Married

31 Oct 2008 11:07 by Mark

Today - that today being Halloween of 2008 and not any other today which may be considerably later depending on when you read this or considerably earlier depending on when my Time Machine comes out of private beta - I shall be departing the world of singletons and landing upon the fair shores of married life. That is to say, I'm getting married today. This will be followed - after a rest period of a couple of days - with one of those there honeymoon things.

Marriage brings with it changes. As far as you're concerned the major change will be that I won't be updating the site for a few weeks, I won't be dropping by Entrecard users' sites for a few weeks, I won't be advertising on Entrecard sites or accepting adverts from Entrecard users, and anybody who leaves a comment that goes into moderation won't get it approved until I get back. I won't be visiting your sites or reading your latest updates through my RSS reader. I'll miss you at first but I'll get over it quite quickly because I'm an adaptable sort of chap.

The wedding will be a small affair and you're not invited. It won't be religious because I think we all know my views on that whole crock of crap. It will be short; perfunctory. We are not getting married out of love (we know how we feel about one another and some ceremony doesn't make a jot of difference) or for tax reasons (because the bastards in government removed those particular benefits many moons ago) but because we'd like to justify the cost of the engagement ring to our relatives and have a bloody good holiday for the first time in over twelve years of living together.

There will be no reception but there will be a meal for family. Again, that's not you so you'll have to make your own arrangements.

On Monday we go abroad together for the first time since a day trip to France about a decade ago. We are nervously excited about this honeymoon; the wedding ... not so much. Gushingly emotional, we ain't.

We shall be visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Okinawa, Taipei, Hong Kong, Nha Trang, Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, and Bangkok.



We shall be travelling by cruiseship - the enticingly gay-sounding Diamond Princess - and not submarine as I suspect you assumed. Sadly, I was unable to procure a cyan tuxedo with ruffled shirt and shall be wearing a conventional black ensemble for the formal evenings. It will be our first cruise and we hope it won't be our last. That's because we hope it'll be good and not because we hope we won't die after getting attacked by pirates or sailing into one of those low-level clouds that melt ships and people with equal ferocity. Although it is because of that too now I come to think of it.

There will be plenty of photos - I'm taking just under 60 GB of camera memory for my DSLR, plus another smaller camera with its own 8 GB, plus an HD digital camcorder with 8 GB - but don't expect to see any of me or Marie; we're terribly shy. Also, not photogenic; not even close to photogenic. The opposite of photogenic even. All of which tends to make one even more reluctant to be snapped. Admittedly, that doesn't seem to stop other people who really should have restraining orders from camera lenses the world over, but we're special and on this special day we'd like you to know that we care enough about you and your breakfast to not subject you to such terror.

So, to all the unmarrieds out there: so long suckers! And to all the happily marrieds out there: hello suckers!

Complaints About Ross And Brand

29 Oct 2008 09:57 by Mark

It was revealed today by Ofcom that over sixty million British people have not complained about the comments made by usually totally uncontroversial presenters Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand during a BBC Radio 2 show on the 18th October.

Conservative party media spokesman Jeremy Hunt told this site:

"It is inconceivable in a time like this that British taxpayers would not be phoning up and complaining about material that a handful of taxpaying, British people found offensive by two possibly taxpaying gentlemen who we - as British taxpayers paying British tax - are ultimately employing by paying tax. Inconceivable."

Brand and Ross made comments regarding Brand's sexual relationship with the granddaughter of actor Andrew Sachs, Georgina Baillie, and left these on the actor's answerphone.

Ms Bailie said she felt embarrassed that the relationship had been revealed to her grandfather but has so far refused to rule out exclusive newspaper deals detailing all the intricate sordidness of her time with the comedian, all of which she'll probably be perfectly fine with.

Both Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross have issued a joint apology of sorts. In it, Brand - best known for and employed because of his family-friendly, non-offensive style of funny, family-time, clean humour - stated that he shouldn't have left the message. Jonathan Ross, widely regarded as the BBC's boyishly attractive, primetime show-hosting, child-friendly joking, light-talking face of the early weekday evening, agreed with his co-presenter that the action was regrettable while laughing because he found it funny and it turns out that humour is subjective.

The BBC is now under pressure after calls from the incredibly tiny minority of people who didn't not complain to Ofcom to sack the presenters but has so far refused to act as impulsively and vociferously as those with an axe to grind against the organisation or a desire to promote themselves but not the guts to come out and admit it.

That NFL Wembley Experience

28 Oct 2008 10:04 by Mark

On Sunday I took a trip to Wembley to watch the NFL game between the San Diego Chargers and the New Orleans Saints. I made some observations about the experience.

