OLD MAN’S RANT – BAHRAIN THIS MONTH – SEPTEMBER 2015
The world’s troubles cause fallout everywhere and despite rosy editorial, many of us know the reality with business being so bad we’re heading to Calais. There’s an old joke which goes; ‘When I was a kid, I prayed everyday asking God for a new bicycle, but my mentors kept telling me that it doesn’t work that way and the Good Lord offers redemption to those who seek forgiveness. So I stole the bicycle and asked him to forgive me’. Society at large appears to have adopted this mantra demanding everything be given to them on a plate, and then blame anything and everything else but themselves when it doesn’t happen. Oh! That’s a bit like terrorism in reverse. And then there’s always the housemaid if all else fails.
Where does the blame lie? Our assumed utterly polarized society and politics today muddles through, but we are in a mess to say the least and the big sort out is just around the corner. There are some very cruel people in the world but as for being polarized, well this is fiction and merely the imperious politicians creating this ideology as ‘divide and rule’. Deluded of course, but one hopes the reality is that most of us think much the same. You know; have humanitarian hearts, believes cabbage is good for you, don’t eat children, love animals, hang murderers and anyone who shoots a lion or goes to dog fights. After all, politicians are the only ones to reject capital punishment fearing one less vote. However, try to physically take our money and see what happens. Absolutely nothing in this world is free so Governments giving aid to third world countries is merely a bribe but perceived as ok and not your own dosh, but if someone knocks at your door asking for a couple of grand to feed Africa, you’ll tell them to give Bob Geldof a call, that he has plenty and you bought the CD to prove it.
As Margret Thatcher said; ‘The problem with socialism is that; ‘Eventually, you run out of other people’s money’. (See the hate mail that that generated. It’s a good job Facebook wasn’t around then or we might well have had organized troll terrorism financed by Russell Brand’s publicist). Brainwashing British politics could be blamed for European ideology now or perhaps it is something to do with the English language which has spread all over the world in all its forms, much of it with an Indian accent, so maybe it wasn’t the advent of television after all. Just like communism this big Fabian-Marxist trip since the 60s is heading for a major disaster but egocentric politicians polarize in their endless endeavour to be noticed and just like Hitler, employ YouTube like thugs to get the ball rolling; trolls who spread verbal hate knowing full well that the masses believe everything they read half the time – if they can read that is.
More than a few say there really is no difference between all parties or politicians and absolutely ‘all’ politician are driven by their alter ego. Look at Gordon Brown, an unelected Prime Minister who didn’t want to go. Knock knock! ‘Whose there’? ‘David’! ‘David who? ‘David Cameron, get out of my house’. With their only qualification being able to memorize ‘yuckspeak’ catchphrases, it has to be the alter ego, because that’s the bits that stay hidden, but underneath it all it is this massive ego bigger than Bono’s which drives them.
The hedonistic Greeks invented democracy according to the Greeks and the Greek word for ‘I’ is ‘Ego’, so maybe they are to blame for everything. Let’s rest our case here. Baroness Thatcher will be turning in her grave quoting Churchillisms; ‘Never have so few paid so much for so many who won’t take care of themselves’. Why would you, if there is always someone else ready to cough up? Surprisingly, of David Cameron’s ‘swarms of immigrants plying the channel’, how many are Greeks? None for three reasons; they don’t need visas, Greeks like Greece better and they hold the world record for bank holidays.
Still, apart from Greece, the so-called socialists are out now. In Britain, they’re running around like ‘edless chickens with both Miliband and Balls gone. As one party member said; ‘There’s a sense of great loss over Balls’. For sure, the tomcat next door had the same feeling coming back from the vets the other day. Laughable, Harriot Harmon, says she doesn’t want to be Prime Minister; well the feeling is very mutual.
OLD MAN’S RANT – JULY 2015 – BAHRAIN THIS MONTH MAGAZINE
It’s Ramadan….. so be careful what you say as people are very touchy about food at certain times of the day. Most not and couldn’t care less, but we do have bigots and snitches, so Ramadan Kareem to all who supposedly practice and for those who pretend, I’ll see you for a bacon butty and a coffee at the studio for indulging.
Certain countries (names of which cannot be revealed until prison food improves) block questioning web sites, especially those containing alarming subjects such as we speak of today. So at risk of being burned at the stake, we bring you news of life’s termination as we know it Jim. No jokes, no funny lines, this edition of the Old Man’s rant is a stunner, frightening and seriously serious, so don’t bother to write a will.
