The Advocate

One thing I've noticed is the rise of racism in our society, post Brexit. Whichever side of that debate you've chosen, you can't argue that it has got worse. The thing is, it has always been there. I took some examples provided by a friend of mine, added some personal experiences, and dropped them into a cauldron, by which I mean my imagination. This is the result.

Viral Spiral

Long ago, I signed up to an internet community and got dogpiled when one of the community members got his friends to join in when he targeted me. Names and details have been fictionalised for entertainment purposes.

View From The Tower

I've been looking for places to post non-fiction prose online, the idea being to make money from my writing. Since other people have the same idea and it takes forever to get paid — assuming the piece is accepted, I've posted it here for now. This is what it's like to be me at the moment.

The Monster

It's been a long time since I last posted anything here. I've been busy with other projects; political blogging on On t'Internet, FM blogging on FM Customer Care Today, and working at my new jobs. Now the Coronavirus crisis is upon us and once more I have a load of free time on my hands. This means I have more time to write, so I'll be going through my old fiction works and will publish them here for your enjoyment. Today's tale is one I submitted for a competition. I won an orange rubber alien and a t-shirt that didn't fit me.

Get Fitter, Not Fatter

Well the new year is upon us and now that we've stopped being all jolly and merry and whatnot I've decided to go all Krampus on the world. You see, we're just over the hump at the beginning of the year when our good intentions drive us gymward in an effort to lose the festive flab.

Good luck with that. And so I rant.

Sci-Fi Fun: Aliens And Robots And Space Ships, Oh My!

I was watching a programme on BBC something last night about aliens. I LOVE all things sci-fi and fantasy and eagerly soaked up the nostalgic trip down memory lane. It began with the notion of sci-fi as social mirror, then ended up at our relationship with aliens, as it were. They were either there to invade and exterminate, arrive as immigrants, or wow and teach us. I can't help thinking how cool it'd be if aliens landed here in England, knocked on my door, and asked if they could borrow a cupful of sugar, kind of thing. I can see it now...

Copyright, Wrongs, And How To Make A Living From The Internet

I don't know if you realise this but we all infringe on copyright every day. Every single, no-I'm-not-pulling-your-leg day. Go on, read the linked article at least three times. It's staggering. I mean, even looking at this post requires you to download it onto your PC, at least temporarily, so you can read the damn thing. In doing so, it made a copy of this file to store on your computer, but you didn't ask me if I'm okay with that, did you, you dirty thieving pirate, you?! Just kiddin'. But that's the problem. If you're mad keen on copyright, contact the PRS and pay for a licence before you sing Happy Birthday in public. Seriously, that's where we're at.

Customer Service Shenanigans

It used to be said that the customer is always right. These days I'm convinced it's being said that the customer is a chump. A bit of respect, please?

I used to try to be a bit considerate about them, having worked in customer service myself, but eventually I came to the conclusion that people who can't or won't do their job and make no effort to be helpful deserve what they get, and if they annoy me I give them Hell. And nothing annoys me more than dun dun dunnnn...

The Teacher: outsourcing to India

Early one morning, Narisa Siddiq arrived at St. Tristan's to get a bit of admin and marking done in the peace of her classroom. Just as she sat down and began to pull sheets of paper out of her big rattan shopper, the caretaker, Mr. Wilkins, came in.

"Miss Siddiq," he said, his bushy grey eyebrows raised in a worried frown, "you shouldn't orta be 'ere."

"What do you mean, Mr. Wilkins?" asked Narisa. "I usually come in early on a Monday to get my marking done."

"Ah, but 'aven't you 'eard?" he asked, as if afraid that a bomb was about to go off. He looked for all the world like a rabbit caught in the headlights. "Your job's been outsourced to India, innit? You've been laid orf. Didn't you get the lettah?"

The Teacher: St Tristans School Trip

I've had a few ideas for the next episode of The Teacher, but it never seems to get beyond Narisa facing her old adversary, stairs The Tory, who is trying to do something dastardly to the kiddlies and she has to intervene. Then her brother Baltiman trumps to the rescue. The thing is, flatulence jokes can only go so far before they get old. I mean, really, once is enough. Unless you're writing a send-up of Astro Boy.

