The Kraken Wakes...

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:05:00 +0000

Star Struck

Ruffled

Astrology. What in the fuck, I must ask, is this all about? Because while I have never believed in this rape of the heavens via the Daily Mirror puzzles page, I've always been happy to let believers carry on their merry way. However, this week I was privy to a stunning display of astrological insanity via Radio 2, where some star-botherer or other attributed various Olympic successes to whether Uranus was being intruded upon by Neptune.

This makes me want to run through the nearest astrology convention with a sharpened telescope. Apart from the fact that astrology is a load of old cock, it's even more old and cockish when its used to explain modern sporting prowess. If you want to believe that your 40-something love life is shit just because your mother's waters broke on the 'wrong' date, you go for it. Knock yourself out. But if you want to believe that Bolt or Ennis or Dujardin won gold for the same reason then you are as bananas as Fifes's head office.
For a start, to believe that medal-winning Olympians are successful only because of their star signs is the equivalent of believing that you'll only pass your exams if you wear your lucky knickers. It's taking a sport - the product of science, discipline and arse-splittingly hard work - sprinkling it with fairy dust and announcing that success is down to the 'little folk'.
And if that's not enough to set you in retrograde motion, it's also deeply and pitifully patronising. Jesus, imagine being a sportswoman, nurturing your talent, practising for hours every day, travelling to meets and nursing injuries until you win an Olympic medal only to be told that the win was all down to you being a fucking Capricorn? I dunno about Pluto being in transit but I'm as sure-as-shit that my fist would be. Then again, the guilty astrologer would know this because they'd have predicted it in Grazia a week earlier.
In fact, such is my disdain for astrology that I don't even know Kraken Junior's star sign. That's partly because it has as much relevance as a bird taking a shit three thousand miles away. It's also partly because, for me, looking at the stars is about science. You know, the evidence-based pursuit that means one fuck of a lot more than the fictional representation of the night sky. Show me evidence that being a Taurean has influenced my career, depression and love of anchovies and I may start to listen.
Until then, chart-twiddlers, no. Just no. Astrology does not have influence over the Olympics because, unlike the Olympics, astrology is based upon fuck all. Unless, of course, you want to line up the runners, swimmers and pole vaulters according to their star sign rather than country. But that would never work because astrology would also be put to the test and, by Christ, would it lose.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:41:00 +0000

Bird Brains

Laydeeez

No. Just no. I declare here and now that if one more Olympic commentator refers to the female competitors as 'ladies' rather than 'women' I will not be responsible for my distinctly unsporting javelin-based actions.
This isn't 195-fucking-4. It's 20-fucking-12 and the Olympics is populated with women who have sweated more viciously in the last seven days than most of us have in the last 15 years. They are powerful, competitive, driven, successful women who make 99.9% of the global population look de-boned and yet they're still spoken about as if they've tripped daintily from a Jane Austin novel.
Man, I despise the term 'lady'. It's as patronising as a pat on the bum and an enquiry as to if it's "your time of the month". And if it's not outdated enough in everyday life, it's as sure as shit outdated in the Olympic arena. You can almost hear the guilty commentators grumbling about how the sexual revolution was just down to hormones. Christ knows what shocks they've experienced as the competitors have lined up in lycra rather than crinolines or girdles. I dare say the 'ladies' have offered up their smelling salts and lace hankies to help revive the traumatised telly-botherers from their fainting fits.
Put it this way. If the women are ladies then how come the men aren't gentlemen? You never hear the Olympic commentators banging on about how the gents are waiting for the starting gun or harping on about the chaps picking up the pace. Instead they're called warriors, strongmen, gladiators. All while the women - equally as supreme - are chucked under the collective chin like fucking kittens.
And yeah, I know there are blokes out there who are just bewildered by the whole thing. I've met plenty who think that the term 'lady' is a perfectly respectable way to address someone with a muff. Problem is that the word carries more connotations than Monty Don's wheelbarrow. For a start 'lady' attempts to segregate the 'good' women from the 'bad' whoever the fuck they're supposed to be. Then it bestows upon the unlucky recipients of the title the responsibility of having to behave in a particular, socially acceptable way. Finally, it's the equivalent of walking into a room full of women and shouting "Tits!" because the first thing you're pointing out is their gender.
All of which means that the next commentator to refer to ladies will be the beneficiary of my more than unladylike behaviour. On second thoughts though, it won't be unladylike at all because ladies no longer exist. Krakens do, though, and this kraken is already sharpening her javelin.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:40:00 +0000

The Point

The trifecta

Sod storytelling. Last night’s bedtime chat with Kraken Junior included her question, “What’s the point of me?”. Then she asked what was the point of I, The Kraken, and of Conjugal Kraken. I spluttered out that the point of us is to love each other but you know what? I could have gone one fuck of a lot further. Much further. But then KJ would have had nightmares and scratched out her eyes. Here’s what I wanted to say but, in a rare fit of diplomacy, didn’t...

The point of Kraken Junior:

To provide our local pharmacist with an early retirement to Antibes; to put my bras on her head; to make me hysterical with exhaustion; to marvel at the size of her turds; to squash bogies under my fingernails; to make me wonder what the fuck I am doing; to squander our savings on Tinkerbell costumes; to make me holler “eat your frigging mash!”; to ask me what water is; to weep with laughter at yellow cars; to scream with fear when I cut her toenails; to shout “bloody marvellous!” when she enjoys her food; to call the planet Uranus Uvuranius; to repeatedly try to bite my nose; to grill me about my periods; to limp theatrically and hysterically for hours after grazing her knee; to taste paint; to obsess over bubbles; to poke the cat; to call Hello Kitty, Kitty Hello; to shout for quiet when she’s concentrating; to go profoundly deaf when the telly’s on; to get sand on her teeth; to make us gigglingly happy.

The point of I, The Kraken:

To wonder what the fuck I am doing; to fold tiny clothes; to religiously shout “I’ve only got one pair of bloody hands!”; to be terminally confused; to never take a shit on my own; to clutter up the local psych unit; to ingest fistfuls of mentally stabilising medication; to provide our local pharmacist with an early retirement to Antibes; to read aloud The Gruffalo 361.3 times; to pretend to enjoy tea parties; to pick peas off the kitchen floor; to mutter “for fuck’s sake” under my breath and, occasionally, aloud; to drink rum exactly three minutes after bedtime, often from the bottle; to panic at rashes; to despise the beach; to hate other children; to explain why I’m screaming at other drivers; to worry about KJ becoming a whore/ junkie/ Tory; to hide on the doorstep; to ask “have you lost you bloody mind?”; to rage at the colour pink; to know that I’ll never fail to use contraception again; to become hooked on snotty cuddles.