Judging by the dates of some of the old magazines we see in waiting rooms especially barber shops, it might be too late and your awareness posthumous as you flick through pages while sitting on Cloud Nine waiting to go in, wondering what the hell happened! Well, a massive asteroid from hell hit earth September 2015 and we are all gone. Google it! (Edit – March 2016 – um er!). Maybe even those arrogant white Toyota Land Cruisers owners who think they rule the road are rid of. A drastic measure but hey! Coming back to now, the news is front page of the UK’s Daily Mirror in full colour, so it must be true. If Fox News starts reporting it as well, really fear for your life.
It has been almost 3 months since the word ‘Illuminati’ and the associated conspiracy theory rants appeared in this column, yet there was a solemn promise to include something about it in each article. No scientific facts collaborate the reality of this uber catastrophe, but it is thought to be some conspiracy the Illuminati has scammed it up. It even pre-empts Armageddon, of which at least some are supposed to survive. That would be all Virgos then.
Like being locked in a dominatrix’s dungeon, this magazine is strapped to philanthropy, forfeiting their own well-being to warn others less able. No expense has been spared with Skype calls around the world warning one and all to prepare. A pacifist’s solution might be to immediately uproot to Denver Colorado where people gather in huddles and converse in ‘wow’ speak with the invisible, as they smoke the envisaged horror away. Claiming drug use as a recreation is just denial anyway, but now business on the streets will be booming, all lighting up to block out the pending doom. Imagine the state of the place; a stoned dude walks along the railroad track believing it to be the stairway to heaven but wonders why the hand rail is so low. A quick warning was communicated to a commune and caused an instant stampede to the coke shop. Heeding our plea to focus and stay well away from this evil powder they agreed and now use 5 meter long straws.
Being pedantic, let’s call it a bucket shop legacy, but there is a scientific boo-boo here. The headline; ‘Asteroid will hit earth in September’ is just so wrong, so don’t panic. Asteroids are orbiting something and become meteors once they start going off the rails. This is hardly surprising, with all that Denver air and shisha from here wafting to the stratosphere and beyond. Any alien that descends will already be stoned. If a meteor is not completely destroyed by the earth’s atmosphere and actually lands on earth, they become ‘meteorites’. So it will be a meteorite maybe 100 times smaller which destroys us, not an asteroid. Now don’t you feel better having cleared that small matter up in your final seconds? OK, so the original asteroid was bigger than Jupiter and could be about the size of the moon as it enters our atmosphere. Relax; even if it is one hundred times smaller, it would make no difference, we are gonners.
For now, asteroid…. what asteroid? This is insignificance compared to the fears sweeping through the expatriate community dreading the moment government subsidies are removed and we are forced to pay on average something like BD 150 a month for electricity during peak summer demand. Most labourers in Bahrain will wish the Asteroid came sooner. So chill and gulp more shisha as fast as you can, don’t bother about buying in bulk at the supermarket or ordering anything on Amazon after August this year. Don’t even bother buying the ultra large bags of soap powder to wash your soiled underwear, because where we are going, you won’t need any.
Not only beating out Armageddon this baby even tops the BBC’s desired finality of having an ethnic, disabled, lesbian President, which sounds like as much fun as an asteroid hitting earth.
OLD MAN’S RANT – BAHRAIN THIS MONTH – JUNE 2015
OK, how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Of course, old joke; firstly one has to assess if the light bulb wants to be changed. This is just the sort of analogy we need to enhance scientific leaning and career prospects – not!
Just so you know where we are going, let’s assess the nuance of this article. Finding the perfect job is as rare as unicorn sh*t, but life ostensibly begins in our late teens with that sole goal in mind. Amazingly, so called studies show that among the worst university degrees to obtain are within the arts, which according to this research are close on a complete waste of time. Shockingly, criminology is also high up the pile of pointlessness if this list of defeatism is to be believed. Speechless!
Just like media hype for inanity and without being too sesquipedalian about it, most of these long winded surveys are just that, tosh! Wait a minute! Who are you to incinerate that I don’t know big words? But if authentic, then music and graphic design or degrees centred around these subjects are ostensibly as useful as a one armed trapeze artist with an itchy bum and below the status of stuff like marketing or Social Studies which every man and his gold fish seem to have. That and Psychology. Ah, but ask yourself who carries out these studies? Oh! That would be marketing people and psychology students trying to justify and validate their own existence on degree courses. What they fail to remotely intimate is that there are more psychologists working in McDonalds than wannabe actors in Hollywood.
Apparently only some 20 percent of degree holders actually carry their qualification through to a related vocation with most just wanting the acknowledgement and credence of degree level intelligence when applying for jobs. What jobs….where? Yale degrees in hip-hop and black rap or street talk are commanding high paying positions within corporations, simply because the Curriculum Vitae lists a ‘degree’. Yes, some American universities even offer degrees in what can only be labelled pornography and one suspects a super-graphic memory helps with IQ tests. Indeed, the Proprietor of this ‘ere bastion of literary works wishes to bring to our attention that there is currently a large (using the word very sparingly) shortage (using the word lovingly) of male employees in the Japanese adult movie industry. Lots of openings apparently!
