Tiernan Douieb2013-05-18T13:38:27-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=tiernan-douiebCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Tiernan DouiebGood old fashioned elbow grease.Iain Duncan Smith, In An Ideal World...tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29936202013-04-01T14:14:04-04:002013-04-02T07:28:51-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/
Iain congratulated himself on such a sharp thought as he brewed another cup of tea from the teabag he'd now reused five times. He knew exactly how many times he'd done this because he'd learnt over the last two months that each teabag lasts maybe five times if he really dried them out, squeezed them very hard and then didn't mind drinking something that tastes nothing like tea.
As his lips curled around the stained mug and the hot mud water reached his throat, he wished for the umpteenth time that he had never said that he could easily live on £53 a week. Iain did not know exactly how many times he'd wished this. He just knew it was more than he'd had non-tea or abuse bricks thrown through the window.
£7.57 a day seemed like more than enough money at first for anyone to survive on. After rent and bills of course, not that he paid either of those. He had chuckled to himself at the very thought at the time. Sure it was a pay cut for him of over £1,500 but he'd just spend that week at home in his lovely mansion, eating food he'd already got in and barely spending a penny.
Poverty is not about money he'd once said, and when he did he'd made himself a very nice cup of tea to congratulate himself on that one. He didn't really know what else it was about but was fairly sure most people wouldn't check. Were 'povs' a thing? Maybe he could say that's what poverty was about.
Either way, it hadn't really been a concern. He didn't realise that several months later over 85% of the UK's population would sign a petition meaning that the government would be forced to place him in a council flat in Tower Hamlets for at least six months, for fear of an otherwise French style revolution. Iain still remembered that look in David's eyes as he'd told him. It was the only time he'd ever seen his boss look apologetic about anything.
Even when Dave left his daughter in the pub, his wife had merely got a shrug with a look as if to say "why didn't you fix this?" But as he handed Iain the keys to flat 237, he'd made the sort of face you'd make before sending a soldier to their death. Which to be fair Dave hadn't even made when he'd done that with troops in Afghanistan either.
The first week had been ok, though it was a shame he'd had his three trunks of specially prepared food confiscated at the door. Breach of agreement apparently. So was having a chef in the apartment. Instead he'd get a pre-paid voucher to use in Asda like he'd so deemed on others. Iain had never shopped in Asda before but once had a nightmare about being trapped in one with only an organic Pheasant as a weapon to fend off all the hungry, fat, disabled people who kept trying to pat his arse like in the adverts.
Now though he was accustomed to spending one full day's allowance travelling several miles to get to the specific frozen warehouse of despair, as he called it. Then whilst there, try and work out which animals weren't roadkill and which vegetables were actually vegetables. All this while its unpaid workfare staff members threw various discount items at him. With force. And a consistency that could, as he had admitted, be called anything but lazy or shirking.
Only five months and one week left of this awful situation now, Iain thought. He would've contested it but regulations of the trial meant he'd lost access to legal aid and couldn't afford it. Surely though all the people would realise soon enough that this economic crisis was their fault wouldn't they? They must know that the lack of jobs, industry, housing and growth is all down to their awful existence? And once they realised they'd let him out of there in order to carry on fixing this Broken Britain. Well once he'd got out and removed all those scroungers on benefits they'd let live in his mansion's spare rooms for the six months too.
After that, well then he would put all those with spare rooms into smaller cubicle spaces somewhere on the Isle of Wight, and just send them aid packages of grains every month till the banks were fine again. He clenched his fists at this brilliant idea and even thought about trying a sixth time with the tea bag. This thought however was ruined by another brick careering into his hallway. He opened the note with a sigh. 'Universal Cretin' it said. Hungry and cold, he added it to the pile.]]>My Partly Political Broadcasttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26959002013-02-15T12:35:35-05:002013-04-17T05:12:01-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/
EPISODE ONE
EPISODE TWO
]]>The Party for People Who Hate Peopletag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24020102013-01-03T19:00:00-05:002013-03-05T05:12:01-05:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/
According to a party spokesperson there are two major factors for this fresh, new stance. Firstly they are taking into consideration that absolutely none of their plans to kick-start the economy have worked so far and they have no other ideas. Secondly they've looked at the way that countries such as Iceland and now even the US are gradually clawing their way back into the international market, and have decided to ignore their tactics as that would be too sensible and no way as fun as "just killing off the population".
Obese people are the first to be targeted because, as the Health Secretary said "they are easy targets on account of there being more to fire at. Harder to miss you see? Why can't I just shoot them? Who makes these bloody laws anyway?"
Anyone whose BMI scale is higher than that of any of the athletes who won gold shiny things at the Olympics, will be forced to go to the gym or have their benefits cut. The hope is that without benefits these 'money gulpers' will have less money to be able to afford to eat decent and healthy food, therefore increasing their size rapidly and dying of heart attacks before the welfare system has to deal with their ungrateful selves.
The think tank study into this suggests that their "whale-like carcasses can be used to burn as fuel for our fancy cars and jet planes or to create more soylent green than the average impoverished orphan. This could then feed several impoverished orphans at once so they can work in factories longer."
Next up are the elderly who the government suggest that it's best to just "freeze back into work". The Department of Health, working alongside the Department of Work and Pensions on this area of debt reduction say that by taking away winter fuel allowance elderly people will be more inclined to go out and work in order to stay warm via movement and heaters in the workplace.
"Should all go to plan", said another spokesperson to the one earlier, "their homes will be too cold to return to, and they'll have to stay at work all night. Then we can repossess their flats and house and sell them to millionaires to keep those whacking great truffles in". Calling it the 'Work To Live, Until You Die As You Haven't Long Left' scheme, or WTLUYDAYHLL for short, it's hoped that this will save the government tens of pounds. Ultimately this'll mean they can definitely continue to ignore any tax not coming in from huge companies that take them to lunch, as they really do like lunch.
All this should ensure that taxpayers money is not spent on those who "suck the life out of the tax system like poverty tramp leeches, disgusting, disgusting poor people. Urgh, urgh I feel sick thinking about them" and rather on increasing minister's salaries along a higher rate than the 121% increase they've had in the last five years. The Secretary For Work and Pensions aims to change his job title to Lord of The Strong, Damner Of The Weak and Pathetic to highlight exactly what he has to deal with. He said: "I just don't understand why these people feel they should have anything ever. We've taken away lots of jobs and now they are complaining they can't get jobs. Well, I think it's as though they aren't even trying to get the jobs that we've made sure aren't there. And if they aren't trying, then why on earth should they be allowed to eat, or stay warm, or get around or just generally not die?"
Changing their slogan to 'The Party for People Who Hate People Who Aren't Their Friends' they are hoping this new 'honest' face will increase votes in 2015. Or at least kill off anyone who might vote against them. Over the next six months its rumoured all houses without working chimneys will have them restored so children can sweep them for sixpence and 'stop trying to learn anything, the bloody skivers' while plans to use disabled people as speed bumps in roads are still being discussed.
