Archive for the ‘Distractions’ Category

Madness in the Fast Lane is a BBC documentary that Louis Theroux recommended. It tells the take of two Swedish sisters that one day ran across the M6, repeatedly getting struck my vehicles. One of the sisters then went on stab a man to death.

The style was very odd as it reminded me a lot of Brass Eye. There were lots of unnecessary caption slides, weird music and blurry camera effects. It felt rather cheesy. But the story was certainly an interesting one. It was just mad (literally, according to the court psychologists).

Without a satisfying conclusion to the story though (there has not been one in real life), all we can really take away from it is that Swedish people are crazy.

Last Saturday was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tove Jansson. She died in 2001 and is best known for creating The Moomins. In 1966, she received Hans Christian Andersen Medal for it. She also wrote an array of adult novels, but that kind of thing wouldn’t really interest me.

She also drew quite a few cartoons mocking Hilter, so it’s nice to know that not everyone in Finland was a collaborator ;).

The Moomins were originally comic strips, but if you are from the UK, you probably remember them from this animated series:

If you are ever on the south west coast of Finland, you may want to visit Moomin World. It is in Turku, which is two hours drive from Helsinki. Be ware though that it is only open in summer – which is quite a limited period in Finland. Though they also open briefly in the Christmas period too.

To celebrate her birthday they did a special event that included discounts on loads of stuff including free entry for people over 100.

I was recently planning a route on Google Maps when I noticed that the roadworks were due to finish at 5:30am on the 11 May, three years from now.

Stewart Lee’s 2012 show was entitled “Carpet Remnant World”. I’ve just watched it, and I have to say I was disappointed.

In November, Dominic Cavendish wrote an article in The Telegraph about why he walked out of Stewart Lee’s show. His complaint was that Lee spent too much time insulting his audience. He’s right. The first 10 minutes straight of Carpet Remnant World were essentially dedicated to Lee discussing the contempt he holds his audience in.

I’ve seen Stewart Lee live several times and he does make a lot of jokes like that. At first they were funny. Now they’re old, and increasingly offensive. He parrots out the same joke over and over again until people like Cavendish, and indeed even me, someone who considers myself a big Stewart Lee fan, are fed up and bored.

That is not to say there wasn’t a lot of good material. I particularly liked the bit where he said “dog” in a funny voice. However, a lot of his material is feeling increasingly tired.

I found this year’s Eurovision very odd. There was not a huge mix of ridiculous, funny novelty acts. There were just a lot of genuinely enjoyable songs. I am not sure I approve of that.

The winner was of course Conchita Wurst. Her victory was heralded as a great victory for the acceptance of trans in our society. I am a little less convinced. The fact that Wurst could win Eurovision does not tell us that much. Yes, it means she got lots of votes from countries you might not think were that gay-friendly. But it was Eurovision. The campest thing on television. It’s the only thing that did not get more camp by adding Graham Norton. I’m very happy she won, but this is not the end of apartheid.

We finally got the message this year and realised we were going to do a lot better if we had a Swedish person write our song instead. It still did not work that well.

Finland did okay this year. They face the same problem every year though – how do you follow the legend that is Lordi?

I really enjoyed Iceland’s song. Good song; good message.

Being a twenty-first century man I would never be petty enough to revel in French defeats. For a start, who has that much time to commit? But if you are going to take your one black performer and daub him in war paint while your lead singer is wearing a shirt and tie, you probably deserve to come dead last.

No surprise that Ukraine actually gave Russia plenty of points. Even if half the country is rather annoyed at Russia at the moment, they do have a large ethnic Russian population.

I have no idea how The Netherlands got so many votes. It was a good song, but it wasn’t a Eurovision song (we don’t want your deep and meaningful music about here!).

Well done to Hungary too. Not everyone could score so many points by singing about child abuse.

I was quite proud of us when we didn’t give Poland all our points. It was a shit song. We hadn’t voted for Poland just because they got their tits out. But then it turned out the public had.

Of course now is the most depressing time of year, because it is the furthest away you can be from the next Eurovision song contest. But we will struggle on, somehow…

The Yorkshire Rams kicked off their 2014 american football season by hosting the Sheffield Predators. The won thanks to a well earned touch down and Sheffield twice snapping the ball over the punters head and into their own end zone for a safety. The Predators scored a late touch down and converted for two, but it wasn’t enough.

