Happy New Year

Happy new year to all my readers... And a reminder that things do change. When the new year card below was issued we all lived in dread that a bunch of godless commies were going to blow us all up...

Nowadays we all live in dread that a bunch of whackjob towelhead religious nutters are going to blow us all up.

Plus ca change.



PS: Horses in spaaaaace!

So this is Christmas

So this is Christmas

Yeah I noticed. People seem to be laying in enough food for the siege of Mafeking, my office has rugrats running around and getting into the server room (one of whom is bawling its head off on my train and will very shortly, unless it shuts the fuck up, be experiencing the wrong end of a dragon's breath weapon) and at the station this evening some twerps were effecting a massacre of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman by playing it exactly half a semitone flat.

And what have you done?

You mean apart from sticking a talon through the back of some granny's head when we were both going for the last pack of chestnut stuffing in Marks & Spencers? Bugger all quite frankly.

Another year over, and a new one just begun.

Don't suppose there's any chance of drowning the current government in a vat of superheated wolf semen before the 31st so we can all have a good start to the year is there?

As you can probably guess I'm not one for Christmas. Basically I'm now on the train home and once inside with the last of the supplies (plus the dead granny the store staff insisted I remove) the drawbridge will be drawn up and I'm not coming out until the 27th when I will no doubt have to contend with every other fuck who has now run out of any form of nourishment which is not poultry based and will gladly sacrifice his children's Nintendo Wii for a supermarket frozen pizza.

For the final word on Christmas, I defer to my fellow grumpy mythological creature, Two the Ranting Gryphon and his thoughts on the festive season....

"Guess what junior, there's some fat red man at the North Pole who's going to fly here on some elk and bring you the latest name-brand dildos."

Hear it all here (very NSFW!)

And with that, I shall see you all in the new year.

Film Review - The Golden Compass

I've been looking forward to this for a while now. Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" has been one of my favourite reads of recent years so I was rather hoping that Hollywood would turn out a good film, after all they did a pretty good job with LOTR and they have got those CGI fur subroutines working really well now so the daemons would surely look good.

Yeah, then they gave it to Chris "American Pie" Weitz to direct and gave him a little under an hour and a half to tell a deep, complex story and under no circumstances was he to piss off the religious people; bums on seats laddie, bums on seats.

Anyway first the good stuff. Visually it's great, the daemons' (people's souls which accompany them in the form of animals) are superbly rendered, especially Pantalaimon and Mrs Coulter's golden monkey - if you didn't know you would swear the monkey was real. The film makes a credible character of the ice bear Iorek as well, an aspect I thought the film would stand or fall on. The feel of the setting is pretty much right on too, a sort of brass and carved wood "steampunk" world of victoriana run riot with modern tech and it captures the familiar but otherworldliness you get from the book. Acting wise I was impressed with Dakota Blue Richards who puts who puts in a sterling performance for a newcomer, Nicole Kidman is a convincing "baddie" with just the right air of menace without being over the top and there are fine supporting performances from Tom Courtney (Fader Coram), Sam Elliot (Lee Scoresby) and my all time favourite actor Derek Jacobi, fresh from playing Dr Who's nemesis The Master, as a charming and sinister Cardinal Ratzinger Magesterial Emissary.

OK so on the Catholic Church all up in arms don't-go-and-see-this-it's-written-by-an-atheist boycott nonsense well sure Pullman is an atheist but certainly in this film (and by and large in the book as well) the Magesterium is a cypher for any organisation that sets itself up as an arbiter of the truth and what can and cannot be spoken about, and yes that includes the church but not really a church I recognise too much in this day and age. In many ways the film representation reminded me more of our dear Labour government, or any socialist government to be honest, especially in Mrs Coulter's speech about "People need to be told what to do, it's better for them." The later books, especially The Amber Spyglass, are more explicitly anti-clerical so it remains to see what happens there. Oh and althogh my classics knowledge is a bit rusty these days I remember that "daemon" derives from the word for "wise" or "knowledgable" in Greek and the daimones were minor spiritual beings between gods and men... souls you could call them. The use of the word "demon" to mean a malevolent spirit came later and the use of the word "daimon" to mean "automated UNIX sub-process" a bit after that (although anyone who has had to repair a crontab at 3 in the morning will tell you that these daimons are definitely malevolent!)

So where did it all go wrong. Well about 10 seconds in, in fact. On comes whoever it was who plays Serafina Pekkela and gives us the Lord of the Rings "I feel it in the air. I feel it in the water" prelude and gives away the fucking whole plot in the first thirty seconds. Jesus, we are not idiots Hollywood, we do not need everything explained by some sodding 21st century Greek Chorus; we are used to plot and narrative so please can you just let the story tell itself. After that everything seemed to be rushed as though the whole movie was an excuse to rush to the big battle scene at the end. Huge chunks of the book which develop the characters and Lyra's world and what "dust" might actually be are missing and the relationships between people and their daemons which is so vital to the story is largely skipped over and they just end up being like particularly loyal and chatty pets. And then there is my pet peeve, when Serafina turns up at the final battle and lands in front of Lara, Lara goes "Serafina Pekkela!" Yes we can see it's Serafina Pekkela you cunts, she was on screen not half an hour ago. I do have a memory span longer that that of a pissing goldfish you bastards.

Oh and the closing credit music. Fucking hell what a dirge! I had to stick the remainder of my popcorn in my ears just to stop from setting fire to the theatre.

OK so there are worse ways to spend an hour and a half (and it was free which was a bonus) but given a Peter Jackson and an extra hour this could have been so, so much more when you consider the source material.


Firey Dragon Rating - Lukewarm

You are my Sunshine

After lots of injections and cannula fiddling and holding up her feed bowl because her neck hurt when she bent down we seem to have turned a corner and Sunshine is pretty much back to her old self.

Your green scaly friend will now permit himself a moment of non-grumpyness and sends out a big shout to Simon and Mark the vets.

The most incompetent phishing attempt in the world, ever!

From my gmail account this morning. Notice the cunning use of an AOL address...

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This message is for information purposes only.

Please understand that we cannot respond to individual messages through this email address. It is not secure and should not be used for credit card account related questions.

To restore your Central Online Banking features, please follow these steps:

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... priceless!

Summon God to the Stand

A judge in India has summoned two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to help resolve a property dispute.

Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in the eastern state of Jharkhand has issued adverts in newspapers asking the gods to "appear before the court personally".

The gods have been asked to appear before the court on Tuesday, after the judge said that letters addressed to them had gone unanswered.

I recall someone who had lost their house in an "act of god" trying to sue the church as God's representatives. The church said they would be happy to appear in court and defend the action so long as the plaintiff could get God to attend and testify in person.

Dr Dragon

"She's in VF, 10ml adrenaline stat. Shock at 150 Joules, CLEAR!"

Well not quite... but I am now operating an intravenous cannula and administering IM injections which given my previous medical skills were more or less limited to going down to the chemists and buying a packet of ibuprofen is a pretty neat skill to acquire over a weekend.

However it's a skill I wished I hadn't needed to acquire as Sunshine (my Irish Draft mare) is sick. Started on Thursday with her just standing about and not eating which isn't like her and in the evening she didn't touch her feed which is not at all like her but she wasn't in any obvious discomfort so it wasn't colic (for you non horsey people colic = über badness) and as the vet was coming round on Friday morning for a routine flu and tetanus jab I left it. Following morning she didn't eat again and I noticed she wasn't drinking so now it's getting serious. Anyway Dr Horse shows up, has a listen and sticks a thermometer up her bum and she's got a temperature. "Hmmm..." goes Dr Horse, "Hopefully it's just a virus and will go away after a couple of days but there's something not quite right here, I'm going to do a peritoneal tap. Does she like clippers?"

"No idea, I've never clipped her."

"Well let's see... "

...click...

...whirrrr....

..."WHINNY!!"

Five minutes later when we had treated our wounds and Dr Horse confirmed that despite pain to the contrary your green scaly friend has not sustained a broken back when Sunshine had tried to get out of the open top stable door via a dragon who was in the way we figured that, no, she doesn't like clippers one little bit so it's time for snoozy drugs.

In goes the needle (which she's fine with).

"What's this then, ACE?"

"Might as well piss in her ear, that's the one we give to owners because it's hard to screw up," he's a proper bluff northerner is my vet, "this is detomindine."

