It still baffles the mind what the actual reason is for going out to places on New Year’s, other than the fact that you get the next day off and therefore can nurse that hangover you picked up along with a mysterious stranger with breath that could melt a diamond.

And after you’ve cleared away the debris, sat down in the kitchen and eaten two pigs worth of dirty meat to feel somewhat human once more, the grim reality of everything being pretty much the same, except for the lack of any booze left in the house and the instant desire to make all new promises about everything only to fail about three minutes later.

So Happy new year, and actually in a slight twist to the normal new year’s post from Ooh Sometimes in which we drag out the same stereotypes over and over again as what the new year will bring for all, let’s take the opportunity to write some slightly more constructive and nudge our collective memories as we bid farewell to the year that was 2011 and see how much better or worse 2012 could possibly be as a result;

January

In television, January saw the birth of the 10′O Clock show on Channel 4 due to the fact we had nothing like the Daily Show in the UK…except for when the Daily Show was on E4. Oops.

It was received at first in a warm-ish possibly way, then pretty much went down the toilet afterwards, though on the bright side the series was renewed for broadcast in 2012, so god only knows how well that will go down.

In the news, England won something, Sky Sports took one hell of a beating after two sports presenters lost their jobs after secret recordings of a private conversation in which they made sexist comments were made public which made everyone jolly upset.

Oh and that silly little thing in Egypt started, what was it, a revolution or something, who remembers?

February

The new revolution in Egypt gathered pace, where basically the same thing was the reason why the people took to the streets, but aside from getting down about high unemployment, skyrocketing food prices, pervasive poverty and being unable to walk like an Egyptian, they soon demanded that the corrupt president in power, a thunderbirds puppet called Mubarak, simply p*ss off and allow them to have the same freedoms now being enjoyed by others.

Guitar Hero, the funky fisher price guitar playing game was dropped by Activision as basically they couldn’t make huge amounts of money out of it any more.

The Big Society was the big idea coming from the Collation Government and that fell flat on it’s arse pretty much straight away due to a huge amount of cynicism on everyone’s part, and the party being held for MP’s kids to get cushy internships with big City firms didn’t help the idea either, the only message seemingly being “f*ck everyone else and look after yourself.”

And the internet’s fair mindedness came out in full force over a music video put online by one Rebecca Black, in which she sang about Friday a lot, wanting fun fun fun fun, looking forward to the weekend. See for yourself, in case you wanted to relive the wonder you experienced the first time listening to this;

She may as well been setting badgers on fire while shouting death to the west for the difference in hatred she got from this attempt at stardom.

The sad part is, far worse songs written by people named Jizzy Tissue and the Stains of Love go to number one in the charts as people buy it in their thousands.

March

March brought us the horror of a tsunami hitting Japan and wiping out countless lives, the devastation put on show for everyone to see, and the sheer will and calm demeanour of the Japanese people during that time was nothing short of amazing.

The human cost was feared to be in the thousands with many feared dead in the “Mr. Miyagi” prefecture and at the time, people were being exposed to radiation from one of the many settings for the new series of the Incredible Hulk to begin; the Nuclear plants badly damaged in the aftermath, where cooling failures have meant that in order to ensure that further damage and explosions are limited, sea water being pumped into the tanks into the chambers to cool down the “David Banner mad, Hulk smash” fuel rods.

However since that tragic sequence of events, there has been very little actually shown about the clean-up and rebuilding of the country, it would have been good for people to see how people are getting on and how life goes on since.

Charlie Sheen was winning while p*ssing out tiger blood everywhere but that wasn’t enough for Warner Bros who fired him from Two and 3/4 men for basically behaving in the same manner as he does in the TV show.

The phrase “Winning, Duh” became a catchphrase overnight, and was so overplayed to the point that the next person to say it as a joke, would be strangled with tin foil.

For a brief period of time in the UK, it was an obsession, but was life itself for the US media as every network all bent over backwards to say they had the exclusive interview with the actor who basically p*ssed on his doorstep and then went on a bender the likes of which we’ve not seen since 10 minutes ago.

It’s just nice to know that since then, he’s made a name for himself in a stage show which tanked, and he was the butt of jokes on a Comedy Central roast. Well done Charlie.

Oh and I had a “blink and you miss me” moment on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, shown on NBC the same day. Cos I was hanging with the homies in New York. And ting.

April

Oh how everyone laughed when the Royal wedding came around, the sheer joy shared up and down the country was enough to distract everyone from the other things happening in the world.

It also caused the US television networks to go all prim and proper for a while, asking gay men how to make a British cake and standing next to something they think will be exotic for their audiences, but just ends up being a bin with a homeless person hanging out of it.

For my part I did the very best to join in with the festive atmosphere, by looking out the window of the flat to see the coaches of tourists parking up, and then going back to bed till around 2pm, when the shops were empty and I could get some pizza for dinner. A rich full day indeed.

The internet itself has also been ablaze with questions about what you will be doing. Twitter, the world’s easiest way to tell complete strangers that you’ve had a bowel movement and link to various YouTube videos showing it in full detail, also had epic updates from Slim Fast wondering about the dress and who you would have to design your own royal wedding dress?

Oh and you’re fat so buy our crap.

May

Ah of course, do you remember where you were when we all saw the picture showing lots of important people watching a TV which then depicted the death of Osama Bin Lid, which we never ran anything about on this blog aside from a small mention to Seal Team 3447347, an elite team of second hand car dealers and part time pie makers, probably.

Who knows, we’ll never see them.

Amazingly Osama Bin-Corpse was tracked down to a fortified compound in a nice and lovely neighbourhood 60 miles from the capital Islamabad, just down the road from an Army barracks. So much for those luxury caves everyone spent years looking for.

Seal Team ABC-Easy-as-123 opened fire when the 9/11 terror chief refused to surrender as he was only half way through a redtube video he was using to perform a jihad on his penis with. They hit him in the head and chest and also killing three others, one of whom was his son.

Bin Laden’s body was identified using DNA which was matched to samples taken from his late sister’s brain – and his corpse was later buried at sea, which meant for ages people didn’t believe it, demanding to see pictures of his head in bits.

Oh, and people took to the streets mainly just for the morning paper and some milk for their cornflakes, but those naughty news people ended up showing them on TV worldwide making it look like the American pubic was celebrating the news and possibly making themselves look like bloodthirsty ass-holes in the process.

But there was also the good time of all of the UK being asked whether they wanted to replace the existing first-past-the-post system for electing various drunk old farts with money problems with the alternative vote. It was doomed to fail, but on the bright side, there was plenty of room for mocking the entire affair with very unhelpful alterations of campaign material such as this;

June

Ooh Sometimes was off the air of sorts during June as normal life matters took hold and a silly matter of moving home had to be dealt with before returning to the fold, at which point we’d missed a golden opportunity to completely rip the good one out of a US Congressman called Anthony Weiner, who had to walk away from his job after posting a picture of his Weiner to lucky ladies on the internet.

Good thing that that everyone else leaped on it instead, as if that was allowed to pass, then we’d have to question ourselves as a species.

Gay marriage was now allowed in New York. Heterosexuals were happy that all orientations can experience same life-sucking joyless misery as them.

The long awaited Duke Nukem Forever finally arrived after 14872372393 years in development and pretty much is lamented by everyone, to the point the dev teams behind it are now on trial for crimes aganist humanity and will be sentenced to death by listening to Barney the Purple Dinosaur sing, causing huge loss of blood through the ears.