The point of Conjugal Kraken

To stop our cave from forming its own chaos-based black hole; to teach KJ to count; to separate KJ and I during particularly hysterical periods; to keep KJ supplied with Cocoa Pops; to forget what a boys' night out feels like; to simultaneously watch cricket, build a marble run and mop up snot; to spot my imminent mental collapse long before I do; to shower with a small face pressed against the glass; to have no time to cut his toenails; to have his pate and his high forehead meet in the middle; to partake of a large slump at three minutes past bedtime; to moderate the mash-eating battles; to have greater patience than the rest of us put together; to agree that other kids are hideous; to be the administrative centre of the kraken universe; to suck his teeth with fury; to count the grey hairs on his chest; to have KJ stare at his knackersack; to weep with laughter at Viz; to have obsessively documented every episode of Disney’s Imagination Movers; to explode with pride.

Yup, on second thoughts perhaps I gave KJ the right answer in the first place.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Copping Out

Iggle, you're nicked

You know when you become so despairing that you want to weep openly while beating at the windscreen of the car? That. Yup, that. And this time it’s over the absurd police reaction of arresting the Twitter troll who said of Olympic diver Tom Daley "You let your dad down i hope you know that (sic)".

Ok. Someone needs to explain this to me. No really, because I haven’t got a fucking clue what’s going on. You see, when I went to bed last night I was living in the UK yet at some time in the night my entire house was airlifted across the globe and put down in communist China. So when I woke up this morning I found that someone had made a distasteful comment and been arrested for it. I know, I can hardly believe it either.

Ok, so what this idiot said was nasty, ignorant and deeply hurtful. It was also....er, hold on... no, that’s it. That’s all. He was a twat and he spoke his twatty mind and astoundingly, got arrested for it.

Either way on the basis of this I’m well n truly screwed. If I’m not doing porridge by a week next Wednesday you’ll have every right to ask why because if haven’t offended somebody during the course of my blog it’ll be a miracle worthy of Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea. You want distasteful comments? Then you’ve come to the right place. I’ve offended parents, shoppers, drivers, celebs, politicians, children, the elderly, the police and even my own mater and pater. It’s a miracle that the prison at Guantanamo Bay doesn’t have a wing named after me.

Put it this way. Take every distasteful remark I’ve made on this blog and award it one week in the pokey. That makes...one fuck of a long time behind bars. And no, I’ve never made a racist remark or said anything remotely discriminatory (well, unless you include discrimination against the global population of bell ends) but that no longer seems to matter. It’s now enough of a crime to just upset someone.

So what am I supposed to do in this new police state of ours? Start raving into my pillow rather than the blogosphere? Start suppressing that part of me that controls independent thought? Or perhaps fall into line and just accept what I am told because that’s what good citizens do? Well, I’m afraid I’m not prepared to do any of those things so the South Wales Constabulary had better cancel overtime because, if this is the way we’re going, it’s going to get pretty fucking busy around here.

One good thing has come from this though and that’s the speed of the police response. That alone has made me skip. Because when we recently called the police to report a crime it took them a fortnight to get to us (I am not kidding) because, they said, they couldn’t find our house. Oh, and there was that time recently when two other occifers found themselves in our garden because they’d “got lost”. Oooops, and I’m forgetting when we reported a crime and were told that it couldn’t be recorded unless we physically went to the police station first.

So, in the light of this trolling business, let the new vigilance of the police offer us hope that from here on in real crimes will be resolved swiftly and eagerly. Swap the words ‘causing offence’ with ‘car crime’ and use the term ‘on the street’ rather than ‘online’ and, Christ knows, we might start getting somewhere. Until then, get out your orange jumpsuits. Guantanamo, here we come.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:30:00 +0000

Book Worms

One feed's worth

Whoa there! I'm reading Sue Townsend's The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year and it's like seeing the inside of my own head. Eva Beaver, the protagonist, sums up motherhood so pithily that if I ever had to give birth again I'd want her to be my midwife. At one point in the book she says of her twins, "I was thrilled to have two babies in my arms, but - and you'll think this is awful - after twenty minutes or so I wanted to get back to my book".

Jesus, do I know what Eva Beaver means. For the first three months of Kraken Junior's life she was a living, breathing book stand. Oh come on, I didn't know what else I was supposed to do with her. She may have been attached to a tit or a bottle at the time but she earned her keep by letting me rest Jane Ayre on her slowly fusing skull. If you shave her hair off you'll find a ridge, the width of a book spine, roughly near her crown.

Problem is that babies are boring. Really fucking boring. And I'm sorry but I don't subscribe to the Mothercare manifesto of gazing lovingly at my child for hours on end as a form of entertainment. Yes, babies are occasionally amusing and yes they do keep you busy but no, they are not a hobby or an intellectual pursuit. In fact, the first time I breastfed KJ I naively assumed it'd be a full hour of employment. Fuck me, was I wrong. It was ten minutes of wrestling my bleeding nip into her gob followed by 45 minutes of wanting to fill my own pupils with building sand at the boredom of it all.

Books saved my rapidly curling bacon. In fact books provided the only real intellectual stimulant for the first six months of KJ's life because KJ as sure as fuck didn't provide it. Oh she provided drum-loads of mucus, shit blacker than an oil slick, vomit like yoghurt and an inspired reason for becoming deranged with sleeplessness but intellectual stimulation? No. I can’t say that was even a remote offering.

Even now that she’s nearly five there are times when I demand that she shuts up for just five minutes, long enough to let me get to the end of any given chapter. Believe me, the merriment of Twinkle Twinkle wears thin after it’s been sung on a loop for four fucking years.

So thank Christ for the product of Sue Townsend’s fevered imagination. Eva Beaver has just entered my list of heroines at the number one spot. Babies? Books? Guess which one I’ll be having next.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Bag Lady

Got anything bigger?

