2.4.14 The Voice - Final Farce Next Saturday

Last weekend I endured (and I choose this word for good reason) two hours and ten minutes of The Voice, within which was content enough for a programme lasting no more than 90 minutes - and that is being VERY generous.  The atrocious padding of the Semi-final was disgusting and despicable - and agony.

The Quarter-final the week before was bad enough.  There were, though, some positive outcomes.  First, the demise of Georgia was thankfully received on my part.  She managed for weeks to mention her cousin, Adele (whom she met once as a kid and has not heard from since) at every opportunity, while stating that she did not want to get on via support from Adele!  "It's so nice to have done it on my own," she said, after leaving the competition.  Hardly, luv - you've touted the Adele connection non-stop.  For the record, Georgia's father is the brother of Adele's grannie; so, cousins once removed.  'Removed' is of course the state of Georgia.

Quarter-final week threw up some funny details in the newspapers after the show.  The best one was about Tom Jones, who was feared to be "too dull" by producers, and they tried desperately to get him to up his game.  Unfortunately Tom maintained his full dullness throughout the show (well, series now that I think about it) and managed stock answers to most things, delivered in a flat way - while lapping up any adulation floating around the studio, and wallowing in every hint that suggested he might be a "legend".  It's a yawn from me - and a yawn from him!

The Semi-final was, as I said, painfully drawn out, with endless recaps, guest performances [well fucking miming!], dumb-ass questions, pandering to the coaches, sycophancy and shite.  When Emma and Marvin screamed "Are you ready for this?" at the very beginning, I could never have known that the correct answer was 'No'. Some of the pathetic contributions were:

"You sliced it tonight."  [Will.i.am.a.tit]
"Let Bizzi get busy."  [Tom 'Comatose' Jones]
"What a great way to start the show."  [Emma 'Wailing' Willis with an inspiring and original comment to the first contestant to sing]
"Last week you made my grandson cry."  [Tom, to Christina, who perhaps nicked his sweets?]
"You are just incredible at everything you do."  ['Wailing' Willis, overdoing the praise a touch]
"Give us your first words of wisdom for the evening."  [Willis, sucking up to Will.i.talk.shit]
"This is a crucial time now."  [Tom, possible thinking about bedtime, or Horlicks]
Everything said and done by Marvin for the whole show.

It was noted that The Voice is not about the voice, but about other factors as well, even if not the 'X' one.  Bizzi was convinced that this was a geographical competition, with support for the idea from Sally.  Both are from Leicester, and so this was supposedly a basis for people in Leicester, and perhaps Leicestershire, to vote.  What fucking bollocks.

I lost interest as the clock ticked away, and wished that The Voice was on ITV. At least that would have allowed seven or eight breaks at an average of four minutes, so half-hour less of the shit.  Conversely, the 130 minutes on BBC1 would have required an ITV slot of rather more significance.  In every 15 'ITV' minutes, 3-4 of them are ads or trailers.  In effect, ITV would have had to devote 3 hours in its schedule to show the same fucking shite!  As for the guests all miming, what a cunting farce!

The contestants were mostly not up to much, other than Christina and Sophie. Christina was rather too loud (I turned the TV down to volume 2 to cope with her) but there's no doubt she's got a good voice - a fact that some might say is relevant.  That might seem a daft thing to say, but the quality and originality of a voice is not always taken into account - as in the case of Sophie.  Being ejected was  hardly fair, and she went the way of Iesher the week before. Will.i.ever.get.it.right has ended up with Jermain, the dated and fucking irritating bloke who wants to be a Labour MP.  Perhaps he should be prepared for getting no votes!  Will thus managed to lose two people with good voices, and keep the useless one.

Sally sang a song that simply did not suit her, and messed it up.  Luckily for her she was up against Bizzi, who busied himself with adding six extra syllables to every word he sang, securing maximum annoyance among the voting public.  Jamie beat Lee (yawn) and Christina was always going to beat Chris.  The programme's format ensured we have ended up with a farce for the last few weeks, and that whether you get through depends on which team you are in, and who else is in your team.  Let me expand.