Fighting in Libya continued with no stop coverage on the news, OK, so at the time I wrote that it was being fought using elastic bands and hitting each other with plastic rulers amid huge cost cutting by both sides.

Kind of wasn’t as this was the time everyone in Nato decided to get tough and launch Operation “insert good sounding name here”, in which they had planes fly around and bomb Gadaffi’s army

July

Amy Winehouse died, which meant that she would never ever recover from going off a cliff like a chronically depressed lemming when it came to the various naughty things in her life, her ex-husband not withstanding.

And then we had one of the best moments of the year, just beating the news of two for one bottles of cola at Tescos; Rupert Murdoch being hit with a pie.

Yes this was the month which Phone Hacking was all the rage, having been building up more and more till everyone found what the newspaper naughty people had been doing with a dead 13 year old’s phone, which meant the News of the World had to close for the last time, meaning we had to just refer back to ITV for trashy information on things we don’t care about instead.

Darth Murdoch, along with his young apprentice had to sit in front of a load of MPs who questioned them both on why they didn’t know, how evil they are, and why they insisted on murdering kittens in front of children for Christmas.

Tom Watson was the main warrior against Darth Murdoch, deflecting several attempts by James The Hutt to answer questions about what was known as time and time again, Tom Watson stated that Rupert Vader was the man in charge of corporate governance for the entire company and therefore responsible. It just wasn’t going to go away.

You knew that certain things were never going be to answered and that was certainly the case for a number of questions, and on some level, they may very well not know that much that was going on, after all it wouldn’t be the first time people lied their asses off to pretend that everything is wonderful right up to the bitter end.

The whole affair actually faded a bit afterwards but then started to come back recently to haunt everyone again after famous person after famous person was questioned and gave statements, the most notable being again Huge Grunt, who while impassioned in giving his point of view that all journalists are bastards, managed to make one of the lady lawyers all wet if you paid attention to the looks she gave him, burning holes in his trousers every 10 seconds.

August

Generally this is the time of year, where everyone who failed to use birth control correctly have to take the mistakes on holiday with them, and generally getting to work is a lot easier. The news also tends to have nothing to do, except maybe get an ice cream.

But a shooting of a man in North London was to change all that.

London was literally burning, and it was hard to actually understand why to begin with, as I had turned up back in the country after a very productive trip abroad and things were fragmented at best.

It seemed that all sense had left us and in the morning, we’d all be hanging out with Mad Max in the Thunderdome, hoping that Tina Turner didn’t want us killed.

The rioting over the course of the next 48 hours, moved around areas of London, with Hackney, Croydon, Ealing and Clapham all feeling the wrath of people who wanted to strike fear into the hearts of anyone caught outside and around when it all took place. The police were unable to cope at all with what was going on, and despite their best efforts, were losing the battle.

This video was used as an example of what kind of people the authorities were dealing with;

And at the end of it all with countless hours of footage etc reviewed, the main reason of why it boiled over from the death in North London somehow was this; it was a bunch of useless c**ts who wanted to steal stuff.

For some reason they found it was a good opportunity to go shopping on the cheap in these troubled times and mainly wanted big TVs and trainers. Oh and basmati rice from the corner shop. You have to have something to go with your curry, don’t you?

Afterwards there were a good number of prosecutions, some of which were lambasted in the media for their harshness, considering what some people actually took, but then again with the demand for hanging the b**tards in full swing by the public for the things that had happened up and down the country, what were the justice department to do?

September

This was the point where nothing happened of note, or least this was the start of which I never wrote anything for a long time again, perhaps being too leisurely.

I got older and more worn down probably at this point, so let’s move swiftly onto October

October

Colonel Saunders, sorry Gadaffi came to a sorry end when he tripped over and got shot with someone’s gun, a terrible accident for sure. Thus ensuring that Libya was set on it’s own path and that people get the chance to screw everything up in a new and exciting way!

This month also saw the 7th billion person being born, at which point they were told what crap there was to look forward to and then the baby crawled back into the womb.

And finally the whole world forgot their troubles when Steve Jobs, the man who made selling Apple’s shiny things to people so good, passed away this month due to complications with treatment for his cancer.

Notable people including Barack Obama, Captain of the Coalition David Cameron, Microsoft founder and current Nobel peace prize wanter Bill Gates all commented profoundly on the death of Jobs and the impact he had on the world at large, with hundreds of thousands of more people feeling so sad for the death of one man who made it possible for them to buy apps which made fart noises at any time, anywhere.

But no matter what your thoughts are on the I-f*cks out there, there was no denying the achievements of the man who brought Apple back into the mainstream.

November
Virgin Money snap up Northern Rock for about £5 and some left over chips, but the big news which gave everyone hope for the future came with warnings of “Save the euro in 10 days or see the EU disintegrate”

Which actually this news had been going on for a significant portion of the year, as the debts of the EU countries in the single currency continues to mount, there was still no concrete plan in place other than let’s throw more non-existent money at the issue, which hadn’t worked the first, second and third time with Greece.

Though David Cameron later would upset everyone by saying no to a tighter fiscal policy across all countries centrally controlled by the EU even for those outside the Euro because it would cause people in the City to be upset and some other reasons that we all forget because we focused on that reason only.

The ridiculous part of it all is that the problem continues to lumber on while the leaders continue to try and work something out while hopefully looking like they know what they are doing and what will happen.

Either way it was an excuse for the French to hate us all over again.

After losing his majority in parliament amid growing fiscal problems related to the European debt crisis, Berlusconi officially resigned as Prime Minister of Italy, which meant no more Bunga Bunga parties. A nation mourned the loss, as well as satire writers around the world.

December
Jeremy Clarkson was pounced on by the ever popular happy go lucky unions while actually poking fun at the BBC for them having to be balanced about everyone’s issue

Some woman got upset that the BBC didn’t have any women in its Sports Personality of the Year Awards with women in the name of equality.

The world got a little bit more ronely with Kim Jong-Il’s death and apparently we didn’t spend enough on Christmas presents to make sure that the economy didn’t destroy itself. Oh no.

So there you have it, that was 2011. We can only hope that 2012 is boring as f*ck as we need some time off from all the silliness methinks. Do have nightmares because that will be at least something different to talk about the next day.

As what should kind of go without saying yet you can’t really get away with it, Merry Christmas to everyone whether they like it or not today, and indeed instead of wishing cheer and peace to all mankind, let’s just remember what it’s all about; spending time with people you go elsewhere to get away from and being disappointed to once again receive that novelty item that everyone thought you’d love but instead would rather choke the dog with.

During the festive period of tolerance to all, the Lord of Leisure will be in residence away from (insert weather condition here) London, more than likely right now I’ll be sharing the sheer joy found on my father’s face over the breast implants voucher he now has to use and the belt sander that mum will use clean the car with.

Ok, let’s just pause for a moment as if you happen to be reading the text within this blog post straight (we’re not sexualist, if that is even a term), you’d be forgiven that the writer of this piece would be about to commit suicide by tinsel. Rest assured that is not the case, it’s just a slightly harder time of year that one would care to admit.

Granted, the overall situation is pretty much the same as the past few years, and it does seem that even maintaining your employment is nothing but a daily struggle for survival, it’s only a matter of time before we see Tesco checkout staff fight over who’s going to bag Mrs Watkins’ cabbages to prove that they are invaluable to the demon managers in charge. On the bright side, in 2012, it’s the end of the world, so that will make it all alright then.

It’s actually all too easy to get swept up in a wave of depression on a daily basis, given that the now infamous 99% of people are propping up the elite 1%, the recent wave of new bombings or whatever else has just been flashed up on Sky News as a breaking story, the breaking part being that of breaking our wills to live.