Dear Jesus, the drudgery of motherhood. The sheer drudgery. And you know what the symbol of that drudgery is? The change bag. The bag that every fucking mother on the planet has to lug about in case their offspring performs anything from shitting and puking to raging boredom. Why, when you find yourself knocked up, does nobody tell you that from birth onwards you'll be contractually obliged to carry a bag so large that it'd make sherpas weep into their own frostbite?
When Kraken Junior was a squalling sprogette I took to carrying a bag that, up until that point, I had used as a weekender. God, how I hated that fucking sack. Not just because it was heavier than an elephant's leg and fitted with a small outlet of Mothercare but because it was my first (and only, if I have anything to do with it) ball and chain. So vast was it that strangers actually laughed and joked about whether I was going on holiday, all while I smiled benignly and secretly wished them a slow and painful death. I muttered endlessly about dousing it in petrol and lobbing its burning form into the nearest playground.
Why in the fuck do we have to lug about so much shit when we have babies? I can honestly say that I backpacked through the Himalayas and the Costa Rican rainforests with less stuff than I when I just took Kraken Junior to buy a loaf of Hovis. You don't see women in Nigeria wrestling with small suitcases as well as their infants do you? And you never see the Inuits stuffing dead shoulder-seals with fistfuls of nappies, bibs, wetwipes and other associated tat. Why? Because they seem to have a grip on mothering in the same way we Westerners seem to have a grip on producing shit sit coms.
It's a control thing I reckon. Having a child rips control from your hands a if it were the last vol-au-vent at an obesity celebration. Stuffing the nearest suitcase with Sudocreme and dummies makes you feel as if you've wrested back said control. The kid shits? Got it. The kid sobs? It's covered. The kid shows an aptitude for astrophysics? There's a map of the universe in here somewhere...
Personally speaking, there are two things that would never, ever make me spawn again. The ripping sound emanating from my vagina is one. The splitting seams on the change bag is the other. And yes, they are remarkably, agonisingly and messily similar. As are the obscenities I've spluttered at each. Vag? Bag? Bag? Vag? Believe me, I never want to see either again.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:40:00 +0000

Pots of Toss

Know where you can stick that finger?

People can be such wankers, don't you think? Yes, wankers. And why am I telling you this? Because I am sick to shit of the theory, most oft-spouted at parents, that if they find any aspect of parenting so tough that they grumble about it then they should never have had kids in the first place.
What in the giddy pits of fuck does this even mean? At its best it's an opinion for the hard of thinking. At its worst it's an opinion worthy of the Third Reich. Put it this way, it's the sort of opinion that's banged out by either the Dail Mail or the Jeremy Vine Show. Like I say, the hard of thinking or the Third Reich. Or even hard of thinking members of the Third Reich. Yeah, yeah, that's more like it.
First, what in the fuck is wrong with making a major, life changing decision and then finding that aspects of it that are harder than you thought they'd be? Suddenly parents are supposed to be tele-frigging-pathic, not just making decisions to spawn but also seeing forty years into the future. Picture it now: "You know, I'd love to have a child but seeing as I'll be fucking livid with said child at 3.15pm on Monday 23 June 2026 I don't think I'll bother."
More than that, what exactly is wrong with the people who make the "Then you shouldn't have..." statements? Fuck me, how joyful it must be to be so perfect that you'd never found the consequences of a decision difficult, surprising or plain old disappointing. Based on their clearly supreme powers of reasoning it's fair to assume that these arseholes also have perfect careers, relationships, hobbies and even shitting routines. So you know that job they took back in 2005? They have never ever had a single grumble about it. Not one. Otherwise, if they have, then they shouldn't have taken the job should they?
And finally, as they say, what in the frig is with this vow of silence that parents are supposed to keep? Because according to the 'shouldn't have' knob ends, once you've chosen the child-rearing path you must never, ever speak of the pains, gripes and upsets that you experience along the way. Even though every day of childrearing includes at least one moment of distress, such incidents must be tucked away like dirty secrets, just in case complete strangers find them distasteful. Heaven forfend that you should have a perfectly human reaction to getting three hours sleep, a cleavage full of vomit and an hour of last minute algebra homework.
You know, I like to think that people who trot out the 'shouldn't have' line are the most pathetic creatures of all. They really do not have a clue, do they? Not only do they wrongly assume superiority over the rest of the humankind but they have the reasoning abilities of rotting owl pellets. They've clearly never lived either, obvious from their distressingly simplistic view of what it takes to live that life. If you've never made a bad decision then you've probably never made a decision and that results in one big bowl of fuck all.
Expect me to prefer that to a life of highs, lows and surprises? Then I'm sure the Daily Mail or Jeremy Vine would love to hear about it.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Baring All

Never a good look

You know that basic thing you do before you leave the house? Checking yourself in the mirror? Well, I'll be fucked if I haven't discovered that there's a whole sea of people out there who never, ever do it. Yup, thanks to Kraken Junior's rather fabulous US cousins I've become hooked on www.peopleofwalmart.com, a site so stuffed with the hideous personal grooming of Walmart shoppers that it will actually make you dry retch to death.
Walmart, of course, is the US equivalent and owner of Asda. Thank fuck, though, the pics on this website makes Asda look like the Harrods food hall. If I had to come into contact with this or this while pawing through the carrots I'd probably sick up my own lungs.
What makes people think it's OK to go out looking like this? Jesus Christ, I wouldn't dress like these guys if I was on my own personal island and had access to the world's supply of flammable materials. And where do these zombies of the fashion wasteland actually buy their clothes? Seriously, there are items of clothing on this website that not only have I never, ever seen in a shop but I wouldn't know where to find them even if I wanted to. It's like Helen Keller's Spring/ Summer collection although collection of what exactly is impossible to fathom.
Look, I'm no Kate Moss but, fuck me, I do like to tuck in my flabby bits when I leave the house. I also like to make sure that there are no ferrets nesting in my hair or that my tits are sufficiently hoisted to avoid toe stubbage.
Alas, though, thanks to peopleofwalmart.com it's become apparent that even these basics are a step too far for the US Midwest and deep South. Check out the location of each pic and you'll find that there's a stunning regularity of the same states, page after page. It's as if the likes of Texas and Iowa have suffered a collective mental haemorrhage, one that obliterated their sense of taste and their personal dignity. When, in 21st Century America, naked, sagging arse cheeks are a staple of supermarket shopping you can see why they've retained the gun laws.
My biggest fear, though, is that Asda shoppers pick up on the trend for scuffing their own flab rolls along aisle 16. Admittedly, some of them already have but if it gets to the stage where every fucker is doing it I'll start begging for guns to be available too.
So for fuck's sake make sure you check yourself in the mirror before you leave the house. You don't just owe it to yourself. You owe it to the rest of the world.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 19:02:00 +0000

Want Sprinkles On That?

