This blog is moving...

Just a note to say that future posts will be here in my other blog and this one won't be updated anymore. Rest assured I'll still be buying plenty of crap from pound shops though

ONE MORE TIME!

I is been drawn on this weekend

I've been and done it - the thing I've been wanting to do for ages (not that you'd know that because I've never mentioned any ambition other than one day getting my Jerry beads). I got a Sonic tattoo! Luckily for me, my brother in law is a tattoo artist, and a damn good one at that (thank god, although I do realise I would have had to say he was brill anyway, otherwise Christmas would be awkward). Bargain price on account of A) family, and B) my birthday prez. Me and the mister went to tattoo Jam in glamorous Doncaster for the grand event, where we watched women in bras sticking nails in their noses, drank beer, had quarrels because of too much heat and too many people, and considered buying Mr Krabs earrings. All in all a pleasant day, although much more fun was when we got home and watched Knightmare in bed.

Anyhoo, here it is!

Next stop, a big massive Skeletor on my arm. It's either that or Treguard or Rod Jane and Freddy on my bum. Or a sign saying 'Insert coins here'.

Wooooooo, scary time!

My blog has reached the spooky sum of 666 views! To be honest, the genuinely spooky and baffling thing is how it even got one view. Anyway, to celebrate, here is a terrifying photo of me pulling off my own hand -

Care Bears - A friend for Frances

Good afternoon. I remember having this book when I was very small, and absolutely loving it. I was therefore surprised when the time came to acquire a new copy, and I found that it was actually really rare and could now only be found in America. Lord knows how small-me ended up with a copy. One of life's great mysteries. Anyhoo.

So lets bugger right off into a world of schizophrenic children, gambling and time travel in this timeless tome -

There are the Care Bears, and their job is to make you feel all fuzzy and shit. I like Good Luck Bear the best - not only is he upside down, but I like to imagine he would go with you to the betting shop, where he would provide you with a lucky punt, then the two of you would go to the pub to spend all your winnings on Guinness. Also of note is Grumpy Bear. I must say, I always wondered why Grumpy Bear was in this rabble, since his main message appears to be 'everything is crap'. because of this, I like him a lot. Obviously.

And now - onto the story!

Frances is starting at a new school, and is worried about not making any friends. This is because Frances is a loser, and a schizophrenic one at that, as we shall see presently. Is it me or does Frances' mother look younger than her?

Frances snogs her mother and heads to the bus stop.

Now we get to it. Frances, on a completely normal walk to the bus stop, is accosted by a green talking bear. She is not the least bit alarmed by this. "Oh, I had to kill those people, the green bear told me to!" 

Luckily, the green bear asks her to do no such thing (although she'll still probably make that bit up in court later). The bear just gives her a 4 leaf clover. Incidentally, where is her mother when all this is going on? The bus stop is only across the road, so surely her mother would have stood at the door and made sure she got on the bus safely. Perhaps she just can't stand the sight of Frances.

She turns to wave at the bear from the bus, but the bear has disappeared. I am so surprised right now.

Oh for fuck's sake! Frances is so goddamn passive aggressive it hurts. She sits at the back, like right at the back, where no one's been for about three years, then proceeds to bitch when no one talks to her. What's she going to do when she gets to school, lock herself in a cupboard and complain that no one is staring at her? Then she opens her pity party up properly - "Oh, I bet everyone's horrible, I bet everyone will try to kill me, I wish I'd never been born, no one understands me, waaah waaah waaah!"

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on a fictional 8 year old girl, but come on. Grrr.

Oh, so she had friends before did she? Now I really am surprised. Look, there she goes, into Being A Reasonable Person 101. Ignoring the spirit of the class completely, she begins to obsess over the girl at the pencil sharpener, who Frances wishes she was. She's pretty, and popular, with earrings to die for! In other words, she is a threat to Frances, and must be destroyed immediately. Probably.

Right. So because no one knows you yet, therefore can't make an in joke about you, you feel like everyone hates you. Chill the fuck out you whore.

Ermergerd! Popular girl Holly didn't get an in joke either! But Frances doesn't notice this, because she's busy with Schizo bear again. This time he is floating in mid air.

Oh wait, this is another bear, I see. So she has not just one imaginary bear stalker, but many. Good. 

"If you think about others your wish will come true." In other words, stop being such a selfish bitch Frances. You whore.

Frances eats lunch on her own, but shock horror, so does popular girl Holly! God Frances, do not befriend this girl. She will probably end up stealing your husband when you're grown up. Jus' sayin'.

God, she even has a better lunch box. Seriously Frances, watch out.

Wow, already Holly is being stalked by eager male admirers. oh wait no, They're being dicks.

"Get the fuck off our table" shouts one boy.

"Go fuck yourself" replies Holly.

