There's an addiction that's rife in the UK...

... and it involves people of all classes, backgrounds and races. It turns normally sane people into idiots and pushes poor people into even more debt. My boss does it, my friends do it, my family even does it now and again, but I can't think of anything worse. I am of course talking about the National fucking Lottery.

This afternoon I was stood behind someone in the queue at the supermarket whose only purchase was "Five Euro Millions Lucky Dips and 2 of the £3 scratchcards". By my reckoning, that equates to £16 spent on a few bits of paper and the safety blanket of hope that his presumably miserable life would soon be made better by definitely winning £40 million or whatever the prize is. Now I don't mean to piss on his bonfire (because by the looks of him, it is probably his only means of heat) but he wasn't going to win. He'd just spent £16 on something that could have put food on his table for a good week having seen the prices at Lidl. 

But how and why is this addiction and greed now socially acceptable? Most of my friends that 'play' the lottery don't really need the money. Yes, I'm sure they'd enjoy £40 million but not winning it hasn't left them financially crippled. And they aren't the type of people to visit a betting shop twice a week, or spend the night in a casino every Saturday. So why do they feel the need to gamble while they do their weekly grocery shopping? And for such shite odds too! 

Apparently it's a one in 14 million chance of winning the main UK National Lottery. That number is BLOODY HUGE. Now don't get me wrong, if I saw a horse in the grand national with those odds, I'd have a flutter. Would I continue to bet twice a week for 18 years on the same flogged horse? Quite simply, no.

"Oh but I've got a system!" Get lost Rainman. 1) If you had a system you'd have won by now and 2) choosing the same numbers every week isn't 'a system' - it's just lazy. In fact and I quote,  "In a recent survey 21% of people thought that if they put the same numbers on to the lottery for the rest of their lives that they would have a chance of winning. The reality is they would have to put the same numbers on 135,000 years before they would have an evens chance of winning."    

And then there's the embarrassment of actually asking for a lottery ticket in the first place. You hand over a hastily scribbled slip, wait two minutes while the paroled car-jacker behind the till fiddles with the machine, listen to the tutts and sighs as people that just wanted a pack of chewing gum or fags have to watch you feed your addiction... like stumbling in on a smack addict injecting junk between his toes in a service station toilet. And I guarantee that at least one person in that queue will, like me, look upon you with the disdain you truly deserve. And I live in the same village as you. And I will continually see you as someone that voluntarily pays the idiot tax.

But, worst of all, it turns wankers into monsters. How many people that have ever won Euro Millions or the National Lottery have you ever thought to yourself, "Oh they look a nice couple.... good on them". No, they either look like Fred and Rose West or they look like they've lived on a diet of gravy, dripping and Iceland's deep fried assorted starters all their lives. Alarm bells should ring when we even see the faces of the people that have won. They had to actively tick and sign a piece of paper saying "I am happy to go public with this". Why the hell would any sentient human being want to actively go public with it?

Then they always say "no, the money isn't going to change me". Really??? Of all the people on this earth, I'd say that a lottery winner falls into the bracket of 'most in need of change'. Buy yourself a new Kappa tracksuit, treat the kids to a bargain bucket for breakfast, pay off your credit cards that you use to live on rather than earning money. And, if you genuinely don't think it's going to change your life then give the money to someone else. Maybe someone with a disabled child who is struggling to make ends meet? Maybe donate it to a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Hell, give it to CERN so we can finally find the Higgs Boson. Anything is better than you being allowed to spend it on a life-size Scalextric or a swimming pool filled with Irn Bru.

But we all know that within two minutes of them saying it won't change them, they've already put a deposit down on a gold-plated Nova, a lifetime's subscription to Take a Break and as many Lambert and Butlers as they can fit into their already struggling lungs. 

So, in short, don't play the lottery unless you want me to, unfairly, see you as a scummy, greedy peasant who clearly doesn't understand odds or the concept of investment. However, should you happen to win the lottery, then please disregard all the above and remember what a great friend I've been to you over the years.

 

The Olympics is shit...

... and I'm already bored to death of it. I think this summer may make me so angry that I could actually set a new world record (wind assisted) for screaming "who cares?" at my telly.

So what particularly irks me about the Olympics? Is it the fact that we all have to pretend to be "British" for a few weeks. Just like during Wimbledon. "Chris Hoy's a great example of British achievement." "Just look at what we can achieve if we give our sports proper funding." No - that's what happens when a Scot gets English funding. But, to be fair, until the Scots get washed away by memories of Braveheart and vote for devolution (and quickly go the way of Glasgow Rangers) we will continue to let them live on hand outs so we might as well get some gold and a sports personality out of it.

Is it the 'sports' that are now in the Olympics that annoy me? Greco Roman Wrestling? BMX? Women's Beach Volleyball (sponsored by Television X)? Canooing? Again, no. It would be pretty small-minded of me to attack a global sporting smorgasboard because they "had bloody foreign sports in it". I am not the type to go abroad, find an English pub, eat egg and chips, drink Carling, watch the football and start a fight with the long-suffering locals, and I'm not about to start now. No, I won't be watching Greco Roman Wrestling. No I won't be watching Handball and I most certainly won't be watching the synchronised swimming. I will, as a non-existent god is my witness, be watching the Women's Beach Volleyball.