Four coaches have three singers, so 12 for the Quarter-final.  This is the same as the live shows in the X-Factor, but with a major difference.  In the X-Factor, whose team you're in is irrelevant; someone (Simon?) decided long ago that talent and votes should count when deciding who stays and who goes.  The BBC however has opted to ensure that each coach has the same number of acts, 3,2 then 1 for the Quarter-final, Semi-final and Final, respectively.  As a result, we have seen people progress further than they should because of poor competition within their own group, and some better singers going too early because the coach has either made them battle head to head, or the singer unfortunately is in a strong group.

Another factor has been song choice, and the input of the coaches.  Will chose 'Let's Dance' for the combined performance, which did no favours for Sophie. Ricky was simply shit, and wasted my time.  Kylie sang her singly with a nasal twang and Tom shouted and smiled before resuming his sit-in.

How Bizzi got to the Semi-final demonstrates this, for example.  My Final would perhaps have been Iesher, Sophie, Christina and Sally.  As things stand, Christina should now win

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30.3.14 Cunt of a Selfie OR Selfie of a Cunt

I suspect I am going to be in a minority when it comes to my loathing of the "selfie", and the stupid number of photos that are now not just taken, but shared.  The lengths to which people now go in the pursuit of recognition, fame and general attention-seeking are preposterous.    Sometimes there may be a reasonable need to include yourself in something, but the vast majority of pictures are simply unnecessary, and often cringe-worthy.

There are far too many pictures of cunts, but that does not stop the onslaught of cunting photos.  What will the next craze be?

As noted in a book I recently saw, they are everywhere!

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30.3.14 Signs Of Error and Other Material

Premisses

I don't think you'll find a better example of a rather fucked up shop sign than this.  I can't believe that the owners who commissioned it are that dozy, or that the sign makers were oblivious of the howling error.  I wonder how many customers have a clue and bother to mention it to Mr or Mrs (assuming there is one) Santino.  Not enough to prompt any action, I assume.

Belfry

An expensive cardboard brochure for simply THE spa at The Belfry is amusing in respect of one of the offers, a 140-minute session for two.  The wording is in my opinion slightly misleading:

"An experience designed for those wishing to share a special moment with your partner or friend."

I would suggest that a deficiency in the use of English has arisen here, because it seems to be targeted at wife swapping/sharing.  I am not sure, as the reader, I'd want to take up an offer for someone to share a moment with my partner!

Need A Taxi?

Ordering a pint a while ago, I noticed pinned to the wall an invitation to use Paul's taxi service, via the small card which sadly read:

Paul's Taxi's

Under the simply two-word summary of the business was a phone number, though I decided that if Paul could overuse apostrophes, he might be inclined to overcharge as well.  I left with my cider.

B & Q

Toliet Accessories?  Didn't someone notice when it was being printed, or put up?


Corner Shop

This is an example of a classic mistake, displayed on a small free-standing board outside a local shop.  Items for sale included:

Ice Cream and Ice Lolly's

This is sometimes known as the Greengrocer's Apostrophe.


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30.3.14 The Art Of English - Speech

Part 1 - Speech

There are numerous ways in which twats use English in the wrong way, or try to reinvent word usage for no apparent reason.  In some cases, there is no concept of 'reason' at all, and the root cause is ignorance and/or stupidity. Pretentious people are also keen to contribute, adding pathetic twists to things that are apparently attempts to be cool, modern or simply annoying as fuck.  In no particular order, I will relay my views on various elements of the spoken word, vocabulary, usage, cuntishness [which is not yet an accepted 'word' but this is my blog and on that basis I can choose the c-word and its derivatives whenever I like] and style.

Uber - this is an excellent example of a word that's suddenly caught on, despite it not even existing in the fucking language.  In a bid to provide some sort of extra emphasis, people seem to think it's good to stick "uber" in front of another word to accentuate, increase, intensify or elevate.  What complete bollocks.  I suspect these are the same people who are tempted (and usually succumb to that temptation) to use "epicentre" in some sort of strange attempt to add extra emphasis to the word "centre" - another complete fuck-up, and abuse of the English language.

