Tag Archives: olympics

SITUATIONS VACANT

July 14, 2012 By in WORDS Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In a couple of weeks, the London 2012 Olympic Games will begin. I’m not particularly looking forward to the Olympics and am not a huge fan of the cynical marketing which has surrounded the Games and the Jubilee this year.

A couple of months ago, my friend Biltawulf was wasting his life by looking at rubbish on the internet, when he discovered a special package deal on the Thomas Cook website; two tickets for the Olympic opening ceremony and a two night stay at the Athenaeum Hotel website for the bargain price of only £12,998. A normal two night stay at the same hotel, not including Olympic opening ceremony tickets, would be £737.

The itinerary for the trip is as follows:

26 July

  • Check in to your hotel. Please note you must arrive at your hotel by 18:00 on the 26th July for your accredited coach transfer to your evening meal
  • Dinner at a local restaurant

27 July

  • Breakfast at your hotel
  • Pre Ceremony Meal
  • Transfer to Olympic Park
  • 19.30 – 23.30 – Ceremony – Opening Ceremony

28 July

  • Breakfast at your hotel
  • Check out of your hotel

The Athenaeum Hotel has its own restaurant and yet the itinerary mentions a coach transfer to a “local hotel”. How “local” is this other mystery restaurant if you have to travel there by coach? And why don’t they just give you a meal in the hotel’s restaurant? It’s only downstairs. Perhaps the hotel’s restaurant was already fully booked, or it might even be closed that evening. Biltawulf decided to check to see if the restaurant was open. A few minutes later, I received the following email:

Rather than simply checking to see if there were tables available at the restaurant that evening, Bilta decided to book a table for four.

I assume he booked a table for four, because although Bilta and I are friends, we’re not really the sort of friends who would go to a fairly smart restaurant for dinner together. By booking a table for four, Bilta carefully avoided putting undue pressure on our friendship. But whilst he solved that problem, another problem presents itself; there are now two empty seats at our table.

We need to fill those seats, and that is where YOU come in.

YOU can apply to have dinner with Biltawulf and me. Please bear in mind that we are not offering to pay for you to have dinner with us, you will have to pay for yourself. We are also not offering to pay for your travel or any other costs you may incur. We are not offering you anything whatsoever. We just need to fill the two empty seats at our table so it looks like we have friends.

If that sounds like something you are interested in, go HERE for more information and to apply online (deadline is 12noon on 21st July 2012).

Good luck!

PORK PIE AND EGG SANDWICH

May 21, 2012 By in PICTURES, WORDS Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 31 Comments

It started in Marks & Spencer.

I’d gone in to buy a sandwich (it was lunchtime). I walked over to the chiller cabinet and saw this:

I immediately walked out.

Things got worse. After tweeting about this monstrosity, someone sent me this:

Stop trying to make everything a sandwich, Marks & Spencer, you lunatics. A pork pie doesn’t belong in a sandwich, neither do Yorkshire puddings. Just leave them alone. And don’t put these insane creations in wrappers covered in Union Jack bunting, suggesting some sense of tradition and nostalgia. There is no widely held tradition in this county of putting pies in sandwiches.

Photo by @snoozysuzy

I wasn’t entirely sure what a “Jubilee strawberry” was, but as Nick Marston on the Berry Gardens website explains, the Driscoll Jubilee is:

an exceptional strawberry with a wonderful naturally sweet flavour profile. It literally is the Queen of the Crop when it comes to summer strawberries. It is the UK’s leading variety for retailer’s premium brands. Nothing compares to it.

If you want any further information about the Driscoll Jubilee Strawberries please contact Nick Marston at enjoy@jubileestrawberries.com

It’s not just Marks & Spencer who have gone out of their fucking minds though. You can’t walk down any aisle of the supermarket without seeing some product or other in limited edition Jubilee packaging.

Ma’amite:

Brit Kats:

Photo by @DaisyGreenwell

Queensmill:

Great British Fancies:

They look quite similar to French Fancies, to be honest.

Tabasco sauce:

Ah, good old-fashioned traditional British Tabasco sauce.

I suppose this outbreak of Union Jack bunting was inevitable given the perfect storm of both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics this summer. The combination of the two has caused some companies to go so completely demented that they seem to have forgotten what the products they sell are actually for. Pampers, for example, have launched a range of Union Jack nappies:

Encouraging children to piss and shit on the Union Jack isn’t celebrating Britain, Pampers.

I went to the London David Icke Discussion Group again on Sunday, and the Jubilee and Olympics were one of the topics discussed.

One man suggested that when crowds of people gather to see the Queen, she feeds off their energy.

Every time anyone’s there, waving a flag, they are feeding off the energy you’re giving them.

But he offered some advice to anyone who fancied a nice day out but didn’t want to give positive energy to the Queen:

If you do go there, don’t adore them – adore yourself. Come from the heart chakra. That’ll mess them up.

He even suggested forming a gang and going along, each person coming from their heart centres. “That’ll mess them up.” Sounds like a fun day out.

