Police Protect Criminals

A crimebuster who made a video of crack dealers operating outside his home has been banned from filming by the police, and warned he is breaching civil liberties.

Darren Gibbet bought a £250 video camera soon after the people moved into the flat opposite his and started dealing crack. Despite numerous complaints to the police, they failed to deal with the problem.

On one occasion as he filmed, one of the dealers entered Darren's property, assaulted him and tried to smash the camera against a wall. The police were called, but when they arrived Darren was told that he was breaching their civil liberties, and that the man was entitled to retrieve the film. In addition, if he persisted in filming he would face arrest and prosecution.

It's An Outrage!!

How many times do we hear the police extolling the virtues of neighborhood watches, or bemoaning the fact that they can't get ordinary citizens to stand up against and help prosecute criminals?

But when somebody actually has the courage to do exactly what they're asking, they plump to protect the criminals!!

Darren Gibbet should be given a medal, and control of London's CCTV system; the man's a hero, not a villain.

Hypocritical Manufactured Pop Band

Manufactured pop band GirlsAtPlay are just about to clog up the bottom of the charts with a remix of the classic 80's song by Mel & Kim, Respectable.

Now some of my favourite pop bands have been well and truly manufactured, but by that I mean pulled together from a large crowd and honed into a unit (Take That springs to mind).

But when I say 'manufactured' in relation to GirlsAtPlay I mean so totally fake that Trading Standards ought to be locking them up.

If you are unlucky enough to stumble across their website, you'll find that the group is made up of the following highly unlikely mix;

• Lisa-Jay, an incredibly successful business woman who owns the biggest and hippest club in London - Fallulabub's (try this on a search engine, there's only one entry...)
  

• Rita, the owner of an all-women chain of garages (there must be a Kwik-Fit pun in there somewhere; answers via emailplease!)
  
• Lynsey, an NYPD motorcycle officer who won a Medal Of Honour for "an act of heroism above and beyond the call of duty" (going out without make-up on perhaps?)
  
• Shelley, an Air Force One Pilot who flies the President around whenever he needs her
  
• Vicky, a cow girl who was left a ranch by her 18 year old Native American cowgirl penpal who died of an unspecified cause (handy, that)

Hmmm....

Some of the text on there is just so laughable you'd swear it was straight out of Monty Python or The Fast Show ("I bumped into the Prez at a club in Ibiza when he was in drag, and asked if he needed a pilot" - I'd have been asking for about $50million in used notes and a City named after me!!)

(I've emailed Lynsey and Shelley to check what exactly they've been doing to help in the wake of the terrible World Trade Centre attacks, but so far no answer.)

So that's bad enough, but what makes it worse is the song they've chosen

It's An Outrage!!

How can a bunch of Spice Girl wannabees possibly have the nerve to take on this tune?

Firstly they murder it. Secondly, and more importantly, hasn't anyone pointed out to them the irony of the lyrics?

They'll always be respectable, because every word they say is scripted, everything they do is planned, they are mindless drones controlled by people with both eyes on the bottom line.

What are the chances of any one of them dropping in a swear word into a kids TV interview? Or being photographed buying large bottles of gin from the local offie? Or being caught by police in a drug-fueled sex orgy?

Fairly slim I'd say... and more's the pity; it might make them slightly interesting and give them about another week in the spotlight than they're going to have.

Stupid Pepsi Cinema Advert

There's a really stupid advert at my local cinema which has been running for the last few months, advertising Pepsi.

It shows two improbably good looking college guys in a loft apartment messing with all sorts of computers, lasers and high tech gadgets.

They are seemingly able to 'pixelise' themselves, that is, change their solid bodies into computer hologram thingies.

They discover this 'cool' ability by sweeping their arms through columns inside their building, then decide to go on a full road test of their new found talent.

This includes;

• jumping through the floor to the apartment below (landing on the bed of a beautiful woman),
  

• jumping out of the wall of the building into a car full of gangsters,
  
• jumping out of there into the road,
  
• having another car (and it's driver) drive right through them,
  
• pushing their heads through the wall of a lingerie store,
  
• rushing through two bouncers into a nightclub,

before finally making their weary way home.

However, to their utter dismay, when they get there they find they can't pick up the cans of Pepsi they left before embarking on their strange and wonderful journey.

It's An Outrage!!

I almost don't know where to start with pulling this ad to pieces, but I'll try!

• how is it that they can jump through their own floor but are stopped by a bed, instead of plummeting to the earth's core (and possibly straight through to the other side of the planet)??

• as above, but the road also stops them after they leap off the bed and through a wall

• as above, but how come they have the ability to stand up at all, anywhere??

• they go straight from broad daylight into a heaving nightclub, then straight back out into broad daylight

• when they get back, even if they could pick up and try to drink the Pepsi, wouldn't they just be pouring it on the floor?

• as above but with food? Wouldn't they starve to death?

Add to this that their biggest disappointment is not the possibility of any of the above happening at any given time, but the fact that they can't drink on over-sweet, tooth rotting, carbonated blend of vegetable extracts, and I find it hard to be 'sold to' by this particular advert.

But nice try - certainly better than the Spice Girls in Pepsi dresses...

The Price Of Chips at Robbie's Concert

We went to see Robbie Williams play at Manchester the other week, and whilst we were waiting for the support bands to come on, we decided to get something to eat.

Chips seemed to be the best option, so we found a stand and ordered a tray to share.

We got them, and handed over £1.50, only to see about 20 chips sat in the smallest tray you've seen!

If you work out how much they were charging per chip, you'd be looking at 7.5p per chip!!

It's An Outrage!!

