Hard candy, hard faces and semi naked football

The world today is such a minefield, when did this happen? I was advised last night that there is a campaign to stop Tesco’s selling lads magazines because they objectify women, yes they specifically stated Tesco.  Of course the debate was led by a couple of bearded dragons that could never have been objectified in their lives, but everyone is entitled to an opinion. The thing that struck me as odd is that a female model showing the latest X station or Playbox game is supposed to objectify women yet the semi naked footballers selling aftershave don’t do the same for men. If you are so worried about the objectification of people then surely it is better to start with a growing market such as semi naked males than an established market such as lads mags? In other words, lead by example. If you want to stop models selling games to pimply lads that rarely leave their bedroom then perhaps the Diet Coke ad needs a makeover?

This morning I was advised that we need to outlaw the airbrushing of models. Again the proponent was a women whose face, in close up, looked as rough as velcro.  Of course we airbrush models, it makes them look even better and that is the idea. But what about the fat people? surely they are a reason for more airbrushing not less? The reason that they say that we have to make these changes is to protect the young, let me be clear here, it is not. The removal of all things beautiful is proposed by those that took an extra whack from the ugly stick, they are jealous people who have slunk into power. This is like me proposing that football or dancing is outlawed because, quite simply, I am rubbish at them. Leave the beautiful, or nearly beautiful people alone and go back to telling yourself that its “what’s on the inside that counts”.

As for the argument that you’re protecting the children I have to defer to an eloquent, pimply and overweight superstar from some show about teen virgins last night. When asked about porn he looked at the camera as if it was a 6-year-old and said that thinking porn was real life was like watching a movie and thinking that’s how life was. The lad summed it up rather well, kids are not stupid and if we have to ban good-looking people then we must also ban superman movies to prevent the youth thinking that they can fly. The reason he was a superstar incidentally was nothing to do with what he said but the fact that he deleted his porn stash live on TV and it was 0.97TB, what a collection he must look like a lopsided popeye!

Just to add to the confusion I purchased a packet of Rowntree Pic’n’ mix today. This is a product that has to have been sponsored by dentists, its like russian roulette without the gun!  Essentially it is a selection of soft, chewy, teeth friendly sweets with a random sprinkle of a rock hard candy that is equivalent to chewing a pebble. I have no particular axe to grind with hard candy but, as I get older, I like to be notified that they are in the bag. These appear to have been frozen to make them especially hard and then randomly thrown in the bag. Like snipers they appear in the chewy delight and try to shatter rarely preserved porcelain. If you want to protect the young, if you want a campaign start with one to get a bloody warning on those sweets!

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Drugged flies and stupid beards

After much consideration I have determined that flies are controlled by Ms Nature and that people are simply stupid. I had, rather graciously, assumed that flies were under the jurisdiction of the much nicer nature. After all without flies where would all the dog poo go? Yes they are irritating but they serve a purpose. My flat faces the beach in a tourist town, within sniffing distance for me (as a human) there is a veritable smorgasbord of fast food wrappers and detritus. So why is it that flies elect to enter my property and remain there. The flying around the light game is misdirection since the light is off and frankly they are not moths. They are there, darting in insane orbits, simply to aggravate me.

Further evidence of the twisted hand of Ms Nature is that when I dispatch said flies they are replaced. Always by four flies, never three and never five, as if they are queueing outside for some fairground ride. Of all the properties around what would cause them to enter mine if not directed by Ms Nature. I can’t believe that they are flying around, pop in the window and think “Hmmm no other flies and a smell of poison, let’s hang around here and see what happens”. This is like Jews queueing for train tickets for Auschwitz saying “I’ve never heard anyone say a bad thing about their trip”.

So I am fighting a constant battle with Ms Nature’s suicide bombers. As many as I kill she sends more, like the Chinese they are trying to win on numbers rather than skill. Now if you think that I am paranoid or that the flies are not simply there to annoy me, well you’re wrong. This morning I went into my front room and awoke the flies who were napping on the wall. Seriously, the bloody things don’t stop when I’m awake but as soon as I go to sleep it’s “here Bob all quite let’s have a break”.

Having established that flies are Ms Nature’s minions I scoured the internet yesterday to see the preferred methods of fly eradication. Don’t misunderstand me I have no global warming lettuce poisoning fears over pesticides, I actually think that they are great. My problem is that in order for chemical pesticides to work I have to let the flies in first. I want a means of dispatch that does not call for me to be irritated first, something that despatches on sight. I have tried fly paper but it’s not really for me. Firstly I have to hang it in the centre of the room in order to capture flies, this has the inadvertent result that I seem to have more contact than the flies. A few beers is enough to forget the fly paper, I walk into the front room and I’m immediately wrapped in a sticky strip of flies. Like something out of Radiers of the Lost Ark I’m rolling around trying to get glue and bugs off my face for ten minutes.

The other problem with fly paper is that flies are just unreliable. They sit on the little cardboard tube at the end just to tease you. I end up like the M&M’s ad, talking to the flies saying “get on the paper”. Have you tried encouraging a drug addled fly to change direction? If you wonder on the drug addled comment then let me explain. It’s common knowledge that suicide bombers are drugged to help them complete the task, and probably to cope with the concept of 72 hairy virgins waiting for them! Ever wondered why flies travel in such odd orbits, with no real sense of direction? Precisely!

So the mission was to find more efficient means of killing flies. I hit upon website after website with ways of extracting flies without harming them. Several websites commended the principle of using a vacuum cleaner and creeping up on them. According to the beardy weirdies you can then simply empty them outside to fly off into the sunset. What is the matter with these people? The things are pests, you want to track them like wild byson and then trap them to move them outside are you insane! They are drugged up terrorists, they won’t fly into the sunset, they will fly straight back in to your home! These people are talking about being humane to flies, the clue is in the first 5 letters ‘human’ if you add an e to fly you get flye which translates into ‘kill’, probably. I don’t want to befriend them, name them or keep them as bloody pets, I want to kill them. If I thought that decapitating a fly and leaving it’s body on a stake at my window would put them off I would be making cocktail stick stakes as we speak.

Apparently flies are “fastidiously clean”, how do you know? I’ve never seen fly deodorant or soap. Let’s look at this simply, they stand in their food, vomit into it and eat the result. Oh and their food of choice is faeces. I’m sorry but short of two hours in a Champney’s bubble bath or an industrial jet wash will make that clean. I hit upon one debate that flies got a bad reputation because they were not “endearing”. Not endearing, they are disease carrying terrorists, that fella with the hook and his family of letterboxes was more cuddly!

That is the thing with people, give them enough time and they will get stupid over anything. They forget that we had to fight nature back to build their bungalow, forget that the roads that bring their buckwheat to waitrose kill foxes and badgers and frogs. They sit in their bungalow, walls covered in insulating dung and scabs, and worry that we need to save the common fly. Well it’s not for me, I’m stocking up on Raid and going to war.