Why I Hate ... Jedward

Now I’m not one to jump on a bandwagon because I have free thought and bandwagons are filled with people, people carry diseases … I don’t like diseases. I guess you could say I’m on the ‘I hate people’ bandwagon, yet joining this bandwagon is an oxymoron and frustrating in so many ways. But to get back on track; fuck Jedward.

Well in fact, don’t fuck them that would be wrong – and not the kind of threesome anyone has ever imagined with two identical twins. I do hate Jedward, but that’s not their fault. I don’t blame them for that. I blame whoever is behind their ‘careers’. Whichever money-hungry cunt that is profiteering off two innocent and borderline retarded young boys. They’re the real people I hate, yet I’m aiming the barrel squarely at John and Edward.

When Jedward first came about they snuck under my radar as I don’t watch The X-Factor, as I hold the belief that your IQ plummets every second you view that done-to-death popularity contest where talent is OK, yet talent and sob story equals success. If I want to loss a colossal amount of brain cells I’ll do it the good old fashioned way with alcohol or fill a sock with marbles and repeatedly smash myself around the face until I collapse unconsciously into a puddle of my own blood and brain matter. The first time I was introduced to the identical twins was in the pages of The Sun. Thank the media God [Rupert Murdoch] for putting out a newspaper that really is the basis of all British moral guidelines. The previously mentioned newspaper was running a campaign, cleverly titled “Bin the Twins”. It was a rallying cry for its readers not to vote for Jedward. You have to respect The Sun, I mean when they aren’t condemning online bullying that leads to suicide they are launching a nationwide hate campaign against two young men for the simple reason that they don’t sing as good as a couple of other people. If at that point the twins had committed suicide I would have been happy – not because I would have never had to encounter them on my TV – but because the people that contribute to that tabloid would have had to have a long look in the mirror [not their rival newspaper, by the way, the actual reflective glass thing] and really decide what they were doing with their lives. Although as it was The Sun, the headline probably would have been; “THE SUN VICTORY: AFTER DEADWARD SUICIDE”.

“But Ben, who can you condemn The Sun, when you’re doing the exact same thing?”

Well, for the simple reason I’m not a national newspaper. I’m displaying my opinion. The people that read this are likely to be more intelligent then your average Sun reader and therefore able to realise that this is just a comical rant.

What set off my hate for Jedward was their appearance on 24 Hour Panel People*, they featured on the Celebrity Juice segment. I’d encountered them on Never Mind the Buzzcocks before and that was bad, but on Celebrity Juice it was horrific. It wasn’t even car crash TV, it was something worse. Watching news footage from the tsunami that’s devastated Japan is less harrowing than their appearance. I was desperate for a Comic Relief appeal featuring starving, TB ridden children to appear to lighten the mood. It really was that bad.

Now I don’t know how in the modern world we lived in two individuals could be so ridiculously idiotic. I will speculate though. Either; the Irish school system is in tatters and education is harder to get than potatoes were in 1846. Or Jedward were born as conjoined twins, sharing a brain and in the operation to separate them 90% of the brain was lost leaving them with 5% of a brain each. Maybe I’m wrong because Jedward are so unbelievably dense that their whole existence is simply a big act – like some sort of Punk’d episode being played on an international level and soon the veil will be lifted, perhaps at the Eurovision Song Contest, they’ll step out and instead of doing a song they’ll do a PowerPoint presentation explaining how they’ve cured cancer and AIDs.

That act [on 24 Hour Panel People] lit the fuse of hate. But when I develop … or I should say; but when I’m engulfed in hatred for someone or something I don’t simply stop at hating that one thing or those certain people. I go behind all that to what is really taking place. That’s when I realised that someone is behind Jedward; someone is purposely trotting them out to make them laughing stocks, for them to become figures of hate, for audiences to revel in their stupidity. And while Jedward take the brunt, it’s these people in the background pulling the strings that should be hated on. Face it, Jedward’s management are no better than a mother that pimps her five-year-old daughter with Down’s syndrome out to paedophiles for pennies. Jedward are a modern day freak show for us all to gawp, point and chuckle at and while we gawp, point and chuckle someone’s raking in the cash. Surely this constitutes as child abuse. Why aren’t the NSPPC doing anything? Did we learn nothing from Baby P?

*24 Hour Panel People was David Walliams doing panel show after panel show for twenty-four hours. It was broadcast live online – well with a ten minute delay to censor liable comments. It was for Comic Relief. It was unedited.

