You Wouldn't Give A Reacharound To A Koala Bear

Welcome back peeps to another edition of dissection and reflection on societies failures. We all have our grudges to bear; some of us just get on with it and refuse to let it bother them. Others choose to let them fester inside their heads and let out their frustrations in one foul swoop. Some gradually exorcise these demons by tackling them head on at every turn. My way of shipping these ill feelings is to write them down in a document at my laptop every Wednesday and release them on an unsuspecting public. This is a very British thing to do. Us Brits like to avoid physical violence and confrontation, so when we get annoyed we tend to write a stern letter hoping that it will be read by the right people. This is virtually the same thing except I don’t expect anything to change; just having regular folk agreeing with my views is enough for me. This week will be all about piracy and the issues around the subject.

When the subject of piracy arises around me my mind wonders into a magical world of swashbuckling adventures, sword fighting and treasure. I instantly think of Pirates of the Caribbean’s Captain Jack Sparrow or One Eyed Willy from The Goonies.  I then try to join in the conversation and the subject is completely different. The argument has nothing to do with sea faring captains or drinking rum with shipmates, far from it. Piracy in our society is far more common and easily done. I am talking of course about the music and film business. I will have to tread carefully on this subject as I am close to the industry through my job, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have an honest opinion on the subject. We have all put a DVD on and skipped through the adverts in an attempt to get to the main menu. We all then have to endure a 30 second guilt trip informing us that piracy is a crime and we all should be purchasing our media in a legal manner. You’ve all seen it; “You wouldn’t steal a handbag, you wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn’t piss on a disabled person, you wouldn’t give a reacharound to a koala bear.” These examples are all unthinkable to a normal, honest person. Except maybe the last one – purely for experimental reasons.

Do the film and music industries really believe that downloading media that someone has shared online is as bad as the aforementioned? It surely has to be put into perspective. I think that there are varying levels of piracy and distinguishing between them has to be done using common sense. If you go to a dodgy market and pick up the latest cinema release from someone who is clearly trying to make a quick buck from exploiting the movie industry then you surely are as bad as the man selling the dodgy copy and you both are committing a crime, fair enough. If you start a website where you get money from sponsorship whilst providing free music and movie downloads to opportunistic people then you deserve the book thrown in your trajectory. Here is the grey area in my mind though. Should you be made to feel like a criminal for doing something that pretty much everyone else who owns a computer has done? Is it still wrong if the masses do it? I am not saying that I do it nor am I saying that I have ever done it but it does raise a valid question. I use a legal streaming software site for all of my audio media. It is a very useful tool to see what new music is available and is great for trying music before you purchase it. I pay to use it monthly and it is approved by the record labels that it promotes.

I get the fact that piracy is rife in our society but putting that 30 second clip on a DVD is just a waste of time in my opinion. For one; I have just purchased the DVD by conventional means so you’re preaching to the wrong person. I’m not going to by a pirate DVD straight after the one I’m watching just because it didn’t warn me. What it is hoping to gain by telling ME that piracy is a crime? I just bought the damn thing; I’m not the one you should be after. Imagine you get arrested for illegally purchasing a pirated movie. You get six months in prison, shortened to two pending good behaviour. You are sitting around a table at lunch with some hardened criminals and the conversation is initiated about the reason you are all doing time. One says that he raped a prostitute then killed her, the other is in there for shooting a policeman in an armed robbery and the third is locked up for smuggling heroin into the country. They turn to you and you reply, “I bought Twilight: New Moon from a dodgy market dealer and I watched it and there were heads in the way, so I went back to complain and got arrested.” You will be bent over more times in those two months than a Chilean miner.

I think there are more honest folk out there who download illegally than dishonest folk who steal DVD’s and CD’s from the shelves of stores. Is there really a difference in the two? In my opinion there is. When someone steals from a store they look other people in the eyes when they do it. They make it personal to the company that they steal from and, in turn show no humanity or compassion. When someone clicks a mouse a few times and suddenly has media shared online, it is still wrong but slightly more accepted in today’s society. If you saw someone stealing in a grocery store, there is an overwhelming majority of you that would speak up against that individual compared to if you were sat next to someone showing you their collection of pirate DVD’s. Therefore I conclude that, while piracy is wrong and illegal, it still is accepted by most as inevitable and not seen as seriously as physical theft.