The security measures being introduced for the Olympics were also mentioned. One person asked if anyone thought the Olympics would be used for a false flag attack. The majority of the room seemed to think this was likely. “OK, but then what if it doesn’t happen?” he asked. “It might be a trick! It might be a double bluff!” someone said. So if there is a terrorist attack during the Olympics, it’s proof of a conspiracy and if there isn’t one, that’s proof too.

Another person suggested that the Olympics could be used as a test for Project Blue Beam and that rather than the Illuminati staging a terror attack during the Olympics, they might stage an alien attack, although this was dismissed. “I would be very surprised. I don’t think they’d get away with that. I think it’s too soon to do a fake alien attack” said one person.

There are four stages to Project Blue Beam:

The first stage involves engineering a series of earthquakes, which reveal “discoveries” proving that all of the world’s religions are wrong:

What is important to understand in the first step is that those earthquakes will hit at different parts of the world where scientific and archaeological teachings have indicated that arcane mysteries have been buried. By those types of earthquakes, it will be possible for scientists to rediscover those arcane mysteries which will be used to discredit all fundamental religious doctrines. This is the first preparation for the plan for humanity because what they want to do is destroy the beliefs of all Christians and Muslims on the planet. To do that, they need some false ‘proof’ from the far past that will prove to all nations that their religions have all been misinterpreted and misunderstood.

The second stage involves a giant holographic projections of all of the main deities:

The second step in the NASA Blue Beam Project involves a gigantic ‘space show’ with three-dimensional optical holograms and sounds, laser projection of multiple holographic images to different parts of the world, each receiving a different image according to predominating regional national religious faith. This new ‘god’s’ voice will be speaking in all languages.

[...]

The result of these deliberately staged events will be to show the world the new ‘christ,’ the new messiah, Matraia (Maitreya), for the immediate implementation of the new world religion. Enough truth will be foisted upon an unsuspecting world to hook them into the lie. “Even the most learned will be deceived.”

The project has perfected the ability for some device [referred to as "tractor beams" by ufologists] to lift up an enormous number of people, as in a Rapture, and whisk the entire group into a never-never land We see tests of this device in the abduction of humans by those mysterious little alien greys who snatch people out of their beds and through windows into waiting “mother ships.” The calculated resistance to the universal religion and the new messiah and the ensuing holy wars will result in the loss of human life on a scale never imagined before in all of human history.

[...]

Then the projections of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, etc., will merge into one after correct explanations of the mysteries and revelations will have been disclosed. This one god will, in fact, be the Antichrist, who will explain that the various scriptures have been misunderstood and misinterpreted, and that the religions of old are responsible for turning brother against brother, and nation against nation, therefore old religions must be abolished to make way for the new age new world religion, representing the one god Antichrist they see before them.

Naturally, this superbly staged falsification will result in dissolved social and religious disorder on a grand scale, each nation blaming the other for the deception, setting loose millions of programmed religious fanatics through demonic possession on a scale never witnessed before. In addition, this event will occur at a time of profound worldwide political anarchy and general tumult created by some worldwide catastrophe.

The United Nation even now plans to use Beethovan’s ‘Song of Joy’ as the anthem for the introduction for the new age one world religion.

Next, they will project thoughts and voices into people’s heads using extremely low-frequency radio waves:

The advancement of techniques propel us toward the third step in the Blue Beam Project that goes along with the telepathic and electronically augmented two-way communication where ELF, VLF and LF waves will reach each person from within his or her own mind, convincing each of them that their own god is speaking to them from the very depths of their own soul. Such rays from satellites are fed from the memories of computers that have stored massive data about every human on earth, and their languages. The rays will then interlace with their natural thinking to form what we call diffuse artificial thought.

There are three “orientations” to the final stage – make everyone think aliens are about to invade earth, make Christians believe the Rapture is about to take place and make “satanic ghosts” appear through your TV and phone:

One is to make mankind believe that an alien (off-world) invasion is about to occur at every major city on earth in order to provoke each major nation to use its nuclear weapons in order to strike back. This way, the United Nations Court will require that all those nations which launched nuclear weapons to disarm when the invasion is shown to have been false. And how will the United Nations know that the invasion was false? They will have staged it, of course.

The second is to make the Christians believe that the Rapture is going to occur with the supposed divine intervention of an alien (off-world) civilization coming to rescue earthlings from a savage and merciless demon. Its goal will be to dispose of all significant opposition to the implementation of the New World Order in one major stroke, actually within hours of the beginning of the sky show!

The third orientation in the fourth step is a mixture of electronic and supernatural forces. The waves used at that time will allow “supernatural forces” to travel through optical fibers, coaxial cables (TV) electrical and phone lines in order to penetrate to everyone at once through major appliances. Embedded chips will already be in place. The goal of this deals with global Satanic ghosts projected all around the world in order to push all populations to the edge of hysteria and madness, to drown them into a wave of suicide, murder and permanent psychological disorders. After the Night of the Thousand Stars, worldwide populations will be ready for the new messiah to re-establish order and peace at any cost, even at the cost of abdication of freedom.

