Mothering Sunday

It's Mothering Sunday tomorrow readers, or Mothers' Day as our American cousins call it, although interestingly it's not Mothers' Day in America tomorrow. In fact, you might be surprised to find out that Mothers' Day or Mothering Sunday (as we rightly call it) is on a different day of the year all over the place.

Some people call it a Hallmark Holiday, in reference to the firm called Hallmark that makes greetings cards. Cynics have suggested that the reason we have different dates in different places for celebrating our Mums is so that Hallmark can sell cards all year around, rather than lumping all their revenue on one date.

I think that's a terrible viewpoint. That said, I totally forgot it was Mothering Sunday until this morning when I looked at the calendar and so now I've missed the post. So Hallmark won't be making any money out of me anyway.

I can't believe, in this day and age, that the Royal Mail still refuses to deliver letters on a Sunday. You can bet your bottom dollar it's not because the postmen are all in church. They're more likely to be down the bookies. Is it any wonder that the Royal Mail is going out of business?

Speaking of the Royal Mail, in the week, I read about a postmaster in Nottingham who was refusing to serve customers who cannot speak English. It sounds like out and out racism, yet amazingly, the postmaster in question was born in Sri Lanka. You would think he'd be sympathetic towards immigrants. He claims that he cannot serve them, because he cannot understand them.

I wonder if he still serves his mute customers?

Anyway, I thought I'd post on the blog today, because tomorrow I was thinking of going up to Lincoln to visit my Mum. Whom I love more than words.

I was going to nip down to the High Street and buy Mum Lionel Richie's latest album. He was on Jonathan Ross last night promoting it. My Mum loves Lionel. Though, I'm not sure she'd be too pleased that he appeared on Ross's show. After the furore with Russell Brand and the granddaughter of Manuel out of Fawlty Towers.

She was not too pleased that Ross and Russ got their jobs back, especially in the current economic climate. There are plenty of talented presenters out there, like Michael Parkinson, who wouldn't dream of phoning up national treasures and taunting them about the sexual habits of their family.

It's a disgwace. As Ross would probably say.

Lionel Richie wrote a song about his Mum (Mrs Richie, not Mrs Ross). You've probably heard of it. Three times a lady. It's a beautiful tune with a lovely sentiment.

Thanks for the times
That you've given me
The memories are all in my mind
And now that we've come
To the end of our rainbow
There's something
I must say out loud
You're once, twice
Three times a lady
Yes you're once twice
Three times a lady
And I love you

When we are together
The moments I cherish
With every beat of my heart
To touch you to hold you
To feel you to need you
There's nothing to keep us apart
You're once twice
Three times a lady
And I love you
I love you

Now I love my Mum readers, as you know, but that second verse is a bit dodge. Makes you wonder what went on in the Richie household. You hear about these child stars and sometimes it's not all sunshine and light.

They say that there's no smoke without fire. You've only got to look at how Lionel's own daughter, Nicole, has turned out. She's forever tumbling out of some bar or club with Paris Hilton. And we all know what she's like.

I'm pretty sure Mum wouldn't approve if I took up with Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie. I'd be much better off with someone like Amber. We're on at Blockbusters later today, maybe I'll see if she fancies going for lunch tomorrow. I can always give Mum a ring or something. She's probably forgotten it's Mothering Sunday anyway.

PORN!!!

OMG!

OMG!

You won't believe what I've discovered!

Two days ago I announced my new concept: The Oyster - London's first free commuter pornographic magazine.

I was inspired by the ten-year success of my fav newspaper, the Metro. It seems such a simple concept, handing out a free newspaper to commuters in the mornings, where the content had already appeared in the London Evening Standard the night before, and selling advertising space against it.

It's yesterday's news tomorrow.

It's bloody genius really, so much so that The London Lite, The London Paper, City AM, Sport and Shortlist have all ripped off the business model and attempted to undercut the Metro's advertising spend by offering the commuters of London an alternative version of the paper they love.

Essentially, though, it's reinventing the wheel. It's diluting the advertising cordial. There must be another way?!@?

Two days ago, I spotted a gap in the market based on the success of newspapers such as The Sun, The Star, the Sunday Sport and Razzle.

Boobs.

I dreamed up with the concept of The Oyster - London's premier adult entertainment freesheet.

Sex sell readers!!

In order to build a business model, I decided that I'd need to carry out some research.

The success of the freesheets is based around repurposing material. That's literally copying something and selling it as something new. For The Oyster, I'd need to repurpose adult entertainment.