An in Depth Look into the Governments Decision to Remove Cigarette Displays – by a Twat

Be gone free choice, we pitiful human beings can longer be trusted with you. We’ve had you and look at what some of us have gone and done; we’ve chosen to smoke. Yes, we’ve decided to take up a habit the increases our chances of getting a long, long list of diseases. We’ve picked an addiction that now leaves us castrated from the rest of society and their non-black lungs – but do you know what, we still don’t give a fuck because we still look cool.

So after adding written warnings to cigarette packets, an advertisement ban, adding graphic [warning] images to cigarette packets and introducing a smoking ban – it seems like the war against smoking has stepped it up a gear again; cigarette displays will soon be removed from shops. [I would have put an emoticon sad face here, but I’m not a twelve year old girl – unless I’m in chat room ;-) lolz XxX]

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that stopping people smoking seems like a good thing. I suppose we’ll get a healthier nation; people will live longer and be able to pay more tax. Plus less people will be ill, that means there’ll be less of a burden for the NHS – just in time as it looks like plenty of staff will be out of a job soon.

I see a lot of people saying that this is all for the youth of today, they’re too easily grasped by the evil hands of nicotine. Kids will be kids. Some will smoke, some won’t. People act like this is a new craze, it’s been happening for years. My great-grandmother started smoking around her mid-teens and carried on for the rest of life until it was cut short in her 90s – imagine how long she would have lived if she never picked up the habit.

The thing I can’t understand is the logic behind removing cigarette displays. All the previous laws introduced do have at least some sense behind them, but this is completely lost on me. As for forcing tobacco companies to package their product in plain packaging – what the fuck is that about? No, honestly. Can someone tell me? I understand that the designs on cigarette packets is all cool and stuff [apart from the pictures of tumours and shit] – but if cigarettes are to be kept under the counter soon, why on earth would you need to put them in plain packages? It’s like gouging a blind man’s eyes out. Is it in case someone catches a glimpse of them before the customer puts them in their pocket or handbag? Does the sight of cigarettes offend people that much, or is it that if a young impressionable child gets a sight of the shiny packet they’ll instantly want to start smoking?

Let kids smoke is what I say - they’re all little, ungrateful, idiotic cunts anyway [according to most media outlets] – they don’t deserve to live a long and fruitful life.

Yeah, I’ve reached a point in which I don’t know how to finish things off, as this was just a quick exercise, so here’s a list of other ways [that one day may be introduced by government] to stop people from smoking;

- Sowing people’s mouths closed, making all food in liquid form and have the entire population communicate by sign-language.
- Ban lighters and matches so smokers have to light cigarettes by bashing bits of flint together or rubbing a stick on another stick.
- Fitting designated smoking areas will sprinkler systems that go off over five seconds.
- Whenever a customer purchases some cigarettes a loud alarm goes off alerting everyone in the shop – much to the embarrassment of the customer.
- Breaking the fingers of smokers and would-be-smokers so they can’t spark up.
- Douse individuals in petrol so they can’t spark up – although the way petrol prices are rocketing this is doubtful.
- Nuke us. Just set off a nuclear bomb that kills us all. Then the only smoking we’ll be doing is that of our charred remains.

Until next time – when I’ll spend time and attention towards something good.

Thinking about the Thoughts of a Xenophobic Man

I was at work not so long ago* and I served an older gentleman and we had a little chat. The conversation began with a little discussion about the age gap between us, I can't remember exactly how it went, I've got high since then, but basically he was saying that he had more life experience than me, although I doubt he's ever been on a two hour bus journey with the worst come down ever. It was a light-hearted discussion. I decided to ask him; “So, seeing as you have so much experience, do you have any tips for me?” to which he responded; “You need to move aboard, there's too many bloody foreigners here nowadays.”

This, of course, had me taken back. I'm all for foreigners, I love their food, their attitude and their female sexual organs. It seemed that this gentleman was so nice up until the point he uttered that xenophobic suggestion. I'd have never had taken him down for a man with a predigest against others because of their nationalities, although I suppose the fact he was buying a Daily Mail should have been a clue, he also had “NF” tattooed on his forehead and seeing as he was wearing a Derby FC shirt I'm assuming it didn't stand for Nottingham Forest or he'd be ConDem Government [; that's now shorthand for “holding two conflicting ideologies that will never possibly work together” - mmm satire] – so that should have been a bigger clue.