"How long before it takes effect."

"About 30 seconds, hold her head up"

Ever tried to hold up a 570kg horse's head when she's determined that all she wants to do is lie down and have a sleep? In the end I ended up propping it up using a combination of my shoulder and the door whilst playing with her ears to keep her vaguely conscious.

"She seems sensitive to it... might have given her a bit much."

"No shit," grunted the little dragon who had enlisted some flappy wing action in an attempt to keep from being pressed into the stable floor.

Anyway we shaved a bit off the belly fur, needle in the tummy and took a sample which he said looked OK and whilst we're at it filed a couple of sharp points off her teeth, took some blood and give a couple of antibiotic injections plus some pain relief and the apparently obligatory vitamin injection vets are contractually obliged to give at each visit and then make up a bucket of warm isotonic stuff that looked and tasted like flat lucozade, shoved a tube down her nose (that's apparently how you get a tube into a horse's stomach) and poured it in. After all that she started to wake up. Mind you I think I would have done if someone had just poured a bucket of lucozade up my nose.

So off Dr Horse goes to the lab and after another hour Sunshine is wanting out of the stable and is, at last, eating and drinking again - vet says that would be the pain relief.

About 6pm the phone goes.

"You know that peritoneal tap I took and I said it looked fine."

"Yes."

"It isn't; white cell count is elevated at 8 and the lab found some proteins, we're culturing it for bacteria now but we're looking at Peritonitis. She's had a gut perforation."

"Arse"

"I'll be round tomorrow morning at eight."

So tomorrow dawns, Sunshine is scoffing away just like normal and Dr Horse starts preparing to fit an IV cannula. "Now I'll show you how to maintain this."

"Hang on," I say, "I'll get Mrs Dracunculus, she was a nurse before she started poking loonies for a living."

"Now it shouldn't come off," says Dr Horse once the medical staff of Emergency Ward 10 are all assembled, "I'm going to put a couple of sutures in and superglue it to her neck."

"Superglue?"

Out comes a tube of Heinkel's finest adhesive.

"Yes. Works a treat does this." and indeed he glues the top of the cannula to Sunshine. Now that's going to be a laugh come Friday and we have to get it off!

Mrs D however is swapping intravenous war stories with Dr Horse and talking about flow rates and tissue scarring and drawback and all sorts of other medical stuff, turns out that there isn't that much difference between humans and horses when it comes to this sort of stuff and he gets Mrs D to flush everything out and put the first dose of Gentomycin in. Mrs D however whimps out when it comes to the IM injections though as it seems to involve thumping horse bottom before shoving the needle in and being such a soft hearted thing she can't bring herself to do that although I pointed out shoving a needle in probably huts one hell of a lot more.

So it falls to the newly minted veterinary surgeon Dr Dragon to start giving injections. Vet does the first one just to show how it's done and Sunshine doesn't even flinch, then comes my turn. What you do is palm this huge fuck off sharp needle between thumb and forefinger, whack the horse's bum a couple of times with the heel of the hand, turn hand and push needle in. Seems straightforward so off I go and the needle stops after about a centimetre and Sunshine starts dancing round the stable.

"Keep pushing!" yells Dr Horse, I do and in it goes.

"Should have told you that you'll get resistance, sorry."

So there we are. Up at 6 this morning to give injections before dashing off to work but Sunshine seems a lot perkier although she's starting to get very wary when we turn up at her stable with lots of white tubes.

Still, I invested in a big bag of bran so she's getting nice warm bran mashes every evening to make up for it.

Will keep you all informed.

And what's the grumpy angle here? Well apart from being grumpy I have a sick horse you haven't seen anything like the grump I'm going to have once I start getting the insurance company to pay the vet's bill.

Result

From the beeb:

A Christian group has lost its High Court battle to prosecute the BBC's director general over the screening of Jerry Springer - The Opera in 2005.

Fucking A! Now let's get these ridiculous blasphemy laws and indeed anything that treats a religion as something special deserving of legal protection off the statute books right now.

I sincerely hope that the suppurating twat who runs Christian Voice, the group of shaven monkeys who brought this action in the High Court, gets whalloped for every penny piece of the cost of the defences' m'learned friends. Fucking hell I took a wander over to their site and nearly lost my fucking lunch. What an irredeemably nasty bunch of cuntstains these people are. Oddly enough they are silent when it comes to the good shoeing they just received at the hands of the courts but quite vocal when it comes down to their preference for young women to die from a preventable disease rather than have an injection which will "encourage promiscuity". Make no mistake these wankers are just as bad as the islamonutters wanting sharia law; sure their theocracy will bang on about love and saving the nation but you can bet your last penny that given the chance they would be lashing rape victims for being "promiscuous" and stringing gays up from cranes for the heinous crime of loving another human being.

I say we take off and nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Terminations by interweb

Apparently the NHS are trialling early abortions in doctor's surgeries instead of hospitals and specialist clinics.

Quite frankly I'd be happy to have early abortions done in Tescos. Just pop down for a tin of beans and have that blob of cells yanked out. Mind you it does open up the question of if you are allowed to use the "mother and baby" car parking space or not.

And what's all this about the proposal to have one doctor sign the consent form and not two. I mean why the fuck is there a consent form at all? I mean you don't have to have a doctor sign a consent form to have your appendix out so what's so special about a bunch of foetal cells? We could be really green about this, have a website which asks "Do you want rid of the sprog? YES | No | Cancel" and your brat-b-gone pills come through the post the next day. Job done.

Missing

Sorry. Not been posting for a while as I'm absolutely cream crackered at the moment and working silly hours, strung out to hell and back and ready to breathe really, really hard on the waste of DNA that is my project manager if he delays the release one more fucking time.

Makes me almost feel like disappearing, now all a need is a canoe. And on that subject there's an interesting article over on the BBC site about middle aged men (like the one I'm disguised as) who just disappear. Not surprisingly it seems most of these are people who are working themselves into the ground and who just lose it big style one day, like Bernard Cook...

Mr Cook's workload had been immense. But despite regularly working until two or three in the morning, the estates director had showed no signs he was about to be overwhelmed.

No but the fact that he was working 18 hour days was probably a bit of a sodding hint that your life has turned into crap casserole and the human body just is not designed to do that on a regular basis. Sure I dare say we've all pulled overnighters or a run of late nights for a week or two but working 80 hour weeks is nature's way of telling you that you need a new job. The comments on the article are worth reading too...

I work 14 hours a day as an average, seven days a week as an average, and have done so for the past 9 years. And the reason is that sometimes there is just no other option, it's called expectation and pressure. I have no idea what a holiday is, maybe the odd weekend every few months.

And the guy says that he's thought of disappearing but won't because of his family. Maybe he would like to consider what will become of his family when he drops dead from a stress induced heart attack at age 35?

I once got trapped in a job like that, the hours and expectations creep up and up and up and next thing you know the weekends start to vanish and home is just somewhere you crash for a few hours a night. When that happens, leave. Don't even think about negotiating with your bosses because all you will get are empty promises. Alternatively just stop working the extra time, do your 9 to 5. Your managers will grump, moan and call you in for meetings about your "attitude" and how you are "letting the team down". I just said "sod you, it's not worth my health, I'm not doing the hours any more but just my contracted one." Of course you'll get a shite bonus if you get one at all and come the next "rightsizing" exercise you'll be out on your ear but you'll have lined up another job by then, won't you.

After all what's an extra 5k bonus worth if you're not alive to spend it?

Mohammed the teddy

There's a company on the net called "Bad Taste Bears" who sell, well, teddies that you might not want nine year old Sudanese children to take home to their mothers.

I reckon that they are missing a trick here and that with all the kerfuffle in the land that gave us the whackiest named militia ever that the market is most definitely ready for a Mohammed bear complete with turban, brood drenched scimitar and teacher's head. Hey why not have a range, you could have a Aalyah bear in a burqa or an Ali bear with a koranic verse green bandana on his head and wired up to a load of explosives.

That said I would be really curious to know just how much of my taxes went in foreign aid to Sudan last year¹ and given the outrage that is about to be perpetrated by the representatives of the "religion of peace" again just how much will go there next year.

Let me tell you the answer to the latter had better be fucking zero or else some politicos are going to get shoeing.


