Latte Zero

After the wife made a less than complimentary remark about the quantity of grabbable fat I have round my middrift I have decided that it's time to take a stand and start taking drastic action to curb my increasingly large belly. Sacrifices have to be made.

From today it's low fat milk in coffee for me all the way. Not a big step I grant you but there's no way on Earth I could even countenance the idea of not having my daily chocolate bar or not having my weekly take away or reducing the quantity of beer I drink. So the only room I can see for a less gluttonous life is to reduce the amount of fat I have in my daily cappuccino.

Except there is a problem. And that's the name given by coffee places to their low fat offerings: the 'skinny' latte or 'skinny' cappuccino.

Now, I don't know what it is but I just can't think of that name without images of that skinny bitch Nicole Ritchie coming into my head or some vapid Californian bimbo ordering coffee in some god awful Beverley Hills cafe. It's just so...feminine. How many men do you know order 'Skinny' coffees? It just sounds wrong coming out of male lips. I meekly asked for a low fat cappuccino this morning as I couldn't bare saying the words.

Surely there are lots of men who need to lose a few kilos who'd like to order a coffee without sounding like a presenter of Queer Eye For the Straight Guy?

So I propose a new manly name for low fat coffee - Latte Zero. It worked with Coca Cola, who realised just how feminine Diet Coke was so bought out a butch version instead. Now is the time for the same thing to happen to coffee.

Blair

So the long goodbye has begun.

In my infinite geekiness I decided to stay up last night to watch some political history in action - Blair's last ever address to the Labour Party conference as its leader.

I thought the speech was superb. It was policy lite of course but this speech was always going to be about Blair thanking the party, reminding them of the massive achievements they've secured during the past ten years and warning them not to return to the infighting that kept Labour in opposition for so many years in the Eighties.

No one in the UK can come close to delivering that kind of performance and it reminded me once again what a tragedy it is that his decision to go to war in Iraq has effectively finished his premiership and cast a long dark shadow over his term in office.

However, putting that aside it was great to hear someone passionately articulate why the UK is a much better country now than it was in 1997. People think the advancements of the past 10 years have just happened. Well they haven't. Progressive initiatives and policies like tax credits, gay civil unions, peace in Northern Ireland, devolution to Scotland and Wales, a massive reduction of children living in poverty and an end to the NHS' Winter crises HAVEN'T just happened. They have happened because there has been a Labour government.

He is simply the finest politician of his generation and I wonder how much some Labour MPs and members will now regret their disgraceful behaviour of the past few weeks.

Puke

If you are about to eat then I would advise against reading this piece from the Washington Times as you may well puke straight afterwards. It's about how George Bush feels 'anguish' about the deaths of US soldiers.

I loathe the way all politicians of all parties use soldiers for party political purposes. They don't give a flying fuck about soldiers, they simply view them as cannon fodder to be used in their unnecessary, illegal, corrupt warmongering. George Bush couldn't give a damn whether 2,000 or 20,000 American troops get killed in Iraq - all he cares about is how the deaths will effect his polling figures. If he had any deceny they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Mark Latham astonishing post politics career continues on its downward path. Today he has written a piece in The Age to promote his new book, which is a compendium of quotes and insults. Choice quote:

One of the saddest things I have seen in my lifetime has been the decline in Australian male culture, the loss of our larrikin language and values. This has been squeezed out of society by a number of powerful influences: the crisis in male identity brought about by changes in the workplace and family unit; the rise of left-feminism in the 1970s and 1980s, with its sanitising impact on public culture; and, more recently, the prominence of neo-conservatism and its timid approach to social behaviour and language. Australian mates and good blokes have been replaced by nervous wrecks, metrosexual knobs and toss-bags. I saw so many of them in politics, from all states, parties and factions. It's the revenge of the nerds, John Howard-style.

Honestly, where to begin? This man stood for election in 2004 as the leader of the Labor Party. No wonder John Howard got voted back in with an increased majority.

Photos

Two photos took my interest on the web today. The first is of Madonna's brand new hair cut and very nice it is too:

The next photo is slightly more alarming. In order to commemorate her husband's death, Jake Kovco's wife has got a lovely tattoo of him slapped on her arm. Delightful.

A bit harsh to pick on a widow granted. But there is simply no excuse for such bad taste.

10 Most Hated Celebrities

The Age publishes a list of the top ten most hated celebrities on its 'Trash Talk' blog today. Two of my favourite gals were featured in the top ten, Britney and Paris. Boo!