In a row - this was for a rather long time a simple and adequate way of explaining things that came one after another.  A sequence of events, or things can occur or happen in close proximity [time or distance].  Thus, in respect of trying to hit a target, "he knocked over three in a row" leaves no one in any doubt that on each of three attempts, he knocked one over.  Strange then, that in the world of sport, most notably football, pundits and TV presenters have now started to adopt a different terminology for this sort of message.  Teams no longer win three matches in a row.  Instead, they win "three on the spin" or "three on the bounce".  What the fucking fuck?  Pretentious and stupid, and the desire to try and be different, and invent some sort of weird and exclusive style for relaying bog standard fucking information is pathetic.  As for Alan Hansen wittering on about "eight games on the belt" I've no fucking idea!

Christina Perri has released a single called Human.  Sadly, though, the written word is rather different from the one she actually uses when singing.  The lyrics, unsurprisingly, include the word human quite a few times, a word that when sung by her taken on the revised sound you'd associate with 'human'. The one letter different is more annoying than should be the case for the single letter fuck-up.  At least she does not sing "Who-men" and manages to make the first syllable "Hyou".  Even so, she gets no congratulations from me for that avoidance of another fuck-up, and I think she ought to reflect carefully on why the word 'human' is spelled with no 'e' - because there's no 'e' sound in the word!

Conscious Uncoupling is the way in which Gwyneth Paltrow chose to relay the news that she and her husband had split.  A bit pretentious, eh?  Still, not quite as pathetic as Mary Nightingale on the ITV News managing to fuck up the pronunciation of 'Gwyneth', opting instead for Gwenyth.  Such an error is hardly acceptable when your employed to read the fucking news and so be able to read and speak properly!

Vince Cable managed to alert the media, ahead of a speech about immigration, that he was "intensely relaxed" about the matter.  What a prize fucking pillock.  He sat and thought about what to put across to the journalists, and decided on this 'taster' before he actually said anything at all.  We are all used to getting so-called news about what the news is going to be, but it's even more annoying when a sound-bite is engineered, especially when the words used are fucking contradictory, even oxymoronic, and almost a Googlewhack.

Prepositions are open to abuse these days, none more so than "around", which has come to replace the word "about" when pretentious people get to talk shit.  This means that no longer are there, for example: "Some issues about whether it's safe to use chainsaws".  Instead, there are: "Some issues around whether it's safe to use chainsaws".  This is simply poor, and affected - infected speech, I'd say.

Inappropriate touching - In a world where 'touching' is nearly always linked to a major scandal, use of the word, you'd think, would perhaps be minimised. Instead, we find extra use of this verb through the pathetic shit uttered by people who want to make their speeches seem more flowery, and more varied. However, the end result is either an excessive use of the phrase "touch on" or "touched on", or worse, use of the term when it is in fact wholly inappropriate. First, people like to "touch on" a subject, and then tell you fuck all about it; in essence, there was fuck all touching going on, and the provision of information was in fact more tantric!  Then there are those who refer to others who went before them; for example: "Earlier on, John touched on the difficulties with record keeping".  There are others who say they are going to "touch on" a particular subject and then spend fucking ages molesting the cunting subject! If an agenda might benefit from the inclusion of a cunting matter, then there is nothing wrong with mentioning the cunt, or covering the cunt, or talking about the cunt - but touching on the cunt is a no go!

Mispronounced Words

There are numerous words that for some reason provide challenges for those wanting to use them.  In other cases, pretentious twats decide to vary the pronunciation for no fucking good reason.