The PM stated: "Look we can't just splash money on an Olympics and Jubilee every year so we've just given up trying to pretend we think you deserve to be even remotely happy. Unless someone comes up with a better idea you'll just have to knuckle down and accept 2013 is going to be crap for everyone that is too lazy to afford to go on a skiing holiday."]]>The BBC's Crisis Isn't One Of Trusttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21166912012-11-12T19:55:31-05:002013-01-12T05:12:01-05:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/Deep Deep Trouble' that 'You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.' Its an incredible state of affairs for an organisation when you can be so criticised for withholding allegations and accusations on a few weeks previously, to then suddenly be lambasted for hinting at revealing names a week or so later. Names they didn't actually reveal but still apologised for, which, as far as I'm concerned, proves they are the very British Broadcasting Corporation. Never have I felt a television service upholds the sheer weirdness that we hold as a society in the UK whereby someone bumps into you and we regretfully say sorry. They didn't say the name of a man who they alleged may have abused children. A man who's name was already over social media, a man who I can't imagine how this false accusation and then redaction of such would really affect him at his now quite elderly age, in his B&B in South Italy. Perhaps slightly less family bookings in the summer maybe? No one has been in this much trouble for not talking outside of some of the inmates of Guantanamo Bay.
As I'm writing this, Ian Overton from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has just resigned too. That means four members of the BBC have had to leave their jobs over this. Over doing investigative journalism. For a show that is about investigative journalism. Sure, Newsnight could've handled it better, but people make mistakes. That's how people work. Only earlier today I put my cup of tea in a fridge instead of the milk. Admittedly, it didn't make a Tory peer want to sue me, but it definitely ruined my tea. However, I won't be resigning from making tea in the future. This BBC mishap is human error and oversight far more than say, phone hacking that continues for months, nay years and is known about throughout a corporation. But hey, let's not forget that during all that fiasco, no one didn't ever nearly mention someone's name but didn't.
Around the world the BBC is loved as one of the best television companies there is. So many BBC produced shows have either been shown abroad, or the ideas bought and copied. It is widely renowned as making some of the world's best comedy, documentaries, soap operas, thrillers, dramas and, most importantly at the moment, news. Yet whilst the globe applauds it, back at home it's being taken apart, mostly by MPs who don't make as much money from it as they would if it was privatised. Its critics in the last few days include Boris Johnson, a man who has constantly criticised the BBC as being left wing due to it being state funded. A man whose job as mayor of London is state funded. David Mellor who, aside from the heinous comment that a victim of abuse was a 'weirdo', said he loved the BBC but was also part of Thatcher's government. A government who made the UK the only country where the national television station has to pay Sky to be included on its roster of channels. The BBC have to pay Sky £10m a year so it can show the sort of programs it should be paying at least £10m for. Edwina Currie criticised the BBC despite it being revealed these last few weeks that she handed the keys for Broadmoor to Jimmy Saville himself, where he allegedly went on to abuse the patients in there.
It was a bold, and honourable move for Entwhistle to resign - regardless of his leaving fee, which whilst I don't defend, could be justified as paying for the extreme amount of pressure and stress he suffered in such a short space of time. Or you know, the 23 years that he worked there. While I don't believe he needed to leave, it's another great example of how the BBC works. George doesn't believe he did his job properly, so he left. Yet MPs who are currently berating the corporation for definitely not saying a name, didn't demand their colleagues resign when they abused a quasi-judicial position on a huge television deal, or called a policeman a 'fucking pleb'. Or admitting to relaxing passport checks. All of which, where you to place them in a Themed Top Trumps game of Devoid Morals, would kick 'not saying a name' to the ground, tenfold.
I have heard various 'experts' these last few days say that the BBC needs to regain the public's trust. I'm not sure they ever lost it. I think they made an open target for their enemies to aim at, but ultimately I don't know anyone in the 'general public' that is angry that they investigated a case of child abuse. I know people that are more angry when it appeared a few weeks back that they hadn't. I'm no expert on televisual procedures and the do's and don'ts of legal issues, but I am a big fan of the BBC and have been throughout my life. Judging by the amount of people I've seen across online social media saying the same, I think they are still pretty well favoured amongst the UK people. In my opinion if the BBC want to ensure that trust is kept what they need to do is stop pandering to a government that doesn't support them, and the fear that unless they get ratings Murdoch and Co will eclipse them. They should continue to do what they do very well and that's create television. Television that wouldn't exist in the way it does now without the BBC launching the world's first ever television service live from Alexandra Palace in 1936.
Boris Johnson stated in the Telegraph that the biggest tragedy of all this is 'the smearing of an innocent man's name.' No, the biggest tragedy is that in an attempt to destroy a highly admired and respected national service, hundreds, thousands or possibly more, abuse victims' cases are being ignored because someone made an error in trying to expose those crimes. Surely the exploitation of children is far more important than a Tory peer's solicitors getting a hefty sum? If anything, this combined with the rather horrific treatment of Stephen Messham by the press surely just aides perpetrators of such crimes by diverting importance away from catching them. Secondary to this, is that once again the BBC has come up against a lambasting, knocking them a further step down the ladder towards News Corp having his way with British television. But hey, its ok, because they are an honourable trustworthy company aren't they? I mean, they'd never not say anyone's name on television, would they?]]>A Guide to the John Lewis Christmassacre Adverttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21020072012-11-11T19:02:25-05:002013-01-11T05:12:01-05:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/Always A Woman advert in 2010, a story of a girl with a severe ageing disease who gets pregnant opening a fridge, they have become known for their emotionally charged filmic ways of making viewers think that they actually care about your pitiful lives. Unless you are responsible for cleaning their stores.
This applies tenfold around Christmas time, mainly thanks to last year's tear inducing tale of a boy who couldn't wait to give his parents a present. Most of these tears were caused of course, through the deduction that if a small boy's parents don't know what he's got them, he's either been stealing from them or has just found some sort of mutilated pet, created a collage made of mud, or put something they already had inside a box. It's nice to see though that this year, they have gone all out to subvert Christmas ideas and instead make a small horror film about creepy, possessed snow people just to make sure we choose their stores to hide in should the snowpocalypse happen. Here is my step by step guide to this wintery fright fest:
Music: Using a haunting version of The Power Of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, is an homage to the story of Frankenstein, where with his possessive infatuation with Elizabeth, the Doctor creates life. Much like these two small children, who clearly love their mum, create their snow people with no understanding of the chaos it will go on to create.
1) The children in snow outside the cabin from The Evil Dead. The forest is alive. Their mother who understands this, calls them in before it gets dark and they are attacked by trees. The snow people awake as soon as they are left alone. Their plan to fall from the sky as tiny snowflakes, then be assembled into daemons of cold by easily mind controlled children, has been fulfilled. They look at each other. They know what must be done. They would have sex but the friction would melt them. Damn their weaknesses!
2) The sun rises and one of the snow monsters has left. The girl, still dazed with brain invasions from the alien creatures, has a flicker of clarity. She knows something is wrong but cannot understand. The female snowmonster stays still. She has seen this in ninja films. By her staying still, the girl will think the male snowmonster is also still, and just blended into the snowy background as he has his eyes closed. The perfect ruse!