Toy town lives on

Now, I'm cool with rap music. In fact I'm rather partial to some of it. But there is one aspect of the genre that makes me want to beat people to death with a sack of 50 Cent's toes. It's an insidious danger and one that's thrusting a gleaming dagger into the foaming liver of British culture: the trend for the UK's yoofs to refer to the local constabulary as 'feds'.
Feds. F.E.D.S. As in the American slang for police, FBI or any other doughnut-scoffers. There are so many things wrong with this use of the word that my eyes actually bleed when I try to list them.
Have the nation's yoofs any idea how utterly fucking gimpy they sound when they refer to their local bobby as a 'fed'? Yeah, gangsta rap is laced with references to the 'feds' but that's because the likes of Jay-Z, Snoop, 50 Cent and Soulja Boy are American and banging on about life in the scabby arse end of New Yoik. Which means that when some pizza-faced teenager with a computer tan and bum fluff prattles on about 'feds' in the arse end of Dagenham they just sound like twats.
Look, idiots, you live in the U-fucking-K. The police are not 'feds'. They are the police, the fuzz, the pigs, the bobbies, the local constabulary, if you will. If you want to live the 'dream' of rapper-style life, perhaps you could get a one way ticket to LA, join the Crips and be bullet-riddled by the time you're 25. Something, though, tells me that just like US gangsta rap not always translating to the UK, neither would a pigeon-chested yoof from Nelson Mandela House in Clapham translate to where existence really is rap come to life.
And while I'm at it, you get the same boggling result when you see said yoofs rapping on Channel AKA, the music channel of choice if you enjoy the company of guns and hos. One minute your witnessing Soulja Boy prattling his arse off in a LA ghetto and the next you're watching Nigel rapping outside his local Cost Cutter. And no, Nige, oversized trackie bottoms and a nick in your eyebrow from your mother's leg razor really don't cut it. Believe me, if they did you wouldn't look like a tit.
So if these toy town gangstas want to be taken seriously then perhaps they should start to own their experiences rather than trying to crowbar them into the lyrics of a Jay-Z effort. And that means ditching the 'feds' reference and writing raps about cans of Strongbow and arsing about on the park swings instead. That is unless toy toy gangstering really is the next big thing.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:22:00 +0000

The Queen is Dead

Being a tit

When is Madonna going to piss off and leave us all alone? If there's any chance that we could make that some time in the next ten minutes I'd be just about chuffed to fuck. My problem? Her desperation to remain relevant. And when I say desperation, she stinks of the stuff so much she's like a decommissioned fishing trawler.
Just what is it with her nightly waggling of guns and tits on her MDNA tour? I've thought long and hard about what her message could be but, sorry, outside of her wanting to look like a drunken nutbag stumbling out of Castle Bingo at midnight I'm at a complete loss.
Funny thing is that when other turns do this stuff I really don't give a shit. Yet when Madge does it I get the urge to beat her to death with a cone shaped bra. I reckon it's because, for me, everything she does appears to be so utterly calculated that it destroys the value of her actions. I mean, do you think for a moment that she dug the guns out of Rocco's toy box and whipped out her tit on a whim? Jesus, no. I reckon those additions to her schtick followed an arduous meeting where Madge and various execs shook their noggins until they came up with what they thought would make her look cutting edge. Then they built spreadsheets, graphs and pie charts to decide at what point this stuff should be used in her show. And that's not to say that such gigs aren't planned to death. But only Madonna could take an apparently random act and suck the spontaneity from it until it's as random as the outcome of 2+2.
And another problem with Madge's latest attempt at relevancy is that it's just, well, so dull. Guns? It's been done. Tits? Madge, love, you drained that well back in the 90s. Suddenly, rather than being cutting edge Madge looks as if she's on the trailing edge. Whether Madge likes it or not Gaga hasn't just nipped at her heels, she's chewed off her feet and pissed on the stumps. And yeah, there's room for two in this game, but not when one of them - Madge - looks so panic stricken.
So, if Madge wants to liven up her MDNA tour by whipping out sparkly piglets rather than guns, I'd love it. And if she swapped her bap flashing for dressing as the Eiffel Tower then I'd be all admiration. Until then, I'm just going to remain deflated and disappointed that Her Madgesty, the queen of all she surveys, finally came to this.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:34:00 +0000

F is For...

Quite

The definition of frustration: teaching a four year old to write. Jesus Christ, it's like teaching a squid to read Ulysses. Now, Kraken Junior wants to know how to write. This as sure as shit isn't my idea. Yet I've agreed to sit down with a biro that's being wielded like a nuclear weapon.
But, fuck me, this whole endeavour is the agonising equivalent of sticking darning needles through my nipples. I just do not have the patience. So I sit at the table, endlessly muttering things like "a line with a dot on the top" and "like a u with a curly tail" all while digging my nails so deeply into my palms that I'm developing stigmata.
It's frigging killing me. Kraken Junior needs to master the entire English language within the next, I dunno, three weeks if she wants to survive the next eighty years.
For example, this evening KJ wanted to write cards to her nursery-based cohorts. I agreed to this foolhardiness which resulted in me growling over missives which I'd have happily set alight.
Have you any idea how many times I said, "T! T!. For God's sake it's the letter T! It's a line up and a line across! T! Tuh-eeee!"? And have you any idea how many times KJ said, "I know! I know!" before writing the letter S?
Fuckety-fuck and back again. And I know that there are women out there who endlessly have time to sit with their kids to help them leap such developmental hurdles but bollocks to that. I'm not that kind of muvva. Instead I'd happily pack KJ off to learn this stuff, having her returned when, and only when, I no longer have to explain how Ds are backwards Bs.
And just think. She's four. So I have at least another 12 years of her staring at her homework like a bewildered bus station drunk. Oh, the fun we'll have. Her screaming, me screaming, the police being called...and all over some poxy set of equations that, if you squint at them long enough, read 'gin&tonic, gin&tonic'. Believe me, I couldn't do this stuff thirty years ago. I'm pretty fucking sure that age, a breakdown and medication haven't enhanced my abilities.
So if there's anyone out there who'd like to take over the domestic teaching duties - except for Gary Glitter - feel free to let me know. I've got an ambitious little four year old and, somehow, I'm expected to survive it.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:17:00 +0000

