Unworthy news.

Today’s offering was originally in two parts, the first being a few choice words to articulate my feelings about something horrific that happened yesterday evening. Then ‘the wife’ stepped in and suggested it might be best to isolate that from the rest of this because to stick the two together would be insensitive and inappropriate. She’s right, some stories are not to be trifled with and some people are beneath mockery. Anyway, here are some other things that have happened recently. If you want to read what I wrote about the horrific thing, you’ll have to ask. Suffice to say some people do disgusting things.

1. Bad news I’m afraid, dry November hasn’t quite worked out. It was going ok, tough but ok, until this Thursday night when I had a beer and a bit of wine. That was nice. Then last night ‘the wife’ and I met with some friends in London for a couple of drinks and some food and that was nice too. Let me cut through the shame and disappointment by adding that we will not be drinking for the foreseeable future and that we’re very sorry and that the dry November diary seems a little pointless now. Let me know if you miss it.
2. The Apprentice is rolling along quite nicely though I think I may be slowly turning against it. It’s getting repetitive and the contestants really are horrid. And stupid. Unmeasurably stupid and thick and clueless and horrid. Is this really the best we have to offer the world of business? Of course not! The real talent, the meat and potatoes, have just gone ahead and done very well for themselves and its left to the stale bread that is Oh Lordy Alan Sugar to mop up the best of the cold, fat streaked, lumpy gravy left on the plate. There isn’t even any point starting to fancy any of them because they’re so chronically naff as human beings you just know that they’d be disappointing on every level at everything they do. This week one of them claimed that in terms of professionalism he was second to none. This therefore suggests that he feels he is probably the most professional person on the planet. Yes, yes you must be, which is why you’re mud wrestling for scraps with a bunch of fellow abject failures while Karen Brady whispers acidic asides and Lord Sugar slips five pound notes into your thong. The highlight for me however was the chap who offered a shop owner the ‘opportunity of a life time to have their windows cleaned’. He actually said that. Out loud to another human being. With a camera pointing at him and recording it all. I just hope his parents disinherited him on the spot, changed their names, sold the house and moved to the Pitcairn Island to interbreed for the rest of their natural lives in the hope of raising a more worthy child they would feel good about loving. Oh yes, while I’m at it, why can’t we just have an episode where we get to see them complete the greatest challenge of all, that being getting showered, breakfasted and fully dressed in the insanely short time Lord Sugar allows them in the morning. It’s barely enough time for the lads to masturbate in front of a mirror and the girls to scratch each other’s eyeballs out. Watch the Apprentice if you like but just don’t do it with a house brick in your hand.
3. Steve Jobbies. Danny Boyle is disappointed that his new film about Steve Jobs called ‘steve jobs’ has flopped at the box office. This is hardly a surprise to me and for a number of factors. Firstly, in my opinion of course, Steve Jobs was a bit of a cock. He said himself that he wasn’t a great human. No Steve, you were a bit of a cock. He has done not very much except make the people of the world slightly colder, more remote, detached and arseholeish. Basically recreating humans in his own image then. The more I read about him the more it feels like everything he did was not actually for the punters but basically for himself, to prove he could, to prove he had the best ideas and to prove that everyone could love him. Only evidently they don’t, because he’s managed to make people so selfish that they will spend thousands on his shiny products but can’t be bothered to watch a film about him. I really like Danny Boyle’s films (except the turgid, self-congratulatory, tiresome Oscar fodder we know as Slumdog Millionaire) and I really, really like Michael Fassbender but if they can’t persuade Appleheads to watch a film about Steve Jobs then it’s unlikely that I’m going to spunk £10 on it. There are even people out there who queue for days in sleeping bags to get the latest product, but for a 2 hour film, no chance. Astonishing. My ‘the wife’ has an iPhone and a MacAir or whatever and they seem fine when they work well. Which isn’t often. Eighthly (or wherever we’re up to) think about this – when you gather in a social situation and sit down to chat or eat or something along those lines quickly clock who gets their phone out. Not even to use it, just gets it out and plonks in down next to them. It’s never Mr Samsung or Mrs Nokia. It’s almost always Little Miss iPhone. Where I work the only phones you see lying around are iPhones. I’ll grant you they look good but they’re not priceless paintings or the world’s biggest diamond. It’s a phone, it looks exactly like every other phone with the same name. You’re unique, just like everyone else etc. Danny Boyle isn’t an idiot so why he would have to try to explain the commercial failure of his film on advertising strategy and all that movie jargon bollocks is beyond me. The ‘genius’ Jobs has done his work, his creepy fingerprints are all over the world and they won’t rub off. I would sooner light a fire and send smoke signals than own an iPhone. Unless someone gave me a free one. In which case I’m all up for it.