With physics, the ‘s’ and the ‘y’ are in the wrong order so avoid that, but because it begins with ‘psycho’, psychological profiling is way up the must have degree desires. After all the CBS series ‘Criminal Minds’ portrays most of us as chain saw murderers and none too clever because the profilers know exactly how we think and have this uncanny ability to guess which brand of chain saw will be used by all. The profilers go down the hardware store, which miraculously has a list of purchasers and bingo, perp. arrested! By this time, 20 souls minced but hey they know who did it. So the question is; how come these psychologists can’t perform in ‘Minority Report’ mode and go to the store earlier? Or is that too deep?
If psychology is credible and factual, then life as we know it is nothing but organized ideology. Analytical comedians like Emo Phillips tend to test psychology to its inner or outer limits by going against teachings and asking God for a new car or something material, but we know it doesn’t work like that. So just go out and steal the car and then ask God for forgiveness. That apparently does work. Then we have those who somehow look out from the inside and we call that philosophy. Dare we mention the psychotherapist! Apart from the word itself being made up of ‘psycho the rapist’, who the hell is psychoanalysing the assessor?
Don’t despair; jobs are out there. A lot of say highly educated ladies from ex-communist blocks holding doctorates in rocket science are walking around gainfully employed. They could quite possibly land a rover on Mars, but earn far more on a much smaller scale guiding pocket rockets around Juffair in Bahrain.
As a footnote; before the Internet, Plymouth University in Southern England has or had infinitely more wannabe psychologists swarming and swamping the place compared to the number of light bulbs in the entire building. For those on complex mathematical and technical degree courses, seeing this entire abstract curriculum in play exasperated them to the Nth – Y degree. The psychologists had umpteen free periods and no lecture days, so continuously filled the top floor library blocking access to those hard working geeks who got no free periods at all yet were desperate to get a shot at the books but couldn’t. Catching this Bombay like train lift crammed with twittering anal retentive Freudies was a nightmare, so drastic tactics were employed by the geeks. One would force his way into the lift squeezing among the mass, while his colleagues would walk up one flight of stairs. Pressing floor one, once the doors had closed and the lift started moving, said geek would covertly let out an enormous fart (through his mouth we think) which resulted in a rapid mass exodus at the first stop. Needless to say, waiting geeks would quickly jump in, shutting out the psychologists. Who knows, maybe they started to study this methodology as ‘contra-deviance’?
OLD MAN’S RANT – BAHRAIN THIS MONTH – MAY 2015
As featured in Bahrain This Month May 2015 edition.
A lovely cartoon in the Gulf Daily News the other day showed a long suffering wife, sitting in the living room chair and her husband looking out the window. She says; ‘Come away from the window and stop watching the world, you know how it upsets you’. This actually reminds one of the stayed old couple transiting life in their own quirky way, just as old couples end up doing with gems of wisdom pouring forthwith. The old man wearing nothing at all wanders past the window with its open curtains and the wife chirps up; ‘For God’s sake, come away from the window, people will think I married you for your money’.
This epitomizes the older generation, most having become tired of all the hype and ego induced scheming of today’s truly partisan world. Most of us old ‘uns see through it all, but there is nothing you can do to convince the younger, media indoctrinated masses that their lives are covertly conditioned.
Life expectancy is ever extending and no sane person wants to depart ahead of expectation, plus the world’s population is exploding in more ways than one, particularly in under-developed regions where culture and mentality deem the masses oblivious to the consequences. This presents a dilemma to the degenerate Illuminati, because in all essence ‘they’ disingenuously nurture this pool purely for the egoistic vote. Did we mention the V word there? Oh my goodness, there goes any chance of a garden party invite or indeed an OBE or higher.
Almost all ideology fades as one gets older, except perhaps religion where hope plays such a major role into the unknown. Now, if senior citizens see through all the smoke and mirrors and will no longer vote for such ideology or Kardashian like idolization, then are we in danger? If so, at what stage of our lives?
Are you at risk? Old is gold and grey, but a nuisance for this ultra-dominate, pseudo young egocentric, egotistic establishment which controls and even micromanages the very words we are allowed to utter. You know you are old when the doctor says; ‘You’re gonna die’, and you reply; ‘Dubai? I thought I was in Bahrain’.
