Lotto Madness!

The jackpot yesterday was £100,000,000. Needless to say I did not win, but I've decided not to give up hope. Maybe one day I will be as goddamn lucky as Mrs S...



Incidentally, I saw this on the website last night, and it still has the same exciting news now.

Wheres My Bees at?

This video is just brilliant - not only does it neatly tie in to an earlier post of mine where I wax (arf!) lyrical about the Blind Melon video featuring a Beegirl, but it highlights a very serious issue, namely that the bees of the world are mysteriously dying out. As someone who has been known to eat honey at every meal (on toast, in yoghurt, with brie in sandwiches, in tea yadda yadda) this concerns me, but as I also simply love saying 'bee', the prospect of never likening oneself to a 'squashed bee' or a 'bumbling old bee' or a 'dozy fat bee in a jar' is simply devistating.

The word 'bee' exudes fuzzy joviality and bumbling joy, it should not be associated with death and (some would have you believe) the destruction of the planet!

As the De Menezes Inquiry rumbles on, now with added 'Fuck You'!

I really hope this is real and not a photoshop, because if it is, it's just about the best thing* ever.

UPDATE

I thought this pic was so brilliant I sent it to the equally brilliant Copyranter blog. It was posted on Animal NY along with this additional pic I took, to prove the caption was true:

Someone put this comment:

Why didn't they use the same poster image when they chopped those pictures?

Not only do they make themselves look stupid, they've made you look like a bit of an idiot too for falling for it.

Very bad taste. :(

Posted by John October 2, 2008 4:26 AM

Naturally, being the massive pedant that I am, this massively pissed me off. Yes okay, I should have corrected Copyranter when he accreditted the first pic to me (I never said I took it) and I should have noticed that the poster at Finsbury Park is in a different format but STILL.

So I took action.

Firstly, I wasted an entire lunchtime travelling down to Stockwell to look for the poster. Typically, it is no longer there, but I did speak to a man putting up new posters who confirmed that the poster had been up, but then got all afraid and aggressive when I asked him if I could film him saying so. (Shocking, I know... thank god I'm blonde and act like a moron. If I was Muslim I would be f**ked)

Anyway, so being me I wrote a pedantically moronic comment in response, whilst still realising I did not quite have enough ammo for a full FUCK YOU. Until this morning, when sadly gazing out the window of the tube in a small gap framed by some guy's armpit and a goth's wet hair, I saw something that made me audibly go 'yesssssssss' into the sodden dyed black locks.

So this evening, whilst being very aware that I was once again acting in a vaguely suspiscious manner - but trying to allay my fears by reasoning that no one would mistake someone carrying a cartoon themed umbrella and listening to Britney Spears as a terrorist - I got off a stop early, fannied around and managed to take these beauties:

And, to show the angle on the origional pic is possible:

John? FUCK YOU.

Incidentally, you might see that someone has drawn a speech bubble coming out of Pacino's mouth. It says 'These guys are so old'. Jokes!

Yours,
A. Pedant


*'best' in it's awestriking bumclenching awfulness

Conning the Conners

I do not like con artists. Aside from the obvious fact that 'The Real Hustle' takes up far too much BBC3 airtime, the whole tricky dicky element irks me - if you're going to be a tea leaf you might as well take MIA's stance and '*click, lock* take ya money' and not fanny around like a street magician.

Anyway, I was just chatting with my friend Ms W, who, dispite being an intern, sleeping in her clothes on people's sofas, living off a diet of fags, Red Bull and mini picnic eggs, is for some reason still called a 'glamourous blonde', and she had this tale of urban trickery to tell:

"So I was like queuing up to buy a can of coke for my breakfast and just after I put my PIN in the machine the guy behind me starts tapping me on the shoulder. I had my ipod on high and obviously wasn't really with it, but then I see he's pointing to a five pound note on the floor to my left. It's not mine, but because he obviously thinks it is, I think 'sod it' and reach over to grab it. When I turn back my card had been stolen from the machine! The guy must have got my PIN over my shoulder and then deliberately distracted me so he could nick my card!"

Me - "That's terrible!"

"Ha, not at ALL! I have LITERALLY no money in my bank and wasn't even sure if the can of coke would go through, so I just went 'sweet!' bought a twenty pack of fags, got a free can of coke and went to work feeling incredibly happy."

And the moral of that story, dear tea leafs, is do not attempt to scam glamourous blondes... or at least not ones who are attempting to buy a can of coke on a card at 8am with eyes the size of saucers and Chromeo blaring out their headphones at inhumanly loud levels. Not because these people are clearly wonderful (although they are - unless you late for work and stuck in the queue behind them) but because they are clearly skint as hell and you would literally be better off stealing candy from a baby.

Baiting the 'Conservative Mothers Against Sarah Palin' Facebook Group

Because it's as easy peasy lemon squeezy and I like my friends on Facebook telling me I'm funny, like..

Mind you, given the actual true viewpoints of real, living, voting people out there it is also massively depressing.

Dragon's Den = Social Suicide

A couple of anecdotes for you:

A few months ago, in Subway on Berwick Street.
Man in queue in front of me attempting to pay for a £1.99 sub with a credit card gestures to poster on the wall with his gold American Express.
'Oh look, the Reggae Reggae sauce sub!'

Bangladeshi cashier who clearly speaks as much English as his co-worker who is currently drenching my sub in Mayonnaise despite my request and hand gestures to the contrary
'.' (dull eyed stare)

'You know? Reggae Reggae sauce? The guy was on Dragon's Den!'

'.'
*background noise of me swearing under my breath at the prospect of a 3,000 calorie sub but being too polite to actually complain*

'Dragons Den! On BBC1! The guy sang a little song and they gave him money? Dragon's Den? Yes? Oh.'

He glances around: first to the still blank faced cashier who is now proferring a receipt, then to the equally blank faced condiment-mad co-worker. His eyes finally settle on the glowering girl holding a dripping bundle of greasy bread behind him, before he stalks out, head down.


A few weeks ago, a hairdressers in Crouch End.
An awkward fifteen year old girl whose job consists of pushing hair around the floor, making hair tea and answering the phone with a superfast esturary mutter is nonchalently swinging on the reception chair.

Jabbing at the mouse of the computer and staring intently at the monitor screen - 'thatallbe*outrageous sum of money* plez'

'Oh cool.'
I hand over my card.

*awkward silence punctuated only by more mouse jabs*

'Oh look, those are those hairbrushes they had on Dragons Den!'
I gesture to a pyramid of spikey brushes balancing procariously close to her flinching mouse arm.

'Huh?'
she looks up at me with half shut eyes and a half open gob displaying her half chewed gum.

'You know? It's like a magic brush that gets rid of tangles? They didn't invest but it looks like he has done quite well for himself.'

'AahdunnerrIdahntwatchit. Canyerputyerpennumberrinyeah?'

'What really? You don't watch Dragon's Den? Not ever'

'Nah.'

'You know what it is, right?'

'Yeh.'

'Oh.'
Another awkward pause until I take back my card and slink off into the day with my poofy blowdryed mushroom hair.

Is this just a terrible co-incidence? Why not try slotting 'that awful band called ham or spam or something' or 'that cap to stop you putting diesel into a unleaded car' into polite conversation with a service level stranger and find out!

Guardian Jobs - Something for Everyone

Not so much 'Daddy or chips?' as 'sitting in an over air conditioned open plan new build in a Humber retail park...

Incidentally, possible kudos to the Granuaid (although I have a feeling it may have been accidental) for giving an aesexual man in a story about having a happy sexless marraige the pseudonymmed surname 'Cox'.