22 Mar 2009

The State of Society

In my opening rant I expressed the desire to use Blog Title Under Construction as an engine for spouting off against society and its delinquents, or just a general moan about the decline of my fondness for life in these British Isles. Up until now I'd remained rather mute and apathetic to it all. But two events in the past day or two have sparked off my will to vent my spleen in a fitting zealous manner.

Issue #1: The 'War' on 'Terror'
While commuting into town yesterday for necessary “Over-commercialised Mothering Sunday” shopping, the following advert (most likely produced by some ‘Ministry of Truth’-esque division of The Home Office) was being played on local radio...

Narrator: This is the sound of your generic charv-infested, dark, dingy, booze-laden nightclub, when a bomb doesn’t go off...


*The sounds of drunken partygoers, music, dancing and the downing of many shots of vodka can be heard, as you do.*


N: ... because two weeks earlier, a hypersensitive civilian, lulled into a constant state of panic by the media & government, reported a neighbour storing the chemicals in his garden shed, used to make the bomb.


[This is perfectly rational and respectable. A line can be drawn between bomb-component fertiliser (50 bags) - I think it's ammonium nitrate they use for cheap kaboom... - and "Yarp just ferteeloisin mei plants in the green'ouse, yarp" fertiliser (5 bags)]


Part two...


N: This is the sound of a busy shopping centre during peak hours, when a bomb doesn’t go off, but it’s strange that we would care anyway, as the only lives lost would be the unemployed charvs living off state ‘incapacity’ benefits in a council estate...


*As before we hear the sounds of your average shopping centre during blissful weekend shopping hours, the cacophony of random chatter and cash registers in action.*


Now here comes the bit that really irks me.


N: ... all because a few days earlier another honourable citizen reported suspicious activity to the police, specifically a random person studying the surveillance cameras.


There then followed a brief period of guilt-tripping from The Powers That Be, requesting we report any suspicious events to a national terrorist hotline, and that no-one should be reliant on others to do it, lest another 7/7 comes around the corner. This is all well and good. I have nothing against Our Benefactors offering a service for me to say “Hi, erm, just thought you might wanna know that I’ve seen chaps with Irish accents daubing ‘Real IRA’ slogans on their fences, waving the Green-White-and-Gold and taking Catholic Communion with AK-47’s in hand”, if it is within the public’s interest and might save a few lives.


But seriously, come on, “studying CCTV cameras”? Any randomer in the street can do that freely out of curiosity with no bad intentions; I have done so on several occasions just to consider overall coverage fields and what-not. This doesn’t make me want to run berserk with my Kalashnikov firing pot-shots at my pre-located camera targets, however. Any terrorist committed towards their Seventy-Two Virgins would be a bit more discrete than standing in front of a bank of cameras wearing sunglasses and wielding a pen & notepad anyway.


So yes, to conclude: I am all fine-and-dandy with some anti-terrorism legislation and government propaganda to keep the proletariat in line, voting for New Labour and not running around like headless chickens. I’m not fine with such outrageous claims and paranoia that technical curiosity is pure hardcore terrorist activity. It’s not on Gordon, just not on.


Moving on...

Issue #2: Jade ‘Minger’ Goody


As the Max Clifford-controlled media has no doubt informed you by now, a certain cretin going by the name of Jade Goody has passed away after some form of terminal cancer, really couldn’t care less which variety, apparently cervical, but regardless, she has 'kicked the bucket', “run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible”, popped her clogs and will shortly be six feet under. Good riddance.


Oh cancer's horrendous, I understand. I lost a grandparent to it as a child, and another person rather close to me managed to pull through diagnosis and treatment of it in recent past. But there's still a certain something about the b**** that doesn't quite let her get away with it by playing the "LOL I haz terminel canker" card, not in my book.