Fishy Business

If only it was this exciting

Bugger me if this last weekend didn't present me with the most freakish sight. Perusing the TV listings for the weekend I discovered that Sky Sports 2 was broadcasting Fish O Mania, five and a half hours of live - yes, live - fishing. On Saturday. And on Sunday.
I'm almost at a loss for words but, fearing a revolt from you kraken-followers, I'll cobble one or two together. Would you mind if the first word I used was...
...Fuck. Me. It's hard to imagine what a total of 11 hours of live fishing coverage must look like but let's just say that Dulux could probably sponsor it as a less exciting alternative to watching magnolia emulsion dry in a downstairs toilet.
Who in the frig settles down for a weekend of live fishing coverage on the telly? Thing is, if you like fishing get the frig out there and do it yourself. It's hardly one of those inaccessible sports that we can only experience from the sofa, is it? It's not the fucking bobsled. Or the Tour de France. It's fishing. F.I.S.H.I.N.G. It's sitting on a river bank with a rod, a bag of maggots and an arse even number than an Eskimo's.
Course, I'm blogging here about a show I didn't even watch. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I should have, though, because now I am obsessing over what the fuck Sky found to fill 11 watery hours. Unless it was the drama of fishermen being swallowed whole by line-caught sharks I'm at a loss. Perhaps it went something like this:

Opening Credits
Cut to commentator
Commentator nudged awake
Cut to riverbank
Close up of water
Action shot of maggots
Cut to competitor
Competitor nudged awake
Commentator says "Big rod"
Cut to water
Action shot of grass
Competitor starts snoring
Cut to sleeping maggots
Action shot of twitching rod
Commentator says "For fuck's sake"
Closing credits

So that's 11 full hours of fuck all that I've saved you there. Don't say that I never give you anything.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:34:00 +0000

Meh

Ever so slightly crushed

You know, I can't be arsed to find out who said that life was a series of crushing disappointments but, by Christ, whoever it was was talking about my day. Yesterday. Sunday 15 July 2012. Now, hard as this may be to believe, I like to think the best of everything and everyone. That's why I'm such an arsy kraken, because I then feel continually let down by the idiocy of those around me.
Anyway, here is today's series of disappointments, each one yet another kick in my knackersack of optimism.
1. Went to the Little Welsh Nibble which was advertised as a festival of food. We arrived to find that it consisted of a sole Italian trying to sear fish on a primus stove in a draughty fucking tent.
2. We ordered lunch and were told by the feckless cashier that she was crap at using the sole tool of her trade, the cash machine. And lo! this came to pass when she fucked up our order and lunch arrived later than a pregnant woman's period.
3. Upon asking the 'festival' (ha!) receptionist why there wasn't more to said 'festival' (ha!) we received a miserly shrug and the suggestion that we read the flyer. For fuck's sake...
4. We then went to Sainsbury's for coffee n cake and the disinterested staff turned us away because they'd stopped serving a full two minutes earlier. Two. Minutes.
5. So we went to Sainsbury's cake counter instead. And waited. And waited. And waited. Until someone came to serve us, running from wherever they were having a craft fag/ shit beforehand.
6. I asked for a slice of carrot cake. Fuck me if what I got, out of the eight slices on offer, was the thinnest, poxiest, gammiest slice of cake this side of an anorexics' convention.
7. Upon leaving Sainsbury's we asked the 'Here to help you!' woman when the cafe opened. You know what she told us, this font of supermarket knowledge? That she didn't know. She didn't fucking know.
8. Finbally got home to find that t'interweb didn't work unless I sat in a particular bloody chair by a particular bloody window at a particular bloody angle.
So you know who I feel like right now? Charlton Heston at the end of The Planet of the Apes. Except instead of screaming at the crumpled Statue of Liberty I'm screaming at the piss poor examples of humanity surrounding me. "God damn you all to hell!" Disappointed? You don't say.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:34:00 +0000

Carcrap

Something for the lucky laydee?

Today, lucky kraken-lovers, I thought you'd like to hear about my car-buying experiences. I know, I know, you can thank me when you see me. Anyway, my little kraken family and I bought a car this weekend, and while it was eventful only because it was piss easy, it did remind me of the utter fucking horrors of my previous 41 years.
You know, being a car buying woman is the equivalent of Gary Glitter managing an outlet of Mothercare: for some reason it horrifies people. Whenever I have stepped onto a garage forecourt with a pocket full of cash I'm either laughingly regarded as a girl who mistook the showroom for a shoe shop or I'm spoken to as if I'm Helen Keller. Invariably the experience includes being accosted by a man with a Burtons suit and a gob full of transparent sales talk, the sort these guys don't expect you to see through for the simple reason that you have periods. If I'm there alone I'm spoken to as if I'm planning to leap from a ledge. If I'm with a man I don't get spoken to at all, even if I'm asking the questions, or I become the lucky recipient of quips about car colours and whether the pram will fit in the boot. Fuckers.
I did, though, come face to face with the devil incarnate when I wandered into Newport's Carcraft a few years ago and I'm as sure as shit that this would never have happened to a bloke. After buying a car for exactly the amount I wanted to spend - my haggling was a thing of tear-inducing beauty - I was ushered into a little room where the sales guy (with the obligatory lurid tie) tried to coerce me into buying a warranty. Course, he was dealing with The Kraken and, by Christ, The Kraken said no.
This, though, wasn't good enough for the fat fuck because he kept on and on and on about it, each time getting more and more puce-faced. In fact, with each of my refusals to buy his warranty he became more bananas until he was standing over his desk, slapping it with his hands and yelling at me. Yes, yelling. And moi? I just sat there smiling, watching his commission slipping away from his greasy grasp. It was at this point that he raged from the room, quite possibly to succumb to a stroke, only for an older, calmer sales guy to try his luck on me. This greaser had a little more sense, realising that I'd dug my hooves in so hard he'd need the tow truck to get me out. Minutes later I was released back into the wild, giving the infuriated salesman a jaunty wave as I went. As I said, this was in Carcraft in Newport. Avoid the fuckers like it's a plague-infested black rat.
Anyway, would this have happened to a man I wonder? Fuck no. Which is why went we want car-shopping this weekend I was expecting bloodstains on the forecourt. Because after 41 years of being treated like an imbecile when it comes to distributor caps I'm pretty much up to here with the patronising banter and condescending chat.
Thankfully for this weekend though, I'm now the owner of a car without having paid with my dignity. Yup, it was cash only and, you know, for the first time ever, I don't feel the need for ram raiding.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 13:05:00 +0000

What Progress?