3) The ice sorcerer has taken to the road. This scene was edited so that the four vehicles that swerved to avoid him, then fell off the side of a cliff and were instantly killed, have all been left out. But it let it be known their screams would've made your face curdle. One of them, David Worcester, 47, had a wife and three children, all of whom had Christmas ruined by his death and also the fact that he had the turkey in his car and that was ruined too. The only indication we have of all this pain is the evil frost bastard's open mouthed expression as he starts to understand his power.
4) Sheep running away from the daemon. Animals can sense true evil.
5) The Cold Gargoyle in the forest. Forests are bad. He doesn't care. He sh*ts forests. Not really. He shits snowpellets in the shape of upside down crosses. But he could totally freeze a bear if he needed to. And he does. Eight bears die.
6) A snowstorm. Of course. This will only add snowflakes to his already formidable build. By this point Monsieur Neige is at least the size of four satans with swords balancing on a hell clown.
7) A river causes problems. Vampires and ghosts cannot cross water. Being the worst of both of those means the only way to survive is to speak to his forest spies like Sauroman does, causing a robin to fly off, hoping to bring back hordes of robins in order to lift Ice-Scream high over the river, each bird taking one snowflake each over the course of four days. But then he sees a raft so all those birds waste their time. 26 die in the cold.
8) He climbs a mountain to look down on the city he must destroy in order to grow. It is only time before all those people feel the wrath of his freezing might. The old people will go first, they will be easiest. Remember that facial expression? Compared to this, the road kills were just a starter. Cold meats if you will. Or a gazpacho. He crosses a motorway bridge, and the camera cuts before he throws lumps of concrete off it for laughs. 17 deaths, 9 injured and one man a mile away had a hernia.
9) WHY ARE PEOPLE THROWING MY CHILDREN? THEY WILL PAY FOR THEIR CRIMES! Using his now diamond solid carrot nose as an ice pick, each of the culprits are stabbed in the brain through the eyes/ice, and disposed off in the large waste bin in the alley. They mustn't be found yet.
10) A small boy sees Slash N Hack Frost, but avoids his hands of stick death for their are bigger matters to deal with. OUTTAKES: Snowarsehole dives into John Lewis killing everyone inside using a variety of inventive methods, including a lot of the freezer section, gardening section, electrical section and at one point, a single trainer. People try to destroy him. One woman managed to use a lighter to scar the daemon's face but before she knew it, the flame was doused with ice breath and she was choked to death with a tartan, cashmere scarf (£45 and available in 5 different colours). No one is left alive. Years later people would find bodies frozen in time, like victims of Medusa, only you know, colder. The image of one man desperately reaching for thermals in the men's section, frozen tears arching from his face into some long johns he just couldn't get, will haunt many for years to come. One policeman quits the force and suffers nightmares for years. He is never able to go into the freezer section at supermarkets and commits suicide one day when his wife absent-mindedly offers him a Mini Milk.
11) The girl is happy her alien master has returned. During her wait she has had to eat her brother in order to survive. She was of no use after she had helped him build the Ice King anyway. The Snow Witch is pleased with her gloves. Now when she kills her child slave, no finger prints will be left. As she relishes this, she realises the scarf and hat combination are starting to melt her head. Its all part of his plan. He must turn the world into an icy shitfest by himself. That's how he arctic rolls.
Next year I hope to see a sequel whereby the snowman terrorises a party of teenagers who think it's hilarious to drink slush puppies. Good luck John Lewis. I hope this changes Christmas traditions and blends it seamlessly into halloween, until we have one 3 month period where we can all dress up like twats , scoff mince pies and tell children that Santa Claus is so called due to his massive knife like talons that he guts people with. Merry Christmassacre everyone!]]>Romney's No Laughing Mattertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20641462012-11-02T10:19:04-04:002013-01-02T05:12:01-05:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/
It was a valid point though. Bush was not only someone who was dangerous but also seemingly incompetent with it. There were two levels of fear involved with his presidency. One was the worry that he'd hit that red button and nuke the world whilst fighting the concept of 'terrorism' without a second thought because someone with a beard lived in a place. The second was that he might hit that red button and nuke the world because he'd be flying a toy plane around it, slip over and head butt the thing. Either way, the fact that he was leader of the world's most powerful country at the time was always unnerving for most of the globe.
It seems as though we could be in a pretty similar situation again if Romney gets in. Part of me feels I have no place in having an opinion on the US election, because I'm not a US citizen. I've been there several times and thought it was nice. I've met some lovely Americans too, even the ones that thought London was a country and a few miles from Paris (not entirely wrong on the latter I suppose). I watch tons of US telly, listen to lots of US music, eat far too many of their products and occasionally put on a terrible US accent for fun because I'm an attention seeking twat. But I don't live there and never have, and so it's not my vote to make. Except while the World Series only includes the US, the US elections seems to involve the world.
I'm not going to hold my hand up high and say Obama is the greatest thing that's happened to the US. I remember hearing the singer and activist Harry Belafonte talk earlier this year. He explained why Barack winning was an incredible achievement for black America and a historical moment, before he then went on to tear apart his constant siding with countries such as Israel, his broken promises about closing Guantanamo and his horrific condoning of drones in Pakistan. But he has also introduced Obamacare which is the closest the US has come to having a more fair health service and his handling of the economy has stopped the US hitting such double or triple dip recessions that the UK is enduring. All in all, it does seem like he cares about people, even if it's not all the people.
This is where my increasing rate of incredulous exclamation noises kicks in whenever Romney is on the television. They have started with tiny snorts of laughter about his wife's dancing horse or further boasts of their wealth, showing he was not at all in tune with most of American. Not at all dissimilar to the UK's government by any means. Since then the noises have grown, over all his ludicrous, religion driven, narrow minded comments, ever closer to a Scooby-Doo-esque wail of confusion when it appears that despite condemning nearly half of the American population for struggling through its terrible economic climate, Romney still has a chance of leading the country.
It just doesn't make sense that he might be allowed to.
How can someone who hates most of his society, nay, the world be in charge of making decisions about any of it? You really think he cares about you? Not if you're ill, not a millionaire, gay, female, need to eat ever in your life or want to avoid having The Day After Tomorrow change its filmic status to a documentary. God forbid anyone allow Roland Emmerich an 'I told you so' opportunity. How can anyone who is pro-guns but anti-abortion be trusted? Isn't it just saying 'we need to keep fodder alive for our killing sprees.' HE TIED HIS DOG TO THE ROOF OF HIS CAR FOR A 12 HOUR JOURNEY! He either hates animals or doesn't understand the concept of them needing fresh air when travelling. Either way, he is not suitable to be in charge of his own household, let alone anyone else's. Oh and he's a Mormon which means he hates women and can't drink coffee. Sure the latter part of that is no means as important as the former, but I don't think anyone who may be up all night on emergency procedures but can't have caffeine is a worthy candidate for such responsibility.