To join in the fun here are mine:

1) Tom Cruise
2) Mel Gibson
3) Pete Doherty
4) Kevin Federline
5) Missy Higgins
6) Kelly Clarkson
7) Sandi Thom
8) H from Steps
9) Geri Halliwell
10) Jeremy Clarkson

Stupid people arging over whose imaginary friend is the best.

Unfortunately, I am not surprised in the slightest by the reaction in the Islamic world to Pope Benedict's speech on Friday in which he quoted some old dude saying that Mohammed was a wrong'un - yes, a slightly dumbed down version for sure. But not nearly as dumb as thousands of people protesting violently in the streets because someone dared to quote someone else saying something derogatory about their idol.

Hell, if someone said Madonna was the root of all evil I'd have a few choice words to say back to them but I wouldn't feel the need to burn effigies or murder a nun in retaliation. It is absolutely ridiculous that people cannot handle their imaginary friends being criticized or slandered. If their faith was so strong then surely words like those uttered by the Pope wouldn't bother them and surely they could handle a few insulting cartoons? It is absolutely pathetic, and dismaying, that this nonsense is still taking place in the year 2006.

A couple of things

The Age 'Daily Truth' blog has more on 'Australian Values'. Worth a read...

My UK readers will no doubt be more than familiar with the work of some fucking bird called Sandi Thom. She has only just hit these shores and I have to say her song 'I wish I was a punk rocker' is one of the most hideous, insipid pieces of shite I have heard since Simply Red released 'Fairground'. It's one of those tunes that in my head is up there with listening to someone scrape their nails down a blackboard or hard house.

Some stupid bint from Australian Idol sang it a few weeks ago and I honestly could not believe just how bad the tune was. It is now being played all the time on Australian radio and apparently it is or has been number one. God help us all.

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

What a load of utter bollocks

And so the 'values' debate rumbles on in Australia. In a society that is largely at peace with itself it seems odd to me that the pollies are talking about it as if there are regular riots on the streets and the islamists are about to tear down the liberal institutions that make this country so 'great' and start raping all the women and stoning people to death for committing adultery.

Today when asked to define Australian values both the PM and Beazley nominated 'mateship' as one of them. Beazley actually went further than Howard and said that mateship is 'uniquely Australian.' Is he actually for real? Surely 'mateship' is one of the most common features of any society in any country in the world? I had loads of English friends in England - I called them 'mates', they called me 'mate'. Well fuck me, it seems that I was deluded the whole time and my friendships with them clearly had nothing on the friendships shared between people in Australia. What a load of absolute bollocks this is. It's good to have shared values but this is ridiculous - surely Australians should be over their identity crisis by now?

The Age blog has more.

Britney has a boy!

As I am sure you are all aware, Britney has had a baby boy.

All I could think about was how that once wonderful midrift of hers must be now destroyed by her selfish maternal instincts. I met a cat a few months ago who was once used for breeding and she had a very floppy belly which hung down and brushed along the floor whenever she walked anywhere. I then had the nightmare vision of Britney being afflicted with the same disfigurement. But then I realised in celebrity land they have plastic surgeons who remove all signs of pregnancy from their bodies.

Hurrah for plastic surgery!

Bored...

God, I have been very poor with my blogging lately haven't I? I think it's because I am so monumentally bored during the day that my enthusiasm for anything is disappearing more and more as each day passes.

Boredom is one of the most frustrating of all emotions. Your whole day turns into a pursuit of ANYTHING to do but because you are so unstimulated it actually reduces your motivation to do anything. The crushing thing is that this will last for about another 10 months before I can do anything about it.

Advice kids - Debt. It's not big (well actually, it's fucking ginormous in my case) and it's not clever.

Labor's woeful policies

Despite announcing a few policies this year that I championed, it is clear to me that the Labor Party stands as much chance of winning next year's federal election as I do of skipping back in time and assassinating Kevin Ferderline before he boned Britney.

The latest pledge from Labor is so poor, so populist and so badly thought out it should be an embarrassment to all those who thought of it. They propose that all visitors into Australia be made to sign a declaration in which they declare respect for Australian 'values' such as mateship, equal rights for women and the rule of law.

I have a problem with this policy for various reasons:

1) It won't stop terrorism. As if an Al Quedia operative, on his way to blow up the Opera House, is going to sign this statement at customs and then suddenly be full of love and respect for the Australian way of life - so much so that he abandons his plan to murder them.

