» Conspiracy theory nutters

It's worth remembering though...
...that governments love conspiracy theories. Can't get enough of 'em. The wackier the better.

Because if, for example, anyone who asks about petrochemical conglomerates, arms manufacturers and private defence contractors hiring teams of extremely expensive corporate lobbyists to push congress into supporting the Iraq invasion, thus allowing them to create a war for monetary gain, can be lumped in with those who claim that 9/11 was carried out by Jewish lizard people who use weather balloons to control their thoughts, it effectively discredits anyone who questions anything, allowing those in charge to neatly sidestep any line of inquiry that might lead the ordinary person to conclude that their elected leaders are, in fact, responsible for financially motivated genocide.

That is all.
(Sun 30th Aug 2009, 11:52, More)

» Picky Eaters

The Pickiest Hobo
A long time ago, in a call centre far far away...

Back in my heyday I used to be a high-rolling, go-getting, world-is-my-oyster type of bloke, and as was befitting of a lad with my insatiable appetite for success, I had scaled the woozy heights of the corporate ladder and commanded a position in the “Contact Centre” of a household insurance company.

There isn’t space on the entire internet for me to fully vent spleen on the enduring fuckwittery of call centre employment, so I’ll stick to the point, which is that like every call centre on God’s green Earth, we were required to turn up in business attire in order to foster the illusion that we had real jobs, and yet were paid about a fifth as much as the bloke who cleaned the toilets after our allotted (and carefully monitored) 15 minutes of daily “bathroom time”.

‘Picky’ wasn’t an option. On good days, a plate of chips from the cafeteria would cost 50p. On really good days, and if they liked you, the lunch ladies would chuck a bit of gravy on there for free (never underestimate the maternal instincts of a forty-something dinner lady when faced with a starving and lost-looking 21-year-old boy in a cheap suit). On bad days, the coffee machine also dispensed powdered soup.

Only on pay day did we truly feel like kings, because we got to venture to the netherworld outside of the call centre, mix with the Outside Folk, and buy lunch at the McD*n*lds in the prefab 60’s mess of a shopping centre next door. It was also the only time of the month that the transient gentleman who slept in their doorway would bother to pester us for loose change. I suppose he figured (correctly) that any other week he’d be wasting his time because, despite the suits, his dog ate better than we did.

Then one month a miracle occurred. The stars aligned, and For A Limited Time Only, McD*n*lds were offering two B*g M*cs for the price of one. And lo, call centre staff from all the tribes of the Earth did rejoice, and great was their joy. For not only could we afford a meat-style, mostly non-toxic lunch for the first time in four weeks, but we got another one thrown in absolutely gratis.

Obviously the jubilation lasted about 24 hours. I mean, have you ever actually tried to eat two B*g M*cs? It’s impossible. Even the most impoverished phone gibbon can only really make it about half way through the second before realising just how fucking awful they are. Which leads me at long last to the point…

Upon approaching the aforementioned imitation-beef franchise, and upon being approached in turn by aforementioned gentleman of the road, I hit upon an idea. I'd politely refused his request for surplus coinage, partly because I didn’t have any, and partly because the concept of ‘spare money’ seemed so alien as to be faintly ludicrous, but instead I offered him my spare B*g M*c, which, to my stunned incredulity, he declined.

I have nothing but sympathy for the homeless, and if he’d said something along the lines of “Actually mate, I’ve had all the spare B*g M*cs I can comfortably handle in one day, and now I’m trying to scrape together a couple of quid to get me drunk enough to forget, just for a few hours, that I live under a flyover and keep all my worldly possessions in carrier bags”, I’d have perhaps understood. But no…

The reason my attempted charity was so unceremoniously snubbed? He fixed me with an expression that normal people reserve for Conservative politicians, and that, coincidentally, Conservative politicians usually reserve for the homeless, and sneered the immortal response:

“I’m a vegetarian”.

Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ , a vegetarian tramp. Fuck me, that’s picky.
(Fri 2nd Mar 2007, 13:45, More)

» Top Tips

Women
If a person displays certain characteristics, personality traits or behavioural tendencies, it's probably due to a combination of genetics, past and present socio-economic environment, education and familial/peer group relationships.

It is almost certainly not because they are a fucking Pisces.
(Sat 17th Mar 2007, 4:42, More)

» Conspiracy theory nutters

I've met a bunch of these people...
...and the one thing they've never been able to fully explain is this:

If the world really has for centuries been run by a shadowy cabal of financiers/illuminati/zionists/lizards, why the tapdancing fuck aren't they better at it? Considering the abject chaos that almost all of the world exists in, almost all of the time, if someone really is lurking in the background and pulling the strings, they're making a spectacularly cock-awful job of it. My advice to them would be to stay secret, otherwise a few billion people might have one or two questions for them.
(Sun 30th Aug 2009, 11:32, More)

» Debt pron

First Post on the Bugle
Much like Togaboy, I too have known the near-sexual pleasure of inviting my erstwhile financial overlords to whistle for it, from the comfort and safety of the other side of the world. And what made it all the sweeter was that my debtors were none other than… …drum roll… …The Student Loans Company. Can I get a woop-woop?

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, crippling debt to these darkly malignant tumours on the ringpiece of Britain is the fiscal burden of choice for anyone who has the brass-balled audacity to attempt to educate themselves without a trust fund/hereditary life-peerage/uncle on the civil list.

Anyhoo, after several weeks on the phone attempting to defer repayment due to distinct lack of clay urinary receptacle, coupled with a grim determination to spunk my sub-atomic wage packet on weak lager and nutritionally questionable take-aways in the here & now, as opposed to weak lager and nutritionally questionable take-aways I’d shovelled down my kite in 1997, the bitter Glasweigan phone monkey informed me in a blisteringly smug tone that “I’m afraid we don’t do that sir”

“You clearly do. It says so on the back of this threatening letter”.

Cranking the smug up to 11, he replied “It’s actually a little more complicated than that sir”. I swear to Vishnu he actually purred as he said this. Cue three years of threats, abusive letters, arbitrary charges, and legally murky attempts to coerce my family into payment (luckily my mum is absolutely nails, and tolerates precisely none of this malarkey).

Eventually I move to the capital, accidentally score semi-lucrative employment with Britain’s 117th most respected cable TV company, and decide to get these parasites off my back for good. Their initial proposal – monthly repayments equal to those of, say, Mozambique – was not met with approval, but eventually a deal was struck.

Then I emigrated. And so to the point.

A single payment by direct debit, of a fixed amount, on the same day of each month, is admittedly a difficult concept for a loan company to grasp, but throw in a new debit day, a change of address and wire transfers to my UK account in a Aussie dollars, and the pilot of their collective brain ship suffered a stroke at the wheel. Letters were sent requesting the entire amount in full within 7 days.

During the subsequent call to an equally smug phone gimp (do they take smuggery classes?), something happened that tipped me over the edge. I’d almost reached the end of my rope trying to explain my situation, and asked to speak to a supervisor, and the phone gimp… …laughed. He actually chuckled at me. Something deep within me buckled to breaking point, and I cut loose.

“OK. You’re in Glasgow, in January, facing the wrong end of an 8-hour call centre shift with only a bollock-freezing lunch hour to break the tedium. I’m currently sitting on my balcony on Sydney’s northern beaches, sipping a glass of shiraz so massive it could drown a small family cat. My back yard has a fucking palm tree in it. So option 1) I’m going to make regular repayments, when I decide to, in the manner in which I choose, and you are going to help me. Option 2) You never hear from me again”.

It worked a treat, and what’s more, oh God it felt good.

Apologies for longevity of ongoing genitalia joke.
(Thu 30th Nov 2006, 13:50, More)