I could write pages and pages on Romney but it's there for you to find on the internet. It's not hidden away. He's a clear and present danger. If you are a US citizen and are able to vote next week, please know that as much as it'd make my life as a comedian tons easier for him to win on November 6th, I'd much prefer to not spend the next four years wondering what further unnecessary war I'll wake up to on the news, or which scientists will be telling us we should probably find a planet to emigrate to sharpish. Jokes aren't all that funny if the afterthought is quite so bleak.]]>Boo to George Osbooooooorne!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18527312012-09-03T17:42:10-04:002012-11-03T05:12:01-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/youtube playlist of the video 20 times over so that I could revel in it again and again. I may well add more so I can just sit and watch it for days.
I'm not normally like this. I don't think I've ever wished for anyone to have what must be the most crushing reception possible. I mean I've done bad gigs. I know how it feels when an audience is displeased. I've been booed, I've had a man try to punch me in the face, I've been told to get off or I'll be cut in the throat. Yes, really. But those were nearly all by really horrible people. Who probably can't wait to see Keith Lemon The Movie. Thing is, out of 80,000 people, odds are, at least some of them are nice. Probably loads. Loads and loads. They were all in a good mood too. Watching the Paralympics, all excited. Take in the fact that many of them were probably British and therefore usually unlikely to boo at a goose. They would probably be the sort of people who have trouble saying the full name of 'Betty Boo' or describing how ghosts sound. That kind of reserved type. Yet tonight this audience proved that they are so sick of a government who are punishing disabled people while pretending to praise those athletes with impairments taking part in the event they are currently hiding behind. Osborne is much worse than a goose, and geese are pretty shitty. One once ate all the bread that I wanted to give to ducks and I know someone who got bitten by a goose. It made them cry. But Osborne is worse than that. He's a man who has consistently blamed the last government, the Eurozone, the weather, the Jubilee, the public, the sunshine, the moonlight and the boogie for the state of the economy. A man who has helped the Coalition borrow what will be more in five years than the last government did in 13. I'm sure he'll find a way to explain that its Gordon Brown's fault for not buying himself enough nice things. All this, while bringing in cuts that affect the most vulnerable in society. So, quite the achievement in failing.
His reaction to the booing is amazing. Personally, given his track record, I'd have thought he'd u-turn and head back. But instead he laughs. He could have been laughing because he's like a Sith Lord who uses hate to only grow more powerful. But while that is probably, possibly true and the only real plausible explanation it also maybe, really, actually likely that he was in shock. I've been there. Don't worry, I'm not empathising with him. That'd be like saying I could see why Scar felt he had to push Mufasa off that cliff. But there are times when you are so unprepared for the response that you can only laugh. Then later, you go home, it all sinks in and it really hurts. I don't think he was prepared. How often does Gideon come face to face with those whose lives he has ruined? Probably quite rarely. He's heard about them of course. Those benefit cheats that are always on the TV dodging tax like they dodge bullets in the Matrix. Those work shy people who are too stupid and poor to put money offshore like all his chums who clearly love the country. Sure he's heard that seven out of eight people are on benefits are in work and still struggling to get by, but that's probably something someone Labour or y'know, who cares, would say. In reality he's sure that everyone outside Parliament just sits around wondering how to make the groove in their sofa deeper while stealing his money. His precious inherited money. Tonight, those people, the real actual people, were all in the crowd and all told him exactly what they thought. And they thought he was far far worse than a goose.
We Brits don't respond to anything lightly and the Olympics and Paralympics have rippled emotion through us to the extent that would make Italians feel frigid. Joy at Team GB actually winning, empathy for those that tried and maybe didn't achieve what they'd hoped, and tears when Trevor Nelson did any commentary. Tonight it seems that finally we've been pushed to a point where we're so fed up of the Coalition's constant oppression of anyone and everyone they can, that the Paralympics audience were able to vocalise that too. That takes quite something to do such a thing. Who'd have thought these events could bring quite so much? Sadly I can't see Osborne going in the cabinet reshuffle, which will have happened by the time you read this. I also don't doubt that whoever Cameron brings in or gets rid off I can't imagine it'll be any better than it is now. So I only hope there's more booing. And more complaining. And more protesting. And more commentary. And more people voting against them when we can. And I also hope that when I'm at the Paralympics on Wednesday that Osborne is too so I can have a go. Well done people. I'll be safely disposing of those CFCs. For now. You'd all better hope Keith Lemon The Movie doesn't win an Oscar. Now back to watching that video again and again and again.
Click here for my playlist of that video 20 times over. ]]>The Long Lost Golden Era Of Comedytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18220062012-08-23T19:00:00-04:002012-10-23T05:12:11-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/
This past week though, I've been tuning into C4 late at night to watch parts of their Funny Fortnight run of shows, including repeats of classic episodes of Jam, Brasseye, Spaced, The Harry Hill Show, Vic Reeve's Big Night Out and Peter Cook's appearance on Clive Anderson, amongst others.
These shows that were written with no briefs, no constraints of what may or may not offend the average Daily Mail readers, no worries about what demographic its for, and they all made me realise that actually the kids today are getting a pretty raw deal on television comedy. As an erstwhile comedian all I've had my fair share of, often just, television rejections, but some of them have been ridiculous, ranging from 'these are dark times so we don't want dark humour' or 'there's already enough political satire on TV with Mock The Week'. This is nothing however compared to some (fairly big named acts) I know having their sitcom about Norse Gods rejected because 'no one knows who Norse gods are anymore' or that a series based in Victorian times is 'too niche.' The creativity element of television comedy has been well and truly beaten out of the system.
When I was a teenager I'd excitedly watch The Day Today or Friday Night Armistice feeling as though I'd discovered something exciting, being amazed at Iannucci's commentary on the government or Morris's parodying of current affairs even if I didn't understand it all at the time. Now comedy is made for target audiences, assuming that teens will only like crude humour assigned to BBC3, middle aged types subject to the bland endless dross of panel shows and it's generally assumed old people don't laugh anymore. It's all down to budget and ratings. If a show has any hint of not pulling in all the viewers than it won't be made. And how can TV trust any of these comedian people who spend their lives making people laugh with making a show that might actually be funny? They can't because who can trust actual laughter eh? So it must be the role of the producers and execs to say that everything needs to be like the Inbetweeners or to, as in the case of one sketch group I know, insert shots of a turd in the street into the pilot episode as 'that's what people laugh at.' These people believe they know what comedy is, exactly how it works and what should be on, even though the idea of setting foot on a stage would terrify them. As a result long gone are the days where you would discuss with friends how amazing the Jack Straw's cannabis surgery on Mark Thomas's Comedy Product was or how the made up drug 'cake' from Brasseye made it to parliament. Or the sketches that didn't quite work on Big Train or Big Night Out but revelling in the sheer boldness of doing them. Instead people now say 'you have to see it! There was a bit when his ball was hanging out of his pants!' or 'did you see when that nobody that no one cares about off that shit reality TV show was persuaded to get in a car with someone who pretended to be blind?' Don't get me wrong, I'm all for stupid or crude humour but there's very little evidence of any of it being done cleverly anymore.
