Three things to write about

1. Monday I went and had another 2 hrs 15 mins tattooing done on my backpiece. It's really coming along now. We're probably just over halfway through. It's looking awesome, guys -- or "sick", as Gallows frontman Frank said when he saw it as Xam was working on me, because Frank was tattooing at the shop that day, too.

Some of you have seen how it's looking so far. If you haven't, I'll mail pics to any regulars who are interested, so just leave me a comment to say you wanna.

2. The British government has won the first round in its attempt to increase the detention time for terrorism suspects, taking the time allowed to keep prisoners without charge up to a mammoth 42 days, or six weeks, while they gather the requisite evidence to take them to court. Um, excuse me, but what the fuck?!

This is such bullshit. How many people have we seen arrested and held for the current 28 days only to be released without charge? Quite a few is how many. Holding someone for six weeks, potentially someone who doesn't even know why they are held, since there is no obligation for the police to tell them, is completely fucking bogus. And Gordon Brown (who spookily has the same initials as that other fuckwit) could not even have won this without pulling in reinforcements. The man's a complete arsehole and should be got rid of asap.

3. It's 12 June, and it's thundering. Thundering?! Holy shit. Welcome to summer.

Post #797, wherein I take a moment to remind people

GORDON BROWN IS A CUNT. Just in case anyone had forgotten.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again

Gordon Brown, our new prime minister, is a fucking cunt. Do I need to elaborate? Well, I won't anyway. He's a cunt, plain and simple.

Tony Blair: end of an era (after Wikipedia)

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May) is a proper fucking cunt who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from early May 1997 to late June 2007, the Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007. On the day he stood down as Prime Minister -- can you believe the balls of this fucker?! -- he was appointed as the Middle East envoy on behalf of the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia (the Quartet).

Tony Blair became the Leader of the Labour Party in July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair's leadership the party abandoned many decades-old traditional Labour values, essentially becoming the Conservative Party Version 2.0. As a result of this political about-face, Labour won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, ending 18 years of rule by the Conservative Party; it was the worst Conservative defeat since 1832. But of course it was also a Conservative victory, albeit under another name. Blair is the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, and we are the unlucky fuckers who had to witness it. He has been nothing but a lying, deceitful, Bush-arse-fucking, don't-give-a-fuck-about-the-promises-he-made, waste-of-space political leader since the last one, which probably wasn't that long ago.

Gordon Brown, Blair's ten-year Chancellor of the Exchequer, succeeded him as Prime Minister. And, oh, how we can all look forward to being fucked by this cunt, too.

I've got nothing more to say, I suppose. Just good riddance to bad rubbish. Let's hope the cunt dies on a Middle East visit. (Is that a bit excessive? Maybe. Oh well.) Prick. Liar. Arsehole. Now there's an epitaph we should all aspire to.

Oh yeah, by the way, I'm 41 per cent zombie-proof.

41%

Tagged by Gardenia

I wanted to write a wee rant about that cunt Tony Blair and how great it is that he has finally fucked off, albeit leaving our country in even worse hands in the shape of that other cunt Gordon Brown, who can't talk without doing some weird freaky thing with his bottom lip. Wanker.

But then Gardenia tagged me, so I guess I'll put that post off to another day.

1. WHAT WERE YOU DOING 10 YEARS AGO?
Getting ready to get married, more or less. Our tenth anniversary is only five weeks away.

2. WHAT WERE YOU DOING 1 YEAR AGO?
Christ, who knows. Working I expect!

3. FIVE SNACKS YOU ENJOY.
Cashew nuts, white chocolate, beer, pitta and hummus, sex.

4. FIVE SONGS YOU KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO.
The Saturday Boy (Billy Bragg), Stand and Deliver (Adam & the Ants), That Makes It Tough (Buddy Holly), Holidays in the Sun (Sex Pistols), Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley)

5. FIVE THINGS YOU'D DO IF YOU WERE A MILLIONAIRE.
Give up work. Direct a movie. Put together a band and make an album. Travel a lot. Start an animal sanctuary.

6. FIVE BAD HABITS.
Do I have any? Snoring, apparently. Watching too much shit TV. Working too hard.

7. FIVE THINGS YOU LIKE DOING.
Spending quality time with the wife, especially eating out, watching a good movie, holidaying, takonad'ing. I also like blogging and watching good TV.