I must be one of the few rational people in this nation left, as I think I’m one of a noble minority who are glad to see her go. It’s a truly depressing country we live in if people looked up to this woman, specifically a racist dim-witted plebeian whose claim to fame is appearance on reality television, itself a mockery of culture from the get-go. Channel 4 & Big Brother and their ilk can f*** right off for all I care. Congratulations for dumbing down society and making references to a 'Big Brother (Orwellian & 1984) surveillance society' a memory jog for 'lolomg diaray ruum', come on chaps, take a bow!


I really don’t get it. I even heard newsbytes of how Gordon Brown has praised her courageous nature. Courage, yeah, she smiled for the cameras whilst being a tad bald in a disgusting lilac wedding dress while getting her deathbed proceedings bankrolled by The Sun, OK! and all the other red top tripe. I hope to Cthulhu that Mr. Brown did not say that out of true respect and admiration for a random woman who died to cancer, but rather said what the proles wanted him to say to win their votes, that is if he ever feels like holding a general election, which ought to be due next spring. For a prime minister whose goals are to extol the greatness of Britain, it brings the whole political system crashing down if he goes to lay flowers at this pathetic 'culture' icon’s grave. I honestly feel like gate-crashing the twat's funeral with a burst of good ol' Rick Astley. Or maybe a 4chan flashmob of V For Vendetta masks.


It is imperative that this be stressed: having cancer, or any terminal illness, does not absolve you of your past transgressions. As a deist I’m not saying this from a religious viewpoint, I’m saying it from a vaguely humanist perspective, the perspective of someone shocked and appalled at the glossing over of this berk’s racist jabs and various other things wrong with her, which hardly made her a model for society, all out of sympathy and respect for this poor, poor soul who'll be given her last rites. The word celebrity is derived from celebrate; to be a celebrity is to be celebrated for your talents and skills, not to earn fame and fortune from being a fluent speaker in the native tongue of the Charv, and inquiring to a TV producer whether you were, in fact, “a minger”.


Too many are saying rest in peace; I say Rest In Pieces. I hope others do too.


Someday I’ll get out of this decrepit hellhole, but I’m not entirely sure as of yet where to relocate to. To put it simply, the state of this United Kingdom sickens me sometimes. I’ve been told I’m too young to be a cynic, but someone’s got to do it. It’s hard to be optimistic about this world. At least not about the world I’m looking at.


Goodnight Britain. Would the last sane person to leave please turn off the lights? Thankyou.

2 comments:

Noelor said...

Hear, hear. Or was it here, here?

I any case, couldn't agree more about Goody. Was at work today, and it got to the point where, when the news came on between the adverts (and occassional songs) on local radio, the chefs and I would swear at the newsreader/radio/Goody herself, and race to switch the channel for a few minutes. Without meaning to sound judgemental, it's not even like a class thing, the chef in question is most certainly a "prole" - liked Big Brother, holds racist views, etc. I can't comprehend how anyone still has the time for her.

On the "terrist" activities, I agree with you to an extent - encouraging paranoia is only good when playing the game of the same name (or something similar), and not something that should be done by the government of all people - the Daily Mail/irror's bad enough. I have long hair and a scrappy beard, and I am looking at a plate of steak... Damn hippy terrist, I must be planning to poison it to punish the infidel carnivores! (Actually, I'm hungry)

However, I have to question your specific source of rage. I am also the type who will investigate nearby security cameras out of mere curiosity, and then plan potential escape routes/blind spots. However, whenever I do so, it is always with a slight sense that I hope noone untoward does the same thing. Also, there's a difference between observing a camera's LoS and studying the caamera itself - the latter could involve working out where the wires go or how to best blow up its protective casing.

Shandir said...

The question I wonder, is under what evidence did they come to the conclusion that the guy in question (who had committed no illegal act) was planning to bomb somewhere?
Indeed - did they have any evidence at all, and did they then act on the paranoia of one person...
Because if one person saying "He looks a bit like a terrorist" is enough to get police knocking on your door, well, we all know where we've seen that before.