But for the time being, we’re all off again, in a house with working electricity for the PlayStation or other electrical distractions (I know everyone except Starbucks’ workers would have been off anyway as Christmas Day is on a Sunday but let’s go with the flow), and we’re all probably developing a massive drinking problem disguised as being joyful and of course, some of the lucky member of the human race will receive the ultimate Christmas gift, no not that triple strength aftershave which can cause a passing rhino to fall into a coma.

No, it is of course, having naughty with someone you’ve met on a bus, or not, we don’t judge you if you do use the bus, it just means you’re part of the 99% and we don’t like them….now last year and the year before I made the same request of if people had a sexy sister with no self-esteem, f**k it, if their sisters were easy, then they were to let me know.

Well bugger me (the sisters certainly didn’t) if no-one responded. Let me crawl back to the warm bottle of Jack Daniels which at £19 was a far easier option.

So to finish off the 2011 Christmas message on a resounding high, please enjoy the precious moments you’re having with people you know, and let’s look forward to eating only another days worth of leftovers from the bins (well in this time of austerity, we only bought 2 buckets of KFC as a special treat), as we’ll have to loosen our belts for the coming year, given that the belt-tightening isn’t what the big companies were hoping from mere mortals with no cash left.

We’ll see you all for the new year’s message in a few days, unless we got distracted by shiny things again and wake up wearing Grandma’s crotchless trousers, possibly recreating scenes from the Hangover.

Although the main bulk of the comments have all been from Team America, which lets be fair, probably never made it onto his top 10 (it was the heartless portrayal of Matt Damon which apparently was the problem).

Today, North Korean state media, which in terms of accurate, unbiased reporting has come second next to Fox News, have been reporting pledges of loyalty to new leader Kim Jong-un after the death of his father.

The body of Kim Jong-il is lying in a right state….sorry that should have read “in state” in the capital Pyongyang as the public mourning continues in various streets, shops, cars, swimming pools and halls.

Even the state news anchor charged with breaking the news to the overly concerned masses was a shower of tears, if only because there was a gun pointed at her head just slightly off screen, again following in Fox News’ footsteps.

Though of course this is a tragic time for someone probably, there is an upside to all this. Given the sheer amount of liquid spilled over this news by every carbon based lifeform that happened to be in North Korea where there was cameras, surely we could put that to good use and then then airlift it all to Africa to solve the current drought crisis?

Or indeed use the tears to drown millions of puppies, whichever will honour the memory of Great Leader the more.

Kim Jong-il died on Saturday of a heart attack caused by overwork and stress, state media said. Yes, oppressing the masses and ensuring you p*ss off as many people as possible with missile tests really does take it out of you.

So with that legacy in mind, we can only wonder what the next contestant is like in the long running gameshow of power, Kim Jong-un, (is his brother called Kim Jong-uh, and his sister Kim Jong-Eh?) a man whose face ensures for all time that everyone thinks he’s consipated. That is the worry in many governments who have had their fair share of crap from North Korea in the past.

Even though there have been remarks about his western education giving him some better ideas about the west and what else is going on in the world, due to the current military dictatorship, he may actually have to resort to being even more of a cluster-f*ck for the world than his dad was, just to ensure that a Coup d’état doesn’t take place.

And given that may involve nuclear weapons, which have a limited range of household applications (except perhaps microwaving to a billion degrees that last turkey meal for one left in the freezer), let’s be fair, that might be a slight pause for thought. Then again, for all we know, he’s a stand-up chap who just wants to have a few beers and a BBQ. Hopefully though, not barbecuing his loyal subjects.

And in a way, that’s kind of the problem. In a world where everyone slaps everything online about their love for cats falling over on Facebook, and the FBI detain people for tweets about liking falafel (it’s communist food of course), pretty much that part of the world is pretty much cut off and therefore information coming in and out of the place is fairly scarce.

It was actually amazing about how much information the BBC and others were able to output for hours and hours on end about the solemn occasion, even though the vast majority of it was more about what America was going to do and how much they were going to be “overly concerned.”

These days, who actually knows what that means?

And so now, while we prepare for the next news item which will cause us to cry our hearts out, we leave you now in the only way we possibly could end a post about the legend that is Kim-Jong-il;

Good right and rerember to rot be so ronely at this difficult time.

So at long last it was time to deck the halls with bits of rubbish found in the nearby bins, prepare Grandma for a good stuffing and once again run around trying to get things for people we cannot stand, with money we simply do not have. Merry Christmas indeed. Bah, humbug and other words that Charles Dickens would care to throw out.

In last year’s warning over the forthcoming festive season, it was commented that in general, people’s attitudes seem to have altered in comparison to years gone by, not that I’m an expert in reading human behaviour. There was a great restraint on people mentioning the whole “New Year, New Start” phenomenon which was so popular the year before, which borderline drove me insane, therefore reaching out for some stranger in the street’s throat, screaming “Why wait for next year to do something when you could try and do something about it now….hello officer, didn’t see you there.”

Of course, we were still in the mix of financial cuts that many faced, be it individuals or businesses, and as a result, it seemed to be getting back to basics for a large part of it, in turn somehow making Christmas something more special than getting a few days off to eat, drink and p*ss our misery away while moaning about getting a book about road signs and a watch that tells you that you need to buy another watch.

This year, what actually has changed?

Well arguably the only thing that seems to have actually changed at all, is the number of the year. One year later we are still in the mist of a huge turmoil in the world, possibly now even worse with French President Nicolas Sarkozy having it off with Stunt-double-for-Shrek Angela Merkel in order to save the dead parrot sketch that the Euro currency now is all but certain to become.

Recent announcements by the Pirates of the Coalition caused all unions to strike, all unicorns to die, mass evacuation of all bottoms in a 100 mile radius of Westminster and for Jeremy Clarkson to make another joke which everyone got jolly upset about, even if the full footage showed it was in fact a joke and not to be taken seriously. That’s only scratching the surface of the events of recent times.

Given that Ooh Sometimes has been effectively off the air as it were for 6 months, we cannot even forget that there have been a great many other pauses for thought between August and December, some of which could only be described as “Things that happened.”

Join us now as we look back with fond and perhaps somewhat sketchy memories of the last 6 months so we can simply copy and paste the same rubbish for the “We all know it’s coming” Review of the Year post in 2012, which of course as we all know, will be the year everything ends again, again.

The uprisings in the Middle East continue (Remember them? Good times were had by all.), even though the citizens in Egypt won and then got jolly upset at the temporary military guys for some silly reason, something about them being just as bad as that thunderbirds puppet Mubarak they got rid of before, in which case they started again in Tahrir Square.

Whose Libya is it anyway? Well it certainly will never be discarded Madame Tussauds’ waxwork, Gadaffi, who tragically accidently slipped on a bullet to his head. Finally after something which began back in February of this year, the Libyans now have a chance to reshape their country as they see fit, put some lovely flowers here, a McDonalds there….. Nor will it be in fact Osama Bin-Lid as Seal Team 123456789 came in heroically shot him while he yanked off to some tasteful art on YouPorn. Or held his wife hostage. Or who had a gun or didn’t. Probably. Who cares?

Yes, the man who became a symbol for the war on Terror, suddenly became an excuse for all Americans to take to the street, whoop a lot and dance around on camera for all the world to see, at which the world just sighed and went back to its knitting.

