online on my piss slow excuse for a laptop.

Never go to a bowling alley in France and yell 'strike!' You'll start a new revolution.

I mean who dreamed up Gogglebox? A show about people watching TV? Next channel 4 will set up cameras in front of people who are watching Gogglebox and record their hilarious reactions to people's hilarious reactions while they watch TV shows. Just send me my cheque now, Channel 4.

I'm not actively seeking for people to disagree with my opinion, but I think that people who are offended too easily should just chill out. I kind of understand why people would get so pissed off by words, but at the end of the day that is all they are. Words. The Clarkson incident was clearly just a slip of the tongue. He certainly meant no malice towards any individual when reciting the rhyme and if you look back at history, the version he relayed in that clip was actually an early version of the rhyme so why don't the accusers blame the people who came up with it hundreds of years ago?

And on that bombshell...

Warning: This Article Is Partly About Cricket

For those of you who have decided to read on past the title, you are very boring and you should be ashamed. 

I don't try to hide the fact that I am dismally uninteresting to alot of people. I am not in the business of covering up that I, like many men, am partial to sport and boozy discussion about sport. I don't think there is great deal of scientific reasoning for why dudes like to watch sport be it football, rugby or tennis matches involving Maria Sharapova.  

For those who are the least bit interested, my opinion is that top level English sport is currently at a very poor level considering we invented half of them. I'm not talking about UK sport, just English sport as I do not care in the least about the countries of Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland. I should care about Scotland as that is where the majority of my ancestors were from but there is just something about the boxer-less kilt and scotch-fueled Glasgow kiss combination that I'm less that fond of. 

Edinburgh Castle was built for the sole purpose of firing cannons at Edinburgh.

Let's start with cricket (If you hadn't opened a book or logged onto your Facebook by now, well done. But now I've lost you). Cricket is, for alot of people in this country, a complete snooze fest. I'm partial to the big England Test matches, like The Ashes, because some of the play can be very fun to watch at times. Yeah I said it. But park me in front of a four day match between Derbyshire and Glamorgan and even if I'm not the least bit tired, I'll fall asleep without fail.

I find Test cricket occasionally enthralling simply because I enjoy watching players who are genuinely a cut above the rest. Players of world class calibre doing what they do best (this may not be true. Who knows, Andrew Flintoff may be better at cooking a mean sirloin. I'd believe this). This is why I am dumbstruck at the ECB's decision to get rid of Kevin Pietersen.       

Pietersen is one of the only players who would cause me to stop what I was doing and watch some cricket. That takes alot. Considering he was the highest English run scorer in the recent Ashes series down under, to drop him is an utter disgrace. It shows what state English cricket is in when they drop their best player and hope for improvement. Oh dear.

The football team isn't much better. When you have a pair of navigationally challenged stoats in Kyle Walker and Chris Smalling defending and a striker with the shooting ability of a Stormtrooper in Danny Welbeck, you got problems son. Their only hopes of getting out of the group stage are if the Uruguay team decide to have a nap after 45 minutes or if the Italian squad decides to give up and run away before the game. 

'Football game? Today?? No thanks, I don't wan't anybody to foul my hair.'

The only sports in which they are relatively competent are Rugby, Golf and Formula 1. I won't talk about rugby as I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject. And I won't talk about golf as I'm not particularly keen on the idea of a self induced coma. We're not bad at F1. Even though I don't like him, his stupid gormless face or his limelight seeking cocky arrogant wanker personality, I will say that Lewis Hamilton is quite a good racing driver. Moving on. 

English sport needs help. We cheer on our mostly foreign football teams in the winter and the very Scottish mumbling patron saint of double handed backhand, Andy Murray in the summer. I hope to the highest being that English sport does improve for the sake of those alcohol filled bar conversations on Saturday nights. For the sake of the sanity of male drinkers across the land, English sports please improve!

A big thanks for those who stayed with me. You have wasted your time. Continue with your weird lives. 

We Are Born, Then We Die. May As Well Have Fun...

What is the meaning of life? A question that people have foolishly attempted to answer since nothing exploded and then the universe happened. Since then, the universe has constantly expanded and earth decided to arrive, bringing with it a plethora of utterly useless, meaningless life. Some life is pretty cool, like Megaladons and Platypuses. But some is stupid like, well, humans.

The human race is a waste of the apparent ‘gift’ of life. We are greedy, we are selfish, we are narcissistic, we are violent,  we are stupid. Yes, other animals appear stupid but relative to their body size, they have significantly smaller brains than us. However, they utilise them to their maximum potential. For example, a lion’s brain is wired to fight, feed and fuck. That is literally all that The Lion King would be for two and a half hours if Disney stuck to rigid standards of realism. 

A human’s brain is so intricate and complicated in its makeup that it has the potential to achieve so much more than it actually does. Yes, technology has come forward a hugely long way since the human race first learned that wiping their arse is actually a good thing. But to me, it just doesn't feel like people over history have gone much further than this arse wiping euphoria. 