¹ £350,000,000 apparently. Fucking hell someone pass me a machine gun.

UPDATE: Mo the bear is up for sale on Ebay due to "a change in the school curriculum".

Y Ddraig Goch... coming to a flag near you

There's Lovely



I see over on the beeb some MP with not nearly enough work to do and obviously rattled that Plaid Cymru are getting a little too close to winning his seat ¹ has made an appeal for the close harmony singing and sheep worrying vote by suggesting that the flag of Wales (that's the one with the big hunky dragon on it above) be incorporated into the Union Flag.

Errr.. right. So something like this then



That's nice, very dragony. Rather too much red though.

Well as the union flag is a mash-up of the saint's flags of England and Scotland maybe we could incorporate the flag of St David. Well the only problem there is that it is a gold cross on a black background and even to me with my one colour neuron² I can see that this is going to look hideous with the red white and blue we already have.

Anyway I have a suggestion. Seeing as we can't use the saint's flag idea on grounds of offences against colour how about we use the heraldic animals of each country, the Welsh dragon, English lion and Scottish unicorn. Just to make it interesting and royally piss off the religious right how about we commission a good furry artists like (NSFW) TOR or (very NSFW!) Furronica to do a really eyeball-melting spooge fest three way dragon/lion/unicorn orgy picture³ and we can put that on our flag.

Run that up the flagpole and I'd salute it.



¹ Turns out he doesn't even have that excuse as he got nearly double the votes of his nearest rival representing the Lib Dems. Just another publicity hungry politico then.

² Which is why I was such a failure at being gay. Oh the sex stuff wasn't a problem but I can't come up with a colour scheme for redecorating the house to save my life.

³ That'll get the Google referrers pouring in!

Nutter

I'm not sure whether to be happy or get torching-random-bastards angry about this...

Tony Blair avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled "a nutter", the former prime minister has revealed.

Well it is encouraging that the British people rightly regards anyone who persists in the mass delusion that is the sky pixie is at the very least a bit unhinged and therefore not someone we would trust with the launch codes to nuclear weaponry but what ticks me off good an proper is that this lying, cheating sleazebag was quite happy to keep quiet that he was reading his bible, chatting to his invisible friend and then deciding to send thousand of young men to their death because "God told him to".

I am convinced that anyone who shows even a shred of religious belief should be, a priori debarred from holding public office of any kind. A religious belief makes you impervious to logical argument because, in the end, God trumps everything.

T' other blog

Is gone.

Johnny has two mummies...

... three daddies and 10% of his DNA from a Charolais bull called Henry.

Religious leaders

Uh oh! You know this isn't going to be pretty don't you.

have expressed concern over plans to make it easier for lesbian couples to use IVF to become parents.

Incredible isn't it, it's almost a Pavlovian response. Say the world "lesbian" or "gay" to a "religious leader" and the dogs start salivating. Can't see what they are getting all wound up about anyway as all that book written by a bunch of stoned Arabs says is throw rocks at a woman who lies with another one; didn't say anything about "Oh and if they start arseing around with donor sperm and test tubes, throw more rocks!"

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor wrote: "The bill proposes to remove the need for IVF providers to take into account the child's need for a father when considering an IVF application and to confer legal parenthood on people who have no biological relationship to a child born as a result of IVF.

The key phase here, Moron-O'Connor is "Legal Parenthood", my birth certificate has as my legal parents two people who have no biological relationship to me whatsoever as I was adopted. Who gives a flying fuck what it says on a bit of paper; the law is a human construct and humans can change it when the old law no longer suits what society has become.

"This radically undermines the place of the father in a child's life, and makes the natural rights of the child subordinate to the desires of the couple. It is profoundly wrong."

What "natural rights" of the child are these? And what choice does any child have to come into the world. Surely every child is conceived as a result of the desires of the couple whether dishonourable (quick knee trembler outside the disco and you were too pissed to put a condom on) or honorable (we would like to have a child and we will love it and raise it to the best of our abilities)

Family campaigners are also stepping up their opposition to the Bill, with former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith warning it would be a "nail in the coffin" of the traditional family and "another blow" against fatherhood.

And we should listen to a failed slaphead politician like you because?

Look, it's quite simple. Two people want to offer a loving home to a child and are prepared to go through the hassle and (I imagine) pain of IVF in order to have one; that for one thing tells me that their relationship must be pretty strong and so, hopefully, likely to last. If you really want to have a kid that much then surely you are going to love him or her when it arrives. I'd much rather have a kid being brought up by two people who love it that by some 18 year old single mum who can't keep her legs together after ten Bacardi Breezers and whose idea of parenting is to stick junior in front of an X-Box.

Hey you want male role models for the kid... how about that old concept of a godfather? You get one of those when you get baptised. I hear Westminster Cathedral is a lovely place to get that done.



(Oh and I love that picture they keep using of the cardinal... as I mentioned in a post ages ago it looks as though he's about to get assaulted with a horse sized dildo)

Entertaining Mr Rhinovirus

Atichooo.... WHUMP CrackleCrackleCrackle

Oh sorry boss, was that your Blackberry?

First proper cold of the winter has arrived and my nose is dripping like a buggered fridge. By rights I should be tucked up in bed at home but with a major release going in at work and, more importantly, the house being full of kitchen fitters being torn a new arsehole every 10 minutes by Mrs Dracunculus I think I'm better off going into the office and setting fire to my monitor every couple of minutes.

First scientist to come up with a sure-fire remedy for the common cold gets made emperor of the world if I have any say in the matter even, and I want to make this quite clear, if he has to put human foetuses and cute baby seals in a blender to invent it.

Until there's a cure, there's always Night Nurse and Glenlivet.

Loldragon

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. I've been keeping myself occupied over on Whiny God Botherer's blog having lots of giggles about god, the balance of probabilities and tea.

Normal grumpyness at idiots and government will resume next weekend as soon as I've incinerated the arseholes who promised my new kitchen would have something to cook on by this evening and doesn't.

Happy Birthday Grumpy

This blog is one year old today.

That's 194 posts, 2000 visitors and about 1,500 gratuitous uses of the word "fuck".

Thank you to all my readers. Come along to the next drinking session me and Blackpowder have and I'll buy you a drink.

Further thoughts on bleeding to death

Following up on the post about the jehova's witness who let herself bleed to death leaving her children motherless I did say in response to Leah who left some comments that I'd think about the matter further.

Over the weekend I came across this in the Independent on Sunday, an article with a former JW who went through something similar but survived and subsequently left the cult (they call it a "sect" in the paper but lets call a spade a spade here)

To be fair to Leah as well (I may be a grumpy dragon but I'm a fair one) the person being interviewed makes the point about the fear of being thrown out of the JWs and losing the world you knew is a major thing...

"When I was in labour... no way was I in any physical or emotional state to say that I might have wanted a transfusion... I'd have been cast out of the religion, which at that point was the last thing I wanted. I needed the network that being a Jehovah's Witness gave you. Plus it's a very controlling religion, and I didn't even think of challenging it."

OK but waiting until you're in labour to question your adherence to a cult that is going to deny you life saving treatment maybe wasn't the brightest of moves. Sure leaving any cult isn't easy but you would have thought that the idea might have crossed your mind that this was potentially going to kill you? I don't know, maybe the brainwashing that is religion (all of them) is too strong for most people and they are just conditioned not to ask the awkward questions. Just another reason why I loathe religion so much.

Anyway, congrats to Mrs Underhill (bet she's called Baggins really) for getting out and she makes an interesting point:

"I think that in extreme cases, doctors should be able to override a Jehovah's Witness's wishes," she added.

I would have thought that this would actually be possible under mental heath legisation and checked with Mrs Dracunculus who, as part of her professional duties, has to drag loons off the street from time to time.

Section 2 of the Mental Health Act contains the provision to compulsorily take a person against their will into hospital and administer treatment if: "he ought to be so detained in the interests of his own health or safety or with a view to the protection of other persons."

It's not generally done to adults although a different set of laws have been used to take JW's kids off them when the children needed life saving surgery and the parents refused because a blood transfusion would have been necessary. The difficulty is you have to show that the person concerned is, to use the vernacular, as mad as a lorry.

I would have thought that believing in an invisible man in the sky who made the world in six days and will throw you into a pit of eternal torment should you so much as drink a cup of tea would count as insanity.