Speaking of the USA AOK nation, the 2012 presidential race was hotting up, with every republican candidate basically loosing the lead for having sex with something, losing all control of their higher brain functions or scaring people about everyday household objects and how they were going to kill your children. Meanwhile Obama after having Osama killed, got a pie. If you can make more sense of it than the various news teams in America, you should contact CNN and apply for a job.

And finally as far as re-runs of events go, the phone hacking scandal which rocked the casbah earlier this year came back into the news with every Tom, Dick and body part/celebrity waste turning up and stating they were victims of child abuse, I mean, phone hacking. Though to be fair, the only one which got the ladies stirring was Huge Grant, who has been a valiant fighter against all those who would try to ensure that he never got up to naughty again with a hooker in LA. The lady barrister who was caught on camera staring at the star’s huge grant, is said to be in need of getting laid.

So now that we are all caught up with the state of affairs, one might ask what is there to look forward to for Christmas, given that if anything on the ground, things continue to get harder. Well there are the traditional values of spending time with the family, giving what you can to those you love and watching the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas special. Or we could just drink ourselves silly thinking that next year will be different. Next year will be different, in that it will be 2012 instead of 2011.

Don’t have nightmares.

At the time, I was out of the country and had only heard minor mentions in passing stating that something was going on in London town, but to what extent, it was not certain. It was only after landing back in Stansted Airport late in the evening, as a number of people awaited the National Express back to merry old London, that things were made clearer by the staff working there.

No-one was travelling to the East End, and a limited service seemed to be operating back to Victoria Coach Station, but exactly what was happening was still a mystery. Upon arriving at Victoria, something unheard of in London awaited to greet us. No taxis, and one bus. It was only for taking a chance with a couple of Indian gentlemen who heading back out west in their van, that I was able to make it back for some rest from the bumpy plane journey.

Turning on the news unleashed the full horror of what was happening.

London was literally burning, and it was hard to actually understand why. It seemed that all sense had left us and in the morning, we’d all be hanging out with Mad Max in the Thunderdome, hoping that Tina Turner didn’t want us killed. A further investigation didn’t yield anything further in terms of the real reason as why a fancy dress shop in Clapham was a target of the mob’s wrath but here’s the cut-down jist of it.

It all started apparently from a police shooting of one Mark Duggan in Tottenham, who the news did at least state on no less than 3000 occasions, was a father of 4, when the chap was in police custody on Thursday 4th August after the boys in various colours (hoping not to offend anyone in being multi-coloured as per current police guidelines when dealing with the public) went ello ello ello at a car in which he was a passenger.

On Saturday, a protest march started out peacefully about the police’s actions, which at some point probably while everyone had sandwiches and some ginger beer, somehow erupted into full scale rioting, leading to Tottenham, a wonderful dump in the north of London, pretty much all on fire, cars, homes and shops decided to join in with the fun of being set alight, and pretty much you could have walked around with a loaf of bread in your arm, and it would have turned to toast by the time you got home. It was a scene of total carnage.

On the bright side, Tottenham looked pretty much the same before it started.

The rioting over the course of the next 48 hours, moved around areas of London, with Hackney, Croydon, Ealing and Clapham all feeling the wrath of people who wanted to strike fear into the hearts of anyone caught outside and around when it all took place. The police were unable to cope at all with what was going on, and despite their best efforts, were losing the battle.

This video was used as an example of what kind of people the authorities were dealing with;

As Captain David Cameron, of the Pirates of the Coalition came back from his secret underground lair, to take charge at meetings of COBRA (Hang on, aren’t they the bad guys from the G.I. Joe cartoons?), and basically take police from everywhere else in the country to ensure that London remained peaceful, the same riots started in the West Midlands, where there was tragic loss of life in a hit and run incident, to Salford and Manchester, suggesting that pretty much everyone knew all the police were in London and decided to go on a little trip to see the sights and then burn them.

In a show of amazing goodwill, hundreds of volunteers organised themselves using Twitter and Facebook, and took to the streets in order to clean up the mess left by those who clearly thought they could do anything they well pleased.

Which for a time, that was exactly the case, as there were many instances of the police, not being able to deal with the pace and different locations of destruction at the same time, and also having to protect the fire crews putting out the flames, had to leave various people to fend for themselves. This was something of much heated arguments thrown at the politicians from the public, who had all returned after 3 days of the riots taking place to show that they had to care for a change, with Parliament being recalled for one day to discuss the rioting and what actions would follow.

In the aftermath, a great many questions were asked about pretty much everything under the Sun (for once, not the newspaper), and the number one thing was what to blame this all on. Was Britain truly broken? Were video games to blame for this trouble (we’re not kidding, this old sh*t came out again as a reason)? Were the Pirates to blame for the wide ranging cuts to pretty much everything which lead to the events we all watched in twisted fascination on screens up and down the country? Did we forget about young people and not actually listen to what they wanted?

Actually, watching the events on TV, it was clear what it was.

A bunch of useless c**ts who wanted to steal stuff.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the shooting of the father of 4, which it seems has now all but vanished from the news, mealy was an excuse for a huge number of it seems anyone who wanted to have a go, to go and get a new TV or phone. This was no protest, this had no point to make, it was just stealing. The worst part is, that it was not as first thought, just “young people” having a jolly good time. The past few days have shown convictions for a teaching assistant and a graphics designer, not exactly those with nothing to lose.

What was even more clear, was that this was planned and coordinated on a scale the likes of which we’ve not seen in this country and the police, did the best they could, as much as they were allowed to, given that they were stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to taking action (see endless criticism of the police from everyone for how they reacted), which has caused our wonderful leaders to start getting things ready to start shutting down services such as Facebook and Blackberry Messenger, in the light people use it to plan such activities, at the same time walking into a murky quagmire of governments controlling media.

The dangers now of going overboard on legislation to “protect” us are ever more present, and the problem is, that there will always those who seek to bugger over others and there is very little people can do to stop that, in fact the exact same situation exists with terrorism, it could happen despite any precautions you take.

The events need to be carefully considered from all angles before just going off on one, clamping down on pretty much everything in sight, as basically that would also mean this country is a crappier place to live. Remember it’s not all bad here….sometimes…..probably.

We should also be heartened, that in fact people came together to help each other afterwards, which shows that even in cities from time to time, we can all drop our Ipods and see if we’re alright.

And to end this piece, it seems that given the actions of the mob, social justice would dictate that every single person who participated in the riots deserve to have their balls chopped off, or ladies parts sewn up. Could be wrong on that one, but would anyone disagree at this point?

Thought not.

During a recent trip to not-Germany or Austria that other people may know it as, being a stranger in a foreign land, it’s a requirement not just to take time to sample the culture, ambience and cuisine of the country in question, in order to come back and write in an informative yet entertaining manner to you, the discerning internet browser whom I humbly serve, who it seems has nothing better to do with their time other than read complete rubbish and watch YouTube videos of cats doing a rap.

No, it’s a requirement, a duty and honour to look for various things to laugh at because it would be a funny thing in English.

Here is the best of those things, and if anyone wants to do a caption, mail it in, and we’ll add it to the relevant picture;

No, it’s not slang, for those of you from the UK, it’s in fact just a copy of Greggs the Bakers, the name is rather unfortunate when asking “Where’s the nearest anker?”

That exactly what people like to do when they ride a bike…

Excellent, It’s good to know that this is a hair studio. Looking at the sign, it could have been an underground fight club.

Der rival newspaper is Der Post.

Huh huh huh…..tit.

Anyone who can say this five times fast gets a gold star. They aren’t allowed to be German, know German or in fact have the ability to pronounce words.

