FUCK THE WORLD (Part I)

These are testing times. You know it, I know it, and anyone somewhat familiar with the British financial scene certainly knows it. Yet when I decided, in my foolish naïveté, to put the past behind me and look towards the future, things only worsened: I realized that the future is here, and it’s a pretty miserable place. Perhaps using the term apocalyptic is slightly over-exaggerating, but it does feel like we’re closer to the end than ever before. As we hurtle towards self-destruction, I though I’d reminisce about several recent events that have helped facilitate our imminent ruin.

Reasons the future is now and the world is ending:

• Two satellites collide in space; scientists reveal the chances of this are slim, but ever-increasing, as the atmosphere is crammed full of satellites. So we’ve managed to overpopulate our nearby space, as well.
• Two nuclear submarines collide in the mid-Atlantic, both carrying nuclear missiles. After centuries of competition, France and Britain narrowly avoid collaborating in the destruction of an ocean.
• Scientists develop a memory-erasing pill. Ethical implications abound; images conjured up concerning evil little bald men in white jackets plotting to commit horrific crimes and erase their tracks through induced memory loss.
• The race is on to discover the so-called ‘God particle’, with—wait, there’s a ‘God particle’?! And more than one organization knows where to find it?! But it has yet to be discovered? How can they know it exists? [head explodes] (Particle would actually explain why matter has mass (thereby revealing God’s biggest secret, or something), and has only been predicted. But head is still exploded.)
• The economy… ugh. Do I even need to go there? It’s crippled beyond recognition, and for any poor sod unfortunate enough to be graduating this summer or the next several to follow, the world is a barren, desolate place, the terms “vacancy” and “bonus” mere myths from yesteryear.
• While we sit contently at a comfortable height above seas level, the less fortunate inhabitants of Pacific atolls – many of which only creep fractions of a metre above the ocean – are ever so gradually watching their homes sink. Nothing like the actions of the developed world literally drowning any hope of prosperity in the less developed world to make you feel guilty about not recycling.
• The Queen updates the Official Website of The British Monarchy… the Queen has a website?! Does she blog? Her_royal_heigness.blogspot.com? Perhaps she Twitters – that’s more her style, methinks. Er, one thinks.
• Alfie the 13 year old dad… well, I suppose this is more like a step backwards in time. When asked what his financial plans were concerning his child, his response was “what does financial mean?” To be honest, kid, these days you’re better off not knowing.

…And all the while, global warming sits waiting, firmly blocking any light that would be at the end of the tunnel. He cracks his knuckles with an evil grin. “Just you wait…” he cackles to himself.

U R 2 STUPID 4 UR OWN GOOD

Above: A Skoda being run over by a tank.

A few years ago, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt wrote a book called Freakonomics. In it, there is a chapter dedicated to the socioeconomic patterns of naming children. It discusses the frequency of first names in relation to race and economic status of Californians in the 1990s. It's a good book, but the point here is that a lot of Americans have some pretty stupid names. There are normal names, there are creative or rare but imaginative or cool names, and then there are stupid names. This line is usually drawn with some degree of personal opinion in mind: I, for example, find the names Roshanda and Shaniqua funny, but that probably makes me a racist. Similarly, in certain parts of the world, the name Mercedez is clearly chosen because of the car company, which I find ridiculous, but that's just me. I am white, and from a comfortable background, and I don't think I know anyone named after a car. Perhaps for this reason, I don't plan on calling any of my children Skoda, Seat or Jaguar.... actually maybe Jaguar, that sounds kinda badass.

Link to list of American Names

Well, despite America having a well-deserved reputation for being the King of Stupid, it has been safely out-stupified by New Zealand. About a year ago I remember reading that a couple had been denied the option of naming their baby 4Real. That's right, 4Real. With a 4. Like an RnB song title from the nineties. According to the BBC - which spares no chance to make other countries look as retarded as possible, in a futile attempt to excuse the actions of some of its own populace - "Mum and Dad decided to call their son 4Real after seeing an ultrasound image of him. It was then they realised that their baby was 'for real'." So really, it should have been called Baby U R 4Real. Although, I presume the vast majority of ultrasounds result in this realisation, so the parents maybe could have prepared themselves for it, and come up with some back-up names. Imagine the doctor performing the ultrasound, going very quiet and lowering his head, before carefully announcing: "I'm so sorry, but a plastic replica of a fetus seems to have somehow found its way into your womb. In other words, your baby is 4Fake."

Turns out Pat "R U in 2 it" and Sheena "Wot R U up2" Wheaton had a "Plan B" name up their sleeve after all. The poor kid is now called Superman. Although, for the record, he will still be referred to as 4Real by his white trash parents. I can imagine the playground conversations to come: 

"Hey kid, we're playing superheroes, who are you, mate?"

