Isis - My first Christmas Card!

Isis - My first Christmas Card!, originally uploaded by jacqamoe.

GRRRR: Sign on, for bullshit

Petition for your freedom to photograph!, originally uploaded by net_efekt.

Sign any petition on petitions.pm.gov.uk by all means, but don’t expect it to inform the governments thinking in any way. From the ‘road pricing’ one to the one pleading for help to stop the dreadful wage slashing in the name of equality that Staffordshire County Council are up to , the responses are a list of reasons why the government will not change its position.

They’re in thrawl to big business and certain pressure groups - ‘the public’ will not influence them one bit.

What is really needed in any case is an organised campaign - a coalition of driven individuals, focused and abale to respond in the media.

I’m off to create a petition to urge the PM to “take notice and act upon one of these petitions, instead of just emailing signatories with a link to a list of excuses.”

Is it a conspiracy theory to suggest that the internet petiton site is one of Tony Blair's great spin masterpieces? It’s so easy to set one up that no actual orgaisation or well thought-through campaign is needed - people don’t have to communicate, organise or form into groups that can pressure government.

Enter your email and we can tell you all, individually, why we’re not listening.

GRRRR: Enviro-guilt

IMG_4060, originally uploaded by 2wichita.

Last week on Radio 4 there was a programme that tasked itself with "counting the environmental cost of football fans traveling away to support their team". What sanctimonious rubbish, symptomatic of the media's deal with the status quo - that is to promote "what you can do to stop global warming" and shy away from "what the government can do" or "what legislation could force industry to do".

Recycle, don't fly off on holiday, use energy efficient lightbulbs, etc, etc. To pick on the 'unnecessary' travel of a tiny proportion of the (mainly) working class such as travel to watch football, is the work of an idiot. How many pointless miles are notched up by business (or even media) travel, to meetings where a phone call, email, or IM would of done?

Just to think about it - there are 48 (around) league football matches a weekend, an average away following might be 500 tops (Prem might get 3,000, division four - er League Two - bight be 50 if they're lucky), so we're talking 20,000 people traveling a minimum of 10 miles (Birmingham away at Wolves) , max maybe 500 (Southampton at Wigan -next season). It's a insignificant number, one which could be cut at a stroke if rail travel was back to it's British Rail best (now did you ever think that you'd hear that?), most people don't yearn to sit in a car when going away, they'd much rather cheap, convenient rail travel. You could solve this with a stoke of a pen Gordon Brown, instead of pissing our future away with Public Private Finance initiatives.

It's with this attitude that the bombardment of how much better for the environment it'd be if we "stopped using supermarkets and bought every thing at our local shops" comes. What absurd middle class nonsense, the free reign of capitalism has left most people without local shops to go to - even if their 'flexible working' (for which read - you work when we tell you, no matter what time it is) gave them time. Supermarkets are cheaper, and unless you have disposable income to chose elsewhere - eco-friendly as a leisure activity - there's not a lot you can do.

We've all got to do our bit, but 'we' isn't just individuals - aren't our leaders meant to lead?

AWWWW: Lolrus

YOU STOLED MAH BUKKET

Lolrus is a large aquatic mammal who one was the proud owner of a bucket - no longer.

the continuing saga.

GRRRR: Just how can the working class show its displeasure, then?

Weather f--king cold, team f--king crap, originally uploaded by bounder.

England fans booed Steve McClaren and his team's performance against Andorra in Barcelona the other night, I know, I was one of them. Despite what the media reported, we didn't start about 10 minutes in - we started almost immediately. There may even have been boo-ing before kick off, but I was still struggling with the inefficient stewarding and trying to get in.

We booed, we sang "you don't know what you're doing", we - in self mocking irony - sang for David Beckham, I even tried to get the crowd to call for the return of Graham Taylor (although I had more success with Walter Winterbottom).

This was a fairly big story, but for every journalist taking notice there was one dismissing the crowd as "ugly, fat, beery" (The Guardian) and suggesting that they "weren't true England supporters". Snobbery at it's worst, as was Alex Ferguson suggesting that "Dancing on Ice's had created a culture of mockery" that was responsible for the stick the England manager was getting. What has the physical attractiveness, or the TV viewing habits of the fans (though I seriously doubt that audiences of MOTD and Dancing on Ice overlap much) got to do with the worth of their opinion - or to use the dreadfully modern phrase "their right" to voice it.

What the journalists, players and ex-players really mean is "how dare they comment". "How dare you force your opinions on us".

The real problem with the media is the false hope they give people of their opinions being listened to, email, text, phone 606, "we want to hear what you think". But the media don't , they want more sales, and the people that "run" football certainly don't. I've heard recently about the press officer of a league club that sent a letter threatening to sue an internet forum for deformation (sic) over mentions of his poor spelling and grammar.