One of the scenarios I came up with was Narisa's class going on a school trip to the beach. The Tory shows up and decides to bomb the bus. Cue a Speed-like plot and resolution.

Pirhana Pedicure

RE: the change in my profile description, when friends came round for pizza and a chat last night, one of them, Tom, was amused when I told him about this blog after hearing about the fish pedicure treatment thingy you can get in the Arndale Center, Manchester. The conversation turned from a rather horrible-sounding beauty/pamper treatment option to what would happen if a Kingsian event* occurred while someone's foot was in the bowl.

Webcomics and whatnot

Nadia liked it. She says she'll comment when she gets a chance.

Meanwhile I've been looking for inspiration online and discovered a plethora of strange and scary webcomics that have convinced me I can do just as well if not better if I go nuts with my latest GIMP plugin for five minutes. Heck, you need to take a shedload of narcotics to appreciate some of them, they're that crazy. I've been reading a lot of cracked.com lately, can you tell?

Nadia's Superhero ideas

My friend Nadia has some funny ideas. I thought I was the wacky one! She reckons there aren't enough Asian superheroes around and that something should be done to redress the balance. 

The Teacher

Nadia believes that running about in dance tights with your underwear on the outside is undignified and looks a bit "Holy sartorial shenanigans, Batman, that outfit is camper than a Boy Scout Jamboree!" As a teacher, she reckons that what we need is a heroic role model that is not lame.

Blogger bother

I was annoyed about the recent outages, but they seem to have resolved. After two Blogger-less days, it occurred to me that the powers that be might well have resolved the situation by now, and I should clear the cache and cookies, then try logging in again, which I did. 

It's alive! It's alive, I tell you! *Maniacal laugh*

Seven gloaty Songs For Nadia

My friend Nadia is a teacher in a London school. Since she started there, she has been tormented by this bullying fiend of a woman who seems more like a German football player at an international match than a teacher. She dives like Tom Daley, is what I'm saying, and she does this to get sympathy. That, and her PHD in BS and her gold medal in Olympic-standard delusions of grandeur have wound her colleagues up no end... to her utter surprise.

Anyway, when Nadia phoned me today for our regular gossip-fest, it was to tell me she felt bad that this ridiculous figure of fun had gone the extra mile in Advanced Douchebaggery and actually did herself out of her job. Let's call this sad sack Elaine.

Elaine, also a teacher, wanted a more highly paid position in the school and had convinced herself that they simply couldn't do without her, so she hatched the maddest plan ever to get herself a promotion: she went up to the head and handed in her notice. Yep, she honestly believed that the head would offer to give her anything she wanted and beg her to stay on, the idea being that Elaine would then graciously accept the new, better position. Can you see how this ends?

Yes, dear readers, to everyone's amusement (apart from Elaine's), she handed in her notice and the head just accepted it. No begging, no pleading, no suicide threats or emotional blackmail. Elaine was aghast. To make things worse, it seems she hasn't even lined up a new job. She was counting on the headmistress begging her to stay and offering her the job she wanted as a bribe. Well, she didn't. At this point, it gets ridiculous because Elaine then staggers out all shellshocked and everything, and falls over conveniently in front of the staffroom, which she then enters in a bid to get some sympathy. Which doesn't happen. Elaine then slinks away with her tail between her legs.

Nadia tells me she feels a bit guilty for gloating, but after all Elaine has done to undermine her, I think she's entitled, and have compiled a list of songs to play on her ipod for a guilt-free gloat.

Counting down, Top of the Pops style, from number seven:

7. Leaving Me Now - Level 42


6. I'm Free - The Soup Dragons


5. Unbelievable - EMF


4. I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down - Paul Young


3. Stupid Girl - Garbage


2. This Is The Day - The The


1. Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead - Wizard of Oz (original)

Link to video.

Gloat away, love. Gloat away. Here oop north, I'm gloating, too.

Frustratophone

My friend Nadia is being driven nuts by what can best be described as a Frustratophone. It all started innocently enough when she was offered a new phone by the people running her mobile phone contract, and she accepted it, as you do. The trouble with Nadia is that she's fussy, especially where phones are concerned.