Unfortunately, the boys then threaten to kill Holly, so she reluctantly leaves. Frances watches this, saying diddly squat. I'm torn here. Is Frances just a pathetic drip? Or has she seen the future courtesy of her magic talking bear friends, and decided to let Holly get killed, thus being able to keep her husband, in a weird Back To The Future knock off I may or may not have just invented?

Oh good, we're back to Frances and her imaginary friends now. Frances has an office chair in her garden, for some reason.

A wild hallucination appears. Frances actually seems surprised now. About fucking time. 

"Which one are you?" she asks. Not -

"Oh God, not again!"

"Am I really going crazy?"

"Where are my pills?"

Note what Frances says here - "I wanted to be nice...but no one talked to me. I was all alone and wished that someone would notice me. I felt awful" (said the accused in court, seven days after gunning down her classmates. "Also, the bear told me to do it.")

Hallucination bear tries to reason with Frances, telling her that Holly must be as unhappy as she is, despite being much, much prettier, and (as we find out later) much, much better at everything. Frances is left pondering while ginger bear scampers behind a tree to have a poo. Guess that answers that question then.

Oh godddd, sports day. the chance for unpopular kids to make loads of new friends. Did I mention that I saw a flying pig yesterday?

So, blah blah blah, Holly wins, of course she bloody does. Therefore, due to a fuck up by a previous runner that wasn't Frances' fault, everyone now loves Holly and hates Frances. 

After the racing fiasco, Frances tries to remember what the hallucination bears kept telling her, but it keeps slipping from her drug addled mind. Something about friends? Something about 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'? That must have been it, she decides.

Ok, even I feel bad for Frances now. Holly has most probably ruined Frances' life (because, mark my words, she will steal her husband or something in the future). Shoot her now Frances! Now!

Holly tries to suck up to Frances to avoid getting shot in the future.

They make 'friends', but not really. Frances is just keeping Holly close. her diary reads -

"That bitch has no idea. She gave me a silver bracelet today, the idiot. I plan to sell it on Ebay after I've shot her in the future. Also, why do boys smell so much?"

The pair wander off to Frances' house do play dolls or some shit, while the Care Bears inexplicably do a conga behind a hedge. The end. I do hope Frances takes my advice though.

Spooky fun - readers beware indeed...

The other day I went shopping for crap with my mother. We do this quite a lot, coming back with such treasures as a plastic severed hand, a broken Sportacus figure, and Jesus.

On this particular expedition, we traded 39p for a book that promised "petrifying puzzles, dangerous doodles, wicked wordsearches, and lots more..." It also promised to "keep children amused for hours". I would suggest that the actual puzzle part of the book would keep children entertained for perhaps 30 seconds, but hours of fun can be had with the free stickers, placing them on unsuspecting objects/walls/people. Not bad, but we were expecting more for our 39 hard earned pence.

While we had dinner in the pub, we girded our loins and tried to prepare for the most spine chilling extravaganza to have been laid down in print - SPOOKY FUN!

Onto page 1, with sweaty palms and knocking knees (I also aplologise for the quality of the pictures - they were taken with a dodgy camera by a very apathetic me) -

"What kind of creature has appeared in this moonlit clearing? You decide!" So we did. We drew Angela Rippon on a unicycle, being pursued by next door's cat. Scary Darey!

Page 2 is far scarier. Maths! My boyfriend, being a maths teacher, decided he could do this page with ease, before giving up after a minute to watch teleshopping with me. Such is my allure.

"Which of these bells is Quasimodo actually ringing? I'm sure the guy in the picture messaged me on Plenty Of Fish once. I don't care which bell he's ringing.

Draw family members! My mum drew herself, and I drew my dad, trolling a telemarketer. He does that. 

The words they gave me to find were boring, so I found my own. They were -

'Yah' - common form of greeting for posh girls

'Ello' - common for of greeting for me

'Screamo' - which I believe is a popular type of music among 'young people'

'How' - as in 'how the fuck am I still doing this puzzle'

'Dic' - I think they must have forgotten to add the K on the end

'Paracew' - how a toddler pronounces parachute

'Ehow' - a popular website where I learned to knit

According to my mother, our mythical creatures included 'Derek' and 'Gobshite'

Since every number can technically be divided by six, the answer is simple.

Again, I got bored of making crappy words, so I decided to include words from a language I made up just now.

I'm not sure which mummy matches, but they're doing some very fancy dancing.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? I'm a member of Mensa (believe it or not), and during the entrance test there were easier puzzles than this. No one can figure out what the pattern is supposed to be. I cried a bit.

Also included in the book was a colouring in page of the skellington from the Scotch video tape advert, who I love

STICKERS! enough said.

And we come to the end, sadly. I was terrified the whole way through. I needed to go home and have a glass of warm milk to calm down after I got through reading it. 39p well spent I say.

Jerry Springer vs. Jeremy Kyle (or how I learned to stop worrying and hope for the fucking bomb)

No matter who you are, there's always someone who makes you relieved to be you. For us in Britain and the U.S, it tends to be the various circus performers that make up an episode of a talk show. For those people, well, at least they didn't marry their sister/have sex for a fiver. If they did, well...well...at least they're not dead.

