So to business in the strange bit between Christmas and New Year, and though this may not come as a shock to many people, it has come as a shock to me, having torn myself away from the digital world for a short time to spend away with the folks eating my way through 17 tonnes of food, metal and puppies while having a drip in my arm for the cider.

British Television is crap.

And not just even a little bit crap, I mean crap to the point where in a thunderstorm, you fall to your knees and shout “WHY?!?!?!” to the accompanying dramatic orchestral overture signifying that hell has landed on Earth and there are no Big Macs left in McDonalds.

Let’s examine what was put on Prime-time shall we? Endless repeats of shows older than I am, all demonstrating that TV was better in the 70s, Harry Hill’s TV Fart, where they look at all the TV that’s on and make fun of it with being that funny (and somehow that in itself, funny enough to have won an award or 12), Ant and Dec’s Boxing Day Disaster, where lots of people we care very little for show up and say something while dribbling, at which point all the animals in the audience cry out for more.

Let’s even remark on the human tragedy that is the All new Mr and Mrs on ITV, with which you are presented with three celebrity couples, all of whom you want to see how long they last with a chainsaw between the eyes. They were all so sickening to see, gushing over each other just to ensure that you know that they have everything wonderful in life and you don’t.

I want to call them all a bunch of hairless f**kers, though perhaps that’s just me being bitter that people with the intelligence of dried prunes are worshipped these days, and therefore nine times of ten it’s not even worth getting out of bed.

Oh, and to satisfy those noisy pr*ts that read trash like Heat magazine, we got to witness the most embarrassing facts like to be that the man watches football and the woman goes shopping, or owns lots of one thing. STOP THE PRESSES…I want to get off. We’ll also leave the X factor annoyances to one side as frankly it pretty much shows itself for what a frightening abomination it is.

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And so it’s that time of year once more, and that means a festive Ooh Sometimes message to be displayed on the 25th of December to those who are too bored to talk to their families and prefer to hide looking at smut on the internet instead.

First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone today, hope you got what you wanted or indeed perhaps you just got to spend time with your loved ones, and if not, just remember, EBay allows you to sell both your crap presents and your loved ones on as required.

By the time you read this, I’m away from it all once more, back in the Midlands with friends and family, more than likely right now I’m on the floor under the influence of yet more questionable substances, all the time laughing at shiny things. Damn, that cheap Tesco bleach is powerful stuff.

At 7pm or thereabouts we can all neglect each other and watch Doctor Who…Again. Christ, it’s almost like Groundhog day, only once a year. Only this time we get a new Doctor. Well, New Year’s Day we do anyway. More than likely this is just setting it all up, but enough speculation on one of the very few new pieces of programming to grace our screens this year.

Last year, I wrote about little things like the sales already started before christmas, the ongoing terrorism that is the financial market will make sure that no-one spends for some time to come, and more and more people lose their jobs.

I also tried to point out that things could be a lot worse, and really that still stands. 2009 was a hell of a hard year in many respects, and trust me that will be covered in a fabulous all star post soon, complete with hurtful remarks and reasons to see if rope on a dangling light is a work of art, and would it look better with your neck in it.

But for the time being, we’ll all off, we’re all drinking heavily and possibly having naughty with someone you know, or not, we don’t judge here, though if they have a sexy sister with no self-esteem, let me know.

So to finish off this year’s Christmas message, enjoy the moment, and let’s look forward to eating 70 days worth of leftovers.

And now to dangle keys in front of you in the absence of any real christmas gift, allow me to inform you about a new service which may not last very long due to legal reasons, despite the fact they say everything is fine about that; http://www.tvcatchup.com

Most of the freeview channels are now available via this service, with the only adverts from the service (so it remains free I assume) showing up when you change channel, though the picture isn’t clever at times, looking like an old Mega Drive game instead (note you have to have a clue what a Mega Drive is to find that funny.).

The sign-up process is free and it must be noted that you still need a TV license to view this service as it falls under watching content live. So at the very least this is something else when other people hog the box to watch Doctor Who, while you can watch other things while pretending to work on that nuclear reactor for next year’s science fair or something. At least until Sky get the site shut down for providing a service you should pay for.