Travelling and London
The train has something called a "Shhh ... Quiet Zone", a carriage for those who dislike loud noises - I know because we sat in it. Admittedly accidentally. This zone of peace instructs people to not use their headphones (which they do anyway) and to not use their mobile phones (which they do anyway). It doesn't instruct people to keep their dreadful Boring Bicycling Twats Club Of Great Britain (group name extrapolated based on incessant drivel) conversation to a minimum (i.e. the silent minimum):

"Have you met Melvin?"
"Hello Melvin! Where's Tom?"
"Oh Tom's texted to say he's missed the train!"
"Oh no! Tom's missed the train!"
"That's right, he's missed the train."
"So should we wait for Tom or cycle to Greenwich to meet Sally and Tristan?"
"I think we should wait and then make Tom buy lunch."
"Oh spiffy! Fancy Tom missing the train."
"The train."
"The train."
"Tom."
"So where's your bike?"
"Back there where you put the bikes."
"Mine too!"
"Tom's bike's not there."

And the zone has no instruction for making parents of screaming children dangle them out of the window to deaden the noise either. Not that anyone would pay any attention even if they did.

Once you're in London you travel by Tube if you want to get anywhere, stay dry, and don't mind giving oxygen a miss for half an hour or so. If you're after a recession-proof business then the London tissue industry or the inventors of an anti-tar, one-piece suit might be worth investing the last of your life's savings in. A day in London travelling on the Tube coats the insides of your nostrils with a black, sticky crud and must be blown out and examined at first hand to truly appreciate its vileness. One can only conclude that most Londoners are, themselves, lined with this substance. This may make Londoners more flammable than normal people or, conversely, it may be impossible to burn one at all.

Tests should be carried out. Now.

The NFL Tailgate Party
I'd never been to a tailgate party before but now I know ... a tailgate party is a giant circle of queues, snaking around and devouring one another's tail. People queue to buy merchandise and reward themselves for tolerating that hour by queueing to buy a drink that they drink while in the queue for food which they consume in the static line for the toilet which gives them time to think about buying another drink or some other piece of merchandise they forgot and so it goes on.

In emails received prior to the tailgate party we were informed that beer would be substantially cheaper than inside the stadium! Ten percent off the stadium price is not substantially cheaper when you're still paying about sixty percent higher prices than going to a pub in a normal city not called Rip Off London. The beer was cold though so well done for that.

After talking to a group of New Orleans supporters who'd flown over to Europe to take in the game I discovered that English people are apparently friendlier than French people. I was shocked! Shocked!

There were many happy faces at the tailgate party and it wasn't because the cheerleaders were there briefly - it wasn't just because the cheerleaders were there briefly - but rather down to a little trick practised by Americans for hundreds of years when dealing with people they consider savages: give them pretty beads!


Wembley
Watching an American Football game in Wembley is far more enjoyable than watching a standard football game in Wembley and the reason for this is a single word of only four letters: beer. That's right. You can take beer to your seat. Screw you Football Assocation.

We paid extra to sit in the Club Wembley section. We were seated in the corner just above where the Chargers came out onto the field; it was a great view. What's the difference between Club Wembley and Not Club Wembley?

• Queues - barely any. Getting into and out of the stadium was quick, going to the toilet was quick, buying food, drink, and programmes was quick. Hooray!
• Seats - your bottom is caressed by padded seats while you sit and watch the game. You have approximately eight whole millimetres more leg room. And a cup holder too! Bliss.
• That's All - yes, that's all.

For the reduced queues alone, Club Wembley is worth every penny.

Wembley has a policy of "no professional cameras" allowed. Like me, you may be wondering just what the hell a professional camera is. Is it a camera that can no longer compete in the Camera Olympics because it's given up its day job as a butcher? Apparently not. Is it a camera that isn't also a phone? No, because the policy states that small cameras are allowed. Just no professional ones. Could a steward or someone you phone up tell you? No, because they don't know either.

I took my Canon EOS 350D DSLR with a small 50mm prime lens with me anyway. The person patting me down checking for concealed pies told me that if I used my camera in the stadium then I'd be forced to delete the pictures, possibly under threat of pitchforking. Oh. However, next to me another gentleman getting patted down by another steward was permitted to enter without any warning despite carrying a high end Nikon with a large - probably 300mm telephoto - lens attached. He snapped away merrily inside the stadium. So did I. However, he probably didn't forget to alter the ISO setting and set aperture priority on and then cry inside when he got home and realised that the camera had decided that "there won't be much blurring with a shutter speed of a fifteenth of a second".

Dear Wembley, your camera policy sucks. It doesn't matter if the camera is "professional" or if the lens is "professional", whatever that means anyway. If the person holding the camera is a rank amateur and potentially mildly drunk then his photos from some distant tier of the stadium will not ever infringe upon the pitchside photographers' God-given rights to earn money from their far superior pictures. P.S. I thought your chicken balti pie was surprisingly nice.

New Orleans Saints versus the San Diego Chargers
A game of American Football was played! Oh yes!


69 total points. Snigger.

Hundreds of yards of passing offense on both sides.

A deliberate safety.

A Hail Mary pass in the last second that could have changed everything and made laughing at all those who'd left a few minutes early all the sweeter.

Effing awesome.