Sorry for the blatant disregard of comedy in this post, I got caught up in the seriousness of the issue. The podcast is becoming a real possibility. PH and I are hoping to get the ball rolling sometime before Christmas, I will keep you posted.

Special Guest Post: P.H. - "Have You Read My Blog?"

Welcome back friends to a very special one off edition of my blog. A guest post from an avid disciple of mine who feels partially responsible for my weekly instalments of fertilizer. We are colleagues and friends who bounce ideas and banter off each other at any given moment. I must warn you that he is a psychiatrist type of person so most of this will be nonsense but I’m guessing that you are used to that otherwise why are you here? Introducing P.H. my budding sidekick…

Guest Post From P.H. – “Have You Read My Blog?”

Down in the basement of a well-known retail store in Aylesbury is a stock room affectionately known to all who work there as, “The Bat Cave”. If you dial 226 from the front of store phone to check on stock supplies your call will be answered with the words, “Bat Cave....” It was the Bat Cave where this blog was born. Not that the first words were committed to digital paper there, just that like many more before it, Captains Blog 1984 was born there as an idea. Now I don't know whether this particular room happens to sit on an intersection of lay-lines or if it was built on an Indian burial ground that somehow gives it special qualities but it's fair to say that as an environment conducive to generating ideas, the Bat Cave has an above average hit rate. The difficulty can be though that in the best interests of the majority of people, at least some of these ideas will hopefully never see the light of day. But from time to time thanks to the above average hit rate just mentioned, out of the ether does arise the occasional gem. This blog being one of them! But of course I don’t think it would be fair to say that the environment there is solely responsible for the creation of these ideas. There is at least one added ingredient that I think contributes largely to this phenomena and that is one of the Bat Cave’s most frequent of residents; Gareth Goodchild. I am not Gareth. This week he has made room for a guest post, (whilst he no doubt sits down to a meeting with his feline companion to discuss next weeks ‘Cat diaries’) by myself, someone I am pretty sure he considers to be (at best) his ‘sidekick’ in his vision of his future online endeavours.

As the person in charge of preventing loss within the store, much of Gareth’s time is spent looking busy in the stock room. I should know, much of my time has been spent looking busy making it appear clean and tidy. As people come and go from the Bat Cave all day long you'll likely catch a conversation on your way in or out; a way to revolutionise shopping on the Internet, a forth coming block buster novel or the developing ideas of a zombie stage musical are all highlights worth mentioning. But there are times where a more accurate image of the conversation is that of sitting in a juggernaut with Gareth at the wheel whilst he purposely sets you on a collision course with all manner of socially edgy destinations. Your job then is to grab the wheel and steer both yourself and Gareth back to safety whilst keeping him entertained enough for him to allow that to happen. It's my perception that giving him the space to drive to the edge of oblivion every now and then is like opening a release valve so that his 'special' ideas don't end up on this blog. You’re welcome. I do admire his commitment to his ideas though; it took him all but one evening to follow through on his idea to start this site. One thing concerns me though. Having grabbed the wheel enough times I've developed immunity to pretty much anything Gareth says or does, but in the case of his blog, I find my mind being moulded and primed in surprising ways. I haven't looked at a BMW driver the same since post number four, I dislike The Only Way Is Essex even more than I already did and frankly, I want a cat.

I'd be interested to hear what everyone else has to say about Captains Blog - When do you read it? On your way to work? At work? When Gareth has asked you for the twentieth time, have you read my blog!? We had a new Christmas temp start with us the other day and I swear she’d been in the building for less than half an hour before I caught Gareth ‘casually’ dropping his blog into conversation. I don’t blame him really. Personally, I read it half asleep at 6:15 on a Thursday morning before my mind has a chance to defend itself, which is almost definitely why I’ve been so susceptible to its influence. What about you?

