So, Paris Hilton says that she, like, cries, and stuff, when she listens to her new album, how amazing.
But, at least Lindsay Lohan is getting her come-uppance.
Nobody was fooled by Tara Reid in the first place. Jade Goody is going into slow decline and Charlotte Church is soon to be shamed with her new TV show which promises to be a total train wreck. I mean, Charlotte Church doing stand-up comedy? Give me a stick of dynamite and put me in the audience, please.
So, does all this mean that the celebrity fascination culture is finally coming to a head and that the public may finally see it for what it is and fight back? Are public burnings of OK!, Closer, Hello, New!, Heat, love it, More & Now magazines on the horizon? One can only hope. Look out for me, I’ll be at the front of the crowd with Jordan tied to a stake.
It’s been called blasphemous.
There are demonstrations outside the theatres that it is performed as it goes on its UK tour.
The archbishop of Wales has said that he believed its content “crossed a line”.
…but I’ve got my tickets!
There’s nothing quite like pissing off the christian faith. They get so up tight about it. It’s quite hilarious.
Featuring Jesus as a fat guy in a nappy, God and the virgin Mary as guests on the show it’s promising to be blasphemously funny.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people believing in God, and all that goes with it, as long as they don’t step on my toes, and in this case, I believe that I am being aggrieved.
My belief is this.
A religion is basically a club, like a political party.
If I don’t want to belong to that club, I shouldn’t have to suffer the knock on effects of their protests.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are basic human rights.
If I want to go and see a play that manages to incorporate over 300 swear words and ridicule one of the many so-called Gods, then I should be able to.
Those who find such remarks offensive should simply not watch the performance. Simple as that. The will of a minority cannot be imposed upon the majority.
Also, the opera is not just one big christ-bashing fest. From what I know of it, Jesus, Mary & God only play a very small part in the show and is entirely tongue-in-cheek.
So, out of my way protesters, Laura and I will be gracing the hall this Saturday night for the final performance. My report will be due soon afterwards.
I’ve always wanted to visit a country of the former USSR.
Czech Republic was always my first choice, but, now that I have found something that has swung me towards the Ukraine. Now all I have to do is get Laura on-side and we can book.
The deciding factor is the ‘Chernobyl tour’ that is on offer.
For £120, you can spend a day in Chernobyl, Pripyat & the Red forest with a tour guide.
Pripyat, which is the town that was built by the soviets to house the workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is totally deserted and has the most harrowing story behind it and my main purpose for going would be to get some amazing and emotive shots from the deserted streets, houses and schools.
A BBC News online journalist has taken the tour and posted their shots, here.
I could only hope to get some shots as good as these and be able to say, I’ve been to Chernobyl.
Itinerary for the day We usually start at 9 a.m.
* Drive to Chernobyl with passing “Dytyatky” (on the border of the 30-km “Zone of Estrangement”).
* Arrival to Chernobyl. Meeting with the leadership of “Chernobylinterinform” Agency.
* On the way to Power Plant we pass 10-km border and check point
* Sightseeing of reactor # 4(from 100 m. distance).
* Visit to Pripyat. Sightseeing of “Dead town”.
* Stop near the “Red forest”.
* Return to Chernobyl. Lunch.
* Visit to the Scientific Centre (physical, radiochemical laboratories and others).
* Calling in “Opachychi” village, meeting with “resettlers”, people who have moved back to their villages after evacuation(optional).
* Passage to “Rossokha” village, cemetery of military machineries.
* Passage through Control Point “Dytyatky”. Measuring of radiation.
* Return to Kiev. (Back in Keiv around 6 p.m.)
I have enjoyed books by Willy in the past, in fact, you will have heard of some of them, Educating Rita & Blood brothers are probably the most famous.
So, when I stumbled upon this little gem, I knew it was a must-read.
The wrong boy tells the story of Raymond Marks, a normal boy from a normal family, from a normal northern town.
The whole story is from first person perspective, written entirely in letters to Morrissey.
A truly inspired method, if I may say so myself.