Do horses float?

Oh bollocks....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7085394.stm

We're at "Flood Watch" at the moment but the fun and games is all meant to kick off around 5ish. We're all packed up and ready to go and if we need to we'll ride and lead the horses out.

Do horses float?

Well there's a fucking surprise

Prince Harry will not face charges in connection with the alleged shooting of two protected hen harriers on the royal family's estate in Norfolk.

Like we didn't know that was going to happen. Look the parasitic wankstain could machine gun pandas to death in The Mall in broad daylight and there would conveniently be "insufficient evidence"

Police officers identified three suspects - Prince Harry, William van Cutsem and David Clarke, a gamekeeper.

The only thing that does surprise me is that they didn't hang the gamekeeper out to dry.

Firstly anyone who gets their jollies from killing animals is a psychopathic sick bastard who needs drowning in blood, their own preferably.

Secondly, and appropriately as yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution, the sooner someone takes Harry and the rest of his parasitic family down into a cellar and shoots them the better.

Selfish cunt of the decade

A young mother has died after giving birth to twins, amid claims that she had refused a blood transfusion because of her faith.

Normally if some fucktard godbotherer committed suicide because they interpreted the 3000 year old semi-coherent whitterings of a bunch of itinerant camel drivers as meaning they could not avail themselves of 21st century medicine I'd say "Excellent, just chuck her in a hole and be done with her stupidity."

But what sort of level of selfishness does it take to leave your children without a mother? What sort of evil cunt are you to condemn your kids to being told "Your mummy bled to death giving birth to you."

The twins, a boy and a girl, are healthy and being cared for by their father, Anthony Gough, 24.

Well given that Mr Gough is a member of the same mediaeval unreality cult why the fuck are these children not in care right now because you can bet that should any of these kids need surgery that requires a transfusion then they won't get it because Anthony's invisible sky fairy says they can't.

Hitler didn't have that many bright ideas but he was right on in gassing these fuckers.

Remember, Remember

Today we in the UK celebrate the foiling of a bomb plot by religious fundamentalist terrorists and the hanging, drawing and quartering of the perpetrators.

Islamonutters please take note that we still celebrate the grisly demise of Guido and his conspirators more than four hundred years after the event.

We have long memories.

Burn the Witch!

Ah, nothing like a good paedophile panic in the morning to set you up for the day, good old paedophiles, the witches of the 21st century, moral panic, guilt-free hatred and a bit of tittilation thrown in for good measure. Where would we be without them - hating someone else presumably.

Today's panic has been running all day on Sky news (which my employer thoughtfully lets us all watch on giant fucking plasma screens suspended on the walls) and it's even got the internet in it - yay we got the whole cunting package here boys!

Online paedophiles are cruising a virtual world to act out their sexual fantasies with young children. Sky News reporter Jason Farrell has been investigating the darker side to the virtual world Second Life - and found an area called "Wonderland" that is being used by child abusers.

Oh Noes! Poor online children innocently going online and being targeted by nasty, evil peedofils! Shut down Second Life now. No shut down the whole of the InterWeb just to be sure.

Only...

Wonderland is a virtual children's playground where paedophiles cruise and kids are solicited," said Farrell. ... "After talking to one child I was offered a range of sordid and sick sexual acts.

Errr... well let me spell this out for you Mr Farrel - YOU WERE NOT SPEAKING TO A CHILD! What you were talking to was some sad sack in ill-fitting polyester trousers and round glasses called Raymond who is 32 and still lives at home with his mother. If you went round to Club Fur in Second Life do you think that the six foot tall raccoons and foxes you are chatting to have fluffy tails and paws in real life you fucking moron.

Look I hold no brief for people who get their jollies for fantasizing about sex with minors but surely it's better for them all to be in here where they are doing imaginary things to each other with badly animated pixels than actually out in the real world actually doing anything physical to an actual child. And no I don't buy this "oh it feeds their fantasies and they'll go and act them out." arse the NSPCC comes out with. I don't go out and deliberately drive my car into pedestrians and gun down policemen after I've played a bit of Grand Theft Auto. If anything this might just keep the lid on a few people and actually keep them from really doing real. But what if you were to innocently stroll into "wonderland" get into something there (or any online environment) that freaks you out or someone starts doing something you don't like?

You see that power lead going to your computer? Give that a good hard tug at the end that's plugged into the wall and the problem will immediately go away.

This was just bone fucking idle tabloid journalism at its worst, sloppier than a bag full of raccoon puke. Mr Farrell, for this piece of bullshit you deserve strapping to a table and raping with elephant dildos.

And not in a virtual way either.


(Disclaimer: I have never once been on Second Life, my first life is too busy to permit it and if my internet connection sucked any harder than it does I'd probably enjoy it)

That Royal Blackmail Scandal

Him, apparently.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

UPDATE: Name removed because some fucktroll of a lawyer is oozing his slimetrail through the interweb looking for people to sue for so much as mentioning the name, so I don't. Nothing wrong with keeping the link though, so up yours DeStefano!

Pot / Kettle Chromatic Equivalence Alert

Hi, I'll do the dishes, I've brought my own teatowel.

Perhaps if you permitted a certain religion to be practiced in your country you might be familiar with Matthew 7:3,

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Perhaps, my dishrag clad friend, rather than telling us off for not doing enough against terrorism, if you were to do something about your schoolbooks (for men only, natch) telling your kids that we in the west are irredeemable kuffir who should be destroyed, not to mention exporting said schoolbooks to "educational" institutions you set up around the world which leads your country to be a decided net exporter of islamic whackjob terrorists then you may have a point of view we might want to listen to.

Until then, fuck off you cunt.

Pretending to see the future

Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time... The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

Having had the "pleasure" of the company of a load of Burberry clad underclass the other day I would say that this has already happened. Basically the guy might have just as well summarised the plot of H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" lock, stock and barrel. How on earth did he get away with this, surely any proper peer reviewed journal would spot this a mile off?

He carried out the report for men's satellite TV channel Bravo.

Ah right... that explains it.

Can I do a report on what worlds might exists in the backs of wardrobes?

And you thought I didn't like the McCanns

I hope Kate McCann is hounded into a successful suicide attempt before the end of the year. Amongst the most cold, calculated, selfish, self serving, unrepentant and loathsome examples of womanhood to cross my radar in many years- and she's an effin' scot to boot.

I hope she is spat upon, derided and aliented at every turn. An example of the worst that modern britain produces

Go read the lot... http://www.grumpieroldmen.co.uk/forum/phpBB210/viewtopic.php?t=18281&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Cold

October (n): Tenth month of the year, characterised by leaves falling off trees, night-time temperatures dipping down towards freezing and One fucking Railway failing to turn on the heating on their fucking shitty trains.

Wankers. I've had to set fire to a grandmother this morning just so I can warm the claws up enough to type this.

Glug glug glug...

Four drown off Portuguese coast trying to save children.

Kate "Black Widow" McCann protests innocence, flies off to see Pope, positions self as drowning off rocks expert.

An exercise in futility

Flapping around the InterWeb yesterday evening I stumbled upon the XXX Church, a website both hilarious and deeply sad in equal measure. It isn't what you would expect from the URL, no nuns with donkies or pics of Father O'Murphy's latest choirboy but it's a site devoted to helping cure you of your "pornography addiction".

It's very clever on a lot of levels, first unlike most Xtian sites that seem to have been designed by a kid off the special-ed bus using HotDog v1.0 on a 486 this one is well built, quick and engaging so you think you might well have stumbled on an adult site, secondly getting that URL was fucking inspired. Thirdly they have gone for the "it's an addiction, it's not your fault" line, see it's not your fault, it's the nasty booze, heroin, porn that has made you an addict so don't feel bad, we can help you. It's a pernicious lie if ever there was one; of course it is impossible to be physically addicted to anything that isn't a chemical you put in your body. Sure you can become obsessed with anything, stamp collecting, restoring vintage cars or, indeed, looking at online smut but you don't see sites devoted to helping "stamp collecting addicts" do you. Of course once you have something labelled as "addictive" (which immediately equates to "dangerous") it's a lot easy to get your campaign to restrict or ban said something - and make no mistake this is something the followers of your Middle-Eastern Sky God would love to to, even the moderate ones.