8. FIVE THINGS YOU WOULD NEVER WEAR AGAIN.
I dunno. I figure anything I wear is cool by virtue of my wearing it. Oh, except dungarees perhaps. Yeah, I'll never wear those again. Good job I gave them to charity!

I tag anyone who wants to have a go, but first to mind are Cappy, Milla, and RefPo.

Post #600, wherein I will undoubtedly navel-gaze a little and blather on about stuff I’m ill equipped to discuss on any meaningful level

It's the first day of spring. Happy spring to you all! (Thanks to Red for the lovely photo.)

And so it came to pass, my 600th post. It's taken a little longer than I had hoped, but you just can't rush these things. Well, you can, obviously. I've rushed many of the previous 599 posts at this blog. In fact, about 591 of them have been rushed. I did take my time over those three posts on cinema, though, and those few building up to my 500th.

Not only have I rushed almost 600 posts here, I've also rushed many of my posts on my other blogs. What a guy! So, there you have it: you can rush these things. Super!

So, 375 days and 600 posts. And not only that, but I've also watched more than 100 movies in that time, 99 of which I have reviewed; they can be found over at my movie-review site Such As They Are.

Anyway, I have a tendency to anticipate these "landmark" posts far too long in advance, and they become like an albatross. This is especially true when I haven't actually prepared anything in advance.

And it's not that I'm talking about having to "entertain my readers" or anything quite so "delusions of grandeur"-ish as that. It's all to do with my borderline OCD, a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place mentality.

We have lightswitches in our house, you see. Much like you do, I suspect. The room in which I am typing this is upstairs. From my desk, without leaving my seat, I can turn on the lights in the room. But I don't like to do it once I'm up here. Why? Because it means the switch for the same lights at the foot of the stairs looks as though it's in the off position, when in my mind it should look as though it's in the on position.

Likewise, at the top and bottom of our other flight of stairs we have double switches: one for the light at the top and one for the light at the bottom. I like it when both are in sync with one another. I don't like when they are in alternate positions. Do you catch my drift, get what I'm saying, see where I'm coming from?

Yes, I alphabetize my CDs and DVDs, too. Who doesn't?

So, getting back to what I was saying. This symmetry, if you like, this "commemoration" of "event" posts is more to do with me wanting the 500th, 600th, 750th posts to be something that I'll consider worthwhile of my time.

But...

By overthinking them I will often end up with an outpouring of nonsense fit for consumption by neither man nor beast.

Furthermore, I actually don't have much to write about today. Well, that's not strictly true. There are several things that have got my goat over the past 24 hours and upon which I would gladly wax unlyrical, but these subjects are all downers, and I don't want my 600th post to be a downer. Subjects like:

1. British schools can now ban students from wearing full-face veils. (Small print: if the veil is inhibiting learning or a threat to personal safety.) I mean, what the fuck does that mean?! The headline says one thing, but then the option is removed entirely by perfectly impossible clauses.

2. Number of fatal stabbings in the UK higher this year already than in the whole of last year.

3. German animal activist wants to kill polar bear. (Or, as I would call this story: "Knut und kunt".) Have you heard this? What a fucking tosser!

I mean, the world's going down the fucking pan.

So, no, I don't want to post on any of that stuff. I want to be upbeat, at least for today.

But the powers that be are conspiring against me at all sides.

4. Gordon Brown and his fucking Budget. You know it can't be good for anyone and it's going to be full of bullshit. But let's not dwell, shall we?

Instead, I'll get this post rounded off with something almost witty or pithy or amusing, then get back to my work and hopefully manage to pop in and read a good number of the blogs on my blogroll.

But I can't think of anything witty, pithy, or amusing. Bugger!

And to top things off, I was going to post a video clip from YouTube, but the fucking thing's been removed because of copyright infringement. As a creative type, I understand the need for copyright (oh, God, I've done this rant before), but so much stuff just languishes in copyright owners' vaults at TV centres around the globe... Share the fucking love, you cunts!

So, turns out I did navel-gaze a bit in this post, but I did less blathering about things I know nothing about than I had expected. That'll teach me not to put the title in before writing the post in future, won't it?