Jesus Christ give Lee ’Scratch’ Perry more Pum Pum for his Kitty...

Current mood: Perry + Pum Pum...
Category: Perry + Pum Pum... Music

A letter from home....

Current mood: APPALLED...
Category: APPALLED... Movies, TV, Celebrities

SHITTING HELLL!!!!

MRS G KEEPS TUNING INTO BIG BROTHER AND IT'S DRIVING ME MAD!!!

Which could well be half of the reason why she does it...


On tonights episode of this ever running bore fest, some of the contestants recieved 'letters from home'

The letters driveled 'loving' cliche after cliche, upon which each housemate took it in turns to cry and wail, and be cuddled and comforted as they assured the watching public of how much they loved their Mum and their Brother and their Great Aunt Maude...

It was all gut wrenchingly fake and/or tritely awful...

In fact it was like watching a funeral except that everyone was still alive...


I think it's fair to say that this 'letters from home' episode illustrated my one and only problem with BB:

It's not that I mind the concept of the show at all, more that I object to them only ever getting dull fuckwits in the Big Brother House...

Yes boss, on the rare occasion some proper and genuine nutjob slips through the selection net, they're rapidly kicked off the show because they talk too loudly or bully the other idiots, or because they leave of their own sensible accord...

This filtration process leaves behind all the bores who then sit around all day like they're on school camp and jabber endless nonsense punctuated by shreiking...

It's a long way from good enough...

Yes boss, to keep my attention and empathy, they need to load the house up with proper freaks and subnormals - the type of folk you try to avoid on the train because you're afraid they might stab you - the sort of folk who'd offer your hopeless 12 year old brother drugs...

Until that happens, I can only dream that one day 'a letter from home' will say something like the following....


Dear Son,

I hope you are well.

I'm sure you're expecting some kind of 'you're the apple of my eye and I think all your friends in the big Brother House are amongst the finest and funniest people since Gandhi,' - but I'm afraid you're gonna have to prepare yourself for a shock.......

Yes son, rather than salivating over your choices in life like small and obedient dogs, I'm afraid your mother and I are going to have to buck the trend and deliver you some hard home truths...


The first of these truths, is that when me and your mother were working 2 jobs each in order to raise you and your 3 sisters to our highly thorough and demandingly exact standards, we never in a million years dreamed that you, OUR ONE AND ONLY SON would do something as idiotic, banal and DOWNRIGHT STUPID as go on a TV program like Big Brother...?!?!

No son, we sincerely hoped that one day you'd go out and explore the world and discover something new - that perhaps you'd be a scientist or a merchant seaman or a poet.

We dared to dream that one day you would find love, and perhaps have children and really get the most you possibly could from life...

But no...

Rather than doing something keen and clever with your obvious talents and skills, you've instead reduced yourself to a pathetic and lame attempt to gain temporary fame, by way of playing idiot games, shreiking and screaming 'OH MY GOD!!!' 7 or 8 times every ten minutes, like a sorry, needy and dismal child...

Yes son, to say we're appalled by both your choice to go on TV and your apparently shameless attempt to be famous at all costs would be an understatement - WE'RE HOPELESSLY MORTIFIED!!!!


Perhaps the most disappointing aspect in this whole sorry episode is that your mother and I are forced to watch your lame ass attempts to pull that shocking harridan of a whore who calls herself 'Genniney'

Yes son, to say that this girl is a WASTE OF FUCKING SPACE!!! would be the understatement of the century...

Sure, we recognise we might not have been perfect parents, but we did our very best to show you right from wrong, and we did honestly think it possible our lifes work and effort might enable you to see the difference between a good and useful woman and a fucking awful fame grabbing charlatan whore like 'Genniney'...


So son, we'd like to take this opportunity to go on record as saying we don't like what you're doing, we don't like your 'friends' (Genniney in particular) and we really are horrendously disappointed in you, and hope to God that you soon see sense and GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT HELL HOLE AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE!!!!

Yes son, we want you to know that we are HUGELY HUGELY disappointed in you and earnestly request you stop embarrassing yourself in public any longer...

SO PLEASE SON, LEAVE THE BIG BROTHER HOUSE NOW!!!

FOR ALL OUR SAKES!!!

Lots of love from

Mum & Dad...

PS: And please do stop fawning over the disabled person like that's what you do when there are no cameras around...

We remember you getting sent home from school, because you used to bully 'four eyed' Johnny Kember for being a bit simple...

You're not fooling anyone...

Peter Stringfellow deals with the Middle Eastern problem....

Current mood: A clubbing guide to...
Category: A clubbing guide to... News and Politics

'The Millionaire Club introduced me to another very different clientele. They were a mixture of Jews, Iranian, Lebanese and Turks. The Middle eastern crowd were mainly students at the engineering college in Manchester. They weren't your archetypal impecunious undergraduates; they were sons of oil sheiks and rich businessmen. At the other extreme was the rich Jewish set, who were dominated by incredibly powerful ladies. In mt typically Libran way, I loved both communities, and became friends with them all. I wasn't aware of any racial tension until one of the Jewish group called me over one night and told me I was letting in too many Iranian. I said, 'Where are they? I don't know what you mean.' He pointed to a group of good looking guys sitting in a corner. Up until then I'd thought they were French. To me, they were just smart, sophisticated young men with a slight accent. I'd never encountered racism before I went to Manchester. the closest I'd got to tribal tension was the rivalry between the miners and the steelworkers back in Sheffield.