You know you are old when you can no longer wear leather pajamas and look back with self-pride at your hippy love-in days when chatting up the pretty girl with flowers in her hair and you claimed to be an organ donor. Half the people you meet talk to you in clichés telling you that you are not old and that you just need to lose a bit of weight, which is a near impossibility because what constitutes exercise and weight lifting in the senior years is just trying to stand up.
You should know you are old if you were asked to name a bird with a long neck and you answered Naomi Campbell and think it so funny and then proceed to endorse your own joke. Best of all, you know you are really old when each time you open your mouth someone immediately responds with; ‘I can’t believe you said that’ or ‘I find that so offensive’, which nowadays legally transcends to being libellous or defamatory for every little thing. Then it hits you that you really are old because every sentence you utter contains the word ‘nowadays’ followed by ‘we used to’.
With justified suspicion the first counter contention imposed by this rabid collective could be to somehow remove from the equation older folk who will no longer vote for them. It is not rocket science to figure out what is really in the minds of the numerous talking heads given endless platforms on the BBC.
With millions from the third world now firmly ensconced in the West, all on a promise of carte blanche privilege in return for towing the party line, those across Europe who have been pulling the strings for the past 40 years or so are in a panic to counter the potential rebellion brewing.
Nervously flip-flopping like a hermaphrodite snail on its first date, the condoning media is constantly airing twisted cloaked fanatics, all trying to babble their way out of their own doing and suggesting anything which will keep them in power. Heard on the BBC recently; a slip of the tongue or seriously dangerous arrogance, one or two such talking heads openly suggested that old people should be struck off the ‘Register of Electors’, meaning that they should lose their right to vote. The host no doubt near swallowed his Guardian while diving for the profanity button. Too late, out it went; but was there a backlash? Oh please; as if! OJ Simpson’s trial was more transparent. And it goes on, just like OJ getting married again because he’d like another stab at it, the BBC will keep on pushing it as if they have ‘nothing’ to do with it.
If our impending dementia doesn’t get the better of us first, we longevity Shar Peis on Zimmer frames can clearly see the quagmire deliberately enforced upon on us over the decades by the charisma void PC collective. A collective united in controlling our thoughts and brazenly legislate it. Sure, as of yet, this clique of wonderment cannot openly condemn old people as that would be politically incorrect, so they actually rely on dementia setting in. As devastating as it is, dementia also has many advantages; less stress for one and probably the best thing about still being active and a sufferer is you get to meet new people every day.
OLD MAN’S RANT – APRIL 2015
Page 201
Bahrain this month April 2015
SOAPBOX FOR THE OLD AND GUMPY 3
Spoiler warning: The following article contains flash photography and an authentic sense of humour embodied with language which many who have lost touch with reality will find offensive. Furthermore, the risk of triggering bouts of Jeremy Clarkson syndrome for those affected is quite high
Don’t you just love living in Bahrain where Political Correctness has as much presence as a Casper in a bacon factory here. Bahrain is the classic Hotel California; ‘You can check out any time, but you can never leave’. Utterances like; ‘How dare you’ and ‘apologize now’ are as rare as unicorn dung and you are going nowhere with it even if you try. So for the PColics, here’s an apology before you palpitate; ‘Sorry, you are in Bahrain and you love it. Get over it – now’.
It confuses the life out of expatriates of the appeasement generation who have elsewhere collectively dominated not only what we say, but how we must appease, live and act among each other. A particular flare up issue is and always will be the imported and imposed cultures; those who in principle leave their unhappy, often violent homesteads to pursue a better life in the west, but through bloated Political Correctness are allowed to create what they left behind in the new paid for home. ‘No problem’ reads the flyer; just make sure you vote Socialist. Wait! Sit down, take some water, you are having a Jeremy Clarkson reaction already.
Is it ok to carry on now?
So you have arrived on these shores and are initially horrified by the total disregard for sensitivities other than religion but have somehow fallen in love with the place. A conundrum as Radio Bahrain’s Mr. Fisher would put it and Christopher Hitchens a self-proclaimed Marxist, Neo Conservative (no confusion there then) and polemicist – expounded as to how depressed he was. Even he couldn’t fight his own doctrine. Confused he says; ‘Living in a country where you can be told “That’s offensive” as if those two words constitute and argument’.
While Da’esh physically and terminally wipe priceless artefacts off the earth, limp ‘Peeceeuraucrats’ as far afield as Alaska have engaged in apocalyptic paternalism for the past 40 years or more (Look it up). This culminates in the abstract removal of one of life’s greatest arts, by actively suppressing any form of laughter as they attempt to eliminate all traces of the once upon a time intangible hormone called ‘a sense of humour’, simply because it is deemed offensive to someone somewhere; known or unknown, close by or maybe 50,000 light years away, or even dead. ‘They’ have near succeeded too, judging by the number of trolls out there.