What heartens me though is the utter futility of their task. Firstly take a look at the hatemail section. You would expect the hatemail to be from, well, folks like your favourite grumpy dragon telling them what a bunch of wankstains they were and that they could have my horseporn when they pry it from my cold, dead claws but nope, virtually all the hatemail is from other Xtians telling them what evil scum they are and, showing true Christian charity, that they will all assuredly burn in hell where devils will repeatedly poke their nether regions with tiny pitchforks¹

But for the real giggles you need to go to the "Prayer Wall" where the sad sacks who have been drawn in by this nonsense make their confessions and ask for prayers. These are just hilarious, Mrs Dracunculus had to help me back into my chair I was laughing so loud. From the guy who posted his e-mail asking them to repent of their sins and stop running a porn site he'd sent to the customer support address of "Virtualgirls.com" and was still awaiting a response from the management, to the guy who had finally beaten his "porn addiction" and his wife still left him, to the high school student who is doing his "365 days of purity" and keeps falling off the wagon every three or four days never has a group of people deserving of more derisive laughter been gathered in one place.

Equally however I do feel saddened and not a little angry at the whole thing; look porn has been around ever since Ug the Neanderthal picked up a burnt stick and scratched it against the wall of the cave and it will be with us long after we are all wearing one piece silver jump suits on our day trips to Betelgeuse, it is not going to go away, no matter how much you would like it to and how much you pray. Sex is an integral part of the make up of any animal, us included. We think about it most of the time, it's a basic biological drive and uniquely among the animals we can answer part of that biological drive by looking at pictures of other individuals in a sexual context². There's nothing wrong with looking at mucky pictures or indeed having one off the wrist, it's as natural as breathing and going to the lavatory and the only thing making it unhealthy is getting all tied up in guilt over it because you're a subscriber to some mediaeval unreality cult whose way of controlling you is to make you feel bad about anything that might be pleasurable. I want to go on there and just tell the poor fuckers writing in that "You know, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, keep it up, just don't do it 24/7."

In fact I have applied for an account as I think there is some prime mischief making possibilities here and the opportunity to maybe to make a point at the same time.

If I get the account I'll start messing with their heads next week... see if you can spot which one is me.



¹ Alas! Spare my posterior!

² Does not seem to work with animals that. As a control I printed off some piccies of hunky stallions and showed them to my mare Sunshine. She sniffed them, nibbled them to see if they were edible and then wandered off and started eating the hawthorn hedge.

Then they came for the drinkers

Well as predicted our nanny-knows-best rulers having done for the smokers are turning their guns on the drinkers. And are they going for the pissed up morons who turn our towns and cities into battlegrounds every Saturday night? Nope they are going for your law abiding dragon who drinks three or four bottles of wine a week which apparently makes me a "harmful drinker".

What makes me harmful is shite like this emanating from a government I pay for and you are going to find out just how harmful several tons worth of screaming, flaming dragon can be should you come round my house looking for my vote. But what are they going to do... well they are "working hard to change attitudes." How about working hard to keep your fucking nose out of our business. Look you fuckers, we are talking about well off middle class people here, we're not a burden on the NHS because we've all got BUPA and if we want to float into an early grave on a lake of Chianti then that's up to us and not fucking you so just go and give yourself a vodka enema.

But who is working hard to "change our attitudes" (and if you won't change them we'll force you to)?

Public health minister Dawn Primarolo said

Ah, you would be the same Dawn Primarolo who decimated the IT contracting industry trough IR35 then. Yes Dawn I'm really going to take notice of everything you say you utter, utter cunt. Now just chuck a bottle of sambuca over yourself would you¹, I find the blue flames it produces when I breathe on you most pleasing to look at.


¹ you can stuff a coffee bean up each nostril to complete the effect if you like.

"We shall have peace"

Oh this is fucking rich!

More than 130 Muslim scholars have written to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders urging greater understanding between the two faiths. They say that world peace could depend on improved relations between Muslims and Christians.

Greater understanding my arse... we all know this means "you must understand us, we don't need to understand you". Thing is, as I pointed out in an earlier post, by taking a look at the Koran the Christians (whom as you know I hold no brief for) can perfectly well understand where they stand, and it isn't here...

They also cite the Koran as placing a duty on Muslims to treat Christians and Jews as followers of those prophets with particular friendship.

rather it's here...

5:54 O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust.

and here

9:29 Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the last day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His Messenger and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute (jizya) readily, being brought low.

Peace, apparently, depends on either conversion to Islam or subjugation and taxation as inferiors.

I am reminded of King Theoden's speech to Saruman when Saruman offers peace...


We shall have peace... We shall have peace, when you answer for the burning of the Westfold, and the children that lie dead there! We shall have peace, when the lives of the soldiers whose bodies were hewn even as they died against the gates of the Hornberg, are avenged! When you hang from a gibbet for the sport of your own crows...! We shall have peace.

Liveblogging from the train.

19:17, Whittlesford.

I'm stuck on the train. We've just had an announcement that we're going to be delayed because of a fatality on the line.

"What did he say?" asks some dippy old woman with one of those faces that looks like your fingers look after a long soak in the bath.

"Someone's thrown themselves in front of a train further up the line" says your helpful scaly friend.

"Oh dear, how long are we going to be?"

"That depends on how many pieces he ended up in."

I think I managed to give her an extra wrinkle.

UPDATE: Eventually got thrown off the train which was moved to a siding, hung around the station for ages with the promise of a bus being summoned but which never arrived. Finally the trains started up again and I got home around 2 hours late. I really hope that being hit by a train really, really hurt the selfish cunt. I was inconvenienced (which always make a grumpy dragon even grumpier) but what about the poor fucking train driver who will now forever see your stupid face coming towards his cab and hearing that wet, squelchy thump as two hundred tons of locomotive impacted you at over 100kph every time he closes his eyes, not to mention the plod and ambulance crews who had to scrape the remains of your sorry arse off the permanent way.

How do you say "Giddyup" in Kazakh?

The first woman to command the International Space Station has been given a Kazakh riding whip as a present to take up to the shuttle. I think it would be much more interesting if they'd given her a horse to take up as well, one of those little hairy steppes ponies they have out there.

Hmmmm.... zero G horse porn, there's an idea.

Now let's see how long it takes for someone to turn up here as a result of them googling for it. I give it six hours.

We all need to be cypherpunks now

Hello dear reader, please take a look at the text below:

#èØüÈâ[òš9þ³4máÑ#g€ò£§úùÞ¡5QÛ
¯d1P4 Kh@‚׶cÅ'iÛ±DOç#‘·+[Ña-3~w}¸GekuÊcT
…ÔëÔ+FJGŒl^Þ©¨Ç5KÛ+üdOìP/ÛTÞèˆo)Ȥ~–Ì5}²9
°§±×¡"ƪ_Y_’¯†…æ(pãPÙãùEç4ÿöÝ2é>mqŠ=h-¼ù
b&Xæ¹xkú'ù¡‘ BsûÑ„_:x‡”M×ýõœC´ÄžBfëÝJá–xÃ
‘;¯v

What has just landed in your computer is a block of cyphertext encrypted using a Serpent serpent, 256-bit key, 128 bit block cypher with a RIPEMD-160 hash.

And you do not know the decryption key.

So, as of this Monday just gone, when PC Plod comes round to your house and finds this on your computer and demands you decrypt it and you say you can't because you don't have the key then that is no longer a defence and you can get two years in the nick. Welcome to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2007 and the overturning of the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Also remember that you are deemed to have "made" that piece of cyphertext too because having downloaded it, albeit unwittingly when you opened my blog on your browser, you have made a copy and that counts as "making" - you know all those people they get for child porn and they get done for x counts of "making images" that's what it means, it doesn't mean they got their cameras out.

Ihr papieren ist nicht in ordnung. Kommen Sie bitte mit uns.

So what to do. Well you could do worse than get yourself a copy of TrueCrypt which is a free, open source encryption utility that's really easy to use and has one killer feature that'll keep you safe from Brown's Geheime Staatspolitzei. What it does is you can tell it to create an encrypted disk drive within an encrypted disk drive; that way you can have an encrypted drive with a key you can reveal to the plod in which all they see is a bunch of files with your bank details and other mundane stuff in them that any normal, prudent citizen would want to keep safe in the event of their PC being stolen. However hidden on that drive is the second secure drive that unless you type in the right passwords doesn't even appear to be there, nor is it possible to prove their is a second drive and of course it is on this second drive that you store all your bomb making instructions, plans for setting fire to the Labour front bench and of course your dragon porn.