"I'm Superman, but I wanna be Batman, bru."

"You can't be both! Pick one, mate"

"But I AM Superman... 4Real, bru"

"What, mate?"

"I'm 4Real guys... Superman 4Real!... bru"

"What the fuck, mate? Who is this asshole?"

*beatdown ensues*

OK so I wanted it to be clear they were kiwis, but the moral is still clear: this kid is in for a world of pain in his preteen years.

And it seems it's probably someone's actual job in NZ to stop rednecks from calling their kids horrible names: "In the past, [the authorities] have had to intervene to stop parents naming their offspring Satan and Adolf Hitler." This seems funny, until you realize that we're talking about real people. Real people who, despite their obvious lack of intelligence, somehow managed to successfully copulate and produce offspring, and once their primary instinctual goal of reproduction has been reached, they go and fuck it all up by calling the baby Adolf Hitler Mistake "Daddy didn't pull out in time" Smith.

Which brings us round to today's most-read story on the BBC News website

Some NZ kid wants to change her name... why, you ask? Because she's called Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii. The judge, outraged, claimed that calling a child this a social handicap. And I fail to see how anyone could object to that. Here are a list of other names that have been banned, in addition to Satan and Adolf Hitler:

Yeah Detroit

Keenan Got Lucky

Sex Fruit

Toilet

Fat Boy

Fish and Chips

Marriage Ruiner

(I added two that I made up for effect, can you spot them?!)

But surely far worse, here are some names that these authorities have actually allowed human beings to be called legally:

Violence

Benson and Hedges

Midnight Chardonnay

Number 16 Bus Shelter

...if you're out there, Number 16, and you have not yet tried to flee your country, do so immediately. Unless the Number 16 Bus Shelter is inside the nicest hotel in Australasia, no one deserves to be named after such a place, especially not when it's the location that I'm guessing they were conceived in. For shame, New Zealand, for shame.

PARKOUR A EDIMBOUR......G

So perhaps I'm a few years late seeing this, but some guys made a film in which two people basically run around an unusually summery Edinburgh, parkour-ing/playing an extreme game of "it." They start in Bristo Square, do their thing there for a while, and eventually end up down by Scottish Parliament. The continuity lags a bit at one point, as they run onto South Bridge and in the next cut they're running past Monster Mash on Forrest Road, in the direction of Bristo Square again. But you basically have to be as big of a loser as myself to make a big deal out of that. Fucking amateurs, next time try making a film that doesn't suck!

This movie has illustrated to me the potential Edinburgh has for some seriously awesome parkour. Next step: a rooftop chase all the way down the Royal Mile. Perhaps a bus-top (and/or bust-stop-top) chase down a busy Princes Street? Or a rooftop transfer from the David Hume Tower to Appleton Tower? A treetop chase through the Meadows? Ziplining from church steeples all the way across town? Freejumping off the Crags? No?

Hmm, got a little carried away there. Point is, I'm dusting off my imaginary pair of Nike Shox, putting on an imaginary pair of shorts and going to show off my skillz in Bristo Square. Move over Sebastien Foucan, this mah hood. What do you mean why am I naked from the waist down, they're IMAGINARY shorts, you asshole.

Link here

LAND OF THE FREE... FREE TO SHOOT SHIT

Yay, thanks to smelly Republican Supreme Court justices, the ban on handguns in Washington D.C. has finally been lifted. Now I can go and buy back my Smith & Wesson, and finally shoot my fucking neighbour's yappy little dog, because God damnit I'm Amurrrcan, and this is the land of the free. And then I'll shoot the neighbours, too. And then I'll start spelling it neighbors, to make it sound like I'm actually American. Damnit.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that as an American, you have the right to bear arms. That was originally devised in 1776. At that point, there were Native Americans running around, angry because Europeans had stolen their land, pretty much wiped out their Eastern tribes, or moved them into the wilderness. On or anywhere near the frontier at that point, there were scary snakes and buffalo and shit. Not to mention French, Spanish and British forces. America, at that point, consisted of a fairly small population of people, spread out over quite a lot of land. Thus, they encouraged each landowner, who were all technically militia men, to bear arms (this amendment is NOT the right to arm bears--but that would be so funny). Cool.

Fast forward 232 years, and there is a National Guard. And a state-funded, very powerful army. Defence is something America certainly has. So to claim Americans have a constitutional right to own a gun is severely outdated. Most people who own a gun in America, if they purchased it specifically for defence, would use it to shoot other Americans. Or Mexicans. This shit is fucked up. It's always been a tricky subject for the Supreme Court to address, for obvious reasons, but the last thing the American gun-slinging population needs is further defence of their actions, and the excuse that as long as they're gun-slinging Americans, it's cool. And this does not help.