I kind of just stared at him as he walked away, slightly gob-smacked over what I'd just heard, but then I began to think about what it was that he had said and how it had made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I understand that some individuals do not like the fact that people from other countries move to England and there's probably nothing I can do to change their minds. But if you're not too keen on foreigners and you think they may be hindering society in Britain, why would you suggest to someone that they should move aboard. I'm no immigration expert but I would go as far as saying that 100% of immigrants that come to this country are in fact from aboard.

This man's argument for getting out of England because there's too many foreigners is only going to land me in a situation where there's more foreigners, that is so illogical and ridiculous it boggles the mind to a point in which my brain could liquidise and slowly ooze out of my ears. At which point my zombiefied shell of a body would be forced to mop up the brain goop - as I was at work, remember?

I sincerely hope that the man took his own advice. I would have loved to have been around when he get on the plane at “aboard”, when he stepped off to start his new life only to realise that he was surrounded by foreigners!

One thing that has always made me wonder about Nationalist is how do they feel about people emigrating from the country they're so Nationalist about? For example if the BNP held power in Britain [they never will, this is just one of those really, really, extremely unlikely, comedy situations] would they stop British people emigrating to the likes of Australia? Surely if you're a Nationalist you share views with other Nationalist the world over, you'd want to make sure their country was “pure”, so you wouldn't want to aid foreigners [in this case; British people] from arriving on their shores. If you are a Nationalist/Fascist/Racist could you please get back to me on this?

*Notice this is the second recent Blog about work, I have no life.

Living in the Party House

Lots of people would love to live in a house that was notorious for its exploits. Where random parties are the norm, where the door is constantly open for anyone looking for a good time to enter and there's always a sofa, mattress or a floor to sleep on. It sounds amazing and it probably is, if you're lucky enough to have money and no responsibilities. But, sadly the majority of us have jobs and other such activities that drain our time, energy and lives away.

Since I left home I've spent all my time in flats [of halls of residence] or houses that have been quite popular – with guests coming and going like I ran a fucking B&B. This has been fun, but there's only so long I can live like this, I'm rapidly ageing, my life is passing me by so fast it's as if I'm watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in rewind – but really, really fast*. Aspects of that non-stop-party life are no longer fun, they're simply a nagging nuisance that infuriate me to such an extent I'm prepared to go on a murderous rampage... or write a Blog [no points for guessing which I did].

When the majority of your life has been spent listening to music switched up to full volume, you've probably suffered irreversible damage to your hearing, unlucky! I said UNLUCKY (that joke doesn't really work, as you're reading and not actually hearing me say this – but it's staying in). My house-mate’s have spent the majority of their lives listening to music as loudly as their speakers were able to tolerate before exploding and releasing wires, noise and whatever else speakers are made from into their faces. This leaves me in an awkward position, as their music is either a) keeping me awake at night or b) waking me up in a morning. What you must understand about my house is that it's a house that never sleeps. It's like a mini New York – minus the yellow cabs, ethnic diversity and horrid New Yorkers. The problem with living with friends is that you don't want to piss them off with your moaning, because at the end of the day, they are your friends. You have to remind yourself this over and over again, while at the same time putting together a plot in which you storm into their room and turn their music system into a pile of rubble with the aid of a sledgehammer and perhaps a wild bear. Plus you think; “Well they probably wouldn't complain if it was me playing loud music.” which is likely to be true, but it just so happens that you possess an ounce of decency to NOT play your fucking music as LOUD as FUCK at ALL TIMES of the NIGHT and DAY. So you're thrown into a dilemma; pretend like all is fine, keep your friends but go without sleep for the rest of your life or piss off your mates by telling them what you think to only have them ignore you and your requests for quieter music and go without sleep for the rest of your life! What to choose?!

Another annoying aspect of a party house is party people. A large percentage of party people will come and go, but there is that small amount that stay and crash. This of course leads to your living room resembling a refugee camp. Too many times have I had to walk around and over the passed out corpses of people I don't know, like I'm in a minefield, attempting to make it to the kitchen for my morning cup of tea. To only do the same thing on the way back, this time with the added obstacle of a hot drink in my grasp. I have been tempted to 'accidentally spill' some of my drink, but why waste good tea on scum? It's as if you're a prisoner in your own home, you can't go about your business with randomers clogging up the house, attempting to make conversation or heavens forbid get some free food out of you. I'm joking of course, they don't ask for free food on most occasions they've just helped themselves. True fucking story – people I don't know or haven't invited to my house have ate my food and even drank my beer! These people in turn leave discarded takeaway packaging, used glasses and cups, that fester until someone [me, always; me] finally gives in and washes them.