4. Children In Need. I know there are lots of children in need out there, almost certainly too many to help. We should all do what we can to help children in need. Except be exposed to endless hours of the BBC wringing the life out of talent free celebrities and then be made to feel guilty if we don’t ‘call now’ and ‘give what we can’. News flash – £37 million won’t scratch the surface of the needs of the children in need. Let’s hope that odious Kids Company, fruit bowl of a woman doesn’t get her chubby hands on it. All that fund raising is essentially C grade publicity craving celebs in need. The first thing they should be spending money on is to give little Dermot O’Dreary a personality transplant. He makes Terry Wogan sound engaging. Oi, I hear you cry, there’s nothing wrong with Terry Wogan, he’s a British institution. No, he should be in a British institution. For people who have clearly lost their mind. Sorry, that’s mean. It was a few years ago, listening to ‘our’ Terry on Radio 2 on a Sunday morning, waffling and farting and giggling to himself, that I suddenly stopped the car and shouted out loud ‘what the fuck are you talking about Terry?’ to the radio. Not a word he says means anything, he should be in a rocking chair, entertaining himself, instead of spending our money on Farah golfing slacks. Sorry, that’s a bit too mean as well. He’s a lovely guy and I hope he feels less poorly soon, if only to stop Dermot being on TV more. Dermot, everybody’s favourite boring person, is the entertainment equivalent of a death by a thousand cuts. Using blunt, cheerless spoons stolen from a church hall kitchen. How he consistently manages to make Saturdays seem so unstoppably bleak I’ll never know. Listen to him for longer than 14 seconds and you can actually feel your brain cells committing mass suicide. Children in Needeep Sub-Mediocrity would be better. See what I did there?
5. Russian athletics. Anyone at all surprised that Russian athletes and coaches are a bunch of doped up, cheating shits? No. Anyone fooled themselves into thinking that no other country could possibly do the same? I hope not.
6. The breakfast sofa. This is going to become a regular feature I think. The Saturday morning BBC Breakfast sofa was this morning blessed by the talcum powdered derrieres of the criminally dreadful broadcaster Charlie Stayt and the lady with a dress sense perfect for radio, Naga Munchetty. Stayt was busy being Stayt of course, waving his little willy around, proudly defending his title of the most persistently wrong, pumped up, puffed out, irrelevance on TV. Poor, lovely Naga on the other hand was wearing a silk bean bag cover instead of a dress and had clearly been sold some glasses by Elton John’s mid 70’s fashion advisor. There’s nothing wrong in showing off new clothes and glasses, we all like to make a statement, but in front of a potential audience of millions it might be best not to use Dame Edna’s wardrobe. In the dark. Anyway, keep up the good work Naga, maybe one day you might not have to wake up at 3 in the morning to sit next to Charlie Stayt for 4 hours. It’s your life you’re wasting.
7. All dogs are heroes. My ‘the wife’ tried to make me watch a rubbish thing on the internet about some redneck woman from Alabama or somewhere similar who crashed her car but was dragged to safety by a passing dog, possibly the Littlest Hobo. The sturdy canine started by licking her face and then proceeded to tug at her collar until she was free of danger. The lady then went on to suggest, perhaps a little naively, that ‘all dawgs are he-rows’. Really?? Most dogs I meet just want to hump your leg, chew your nuts off or give you rabies. Not the kind of powers one associates with Spartacus. Or Batman. Wayne Rooney maybe?
8. The Skoda Yeti. As mentioned in a local news story by my ‘the wife’ from the next room. We now have so many cars on the road that we’re in danger of running out of decent names. Most car names are now at best fairly inappropriate given the product they’re slapped on, but the Skoda Yeti really has to take some award home. Naming a four wheeled automobile after a non-existent, mythical hairball who apparently favours freezing his big balls off up a mountain doesn’t make any sense. Certainly no more than calling it the Skoda Breeze Block or the Skoda Crapbag.
9. I can’t think of anything for 9.
10. Or 10 for that matter, but at least it’s a nice conventional list number now. Hurray!

Dry November definitely reignites today. Great.

G.B.Hewitt. 14.11.2015

Ps – is it just me or does the word ‘unworthy’ not look right?