Wife, Son! Come! You won't believe what I've just done!'

We are always at war with each other. We are constantly ruining our own planet with pollution and deforestation. The richer nations are getting more and more powerful while third world countries become weaker and poorer as the years go by. All humans in rich countries are concerned about is their next pay rise while people in poorer countries are simply worried about whether or not they will be alive tomorrow. This planet is an utter disaster because people are retards. 

This isn't a political post (trust me, they'll come) but politicians are the prime example of the potential we have wasted as a race. They symbolize our intrinsic greed and innate lust for power and wealth. They campaign to get elected and then once in, they do fuck all until the third year down the line when they begin appearing on morning news shows spouting bullshit about what they will do in the next four years. It particularly pisses me off when certain people, like David Cameron (I won't name names. Oh.) hop onto certain bandwagons to improve PR. Of course he was required to say something when Mandela shuffled off, fair enough, but he really didn't need to go on Twatter to say anything about footballer Thomas Hitzlsperger coming out as gay. What the fuck does that have to do with how he will do his job as Prime Minister of the UK?

It's taken me just 22 years but, I give up. I see life as a rather pointless thing at this stage in time. When you consider how vast the universe is and all other mysteries that are yet to be known the human race just seems a bit, y'know, pathetic and this viewpoint becomes more staunch the more you see David Cameron's stupidly huge forehead clogging up the television screen. I'm sure there is a bigger picture out there somewhere and that there is life on other planets in the universe and that there may even be a plan for the human race when it is obliterated by the sun in a billion years time. 

This life is all I've got so I may as well fucking enjoy it. 

I found the meaning of life.

Network Fail

7 quid. 7 fucking quid. I was warned very far in advance that it would happen, but I was still pissed when it actually did. Walking up to that ticket machine on a dark, dreary midweek night, I knew what the screen was going to tell me but I still reacted with surprise when it told me in its silly font: 'Warwick Parkway to Coventry. 1 adult. Anytime Day Single. £7.00.' 

Trains are probably one of the most mundane subjects you could possibly talk about so if you are bored, go to Twatter or porn or something. If you are one of the numerous jilted masses extremely pissed off at everything ever, grab a bottle of gin and read on.

Not advised: The Punctuation Drinking Game. 

Last year, that ticket cost me £6.40. Now, a rise of sixty pence is not much. At all. Inflation has been happening since man first learned that pointy stone kill mammoth and, in a small way, the rise is understandable. The railways are currently undergoing upgrades and the government foots 32% of the bill for this. My problem is that the quality of travel is absolutely not worth what we pay for it. 

Of course there is always foregoing the train fare if barriers are open but sod's law states very clearly that the one time I do this, there will me a miserly conductor on board just waiting to frisk me for my ticket. There is always hiding in the toilet but have you ever been in a train toilet? You know people and how gross they all are? Yeah.

My journey back from Warwick to Coventry involves getting on a Cross Country train from Leamington. This train is always late. It can range from between a petty five minutes to a forehead vein bursting half an hour. I’m guessing it gets held up by hundreds of students at Oxford who have decided in their privileged minds that the train track is now a cycle lane as well (there are A LOT of bicycles in Oxford) and the driver takes twenty minutes to pick the posh pricks out from beneath the train wheels. 

This particular train was on time. Because it's not in the UK. Zing. DfT, I zinged you, recognize!  

There was one day before Christmas at the height of shopping panic; I decided it would be extremely clever to get a 5.25 Saturday service. I expected it to be busy but with all the investment going into our fantastic rail services I believed that they would add an extra carriage to the train therefore relieving the other carriages from the duress of overcrowding. They took one away. Four carriages. On a train that goes between Manchester and Birmingham. At Christmas.

It mystifies me how the chancellor can say that the economy is on its way to recovery and yet I’m still picking dead moths out from the note section of my wallet. Yes the economy is doing okayish but people are not as their wages are not going up with the rate of inflation… some people have been stuck in jobs for years without any sort of pay rise. It’s utterly nonsensical. To be fair, this is actually the first time in years that the rail fares have actually gone with inflation. In the last couple of years the government just chucked a dart at a dartboard to work out the rise. '180! 180 percent.' 'Yeah that sounds about right.'

Fuck it. I'm getting a car.

A Very Brief Welcome

Hello all and welcome to Fatal Hope. You're probably on the wrong blog.

Writing isn't new to me. Back when I was the tender age of seventeen, I started a blog called 'The Confounder' which I contributed to on a very sporadic basis for a few years. But I wasn't brilliant at writing so it wasn't that good. I'm still not great now, but I'm giving it a go once more so I can improve at writing, while hopefully entertaining at the same time. I felt the need to add a niche in my otherwise pathetically useless existence among the pathetic existence of others. The aliens are laughing at us all!

Over the forseeable future, I'll be writing two(ish) articles every week for your ocular pleasure on any subject that bothers me enough to take to the interweb to mock. I shall be back...