Oh my god, Al Bundy from Married with Children owns a real gym with ober stuff in? This is truly a wonderful place.

And that’s the “Fun with Language” done for today, stay tuned for the first part of Lonely Lord: Vienna series which will be appearing shortly on this very site, so you too can pretend you’ve been there and show off to all your friends that you know what a plane is.

But have any of you turned you’re hand to being a hip and with it guy who stands at the front of a tiny stage in an underground Jazz club, wearing a black hat, smoking some funk and just laying down the world as you saw it?

Well I haven’t. But if I did, this is what I would say to the brothers out there….

I ain’t got nothing and they took that away from me too!
It’s The Man, laughing with his cup of oppressive tea
How I hate the government, more than you’ll hate me,
The government stole my goldfish and unplugged my TV….

He said “eh fool, what you looking at?”
I said “some two dollar hoes and some garden tat.”

Kapow! I just blew your mind.

Before we address the real ugliness of human behaviour that occurred in Norway and also to some extent the media coverage of the tragic events, this weekend we witnessed live the emergency services carrying away the body of Amy Winehouse, who was declared dead aged 27 on Saturday afternoon.

While a post-mortem was carried out today and so far has not come back with an official cause of death, pretty much the odds are unfortunately, that she was back on the Lemsip with a swift pint or 34.

It pretty much sums it all up when various famous folks paid tribute as stating what a terrible waste of talent, something which was echoed here on this site from many moons ago but of course, at the time she was still very much with us.

Russell Brand took time out from being a bearded eccentric gimp to write for the Guardian yesterday about the woman who basically rose up and then fell apart.

Remarkably, it was so graceful, elegant and thought provoking in it’s delivery, to underpin the problem of drug addiction and the effects, that you would forget this was the same prat who had that wonderful time leaving naughty voice mails about smutty grand-daughters for the News of the World…I mean old actors to pick up. People, perhaps can indeed change.

The world has lost another talent which will be missed.

Though it seems other talents are vary much still alive and was in full force to see over in Norway, though this particular talent would have been better off never being brought the light of day.

In the aftermath of Friday’s twin attacks, when a bomb was set off in Oslo, and then a murder spree on an island filled with young people, which is run by one of the political parties of the country, in which detailed accounts of the horror have been given by those fortunate to survive, endless amounts of questions have been asked about how something like this could possibly happen and how soon can we blame Al-Qaeda?

Well the how was quite easy to answer as an online document posted by the calculating demented b*stard, Andrex Bullsh*tter Bellend (who we have no doubt will now use his court appearances to further his own agenda as this document did, when every news organisation was quoting from it over and over again over the weekend) basically gave a detailed account of motivations, actions and timeline to the whole sorry affair.

The blaming on Al-Qaeda clearly took the Sun newspaper (Look out for that Sunday edition soon folks!) all of three seconds to come with, as demonstrated on the Saturday edition produced, though the information was still only coming in slowly at that time, as the pace of events were such a blur that no-one had a clue what was going on, not even the experts who expertly were wrong that it was Al-Quadbike’s works.

As it emerged that a home-grown nut-job had committed the crime, that whole theme of Islamic fundamentalism pretty much faded to the background, but was thankfully reinforced by the UK Foreign Secretary and Dick Tracy villain, William Hague who stated:

It remains the case that the single biggest terrorist threat to this country remains al-Qaeda, or people inspired by al-Qaeda, but what has happened is a reminder that it is not the only source of violent extremist or terrorist attack.

Or given the events that took place, you could read it as “Oh b*llocks, one bloke can still f*ck up our security and there’s nought we can do about it. But let’s remember that the Islamic terrorists are still about with their hi-jinks and dilly-dallying and forget about that one bloke. Please?”

The sad fact is, that there will always be people who seek to hurt fellow human beings for their own ends, be it political as was in this case, it was about Norway’s immigration policy (I think) or just for the fact that they are about as mentally stable as a chronically depressed lemming.

Even worse, the events will ensure that Norway will change it’s behaviour in how it deals with security around key areas, just like the UK did when 7/7 occurred, with installations of barriers and police carrying guns around them.

Either way, the saying of “The terrorists will never get us to change” always turns out to be complete rubbish, as an act of terror, no matter who is behind it, is out to achieve an upheaval in the status quo and with every life lost, society does alter for the worse.

We lose a bit more freedom in exchange for the feeling of security and in the end the same thing happens again, even with the extra measures. No-one can account for events like this, and it would be a shame if somehow the sick bugger’s actions did achieve what he wants, as no doubt there will be a full review of policies by the Norwegian authorities and the motives given by the nutter may be enough for them to review the areas he criticised publicly.

And then others will see that violence and fear is the voice of change, not debate and reason.

And to end on a upbeat note; Andrex looks like he f*cks pigs and squeals more than they do. Too harsh a comment considering his offences?

The main event of today were Rupert Murdoch with his son James appearing before some committee that we’ve never heard of until today, on what they knew, didn’t know, and frankly it’s hard to think anything other that they were asleep at the wheel or perhaps easy to fool, as one question after another basically brought pretty much the same answers over and over again, No I wasn’t aware, No I didn’t know, No I didn’t rape that pineapple, no smoking, no running etc..with the world record for saying “The Company” 347329812 times in 2 hours certainly went to James.

Tom Watson was the main warrior against Darth Murdoch, deflecting several attempts by James The Hutt to answer questions about what was known as time and time again, Tom Watson stated that Rupert Vader was the man in charge of corporate governance for the entire company and therefore responsible. It just wasn’t going to go away.

You knew that certain things were never going be to answered and that was certainly the case for a number of questions, and on some level, they may very well not know that much that was going on, after all it wouldn’t be the first time people lied their asses off to pretend that everything is wonderful right up to the bitter end.

However, there is no way in any layer of hell that anyone is going to believe that (even with the attempt of throwing foam by a complete spanner at Rupert Murdoch which will both win rounds of applause from some and despair from others that it would detract from getting to the heart of the matter) after watching the events of today, people are going to think twice now in that these men run a media empire with the mentality of anything other than a cabbage.

At the close of trading in New York, News Corp shares were 6% higher than at the start of the trading day across the pond, mainly due to the award winning performance given by the Murdochs, which either suggests the Americans all thought it went very well, or the wagons are circling and now fight clubs have started up, seeing who will take over the keys to the Death Star. Either are entirely possible.

What today also showed to us mere mortals who busy ourselves with eating pie and laughing at homeless people, was an amazing glimpse into the upper echelons of the corporate world, at which level it seems that when companies go global, that on the face of it, it’s very easy to lose track of what’s going on and for people to do whatever they like, right up until the point when the brown stuff hits the fast rotating blade cooling device.

Mind you, the number of lawsuits mentioned today also by the MPs was staggering and exactly how long this question of phone hacking was going on for is clearly up for debate, if you’re bringing up events from 2003, one just has to wonder why nothing was done sooner? (cough, money, cough, cover-up, other noises designed to muffle speech, X-files, Murdoch killed John Lennon, b*llocks and so on…)

It also gave us the tactics of the corporate entities in that they are just as cautious in their language as any politician would be, in case they say something which raises more questions. The police investigations may have helped them with avoiding answering specifics.

It doesn’t end there either, Rebekah Brooks, who resigned over this affair after pretty much everyone calling for her to die or something similar, was arrested by police, then bailed and then after the Murdochs wandered in to tell the same MPs who were probably patting themselves on their backs for a job well done, that News International had acted “quickly and decisively” (or “Oh shit, we’re in trouble, better do stuff now”) when new evidence of hacking emerged and that she never sanctioned payments to police. Probably. Maybe. Ish. Let’s be honest, she’s already under the bus along with old ladies zimmerframes and badgers, who would care what she will say now?