But where the hell was I going to find an almost limitless supply of filth?

I decided to research content for The Oyster online.

It didn't take much work. Try it for yourself, just type 'porn' into Google. You'll be amazed.

Although, I would add that if you work in an organisation that has IT support or Systems Administration in place, you should probably wait until you get home.

I know someone who was accused of looking at porn at work and he was totally innocent. The management called him aside and asked him about his "surfing habits", they said "maybe there are sites you shouldn't look at". He definitely wasn't looking at sites with material that was unacceptable to company policy, he suggested that it was probably one of the cleaners who was accessing his computer when everyone had left. In the end the management decided that they'd get a new cleaning contract.

Problem solved!

Frankly, I've found stuff on the Internet that would make a prostitute blush. Honestly readers, the Internet is literally riddled with filth.

Try it for yourself, go to Google and type in something soul-destroyingly obscene. I bet you a million pounds whatever you can think of, however depraved, already exists on the Internet.

I spent all evening looking at a wide variety of pornographic websites, of every possible persuasion, purely, I might add, for research purposes, and I can reveal that I can think of nothing that is not on the Internet.

A MONKEY WANKING A HORSE!!!!!

Jeesh, who gets a kick out of that?

There's so much porn on the Internet that I can't even begin to catalogue it all here. What I will say is that there is enough material freely available that The Oyster is never going to struggle for content.

All I need to do now is line up a few advertisers. I can almost certainly change the landscape of publishing forever. Who would've believed that sex sells on the internet?

The mind boggles.

To be sure

Happy St Patrick's Day to my excellent Irish followers, the three ems, Mark, Molly and Marek.

And Happy St Patrick's Day also to all the bandwagon-jumping people out there who use March 17th as a great excuse for nipping down to your local Irish theme bar and drinking Guinness til you fall over.

As regular readers of this blog will know, my usual tipple is a nice can of Cobra, in fact I don't really like Guinness that much. However, as it's St Patrick's Day I've got myself a four pack of Heineken.

I know it's German or something, but it comes in a green can, so at least it looks Irish. And on this day of days, dats half der baddle.

Maybe Jenifer Walker Shannon and my other American followers are also out celebrating. I know, for a FACT, that pretty much every American claims to have Irish ancestry. Even Barack O'Bama has Irish roots. He doesn't look especially Irish, but then neither did Phil Lynott out of Thin Lizzy.

Or Paul McGrath.

But then Tony Cascarino looks more Irish than Barack, Phil and Paul put together, and he wasn't Irish, even though he played 88 times for the national football team.

I've heard of an American drink called the Irish Car Bomb. It's a pint of Guinness and whiskey, with a Bailey's depth charger. OMG!!! A few of those and maybe you really would feel like one the unfortunate victims of car-based explosives.

Seriously though readers, I think that American drink is in pretty bad taste.

You would have thought that the Americans could have renamed that drink the Basra Car Bomb or something similarly topical. But then, they don't really go in for hard drinking in Afghanistan and if there's one thing the Irish are famous for, apart from fighting, it's drinking.

They're also famous for winning the Eurovision song contest. Indeed, the land of the blarney stone holds the record for the most number of wins, having won the contest seven times—including three times in a row in 1992, 1993 and 1994. Maybe Terry Wogan was pulling a few strings! I expect they'll win a few more now that Graham Norton is hosting the festivities.

The Nolans, Boyzone, Westlife and the Commitments all hail from the Emerald Isle. Not to mention U2 and famous pop tramp Bob Gandalf.

Not bad for a country of only a little over four million peeps.

Ireland is also famous for its legendary crack problem. Only, and get this, a night of good crack is viewed in a positive light over there. What a crazy bunch.

I'm going to end today's post with a gag from my fav Irish comedian, Tom O'Connor:

So little Eamonn had returned from Sunday School and his mother asked what he'd learned that day.

'Well,' he said, 'Father O'Malley told us how Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.'

'Indeed,' said Mother. 'And what exactly happened?'

'Well,' went on the little fellow. 'Moses got all the people together and loaded them into buses, lorries and cars. They drove off into the desert at night time and it wasn't till the morning that the Pharaoh found out they'd gone. When he realised what happened he was angry and he gathered all his army together, tanks, halftracks, jeeps and everything.