2) It increases the 'us' and 'them' divide. It insinuates that foreigners don't and can't respect another country's laws and traditions when they visit them.

3) Will Labor politicians be willing to sign a similar declaration if they visited say, Saudi Arabia? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Everyone, yes even those dirty foreigners, knows that when you go to another country you shouldn't break the laws of that country. Is there any evidence to suggest that tourists coming into Australia are running around abusing women? Trying to inject Islam into Schools? Trying to destroy 'mateship'?

It's an absolute loads of bollocks. I am all for a greater emphasis on citizenship and a greater focus on the values and morals that bind us together as a society. But this pledge of Labor's is nothing but meaningless symbolism. If this is the best they have, they may as well give up now. Howard must be pissing himself.

Blair's forced exit

I remember walking down Whitehall on the morning of May 2nd 1997, it was a windy but sunny day and there was a feeling of joy and liberation in the air. Finally, finally, we'd got rid of those bastards and someone with compassion, with understanding, with decency, with integrity was about to move into Number 10. Even Tory voters didn't seem that bothered that the party they had been voting for in the last 20 years had been defeated. I strolled down to the gates of Downing Street and waved Tony Blair into his new home. Genuinely elated.

2001, Tony delivered again. Another landslide majority. Another thumping mandate from the British public for the Labour Party.

2005, a lot closer but still a 66 majority.

Blair is, by far, the most electorally successful Labour prime minister of all time. His parliamentary majorities in 1997 and 2001 were bigger than anything Thatcher ever achieved even when Labour were writing the 'longest suicide note in history' back in 1983.

For these reasons it seems perverse to me that his own party is now moving against him. Yesterday, junior minister Tom Watson and 7 parliamentary private Secretaries resigned and have forced Blair to prepare a timetable for his departure, which he announce later today. This is madness. Blair said before the last election that he would go during this term of office, everyone has understood that he will step down next year. Why was there a need to turn this seemingly orderly process into a bloodbath? Voters don't like divided, navel gazing parties. The PPSs that have resigned say that they fear a catastrophic result for Labour in next May's local elections if Blair doesn't go soon. But do they honestly think that the average voter will care? Seems to me that the real issues people will care about will be health, crime, education, immigration and the economy. They will know that Blair intended to go next year and will now punish the party for being too obsessed with itself and not concentrating enough on administering government policies.

I understand the calls for renewal, I understand the twitchiness of those MPs in marginal constituencies but this infighting was completely unnecessary. Those MPs who were elected in 2001, and who signed the letter asking Blair to go, should remember who put them there in the first place.

I've previously said Mr Blair's time is up and I think it is. But after all he has done for the party he should have been allowed a 'dignified' exit. The only people who will benefit from this are the Tories.

Spring is in the air!

It's the first of September today - hurrah! The Winter months are over for us down here in the Southern Hemisphere. It is 23c and sunny in Melbourne today. To put this in perspective for my English readers, this is the equivalent of it being 23c on March 1st in the UK. NEVER. GONNA. HAPPEN.

Melburnians take this all in their stride though and many can still be seen walking the streets wrapped up in big coats and woolly jumpers. Bloody Australians don't get excited until it hits at least 35c. Melburnians sure do enjoy the first warm day of the year post winter but you don't see the hysteria you do in the UK when the thermometer finally smashes through the 19c mark in late April. I guess it's because they know that they have about 8 months of this in store, whereas in the UK it might only last for an absolute maximum of 8 weeks.

Fuck me, I am talking about the weather.

I've been here for nearly two years now.

Could I be more English?

*races off to find nearest pub with people drinking on pavement and looks forward to some early summer sunburn*

Speeding

I got my first ever speeding fine through the post the other day. Now, I'm not going to go off on some wank Jeremy Clarkson 'I'm a selfish, ignorant, boorish twat who thinks I can do anything I like and fuck the rest of the world' rant. Nope. I was caught doing 109kph in a 100kph. Fair cop gov. You got me. I'll pay the $135. I have no complaints, if I hadn't have sped then I wouldn't be getting fined. Simple as that.

One thing that did make me laugh though was the wife. About 30mins after we left the stretch of road on which I was speeding she mentioned that she saw I was speeding for quite a long stretch of the road. I knew I was going about 10kph over the limit but because it was a highway and because everyone else was doing it I wasn't concerned and I never once thought there would be speed cameras on the road considering how detached it was from a residential setting.