Good grief - you could buy a sack of potatoes for £1.50 and stuff yourself full of chips (like this chap here...).

I bet he didn't pay £1 bloody 50 for that tray, only to waste them by stuffing them up his nose and in his ears!!

When I buy a tray of chips, I want it to look more like this and cost about 90p. And be smothered in red sauce and vinegar too.

When Not To Clean Main Roads

Near where I live, there's a road I use every day to get to work, and it's a main road. It connects two of the main routes into Nottingham, and is therefore very busy.

It's also single lane either way, and has got houses on one side, with cars parked outside them. This makes it narrow at the best of times, especially when you throw in the buses that use it and have to stop frequently to let people on and off.

Now, although I'm not an expert on these things, I would suggest that one of the busiest times on this road (and most others) would be 07:00 - 08:00 on a Monday morning, when people are trying to get to work. Usually not in a good mood either, what with it being the first day back after the weeken and all that.

So when do you think would be possibly the worst time to send a road sweeping lorry up such a road at it's customary 3 miles per hour?

But when do you think the local City Council have chosen as their preffered time to do just that??

It's An Outrage!!

As if driving to work on a Monday morning isn't bad enough, try doing it with one of these lumbering beasts holding you up!!

A journey which should take three minutes tops from one end of this road to the other often takes up to 15!!!!!

What the hell's wrong with doing it at 10:00, or 20:00?? I'm all for clean streets, but not when it means I have to sit behind the lorry that's doing it, every week without fail.

Do Councillors have a care for their city's motorists, or do they just fail to notice the gridlock they're causing because they're too busy squandering my tax pounds on chauffeur driven taxis??

Stupid Astrological Marriage Query

In the Daily Express newspaper every Saturday there's an advice column run by an astrologist called Claire.

Mostly the people who write in are your normal, everyday run of the mill idiots who believe in this sort of nonsense and ask mindless questions like "My hairdresser is an Aquarian, and I'm a Scorpio with Mars rising, so should I have highlights or just a cut and blow dry?", or "My foot is on fire, when would be the best time for me to call for an ambulance given the current phase of the Moon against Sagittarius?"

But every now and again you get a real corker, like this one (taken word for word, I kid you not!);

Dear Claire
I have been married for two months and love my wife very much. She is a great girl in every way.
But she is a vegetarian. I am not, and she refuses to cook meat meals.
This is getting me down as my mother is a great cook and I miss her steak pies and mixed grills. What can I do?
I am a Taurean born May 14 1971, and my wife is a Pisces born on March 12 1972.
David

It's An Outrage!!

I almost don't know where to start, but the most obvious question has to be;

What the hell did you talk about before deciding to get married?

Her vegetarianism never came up once? Not even when you took her to meet your mother and she cooked half a pig on a stick for lunch? (You did take her to meet your mother didn't you...? Doh!)

Your love of meat and meat related foodstuffs was simply skimmed over was it, mumbled under your breath just as Emmerdale started?

During your courtship, did you ever actually eat together, even sandwiches from a corner shop? "Bacon, sausage and egg do you my love?" says he. "No thanks, I'll have a cheese salad" says she. That would have been one clue!

And are you such a momma's boy that you can't either cook for yourself, or pop round to see your old mum and get her to knock you up a pie of some sort? You sound like a real wuss to me.

Especially if you think this has anything to do with your time of birth and the vague position of stars in the vast universe that had probably been dead for millenia before you were even conceived.

They are simply hydrogen burning furnaces, just like our own sun. Huge, chemical reactors whose only effect on inhabitants of planets is to warm them up and stop them freezing to death.

To David I would say, get a grip, get a griddle, and next time you pick a girl to marry, try not to use a catalogue!!

(Don't you just love it when people start to describe their partners by saying "I love my wife/husband very much. She/he is a great girl/guy in every way." You just know there's a huge but due in the very next sentence! Of course, I love my girlfriend very much, she's a great girl in every way....)

Hong Kong Doctor Cleared of Misconduct

Hong Kong surgeon Dr Tung Hiu-ming has been cleared by the Medical Council of any professional misconduct after taking a phone call and discussing buying a new car whilst in the middle of an operation.

Dr Tung took the call as he performed a keyhole colon operation on a taxi driver. The driver, who was conscious at the time and heard the conversation, lodged a complaint after his colon was pierced and he had to undergo further surgery. He recounted at a disciplinary hearing how Dr Tung has discussed a BMW for sale with a caller in a conversation that lasted for several minutes. The original hearing found Dr Tung guilty of serious misconduct (as they bloody well should) and he was banned from promotion and pay rises for five years. The Medical Council findings have now overturned this ruling.

Dr Tung's defence rested on the fact that he had answered his hands-free phone 'accidentally' and that he had immediately told the caller that he was busy and finished the call. The Medical Council dismissed the complainant's case as unreliable because, though conscious, he was nevertheless sedated at the time.

Exactly how do you answer a phone 'accidentally', and why was it not considered relevant that the phone company's records showed the call lasted 15 mins? Yes that's right ... 15 mins! How long does it take to say, "Sorry I'm busy right now inside a man's stomach, I'll have to call you back later"?

Frankly,

It's An Outrage!!

I have been to HK hospitals for the birth of my two sons and there are signs absolutely everywhere asking visitors to switch off mobile phones because they interfere with sensitive medical equipment. Dr Tung presumably knew this, and presumably the operating theatre was full of 'sensitive medical equipment', so why wasn't his phone turned off?

The Medical Council have made an utter mockery of this case, showing their total lack of impartiality, protecting their own against what was disgraceful and unprofessional behaviour by one of their surgeons.