Not The Typical Grammer Of Benefit Cheats

Welcome back my avid readers to another edition of absent grey mattered madness. This week is a very special week in the history of CB1984, for this week I will be posting two entries. One (this one) will be a regular ranted attack on the establishment a la Gareth, the other will be a one off special guest post from my soon to be podcast partner P.H. He will be hopefully explaining the part he has played on the creative side of my mediation to you, my public. Have a read of it as he has stated to me that it will be the only time he will interrupt the regular blog, but felt he had to introduce himself before he is heard on the podcast – still in the development stage. Let’s get on with the reason why you are all here, my rants. The category this week is fashion and popular culture. This is a broad spectrum of stuff to talk about but I will give it a go.

Fashion is a steaming pile of shit. End of that category. Seriously though, why are so many people obsessed with looking like everyone else? For that matter, why are so many people obsessed with being an individual and not conforming to the masses? Both sides of the argument are wasting too much time with looking the way they are that they are missing the big picture; who bloody cares? For instance, a certain type of person will dress up specifically to look intimidating to others. They wear hoodies and baseball caps whilst hanging around in packs outside fast food restaurants shouting “bruv” and “sick.” Give me my machete and a dozen black sacks, I have an idea. Although they look intolerably stupid and wasteful of their time, they are after all just kids underneath and probably don’t really have anywhere else to go. It’s the ones that do the same thing and are around my age that I detest more than anything. There are many places to go for people in their mid to late twenties that don’t involve looking and acting like a total social reject. Pubs were built for this very purpose so stop cluttering up my town centre with your attitudes and loudness. Get drunk and pass out somewhere, at least you’ll be quiet.

Fashion is just another way of pigeonholing people into categories. I thought that once you left school and became an adult you would leave that superficial and pretentious world behind. I look out onto the high street and shopping centres and all I see are people still trying to fit in with the way they look. Whilst we are on the subject of pretentiousness in popular culture, I have to put in this story that happened to one of my friends. He was working for a nice tidy restaurant as a waiter some years back and was serving a well-spoken family who were out for a nice meal. When it came to serving the wine he poured a dash of wine and waited for approval before the distribution to the other glasses. About five minutes passed before the lead male of the table called him over and demanded a fresh bottle because the one he served tasted off according to his wife. My friend was quite annoyed with this but took the bottle, went away and came back with exactly the same bottle with the same wine in it. The man’s wife tasted and nodded her pompous approval and my friend left the table. This story tells me two things. One is that some people obviously are just out there to show off and make people look small. The other is that my mate is a genius.

In end we all are just improvising and haven’t got a clue why we are here and what we should be doing. Everybody is playing a massive guessing game if you look at it like I do. How do we know how to act or what is the right thing to do? I will tell you what we shouldn’t be doing and that’s segregating people because of how they look. Find out if they are a nob head first then segregate them from your groups. In many ways I admire community street drinkers. They just get drunk and don’t care how they look…or smell. I salute these people, from a distance of course. The only worry for a community street drinker is the risk of spilling their extra strength lager whilst chasing a pigeon or squirrel.

Another part of popular culture is the absolutely shameless act of benefit cheating. “Oh no, the money is drying up. We had better have another baby.” *NOT THE TYPICAL GRAMMER OF BENEFIT CHEATS*.  I feel like my tax money is being pissed up the proverbial wall. I think the government should ask each and every tax payer what public service or economic growth they would like to put their tax money behind each month. At least that way I will know for sure that these pathetic people won’t see a penny from me. I have an idea, and before you start the witch hunt believing me to be the next mass genocide idealist, it’s only a thought. I think that these benefit cheats and layabouts who earn more money on their arses than if they were to go into full time employment, should all voluntarily walk to their nearest LIDL or Aldi with a full petrol canister and collectively remove themselves from the gene pool. I think this would solve a lot of the economic problems that blight our position in the world financial table.

Thanks for reading my friends. Keep your ears to the ground about the podcast, it is definitely something we are serious about and it would be good to get feedback on it.

The Importance Of Being Idle

Welcome back my loyal readers for some more light hearted dollops of comedy slush. I’m here to distract you for a few paragraphs from the crushing inevitability of your own eventual deaths. This week I am going to analyse something that I have been guilty of on more than one occasion, the subject is procrastination. To procrastinate – to delay ones task or put off something one should be doing. Alternatively in my case – to watch TV or browse the internet instead of writing my blog or novel.