I did not watch the first semi final as I do not want to spoil all the songs for Saturday (I am sure many of you feel the same way…). The results are in though. The qualifiers are…

• Armenia
• Sweden
• Iceland
• Russia
• Azerbaijan
• Ukraine
• San Marino
• The Netherlands
• Montenegro
• Hungary

While those eliminated are…

• Latvia
• Estonia
• Albania
• Belgium
• Moldova
• Portugal

The Russian entry was booed when they made it through. That is a little unpleasant for the contestants themselves, and I feel sorry for them. However, in the grand scheme of things, Eurovision is a good place for the general public to make their voices heard (ironically probably more so than parliament). And they did. Which is no surprise as if you are going to attack the LGBT community, you shouldn’t then enter the campest song contest in the world.

It’a a shame Estonia and Moldova did not make it through. Both have songs still in my rotation. Moldova’s 2011 entry “So Lucky” was a fairy on a unicycle…

While Estonia had a plastic doll. It was very effective, you couldn’t even see the strings…

*Sigh* 2011 was a good year for Eurovision. 2012 was a bit rubbish, while 2013 was a bit better. But I’m hoping for better things this year.

Great to see San Marino made it in for once. Sweden too. Speaking of which, it might be time for some Loreen…

Louis Theroux is my favourite documentary maker. When I read in the BBC Magazine that he had moved to LA and was planning on making some documentaries on his experiences there, I awaited them with much anticipation.

They were not my favourite documentaries he has ever done, but still enjoyable. The dogs one was fairly predictable. It also puts in perspective the destruction of a giraffe in Denmark. One pound in South LA is killing dogs by the dozen on a regular basis. Why are people not up in arms about that? Not to mention all the animals we eat…

End-of-life care helped explain how the United States manages to blow quite so much money on healthcare. Some of the people in there were correct – why not try everything to fight for life if you have the choice? But on a societal level, you do have to wonder whether those resources could be better spent elsewhere. It must be a tough decision for the people who make those kind of budget calls.

The most thought provoking I found was the sex offenders episode. It was pretty clear that nobody thinks these people deserve a second chance. However, if you are going to adopt that kind of attitude, why let them out of prison in the first place? Or put them to death. That is something the US still does of course.

I do not know how this compares to the UK system. I can, for example, get a list of all the sex offenders in my area from a handy site called “UK Paedos Exposed”. However, this seems to be built from user submissions, rather than state-published data. That is a pretty sick website, but not on the same level as the state-run database you can find in the US.

This is available from the UK government, but only if you are a parent or carer and want to check a specific individual. However, The Sun newspaper claim to have plotted every convicted sex offender on a map.

Meanwhile the open access in the US, as Theroux points out, leads to apps like “Offender Locator” that allow you to find them.

I always read a terms of service in full. Well, sometimes. Otherwise, how would you know what you were agreeing to? For example, you might be giving Apple consent to… well, lets not think about that episode of South Park because I have to eat in a few hours.

Enter Terms of Service; Didn’t Read.

These people actually have taken the time to read terms of service. Then they pick out the good and bad bits and give them a rating. This means when signing up to a service you can quickly see what you are agreeing to and whether it is reasonable or not. They even have a browser plugin.

Well, that was the most boring game ever.

43 – 8. The Seattle Seahawks dominated from the start and never let go. The commentary team quickly began to list reasons not to go to bed in an attempt to keep people watching. Because that is what we were all thinking by the end of the first half.

Luckily one of them said “eat clock” and we got a good 15 minutes of laughter out of that. Very much needed as the half time show did not provide much entertainment. The Red Hot Chili Peppers barely played one song. I am being generous with the term “played” because they did not even plug their guitars in.

Of course the Denver Broncos are used to being humiliated at Super Bowls by NFC West teams. They hold the record for the biggest losing margin when the San Francisco 49ers beat them 55 – 10 in 1990. But it did not make the game any more enjoyable.

Still, I think my buffet worked quite well. Including my Super Bowl Yorkshires…

I’ll be honest with you – they are a lot like regular Yorkshires…