Here’s a short excerpt from the start;
16 June 1991
Birch Services, M62 Motorway
Dear Morrissey,
I’m feeling dead depressed and down. Like a streetlamp without a bulb or a goose at the onset of a Christmas time. Anyroad, I thought I’d pen a few lines to someone who’d understand. I know you probably won’t answer this; I don’t know if it’ll even get to you. And, anywho, even if you wrong back which I know is highly dubious it wouldn’t get to me because I’ll have gone. The above address is just a service station I’m stopped at. I’ll probably not even post it. I’m writing this in the book I use for writing my lyrics and putting my ideas down. It’s sort of a journal, I suppose; although it makes it sound more important than it really is.
Click here to buy it at Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com don’t seem to sell it. They do however sell a book by the same name by Carol Stanley, though, it isn’t the same one.
Well, its been a very busy day around the office today,
since getting in a 10am, I’ve watched sumo-wrestling with Welsh rugby players, balloons being released by a famous Welsh actress and indulged in chocolate covered treats from a chocolate fondue. All in the aid of The Princes Trust, it certinaly has been a fun day.
Also, upon waking this morning, I was to find the streets covered in snow, quite a bit too, where Laura lives.
Since then, it’s been snowing off and on all day. One moment it’s bright and breezy, 15 minutes later, the skies have covered in grey fluffy clouds and you can’t see for more than a few meters out of the window because of the thick snow.
Today, in case you did not know, is St Davids Day, the patron saint of Wales. (Think of what St Patricks day is to Ireland and you’ll know what I mean..)
The Princes Trust use this day, in Wales, to promote their cause by running a scheme called ‘Go Red for Wales‘. Our company use it to help raise funds by doing all manner of fun activities throughout the day.
As well as being able to come in wearing casual clothing (with something red incorporated, in my case, a red Wales t-shirt) there have been events like quizzes, hockey challenge, scalextric racing and sumo-wresting with Welsh rugby players Tom Shanklin & Gareth Williams.
This morning, Ruth Madoc of Hi-De-Hi fame was here to publicise the Go Red for Wales concept and to pose for a few photos during a balloon release that had been organised. I managed to get quite a lot of photos from that, see my flickr photoset. She was a great sport, laying on the ground even, for some photos.
However, my achilles heal came this afternoon when the Chocolate fountains were switched on. 3 Strawberries, 2 marshmallows and a very sticky keyboard later, I’m still glad I did it
In other news, the Senedd was opened this afternoon in Cardiff Bay. Better known as ‘The new Welsh Assembly’ building.
Opened this afternoon by the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles & Camilla Parker-Bowles it looked like an extravagent event. We saw the fly-past by the RAF from our building, didn’t look too impressive…just four planes flying close to each other. They didn’t actually do any maneouveres or anything…a nice waste of a few thousand pounds, I bet.
I overheard some English businessmen talking about it on the train this morning. Obviously they had no clue what they were talking about and only knew what they had read in the newspapers.
For their information, and anyone else who is confused, or has been misled, it was not finished on time, it was not completed on budget (in fact, it cost almost 5x as much as originally planned) and it will not emplore any of the AM’s (Assembly Members) to do any more work than the little that they did before.
After the Asian tsunami disaster, 60,000+ people pack into the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for a benefit concert, the line-up included legends such as Eric Clapton & Jools Holland. Also on the bill were Kelly Jones, Katherine Jenkins, Keane & The Manic Street Preachers. The event raised over £2million for the cause.
February 2005
Laura & I jetted out to New York city on the 15th of the month. We spent 7 days doing the tourist thing, Empire State building, Staten Island ferry, Wall Street, Madame Tussauds, Times Square etc. and a lot of shopping. The pictures from the trip can be seen on Flickr
April 2005
Election fever gripped the UK ahead of the May 5th general election. As expected, my constituency was held by Labour, but overall my party of choice, the Liberal Democrats, gained more votes than it ever has before, they also took from Labour seat of the constituency bordering my own, Cardiff Central.
May 2005
The Sony PS3 was announced on the 16th of the month at a press conference. Prototypes were then showcased at the E3 show in Los Angeles, May 17th to 20th. The system is due for a spring 2006 release, after that of the Xbox360 which was released in December amid controversy of low-stock.