When you do phone 606 or (glory be!) your "texs" is read out, your the opinion will be dismissed because "you've not played the game", or you'll be patronised because "it's more difficult than it looks out there". After the England v Israel debacle the previous Saturday the 606 host Mark Bright used phrases very similar to that while also defending Steve McClaren's record "he won that [the UEFA cup]" (er no he didn't the caller corrected - his team were outclassed and stuffed 4-0 in the final).

So, we shouldn't boo - or be overweight - what should the average supporter do? Conduct a letter writing campaign to The Times? Get elected to his local FA, climb the greasy pole and arrange for the manger's dismissal over a nice Chateau Neuf de Pap (don't be beery)? Or maybe texting The Sun's rant line will make a difference.

The people that truly have the most invested in the England team are the fans, they cry, they're incandescent with rage in front of TVs in bars and homes, but heaven forbid they show anything but deference in person.

Hope lies in the proles. Wrong again Winston.

AWWWW: Robops - that's robot falcons

pigeon on hand, originally uploaded by flappingwings.

In a very bizarre twist, Liverpool City Council have bought a load of robot falcons to scare off pigeons.


More on bbc.co.uk

Even more odd - they're called 'Robops' not quite sure how that relates to their job, their appearance, or even what type of bird they're meant to be.

GRRRR: Service games

Call Esther Rantzen!, originally uploaded by webby.

Esther Rantzen's TV programme That's Life! used to do the odd skit on 'consumer problems', Adrian and Gavin would read our the, increasingly exasperated, letters that the customer had sent and the company's replies with comic pauses and everything was sorted out in the end. One famous case involved British Gas (publicly owned as it was then) whose new computer system had sent out a bill for £0.00 and then threatening cut-off for non-payment. This was entertainingly bizarre, and unusual, and held interest all the way to Doc Cox's witty song, which was no doubt something to the tune of his "I'm a Wanker" song with different words, or "I'm the Gas Man" to the tune of The Beatles "Taxman".

The here point being that up to the early eighties it was rare enough to have protracted trouble with a large company to make it a TV item, they had complaints departments, you could write to them - or telephone if you wished - but more usually they would have a branch in your local high-street. You could pop-in, although not on Wednesday afternoons or Saturdays or Sundays, and if it came to it refuse to leave until they'd sorted it all out.

It was rare to have that much trouble anyway, you bought something, it either worked or it didn't and if it didn't someone would come round to repair it.

Not any more.

Now every purchase over and above the price of a pint comes with labyrinthine 'Terms and Conditions' documents, the ultimate get-out clause (or hundreds of closely-typed clauses). You'll probably find, upon employing a legal professional, that British Gas aren't actually obliged to pump the gas you've bought to you, that iPods aren't actually supposed to play music, or last for much over a couple of months.

When something does go wrong, the merry-go-round starts spinning. The shop you've bought it from is actually a franchise and doesn't deal with returns, or repairs, and you have to call a 'customer services' number. More often than not their first gambit is to pack you back off to the shop - after they've told you to turn it off and on again.

Almost all of the call-centre customer service experience seems to be wilfully designed to stop two things: admission of guilt or responsibility, and not having the company have to act in any way. First-line support is brilliant at this, whilst keeping up a nauseating level of obsequiousness. "Bear with me Mr Smith".

It starts at management level, by deliberately employing people with a limited grasp of English, both abroad and in the UK, who are not able to deviate from the scripts they're given. Intelligent people can use reasoning to solve problems, they can tell when a complaint is reasonable, but they wouldn't want to work in such poor conditions for such low wages. On top of this is the culture of fear, of targets for numbers of calls dealt with, a call passed on to people who can actually deal with the problem is a black mark. Recently I had trouble with a service offered my by mobile phone operator (for a fiver extra a month!), it is a fairly complex system and has it's own dedicated support team. Not that you'd find out by calling the main customer services helpline - it took me over 2 hours of arguing to get put through to the right people. I was continuingly given solutions to different problems with different software. Poor training, whether deliberate or not really does make for some of the worst-spent time of your short life.

The operators lie, and fob you off - the brilliant one for mobile phone companies is "switch it off an back on again". Knowing of course that you're calling on the phone and if it doesn't solve the problem you'll have to call back. Most of the time you'll give up, and they can tick a little tick box.

Despite, of course, your call being recorded "for training and monitoring purposes", quite often a repeat phone call will reveal no trace of the first one you've made. Promises to return calls won't be kept and that person with special responsibility who is 'on leave' will never return. Comet claimed not to have received any of our phone calls or letters when we had a problem with our dishwasher, despite sending an engineer out to fix the problem, although when a Small-Claims Court summons reached them they sent us a cheque. Odd, when they made it clear that they'd never been contacted about the problem, and it wasn't their fault or responsibility anyway.