Consumer - This is NOT 'Conshoomer', nor is it 'Consoomer'.
Sneaked - 'Snuck' may well be an accepted word in North America, but it most definitely is NOT a word in English, and 'Sneaked' is correct here.
Columnist - The pretentious will decide to pronounce the 'n' just to be fucking annoying.  In English, it is allegedly optional whether to do so, despite the 'n' in 'Column' being silent.  There is simply NO NEED to sound the 'n' so why some people bother is beyond me; maybe they are just attention seekers.
Omega - The stress is most definitely on the FIRST syllable, but ever since the fucking advent of Omega 3 in food, there's been a strange persistence on the part of advertisers to promote the stuff with stress on the second syllable. This has now given rise to millions of people being under the impression that stressing the first syllable is wrong (!) and most of the cunts don't even know it's the last letter of the Greek alphabet!
Finance - Another example of twats taking over, with the proper long 'i' sound being replaced with a short 'i'; where does this fucking shit start?
Decade - Exactly in line with the 'Omega' problem, we have a never ending line of people desperate to denote 10 years through use of a term that's mispronounced, and instead of 'Decade' being said in the same way one might start the word 'Decimal' or the word 'Decibel', we are lumbered with second-syllable stress and the exact same sound as 'decayed'.
Negotiate - Perhaps the most common word most annoying mispronounced; there is 's' or soft 'c' in the middle of this word!  Pretentious twats say "negossiate".
Islamist - This is Islam with 'ist' on the end, but it seems there's no room for people retaining any stress on the middle syllable.  Conform and Conformist will best relay my view.  Clearly CON-fer-mist is just silly.
Supervisory - Simply Supervisor with an extra 'ee' sound at the end, NOT a licence to use a short 'i' in the middle!
Via - This has a long 'i' and is quite simple to say; yet, we get twats using a short 'i' and making it sound like "veer".  Get it sorted.  Via, Viaduct, Vial.
Vulnerable - There is a fucking 'l' as the third letter, and it is there so that it is not pronounced "vunrable".  The bone on your arm is an "Ulna" not an "Unna".

Words and Phrases to Avoid - These are words and terms that do the user no credit at all, because they are never said in context and/or given their proper place.  Instead, they are abused, overused, and fucking annoying.

Awesome, Chillax, Epic, Award Winning, Iconic, Bestest, National Treasure, In-Branch, Journey, Take it to the next level, Nailed It, Put in a shift, Step up to the plate, Bad day at the office, Showed character, Grit and determination, Amazing, Legend and Dope.

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30.3.14 Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a rather good film, and worth a watch.  This is the Australian remake, with Rebecca De Mornay.  I believe this would be a good antidote to the marketing shit that has forced people to spend £400million - £450million, supposedly.  I have no idea what a mother thinks of a son or daughter who has trotted off to Morrisons or Lidl or wherever, to take advantage of a tacky offer relating to flowers, chocolates or something else.

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29.3.14 TV Round-Up - Shit On The Box

I haven't commented on the television schedules for a while now, but feel it's appropriate to provide a few highlights now.  The first must be to rejoice in the departure of Mr Selfridge.  It is not the actual programme that causes the main problem, because it is easy enough to find something else to do between 9pm and 10pm on a Sunday.  The sheer agony came with the relentless touting of the programme by the cunts in charge at ITV.  In fact, beyond the last episode, there were still adverts to watch the fucker, via ITV Player. Anyway, that's died down now, so we are safe until another series looms.

Another fairly recent departure was the last in the latest woodwork lesson from Stephen Tompkinson, in DCI Banks, whose acting is more like a plank than a plank is!  Thankfully he's off screen for a while.

I was amused with last week's offering on BBC2, following the efforts of Kate Humble during the lambing season.  Here are some of the listing details for Lambing Live:

Sunday - Kate Humble and Adam Henson revisit people featured in previous series.  Yawn - or should that be "Baaaa" then?
Tuesday - Kate Humble and Adam Henson are in the Scottish Borders with the Dykes.  Bit rude, eh?  Oh, it's their name.
Wednesday - Kate humble discovers that performing ultrasounds on sheep can be a surprisingly mucky business, while Adam Henson goes in search of a rare and elusive wild sheep in Cyprus.  WTF?  Why's the BBC paying for him to go there?  We've got sheep here!
Thursday - Kate Humble meets a very different kind of sheepdog, while Adam Henson learns there is much more to grass than meets the eye.  Plus, a chance to catch up with all the lambs born today at the Dykes' farm.  Fuck me, this is exciting!
Friday - Kate Humble learns about the dedication and attention to detail it takes to raise lambs for their meat, while Adam Henson looks at the future of breeding.  Hmmm . . what's Adam going to breed with, I wonder?