The nationality of my customers was immaterial to me. I'd never seen spending power like it. I became surrounded by people who had money to burn - when they weren't drinking it away in champagne, that is. One week I'd be invited to an Israeli Independence Day party by my Jewish friends and the next I'd be having dinner with Amer Medani, a relation of the Saudi royal family, whose father owned a big construction company in Manchester. Amer and his brother, Imad, were both honorary princes and incredibly generous people. In Manchester my affection for middle eastern people developed. In my experience, they are generous to a fult and have imecable manners.

Of course, this view wasn't shared by everyone at the Millionaire, and I began to notice a strain building up between the Jewish set and the Middle Eastern crowd. Not only that, there was political tension between different Middle eastern factions. One evening a group of them started telling me about the impending revolution in Iran. The struggles in the Middle east had not become headline news around the world in the late 1970's so I'd no idea what they were talking about. Not long afterwards a few cars belonging to one group were vandalised by extremist students. There was nothing I could do about fighting in the Middle East, but I did try my best to create racial harmony in Manchester. I decided to have special nights for each of the different countries. I knew I couldn't start off with an Israeli night, because this would upset the Iranians, and vice versa, I decided to introduce the idea slowly and to start off with a Gypsy night. There was a small problem in that I didn't know any Gypsies, except for a car dealer called Tom Hartley. He was a multi -millionaire because he only ever dealt in top of the range cars, like Rolls-Royces and Ferraris. Despite his wealth, he was proud that he came from a Gypsy background. Tom was our token Gypsy and king for a night. I booked a Gypsy dancing team and we had a fabulous evening.

The next 'theme' night was for the French, even though once again I didn't know any French people. We had traditional French music, which went down well. Now it was time for the serious stuff. When I organised our first Israeli night, the whole of the Middle eastern lot turned up. I got the turks, Lebanese, Iranians and Jews all dancing to 'Hava Naglia' by thee Spotnicks. From where I was standing on the decks, it looked like the United Nations. When it came to Turkish night, the Turks had to outdo the Israelis. They ordered sheep's heads for the restaurant; the Iranians followed this by ordering a whole sheep with couscous. The only failure was English night. I booked some good morris dancers, but the club was half empty and nobody liked them.'

And whilst we’re on the ambient theme....

Current mood: BURN BABY BURN....
Category: BURN BABY BURN.... Music

Asphalt Eden is a blog full of ambient mixes of a more classical and bleepylicious kind...

I'm not sure I'll be hearing too much of what they have to offer just now - but back in the day, I used to more or less live on ambient music. Of course I was smoking shitloads of pot then, and magic mushrooms were also something of a regularity each Autumn...


The Autumn 1995 was a particularly good one for the mushrooms. I was working at this here Fort, nearside which sat a tonne of high grade mushies, of which we took full advantage...

That Autumn was my second stint at the Fort

And, before I get onto my favourite stories of that spell, I think it's high time I covered my favourite memory of my first stint working there, back in 1993...


Basically, 1993 threw up what I consider to be one of my finest (claimed) megalomaniacal telepathic achievements to date!!!

Here's the story....


Though the general situation of the Fort was ace, the area surrounding it was besmerched by a bunch of oil refineries and one power station...

Now, I really didn't like the idea of there being all these oil refineries in my line of sight - and I certainly resented the fact they'd been sited amidst such a beautiful area of coastline that was and is a National Park...

I therefore spent quite a bit of time thinking

'IF I COULD HAVE ONE WISH, IT WOULD BE FOR ALL THOSE FUCKERS TO FUCKING WELL FUCK OFF!!!!'


Well, the Sunday before my contract was up, I was away up the coast on the Forts boat, visiting the Island of Ramsey for the first and only time and sometime in the early afternoon we heard a distant BANG!!

It sounded like it might be an inflatable boat exploding spectacular stylee and at the time I didn't think too much of it....

But when we re-boarded the Lord Hurcombe to return to the Fort, the Boatman told us that one of the refineries had been hit by Lightning and had GONE UP IN FLAMES!!!!


Things got better...

We had dolphins riding the bows of the boat (the first and only time I saw them on that bit of coast), there were hundreds of Manx Sharwaters swooping about on their way back to Skokholm Island in time for bed, and as we turned the corner to moor up, the rumour became fact, and there was the refinery, smoking away like Uncle Saddam had suddenly become effective...


Well, to be perfectly frank, as horrific as it could have been (barely anyone was injured let alone killed), I was overjoyed by this turn of events, and later that evening, had what could well turn out to be one of the very best romantic pro-disaster apocalyptic times of my life:

Yes boss, we had no electricity, no phone lines, and there I was, sat alone perched up on high atop the fort, with a 4 pack of Murphys Stout, a cigar, and an excellent view of the sun going down to the right and the refinery burning to the left...

IT WAS PURE DARK APOCALYPTIC JOY!!!!