Monday 22 November 2010

The Story So Far...

I'm not sure whats gone wrong with my time table at the moment: I know a large chunk of my time has been eaten up with my new job but really, it's not even properly full-time. I've clearly became a sad old man with the stamina of a 90-year-old. I now work in a large book shop for my sins [which must have been many in this and past lives] and I must admit I enjoy it - it's not quite as much fun as my days in the comic shop mocking teenage X-Men fans and generally fucking about but it's still work, which is nice!
     This blog was actually mapped out over a coffee before my shift started [with pen and paper in long hand]. The universe has managed to set the world to rights again it would seem. I slated the evils of Katie Price and TweedyCole and then last week [ish] I was given the task of stacking their new books [biographies both] - hundreds of the bloody things. If this wasn't bad enough I have to smile and make small talk with the fuckwits who buy this shit...
     What's that dear reader, why don't I leap across the counter and bite their noses off, spitting the grisly bits back into the blood covered faces crying something beautiful... Like a Morrisey lyric or something else that might come to mind, liberally dowsed with profanity and righteous fury? Because as I've already pointed out, I'm a corporate whore who needs the cash. Not to mention I get some sort of perverted pleasure from giving excellent customer service. At least for a while both biographies were being outsold by the spoof Meercat Bio -The Simple Life!
      All in all I seem to be less annoyed by things at the moment... I still dislike all things X-Factor [hate is too strong a word] - I now think I feel more pity towards the poor simple minded viewers [yes mother I include you] of this corporate money making machine... [stat attack alert]  Between ITV1 & 2 there has been over 5.5 hrs of weekly airtime given over to the show over Saturday and Sunday nights, not counting the weekly repeats. Episode 1 alone drew an audience of 13.5 Million, which on the night in question was a little over 50% of the TV viewing population of Great Britain. It still pulls somewhere in the region of 10 million viewers. Now get your voting fingers ready... because at 25p a text.... well you do the maths: how many times have you voted for one of these desperate-for-their-15-minutes-of-fame wannabes [all washed up and forgotten by New year 2011, fingers crossed]?
      It would seem that even in a recession business is good. I wonder what we could achieve as a nation if we diverted all this wasted time, money and energy into something useful. For instance, we could build a new henge for the 21st century,  not out of stone obviously as that weighs a fair bit and is slightly on the heavy side. Just think about what you could have done with all that time that you'll never get back. If I could be arsed I would research how many weeks this show has been running and then do some quick calculations to work out how many millions of hours have been spent in front of the TV, how many life times would it represent...
     ...I'm not sure I would want to know, would you?
I have only existed on this planet for approximately 360,000 hours and I would hope my life for what it's worth was not more than half way over. What will we do with the rest?

Until next time...