None of the classic shows being shown on C4 over the Funny Fortnight would get made now, or would have a very different feel. Spaced, originally written by friends, starring their friends and directed by a friend all with a similar image in mind, would have to have a celebrity in it for it to work. The script whilst written by Pegg and Hynes would be thrown through eight different development assistants and script readers until it became an entirely different show with a younger cast and more 'current' themes. Renamed 'Totally Spaced Out!' you'd have Tim Bisley, played by Russell Tovey and Daisy, played by anyone who's in Nuts magazine loads, who end up having an awkward one night stand where they realise they both need a flat, so why not move in as friends with benefits? Tim works in a music store in Shoreditch and Daisy is a model who is constantly in her underwear. Their friends are Mikey, played by James Corden and Brian a 'wacky' graphic designer played by someone with a regional accent and pretty hair. The producers and director would be too young to understand any of the film references so they'd all be scrapped for poor Twilight gags or jokes about Peter Andre. The episode everyone talks about as a 'classic' is where they go clubbing but Mikey goes to take a shit and halfway through realises there is no toilet roll, meanwhile both Tim and Brian sleep with Daisy by accident. Or something like that.
There are of course exceptions to this rule with the up and coming Kevin Eldon series, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle and the Thick Of It being recent examples. Even then, they aren't exactly new unknowns that are being given a chance. The US has had several great comedies at the moment. Though the future of one of my favourites, Community, is in jeopardy due to a studio caring more about ratings than quality once again. Someone on Twitter the other day said that they liked a comedy, before pointing out all the things that were wrong with it and eventually succumbing to 'well its better than other stuff on.' This is where we are at now. Settling for the least crap of all the bad stuff. I hope that lots of people are watching and remembering shows like Garth Merenghi's Darkplace or The Harry Hill Show. I hope they are watching it and comparing it to telly now that has little or no heart to it and that finally viewing figures will show we need that sort of output again. Otherwise I will have to continue to feel old and reminisce on that golden era when those in charge of entertainment weren't so scared of the letting the entertainers entertain.
Note 1: I am always happy to be proved wrong. If there is a TV program of recent years that you think is truly brilliant that I haven't mentioned, please let me know. I'm sure I've missed some good ones like Limmy's Show which I keep hearing is ace. And Alan Partridge doesn't count as Coogan has a legacy already.
Note 2: I am fully aware that you might not like some of the shows I've mentioned, in which case, remember ones you do like or at least acknowledge the change in writing. If it wasn't for people like you that will want to comment on something that you don't agree with I wouldn't put this and telly might not care as much either. In fact I blame you entirely for all of this.]]>The Government Are Gold™ Medal™ Winning Spoilsportstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17569462012-08-08T14:24:03-04:002012-10-08T05:12:32-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/said David Cameron, albeit paraphrased heavily 'which is why all teachers should give up their free time to teach sports in schools.' The Conservatives have excelled in being the worst kind of spoilsports by actually spoiling sports. Quite an incredible feat to achieve whilst Team GB's™ incredible haul of Olympic™ Gold™ Medals™ has, for the first time in many years, pulled the country together to rejoice in soundly beating other countries in a competitive arena. So, to embrace this temporary climate of the United Kingdom actually being happy about something for once the government thought long and hard about how to make sure that the public wouldn't smile for too long. I mean, imagine that. What if, just what if, we all carried on this positive attitude brought on by winning and we all suddenly forgot that we have to be punished for millionaires dodging tax and bankers ruining everything? Urgh, the idea makes me shudder. But fear not, as that is unlikely to happen in a week where growth has hit a resounding 0%, meaning that plants and children will not get bigger for at least two years and many men will struggle with erections. If that wasn't enough, Cameron and Co have decided to remove the compulsory 120 minutes of sports per week in the schools' curriculum and instead decided that it would be better for our sedentary, obese nation if it was extra curricular and run by people who won't get paid to do it. Alongside this the sale of school sports fields continues, with a lovely juxtaposition of Cameron and Hunt saying that the culture of sports in education needs to change. What it seems children will be left with is having to willingly stay behind after school to partake in jumping up and down in the store cupboard of a privately owned block of flats. Why not just throw your Playstation 3s away now The Youth?
I'm not a sporty person. Up until recently, you would have been able to guess that in two main ways: 1) My rotund shape that suggests the only sports I'm good at is channel surfing and 2) if you tried to engage me in any conversation about anything remotely sport-like a glaze would form over my eyes as I tried to imagine bears eating your face to cheer me up. But this has changed. Since the Olympics™ began, despite cynicism of corporate vehicle behind the event and the ludicrousness of LOCOG™, I have sat on my arse and watched hours of events every single day. This hasn't at all helped with my sport like figure, but it has made me realise how exciting it is to watch impassioned people take part in the more interesting sports that TV shunned years ago with the death of Grandstand. It may be that I'm an idiot, and I find many of the Olympic™ events easier to understand than other sports. There's no confusion about legs before wickets or offsides, merely 'JUST RUN FASTER THAN HIM/HER! SWIM FASTER! BE BETTER!' and so in game banter becomes much more viable for someone like me. Whatever it is though, it's nice to actually feel interested and excited about someone else doing exercise. I know other people feel the same way too. Twitter is awash with comments on horse dancing, heavy frisbee throwing and many other events that would not normally get the time of day from the most ardent of sports fans. Then the games will end, telly will shun it all to focus on overpaid and largely disappointing footballers or people getting too much money to have no personality, and it will all dissipate.
Except for children. Children who have watched in awe as they gain new heroes such as Laura Trott or Greg Rutherford. You know, the ones who stood by that giant one-eyed penis monster but weren't scared? I wish there had been a London™ Olympics™ when I was at school and I may have decided to seek out doing more sport by myself. As it happened, there wasn't, and so my confidence in sports was only ever boosted by having to partake in school P.E lessons, many of which showed me that while our football team tended to do better if I was nowhere near the pitch and that I should be let nowhere near a large pointy javelin ever again for the safety of others, it turned out I was pretty good at badminton, oddly fine at basketball despite my diminutive stature and alright at cross country running. This led to me actually wanting to stay behind to play badminton or basketball. Not cross country running. There's something about doing that afterschool in the dark around North London that just didn't seem very safe.