She hates slider phones because if you leave them open for too long, they get stuck in that position (not an experience I've had, to be honest) and button phones annoy her by calling people unexpectedly if she has one in her handbag and she jiggles it.

After exhausting the possibilities, and because she wanted the biggest screen she could get, she settled for a touch-screen like the one on the left. So it begins...

First of all, she tried to import all the information from her other phone and ended up losing all the numbers. This led to her sending me an email to get my number. Then when she called me, it got ridiculous. Every once in a while, as we were yakking away, I'd hear a beeping sound. "Nad?" 

"I'm here."

"What's the beeping?"

"The phone. I don't know why it does that."

After a while the sound of her voice faded out. "Nad?"

"Wendy?"

"Nad, are you there?"

Just at the point of switching off the phone, the volume comes back up. "Sorry, Wendy, I'd brushed it. This darn thing is much too sensitive."

Great. So there's a good chance that, one day while she's walking along with it jiggling about in her handbag, it could end up dialling the speaking clock in Hong Kong and she'd be unaware of this until she got the bill. I mean, this thing freaks if she as much as breathes on it. So much for the wonders of technology.

Well that raises the spectre of the new phone I'm due to get from my contract supplier. Last time they called me to offer me a free new phone, I told them I wanted one the size of a half brick with decent-sized buttons because I'm not a flippin' Hobbit. I want to be able to see and touch one button at a time without the aid of a magnifying glass, is what I'm saying.

They sent me a slide-phone. The buttons are tiny. I avoid sending texts because the effort to type them is a flippin' ordeal. The buttons are tiny and don't always work when you press them. Or they do something unexpected. It took ages to work out how to get rid of that awful predictive text. I absolutely loathe that feature. 

So now, thanks to Nadia, I know to avoid the touch-screen ones unless they've got an option for switching off the screen touchability unless I want to use it. Otherwise I may find I've accidentally hacked into NASA while out shopping with the thing in my bag.

Online time-wasters

Should there be a twelve-step group for internet addicts? I'm becoming concerned that I may be addicted. I mean, I'm beginning to look like this:

The best excuse I can come up with for faffing about on Facebook, tweeting twaddle on Twitter and creasing up on Cracked.com is that, well, it's fun. And, as a certain Lolcat would say, it is relevant to my interests - if you like to read sweary articles about five reasons a zombie apocalypse will never happen. Which I do. Relevant to my interests? I'm a horror fan. Yeah.

It's beginning to take its toll. I've been up late at night just to read how some scary creatures *gasp!* resemble us, and 7 terrifying things the internet has unleashed on the world, etc. Cracked, is, of course, the worst offender. But it's so damn entertaining!

It's actually pushing the lolcats out. There's no escape. Once you get caught in the gravity well of ROFL, it's pretty much over. Like a fly stuck in a spider's web, you can struggle all you like, but you can't break free. And that's when the funny comes to get you. You've really got into 5 classic movies you didn't know were remakes and just had to read 5 reasons the good witch was a bad one. Then there's... but it's nearly 2am!

I could argue that I'm doing research for a possible future article about five naive art producers and why their drawings alone are hilarious, or five lol sites and why they are funny. But I'm busy doing this, and smoothing graphics for anything, particularly for this blog, can take hours. The more detailed the image, the longer it takes. And where do the images go? T'internet. 

Sigh!

Group names

I've been messing about with the dictionary widget on igoogle and came across some rather funny words. What exactly is a clowder of cats? I know it's a group, but where do these words come from? And what would you call a group of nerds?


Hmm... Now I'm thinking. This is a dangerous thing. Okay, how about "a niggle of nerds"? "A program of geeks"?  "A forum of gamers"?


Can anybody think of a better term?

Favicon fun

I like to play with graphics and will try anything at least once. When I noticed those tiny pictures that show up in the top left corner of tabs and web address bars, I began to wonder a) what they are and b) how I could make my own if I wanted to. 

The answer is here, if you're interested. They're called favicons. When making your favicon, choose the hosting option, then go back to your blog and choose design/edit HTML and add the code they give you just before the closing </head> tag. Then voilà, you have a favicon of your very own.

Do you see what I mean about needing to get out more? That said, I do think it looks cool. I'm all pleased with myself now!