The U.S. should really try increasing knife crime in urban areas, that's worked pretty well in the UK. Or they should actually arm bears. Now THAT would scare off terrorists/Mexicans.


Full article

JOYEUX NOEL, LOVE RONNY

So I may be stretching the morbidity link here but whatever, this is awesome. I'm doing work experience in an advertising agency that covers Chesterfield cigarettes. Now almost entirely unsmoked elsewhere, they continue to prosper here in the land of baguettes, berets and copius armpit hair. But that's not the point; the point is that 50 years ago these babies were the third most popular cigarette brand in the USA, and were publicly endorsed by James Dean and Ronald Reagan. And this old poster is fucking sweet: Reagan kicking back at Christmas time with several cartons and a reef for company. 'Tis the season.

THESE ARE THE END TIMES

The following post is deeply insensitive and very, very poorly informed.

I recently had the misfortune of being directed to the Sun website, only to find myself faced with an image of what we in the medical profession call Henan Dickback Syndrome (HDS). Perhaps you had a similar experience just milliseconds ago, in which case you feel my pain and you are my brother. Embrace me.

My first reaction to this story was 'You lucky bastard'. After all, there must be some logic behind the phrase 'as happy as a dog with two dicks', in which case this kid has the best of both worlds - the ability to be the filling in a delicious mandwich AND possession of opposable thumbs. Then there's the career prospects of being a sideshow attraction and the star of one of Channel 4's thinly-veiled televised freakshows. He must be fucking thrilled.

Upon further inspection, however, I discovered that HDS is merely a very slight form of a condition called FOETUS IN FOETU - also known as The Horror - and realised what really makes this kid so lucky. It could have been so much worse. Plus, spinal phalluses probably don't even work.

For the blissfully ignorant, full-blown foetus in foetu is 'a developmental abnormality in which a fetus gets enveloped inside its twin and an entire living organ system with torso and limbs can develop inside the host' (thanks, Wikipedia). That roughly translates as 'a semi-human parasite that lives inside your child' or 'pretty much the worst thing I can think of ever'. That is, until you read further in the wiki entry and realise that this occurs in around 1 in every 500,000 live births. 

MATHS TIME!

• The Horror occurs in 1 in every 500,000 instances of baby.
  
• There are around 6,705,000,000 people on Earth.
• 6,705,000,000 divided by 500,000 = 13,410 demonic parasite twins.
• Therefore there are enough of these horrific mutant bastards to populate a small town and form an army.
• We are all fucked.

This article brought me back five years to Channel 4's 'The Boy Who Gave Birth To His Twin'. Snappy title and incredibly disturbing content. In true Bodyshock 'whaaw, fuck look at that!' style, it followed the story of Alamjan Nematilaev, a boy from Kazakhstan who at the age of seven had been given the seriously raw deal of being diagnosed as one of these twisted human matryoshka dolls. I won't bore you with the details but there's a scene near the end where, after a complex surgical procedure, the kid shakes hands with The Horror as it sits nicely pickled on a stainless steel bench. It looks like somebody deflated Sloth from The Goonies and it is truly hellish.

Oh look, YouTube's got it!

Sleep tight.

Fucking Hell...

...was our immediate response to encountering this somewhat daring exhibit by the infamous brothers Jake & Dinos Chapman at the central London White Cube gallery earlier this week. It's also the name of the artwork itself - a series of nine large glass cabinets, each containing perfect scale models of a wholly unwholesome battleground. Among the noble pursuits featured are decapitation (see photo), necrophilia, cannibalism, and... pig-rape. All washed down with a dash of Nazism. Well, I say a dash - more like a tidal wave. Even the cabinets are arranged in a swastika, although that particular touch of genius escaped me at the time.

It's all a bit sickening, and even more so because it clearly took such an exceptional level of craftsmanship to make every single severed head, crucified skeleton, etc. etc. Such attention to detail, especially in the infrastructure and terrain, almost appealed to the 10-year old in me, and I definitely had to stop myself saying 'that's so cool!!!' out loud. Not at the pig-rape though.

Anyway, I couldn't really tell who was winning out of the Nazis and the skeletons/zombies, but I sense that wasn't the point. What, then, was? The Chapmans must have employed a vast team of highly skilled model-makers for a pretty massive space of time. You get the sense that they could have asked them to build absolutely anything, and yet they chose this.

Incidentally, the other side of the gallery is devoted to original Hitler watercolours from back in his bohemian student days when he was twice-rejected from Vienna's art school, only they've all had big clumsy rainbows daubed on them. That part was actually quite funny, but overall this was still by far the most disturbing exhibition I've ever wandered innocently into.

Take a sickbag, and don't take your mum. I didn't but it would not go down well.

http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/jandd/fucking_hell/