When your life turns into That's Life! and you spend more time on your mobile to their customer services that your friends, there's something wrong with the culture of service. It's something that our 'respect' obsessed government could sort out, perhaps a start would be plain English service agreements so you could understand just how little service you'd signed up for. And they could start putting items about deformed vegetables on the telly again.

AWWWW: Monkeh

Monkeh with iBook, originally uploaded by markfoyle.

I've got an old ITV Digital Monkeh in my house, he's got one or two dropped stitches and a '98 England shirt on. I had to iron the badge/stripe design on his t-shirt myself - and the shirt wouldn't come off his arms, most undiginified for a young ape.

He's also now got a tiny mini-me sitting on his head. A PG- Tips give away - super.

Here's Monkeh at his indignant best :



linky for feed readers

GRRRR: Twatplates and the twatting twats that own them

Bad Plate CAROL, originally uploaded by dvlh8.

Twatplates are car number plates where the owners have shuffled around the numbers and letters, perhaps add a bolt here or there, perhaps changed the font... whatever... VIZ's Roger's Profanisaurus christened them Twatplates.

My problem with them is that they defeat the purpose of car number plates, that is unique and easy identification of different vehicles.

My problem with the twatplaters is their sheer arrogance in disregarding the law just so they can have their name on their car. "Here's this law, it's a good law, it's egalitarian, it's for a reason - nah I'll get a number plate that's a little bit like my name and squidge the letters and numbers about so everyone knows who I am."

There's been an explosion of these in recent times, whether due to easier plate-making methods and the people that make them stopping caring - or an exponential rise in number of twats that seem to be around.

The governement and police de-regulated parking controls, meaning that it's now impossible to park without a warden sniffing round for a slight infingement, but these guys have no interest (or instructions, or bonuses) in enforcing other motoring regulations.

It's you've got enough money to get a twatplate and you do, you've got more money than sense. If you haven't and you'd like one, you still have - if you see what I mean.

Twatplates flickr group - shaming twats since 2006

GRRRR: Evan Davis, and others can you please stop recapping

Dragon's Den On the Telly, originally uploaded by Mupwangle.

You know on Dragons' Den, where the 'investors' "invest their own money", and the contestants "have to get all the money they asked for, or they leave with nothing". Yeah?

Yes so does everybody! It's been going for about four series now, the rules haven't changed, Sepp Blatter's not in charge, and they weren't complicated to start with. So why does the bloody narrator, BBC Economics Editor Evan Davis, tell us every five minutes?

It's because the programme makers think we're stupid. Every time you hear a factual programme on TV recap, they're patronising you.

(And on commercial TV - everytime they ask you to phone in with your opinion they're valuing your views at exactly the price of the call.)

AWWWW: Wii Miis

BruMiis, originally uploaded by bounder.

Despite the brilliant fun to be had with a Nintendo Wii, swinging your arms around, playing tenins, frightening pets and damaging the light fittings, one of the best thing you can do is make Wii Miis.

The idea is that you make a cartoony avatar for yourself, which looks like you (then you use it n the Nintendo games), but the real fun comes from making looke-likiees of celebs. And then being able to pick them up and toss them around.

Blow a whistle and make your mini Bill Oddie line up with Russell Brand. That's not a euphamism, but it's still brill.

AWWWW: lolcats

we iz laundry, originally uploaded by bounder.

Very different from simple pictures of cats on the interweb, lolcats (aka cat macros or kittah) are reaching critical mass.

A lolcat consists of a cat photo, captioned with poor grammar and spelling - normally to indicate the cat's thought process.

First there was 'i made you a cookie, but i eated it', and a number of 'i'm in ur computer upgrading ur RAM', but now it's almost impossible to open Firefox without ceiling cat peering out.

GRRRR: Tech support, that isn't

Nokia N73 - macro, originally uploaded by Cremo.

Last December I upgraded my mobile phone, I was seduced by the 'X-Series' on Three as it offered free 'push email' (similar to what a Blackberry does, but cheaper!) and got a Nokia N73. It hasn't worked from that day to this for more than a day without throwing up "-25 connection errors", "Internet Connection Failed" errors and a variety of other failures..

After phoning 3's tech support line in India - I'm guessing - and argueing the difference between the services on their phone (they kept telling me how to set up the phone's dial-up email) for nearly two hours I eventually got a diretc number for Mobile Mail Support.

And then they fobbed me off.

For months.

I eventually got the email address for one of the technicians who seemed to be trying to help. "I'll phone you on Monday".

No phone call.

I emailed. "Sorry, i'll phone tomorrow."

No phone call.

I've given up almost, the service has come back on for a day or two.

Then out of the blue an email suggesting that they "have been going though some of the log files on our relay server and think that I might have found the cause of your problems. It looks like out system is having some issues with processing a certain email in the users inbox."

So an email that I've been sent is the problem? I don't see how, but willingly comply.