I understand that not everyone is like me, but when the young are so vilified in today's society of limited future prospects I think many of them may need some sort of push to make them believe they can go on to do anything. This isn't even taking into account that most teachers I know don't have an ounce of time spare after marking, preparatory work and constantly having to understand all the petty and archaic changes to the system that Gove keeps insisting on. I don't know if you'd get the same level of commitment you could find at this years Olympics™ if all competitors had been taught by someone who was exhausted and distracted by other work they needed to do. There may well be hundreds of potential Mo Farrahs out there (not in a weird clone way) but will they willingly want to find out what it is they are good at when there isn't the requirement or facilities to do so? The only way I can see competitive sport in schools increasing is if pupils have to fight over the tiny bit of gravel they are allowed to run on the spot on in their tiny playground. I can't see that being a sport in Rio 2016 somehow. What I can see is that this 'golden summer' that Cameron keeps calling it, will quickly become a 'golden era' that we look back on as a fabled time, while the legacy of this government ensures it doesn't happen again for quite some time.]]>George Gideon Osborne: Profile of a World Class Debt Increasertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17015602012-07-25T10:01:04-04:002012-09-24T05:12:25-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/worst recession since the Second World War. After a year that has included such close victories as Murray nearly becoming British at Wimbledon and England being vaguely less shit at everything for marginally more time in the Euro 2012, you could have been forgiven for assuming it was all over for Osborne too. Many thought Greece would triumph overall, with its tactical attempts at recession despite bailouts. But like a true British winner, Gideon powered on through and finally made sure this country is best at something.
This hasn't come easily. Gideon has been training hard for this since the beginning. Ensuring he took History at University, rather than something appropriate, like say economics, meant he was already on the right path to securely ruin an economy better than anyone has done before whilst knowing about Vikings. Following this with a career in re-folding towels at Selfridges he gained the appropriate knowledge about doing something people had done before, only worse and getting away with it. From there his career in failure took a massive boost with his appointment as scriptwriter for William Hague, which as we all know, he did so exceedingly well at, that Hague's reputation has never quite recovered. Hague is is still known to this day as a massively incompetent bigot.
Like a true sportsman he's always ensured that those who helped him along the way have gained more than enough credit for it. Time and time again we've heard that this has nothing to do with his teammates efforts to keep people jobless for the cause or their increase in government spending, but instead that it's down to Labour who we all know left the job, at best, unfinished. As the public grew wise to his humble nature, Gideon tried shying away from the limelight of his success, diverting it to the Eurozone crisis that we all knew the government had safety funds in place for. When that wasn't enough it became the bank holiday weekend and Queen's Jubilee before most recently, in a surrealist moment of creativity he said it was the weather's doing. Only a true genius would blame rain in a country who's inhabitants should really be born with gills and webbed feet.
None of that will stop us from associating this double dip recession with Osborne though, no matter how hard he tries to pretend it's just his job. A double dip so severe that some say that in his honour they will make a rollercoaster based on the GDP growth charts of recent times. Many say however that unlike most rollercoasters that have a gradual rise up towards the end, the Big Dipper will instead just quickly plummet downwards at rapid speeds until it stops suddenly and everyone leaves feeling sick.
With this accolade behind him, what next? He won't say, but rumours suggest that with the big Sporty Corporate London Event currently happening, he'll quietly tell us just how it may ruin his achievement with its boost in tourist trade. Meanwhile, come October we expect the announcement that it has instead been part of his huge plan to drain all money from the British Isles like a gigantic Oxbridge vacuum and let the country hit what has only been spoken of in legend, the triple dip. Nick Clegg, in a rousing speech he gave in support yesterday, said 'The people of Britain won't just be watching you - they'll be right there with you.' And we will. All of us will be reaping the effects of Osborne's outstanding achievement for many, many years to come. Whether we like it or not.]]>Don't Forget It's Your Olympics™tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16742122012-07-16T19:00:00-04:002012-09-15T05:12:02-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/Londoners™ the UK,
Your Olympics™ start in just a few days and we hope that you're excited! They are your Olympics™ that have cost you £2.5bn£9bn£11.7bn possibly £24bn of your money, that's 38p per household, that you really need in these times of austerity but were forced have chosen to spend on what is sure to be the best Olympics™ ever ever. So you have to enjoy them, you don't have a choice. We've put lots of measures in place all for your Olympics, including allocating tickets via a lottery system. We thought this would be better than giving free tickets to people in the local area as who knows what ruffians that may allow inside the Park™, so instead many of you used your VISA™ credit cards which all of the people we'd like to invite clearly have at their disposal to deposit unaffordable amounts of money only to get tickets to watch a horse dance™ or speed walking™ while our corporate executives get to watch Usain Bolt™, because it's your Olympics™.
Because it's your Olympics™ we've made sure it's all completely safe from any terror at all, which is why we hired a company to do the security who only days ago realised they didn't have the appropriate staff to do the job. So we've got the army in, which may leave lots of other troops stranded out in Afghanistan for longer than they planned to be. Not only that, but these army personnel are specifically trained for such family friendly sporting events with months of firearm training and warfare strategy, so will provide an appropriately intimidating presence making sure no terrorist or anyone without a ticket gets anywhere near. We now have more army personnel at the Olympics than have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, which means that in 2022 tons of troops will probably still be around Stratford for no reason at all. Because it's your Olympics™ we've had the MoD position huge surface to air missiles on top of blocks of flats nearby without consultation or permission needed, to ensure that if we have to shoot down any threats the local residents will be showered in debris and shrapnel. This will ensure they are safe.
Because it's your Olympics™, please refrain from meeting with friends anywhere near the Park™ or you'll be seen as a threat and be removed. For your safety. In fact please avoid being anywhere near the Park™ while the Olympics are on. Please avoid Central London™. Please avoid Greater London while the opening ceremony is on. Please avoid the UK for the duration of the Olympics™. Please avoid the Tube when people seeing the Olympics™ need to get to it even if its exactly when you need to get to the job you've been doing for years and are currently struggling keep with all the cuts. We've kindly asked Boris Johnson™ to make a tannoy message to warn Tube travellers about overcrowding, hoping that his pompous voice alone will ward many away. Please avoid the roads, especially the Olympic™ lanes that will remain empty while you sit in traffic getting later and later for where you need to be while people who are trained to run fast glide by in cars. Because it's your Olympics™, you'll be charged £130 for going in those lanes. We've also made sure it's far harder to park anywhere nearby by closing all shopping centre car parks in the vicinity and removing parking spaces all over Stratford to make sure lots of you gain massive, expensive parking fines for even daring to live or work in the area. It's your Olympics™. We'd like to encourage people from all over the London™, sorry the UK, to travel to the Olympics™ though don't drive there, or get a train, or a Tube or walk anywhere nearby. All because it's your Olympics.™
Because it's your Olympics™ please don't use the word Olympics™ unless you are authorized to do so, or we'll take you to court for breach of copyright. Other words we've also copyrighted are sports™, park™, track™, field™, ball™, swimming™ (see also swam™, swim™, swan™), diving™ (see also dive™, dove™), javelin™, torch™, running™ (also see run™, ran™, rain™, Ray™), rings™, men™, women™, stadium™, tickets™, army™ and Ancient Greece™. Because it's your Olympics™ we suggest you refer to it as 'That Thing', 'Coe & Hunt's Beautiful Lovechild' or ' Swimmy Runny Jumpy Throwy Lifty Times Event'. Because it's your Olympics™ no shop in the near vicinity or in fact anywhere over the UK, or Europe, or the World can use any of those words for fear of the law, unless we have allowed it like we have with our main sponsors that we feel embody the heart and soul of such an athletic healthy event, like Coca-Cola™ and McDonalds™. Those are foods all athletes eat and drink and so we believe that you should enjoy eating them too to make sure you remain fat, stupid and gullible. It's your Olympics™.