I've been using it for a couple of days now and it's supplanted my previous software (DriveCrypt) as hiding things tool of choice. Go get a copy, even if you have nothing to hide (but trust me that you do), just to stick two fingers up at the fascists we call a government

Fairy tales as science

This is just plain fucking wrong.

The teaching of evolution is becoming increasingly difficult in UK schools because of the rise of creationism, a leading scientist is warning. Head of science at London's Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally.

Creationism and it's brother, Intelligent Design, which is just creationism dressed up in a lab coat, needs to be stomped on, breathed on and then stomped on some more. Anyone who still believes, in the face of the overwhelming evidence for humans coming into existence via evolutionary processes, that we were farted out of some middle eastern sky God's arse one Saturday morning in a moron. Believe in Intelligent Design if you want but I mentioned in a previous post if there was a designer he wasn't very intelligent but you're being wilfully ignorant and if you inflict this ignorance on your kids that's tantamount to child abuse in my book.

However what's even more scary is the reason Prof Reiss gives for the problem:

Prof Reiss says the rise of creationism is partly down to the large increase in Muslim pupils in UK schools. He said: "The number of Muslim students has grown considerably in the last 10 to 20 years and a higher proportion of Muslim families do not accept evolutionary theory compared with Christian families.

Yeah, and I bet that whereas most Christian families would just tut and scream their prayers a bit louder in little Johnny's ears the Muslims will be going down the school, demanding that their religion be respected and making those veiled threats along the "this is inflaming community tensions" which translates as "shut up dhimmis or its fatwa and explosions time".

I despair sometimes.

Scaly Dragon Porn

Just been having a look at my referrers - basically who comes to the blog as a result of what they search for in Google.

Jesus I have some seriously twisted readers; and that makes me very happy.

Apparently I am the number three result on google.com for "scaly dragon porn", right behind the guy who has a blog devoted exclusively to the subject¹ and I'm the number one result on Belgian Google for "elephant wanker"

Surrealism still going strong in the land of chips and chocolate then.


¹ Caution: Link not safe for work, for anyone for whom the term "Hot dragon vent action" is distasteful or anyone who appreciates decent furry spooge writing quite frankly.

Religion of peace my arse

Well I've been off for a week alternately putting my claws up, pottering around northern France and digging trenches for water pipes. So as I trundled off in the dark for the train this morning I was wondering if the world had become just maybe a little less insane in the intervening seven or eight days.

Not a chance.

First thing I see on the beeb is this

An advertising campaign promoting British Muslims as integrated citizens who reject extremism has been launched. Islam is Peace - formed after the bombings in London in July 2005 - has initially placed adverts on the capital's buses and Underground trains. They show a range of Muslims - including a policewoman, a Scout group and the chef Michael Barry - with the slogan "Proud to be a British Muslim". Organisers say research shows many Britons associate Islam with terrorism.

Yes, we associate Islam with terrorism because it's followers of Islam that are fucking blowing us up. We used to associate Irish Republicanism with terrorism for exactly the same reason. You want "us" to stop thinking of you as a load of bearded murderers, stop planting fucking bombs in our cities, that'll do the trick. But that's kind of easier said than done isn't it? For although you're keen to say...

The group insists that the religion demands that its followers live in peace with their neighbours within non-Muslim societies.

It actually doesn't. In fact it says the complete opposite. Not only does it explicity say that Muslims can't be friends with non-Muslims...

# 3:28 Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from God: except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them.

# 3:118 O ye who believe! Take not into your intimacy those outside your ranks: They will not fail to corrupt you. They only desire your ruin: Rank hatred has already appeared from their mouths: What their hearts conceal is far worse. We have made plain to you the Signs, if ye have wisdom.

# 4:144 O ye who believe! Take not for friends unbelievers rather than believers: Do ye wish to offer God an open proof against yourselves?

# 5:54 O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust.

But you're actually supposed to convert us, by force if we don't submit willingly...

# 5:33 The Punishment for those who oppose Allah and his messenger is : Execution or Crucifixion or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides or exile from the land

# 8:38-39 Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them). And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily God doth see all that they do.

# 9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

# 9:29 Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya [tribute] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

# 9:123 O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that God is with those who fear Him.

# 47:4 Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): but if it had been God's Will, He could certainly have exacted retribution from them (Himself); but (He lets you fight) in order to test you, some with others. But those who are slain in the Way of God,- He will never let their deeds be lost.

And that's from two minutes Googling.

So, ye believers, you will will I hope forgive this little dragon's cynicism when you come the "Religion of Peace" line, because it quite clearly isn't.

Licentia est autem memoria

I was on the dealing floor today and between being yelled at by the barely evolved barrowboys who inhabit these regions glanced over at one of the big screen TVs permanently tuned to a news channel. Some dipshit politico was burbling away and underneath the scrolling ticker said something about the latest government wheeze to bring us all together.

So what would that be. Insistence on new arrivals being tested on their ability to speak English and if they can't after six months booting them out? The public hanging, drawing and quatering of the the next smegmatic imam to as much as vaguely hint that imposing sharia in the UK would be good thing. Scrapping all faith schools and insisting children be educated in mixed environments and all wearing the same school uniform?

Nope, we're going to have a national motto.

Yep. That'll do the trick.

I would suggest that the motto of the Firkin chain of pubs might be appropriate: "Nunc ad mortem bibendum" - "Now let us drink ourselves to death"

However Gordon, if you're reading this you can have the title of this blog as my gift to you for your motto. I doubt a pigshit stupid politico like you can actually speak Latin, you probably think it's "papist" given where you're from anyway, so I will translate.

"Freedom is but a memory"

You'll need to get it translated into Arabic, Pashtun and Wolof yourself.

On not stinking like an ashtray

Your little dragon was out on the ales last night with long time friend and occasional commentator on this blog "Blackpowder"¹; as usual at these events much Timmy Taylor's Landlord was consumed, laughs were had and I seem to remember we called the McCanns a bunch of creepy cunts on more than one occasion.

However about half way through the evening I noticed something... I was breathing. As you may know I'm a slightly asthmatic dragon and I don't tolerate smoke especially well but it wasn't smoky. Of course I'd forgotten about the smoking ban and this was the first time I'd been in a pub since it came into force. I must admit to being somewhat torn on the idea of a smoking ban. On the one hand I take a classic libertarian approach in that people can do what they want to their own bodies and the owner of a premises should be free to dictate the terms of use of those premises. conversely I fucking hate cigarette smoke and waking up in the morning stinking like an ashtray with a trip to the dry cleaners in prospect as my clothing now smells like Beelzebub's arse.

The clincher came this morning however. After a night in the pub on the Milk of Amnesia I woke up without that feeling that throughout the night two gay bull elephants have been bouncing up and down on my chest whilst having sloppy botty sex.

Smoking ban = good thing.


¹ Who I think I managed to persuade to start his own blog which is sure to be hilarious and even more grumpy than mine.

L'hiver viendra

J'entends le loup, le renard et la belette,
J'entends le loup et le renard chanter,
La jument de Michao a passé dans le pré,
La jument de Michao et son petit poulain,
A passé dans le pré et mangé tout le foin,
L'hiver viendra les gars, l'hiver viendra,
La jument de Michao, elle s'en repentira.

Brrr... L'hiver is indeed viendraing. Bloody freezing cold this morning and it's now got to the stage where it's dark when I haul myself out of the cave at 6am and it will be dark when I get home as well; at least we're not yet at the stage where it's dark when I get to and leave the office... I hate that, makes me feel like one of those pit ponies that used to work in the mines and only ever saw daylight at the weekends.

Speaking of ponies and my juments in particular they are starting to turn fluffy so that's a sure sign that winter is indeed on its way. Time to break out the rugs I bought in the sale. At least I got sorted out for foin, bought a hundred bales at the weekend which with what's left of last years should see me through to spring.

Now I just need to find out what a pré is and stop the girlies going into it. Don't want any repentiraing going on chez Dracunculus.