The Conservatives, who really must be hoping that no-one else from their side was involved in all this, say some bloke who again I suspect no-one will have cared about until this point, former NoW journalist Neil Wallis may have provided “informal advice” to Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s ex-press chief, before the last election. Now what the hell does that mean? Were they talking about the birds and the bees?

The besiged Metropolitan police force must be at least looking for a few good men (there’s a film in there somewhere) as Commissioner Gordon, sorry Sir Paul Stephenson denied any lies, treachery and deceit in the hiring of Neil Wallis to provide media support (does that mean he buys the paper from the local newsagents?) to the police force. Paul Stephenson said he now regretted the appointment, although in reality this was probably only stated because he looked a bit of a gimp now in light of events. The Met’s public affairs director Dick Fedorcio, a porn star in waiting given his name, told MPs 10 out of 45 members of his department had once worked for News International. They will now be tried for crimes against humanity and be told they did naughty.

A post-mortem examination into the death of whistleblowing former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare (who turns out had a history of sniffing various things) has found no evidence of third party involvement, although the police force holiday to the Bahamas may have been some poor planning on their part…

Now all eyes for on undead Captain of the Collation David Cameron, who pretty much had no choice but to travel back to the UK aboard the Boeing Jolly Roger after cutting short a wonderful trip to Africa where there was cocktails and those little sausages, to prepare for the one day special edition Commons debate on the hacking scandal taking place tomorrow, in which they will look at how the evidence of today played out and once again everyone will ask Dave to say sorry about Andy Coulson…again again.

Who wants to bet that it will be a waste of time? The prosecution continues…

It’s been some time since I spent a wind-swept Sunday with a happy go lucky chum (who we can only suspect was bored to do anything else) moving home from a one room cardboard box which was called by some “the country club” into a one bedroom deluxe hive of scum and villainy (some of the residents are in fact from the cantina scene in Star Wars), and soon afterwards there was one thing that was noticeable that anything else and it’s actually a very very scary thing.

There was more room. Consider this for a moment. More room.

From the vomit on the keyboard in front of you, I can tell that you were sick at the sheer horror at such an idea, considering that in London a mere £6000 a second will get you an empty crisp packet with outside toilet aka the street. What are you meant to do with more than one metre of room in a place that is entirely your own until the landlord throws you out?

Well, that’s the scary thing you see. Not only does it tell you that you didn’t have that much to begin with, which in itself makes you think that you aren’t actually doing as well as you might think even though that has no bearing on anything at all. When you have indeed take a good hard look at the additional room, the natural instinct that we urban dudes with our floor length mink coats and cheeseburgers leap upon is what crap to buy to fill it up with.

Don’t worry about it, it’s a compulsion that has been fed by the ever present onslaught of home shows where you see ever increasing amounts of expensive ornaments in front rooms where the owners happen to have about £5,473,834 just lying around along with 12 months free to spend on doing the place up in the first place.

Granted, occasionally you do actually need to buy a piece of furniture to use for a “constructive” purpose, such as a desk to place all manners of electronic equipment on instead using a dining table (not that I’m trying to justify anything that’s going to take place in this little biopic of the human condition) but most of the time we are looking for something, that will make the place “more homely”, whatever that means, can you can make a prison cell more homely with scatter cushions.

And with that, we now go to what quintessentially the new age place for those with a furniture fetish can go to satisfy their dark lust; IKEA.

The Swedish have a lot to answer for. Ulrika Johnson, Sven Goren Erikson, and the bloke who did the temperature scale. But a long time ago, someone decided that they should sell flat pack furniture worldwide and thus the yellow giant was born with a few screws missing.

It’s rather a curious discovery when taking a trip round the IKEA mothership, as I found instead of the normal level of bitterness and hatred for my fellow man, I was lulled into a false sense of wonder and amazement, and that is probably how they rope people into the maze, feeding you furniture pellets to keep you going until you get to the end. Maze is the choice word there, as after eating all the meatballs at the dinner at the start of the shop, you then follow a long winding corridor stuffed with ideas for that room which will show to everyone you know that you are complete as an individual.

Picture by Mark Hillary because I couldn’t be arsed to take any myself.

You have a compulsion to want everything on sight, even if all you come in for was a towel just in case the world ends as per the Hitchikers’ Guide to the Galaxy. One has to wonder if they are employing the tricks of Las Vegas hotels where they pump air in to make you feel happy while you p*ss away what little money you had in the first place.

You know what’s worse, the lump in the diseased throat?

They actually do some fantastic deals.

A table for £5 which is more sturdy than what you put together for £15 by using a polish boy as a table. A huge office desk for £35. When on the one hand you want to do nothing but despise what they are and what they do, you still come away impressed, fully loaded and convinced you’ve done everything right.

You know you’re going to basically turn into Edward Norton when he orders from the IKEA catalogue while having a poo from Fight Club, and everything you have ends up coming from that one place. Just another little bit here and there, to finish it off, to make the small amount of room reflect your award-winning personality, whereas instead you coming off as nothing but a smug little bugger who has nothing better to do than to go to IKEA.

Hmm perhaps the next question will be; when is Tyler Durden going to burn the place down then? Perhaps after I’ve finally escaped, having waited in at the helpdesk for 2 years back at IKEA, waiting for the trolls who work there to get me the two missing screws which would allow me to put the damned desk up in the first place.

It’s not the end of it all, oh no. There will no doubt be something else you could do with, oh how can I tidy up that collection of erotic magazines in a easily accessible but attractive way? What would go great with that wall? What vase best describes me as a person?

Welcome to the world of never-ending need to fill up empty space. Oh, and welcome to the IKEA Family too.

This ever evolving story of lies, treachery and deceit can only be described as the stuff of nightmares to people up and down the country, and still there is ever more that will come out in the days ahead. So given that events have moved apace since last time, and the news only had an earthquake to cover today, let’s recap on what’s been going on, in what some might say is rather boring commentary, and there’s not even much swearing either…

The number of people involved in this whole mess has risen to such a height, that the BBC has dedicated an entire page on their website with a list of people so long, that frankly it’s beginning to make ladies weak at the knees and for men to feel, inadequate.

Even more so, the supposition I made that BSkyB was still going to be bought, just not now right now due to people being slightly upset about their dead loved ones’ phones getting buggered with, took a left turn as News Corp dropped the bid to take complete control of the overpriced then under-priced in terms of shares (well, the crap TV remains overpriced) satellite broadcaster. Well given that there was a House of Commons motion tabled to discuss the whole thing due in a few hours from when the BSkyB withdrawal announcement was made, what else could they do?

But again, the language of the announcement was chosen very carefully, to not exclude them going after it in the future.

Remember that for the majority of all this, you could only feel cynicism with most of the characters invloved?

Well, the bandwagon remains in full swing for now, in addition to the actions being taken in this country, it seems that the FBI, apparently not having much to do these since Jack Bauer retired from blowing crap up to annoy them and Mulder went off to shag women in LA instead of looking over the X-Files, is investigating alleged hacking of the phones of 9/11 victims by the News of the World.

One of the most surprising outbursts, though not surprising once you know the story, was Gordon Brown, who recently made a public appearance, the first really since wandering off from that thing he used to do for a living, prime monster of Britain or something, and it turns out that he too was a victim of phone hacking and stuff too, in which the condition of his his son Fraser’s cystic fibrosis in 2006 fell into the public arena, courtesy of another of lovable Mr. Murdoch’s publications, the Sun.