Now, that might all sound a bit insane, but it’s not as insane as putting a pork pie in a fucking sandwich.

OLYMPICS

February 16, 2012 By in PICTURES, WORDS Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 16 Comments

2012 is, of course, the year of the London Olympics. Being an adult, I have no interest in the Olympic games, instead, the only Olympics I’m interested in are the glass-reinforced plastic modular structures used in car parks and train stations:

The Olympic system has been at the forefront of modular building technology for 35 years and has earned a worldwide reputation for reliability and superior design.

Typical applications for the accommodation of personnel include: security posts and gatehouses; car park kiosks; factory offices; vehicle checkpoints and vending kiosks.

There’s a small Olympic unit at Raynes Park station:

The dark blue colour fits in nicely with the surroundings:

On closer inspection, you can see that the unit wasn’t originally that blue colour, it’s been painted. You can see where the painter has gone over the edges of the label:

It’s nice that they left the label there though, didn’t cover it up or paint over it. If you want to stop snoring ZQuiet. Send glasdon a telex, their number is 67350.

The larger Olympic units at Wimbledon are red:

Although for some reason, they seem to have replaced the original GRP door with a wooden panel one:

I’d like to think they’ve used a wooden panel door to make the Olympic unit appear more “homely”, but I suspect the original door got broken and it was cheaper to just use a normal door than to replace the whole panel1. It’s a shame though, as the straight lines of the wooden door panels don’t really fit with the contours of the rest of the structure.

At least at Waterloo, they have the proper doors3:

I started looking online for information about modular building systems like the Olympic. CB Fabrications do a nice range of GRP buildings. Their gallery page is wonderful.

In some of the images, the kiosks and huts look completely alien and out of place, like they’ve been photoshopped in on top of unrelated and surreal backgrounds:

With others, there are no visual clues whatsoever to help you work out when the picture was taken:

That photo could have been taken at any point in the last forty years.

Some of them are date stamped, sadly. That ruins the fun.

This shot of the interior of one unit shows a car through the window:

I don’t know anything about cars, so I asked on Twitter if anyone could identify it:

Several people identified it as a Ford Fiesta, but there was uncertainty over which type:

Soon though, people seemed to decide it was a Mk IV. This assessment, for example, seemed quite convincing:

The matter still wasn’t settled though, as some believed it could be a Mazda 121:

The confusion comes from the fact that the Ford Fiesta Mk IV and the Mazda 121 shared the same design:

As an exercise in badge engineering, the Mazda 121 and Ford Fiesta were built on the same production lines and used almost all the same parts.

Really though, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Ford Fiesta Mk IV or a Mazda 121. The Fiesta was produced from 1995 to 2002 when it was replaced by the MK V, and the Mazda from 1996 until it was withdrawn from the UK market in 1999. All I was really interested in were the dates.

The knowledge displayed by a few people reminded me of the television series You Bet. I’ve been thinking about You Bet quite a lot lately. The other week, I saw Joe Lycett at Josie Long’s night Lost Treasures Of The Black Heart. Afterwards, I was talking to someone about it and I mentioned that Joe Lycett used to appear on the BBC One series Epic Win. The person I was talking to had never heard of Epic Win, so I explained that it was sort of an updated version of You Bet. They’d never heard of You Bet either, so I tried to explain what it was, but the more I tried to explain, the more implausible it seemed.

You Bet was basically a celebrity panel show, where guests would bet on whether or not members of the public would be able to successfully complete particular challenges. Usually, the members of the public would be people with a special skill or knowledge of a specific subject and this would be tested against the clock.

Here is a man who knows a lot about buses, being mocked by Matthew Kelly:

Here is a blindfolded German teenager, dressed as a harlequin, attempting to identify the country of origin of a series of postage stamps by taste alone:

I love that this was shown on prime time television. Saturday night entertainment. Millions of people watching a man lick stamps.

The fact the concept was basically stolen wholesale to make Epic Win suggests there is still an appetite for this sort of thing, but in updating it, they robbed it of much of its charm, filling it with pointless stunts like this:

That man seems like an awful human being. Imagine being stuck next to him on a coach, gargling the national anthem the whole time and expecting you to be impressed. Not like Andy Hine, he seems nice and polite:

——
NOTES
1. I’ve had a look at the Glasdon brochure and you’ll see on page 22 that they’d need to order a PA6 panel to replace the door.
2. You’ll see that the doors at Waterloo don’t have windows, these are the “blank” PA5 door panels.
3. The title of the programme puts me off too. The inescapable “epic win”/”epic fail” dichotomy is a depressing fact of modern life. There are no humble achievements or minor mistakes, just epic wins or epic fails. Failure can so often be more interesting than the short termist “win”. We need to fail, it’s how we learn. But the all-caps FAIL does not allow for an examination of what went wrong, it simply shuts down the conversation and blocks all thought. In fact, it doesn’t just prevent any further thought, its use is also an illustration of a lack of thought itself. The debate is killed at both ends each time it is used. Please stop using these phrases, I beg you.

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