So now i get "Account has expired" messages instead.

They don't know what they're doing.

GRRRR: Wasn't Comic Relief something to do with comedy?

Red nosed, originally uploaded by jenpen.

And charity too, of course.

Bit of a grumpy old man rant this one:

I appreciate the need for charity (although if people spent the same time and effort pressurising the government, long term solutions might be found, maybe), and if you're going to raise money and awareness having fun while you're at it is commendable.

The trades description people should be having a close look at the makers of Comic Relief does Fame Academy though. Week after week of actors, DJs and socialites singing fronted by Patrick Kielty is not comedy - unless it's very black and the joke's on us.

Bring back Cliff Richard and The Young Ones, bring back Theophilus P. Wildebeest, bring back Bobby Davro, anything.

If we raise enough money, can we not have it next time?

AWWWW: The An Eclipse

The Lunar Eclipse, originally uploaded by Pete Ashton.

Nothing's better for making you feel small and insignificant (and you are, you are!) than an astronomical phenomenon.

Last night in Birmingham we were treated to a brilliant cloud-free view of the Total Lunar Eclipse. Just a few problems with light-polution and me having to go to bed stopped me taking fantastic photos like this one. Nothing to do with a) not having the right lenses or b) not being very good at taking photos, oh no.

GRRRR: People who don't understand about sharing

I'm not talking about people who don't offer you a crisp (although, hang around I might get to them), but the sort of anal idiots that upload their photographs to photo-sharing websites (see the word there, 'sharing') and then get narked if you share the image. Flickr is the most well-known of these, although by some way not the most popular, and it is specifically set up for people to share photos, and post them on other websites.

Flickr's Terms and Conditions say that it "allows and encourages" use of photos on other sites as long as the photo links back to the flickr page. It even includes handy blogging tools that make that simple - although you can turn this off, which makes it more time consuming but still not difficult:

Removing this button makes it more difficult for people to blog your photos, but remember that anyone can copy and blog a public photo. If you'd rather this didn't happen, change your settings to make your photos private.

I don't blog photos that don't have a 'Blog This' button, not because it's difficult or wrong, but because if someone doesn't want their photo blogged I don't want to blog it. Yet I still occasionally get stroppy messages like the one above, which basically say "I don't know you, you are steeeeling.". I try to politely explain about the rules of flickr, sometimes even the laws of copyright if their message is that badly informed. But I remove the image, I don't want to blog (or drive traffic to) the pictures of people who don't want to share. These people wouldn't even know that the photos were blogged if I didn't like the pics and leave a comment to say so - when this happens to me I'm flattered.

These people are too stupid to be allowed cameras or computers, they certainly shouldn't be allowed email. It upsets me to get one of these messages, makes me think that I won't bother to blog, to communicate, to show people "look at this brill pic I found".

In truth I suspect that it's a control thing, yes they love flickr comments (which have cache like myspace friends, "i got 10 comments on that one"), they love praise and to be noticed - they don't like the idea that other people can see the images and they don't get to count - or show off - the numbers.

AWWWW: Pictures of cats on the interweb

Cats from above, originally uploaded by bounder.

The internet is a series of tubes, tubes full of kittens. Take photo-sharing site flickr, it's about 20% holiday snaps, 29% 'serious art photography' (some great some awful), 1% serupticiously taken camera-phone pictures of large breated women and a whopping 50% cats!

So much so that there are constant discussions amongst po-faced members about there being "a need for a cat free version of flickr". So much so that there's a cottage industry growing up that blogs pictures of cats from flickr, just picking the cutest and the funniest - and I know because I do it myself.

Dogs don't have the same qualities that make you photograph them, or squeal with delight at grammatically incorrect captions.

LOL!! I IZ IN UR PC BLOGGING ABOUT UR CATZ!!!

GRRRR: Gordon Brown's blatant disregard for workers

tony and gordon, originally uploaded by _imax.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Anger at public sector pay offer

Having been subject to a below inflationary pay-rise myself this year (while bosses at my firm picked up huge bonuses) I can fully understand the anger - under 2% for nurses for example. When you take into account the RPI (which includes Mortgages, Council Tax - the main costs in life) is nearer 5% this amounts to a 3% pay cut.

In the days when every penny you get from your employer has to be the result of productivity increases, being more flexible, taking on more responsibility and doing the work of laid-off colleagues, this is just heartbreaking.

Work harder, for less money, for a worse standard of living, with less job security, cor blimey Gordon, we're gonna vote for you, aren't we.

Oh, I forget, we don't get a choice.

AWWWW: Otters

Otters, originally uploaded by bounder.

There are loads of types of otters, although they mainly vary in size according to breed. All are smashing to watch, like small amphibious monkeys - but watch their teeth (as Terry Nutkins found to his cost).

One of my favourite things about otters is they afford you the opportunity to do otter impressions -