Channel 5 has adopted what must be the poorest offering this morning, because a check of the schedules shows that last Saturday, at 1.30pm, it offered us the George Segal film, The Bridge at Remagen.  Imagine my surprise when I saw today's listing had, at 10.35am, the George Segal film, The Bridge at Remagen.  What a complete con!  Last Sunday it showed, at 11.00pm, A Bridge Too Far.  Following on today, at 12.55pm was A Bridge Too Far - yes indeed, a bridge too fucking many!

We are not allowed to see anything these days without being accompanied by some or other "celebrity" or "personality", because we are incapable of properly appreciating or understanding anything unless we are told about it by someone who has switched career, or is taking a sabbatical.  This means we must endure Adrian Edmondson pissing about, as well as Griff Rhys Jones. Neither is watchable.  Why do commissioning cunts think that we will be well disposed to accept someone who was once upon a time funny in a completely new role? For some strange reason there's been a decision at some fucking meeting that has rubber-stamped this approach because it was decided there's excessive goodwill to people who were funny in the past.  'Ade', as we are forced to call him now, is one of many people tootling about all over the place. Griff is at it, as is Caroline Quentin, Robson Green and Martin Clunes. Then we have the wandering efforts of Christine Bleakley, although I think there will be no further series, thankfully.  Give these jobs to people who are presenters!

Back to Channel 5, well not if I can help it, but to the listings anyway, I see there's competition in how to name programmes.  Surely the best/worst name is Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead for a programme, even if the content will be far from good television.  Others that follow the theme but with less 'punch' are - Famous, Rich & Hungry and Booze, Bust-Ups & Brothels: Soho Blues [which apparently both gets an ampersand].  On Monday this week, you will have the chance to see Conned, Fleeced and Left for Broke, which moves away from the ampersand convention.  What next?  Hands, Knees and Boomps A Daisy, probably.

The Emma Willis overload continues, and I don't just refer to the wailing, booming loudness with which we all have to contend.  Not only is she being dreadful on The Voice, she's appearing tomorrow on ITV in Catchphrase Mother's Day Special [who decides on this shit?] and over on Channel 5 at 6.10pm, she's hosting Mum of the Year 2014.  Enough is enough - or actually, any is too much.  Blimey, it's bad enough that she's on The Voice.

Incidentally, on BBC2, we are stuck with another manic Foghorn Leghorn, in the shape of Zoe Ball, who manages to outdo Emma Willis for decibels and manic verbal onslaught.  The programme is so fucking aptly named that in this single respect, congratulations are due to the BBC.  I refer to The Voice: Louder on Two [which it certainly is, as explained].

On ITV at 11.10pm on Tuesday, Trevor McDonald is back inside Death Row [the inspiringly named programme that's being repeated is Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald] but the real shame is that they keep letting the fucking bloke out!

On ITV at 2.00pm on Tuesday, the awfully named offering Auf Wiedersehen My Pet features someone called Chiara who is looking to re-home her two guinea pigs as she no longer has the space to keep them. [WTF?]  Any fucking programme that eats up an hour of life while depending on the witheringly shitty basis of finding two guinea-pig sized spaces in the home of someone other than the present owner is tragic!

The BBC serves up more fucking food.  Mary Berry Cooks [as if we didn't fucking know!] is ploughing on, and is joined now by yet another helping of Masterchef.  I am full up, and in fact as 'bloated' as the BBC on food programmes.

As if to give credence to my earlier moaning about presenters, Martin Clunes has been despatched to Africa to tell us about lions in a programme due to be shown on Friday at 9.00pm on ITV.  I suspect it might be rather more bearable than Ade at Sea on Thursday at 8.30pm - again on ITV.  Not too sure why this channel is keep to promote these non-presenters in presenting roles.  Still, I am just as clueless about ITV News policy.