Shows like Springer and Kyle have a very special place in society – as a sort of holding pen for the deranged and the socially/sartorially unstable among us. 

Our American readers might be familiar with Jeremy Kyle, as he was recently farmed out to the U.S. for a bit to give the rest of us a fucking break. You guys seemed to warm to him, yet inexplicably we now have him back. On the other hand, I'm not sure how you guys feel about Jerry Springer, but us Brits have definitely adopted him. Trade?

But would you want to trade, and more to the point, would we? Do we maybe have the better deal with Kyle? I'm going to look into this, but the answer is probably no.

Round one – host likeability

Springer appears to win this round hands down at first, because people actually like him. And it's not hard to see why people like Jerry – he has an affable, easy going nature and seems to be offended by nothing at all. Even KKK members on his stage shouting “Die, Jew boy” don't faze him. The other side of this is that Jerry could perhaps be accused of being too easy going. His habit of poking fun at guests, even when they appear to be having a nervous breakdown, could lose him some points.

Kyle has no such problems. If anyone even remotely hints at smiling on his stage, he has them carted off and appears to take personal offence. Misery peddling is a serious business to Kyle, and he's not about to let some upstart in the studio make it look like entertainment.

The common consensus in Britain is that Kyle is everything Springer is not – judgemental, hyper serious and completely unable to crack a smile.

Winner – Jerry Springer


Round two – insane behaviour

A typical episode of either of these shows doesn't include debate about Ibsen. Generally it's people who have been caught screwing someone else. Usually there is a petrol station involved, for some reason. Occasionally an episode will centre around someone's who's done-something-fucking-stupid. Maybe they have a life size tattoo of Justin Bieber covering their body, or maybe they traded their house for a bra. Granted, Springer has the more insane guests, but Kyle more than makes up for this with his incensed reactions to anyone doing anything out of the ordinary, so it's a tough one to call. Since everyone appears to be insane on Springer, you can sometimes become desensitised, and for this reason I think I'm going to have to go with Kyle – quality over quantity.

Winner – Jeremy Kyle


Round three – audience interaction

The Springer Show is widely regarded as a free for all – a veritable hotbed of debate. Audience participation is encouraged, even rewarded (if you get your tits out). Kyle's audience, meanwhile, is encouraged to sit obediently around him like disciples of some kind. Speaking without putting your hand up and waiting your turn is severely dealt with, usually by a harsh look from Kyle.

Since the reason we tune into these shows is to watch goons fighting, surely this enjoyment is multiplied when the audience gets involved with the fist happy fun as well?

Winner – Jerry Springer


Round four – level of actual help provided

Although neither show is ever going to produce anything like a U.N. approved treaty, it must be said that Kyle overtakes Springer by leaps and bounds here. Kyle's backstage team includes counselling “genius”/Gary Glitter lookalike Graham Stainer, on hand to offer advice and kleenex. All Springer's guests have appears to be a pole to dance around. To be fair, this method of settling disputes seems to work surprisingly well; I may try It myself sometime.

Winner – Draw


Round five – fights (frequency of and reaction to)

I'm not sure there can be much debate here, certainly not as much as there is on Springer. Springer fighting is so frequent that they now have a bell at the ready to divide an episode into rounds. The security guards don't so much secure as stand there and laugh. Kyle's show couldn't be further from this – at the slightest hint of aggression, his henchmen arrive to carry the perpetrator off under one arm. If by some slim chance a contestant on the Kyle show does manage to get a sly punch past the guards, rest assured the show will A) not be aired and B) make the national newspapers -

PS nice advert, very appropriate

In other words – Kyle and his henchmen spoil everyone's fun.

Winner – Jerry Springer 


Looking at the evidence brought forth by this impartial scientific study – are you sure you guys don't want to trade?

I don't remember an American Gladiator called facelift...

This dude -

Look at this dude, with his small head and his lovely blue bra. I found him the other day in a charity shop, 50p well spent I say. I know he's some kind of American Gladiator, or he was in a past life, but apart from that I'm rather stumped. Obviously his hands were made to hold a big phallic pugil stick, but I can't find a corresponding real gladiator to match him.

There are so many things I love about this dude, but I especially love the oversized arms that are bigger than his legs, the tiny head that may or may not be the head he was born with, the gelled back grey hair, and the manic grin plastered across his chops -

He looks like a smooth old man who's had extensive surgery, botox or similar. Further proof of this is the way his head is a different colour to his body.

I had to buy this dude because, as a child, I used to stay up late once a week to watch American Gladiators on ITV Nightshift. I'd tune in just in time to see the closing credits of The Equalizer, then a whole, heady hour of pugilistic fun. Although in reality it was probably more like eight minutes before I fell asleep with my face pressed up against the screen.

Since no one I've asked knows who his real life counterpart is, we've decided to call him Jesus.