When randomers aren't hoarding every nook and crevice of the household to sleep in, the people that live here are hoarding every plate, bowl, cup and piece of cutlery like fucking brain-dead pirates that never got a chance to steal anything of worth. I'm a kleptomaniac, I collect a wide range of different things. One of which is mugs/cups featuring the cast of The Simpsons, I have loads in different shapes and sizes. I haven't seen some for months. I don't know the exact number, but with the majority in front of me, I can tell which ones are missing. This worries me. This collection is not simply me wasting my time and money on something stupid, but it's also the culmination of some of my loved ones buying (and in one case; stealing) these cups for me. They hold sentimental value. For me, using my cup and keeping it locked in your room forever, is like kidnapping a mother's [favourite] child!

My diet doesn't consist of what food I have in my cupboard, but rather of what it's possible to eat my meal out of or off of. Soup is out of the question as bowls are scarce. Sometimes I sit and wonder what's more likely; a bowl in the cupboard or a drunk slut coming back to the house that doesn't shout her fucking head off at 3.00am while stood outside my bedroom door? Either would be a Godsend – to the point that if I wasn't awoken by a drunken girl one night and I had a good nights sleep, not awoken by anyone's music or the fucking brain shaking of someone's bass-levels turned up to uncomprehendingly high volumes and I woke up of my own accord, to go downstairs; where no bodies of a bunch on nobodies were scattered across my living room floor – so I was able to get straight into the kitchen, then in the kitchen I opened a cupboard to discover a [well washed and now dry] bowl that I could use for my cereal I would be forced to convert from Atheism to Christianity … as that would be PROOF of a Deity. Of course that would never happen and even if against all the odds it did, there still wouldn't be a fucking spoon to eat the cereals with.

All the fun of the Party House!


* That film is so terrible, the way I described is the only way to watch it.

Sketch: Is it not; Innit?

Hello reader, this month; February, you’ll see little to no activity on this Blog. This is because I’ll be attempting to use all my spare time in writing sketches and one-liners in an attempt to have them accepted by BBC Radio Sketch Show; Newsjack.

This sadly means that my rants and random lists will be put on hold for the time being, as everything I have yet to post is deemed “too personal” and will be likely to offend friends and loved ones.

So, here’s a sketch I wrote:

Is it not; Innit

Visit; Ben Broughton’s Sketches for more half-arsed sketches.

Recent Amusing Altercations with the General Public

Now, it's no secret that the general public are a nuisance for those like me and yourself (come on, you know that me and you are different from those out there – and by 'different', I mean 'far superior'). The thought of having to run into these types of scum gives me a severe case of agoraphobia. People are like rats, you're never further than ten feet away from one of them, they carry diseases and they all should be kept in laboratories to have medical tests forced upon them. In my ideal world I wouldn't have to deal with people, but sadly, this isn't my ideal world, so I'm forced to plaster on a fake smile and act like a give a flying fuck about individuals from time to time. The following two altercations are actual genuine meetings I've had with actual, genuine idiots.

Taxi Driver

Just before Christmas I was laying in bed with my girlfriend, it was around midnight and we were on our way to getting some much need shut-eye for the day ahead. As we lay there we heard a car pull up outside on the street and pip his horn. Quite annoying at midnight, but my street is filled with annoying sounds such as drunks bellowing at the top of their lungs to smack-heads scuttering, muttering and sputtering around in need of a fix. I thought that someone would simply go to the car and that would be the end of it, but no the horn pips again, then again and another time for good measure. Now it's really starting to piss me off. Then the doorbell rings, I climb out of bed [not actually true, I don't have a bed, just a mattress on the floor – ghetto!], throw on my dressing gown and slippers and make my way to the front door as me and the missus are the only ones in the house. I answer it to see a taxi driver parked outside me house. “Taxi.” he says to me. I'm slightly dazed and confused seeing as I'm half asleep. “Nobody ordered a taxi, mate.” I inform him. Hoping that he fucks off, because it's absolutely freezing. “No, someone ordered a taxi for [*My Address – Removed to prevent Hate Mail/Death Threats*].”
“No they didn't mate, I'm the only one in and I've been in bed for the last hour.” I tell him, hopefully putting it to rest.
“Well who is that in the window then?” he asks pointing up to my window. It's my girlfriend having a look to see what's happening and taking so long. “It's my missus.” I tell him. “Has she ordered the taxi?”
“No, she's in fucking bed with me, we're trying to get to sleep.”
“Well someone's order a taxi from this address.” He was a persistent son-of-a-bitch. Clearly my first tactic was not winning him over, so I began to elaberate; “Where are you supposed to be taking people?” I ask.
“Spondon.” He responds.
“No body in this house has any connection with Spondon, none at all. Are you sure you're not supposed to be in Spondon right now? At a house that shares my number?”
“No, it's definitely this address.”
“No, it's definitely not.” I left it at that, before I lost my toes to frostbite, shit the door on him and went back to mattress [/bed].