Then when the fine landed in our postbox the other day, the wife says to me that the stretch of road I was speeding on is notorious for the amount of speed cameras it has. Gee thanks, Wifey. Why couldn't you have told me this whilst I was actually going 9kph over the speed limit? Pffft.

Bugger, I have turned into Jeremy Cuntson - I'm blaming other people for my mistakes. Still, at least I'm not a fat cunt. Yet.

Bang My Ass.com

I always look at my Stat Counter with a feeling of disappointment at my low readership numbers but also with happiness that at least one person other than the wife is looking at my ramblings.

Anyway, I checked out today from which sites my readers are coming from. I was amused to see the following URL in the list of sites from which people had clicked through to Well, Clearly.

www.google.at/search?hl=de&q=bangmyass&meta=

Mmm...that sounds interesting I thought. I have had an Austrian visitor and they found the site by searching for the term 'bangmyass' on Google Austria. And indeed if you click the link above you'll see little old me 5th down on the list. I can't help but feel that the searcher was maybe a tad disappointed when he clicked on the link and instead of gaping assholes he saw a rant about the Labour Party. hee hee.

Dance music not quite dead yet.

The Guardian's pretentious 'Rock Critic' Alex Petridis wrote a notorious column in 2003 in which he proclaimed that dance music was dying and 'as a youth cult, dance music seems to be in terminal decline. And it has no one to blame but itself.'

Alex was himself a clubber once, and like a lot of people who drift away from clubbing he likes to mock and denigrate the scene that he once held so dear. You know the types and the cliched sayings they come out with: 'It's not as good as it used to be' or 'It's too commercial these days' or 'The music was much better in my day'. Of course, the reality is that the scene is still producing great music and great parties and hundreds of thousands of people are dancing to repetitive beats across the globe, all having a fantastic time.

When you become a jaded clubber due to health reasons, getting too old to cope with Mondays or simply turning into a miserable bastard the easiest way to cope with this loss of hedonistic libido is to blame the scene rather than look at yourself. Once the jadedness sets in, it becomes fashionable to look at everything through a pair of cynic sunglasses (not oversized mind you, you'd look too much like a clubber at Space then) and suddenly it's cooler to sneer than to celebrate.

Anyway, there have been a few articles in the English press that show that Mr Petridis may have been speaking utter bollocks all along. I could never have predicted it personally. I mean surely one man's descent into cynicism provides the ultimate clear headed analysis of the current state of club culture?

Raves are apparently on their way back in the UK and Ibiza is experiencing its busiest season for years. The Observer states that:

A resurgence in the popularity of dance music and the rave culture that has seen nearly all of Ibiza's superclubs, such as Space and Pacha, break records for visitor numbers seems certain to continue for the rest of the summer.

Alex writes in today's Guardian about the sudden increase of illegal raves and Alex, being Alex, puts this down to young people's desire to break away from the corporatist mainstream where every festival is sponsored by a mobile phone company or brewery.

What Alex neglects to mention in his article is that this new movement actually seems to quite enjoy dance music as well. The 'Yoof' seem to be back onboard the good ship Bosh. Well I never. It also appears that increasing numbers of people are willing to fly to Ibiza and spend £30 to get into a club, spent £100's on drinks just to listen to those old, haggered superstar DJs, whom Alex disparaged so much in his 2003 column.

I expect a 'Indie is dead, dance music is the new cool' column in a few weeks Alex. I won't hold my breath though.

Britney Belching

Britney's reputation takes yet another blow as a home video of her has been placed on the web and viewed by millions. The video clip was taken by fuckwit hubbie, Kevin and shows Britney tucking into a feast of chicken and chips, continuously belching whilst she rambles incoherently.

She claims that people have already invented a way of traveling through time just like in Back to the Future. Oh Britney, if only they had invented it and shared it with you. You could then travel back to three years ago and stop yourself shacking up with that parasite Kevin. Maybe you could reverse your decision to break if off from Justin Timberlake, after all you were fit then and Justin would never film you belching would he? If I find out about anyone who has invented a time travelling device I promise I'll point them your way immediately. Think of it as a present from me to you...

Maried Bliss

A good piece from Caitlin Moran in today's Times..

There’s a new book in town that’s getting everyone riled: Guy Thomas Blews’s Marriage & How to Avoid It, which stakes out a bold arena for combat. In a nutshell, Blews’s claim is that a happy marriage is impossible. This is, he asserts, because human beings in general — but, really, when you come down to it, mainly men, grrr, the tigers — are incapable of lifelong relationships. They are compelled, at some point, to voyage out of the stifling environs of the wedding vows and bang that chick in marketing.