Because it's your Olympics™ it will bring in £13bn to the UK. When we say UK we mean our corporate sponsors who will ensure they don't pump any of it back into the desperate economy by dodging as much tax as possible. Because it's your Olympics™ we want to make sure that when all these companies leave and the events are over that you are left with tons of derelict buildings that almost definitely won't end up being used to help the surrounding community. You know the surrounding community we've made sure you can't see from the Park using clever sculptures, just in case their poverty makes you ill while you eat your McDonald's™ authorised fries™. Because it's your Olympics™ we'd like you to clean it afterwards. It's as though it's your flat and people are coming round. People you haven't invited. People who are going to use all their money making a lot of mess. You have to scrub and clean it after. You do. It's your Olympics™.
It's your Olympics™ that you can watch on 24™ HD™ BBC™ channels. If you have Sky™. Because you all have Sky™. You can all afford it.
You will enjoy it. It will be amazing, your Olympics™ Londoners Britain, so don't ruin it for everyone by pretending you won't.
Yours sincerely
Your Olympics™]]>Workers and Shirkerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16645642012-07-11T09:30:14-04:002012-09-10T05:12:03-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/'We back the workers, they back the shirkers' retorted Cameron today in a Prime Minister's Questions that became so vicious that at one point the Conservative MP Ann Marie Morris shouted so hard she appeared to break her own arm. Ok, so it may have been in a sling beforehand, but I reckon that was in preparation for an outburst that was akin to watching someone in one of those churches have a demon removed. I often have to keep reminding myself that these are the people in charge whenever I watch PMQs. As they sit there braying, waiting to jeer or mock anyone who dares speak, and when they do finally get a chance to ask a question, Cameron often bounces back with a comment rather than an answer. I'm starting to believe that it's known as 'PMQs' and not 'PMAs' due to nothing ever really being addressed.
The 'workers/shirkers' line was clearly one that Cameron was pleased about. His face dropped a few shades of crimson as it was delivered, this now being the colour indicator that I use to judge his stress levels. Like a facial Defcon chart. It's interesting that he continues to insult Milliband with the phrase 'Red Ed' despite Ed's face usually remaining far more Pink Nevada on the Dulux scale. Not that calling someone 'red' should be an insult. For someone who is suggesting his party 'back the workers' the red was meant to symbolise the blood of the workers. I don't think this is remembered by many Labour MPs, but to say their leader does carry socialist ethos is surely only making him more appealing to everyone who is suffering under the current government? There are very few political stances that should be used as insults. 'Hey you! You that pretends you are left wing! You're really left wing you are!' Well done Cameron on accusing Labour of being the political stance they say they are. Red's great. Red was the best character in the Fraggles.Bull, Hot Chilli Peppers and robin breasts all appreciate it a lot. There's also nothing wrong with being left wing. Or right wing. It's a belief, a stance, and its how you operate within that that's the issue. So calling someone a colour isn't an insult - unless its, er, done in a racial way - and if you operate a political party that cannot appreciate or listen other political stances then it makes a mockery of your own.
According to Cameron the Tories back those workers while Labour are busy backing the shirkers. If that's really true then based on definitions and the PM's logic, Milliband is backing the Conservative Party and Cameron is far more Red than Ed for supporting the labourers. These are the people running the country remember?]]>Iain Duncan Smith - BAFTA Winning Character Comediantag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16082252012-06-19T07:34:03-04:002012-08-19T05:12:08-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/Jurassic Park is a buddy movie.
Perhaps another world where the invention of email happened before the telephone and in 2012 socialising is destroyed by people actually talking to each other. Or maybe there is a world out there where I don't have a beard. All those exciting maybes. One I've been thinking about a lot lately is a universe where Iain Duncan Smith isn't a politician, but an artist, satirist and one of those edgy sort of comedians where you don't think they mean what they say, but you're never sure and so laugh to make it better.
Imagine that world where instead of failing as a Tory leader in 2003 to the extent that the entire Conservative Party gave him a vote of no confidence. A world where he wasn't removed and replaced with Michael Howard - a man who was so irrelevant as a human being most people's brains have blocked out that he even existed. Instead of all that, in this parallel universe, at a very young age IDS's banal ideas on how the world works are laughed at by a boy at his naval school. Instead of then attending military school, he was persuaded into drama school, no one realising that this incredible character he'd created was in fact his real self, his own addled brain too confused by life rushing past to make anyone aware. All he knew was that people were paying attention.
Years later, clips of him on YouTube saying that 'poverty isn't all about money' would be mistakenly seen as hilarious satire, akin to Chris Rock's 'Guns don't kill people' rant. 'How can someone be this subversive?' the critics say, amazed at his performance ability to deliver all these clearly comedy views with a straight face. 'It's just amazing,' they remark 'that he tells families to get jobs despite knowing there aren't any, and that those that are in jobs are barely earning enough to survive due to wage cuts and inflation.' Many will note how his well written mock 'demonisation' of those who are on benefits is brilliantly underplayed and ignored later on to allow for the full, obvious irony of his 'witty' views that by making such benefits harder to get or removing them altogether only forces even more people onto the poverty line with little or no way out.
His true fame arrived with his one man show 'Disable This!' in which the character of Iain Duncan Smith took his hatred for human rights to a whole new level with a structure based around those who are unable to work being 'scroungers' despite whatever physical or mental hindrance they may have. Audiences would gasp before realizing, due their comedy savviness, that only a very intelligent mind could come up with notions so awful that no one could ever truly believe such things, and then laugh in relief. From this a sitcom 'Universal Cretin' was commissioned where Iain was allowed into parliament into the most unsuitable position for his 'character', the Department Of Work and Pensions. The show was an instant hit with its preposterous cast, led by Smith's bitter, angry, very bald creation.
It would last two series, being cancelled halfway during the third as viewers would tire of such relentless hatred and hypocrisy. The Times would say that it had 'gone beyond realistic for no one could be that unaware of how a society should work', many saying it had become too dystopian by the second series where the series began to focus on the rise in hate crime against those with disabilities, whilst IDS's character continued to ignore the figures. The Guardian would comment that dark comedy had to have some respite, and the show had gone from an excellently imagined possible paradoxical world, to a horrid, bleak, nightmarish situation with no way out. Several intelligent comments underneath, for those were the only sort that would be posted, would compare it to Cormac McCarthy's The Road or Orwell's 1984. Iain's career would plummet quickly, such is the nature of the entertainment world. Despite calls for him to turn to his creativity to a new character or project, he would instead pack in everything, using his riches to hide away in his wife's £2m mansion rent free and becoming a recluse. A telling interview with a young reporter many years later would reveal that Iain was more like his character than previously thought, and the BBC would ban repeats of 'Universal Cretin' and stop a DVD release, the humour now soured in everyone's mouths.