Laughing all the way to the Dark Ages

Know what? There aren't words grim enough to explain how much I despise the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2. I despise it in the way I'd despise my house being raided by burgling perverts dressed as cats. The show touts itself as a two hour discussion of topical news items but the reality is that it's ignorant chatter for the hard of thinking. If it was piped into a creche it'd make babies farts sound more informed.
Today I caught enough of the show to hear that not only was Vine discussing the Higgs Boson discovery at CERN but he was actively encouraging listeners to denounce this boggling scientific feat as a load of old cock made up by 'boffins' (his word). In fact, from what I have heard of this segment I suspect that when said show was over Vine threw on his mammoth-fur coat and nipped outside for a little light rock chucking at the yellow ball in the sky.
I'm at a loss as to how the words come out of this guy's mouth without his heart stopping at the sheer mortification of sharing a body with his brain. In fact today I heard him ask a professor of physics why he's been wasting his time at CERN when he could have been inventing a mobile phone battery that never runs out. Oh fuckety fuck and fuck again. I really did hear that didn't I? I mean, it's not the terrible result of me having had a massive stroke?
Someone seriously needs to stop this man before he drags the intellectual standards of the nation through the core of the earth. Having gone through the joy of hearing the news from CERN this morning I am now going through the despair of realising that some people are genuinely disinterested in the one thing that separates us from three-toed sloths. But then again, that's Tunbridge Wells for you.
So burgling perverts dressed a cats? You know, on second thoughts I'd welcome them. At least they'd have some modicum of imagination and that's gotta be one step forward from Vine and his white-van witterings.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Gender Bending

Still not good enough for
the Daily Mail

Foaming, yet beloved, kraken-lovers I have a treat for you. Today I'm bleating my brand of bleat from an altogether different class of soap box, the wimmin's website The Vagenda.
As ever I'm kicking around the Daily Mail for the delightful way in which it's gaily reduced the talented and ball-busting Beyonce to an ill-performing chinwagger and tinkly male sidekick at the recent BET awards. Oh shame on you Bay, for not giggling behind your fan at the sheer joy of bagging a husband. Shame on you.
Anyway, goggle at the whole vile DM malarchy - and my unending fury at the patronising fuckers - right here.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:51:00 +0000

Afternoon Delight

Not that kind of dogging

Ew, ew, ew and ew again. Other people can be so abso-fucking-lutely vile. And do you want to know why I'm barking this fevered generalisation? Because my little kraken family and I have just been for an afternoon walk in a glorious Forestry Commission, er, forest and the only wildlife we saw were - get this - doggers.
Yeah. Ew. Doggers. Not exactly what I thought we'd find behind the rustling undergrowth at 2pm on any given Sunday. It's a popular spot for families too, as proven by the sculpture trails, kiddie treats and the many haggard parents forcing their squalling offspring into delighting in the outdoors. Problem was that local skanks and lurkers had gathered for their own brand of afternoon delight too.
I knew something was afoot - or possibly acock - when we got back to the car park and found a large selection of single men hanging about like extras from Dawn of the Dead. So furtive looking were they that it took mere minutes to work out what was going on and, by fuck, it wasn't the traditional meaning of Sunday stuffing. So as Kraken Junior and numerous other nippers frolicked amongst the dragon and owl carvings that had been laid on by the FC, the place became increasingly cluttered by the other type of wood-lover. One quick rummage on Google later and all was revealed, much like the perverts poking about behind the beech trees.
How utterly bloody grim. Look, if you want to roll around in badger shit with a stranger's unwashed dick you go for it. I'm sure that's great fun if you're happy to play Russian roulette with some form of pox. I'd just appreciate it, though, if you didn't do it in a family play area bang in the middle of a Sunday when I'm trying to lure my kid into the fresh fucking air.
By all accounts the FC is doing its best to put an end to this sort of fetid rummaging by encouraging in families, cyclists, horse-riders and anyone else with sturdy footwear. And had I been knocking about in the forest at 10pm this lurid behaviour would only have made me laugh (let's just say the men's desperation stank even more than the shit dolloped on the near bridleway). But come on. Dogging amongst families? Couldn't these guys have respect for something other than their laden knackersacks and either find somewhere else to prowl or have a stout wank in the comfort of their own shower trays?
So thanks, local pervs, for making our lovely Sunday foray really enjoyable. Not only have I been left with a foul taste in my mouth - just like you but for different reasons, I'm happy to add - but that's one more unsafe place for KJ to visit.
Wankers, the lot of you and no, that wasn't a fucking request.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 20:12:00 +0000

Rolling in It

'Avin a Faaaag

Whoa there! So, pillow-faced pop warbler Adele is up le duff. Welcome to the flap-fooffed club, Adele love. Believe me, it's going to do some real damage to that 24 years of yours. May I suggest that your next album is called I'm 24 but Look Forty-Fucking-Eight?
Bearing in mind that her last album, 21, was all about the break-up of her relationship and that her private life is a searing pit of inspiration for her songs, does this mean that her next chart-botherer will be about her skirmish with childbirth?
Well, if it is, based upon 21's track listing, this is what it'll sound like...

Rolling in the Deepest, Tongue Exploding, Arse-Ripping Agony

Rumour Has It That This'll Really Fucking Destroy My Social Life, Sex Life, Career...

Turning Babies With a Midwife's Hand Shoved Up My Love Tunnel

Don't You Ever Touch Me Again You Bastard

Set Fire to the Pain Because I'd Like to Die Now Please. Please?

He Won't Go Even Though I'm Pushing Like an Overheating Tractor

Take It All: Baby, Uterus, Ovaries, Flaps, the Lot...

I'll Be Waiting for the Next Nine What?

One and Only Because I'm Never Fucking Ever Doing This Again

Lovesong? Well It Has To Be Better Than That Fucking Whale Music

Someone With a Ventouse

Personally, I'm looking forward to this being perpetually on the Radio 2 playlist. Happy to be pregnant, Adele, dearie? Just let me know if you want to amend that after the first contraction.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:10:00 +0000