I believe that there are two sides to every story. We have to be motivated to do anything in life, you can’t just wake up one morning and suddenly you’re a changed person. My motivation to go to work, for instance, is the prospect of eviction and financial ruin. I don’t have the luxury of millions of inherited pounds to fall back on so I just get on with it. All of my daily goals require motivation, it’s in my nature to put off less important things and prioritise the more vital things, like breathing and scratching an itchy area of skin. The putting off of some tasks can be misconstrued as laziness. Shame on all who dare to call it that. It takes a hell of a lot more of an effort to have something in the back of your mind and ignore it than to actually do something about it. Imagine a world where we all did everything on time and to the best of our ability. There would be no praise for improvement and no surprises or appreciation. Just ruthless precision and constantly boring efficiency. In short, we would be the German national football team of the 80’s and 90’s.

It is our basic human right to procrastinate, but there is a time and a place. If you consistently procrastinated at work you would eventually be fired, or if you kept putting off the housework or washing up you would feel the stiletto up your ass. If I’m lying on the sofa and there is a lawn to be mowed, the more attractive option is to keep lying on the sofa. If I’m in bed watching repeats of Top Gear on Dave and I need to take a pee, I wouldn’t go straight away. I would put it off until my bladder starts hurting or the adverts come on, whichever comes first. Personally, I don’t see how anyone develops the motivation to do anything on their day off work. It’s such a great period of time where I get to choose what I want to do, usually not a lot. Today, for instance, I have barely managed an acceptable combination of clothes to wear in case there is a knock at the door. It has been a relatively good day off, plenty of rest and relaxation and lots of me time. It has been just me and the cat chilling together.

I think that if most people made a bucket list they wouldn’t get round to doing most of the things on the list. I know for a fact that if I wrote; paragliding, white water rafting, swimming with dolphins or make a porno, I would only half-heartedly attempt one of those things. I just need a camera, a group of promiscuous teenagers and a white water rafting instructor.

I must now take a step away from defending procrastination and look at the alternative; getting things out of the way and moving on. I do like to see results of my labour, which is why I usually fail in attempts to lose weight or get fit. I like instant rewards for hard work but that isn’t possible on the weight loss subject. It is a lifestyle, a gradual change that the body makes over a long period of consistently keeping to a regime. It is a mind-set that is really hard to stick to in this day and age. Everything is instant. If you click on something on your laptop, it opens instantly. If you order a cod and chips at the local chip shop, it comes within a few minutes. We are used to things just coming to us and not having to wait.

We all have varying degrees of motivational issues, I just happen to be a professional at leaving it till the last minute. This very blog was meant to go out hours ago, but I keep getting up to make cups of tea and do anything else. This is why I have arrived at this subject, although it was suggested to me by someone who was being ironic. Well I feel like I have won because I have stretched it over five paragraphs and made a post out of it – victory for irony. Speaking of which, I must do my ironing at some point. Meh, it can wait.

There is a special treat for all you blog readers next week so make sure you keep up to date. Plus there is a podcast in the pipeline. I will keep you posted and thanks for reading.

Speak English You Pair Of Idiots!!!

Welcome back friends and settle down for a few paragraphs of silver tongued madness. This week I will be talking about reality TV shows. I have a few opinions about reality TV shows that I want to share with you, but some are too explicit to write on here as my mum and grandma read this blog. Furthermore I am proud to say that the colourful language I usually use with regularity rarely makes it onto my blog, although this weeks’ subject is the most difficult one for me to express myself on without the use of non-dictionary vocabulary. I apologise now if you are easily offended, this one may be a bit harsh on the eyes.

Let us start with the first reality TV show that took the nation by storm: Big Brother. Twelve borderline retarded Neanderthal-like “people” looking for their 15 minutes of fame before disappearing into a world of scraping the bottom of the Z list barrel for parts in pantomimes or Christmas light openings in small villages. I have been guilty of watching this show but never of actually voting or giving a toss about the outcome. I only watch for the occasions where the editors miss the censoring and a naughty word pops out pre-watershed. That to me is hilarious but, to a parent who has to explain the meaning of the word to their minor, probably inappropriate. I think I’m not alone when I say that the whole show would be a lot more exciting if you threw a couple of crocodiles or lions into the mix. I don’t want people to get killed, just maimed or emotionally scarred for my entertainment. I think you could combine the ancient Spanish running of the bulls and Big Brother contestants from years past. Get a nice steep high street in a small market town, close all of the shops, place all of the past contestants in the middle and have bulls run at them from all directions, job done.

