Popes are going to hell

Catholics. Dontcha just love 'em?

News has leaked today that the church is considering relaxing its ban on condom use but only for situations in which the two shaggers are married and one of them has AIDS. Gee, thanks Popee!

According to the Guardian article:

Pope Benedict XVI's "health minister" is understood to be urging him to accept that in restricted circumstances - specifically the prevention of Aids - barrier contraception is the lesser of two evils.

Now, read that again. The Health minister believes that wearing a condom is a lesser evil than someone contracting a fatal disease because their church is so sexually repressed it cannot deal with people wanting to have sex for fun.

So, it's the lesser of two evils for the church to stop preventing married people getting AIDS but completely OK for the church to condemn unmarried and gay people to their deaths because having sex before marriage and having gay boy sex is of course more of an evil than being infected with, and dying from, AIDS.

Hello?! I admit this it is encouraging to see even the smallest step in the right direction from the church but this slight liberalisation of the doctrine shows fundamentally what a backward, immoral, heartless and yes evil organisation the Catholic Church is. They are happy to see millions of people die every year because of their pathetic inability to come to terms with people wanting to have sex outside of procreation. If there is a hell then both Popes Benedict and John Paul II deserve a place in it for the misery, disease and death they have done nothing to prevent during the 20th and 21st centuries. It is utterly shameful and another sorry indictment of the poisonous influence organised religion has on this fragile world of ours.

Olympics cost a lot - WORLD EXCLUSIVE!

If there is one thing that the British are world experts in it is viewing the glass as perpetually half empty. Everything must be viewed from a cynical, why bother perspective. Everything is going to the dogs. Everything is a waste of time/money/effort.

So it is depressingly predictable that a chorus of professional whingers have started to bang on about the cost of London hosting the games in 2012. Let's put all the positives to one side and let's concentrate on the bad stuff. It's going to cost more than we thought it would. Yawn.

Guess what folks? Hosting the Olympics costs lots of money. Eye watering amounts in fact. Whoopee do. Big news. Hold the front page! We knew this before we won the bid. Does anyone seriously think it was ever going to come in on budget?? Purlease!

In all other countries in the world, the hosting of the Olympics would be seen as a great source of national pride, a time to unite together and be positive and get behind your own country. But no, not in the UK where people have been desperate, since the day the bid was won, for this project to go slightly off the rails so that they can say 'ner ner told you so, we should never have bothered'. When the games are on, they'll be there hiding in the corners hoping for something to go wrong so that their pathetic negativity can be proved 'right'.

Sure the budgetary process should be rigorous but let's not let the naysayers get in the way of what will be a great games and, possibly more importantly, a new beginning for the most deprived parts of London. Optimists of the UK should get ready to dish out a huge dose of 'I told you so' at the end of the closing ceremony in 2012 but amid the celebrations there'll no doubt be people moaning about the cost of the food at the stadium or the tubes being full on the way home or the fireworks being too loud. Of course something will be wrong - there always bloody is isn't there?

Pffft.

I was wrong

Yes, read that title again. I admit it, I was wrong.

What was I wrong about? Well, I'll explain.

I've been in small UK towns quite a fair bit in my life. And they all had the same thing in common - come pub closing time (which was 11pm) the town centres would all morph from being slightly sleepy, non descript environs into something more akin to Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Gangs of very pissed up lads and ladettes would roam the streets, urinating in doorways, eating kebabs and puking in taxis. And yes, I was one of them between the ages of 16-20. Because of my experiences I thought the introduction of 24 hour licensing would be an utter disaster - yes, I used to say to my fellow inner city latte drinking friends, in London it will be fine. But in Watford? Please.

The English have an all consuming innate desire within them to get fucked, blotto, smashed, mullered, spangled, blind, hammered, pissed. No other country has as many words to describe the age old pleasure of getting drunk. And for this reason I thought that the extension of opening hours would simply lead to people getting MORE drunk and causing more chaos -Never underestimate the English capacity for immaturity and hedonism! We aren't like continental types, quaffing red wine over a coq au vin in some quaint courtyard in Bordeaux. We are a nation of Dazzas and Traceys whose idea of a good night out is going down to Yates, sinking 20 slippery nipples for a fiver and then going onto dance to Bon Jovi at Chasers with another 10 bottles of 'breezer to help them on their way.

I just couldn't see these people going 'well, now the pub is open till 4am I'll take it a bit easier and spread my 20 alcopops over 10 hours instead of 5.' I could only see a world in which they would think '5 more hours of drinking? Fuck! That's like 20 more drinks to be drunk!' And the result would be more alcohol consumed, more vomiting and more riot vans needed on Watford High Street.

However, this has not happened. As Andrew O'Hagan points out today in his Telegraph column it appears that crime has fallen since the liberalisation of the laws and the whole thing seems to have been a massive success. Well, fuck me sideways. It appears that when English people are treated like adults they actually act like adults. Who could have foreseen that development?

I admit that based on this evidence we English seem to be more responsible than I ever thought possible. But then I came across this and it raised a wry smile. God bless the English!

Anti Smoking Nazis

I used to smoke cigarettes. A lot of them. 20 a day.

Then I read the greatest book ever written and I gave up. I've now not smoked for nearly three years and I fully appreciate how much better my life is sans cancer sticks. I support moves by Governments to ban smoking in public places - I applaud the decision of the Blair government to completely ban smoking in all bars, restaurants and clubs next year. It is beyond dispute that people in their workplace should not be subjected to second hand smoke. The right of someone NOT to breathe in poisonous fumes is more important than someone's right to breathe them into their own lungs. Smokers can smoke outside - simple.

So, we've now reached the point where public places will be smoke free, cigarette advertising is illegal and extensive programs are in place to either discourage people from starting to smoke or encouraging them to stop. I think that's enough. People have a right to do as they wish in a free society, as long as it doesn't harm others.

But now there are calls for smokers to be docked pay for the amount of time they spend on fag breaks (or smokos as the Aussies call them). This is a step too far. Everyone at work finds ways of getting out of doing work for 5 minutes here and there - grabbing a coffee, surfing the web, reading the paper whilst on the bog etc. Smokers tend to use their 5 minutes to get some much needed nicotine into their system. So what? Of course it shouldn't be abused - I used to have one cigarette at 11am and one at 3pm (as well as 4 during lunch & 3 before getting to work at 9am - oh, those were the days!) and that seems reasonable to me. 10 minutes out of an 8 hour day.

I think the push to ban smokos comes from non smokers' pure envy at the way in which smokers have the audacity just to release their ball and chain without their superior's permission in order to saunter outside to have a fag and a chat. The non smokers sit meekly behind their desks all day scared to move an inch in case the boss thinks they aren't working whereas the smoker gives a big fuck you to his manager and bold as brass strolls out for a break whenever he feels like it. It's one of the very few acts of rebellion still permitted in the workplace and that's why it should remain. To all the smokers out there, I say fuck the anti smoking nerds, go and do your duty and go light up - do it for all the oppressed workers worldwide! And to the non smokers I say, get a fucking life you tools.

Britney loses her pants!

Well, well, well. My two favourite gals, Britney and Paris, are hanging out together. Britney joined Paris on a wild night out in Sin City this weekend and appeared to misplace her pants during the night's festivities.

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