Clarkson’s antics, hype or real has started a colossal world opinion war which could be the obtuse catalyst for a physical revolution. The BBC chocolate box boss says with naïve brainwashed, privileged but amateur confidence; ‘No individual is bigger than the show’. Oh really sir and on which piece of Marxist Fabian parchment does it support that? In this case Mr. Luvvie might consider calling his favourite chiropractor to help him extract his head from behind his belly button. And if Jonofon Roff gets the job it would be a war crime.
It is strikingly obvious; UK and Europe in particular are a mess with a massive volcano about to erupt, as missionary statements commanded by this now echelon of society are being challenged. Forcibly by law ‘they’ have dictated speech content using a viral language called ‘clichéd rhetoric’ in response to anyone who starts a sentence with the words; ‘I think’.
Despite the plethora of peroxide blondes on Fox News never having wanted to master ‘clichéd Rhetoric’, the unearthly profusion of closet members at the BBC are extremely fluent in it. Ask yourself, why did Esperanto fail? Because words like ‘foreign’ (eksterlandaj) and ‘obese’ (graso bastardo) were just too long
The echelon, ‘they’ have successfully been forcing equalization and drabness upon us, even degrading exam standards so as not to offend the dopey. With droves of ‘clichéd Rhetoric’ speakers in tow; mouthpieces like the BBC and newspapers such as The Guardian, Independent, Huffington Post and a good few more, literally ‘speak for us all’. Megalomaniac egos overpower reason, with a desire to neutralize the voter base, in other words make us all totally indistinguishable from each other. You know the rules; do not profile at a crime scene or airport. Vanquish all thoughts that this person might be different because they have a beard or wear tribal like clothes and enforce colour blindness on everyone. Damn Clarkson.
Here’s a simple tip to detect ‘they’ when being subliminally nobbled. Every time you listen to a radio advertising message, promotion, current affairs presenters and now so-called entertainers, be conscious of the voice and demeanour. It is almost like it is one voice or clone of for all now; this incessant sickly, girly sing song replica of that BBC pop channel implant, spewing out insincere happiness. The liberally infected ‘Pronoun Virus’ ever present as she hangs words at the end of every sentence. Je suis all ‘WE’. If not her, then it is an equally effeminate male (we think) with a lisp, doing much the same. The Star Gate is somewhere in the Meteorological Office. Whoops! Severe Clarkson moment. Doctor!!! Plus, clock the clothes, particularly the BBC presenters. The female species so often wear vibrant blue or bright yellow and is as significant as a bird mating ritual. Blokes removing ties would be just too much for now, so wear pink for the same reason and red for allegiance. They even have the gall to wear arm bands if Bono from U2, Paul McCartney or Bob ‘Comfortably Numb’ Geldof strike up a cause. It is all so incestuous and closed shop. Clarkson has never been part of that, having slipped through the corridors years ago and like double jeopardy managed to hang on, but it was never going to be easy.
OLD MAN’S RANT MARCH 2015
Bahrain this Month – March issue 2015 (Page 176)
SOAPBOX FOR OLD CODGERS 2 – For March 2015
Opinions expressed in this column in no way reflect those of Santa Claus, the country, the magazine, the Editor, any particular company or anything you might find in the closet.
Everything gravitates to sea level when you hit the senior years except time. You slow down but the clock speeds up. More everyday things annoy the hell out of you. Even life in general is a struggle, like trying to heave oneself out of bed 50 times during the night. The pseudo carefree younger generation has no idea as they waltz through the days accepting and appeasing everything thrown at them, with us older folk baffled as to why. It is across the board from agenda indoctrination in the media to computers and Google googling your insides even behind closed doors.
The technology doesn’t really bother us, but the likes of say Sir William Gates does. He who with his software in the mid 80s found a legitimate way of inducing heart attacks, nervous breakdowns, chronic eczema and baldness in upwardly nubile young ladies. As the old adage goes; If Bill Gates had a cent for every time Windows crashed…. Oh Wait! He already has.
The almighty ‘Operating system software’ can be classified as a basic need these days as we cannot do without it. When it works, it is there to control our very existence in every way and who knows what is going on in the background?
Regrettably no software was injured during the construction of this epic, but if it was perfectly legal to seriously maim responsible programmers, Silicon Valley would quite likely be a serial killer’s paradise.