Now this is going to appear to be something of a bizarre topic to bring up at this time of year, given the fact that those turkeys aren’t going to eat themselves and Grandma needs throwing on the fire, nevertheless, this evening it was something I felt compelled to write about and given the fact after two days in and out of bed exhausted, finally the time has come to put finger to keyboard once more.

Something came up at work (oh yes I’m still employed by a real firm you know, well at the time of writing I was anyway) recently and one event that has been at the back of my mind a fair bit, was the fact that we all had to adhere to a new “Blogging policy” which is a new thing to have to consider really when you’re a happy go lucky chap on the internet writing about how many time you went to the toilet in one day or the questionable smells from your armpits.

There are now for the first time ever, official guidelines I now have to follow, perhaps out of something truly horrible happening like business being lost, or perhaps even people avoiding working for them, for hearing the latest in a long line of spooky stories at the haunted corporate building. Who knows why they materialised, the fact is that they are there.

Then I started wondering more about the whole area of “enforced” censorship as a result of who you work for, and not for the first time either, this subject came up a while ago: How to write a Blog without losing your job… from September 2007 in fact, when a female worker got fired from Nintendo for being thick and I learned about the existence of “Blog Change Agents” working for companies writing to people who write about them negatively to try and change their opinions via one means or another. Maybe it’s time to revisit the subject and see if things have changed and perhaps now find way around the minefield that is blogging freely while under the company rules.

Well even at the arse end of 2009, not a lot has changed in many ways. People still get jolly upset legally when you mention them with their PR people having a look over first and it appears someone did just that recently as we were all warned recently by various managers to not knock the company you work for to other people outside your family as not only does this reflect badly on the company, but also yourself as a person. Though….surely that’s obvious.

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No sooner had I had posted about Christmas, how little things change unless you push it as well as New year being this point where people pretend that things are going to change, a new start if you will than my spies in the underworld in between playing with themselves and throwing pies at the homeless alerted me to point my browser at this foul thought from humanity:

I had no idea it had already started. Sometimes it does make you wonder about the species we’re a member of….

Yes dear friends it is that time of year….again.

As you can see at the moment, it was time to dig out the old images and theme settings for yet another dose of christ-all-mighty-mas cheer, the same old bloody songs being repeated and sold for the same price as last year, almost as if the record companies and radio stations think it’s the first time we’ve all heard Noddy Holder shout “It’s Christmas, it actually is, honest, I’m not kidding this time.” since yesterday.

The thing is, I rather don’t like Christmas. After last year’s beginning of the credit crunch goodness, things haven’t really changed at all.

You still have to worry what to get people, as you look like a complete and utter rag that’s been tossed all over by Hitler if you fail to turn up with anything short of something amazing, like the cure for cancer, or a remote control house. You got me a jumper to keep the cold out….bastard!

You still end up attending office parties which are just as painful as being in the office as the same people are there, only this time armed with drink, all pretending to like each other but deep down all of them secretly wanting to take out a gun and re-enact the columbine school shootings and may be get a better score.

You have put out 20 year old decorations round the house making the place look more like a council estate complete with burned out Ford Orion than at any other time of the year, buy too much drink and food along with stomach pump, all in the effort to get into the spirit of things. Maybe get a big telly to make sure that the time spent with your loved ones is watching Doctor Who instead any amount of human contact.

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Good December to you all campers, and for those of you still wondering if anything happened aside from getting annoyed by the over hyping of Call of Duty Modern Dustpan and Brish 12: The next insult in November, the answer as far as the blog goes is no. Most other sites on the internet of course tell you differently

So enjoy this piece of video from U-bend which did the rounds during November:

How that makes up for anything over November I have no real idea to be honest, as really it’s just a rubbish attempt to say “Hey Guys, what’s new and have you seen this!?!” to which most people would respond P**s off, you stealing my oxygen.

So much has happened, so little time and so little drive to do anything at all. I suppose more profound things could be written in a witty and downright trouser tickling manner, such is in keeping with previous works here, that the honor of beholding such literary prowess should be kept for another time.

For those wondering, suffice it to say, yes I’m still about, still working hard with nothing to so for it. Business as usual as they say.