Apparently some cunt in charge decided that my potentially pressing need for a conservatory warranted the break in the early evening news the other day. Yes, I had to endure the interruption to the news so that for 30 seconds I could be forced to listen to how Pennine Conservatories can give me a 'home appointment' to discuss a conservatory or orangery.  How the fuck is one advert for this shit a basis for cutting the fucking news in half?  The only benefit that I can summon up is 30 seconds relief from the smug grin of Alistair Stewart, who must surely be the owner of the creepiest face on television.

Kirstie's Best of Both Worlds - no she's fucking not.  Both in this life and the afterlife, I've no need of input from Kirstie Allsop on Channel 4.

If you're really desperate to kill an hour and learn nothing at all, try ITV tomorrow at 11.10am.  River Monsters offers us "an investigation into the Loch Ness Monster."

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28.3.14 News In Pictures - Outside of Dudley Zoo

Barbara Knox

To most people she's 'Rita' from Coronation Street.  She's been arrested on suspicion of drink driving, and the 80-year-old may thus have exceeded the limit of 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.  The greater possible crime, though, must surely be the attire, as it suggests she's auditioning for a role in the forces.

Obama

The more threatening of the two Obamas has had more than her fair share of attention in recent days, what with the visit to China.  I am struggling to see how she gets to do so much and be listened to so much when she has never been elected.


Cable Car

Not a 'cable car' in the conventional sense, but a car that could serve Vince Cable as a Motability contraption, especially as it's in his team colour.  The doddery old buffoon really out to get out less, so maybe we should deny him use of the vehicle.


What a Tit

Indeed "What a tit", but we nevertheless like him a lot, and X-Factor would not be the same without him.  As for Sinitta, we could all do with a lot less of her - less exposure all round, not just the bazooka.  One of life's "hangers on".


Blatter

There's nothing that needs to be said about Sepp Blatter, as I think there can be very few people alive who don't have an accurate opinion of this despicable arse.


Murray - Mint!

I couldn't resist another showing of this spitting image.


Caveman

Sometimes you see a picture and wonder how someone ever came to be admired and so well rewarded, outside of Dudley Zoo.


Fancy Dress

Sometimes you see a picture and wonder how someone ever came to be admired and so well rewarded, outside of Dudley Zoo.


Blair

Deja Vu - Sometimes you see a picture and wonder how someone ever came to be admired and so well rewarded, outside of Dudley Zoo.


Ashton

Catherine Ashton is an overpaid whilst ineffective career politician who is simply dispensable, and yet again I find the same thought crossing my mind: sometimes you see a picture and wonder how someone ever came to be admired and so well rewarded, outside of Dudley Zoo.


Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch has taken lessons and watched a lot of Ray Winstone films in recent years.


Pothole

The state of Britain's roads has hit an all time low, with thousands of potholes causing massive inconvenience.  Claims for personal injuries sustained after accidents and claims for damage to vehicles have hot record levels.  The council in the above case decided to "investigate" a pothole, which involved digging around it for some reason.  The enlarged feature is now massive and the council cannot afford to fix the road.  Twats.


Courtney Stodden

This must qualify (at a stretch) as the most desperate use of a rubber balloon ever.


Mavis Riley Returns

Playing the part of a burglar, Les bears a striking resemblance to Mavis!


Moyes

Wrecking just about everything, Moyes is having a tough time, with no help from any of his players.


Blair Preaches

Blair likes to think he's superior, but yet again I find myself dealing with the recurring thought: sometimes you see a picture and wonder how someone ever came to be admired and so well rewarded, outside of Dudley Zoo.


Krankies

I see that the voting will include those who are 16 and 17, for the single reason that they are thought more likely to vote for independence.  If there were the slightest chance that the extra input would increase the 'no' vote, then Salmond would of course have stuck with the well established precedent that one has to be 18 to vote.  Slimy prick.

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