Unstable software has become a health hazard for us old ‘uns. Imagine some poor lonely old soul, orphaned at 50 and spouse no more, all alone in the world, his spirits perked up on a dating site and just as ‘Google’ condescends to find the perfect match – Windows crashes. As the late Joan Rivers describes romance in later life; ‘An affair of the heart is a bypass’,
Of course it is all Illuminati deciding everything for us. Stop laughing at the back. It is, they are everywhere! Be on the lookout for anyone in a space ship or something equally telling, they shouldn’t be hard to spot. Now seemingly meandering off the plot; This chap walks into a library and asked the librarian if she had any books on suicide. The librarian dismissed him immediately saying that they stopped lending them, because people were not bringing them back. Tasteless or not this joke is pure Illuminati and stems from a home grown original which was covertly removed from Facebook. ‘A civil servant walked into a library and asked if they had any books on the ‘Illuminati in Europe’. The librarian said; ‘Triangular Merkal’.
Not Illuminati? Did you know that many of the first few batches of the iPhone 5 were shockingly defective, yet nobody moaned and the world’s media stayed silent? Up to 8 million were quietly returned to Taiwan in early 2013 for re-engineering and the other 28 million of us suffered, having paid a small fortune only to experience the ‘no network’ syndrome and ‘Wi-Fi forget hell’. The world believed it to be our telecom provider on both counts. Worse still, the telecoms companies went along with it keeping their mouths well shut or be forced to replace thousands upon thousands of handsets which were handed out so-called free with packages. The iPhone 5S fixed the problem and Apple came out smelling of roses with no signs of blight. In fact, in true Illuminati format, Apple actually deflected any potential adverse publicity by announcing that their CEO was joyfully gay. Just sayin’….
Rumours abound that Google has reversed engineered Windows. Talk about ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ or ‘Wag The Dog’, it really is Hollywood come true and the Illuminati, now a massive conglomerate is obsessed with eyeballing you and clocking which soap you use in the shower. Smart TV? Ho Ho Ho! It is listening to your every word.
Bizarrely we are forced to tick the ‘AGREE’ button before we can even try the product and they have then got you by the short-cut and cursors. If you think this is actually fraud, then join the club. Oops! Not a good turn of phrase
There is a toothless army of dissatisfied, frustrated folk out there who know the operating system software is defective at sale, but can do absolutely nothing about it. Sure it loads, it runs – sort of, exasperating us old codgers to the point of violence. Macs are generally the more stable of the two staple options, but don’t hold your breath; Apple has gotten away with some blinders too as mentioned above.
It’s Murphy’s Law in a box and our precious lives ebbing away. We just don’t have time for this. Every day we endure those constant imposing updates which drive you crazy as we endlessly wait for the computer to switch off or even start now. It is always when you are in a rush but you fear stopping the process in case it screws something up or worse, fire breaking out if you leave it because of the cheap Chinese fans in the cheap Chinese case, not to mention taking up our costly bandwidth in gigabytes. Like a bad romance, Windows is also quite capable of hanging just on the stroke. This ritual continues until the new software version comes out which we are all forced to pay premium for again and again and the whole palaver repeats itself. ‘The Hills have Eyes’ is less of a horror story. Seriously, if a car manufacturer or any other industry for that matter sold a defective product, then a recall would be ordered or a refund, but not anything under the control of the Illuminati.
OLD MAN’S RANT – BAHRAIN THIS MONTH (February 2015)
Bahrain This Month – Old Man’s Soap Box Rant:
The old adage goes something like; ‘To cut a long story short – just don’t tell it!’ But senior citizens love to reminisce with the clichéd; ‘When I was a lad’, or; ‘As girls we use to….’ Unfortunately, most things old people come out with now is considered grossly politically incorrect. With communication between us now predominantly in text form, it is a tad difficult for old timers to manipulate all this changing technology, but don’t underestimate us. It is our faculties that let us down, not our brains. Sure we get slower to respond to things physically, but not mentally. Think about it; all that knowledge accumulated over the years is like a million gigabyte disk drive full of data. It just takes a little longer to access it and we only do a working week in our heads, with those in Europe under the impression that there’s no email delivery on Sundays.
Sure, the body processor slows down a bit as well, but we all become lovable until you get on our nerves and the new bloated PC generation can certainly do that, so we rant and as we get older and there is good reason to get grumpy.
Now women generally get quieter as they reach their golden years with the rampant, wanton cougar in them diminished or at least diminishing. But there’s not an old man who hasn’t got a good lengthy yarn to spiel, true, false or somewhat embellished. Life’s experiences will do that to you, plus we all tend to get much less shy as we slow down and are quite happy to yap away to anyone who will listen as if the last day might be tomorrow. Alas, with everyone on their mobile phones texting, it is difficult to find an audience. There again, even if we manage, it is most likely another older person, so all this new found desire to communicate is often a fruitless aspiration because your new old friends can no longer hear you anyway . For the wrinkled, ‘let it all hang out’ takes on a whole different meaning verbally, particularly for blokes, but the proverbial mobile phone selfie is definitely not on the menu. Now that’s not sexist in anyway – moi sexist? Gossip is not a story and the reality is that unlike men, few women sit reminiscing and blathering tales of exploits best of times. As the years clock up, the fairer sex tend to more ‘tch tch’ as a disenchanted, ‘mature’ response rather than throw the blarney stone at you. Mind you, most had plenty to say while getting there. The fact is, so many married blokes have had to wait until they are over sixty five to get a word in. So verbal is the order of day because texting pretty much becomes impossible without a couple of glass pebbles over your eyes, LOL.