Not only in speaking at the House of Commons openly about how sh*tty it all was for 35 minutes, in which people stayed around for 35 seconds to hear, he also gave an interview in which he further vented his anger about what had happened. Gordon’s plight was shocking, but as with all politicians again, one cannot help but feel, that all this is coming out at the same time which capitalises on the momentum that the phone hacking scandal has taken.

And with the celebrities all coming out with all sorts of bizzare stories of how they were hacked, caught, whatever, Hugh Grant came out about the phone hacking last week, appearing on everything going, you on on the one hand felt sorry for what happened and actually impressed by his command in the matter, even getting down on tape a conversation with a bloke who used to work for the News of the World for good measure in a feat of quite unbelievable brilliance, but did anyone just for a moment remember the prostitute he did naughty with and laugh to themselves before putting on the concerned face again? (I did, oh me, pick me!)

Unless they can given everyone in the world a million pounds and a blowjob by all women working in the playboy mansion, it’s very hard to see exactly how News Corp can actually get out of the massive black hole they find themselves in, even with pending appearances before various committees to answer questions or making various comments in other publications, in which Darth Murdoch vows to correct lies said in Parliament and also to shed light on how many people were his friend before this all started (cough Gordon cough).

The fact that it’s so far widespread and threatens to unravel one of the world’s most famous media empires, is frankly borderline pornographic viewing, and it’s actually feeding the media beast which arguably started it all in the first place. As we keep watching, and waiting for the next big reveal on this magic roundabout, let’s hope that there is an actual funny punchline to all this. Right now, it’s just not funny.

Yes, Dallas is coming back to our screens after JR, wanting a lie-in for a change, dreamt of pie and then woke in the year 2525, where he and Buck Rogers will save the Galaxy from overpriced toilet paper…no wait sorry….it was something else.

The News of the World newspaper came to an end this week in the UK with an almighty crash after it was discovered that people associated with the publication that love to shove tits, tat and terrorism in our weary eyes in recent years, was also “hacking” various phones belonging to well pretty much anyone who is alive or dead.

Even John Paul II stood up from his “nap” and said the paper hacked his holy phone to God, and deleted the voicemail where God asked him to get some milk while he was out in Tesco’s. God was most displeased there was no milk for his Rice Krispies that day.

As the days have stretched on, the facts of what practices have been taking place over in Wapping, which until now will have not even entered anyone’s minds as being a fortress of evil, seems to only get more fantastical. It seems that no-one at all was left alone in what appears to be a practise of stopping at nothing to get anything to fill pages, at any cost.

Even now as the paper is closed, the facts can only get worse for those who had connections to all this, including the police, who were paid for their information and other services, and of course, our lovable politicians, who it appears was only too happy to cuddle up to Satan, sorry Rupert Murdoch, who when spotted on television dodging questions on Friday, looked like a sponge that had been left out in the sun too long. He is now in London, ready to make the big decisions on what to have for dinner today.

Rebekah Brooks, a woman whose captured face when leaving the office recently suggests she eats her young, was the preceding editor when all this took place (Former Conservative Spin Doctor Andy “May as well be called Lying Bastard” Coulson’s in the picture too but he’d already resigned for this), basically remains in her throne as Dr. Evil at News International while basically everyone else is now on Jobserve seeing if even McDonalds will give them a second chance.

With the closure of the News of the world and various people being questioned, various enterprises have also come into question, such as will there be now a Sunday version of the Sun to replace its former counterpart? Will News International’s bid to control BSkyB still go ahead? Was there a cover-up about this at News International? Will there be new regulations as what the press can do covered by a new organisation that has magic superpowers? How far up the arse are the politicians with the media? Is this bread I bought organic?

Firstly before we can address those questions, the problem with all that has been going on, is that you cannot remain in any other mindset other than cynical. If the MPs expenses taught us anything, is basically not to believe anything that anyone in positions of power say, as no matter who comes onto the media field of battle, people will be standing by with their pitchforks and touches ready to burn the next witch.

It’s all but confirmed that News International will get something in place to replace the lost revenue of the News of the World. It’s just a question of timing once the hoopla has died down and we go back to looking at which footballer spent £700 million on a gold plated hooker.

Same as the question of whether they will take over BSkyB.

Right now, everyone looking at the whole deal with a fine tooth comb to see if there is any way they can stop it because people have complained at the last minute, with the matter being referred to Ofcom. But legally it’s somewhat murky waters and also with the share price of BSkyB falling as a result of events, News International could conceivably now complete the transaction they want by paying less! Again, it’s a matter of timing.

As the Press Complaints Commission apparently failed for one reason or another to stop this, (remember the Police were busy working for the press to investigate this apparently illegal practice) a new body will be set up with various powers and stuff and in no way will it just be the same thing with a fancier name and mast head….he says with shifty fingers on the keyboard.

One valid point that the press being free and therefore self-regulated by the Press Complaints commission, has made some of the work they do in exposing deeds of ill repute for all of us to revile sometimes requires this level of lies, treachery and deceit. After all, that’s how the MPs Expenses eventually got put on public display.

But messing around with dead soldiers’ relatives’ phones…yeah sorry chief, that’s a tough one to sell to anyone. Maybe just a wee bit of thought that what you’re doing actually is in the public interest first?

Although that in itself leads to another question; As consumers of trash news and gossip, did the public actually push the papers down this route of getting dirt no matter what?

If so, are we now actually seeing what comes as a result of being more interested in whose sleeping with who rather than current events which affect us? The argument can be made that the people consuming media demanded ever more bizarre levels of twisted naughty, that in this case, the News of the World were simply giving people what they wanted and this was the result. After all, media is still a business, no matter what platform you consume it on and if this is where the money is, would you blame them for lowering to this 7th layer of hell?

And finally it seems our lovable politicians are trying to distance themselves as far away from this, in as far as they can get away with people not mentioning they go to parties with Murdoch…oops…and riding on a wave of dismay to ask lots of questions about stuff they didn’t care about until people got upset. Like every policy decision basically.

Labour Leader Ed Mullerrice, who basically has been doing his jolly best to spin this to his advantage this week despite smelling of the same sh*t, with a Reuters News conference on Friday and then appearing as much as possible on any show going who would have him, has been calling for enquires about enquires and for Pirates of the Coalition Captain David Cameron to say he is scum for employing the editor bloke from News of the World in the first place.

Dave has said stuff will happen and we’ll have a chat about it. That’s about it right now, but knowing that it’s a slow news cycle, what with the drought in Africa, fighting still in Libya, UK social services being cut and living costs still soaring and all, who knows what will emerge this coming week?

So all in all, this is turning into one piece of brilliant entertainment, simply because we’re seeing the filth of human nature being aired on the 24 hour rolling news channels for all to see. It’s better than sex (terms and conditions apply, see condom pack for details).

And so as the final curtain falls and people’s disgust carries on, here’s one final thought; How much money did News International make today on the final copy of the News of the World despite everyone being upset?

This is one of those tales to be passed on for all time.

Greater than Lord of the Rings, more epic than Lawrence of Arabia, slightly less dressy than Lady Gaga, there was a man, with whom no depth was too low to sink to, where no-one was safe from references to Knight Rider.

Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. David Hasslehoff. with something that frankly can only be described as the freakiest and funniest video known to exist since Osama was caught on camera watching the Big Bang Theory. The song itself is I’ve got a feeling, although you have suspicions the full title should have been “I’ve got a feeling that someone’s going to take the p*ss out of this”

But the legend doesn’t end there.

Not content with his feeling, he desired to inform us about an ancient artform, thought forever lost back in Vietnam and the back of the fridge next to the cheese. The best part is, everyone can take part. Dare you not sing along to….the Limbo Song.

So if all this has taught us one thing, is that there are still people off their t*ts ready to entertain and pleasure us (not in that fashion, at least not cheap anyway) so no matter what the world throws at you, just remember this sacred phrase;

Don’t hassle the Hoff!

It’s been two long months since the last post on OohSometimes, and in that time a lot of weird and some would say wonderful stuff has happened in that time. Let’s have a recap;

In other news, I’ve had to move to a new place and get various lies, treachery and deceit in place in order to get back to a semblance of laziness once more, and in a bizzare sentence to write for most, let alone read, get used to having a proper supermarket nearby.

Do not underestimate the simple pleasure of having a supermarket close by selling more than just bread and tubs of lard because they cannot squeeze any more into the tiny space they decided would be a good idea to open up shop in the first place, and even better, the cheaper prices of standard goods, in London, it’s just as good as being told that 12 supermodels all want you and then feel it’s their duty to wrestle each other for your filthy pleasure.

There are other pleasures that simply must be described which will make by far a very entertaining post which will dazzle and disgust all of you, but it’s late and I’m out of material. Stay tuned for more in the coming days where hopefully normal (or whatever counts for normal on this digital tome) service will resume and there will be lovely pictures to go along with it too.

Also if anyone wants to have anything discussed in detail on here, then please leave a note in the contact section, twitter, facebook, air-mail, smoke signal or hand fart.

The entertainment to be had in NYC also varies widely depending on what you’re looking for, but most of it will cost you a fair bit of cash. The two examples I was presented with, and present to you for your consideration, was a stand-up comedy night and a Broadway show.

The stand-up comedy left a lot to be desired if the Ha! club was anything to go by, it’s also the point that the HA! name may actually be ironic. You see, you’re led down to a basement where you are told that after paying for the entrance fee, you are then told you must buy two drinks as a minimum where everything is $10 each. Wonderful, I’m laughing already.

You then get three people on from the local area, whose most impressive lines include “Anyone here from South Carolina?” at which point someone says yes, and He responds “Oh Man!” That’s the joke. Yep. That’s it.

Although at some point one of them asked if anyone was bothered about the Royal Wedding (yes it was talked about all that time ago in March) and out of boredom, I said no, as I was in the front row. I then went on to explain clearly why I didn’t care, and also proceeded to then question how bored the Americans were to be looking at this sort thing, at which point there were more cheers from the audience than during his set. Curious, but there you are.

So basically it was a huge let-down and if you go to the HA! Comedy Club, find the exit instead. You’ll have a better laugh vomiting on a hobo.

One thing that many people say you should do while in New York is see a Broadway show, and the one that was chosen from the sheer lack of anything decent (sorry, the Adams Family? Again?) from Broadway.com, was How to Succeed in Business without really trying, staring Harry “Horse Botherer” Potter who basically it seems, has been trying to get away from the Potter franchise by doing a variety of plays on both sides of the Atlantic.

The premise of the show was that one guy called J. Pierpont Finch played by the wizard, a young but bright window-cleaner buys a book – “How To Succeed In Business” and following its advice joins the multi-national but slightly buggered up “World-Wide Wicket Company”. They sell paint…..probably, who knows?

Basically he starts from the mail-room where one or two key conversations later in which he gets the person above him either fired or moved to another section of the company, he then rises up the ranks (it seems that every time he references the book he turns to the audience and smiles with some music just so you know he’s doing naughty), yet somehow actually does f**k-all actual work.

The love interest comes from secretary Rosemary Pilkington, which she just falls for him straight away and sings various things, but Finch just carries on, until one bit where all of a sudden out of nowhere he starts singing Rosemary and falls for her too.

Don’t ask me, it’s what happened on stage.

Meanwhile, the president of the WWWC, J.B. Biggley played by John Potato Croquette (or the bloke who was nasty, and also buggering Murphy Brown in the TV series Boston Legal), tries to have an affair with some woman called Hedy LaRue, but then something else happens, some other bloke is involved who turns out is a gimp and blah blah blah, oh my, how will Mr Finch win against all this?

Well, the answer is yes, he wins, but it’s how he wins, and actually it seems to come out of nowhere, in quite a brilliant fashion.

Now it would be amazingly easy to now proceed down the road most tread, where we just rip the p*ss out of the thing and then go back to drinking heavily, as what happens during every post that gets written here. But for once, I’m forced to eat my bile and state for the record; Away from Harry Pothead, it seems that Daniel Radcliffe is actually a good stage actor. Not only that, he can move with the best of them, performing dance routines so elaborate, that pretty much anyone watching that sort of thing, let alone perform them would have a heart attack within 20 seconds.

The event was certainly a big occasion as you would expect from a Broadway production, with no less than 22 songs throughout the 2 and a bit hours you were in the tiny theatre for, and to be frank, what they did was nothing short of fantastic. It is certainly something that would be rarely seen over in London theatres….except for the Lion King, Les Miserables and Wicked to name just a few. All in all, it was an excellent show which, if we were to go into too much detail here, would slightly ruin it more than the spoiler type thing you’ve seen here already.

The sad fact is that the one production that would probably work quite well for the UK audiences will never see these shores, but you do get pretty much every other production in London, so in many ways you really feel that you wouldn’t miss much. That and the ticket prices on average are far higher than in London too, and there is more choice in the UK too it seems. So for the glitz and glamour, again it’s debatable as to whether or not it’s truly worth it.

So that’s your lot when it comes to New York. There actually is a hell of a lot more to write about the place, but in order to truly understand it, you do have to see it and condemn it for yourself. New York is not of course the whole of the US in one place, but given that’s meant to be an indicator of the country as a whole, it does seem to hit a very uneven balance between wonderful spectacle and god awful nightmare.

AND FINALLY:

Oh right, before we finally wrap up, there is the story of the Nurse I talked to in the bar, about the state of the US healthcare system, before proceeding onto the main reason she was there.

Before seeing the Harry Potter show, I had gone into a nearby bar because it was Happy Hour, and parked up with a couple of pints. On one side of my was a lovely lady all dressed up, which given the place was rather strange. She picked up on the accent and we got to talking about what she did for a living, which was being a nurse. I made the silly mistake of asking how bad was the health system in the US, and she then enlightened me on what is quite possibly the silliest thing next to Donald Trump.

Obamacare as it’s become known as, is the latest attempt in the US to introduce universal healthcare in the same vein as the NHS in the UK, therefore pretty much wiping out the need for over priced private insurance as is the case for the most part except in dire emergencies where the hospitals have to take you in regardless, but there are so many forms to fill out in those cases, that you would wish you were dead.

Basically because of the monopoly the drug companies have in the US and the power over the congress, everyone has bad mouthed the idea, claiming that it’s communism via the back door, and because no-one’s been able to explain the system in a better way, that’s why the common man on the street has no real idea what it is either and therefore, is also against it.

It was yet another way of demonstrating what money and access to the media can do for you in the land of the free and in a way, it’s a real lesson for all.

Then she mentioned she was dating a cop and it was their forth date, and she was taking him back to her hotel room across the street afterwards for sex, provided he didn’t say anything bad at dinner. Hell, if only dating was as straight forward as that here….