Down and Out

Here we go again

There's never a good time to be broke but, fuck me, if the Tories have managed to make poverty even more painful than it already is. Apart from all the blathering about pasty, granny and stamp taxes anyone who is stringing together a living in the hideous region of the poverty line is this far from being dragged through the streets and derided by Etonian toss-jockey David Cameron himself.
For a start foodbanks are the hot new thing if you're at all worried about how you're going to fed your kids. Foodbanks. In 20-fucking-12. Jesus, I thought foodbanks had disappeared with Dickens and chimney-climbing toddlers. But no. They're springing up all over the country, where donations of food are being given to families who are now so broke that going to bed hungry is par for the course.
Add to that the latest news, that some councils have suffered so many cuts that they can no longer afford to house families on their waiting lists, and poverty starts to look like laugh a frigging minute.
Problem is, though, that this means asking the most poverty stricken and vulnerable in society to up sticks and move to a completely different area which could be hundreds of miles away. Genius. Imagine it. You've got no money, no job and no prospects and your family relies on a foodbank just to get through the week, then on top of all that you're expected to leave your friends and family just to be dumped fuck-knows-where in an identikit estate where your chances of work, money and prospects are even lower simply because you're a stranger in town.
This has to be the closest the poor have ever gotten to being pieces of rancid meat, all but being ferried around in crates because no one wants them. And even if the kids of these unwanted families manage to see through their teens unscathed they then have to look forward to a raging dose of youth unemployment. They can't even stave this off with a stint of further education because university fees are so staggeringly high. Christ, I'd end up disillusioned and rioting too. In fact rioting would be the least of what I'd get up to.
How the nation gets out of this mess is beyond me. I do have one hope though: that the short-sighted fucks who voted Tory at the last election snap out of their reverie and realise what a whopping enormous mistake they have made thus rectifying their devastating brainfuck in the next election. I'm not saying that Labour is the answer - I wouldn't buy so much as a mop from Milliband - but it has to better than this vile representation of 21st Century Britain.
Remember, Cameron sleeps at night. You sure as shit can't say the same thing about the families who are living with poverty, hunger and abandonment. In fact it'll be a while before they get a good night's kip again. Hopefully that while is a short one. Let's end it the next time we have to put a cross in the box.
(By the way, I thought I'd ranted about this already but it looks like I haven't. I apologise. I didn't mean to spare you like that.)

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 17:01:00 +0000

Pushed

Weapon of choice

If, the next time I go into a supermarket, I get stuck behind two shoppers who are pushing their trolleys abreast of each other while chatting about fuck all I'm going to beat them to death with a frozen chicken.
I despise supermarkets and avoid them in the same way that Mel Gibson avoids anger management therapy or decent film scripts. Yet today I was forced into such a store only to find myself plodding up n down aisles behind rolling roadblocks otherwise known as social fucking shoppers. I say social because these people go to the shops in the same way that most people go clubbing or dog-walking. You know, just for the fun of it.
I've also noticed that this breach of shopping etiquette seems to be down to, sadly, women. Usually, in my gnashing experience, it's mothers and their grown up daughters, nudging their trolleys at an identical pace as if they are surgically attached, all the time discussing the undoubtedly gripping pros and cons of washing powder or Rich Tea biscuits.
What in the fuck is wrong with these people? For a start who in the giddy pits of hell goes to a supermarket for a stroll and a natter? Worse, which self-absorbed nutbags forget that they aren't the only shoppers in the entire building and that while they are twatting their way through their shopping lists, people snake queue-like behind them. Are these people so terminally insensitive that they'll hog aisle after aisle like Victoria Beckham being treated to a private opening of a Gucci store? In a word: yes. In another word: bastards.
So I'm going to start ram raiding these shoppers of doom, scuffing at their heels with my own overloaded trolley until they hobble from the store, leaving me to do what I'm there to do: grab milk, run and get on with a far more interesting Tesco-lite life. Oh, and remind me to swing that frozen chicken around while I'm at it.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:45:00 +0000

Bloody Hell

Pass the toilet duck

Oh my giddy shit. I've witnessed something so grim that if I could remove my brain and soak it in Toilet Duck I would. Problem is, this isn't the first time I've been privy to this act of human vileness so had I really been soaking my brain it'd be the size of a fucking callus by now. Anyway, want to know what this portal to hell actually is? Get this: blood smeared on the walls of a women's toilet cubicle.
Indeed, there I was, lowering my feminine portions onto the porcelain - in the rather fancy Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff to be specific - when I looked up to find that the cubicle I'd stumbled into was actually scenery from The Exorcist. Fuck knows, perhaps it really was the work of a drama student run amok with a bucket of fake gizzards. But then again perhaps it was the work of a woman who'd seen fit to daub her menstrual outpourings over every available surface as a handy alternative to tampons.
What, pray, the fuck? Why would a woman ever do something so utterly bleak in a place of public comfort? I find it hard to imagine what thoughts precede an act so puerile that it's the equivalent of a toddler smearing baked beans through its own hair.
The thing is, this isn't the first time I've found myself staggering from a bog within moments of discovering that it was previously inhabited by Freddie bloody Kruger. OK, so it's not a daily occurrence (where in the fuck do you think I live?) but it's happened often enough over the years to make me fear for my own hygiene whenever I take a public dump.
Look, there are lots of things I like to do when I'm in the grips of the crimson tide. Swig straight from a bottle of rum, holler at the unsuspecting, paw uselessly at my throbbing abdomen. But smearing the produce of my fertility over vertical surfaces? Er, no. I can't say that's ever crossed my mind, even when I'm gnashing at that vaguely static plastic that passes for tampon packaging.
So who, exactly, does this? What would the photofit of a blood-smearing po perp actually look like? I'm imagining some swivel-eyed mouth-breather who forms thoughts about as often as Alan Titchmarsh produces watchable telly. Never fucking ever. Alas, though, I fear it's better to not know. After all, my faith in humanity is flimsy enough without discovering that it's intelligent, career loving women-folk who indulge in such atrocities. Bloody hell? Exactly.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:53:00 +0000

West-Ends

Men at C&A

D'you think the members of Westlife are actually ashamed of themselves for churning out such ear-blistering shite that self-decapitation is the only antidote to their warblings? And yeah, I know that they've split up - easily their greatest ever contribution to music - but I still just saw one of their videos on telly and wept openly and violently at the banality of it all.
God, imagine having made an entire career out of producing such soppy bollocks that you've become the very definition of a Mother's Day present. If Westlife's work was my reward for the fact that childbirth was the equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping through my love tunnel, my celebration of said event would involve a blender and Kraken Junior's fingers.
Anyway, back to the blarney...Not only have Messrs Byrne at al happily agreed to churn out what also passes for funeral durgery but they've also spent the greater part of their careers staring into any approaching camera as if they've found a lump in their collective knackersack. On the days when they had to make videos by gawping achingly into a lens I wonder if they actually felt a small part of their souls being bludgeoned. No wonder Louie Walsh, their ex-manager, looks as if he's been drinking from the fountain of youth. What he's really been doing is drinking the tears of these bewildered Irishmen as, yet again, they burble through turgid lyrics.
No wonder the boy Walsh was accused of making up stories about the lads for the delectation of the media because in reality the pop-throttlers look about as exciting as a set of taps. Fair play though, he stuck to tales of them being eaten by lions or violently injured rather than claiming more ludicrous assertions such as them producing groundbreaking mash-ups.
Now that they've called it quits - oh thank fuck, thank fuck, thank fuck - all that's left to do is erase their back catalogue in a global implosion that forms a black hole for any song that requires said singers to fawn like castrated pups. Failing that I'd be happy to administer my own kick to the group's biffins. All in the name of good music, of course.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:42:00 +0000

Festival Hell

Wet wipe, anyone?