It's worrying to think that if there are an infinite amount of parallel universes out there that we have somehow managed to land ourselves on the one that's a parody of all the others. I'd much prefer to have actual dinosaurs in ours, rather than just politicians with horrible prehistoric views of how to treat the people they are responsible for.]]>Was Unpaid Jubilee Work Experience Good For The Soul?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15788312012-06-07T15:42:05-04:002012-08-07T05:12:03-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/hypothermia, anyone who tried to get transport and all those who hungered for any other bit of news or television other than the consistently dull commentary on a lot of different large, slow moving types of transport.
Yes, I include Elton John in that description.
All of the UK enjoyed the tirade of watching millions of pounds that could have been used fishing our erstwhile dead economy out of its black hole of deficit we are constantly told about, instead being used to provide the sort of party only the sort of people who'd start a neighbourhood watch might enjoy. Those sort of people. You know the type. The ones who'd spend far too much time pruning a hedge and spent at least six months saying how awful Russell Brand was when he did that thing they'd heard about once and never researched. Many people, who pretend they can actually feel emotion when an Adele song comes on the radio despite it being proved scientifically impossible*, spent four days pretending they didn't mind dressing like a tool and waving flags. Cameron stated today that while the whole shebang wasn't 'good for the economy, it was good for the soul.' Great. We can all relish in the knowledge that while thousands are unable to pay their bills due to unemployment, they can at least enjoy a well nourished mythical notion that will allow them to live in a better post death nothingness.
But who's soul? Probably not those at Close Protection UK, who it appears, according to a Guardian expose and a call for an enquiry from John Prescott, hired jobseekers to do unpaid work at the Jubilee celebrations, where they were forced to sleep in the cold, had to get changed in public and had no access to public toilets for 24 hours.
There are lots of issues to this, and I'm not clever enough to coherently delve into the intricacies of Close Protection UK's financial difficulty, or Molly Prince's - appropriately surnamed for the Jubilee - previous five companies' history . Neither will I discuss that it's perhaps suspicious that the boss of Tomorrow's People is Baroness Scott, a Conservative peer. But what I do want to point out is that even if, somehow this is all reasonable, non-exploitative correct practice, then how have we become a nation that presumes doing 'work experience' alongside the river Thames in the pouring rain for an event that happens once in a blue blooded moon will in any way lead to a valuable career?
If you are honestly of the opinion that those are qualities that would be revered on a CV, leading towards a decent career then you're barking up something isn't even a tree in the first place. How can you 'tackle' the vast unemployment in the UK by training jobseekers up with skills that, after perhaps only the Olympics, will definitely be useless after the summer? I've done awful work experience before, but while all of them made me never want to do those jobs again, I was very well looked after and learnt customer service skills, admin abilities and never to go near ancient artifacts with a massive metal trolley ever again. All, with clever wordplay, transferable skills. How do you translate 'standing in the rain', 'being forced to change in public' and 'sleeping under a bridge' into qualities? Weather resilient, willing to abandon dignity and adaptable to the environment? Well done, you've qualified for homelessness!
I can only assume Tomorrow's People have seen the Conservatives recent take on environmental policies and are training 'aqua people' for the oncoming global warming. Anyone who defends slave labour is very much in the wrong, no matter how good the bunting is for your soul.
* It hasn't. But I bet it will be one day.]]>Conservatives Say the Funniest Thingstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15556552012-05-30T09:47:11-04:002012-07-30T05:12:13-04:00Tiernan Douiebhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiernan-douieb/Bananaphone repeatedly, daily, regardless of where I am. We're all a little bit strange. The last few weeks though have produced several news stories involving the government making decisions and comments based on what I can only describe as completely off the wall. We're talking the level at which you'd not only sing Bananaphone but genuinely try to call someone on the fruit in question, before only eating the tomatoes that smelt right and declaring yourself mortally dead, all at once whilst dressed as the Earl of Sandwich.
Case in point: We've had Louise Mensch, everyone's least favourite potty mouthed MP, declare UK Uncut 'intolerable bullies' while other Conservatives referred to them as 'terrorists' & because they had a lovely street party with bunting and cakes which may have upset Nick Clegg's children that weren't actually there, Ken Clarke claim that terrorists sit at the back of courts writing notes on national security. If you take these two comments alone as gospel then we are living in a world where terrorists pop up with their iPads at the back of the Old Bailey to jot down expert tips on exactly where to hand out party bags and indulge in fizzy pop. Were the Tory notion of reality correct, we'd be living in a very surreal world indeed. One where cakes are dangerous. That my friends, is a terrible world.
We can add to these spurts of madness Boris Johnson saying the BBC has 'left wing bias' because its paid for by the taxpayer, despite his job being entirely paid for by the tax payer and Gove, the man in charge of all the school's assuming that Robert Jay QC's comment on him being similar to JS Mill, a man who believed in equal rights for all, was an insult. Then you have Baroness Warsi, evil Liza Tarbuck lookalike and a woman who thinks housing benefits should be cut, while failing to declare income from a flat she rents & claiming expenses for staying at a friend's house. Oh and finally today, it was revealed Cameron, who has already spent the last two weeks defending a member of his cabinet whose credibility is hanging on a thread a silk worm would struggle with, has been having meetings with Tony Blair. Yep. Tony Blair. That one. Now let's ignore all the other trazillion issues I have with Mr 'war criminal' himself and instead focus on the fact that Blair was in charge, at least up until the final few years, of the government that Cameron still keeps blaming the 'mess we're in' on. Yet, he's meeting him for discussions? If this proves to be a theme, he'll soon be having lunch with the Eurozone Crisis and dinner with Joe Public and all his credit card debt that's ruined the UK.
Sane? Not really. Hypocritical? Yes, often. Though I'm starting to wonder if the hypocrisy is intentional, or just what happens when you're mad, rich and live in a construct created by the cushy world you live in. A world where those poor people you've heard of love pastys and caravans so much it makes most sense to reverse those cuts rather than anything else. They won't at all worry about the health service or having a job if they've saved 20p on a steak and onion and can sit under their awnings knowing that using a travelling vehicle to go nowhere won't bankrupt their already bankrupt accounts. Oh and buzzards. They've decided not to destroy buzzard nests anymore. I don't dislike this decision, but I daresay there are some elderly people feeling a little sore about their 'granny tax' while the government dwells on the important tasks. Part of me is scared that this is merely part of a plan to make buzzards enjoy the scent of pasties, release them near caravan parks and do away with a portion of society they don't want to deal with.
But if this is what the Conservatives think then they are not just out of touch but have never been in touch. And how can you argue with someone who sees the world in an entirely different light to the rest of us? I've often wondered how someone can be selfish enough to be truly right wing, and it occurs to me that maybe its a form of illness. In which case, the next question needs to be, how do we get them all sectioned and find a government that will only merely sing 'Bananaphone' out of office and not when deciding policies that will affect democracy in the UK for many years to come? Let me know, as I'd very much like to eat cakes on the bus without getting arrested.]]>