Northern on the Rocks

They say that if you owe the bank a thousand pounds you have a problem, however if you owe the bank a hundred thousand pounds the bank has a problem.

The Northern Rock have a really big problem dragon on their hands.

Product Launch Announcement

Renault have launched a new model with a special leak proof boot

The Renault McCann.

Mad as a Box of Frogs 2

Grumpy Dragon Entertainments Inc brings you another entry in our irregular "Mad as a Box Of Frogs" series. Today's pearl of insanity comes to you from "Everything you need to know about Christian Sexuality"

One thing that I teach people about in my book, The Spirits of Sexual Perversion Handbook, is that any act of sexual perversion can lead to other acts of sexual perversion. For instance, you can be a hetrosexual male and commit fornication and then find yourself inexplicably developing an interest in gay sex later on.

But wait... it gets worse!

That act of fornication opened both men up to other acts of sexual perversion. The spirits that I expose in the book are:

Fornication, Masturbation, Adultery, Incest, Homosexuality, Prostitution
Pornography, Sexual Fantasy, Rape, Pedophilia, Bestiality , Lust,
Lasciviousness, Promiscuity

Involvement with any of the above spirits can lead to involvement with all of the above spirits. This is especially the case when spirits are transferred to you during intercourse with someone.

There you go, you sleep with someone who likes looking at porn and the next thing you know you're cruising the streets looking to pay for sex with a underage billy goat and thinking about Kylie Minogue in a wetsuit with the bottom cut out... and you're going to do it more than once!

Heal her Lord, for she is afflicted with jelly for brains. She can't even spell "Lasciviousness" - I had to correct it in her post!

UPDATE: For more giggles go to the homepage of the blog and click on her word links... you even get 2 shots at "bestiality" because she spelt it wrong the first time, the fucktard.

Communications failure

Nearly half a million people, described by the UN as "the poorest of the poor", will soon be able to make mobile calls. As part of a UN programme to tackle poverty in rural Africa, 79 villages across 10 African countries will be hooked up to cellular networks.

"Hello? Hello? No I'm on my ox cart on the handsfree. No, on the OXCART. I can't hear you. I CANT HEAR YOU. Oh hang on we're about to go through a tunnel..."

You would have thought that access to clean water, a reliable food source and a government that didn't keep trousering the wealth of their countries would have been a priority but I'm only a dragon so what would I know.

Hate to say I told you so

But I told you so.

More than once.

Smug, smart-arse dragon is having a really good giggle and waiting to see how the tabloids get themselves out of this one.

Vodafone - Bastards

You may not know this but most of my vitriolic outpourings on the interweb are tapped into the laptop as I zoom up and down what is laughably called "The Fen Line" by the railway company and then squirted into the ether by a GPRS card which sticks its bright red aerial out of the side of my PC making my lappy look like a dog with a stiffy (memo to self: do not lend laptop to Eric Gill).

As you can guess from the colour of said aerial the card hooks up to Vodafone and, for twenty five quid a month, I get 250Mb of download traffic. All fair enough until last month when I get hit with a 118 quid bill. Quick look at said bill confirmed that they hadn't included my "inclusive" quota of blog postings and internet porn so I ring up to sort it out.

"Oh yes, we've made a mistake, we'll send you out a revised bill."

Week later, no bill and 118 quid missing from the dragon's horde.

Big mistake; There is a pile of eviscerated knights out by the bins¹ which should serve as a warning that pilfering from my big pile of gold, jewels and collateralised debt securities is not a good idea.

Ring Ring: "Hello Vodadog? So how come you've taken this money out, when you said you wouldn't?"

"Oh yes, some bills went out in error. We'll refund you on the next bill."

"Hang on, you're in possession of ninety three quid of mine. Are you going to refund the interest?"

"Er No."

"Give it back now then."

"Can't"

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't. I can't do refunds. Talk to your bank."

"I assure you that is exactly what I shall be doing. Can you take a complaint?"

"Yes."

"Good, now this is how you spell 'shoddy customer service', 'theft', 'fraud' and 'please stand still while I immolate you'"

Cunts. Wonder what O2's reception between London and Cambridge is like.

UPDATE: I'm not alone, apparently.

UPDATE UPDATE: Bank were sweetness and light (they get like that when they look at the balance of the hoard) and promised I'd have my money back within a day.

¹ Bloody council refuse to take them away. No idea why I pay my council tax, shoddy bastards.

I want a centaur!

Yay! With a firm two fingered salute to the religious, anti-science lobby the HFEA have given their go ahead for the creation of human-animal hybrids.

Dr Tony Calland, chairman of the British Medical Assocition's ethics committee, said it could lead to "major breakthroughs in treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other serious diseases".

Bigger Yay! I've seen up close and personal what those two abominations do to a person and those around them. Get a move on chaps, crank up those Bunsen burners and let's get cracking on sorting out a cure, ideally before I need it.

But biggest yay is the giggles factor at watching the usual suspects writhe and flail about whilst the science world gives them a collective mooning...

Anthony Ozimic, secretary of pro-life group the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said he "deplored" the HFEA's decision. "This is not just a case of the 'yuk' factor - there are grave ethical and moral objections to this research and the way it is being promoted."

Nothing yuk about it you cunt and even if it was who gives a shit; the only "moral" objections you can come up with basically will boil down to "life belongs to my big invisible friend in the sky and you can't mess with it or he'll smite us all (or more accurately you'll show there's nothing that special about being able to create life and where's my precious faith then?)" And when your hands can't stop shaking and you keep forgetting if you've left the gas on I bet you'll be first in the queue for a syringe full of minotaur stem cells; pious twats like you always are (I refer the reader to my Mother Teresa post earlier)

And Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said ... "Using hybrid embryos has never been acceptable - it offends the dignity of humans and animals."

Oh just fuck off you piece of shit. Look as soon as you stop wearing leather and adopt a vegan diet then you can start talking to me about the dignity of animals. Tell you what offends the dignity of humans you leprous dick, a once proud and strong man who's motor control is so shot he can't even wipe his own arse, who can't remember who his loving wife of 50 years is any more and who weeps constantly in pain and frustration; THAT offends human dignity you utterly despicable turd, not a few cells in test tube.

Today has been a good day. Progress marches on and the brass band just started playing a quicker tune.

So where do I sign to order a centaur?

You can have my dna when you pry it from my cold dead corpse

To all my fellow dragons: If you see the twat below out on your travels please be sure to breathe on him really, really hard. I reckon that silly wig will burn a treat and with any luck it might warm his brain up so that it starts working properly because that clearly isn't happening right now.



This utter cuntstain is worried because the UK DNA database, already the largest in the world, has on it the DNA of people who are innocent and, diddums, there are lots of black people on it too.. So how do we remedy this situation? According to this utter lump of knobcheese we put everyone on it!

He said the only option was to expand the database to cover the whole population and all those who visit the UK.

"Going forwards has very serious but manageable implications. It means that everybody guilty or innocent should expect their DNA to be on file for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention."

Lets leave aside for a moment the huge cost of such an exercise, the enormous delays it would cause at ports and airports, the impression of totalitarianism that it would give to visitors and the knock on effects it would cause to tourism and business (I refuse to travel to the USA where I will be fingerprinted on entry like a common criminal) and the fact that it will never be "rigourously restricted" in a million years and look whose DNA we are talking about here.

Mine.

It belongs to me, in fact it is what makes me uniquely me. It does not, in any shape or form, belong to the state and nor should the state have any claim whatsoever over it unless in the most extreme case, for instance if I am found guilty of burying a fireaxe in Lord Justice Shithead's malformed cranium. Other than that you can have it when I'm cold and dead and not a second before.

The other problem with DNA is that it's not exactly accurate; you regularly see in court cases where DNA is used that the prosecution will claim that the DNA found at
the scene of the crime has a match to the suspect with a probablility of 99.9999%, say there is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance it could belong to something else. Now add that to other evidence presented in a case then it's good evidence and on the balance of probabilities is it the suspects DNA.

However now we would have DNA being used for primary crime detection. Find DNA at the scene, run it through the computer and, well 60 million people in the UK, that'll be 60 hits. Better kick in their doors at 4 in the morning and bring them all in for questioning. The burden of proof then shifts... we have your DNA at the scene, now it's up to you to prove you're innocent, not the job of the Filth to prove you're guilty.