Let’s move on now because these shows only deserve a paragraph of my attention, nothing more. My next piece of television fertilizer is I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Or as I like to call it; I’m A Publicity Mercenary…Get Me My Cheque and Exclusive Hello Magazine Interview! What an absolute steaming pile of horse manure this show is. I have to say that before I completely lay into this testicle of a programme, they do raise a lot of money for charity so fair play but that is outweighed by a truly shocking assault on the senses. My eyes burn, my ears get pins and needles, my skin crawls, my nose hairs singe and it leaves a taste in my mouth that resembles excrement (something you wouldn’t be surprised to see one of the “celebrities” eating on a bush tucker trial). The calibre of “celebrity” on the programme is laughable too. “I’m here because I used to wax Mick Jagger’s balls” or “I’m here because I brushed past David Beckham and accused him of rape.” I think that I only managed 38 seconds before I switched channels never to return, mainly because of the presenters; Ant and Dec. Am I the only one who has to put subtitles on whenever they talk? How do these people end up on primetime TV? Speak English you pair of idiots!!!

I am going to make a statement now and it is from the pit of my sole, many of you won’t like it and, in a way, neither do I. Here goes – I like the X-factor (hands on head with shame and disgust). I will tell you what I like then I will tell you the long list of dislikes I have for it as well. The main reasons I like it is because of the entertainment and the business side. I get it in a way that a lot of people don’t. The reason Jedward, Wagner and other freaks stay in for so long is because they generate hate from the nation. To me that is a great way to do business Mr Cowell. Of course you are going to keep them in for as long as possible because they polarise opinion and cause publicity. If the competition had 16 acts that were just good singers and had no personality (Leona Lewis, Shane Ward), it wouldn’t sell half the amount of newspapers and magazines that it does. I will never knock the show for that because it is just good business. As for the entertainment part, the edge that this show has over the previous two I talked about is the fact that the contestants actually do something for your votes. They don’t just argue drunkenly for the camera or eat kangaroo testicles for attention. Sadly, that is where my love affair with X-factor ends and comes crashing to Earth with a thud. The exploitation of adversity they use makes me vomit so much that there isn’t enough volume of food in the world for me to bring up the amount of projectile hatred I have for the shameless emotional back stories of the contestants. Cue sad music, cue slow motion blinking and now bring in the picture of the dead family member…blah blah blah. Just sing for me fatty and I will judge you on that. Oh but look how cute her kids are and they need a mother to provide for them, please Mr Cowell put her through. This is her last chance to make something of herself, she is 85 and she has her whole life ahead of her, don’t ruin her dream Mr Walsh………….Sorry I’m back, I just had the sudden urge to rip my chest hair out and eat it. The public are as much to blame for this as well. It’s in your hands dumbasses so stop complaining when the dwarf hermaphrodite deaf guy gets through to next week instead of the gorgeous fake tanned blonde that is destined for Broadway. As much as people say it is, the show isn’t fixed. OFFCOM regulate it independently, so I doubt a few back handers from Sony Music would be taken instead of keeping their integrity. Wait a minute…

The last show I will be talking about is what I would describe as “everything that is wrong with everything.” No not Justin Bieber, although he is a close second. I am talking about the genital wart production called “The Only Way Is Essex.” I had the misfortune to watch this programme for 10 whole minutes before I decided to leave the room and throw myself off my garage roof. Only a few bruises and scratches, thanks for the concern. I will never get those 10 minutes back that I wasted watching this truly revolting programme. I could have written my whole blog on just this show, it is vulgar and monumentally stupid. Is this what our great grandparents who won two world wars for us intended us to do with our freedom? This Friday is D-day. A time to reflect and a time to remember the people that lost their lives defending our way of life and our country. How do you explain The Only Way Is Essex to those brave men and women? It makes me ashamed to be British. The amount of whale blubber alone used to form some of those faces on the show is enough to extinct the entire planet’s supply. Do people seriously need to put that much make-up and fake tan on? I heard that the “actors” work from a script. Excuse me whilst I laugh so hard that my kidneys drop out. A script? Really? Really? Brilliant. I take it all back; the talent on display is amazing. It’s like a really well acted version of Hollyoaks. My sister watches The Only Way Is Essex so it is on or Sky planner as series linked. A little bit of sick comes up whenever I skip past it to watch Two and a Half Men. She said she watches it because it’s so bad that it’s good. Probably a fair point, but not enough to get me to watch it. Certainly not enough for me to tolerate it when she is watching it.