You know what I really fucking hate about the Great British summer? The insidious creep of festivals and festival fashion. These wellies reminded me. until a few years ago, if you stumbled to within even ten miles of the Glasto festival you were considered an unwashed scrote who had fuck all better to do than scramble over Worthy Farm's fences. Now if your summer is devoid of a trip to a festering, fly-caked portaloo you're considered about as fashionable as a kick to the knackers.
Jesus, spare me. Look, if I wanted to stumble about with thousands of bewildered arsewipes while desperate for a hot meal and a quiet dump I'd spend a weekend at Heathrow's terminal five. I as sure as shit wouldn't fork out £100 for the trauma to be soundtracked by Bruce bloody Springsteen as I took a piss in a bottle because the toilets were so far away that they have their own transport system.
All of which means I won't be indulging in the ubiquitous festival fashion either. Christ, from spring onwards shops across the land wedge themselves full of tribal prints, absurd wellies and fucking kagoules. In fact it's become an industry of its own where even if you're choosing hot water and a comfy bed over a summer of sleeping in mud puddles you're still expected to dress as if you've been turfed out of the family home and forced to forage for grubs and worms.
And what makes me queasier than trodden-on kebab is the way that the middle classes have adopted the festival circuit for its own. Suddenly summer is all about taking Oscar and Amelia for a mind-broadening stint in a 50,000-strong queue for the one portaloo that isn't actually levitating from its own contents. By all accounts this seems to have replaced the annual jaunt to Tuscany which, until a few years ago, was what preoccupied the nation's newspapers. Now said travel features have been replaced with the deeply unappetising must-sees of the hastily knocked up stage three miles down the road. Jesus.
So I'll be fucked if I'll be donning bleached braids and a smear of cow shit this summer. And you as sure as shit won't find me wedged into a crowd of thousands as I flap at my increasingly niffy underparts with the last wet wipe on the site. Instead you'll find me actually enjoying my Great British summer, taking regular showers and laughing at how Oscar and Amelia keep moaning because Glasto's big screens don't feature C-bloody-Beebies. Festival fashion? Of for fuck's sake...

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:22:00 +0000

It's a Mystery

Back to your traffic cones, lads

You know, one of things I'll never understand about the festering human race is how popular Monty Python was and, fuck knows, still seems to be. I mean, it's like trying to comprehend the actions of Sadam Hussein or why people watch the X-Factor. It's beyond me.
Truth is, I've never seen a Monty Python sketch and laughed. Ever. In fact I have never seen one and smiled, internally sniggered or even vaguely forgot that another channel was probably broadcasting something infinitely more entertaining/ funny/ intelligent.
For a start listening to any Monty Python utterance is like listening to a gaggle of 12 year old boys trying to be funny. Are 12 year old boys funny though? Fuck no. And they certainly aren't funny enough to warrant the sort of befuddled adoration that Cleese and his cohorts have attracted. I even remember hearing Monty Python at a comp school sports day - some trying-to-be-popular bell ends were playing a cassette on their new fangled audio machine - and failed to see what the fuck was funny. Believe me, 30 years on I'm still agog that those kids couldn't find more amusement in white noise.
And for me this theory has been not just tested like Five Mile Island but it's been proven by the fact that in my experience (so get ready for a hastily constructed generalisation) the only people who ever laugh at Monty Python are men. I have honestly never met a woman who thought that Palin and his mates were anything other than graduates spouting puerile bollocks in between wearing traffic cones on their heads.
Of course, being critical of Monty Python gets me the same reaction as when I am critical of the Beatles: bemusement that I haven't been sucked in by the endless hyperbolic outpourings of the media and succumbed to liking them.
Seriously, if I want to hear anyone banging on about dead parrots or see Confucius blowing a whistle I'll go back to my psych unit and hang about the waiting room. I don't need some sniggering Cambridge tossers to bang on about it for me. If only the rest of the world would realise that. Jesus, talk about a Holy Grail.

noreply@blogger.com (The Kraken) — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:32:00 +0000

Too Many Cooks...

Blah, blah, blah...

Darling kraken-lovers, you may have guessed by now that I have a pathological hatred of television chefs. Tossing salt at your food from a great distance and turning parsnips into jus is about as entertaining as a foaming bout of piles. So it goes without saying that when it comes to Gordon Ramsay I actually develop the urge to self harm. What a complete and utter map-faced twat.
It's not his swearing that bothers me. Fuck no. It's his attitude towards the rest of the world. How he has the flaring cheek to flounce into the kitchen of some backwater pub before screaming at the acne-cursed chef because his pie n mash isn't up to Ramsay's impossible standards. What the frig is that all about? Ramsay, love, if said pus-ridden cook was capable of knocking out some oddly-titled dish in the way that you are I dare say he'd be working at the heart of the London elite too, rather than weeping over his career in the Dog n Duck.
Worse, is when smouldering volcano Ramsay gets the hump because the people he is screaming at dare, yes dare, to answer him back. Whoa there Ramsay. Has your common sense shrivelled after too many hours over a boiling vat of fuck-knows-what? Exactly what is going on, that this guy thinks he's allowed to shriek and swear at people yet they are not allowed to do the same to him? Jesus, have you seen how indignant he looks when the bloke who knocks out chips day after day actually retorts?
The thing is that I'd love a face-to-face with Ramsay. I'd love it more than a hastily fried egg smothered in tomato sauce. Not only am I confident that I could out-swear him (what you see on here is a mere sample of the depths to which my language can plumb) but I know for a fact that I could argue back at him until he's left weeping among a pile of his own spud peelings.
See, that's because I have no patience for the likes of Ramsay, a spluttering telly chef who thinks that if he harrangues people for long enough he'll get whatever he wants. I'm pretty sure that I could give him something he doesn't want though, and that'd be a dose of his own over-seasoned medicine.
Come into my kitchen Ramsay, you overblown egg-cracker, and I'll show you a new use for the wooden spoon and, believe me, it won't go anywhere near your cooking.