Usually when this kind of horseshit gets proposed some twatmould will stand up and go "If you're innocent you've nothing to fear from this." I think the innocent have absolutely everything to fear from this.

Oining the Ragheads, encore.

Another day, another "offensive" cartoon, another predictable howling from our bearded brethren insisting that sharia law be implemented forthwith and the people reesponsible are "severely punished" for having the temerity to upset them.

What are the whining about now, this...



Fucking hell, I have a three year old relative who can do better than that! Jesus even me with my one fine art neuron could probably rustle up something more realistic. If they want to complain about anything it should be that the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper employs utterly crap artists.

I'm Kumari, Fly Me

OK so you have a modern aircraft, a 757 as it happens and it has a persistent technical fault on the anti-ice system. Do you:

a) Get the ground engineers to trace and fix the problem
b) Call Boeing for assistance
or
c) Sacrifice a goat

If you're Nepal Air, the answer would seem to be (c)...

The corporation Sunday decided to worship Lord Bhairavnath, and sacrificed two goats-- one black and another white-so that all would be well with its aircraft. The sacrifice was offered at NAC's hanger at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) at around 3:45 pm. NAC top bosses, including Managing Director Gautam Das Shrestha were present to offer worship and goat blood to the deity, said an NAC official. "The decision to sacrifice was made after Kansakar consulted with the top management this morning."

Yep, splashing goat blood around a multi-million dollar piece of kit, that ought to fix it; mind you don't get any in the pitot tubes though boys. Religion, it's utterly insane in any language.

A little side note, a press photographer happened to be present at the time and snapped a couple of piccies and the goat sacrificing senior management, realising that hacking apart livestock to appease gods who were upset with your airplane would probably not play too well promptly arrested the photographer confiscating his cameras which were later returned with the pictured deleted.

They had not however accounted for the most wonderful recovery software SanDisk give you these days... oops!

So sue me

Well it would appear that the ghastly McCanns are going to sue a Portuguese red-top for libel after it claimed that the police believed them to be in some way responsible for Madeleine's death, possibly from an "accidental" sedative overdose.

Well all those grannies who gave their old age pensions can have the warm feeling inside that as well as funding the McCann's jet-set lifestyle and extended Portuguese holiday that they are now lining the pockets of the Portuguese versions of m' learned friends Sue, Grabbit and Runne.

Trouble is for the McCanns is that they now have to go into open court and argue their case that the remarks are libellous, this isn't like a criminal court where they have nothing to prove and the prosecution have to do the proving, here they have to prove they were libelled and you can bet that the newspaper's lawyers will be putting up a robust defence and asking some very, very pointed questions which they might find somewhat awkward to answer.

This is going to get interesting.

In the meantime, wonder what sort of mental state their other 2 kids are in?

Cameron - Twat or what?

I don't think I've seen anything more embarrassing recently that CallMeDave popping up every thirty seconds on any news channel that'll have him spouting off on yet another topic de jour with some knee-jerk rhetoric aimed at pleasing everyone and systematically pissing off the entire world and probable amoebae on Saturn. "Ohh... murdered kid in Scallypool... errr... video games, violent movies, dangerous dogs yes we'll ban them, that'll work. Right, immigration, appeal to core tory voter... it's too high! Appeal to foreign people... we like your culture."

For fucks sake, if this is the Tory Surge that's going to beat the "Brown Bounce" then gods help them. They just seem to be running around like blind lesbians in a fishmongers, throwing out policies that aren't so much half baked rather are still bags of flour sat in the kitchen cupboard. On one hand you've CallMeDave trying to sound all old fashioned Tory with his "Tough on crime, tough on immigration, tough on what can I be tough on next" and then utter wankers like Yeo banging on like Polly Toynbee about taxing domestic flights out of existence on the basis of the new religion which is global fucking warming. These guys are smeared all over the political spectrum like roadkill across four lanes of motorway.

What can they be thinking? Surely the British electorate isn't going to fall for this all things to all men bollocks?

Oh hang on, this is the same lot who kept re-electing Bliar.

We're so fucked.

"If you were there, you would have said, 'What hypocrisy'"

Yes I probably would have.

Turns out that soon to be saint, Agnes Bojaxhiu, better known to you and me as Mother Teresa, didn't so much suffer a "long dark teatime of the soul" but rather a full on loss of faith, pretty soon after founding her so-called "hospital" in Calcutta in the 1940's.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?

Quite frankly Agnes, yes you did.

So why did she carry on? Well why do I carry on being a computer programming bod after twenty years? Quite simply this is what I know what to do and it's a bit late to suddenly make a change into being a ship's captain or a painter and decorator. I had a long chat once with a vicar who admitted that he's lost his faith years ago. When I asked him what made him continue working for the church he said "It's a comfortable life, nice house, don't have to work too hard and the pension is terrific".

Trouble with Agnes was that I think that the brainwashing had taken too much of a hold and though it was apparent to her that nothing was there, "I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear", she just could not help keeping on keeping on. Maybe she reasoned if she went out all balls to the wall and tried really, really hard and stuck really, really firmly to the doctrine of Mother Church she might start hearing the little voices in her head again. She certainly believed in that most pernicious of lies that suffering is somehow virtuous; conditions in her "hospital" have widely been reported as dreadful and the treatments, cold baths for everyone, aspirin the only treatment for cancer patients, useless or worse than useless; added to this that she spent her whole life vehemently arguing against letting women take control of their bodies (the one thing along with education that's been proven as a cure for poverty).

Mind you she could just have realised that it was all complete arse and decided to milk it for all she could get. Over the years she received millions in donations but conditions and treatment stayed the same at her flagship "hospital" although up to 500 other such "hospitals", all bearing her name, were set up with the money (very modest and humble, not!) and that money sometimes came from some very dodgy sources including the Duvaliers of Haiti and corrupt banker Charles Keating (in the latter case when the auditor wrote suggesting that maybe Agnes would like to return some of the money stolen not a single cent was given back). Gullible twerps like that simpering cunt Malcolm Muggeridge and latterly Diana Spencer giving her the oxygen of publicity were, quite literally, a godsend. Come to think of it she's about as saintly as the Borgia Popes.

Still it didn't do any good. The little voice in her head never came back, even when lying in a nice, expensive Californian hospital (no backstreets of Calcutta for her) at the end; once you lose it it's gone for good.

Join the Russian Cavalry, our horses are *really* friendly!

My Russian Orthodox friend Leah often starts her posts with a picture of a soviet-era poster. Somehow I don't think she'll be using this one any time soon.



This is a genuine Soviet stamping, I think the idea was to show the heroic red army to the peasants (who were most likely illiterate but, given they were familiar with the icons of the church, used to getting stories from pictures. One can't help but speculate if the effect of this was a sudden upsurge in volunteers for the cavalry.

On a side note, I wonder if I could teach my horses to do that?

On second thoughts, having seen what short work they make of carrots, maybe not.

(Hat tip to BoingBoing for that one)

Taunting the fundies, British squaddy style

This is absolutely hilarious. Some dickwad of a fundy xtian "pastor" who runs a blog for some presidential candidate no-hoper made a very grumpy post about the "Cowardly British" and how uncristian we all were for pulling out of eye-rack.

Unfortunately for this chap it got picked up by the forumites at the British Army Rumour Service ("AARSE" to its friends) and a bunch of jolly squaddies weighed in to merrily extract the urine from the rabid god botherer and his friends in the most hilarious fashion, especially as the "Pastor" decided to invoke God, Jesus, The Archangel Michael and the spirit of Ronnie Reagan to cast out the British from his website.

The whole thing starts here but the real fun gets going around here.

I'm reading this still on the train and keep getting looked as as I burst into fits of giggles... here's an example.

“Lord Jesus Christ, I place myself at the foot of Your cross ans as me to cover me with Your Precious Blood….”

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I’m pretty sure that if Jesus is reading this, in between bidding for a batch of “no more nails” on EBay, I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t share his holy **** with you if you were one fire.

And the Catherine The Great Safe Sex Award goes to...

Ouch, now that has got to hurt!

A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her... It knocked her to the ground, lay on top of her and displayed what the police delicately described as possible mating behaviour.

Needless to say, in the great tradition of Rose the Goat, this has been the number one item in the BBC online news' "Most Emailed" list ever since the story broke.