The tragedy for both Blews and his argument — which is as old as the hills, and about as sprightly — is that he is such an obviously damaged individual. Those opposing his claims have simply pointed out how uniquely unqualified he is to comment on marriage, rather than attack his actual argument head-on. Really, Blews has had the kind of life that would make anyone eschew the engagement-ring tray at Elizabeth Duke. His parents were locked in a loveless marriage, which he was able to observe only during the summer holidays from his boarding school. Subsequently, when Blews attained his majority, his first lover became so agonised in the final stages of her multiple sclerosis that she blew her head off with a shotgun. In any other age, Blews would probably have abandoned any further attempt at trying to deal with human relationships. He would simply have become a sad-eyed and slightly bitter monk, tending a vat of hyssop liqueur and kicking the priory’s chickens out of the way.

However, in the 21st century, the coping mechanism of the troubled middle classes is slightly different: they come up with a theory about how awful people are and then get a publishing deal. And, so, here we are with Marriage & How To Avoid It, which some cultural commentators (primarily the men’s magazines Nuts and Zoo, albeit that their commentary consists predominantly of “phwoar!”), have hailed as a great truth.

Of course, the concept that a man simply cannot be satisfied with a mere, single woman is ancient. The Greeks thought that men couldn’t be satisfied with women, full stop, and that they would have to flee into the bed of another man to have a decent relationship. The idea of homosexuality as a solution isn’t, oddly and sadly, much touted in modern society, but the theory behind it — that men must roam from the home — is still the same. It’s an idea that is always announced a little proudly. Men’s “natural physical urges” are “so strong” that they “cannot control themselves”. Men, of course, wouldn’t look proud of a single other “natural physical urge” “so strong” that they “cannot control” it — such as soiling their pants, or succumbing to sleep at the wheel of the car and being smashed to death under a lorry. Such a theory also ignores that if it’s by and large a “natural urge” for men to be unfaithful, then it’s also by and large a “natural urge” for their wives and children to wish them to be not unfaithful.

Men may very well be more prone to unfaithfulness. But then, women are more prone to investing too much in a relationship and subsequently becoming resentful and boorish. Both traits are equally likely to break up a marriage. But no one is advocating that women’s neediness is also a “natural urge” that can’t be controlled. Indeed, women tend to acknowledge their weaknesses, and subsequently buy tedious self-help books on the subject by the dozen. Interestingly, the self-help section in my local bookshop carries no books about curing infidelity aimed at men. This is, presumably, because the kind of men who buy into this theory of monogamy being impossible would rather exhaust themselves in persuading a sceptical humanity that their vices are irrevocable “natural urges” rather than simply to try to become better human beings.

While luck and synchronicity do play a part in it, the simple truth is that a happy, lifelong marriage tends to be the result of sheer hard work on both sides. Blews is a good-looking, charming man in his mid-thirties who is unlikely to see the value in a deal that involves selflessness, biting your tongue, minding your manners, repeatedly rejecting the heady thrill of a flirtation, and remembering to never, ever talk during a rerun of Moonlighting — not when he could be banging the chick from marketing, anyway.

But surely, at some point, he must ponder what the results of his theory will be. For myself, I can think of few things more aspirational than an old couple holding hands. That speaks of a lifetime of jokes, shags, winks, kids, secretly slagging off the neighbours, 52 Christmas trees, and crying with laughter at a some terrible new haircut.

Blews’s touted alternative, by comparison, does not seem like anything to wish for. For while society might still have a sneaking regard for the rampant stag, ultimately it dislikes a weak, priapic, sybaritic old goat in a Bath chair.

Coke is for losers

Paul MacInnes of the Guardian, writes that Cocaine is losing its status as the 'cool' drug to take as the lead singer from the seriously uncool band, Keane, has checked into rehab due an addiction.

I've become more and more anti-cocaine as the years have gone by. There is not a single person who becomes a nicer, more interesting person on it than off it and it has caused more medical problems to friends of mine than any other drug ( and this despite it being taken in lower quantities than the other drugs). Ecstasy can increase your confidence, it inspires squishy niceness and empathy. LSD can expand your mind (apparently). Ketamine turns you into a child. Dope makes you eat lots of cookies. Coke turns you into a cunt. Nuff said.