About 10-15 minutes later, I heard another car pull up, I looked outside to discover it's a taxi from the very same taxi company [not one of the most popular ones in Derby either*], with some of my neighbours getting out... probably after having a fun night in Spondon.

Idiotic Customer #465

At my place of work customers have to pay 3p for a plastic carrier bag, this causes problems, especially amongst those waiting to die (old people). I myself understand that it is slightly annoying to have to pay for something that is free is most other places, but come on it's only 3p! Three pence gets you nothing nowadays. Plus the money goes to charity (Cancer Research), so it's for a good cause.

The other day while at work an old gentleman came up to me to purchase a newspaper, he asked for a bag, so I informed him; “Bags are three pence, sir. Is that OK?”, he responded by saying; “That's disgraceful, I can't believe it...” [he did have a Victor Meldrew look about him, so I found that amusing] “... if I'd have known that before coming in I wouldn't have bothered, I'm never shopping here again. That's disgusting!” Disgusting?! Disgusting!? He's acting like I just showed him a PowerPoint presentation featuring images of me molesting his grandchildren and dead kittens. I followed up with; “All the profits go to charity.” [I have this technique of my own; I inform customers that bags cost 3p, then after I inform them that the money goes to charity, most of the time it wins them over] He continued to stare at me and said; “Don't tell me about charity, my wife died of cancer, I give money to Cancer Research every week!” This was completely from left-field, I can't comprehend what point he is trying to make; he already gives to charity, so he shouldn't give anymore to charity? It was plain baffling to me, as the way I saw it we were fighting the same fight against cancer. Anyway, talking about his dead wife [for no reason] was getting him riled up [for no reason]. I attempted to connect with him; “I lost my grandma to cancer too.” I don't know why I said that, it's as if I was turning the conversation into Cancer Top Trumps, although I think he had me beat; Wife beats Grandma every time, the only Cancer Top Trumps that can beat Wife are Child or Baby … and they're like the rarest. I continued; “So I'd like to see as much money as possible go to Cancer Research.” This seemed to be a nice landing blow from me, as the old bastard switched from 'Dead Wife talk' back to 'Moan about the Bag Price' mode and he uttered something along the lines of; “You shouldn't be charging for bags away.” as he walked off, bag-less, with his newspaper in his arms … like some barbarian! As if it was all down to me setting the prices of bags and sorting out Cancer Research with money. As he left I called him a cunt under my breath, I've worked in retail for over six years, calling a customer a cunt is something you master within the first month, so I have plenty of experience.

A manager was behind me for the whole time and once the old cunt had left he had some banter about it, he asked me; “You alright?” I thought; “Of course, I'm not the one with a dead wife.” Seeing as that sounded a little harsh, I decided not to say it, self-censorship gets me out of trouble again. I just explained how confusing the whole situation was, why a man that gives to charity is complaining about giving another measly three pence to charity.

* probably due to their inability to arrive at the right place.

Topical Sketch #1: Beckham's Hot Spa

I thought it's about time I try my hand at writing topical sketches as it's something that (particularly) radio shows are after. I've written a couple of sketches so far, but they're ideas that have been given time to ferment and I've gone back and changed them – adding and removing parts in an attempt to get them just right. Whereas with topical sketches, I feel like you've just got to bang them out quite fast, you can't sit around waiting or by the time you've got it perfect the subject matter is no longer topical – which makes your sketch dated and therefore pointless.

So here's the first. It's about David Beckham playing for Tottenham Hotspurs.

Beckham's Hot Spa (Sketch)