June 2005
Laura & her family and I flew out to Mauritius on the 17th of June from Heathrow airport. Two weeks of relaxation was well received, though I cannot say much for the internet availability on the island which was pretty much non-existant. But then, I suppose, what do you expect from an island that is thousands of miles off the coast of the Africa in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
July 2005
The Noise & Confusion concert on 10th December at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff is announced and tickets go on sale. Unfortunately I oversleep and don’t get to buy my tickets until 45 minutes after they go on sale. Unfortunately by this time most are sold out and I end up overbuying in order to get the tickets that I want. I never did get rid of all of my extra tickets, one did go un-used.
August 2005
Google enters the IM market with ‘Google Talk’ to much hype around the blogosphere. Unfortunately the hype is short-lived and Google talk still has not really taken off, mostly due to the fact that it largely inferior to other IM clients and that MSN, Yahoo & AIM already have well established userbases.
September 2005
International Talk like a Pirate day fell on the 19th as it does every year and was celebrated around the office with the wearing of pirate hats and talking silly all day. Perhaps you should celebrate it next year?
Also, it was in September that hintofsarcasm.com was migrated to Wordpress from MovableType, a decision I think has greatly helped the site to develop.
October 2005
Cardiff celebrated its 100th anniversary of having city status, also it celebrated its 50th year of having Capital city status.
Street entertainers were prevalent all around the city centre including dancers, singers & musicians.
November 2005
New extended licenses for pubs, clubs, bars and other premises licensed to sell alcohol came into force on the 24th of this month amid much controversy from the right-wing.
As expected though, nothing much has come of it except for the fact that we are no longer restricted to 11pm closing times, thus releasing us from our shackles for the first time in decades.
December 2005
Richard Pryor sadly passed away on the 10th of this month aged 65.
He was an inspiration to many and an entertainer to many many more.
I’d like to die like my father died… My father died fucking. My father was 57 when he died. The woman was 18. My father came and went at the same time.
I wonder if Richard attained that? It would not surprise me at all if he did.
I hope you all have a great 2006. I’ll surely be blogging it!
I’d just like to quickly take this opportunity to thank all of my loyal readers for sticking with me this year, a year which has been filled with a lot of fun but also a lot of change.
I have posted more blog entries this year than any other since I started blogging, a true sign that my blog is coming of age.
I shall be posting a roundup of the year hopefully later on today, before we ring in the new year.
I’ll leave you for now with a video I made on 23rd December at Cardiff’s Winter Wonderland;
(Click Play button to start video)
A poor quality, cameraphone video from Noise & Confusion on Saturday.
This is Razorlight during the song ‘Somewhere Else’.
I forgot to take my digital video camera so, this is the best you’re going to get unfortunately.
There are some really bad singers stood around me, but, overall the atmosphere of the whole gig was amazing.
With so many thousands of people there, I felt so small, but overwhelmed, I can only imagine how the artists felt, especially Razorlight who are fairly new to the scene, to have 60,000+ people singing the words to their songs, drowning out the singer himself.
Pictures from the Noise & Confusion gig will be uploaded soon.
We’ve waited so long, but, the day is finally here.
Noise & Confusion at the Millennium Stadium is on this afternoon.
Oasis, The Foo Fighters, Razorlight & The Coral, amazing lineup.
I can’t wait to see Dave Grohl perform tracks from the new Foo Fighters album, it really is one of their best yet.
Oasis, they’re ok. Kinda big headed, but, they have put out some good tracks.
Razorlight, one of this years hottest bands.
The Coral, fun and bouncy stuff, should be good to get the crowd going.
I will be sneaking my video camera in with me, so expect me to firewire some stuff when I get home tonight.
It is going to be a long one however, the gates opened at 12, midday but I’m expecting the big bands to start coming on at about 5 or 6pm.
I believe that the key to blogging success is a good knowledge of the internet, which you quite obviously can't have without a broadband connection. So the first step would be to do some broadband price comparison to make sure you get the best broadband deal you can. Another good thing about most providers is that they'll accept monthly debits from most cards, including the Argos MasterCard, which was good news for my Post Office savings account, as it meant I didn't have to mess about with any extra paperwork.
So, Paris Hilton says that she, like, cries, and stuff, when she listens to her new album, how amazing.
It’s been called blasphemous.
Today, in case you did not know, is St Davids Day, the patron saint of Wales. (Think of what St Patricks day is to Ireland and you’ll know what I mean..)