Older readers might be ROTFL as they scan this missive, thinking how true. Only now, they will respond with ROTFLACGU! (Rolling on the floor laughing and can’t get up). BTW doesn’t mean ‘by the way’, it means; ‘Bring the wheelchair’. LMAO is adapted to become LMDO, or to be more precise; ‘Laughing my dentures out’. It is a whole new language and meaning we have to learn. ‘Talk to you later’ or TTL stays the same, but between old folk it means; ‘Talk to you louder’.
But hey, men get so much more romantic after retirement and more imaginative, which is extremely odd because most marriages go through phases where either party would be quite happy if they could literally get away with murder; so the companionship grows more intense, or is that needy? Old couples see more beauty in each other, even if men still see more beauty in….um.. anything that moves in a skirt or a tight T shirt pair of jeans. As mentioned, they come out of their shell and become bolder, believing they are more loveable, funny and forgivable, sitting there in retirement watching the world go by. Of course, they’ve not only lost the touch and ability but any possibility of getting out the chair fast enough, if in the extremely remote chance that some willing potential conquest happened to walk past the window.
Old age is the déjà vu that you are having a bad attack of déjà vu. You’ve been there, done it, wrote the book and sent the postcard.
So back to the grumpy insinuation and stereotyping an entire generation of anyone with a liver spot; let’s make this perfectly clear and with some glee. Disregard, dismiss or just dis the old codger’s outpourings as just another pathetic rant at your peril, for each is a masterpiece of experience. To do so is actually offensive in its essence, rather than the content of old folk’s outpourings. This hypocrisy is not perceived by the now wide-spread ultra-orthodox Politically Correct, deluded, confused or just oblivious among us, wallowing in their misguided appeasement. Calling us old folk ‘out of touch’ or even worse accusing us of being ‘offensive’ because we tell it like it is, is outrageous. Just back off! Furthermore, I’ll worry about my own health and safety not you!
The best part about it is; being an old git with probably only a few years left on earth, (a debatable, contentious statement in itself) you don’t care what you say anymore, so my next rant will address the pseudo majority Illuminati who these days instantly object to anything and everything.
PASSAGE TO HONG KONG
Hong Kong review: June 2014 (Note: Sorry about the picture layout – This particular theme does not provide any other satisfactory options)
Looks like a postcard – It is! But it is real!
Once upon a time in a far off land in the Orient, long before Jo Bananas, a fairy tale evolved where goodies and badies lived side by side rubbing each other’s shoulders and things, where a multitude of police horses stood on two legs. One reason for that was to make more room, the other was to keep the disenchanted at bay. If you are over 50 and geographically astute, you might have visited a completely different Hong Kong to what it is now, or at least heard enthusiastic memoirs and felt like you had been there so knew the score – literally
As a rough guide how to get to Hong Kong from Europe or the Middle East or in my case Bahrain: Keep heading east with an umbrella until you reach the South China Sea and look for the bright lights; you can’t miss it! Of course it is best to go west if you are coming from say LA, but don’t laugh its – north initially if you are heading out of New York. Better still, just look for a Cathay Pacific plane wherever you are and as sure as Brazil went out of this year’s world cup by *censored* goals, that plane will be heading to Hong Kong.
Ignoring China itself, the other bright lights in that area might be Macau which is close by if you are a crow, certainly from Lantau Island which is only 25 miles away, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a direct link. The ferry starts in town and goes all the way around. That water is rough too. Eeeeeee uuuuwww!
Not a very pleasant 25 mile hike by water – but you’d need to be put to sleep for a light-year if you wanted to drive over.
Apart from making thousands of pretty ham kung fu movies, Hong Kong is now perhaps the safest destination on earth next to say Singapore maybe. Most
DINGALING – TIME FOR A REFUND
The following could and should set a serious precedent and affect each and every one of us who pays a mobile phone bill. This post is a bit of a follow on to my last year’s epic; BEWARE OF GEEKS BEARING GIFTS.
