Slebs

While I haven’t yet watched any of it, of course it’s impossible to miss the media hype surrounding “I’m a non-entity, get me a publicist!” I wish I could fix a bleep button to my brain so that just mention of the words rendered me temporarily dead/blind so I could ignore the thing completely.

But I haven’t – and so I’ve been considering the d4d™ alternative version. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the idea for…… <drumroll> Dead Famous™ </drumroll>…

In the preliminaries, the public has a vote. We’re already used to Big Brother-type voting, and also for the 100 best books/films/comedies/positions/magicians/alcoholics. This is similar – but this time the public picks their 10 most-loathed celebrities.

Once that’s been done, the preparation takes place. Transporting the ten celebrities to a specially made compound, somewhere in a remote location (each series could have a different location) – they know that the winner can get £5m, and that the other nine will have more media coverage than they would normally get, by being involved with Dead Famous™. Once they’ve been dropped off at the location, and the helicopters/coaches/whatever have disappeared over the horizon, the celebrities are told why they’ll become famous.

Basically, the rules will be very simple. For the first week (or until a certain level of votes has been reached – whichever is earlier) all they have to do is live together, and be “normal”. Daily tasks have to be performed in order to get food/water. Each day, two of the rations of food and water are also spiked with a hallucinogenic – but that’s just so that the next day is more fun for the viewers.Throughout the first week, viewers are voting for the celebrities – depending on whatever vagaries the viewers want.

At the start of the second week, things change. The challenges are nowmore difficult, and decidedly more lethal – and with no health and safety adviser. If the nominated celebrity fails the task, then they die. The public vote for who they want to take the tasks. And at the end of the day, the last one living is the winner, and £5m better off.

Now I have to say, that’s a gameshow I’d watch…

But who would you want to see in the show?

Bucket of Shite

So, the government gets absolved of all wrong-doing yet again. Who’d have expected that, eh? And the report’s been done by a Lord, so it must all be kpsher kosher and above-board.

*Yawn*

Speaking of being cold

I wonder who was looking for “my micropenis pics” in google, and came up with this site. They must’ve been sorely disappointed – although having waited for a bus for 45 minutes this morning, perhaps I qualify after all. *Grin*

Crap country

It’s amazing – how does this country (I should just say England, according to Gordon, but I think I’ll leave it as “this country” just to annoy the haggis-munching pedant. *grin*) maange to come to a stop after just one spell of slightly shit weather? Yes, it’s snowed – and so everything goes to shit. We’ve had a week’s warning that it was going to happen, but still it turns out that people can’t drive in snow (even when the roads are at least half-clear) so it’s taken me nearly 2 hours to get to work. The entire of the main road on which I live was nose-to-tail with cunts who won’t overtake because they might have to drive on – shock! horror! – snow. Utterly pathetic.

I don’t even understand what it is that makes us so crap at dealing with “extremes” of weather. (By which I mean, “extreme” according to the UK – people elsewhere would regard it as mild) Recently I’ve been reading Daily Dose of Imagery, based in Toronto, Canada. Currently they’re in the midst of a -30°C winter, yet everything runs as normal. I could perhaps understand it if the temperature here was around -10 or so, but it’s hardly gone sub-zero. We’re just pathetic.

UPDATED : Further to comments and also to reference made on Parm it may be that Manchester City Council are a bigger bunch of slack-arsed twats than I’d previously allowed for. However, that doesn’t explain the stories about Manchester Airport having to close its runways because of snow, nor that transport links in Lodnon were equally keffed. And yes, Gordon, I know the Scots are far hardier than the wee Jessie southerners, but bits of Scotland had the same problems too. So nyah! *Grin*

I’ll also point out that I’m not actually complaining about the weather – I don’t mind it at all – but more about the reactions of other people to it, and the general levels of incompetence in dealing with anything as extreme as little lumps of white falling from the sky.

Bills and Accounts

Sometimes I could really begin to believe that UK companies have a dark plot to stop people from moving house. They seem to love making the entire process so complicated and stressful that it’s almost easier to say “Oh, fuck it, I’ll stay where I am”.

As regular readers of d4d™ (there are still some of you out there, aren’t there? *grin*) I moved to the current house about five months ago (and oh shit, I’d best nag the letting agency to find out about renewing the tenancy, hadn’t I?) at which point I had to move the accounts for the gas and electric supply. Like an utter, utter primate, I stuck with the same suppliers – British Motherfucking Gas. I really should know better by now. Unsurprisingly, they’ve made a complete monkey’s cock of the entire thing.

Today I’ve received not one but two bills – one for my old address, one for the current one. For the same bloody time-period! I ring them up, and they then told me “Oh, we haven’t listed your change of address” – which doesn’t quite explain the correct(ish) bill for the new house. “Oh, ah, um, I don’t know what’s happened there then”

I don’t think that the answer “I do. It’s that British Gas couldn’t find their backsides with both hands and a flashlight” went down too well…

Carlucci

I’ve just finished a book called Carlucci by Richard Paul Russo. It’s actually three books in one, all based around a future San Francisco, and the eponymous detective. The book was very much a speculative purchase, a case of “that looks like it might be interesting” – and it was. A very dark view of the future, with huge levels of corruption and corporate machinations, but ultimately pretty believable.

Over the years, one thing I’ve found I like in certain – primarily sci-fi – books is that they don’t feel the need to explain everything. I find that books with timescales, with fixed dates for when events occur, annoy me – and once those dates are passed, they just feel dated. So many authors also feel the need to explain all their definitions – for me that just detracts from a story. I’d rather the slang or whatever was used, and let my brain come up with images. Much more fun.

Anyway, the Carlucci books have managed to be damn good stories, and not fallen into either of the above traps, so they come well recommended.

Life vs. Art

Is it just me, or is the entire farce about university top-up fees, and the votes surrounding it very reminiscent of a whole range of episodes in the West Wing where votes are suddenly lost at the last minute etc.?

Of course, the concept of John Prescott taking the place of Josh Lyman makes me smile.

“Fookin’ ‘ell, Tony, we’ve lost ten votes!”