They chased after the Israelites and they caught them at the Red Sea. Moses had built a pontoon bridge and he'd thrown it across the water and his people were just starting to cross when the Egyptians came up firing their rockets and anti-tank missiles and completely destroyed the Pharaoh's army. Then the people crossed the bridge into the Promised Land.'

'Wow, what a story,' said the mother. 'Is that what Father O'Malley told you?'

'Well, no,' replied Eamon. 'Not quite. But the way Father O'Malley told the tale you'd never believe it!'

;-)

The Oyster

It's been a tumultuous week readers. Last Sunday, I gave an in depth study into the religion of Astrology. It almost goes without saying that I thought predicting the future according to the time and date that you were born sounded about as plausible as transubstantiation or the X-Files.

Thing is, when I came to write a post today I thought I'd look back on the previous week's activities and compare them with my horoscope. Just to recap, here's what was said:

"Business relationships will require solid definition this week. Beginning early Tuesday expect office managers and officials to publicly demand results or announce key policy changes. Much of this may be simple dramatics; don't expect authority figures to actually implement long term changes. The next 11 days will determine the outcome of difficult office dynamics or business power struggles. Wait for concrete signs of change before making public statements. After Wednesday romance and social obligations will be complex. Expect loved ones to compete for your attention or make unusual statements concerning family relationships. Emotions are unpredictable at present: watch for minor outbursts and criticism. Friday calm attitudes return: pace yourself and avoid quick judgements."

Well, look at that! On Tuesday I had a massive run in with Richard at Blockbusters, I thought he was being dramatic at the time, maybe he really won't implement long term changes. And then on Wednesday, after I told Gill about Leigh and the goings on, she gave me a massively hard time.

It's black & white readers, almost everything that my horoscope predicted came true!!!

There's no smoke without fire, so they say, although Michael Jackson's lawyers would probably contend otherwise ;-).

Today, also saw the close of my latest poll on immigration. Not surprisingly the world did not vote entirely against an amnesty on immigration. I think it's fair to say my readers have proved yourselves to be open-minded liberal types with the vast majority coming out in favour of "it depends".

Though, it would probably also be fair comment to say that immigration is not perhaps as burning an issue as certain elements of the media would make out. Since a massive two less people voted in the poll, compared with the seven that voted in the previous week's great crisp debate.

Finally, I would like to wish my fav newspaper, the Metro, a happy tenth birthday. God, it seems like only yesterday that the Metro was born. Now though, the Metro is available in tens of cities across the globe. It's perfect balance of news and fun seized the zeitgeist of the moment and became a new paradigm of news.

There are plenty of imitators, but only one champion of the freesheet. That said, I don't think that the Metro will necessarily rule the roost forever more. There's a gap in the market that I think I have identified.

Sex sells readers. You've only got to look at the success of Britain's number one newspaper. The super soaraway Sun.

It's boobs. Pure & simple. There's a gap in the market for whoever realises that the commuters of modern London are ready for free porn.

I present to you, the readers of the blogospehere, my business plan to really take it to the Metro and hit them where it hurts. I'm not talking about the bollocks, I'm talking about the wallets.

I present you with The Oyster. London's premier adult entertainment freesheet newspaper.

I'll pop up a poll, not the sort that the models in The Oyster would be dancing around, but one that gauges the weight of public opinion on the subject of commuter grumble.

Women!

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, apparently. I don't think I'll ever truly understand the fairer sex.

I told Gill about what Richard had said to me at Blockbusters, and about Leigh. She gave me a really hard time, I couldn't believe it. I'm just trying to put food on the table. I thought she'd be proud of the stand I'd taken, she knows that Leigh and I had become close, but I blew the whistle, and that takes real integrity!

Then after having a massive go, she wanted me to go out to the cinema, it's Orange Wednesday two for the price of one and she wanted to see some damn romcom, I wasn't really in the mood to be honest. Sometimes social obligations can be a little bit complex.

Then she kept going on about how I'd beomce distant, and commitment and moving in. I know it makes sense financially, but I can't be tied down, I seriously think that Amber and I have connected. I made the mistake of telling Gill that Amber reminded me of Mum.

Gill knows I love Mum, to be honest I think she's jealous (Gill, not Mum - Mum never gets jealous, despite what Dad used to say. I've not told you about Dad yet, readers, maybe I'll get around to it one of these days).

Anyway, Gill goes off on one completely about how I'm wasting my time with Blockbusters, and why can't I get back into media sales, and Citizen Journalism is a waste of time. I think it might be moon time :@ her emotions are so unpredictable. I shouldn't be blaming Mother Nature for her outbursts and criticism though, she's only got herself to blame.