What fucks me off to stages of apoplexy is how bloody seriously the whole thing takes itself. I'm talking specifically about the Orwellian rules surrounding mentioning 'Olympics', using a logo, saying 'London' in the same sentence as 'running' and using the colours of the Olympic rings (ie all primary colours). The company I work for is loosely connected to the Olympics and the rule book that came over about what we can and can't say is absolutely mind-blowing. We aren't able to even hint at an 'event' involving 'sport' in 'London' alongside our logo. We genuinely can't use the Olympic colours of the rings in the same image/design. And from what I've heard, if there are any Little Chefs still going - good luck at trying to sell an Olympic Breakfast in 2012.

For an event that is meant to be 'for amateurs' I find it repulsive that it has turned into a rolling, festering cabaret of exuberance and greed that, like U2, goes from country to country, bleeding it dry, and then moving on. How much has the UK spent on these games? Will we get that money back? Will anyone living within 200 miles of the games be able to get to work? Will we even be able to say the word 'Olympic' without being tasered and hurled in the back of a Brand Van and taken to Brand Awareness Camp? I wouldn't go in the showers if I were you.

So, basically, if you take the Olympics for what it is, you have supreme athletes competing across a range of disciplines against the best in the world to see who is going to be crowned the best of the best. Lovely. Spot on. Chalk me in for some of that. I'd watch that day in day out.

What we'll have is every advert under the sun making reference to Olympics, every front page of every newspaper prattling on about Olympics, every company that has paid upwards of £10 million using their logo alongside the Olympic logo. We'll have flags and t-shirts being confiscated on the way in because they contradict the main sponsors. And we'll have a fair bit of mess to clean up once the world and his wife have pissed off in August.

So, because I understand the power of suggestion, and search engine optimisation, and annoying people, I will now use the logos you aren't allowed to use, with the colours that are banned and make crass links to the Olympics which explicitly connect my blog to their brand. Let's see how long I last before I'm asked to take it down or I'm arrested. Ahhhh the Olympic spirit. (If you are the judge presiding over my case and reading this then I was joking below and I'm really sorry.)

This blog is the official sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic Games. All other sponsors haven't paid as much as I have to be part of something that should be essentially free.

Usain Bolt endorses this Blog and he says it is directly linked to him running faster

 

 
  

Now that makes me LOL.....

... are words I would expect to hear flung from the lips of a complete C. But, dear reader, times have changed. I have mellowed in my old age and I am, in true Glitter style, 'down with the kids'.

Yes, there are many things about text language and web 2.0 parlance that confuse and irritate me. I don't know why it is any easier to write woz instead of was. It is the same amount of key strokes on an old alpha-numeric phone or keyboard, it looks clumsy and, to be fair, it makes you look like an utter retard.

I don't get why people, in high-up positions of power in a corporate setting use KR instead of kind regards. Is it really 'kind regards' if the regards have been shortened to the extent that it is a throw away coupling of random letters. Are these the regards I would cherish and show off to people as 'kind'? Are you really 'that busy' that you can't bash out a few more letters on your Blackberry? I'd rather have nothing than a half-hearted excuse for something.

But here comes the shock. I don't mind text language. I don't mind emoticons. I don't mind chatroom abbreviations. I think, just as other words from multiple backgrounds and sources have infiltrated our language and become common place, so will these new cyber phrases. Wouldn't our language be a boring, horrid place if it just stayed still? Stagnating like a disused pond. Getting more and more concentrated as the joy and life evaporated out of it?

OK, maybe I'm going over the top but since the dawn of language there have been the protectors of 'English' who have fought against anything that seemed to 'tarnish it' or modernise it with outside influence. But then, don't those people sound similar to the scared, pathetic simpletons marching through Leicester city centre right now supporting the English Defence League? England always has been and always will be a mish mash of multiple races, backgrounds, faiths and experiences. None of us are 'pure bred' English because it doesn't exist. So why should our language be any different. Why does it matter if people use LOL in spoken language (even though it makes no sense when spoken)? Who cares if someone wants to emphasise cheekiness or genuine displeasure in a previously unclear text with the use of brackets and colons? It doesn't. It's how people communicate and the bastions of English can fight all they want but if that's what the population uses to communicate then by golly that is the language the country adopts.

Don't get me wrong. There is a time and a place. Scrawling :-( on a funeral condolence card is not really appropriate. Using youthful cyber abbreviations in your CV won't get you too far. But, just like any slang, you just need to use your judgement as to when it's right to use it. Shouting FUCK YOU GARY YOU LITTLE SHIT at your child in a supermarket is a common practice, utterly reprehensible and highlights the 'wrong' use of language. But would you take the words 'Fuck' and 'Shit' out of the English language? We wouldn't have heard the poetic swearing brilliance of Malcolm Tucker and Shaun Ryder would be left a mute.

But I think everyone needs to chill the fuck out when it comes to 'English'. So many people across the globe use our fair tongue but if we stop it from evolving, modernising and staying relevant then, just like the culture of our country, we'll be left behind.

KR
R
xxxx