In summary reality TV is rubbish, but still as popular as ever so I guess I will have to grit my teeth and get on with it. Thanks for reading.

Integrated Orange Socks or Personal Dog Fetcher

Welcome back friends to another edition of my thoughts. I am currently getting used to my new iPad 2 that I have recently acquired and, I have to say, it's pretty impressive. I usually write my blog posts on my laptop but I'm giving my new toy a go for this one so there may be some grammar or spelling issues, bear with me I'm still learning.

The technology available to us these days is astonishing. Even something as simple as turning a light switch on can be done without even leaving the buttock crevices of your sofa. I like to think that I am up to date with all of the technology on offer but, alarmingly I am so far behind that it's scary. I hear people talking about megapixels and gigabytes and I look like I understand, but I really have no idea what they do and how they improve my life. I can tell you the basics, like megapixels are something to do with cameras and pictures and gigabytes are something to do with memory storage on media devices, but that is pretty much it. Jargon gets in the way of my general understanding of electronically powered devices. This is a big revelation from someone who works for a company that sells Beats by Dre headphones and Archos 10" tablets, but it is really easy to sell a product to a customer that is on the same level as you are. I don't fill their heads with technical jargon and long words that don't appear in the dictionary. All I say is "this is better than this because..." and they appreciate the simplicity of my sales pitch when I say "it has more memory storage" or "you get what you pay for." Ok so it is a bit more in-depth than that, but you get the idea.

Technology move on so fast and leaves a lot of people behind. I feel sorry for the older generations who had to come to terms with replacing VHS with DVD. Even DVD is gradually being edged out by Blu-ray and digital media. CD is losing the battle with mp3 storage devices too. It was only 20 or so years ago that cassettes were still in circulation and CD was an up and coming alternative. I’m starting to feel like the older generations now. I say things like “in my day” even though I am the right side of 30. Ten years ago my mobile phone was a BT-Cellnet brick. Five years on my phone was a Samsung D900. It was a little bit smaller with a camera and mp3 player plonked in it. It's 2011 and I am still one handset behind everyone else with regards to the iPhone. While everyone else is gallivanting around with face time and night vision compatible iPhone 4's, I have the less popular older brother in the iPhone 3GS. In purchasing the iPad 2 through my work's salary sacrifice scheme, I am now bang up to date. Although even with this new touch screen thingy I still feel as if I'm behind some people knowledge-wise. When I tell someone that I have an iPad 2 they start using fancy acronyms like IOS and PDF. For all I know they could stand for “integrated orange socks” or “Personal Dog Fetcher.” Clearly nonsensical drivel but it got me thinking that you could theoretically invent any device and name it what you want. For instance I could invent a product that could butter your toast exactly how you like it and give it the acronym “DTBTFYBYATLTDIY” translated as “Device That Butters Toast For You Because You Are Too Lazy To Do It Yourself.” Hardly a commercial title but you can see my point.

Maybe I am being too pedantic about the whole subject. Maybe it is easy to learn jargon words and how to use/maintain certain products. I am just one of those people that turn things on without knowing how they work. I have no idea how the TV remote makes the volume louder and softer, changes the channel or picks a colour when I’m playing Bamboozle on teletext. All I know is the term used is infer-red, everything else is just smoke and mirrors for all I know. If the world ended tomorrow and I am the last human alive, I would have no idea what to do if my dishwasher breaks down or the boiler packs up. I guess that would be the least of my problems in a post-apocalyptic world so swings and roundabouts. If an advanced race of intergalactic travellers were to visit our planet, I would hope that they didn’t choose my back garden to land in. I could tell them last week’s football results or how I like my steak done, but I would come unstuck if they asked me any intelligent questions about astronavigation or engineering. You may as well be asking a blind person what the clouds look like.

Thanks for reading.