In the end she went home in a huff. Didn't even finish her chardoney.

I called up Mum, and you won't believe this, she took Gill's side!!!

I told you that you wouldn't beleieve it, WOMEN!

What's in a blog?

Ok, so, recently my retired school teacher chum Mr Coleman posed a question for me, asking what blogging really is. (Ooh, he won't like that, I've ended a sentence with a preposition. And every teacher knows that prepositions are words that you're not supposed to end sentences with. Unless, of course, they're games teachers, in which case, if my school was anything to go by, they're dictatorial perverts in cheap tracksuits who prefer chatting to sixth form boys in the shower to teaching kids about grammar.

In fact, where i went to school there was this one kid, really cool kid actually, just not very good at sports. But really bright and the girls all loved him. Anyway, he passed out during cross country - which is a stupid idea of a 'game' anyway - and Mr 'Wilkins' the teacher gave him mouth to mouth to resuscitate him. When the cool kid came round, Mr 'Wilkins' banged his head on the ground to knock him out again and carried on giving him mouth to mouth. Poor kid was too scared to tell anyone about it.

This sort of stuff shouldn't be allowed to happen, don't you think? People who work in schools should be subject to some sort of checks to see if they're the kind of people that will bang a kid's head on the ground and then kiss him for ages. I suppose the powers that be would say that no system's perfect and that one or two rotten apples will always slip through the cracks. But that's not good enough. At my school there were three teachers who married pupils (obviously the pupils had left by the time the marriage happened) which means that some kind of relationship was happening when the kids were at school.

Not that i would have minded if Miss Holly, one of our English teachers, had been up for trying it on with me. She was bloody gorgeous.

Anyway, that's no help to the poor lonely kid wandering the playing fields alone at lunchtime, unable to understand why the other kids all laugh and point. Kids can be so cruel, but so can adults. And we, as a society, need to look at these things and see how we can deal with them and stamp them out. NOT that I'm a fan of mob rule and setting fire to paediatricians and all that stuff. Those crazy people that did that ought to understand that paediatricians actually help children, not hurt them.

Bit of a touchy subject, all this, I know. But we can't pretend it doesn't go on. It just makes me so angry that there's nobody looking out for kids like the cool kid I was telling you about earlier. Anyway, I hear he turned out really very well, despite what happened to him.)

Right, back to Mr Coleman's essay question. Actually, you know what? I'm not in the right frame of mind to be doing that now. I'll do it later.

Richard and Barry

Jeesh, just back after a shift at Blockbusters. I cannot comprehend what has just happened.

It seems the credit crunch is coming home to roost. What with people buying dodgy knock offs from Chinese immigrants in pubs and downloading stuff off the Internet, they're much less likely to visit Blockbusters to acquire their evening's entertainment.

My line manager, Ian Beal look-a-like, Richard, said "Barry, I think we're going to have to make some redundancies."

I couldn't beleive my ears, there was no way I was going to let Richard make Barry Newsdesk redundant, not again, not so soon. I had a bit of a conflab regarding certain colleagues. Here's how it ran:

Richard: "Sometimes it's last in, first out."
Barry: "Right, but do you know about Leigh?"
Richard: "No, what about Leigh?"
Barry: "Well, I think he might be on the take."
Richard: "What do you mean on the take?"
Barry: "I'm pretty sure he's stealing from Blockbusters."
Richard: "Stealing?"
Barry: "Yeah, he just uses Blockbusters as a a personal ATM."
Richard: "No way."
Barry: "Yes, he's always nipping off into the store room too,"
Richard: "Doing what?"
Barry: "I can't be sure, but it smells like cannabis."
Richard: "Do yo have any proof?"
Barry: "Not exactly, but you should keep an eye on him."

Well, I wasn't expecting what came next, Richard turned around and told me that I would be his "eyes and ears" in Blockbusters, that the things I'd said amounted to pretty strong allegations and that he "expected results", and if he didn't get "results" he'd be implementing some seriously strategic "policy changes".

To be honest, I think a lot of this was down to simple dramatics and I don't expect Richard to actually implement long term changes for me at Blockbusters.

I hated snitching on Leigh, I think we've become quite close, but it's a dog eat dog world, it's all about the survival of the fittest. I do think Leigh is on the take, and I'm kinda glad Richard mentioned all this to me.

I like to think of the recession like gardening, sometimes you need to do a bit of pruning to make the roses grow!