How many of you just pay your phone bills without ever checking them thoroughly? Mind you, I have asked that question before without much impact at all. How many of you have paid hundreds of Dinars/Dollars to telecom providers for so called ‘data’ which you had no idea you were using? Some of you have even encountered travel bans because of it (reference Bahrain). I have a very close friend who tells me that his wife is currently paying off a hefty $1,500 (600 Dinars) bill in bits monthly all because she didn’t realize that her mobile was set to ‘DATA’ switched on. I know of another Bahraini lady in absolute despair because she has a BD 3,500 bill ($10,000) for roaming charges which she had no idea about. Silly lady you say? Yes, she is, but she is culturally and naively innocent in many ways. She has no idea how telephones work from country to country, no idea that roaming is what it is and she just carried on sending pix and Whatsapping. Duh!! By default, most Post Paid customers are automatically ‘roaming’ enabled, whereas Pre Paid most have to activate it. Another lady I know has a hefty bill from just visiting Dubai, where like inter Europe, it should be near a local call, but it is in fact beyond premium. She was not knowingly using data, but didn’t have a clue about ‘switching roaming data off’. She didn’t even know she had to, or where or how she could do that with her phone. It’s all as slippery as a Soprano’s plot.
Well, any testy lawyers who might happen to read this, me thinks there is a little gold mine in the making if you wish to pursue the cases of what must be thousands of customers who have been duped, with grossly outrageously inflated prices for data which nobody asked for in the first place.
Which is exactly the crux of the issue; you as a consumer never asked for it, never signed a contract to accept it. In fact, you probably had no idea you were being charged horrendous rates, thus in the eyes of any credible, moral, legitimate law these charges are fraudulent; it is as simple as that. In America now, this issue has just been legally addressed and T-Mobile will be ordered to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars of ill-gotten profit to its subscribers, simply because none of them asked or signed for the service, product or data. It is not a ‘loop-hole’ it is blatant scamming. I for one expect this to snowball and the fallout could be stunning, just as Brazil’s 7-1 defeat (predicted by me exactly) by Germany.
However, big business and no doubt media worried about its advertising revenue have apparently closed ranks and publicity is scarce still.
Déjà vu Last year I wrote (and blogged) of a case where in just one month I had been charged over BD 400 by telecos who had billed me just for apparently ‘receiving’ erroneous premium rate text messages and making weird calls, none of which I asked for or indeed subscribed to. Many were never received in the first place and absolutely no calls made, but listed on the bill. Sadly, not a single person appeared to care or respond to my missives, so like always the corporations get clean away with it in Bahrain and elsewhere, except with me. I fought the issue tooth and nail and Zain kindly refunded over BD350 (just under $1,000) having thoroughly investigated and logging that it was not my IMEI number.
The former Lightspeed very reluctantly refunded about $100 never accepting that it was their fault.
Batelco refused outright to refund BD 9 ($23) which would surely have been BD 900 had I not caught it in time. The so-called investigator even lied to me telling me that they had checked and that it was indeed my IMEI number, yet not a single SMS was actually received on that particular phone, all of it being a scam. In the end, I ordered the Visa gateway to block any transactions from my numbers, so tough on the scammers and even tougher on the mobile phone companies who claim up to 40% of the SMS revenue.
Now out of the blue, last month we received a bill for near $400. Batelco told me it was for ‘data off package’. It was a Samsung S4 that had been switched off for a few weeks (while I was away in the States) and on re-charging, unbeknownst to any of us, automatically switched “data on – wireless off’. Within hours, Batelco sent an SMS warning that our ‘credit limit’ was approaching. Who knows, perhaps the phone did some automatic update for just a few megs. These few megs off package are set at an extortionate rate, which is beyond reality and the Telecoms Regulatory Authority should wake up and smell the roses and get this hideous rip-off sorted.
So what anyway? I really don’t care Data on or off, why should we care, we don’t have a package. For 15 years, or more this number has been a constant $5 a month, (BD 2), nobody making any calls on it ever as it is only a relay phone to receive office callers on the land line. Now suddenly the telco wants BD145 for data which should not have been available on that number in the first place. As I advised the Call Centre agent. He said; ‘But you don’t have a package on this phone”. My response was just that; ‘You are absolutely right and obviously not a lot gets past you does it? We never signed for any data on this number and have ‘never’ asked for any and furthermore, we don’t want any data, so whatever scam you are working at whatever stupendously high rate, it isn’t going to work on me’. In effect the T-Mobile ruling will prevail and set the precedent and hopefully worldwide. If you don’t ask for something, don’t sign for something, don’t want something, how the hell can a telecommunications company charge you for it and get away with it? It cannot be legally justified whichever way one looks at it.
There is no such thing as a ‘free phone’ , free laptop, free TV either. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority do nothing about it, the government is not interested and there are just no advertising morals, let alone standards, so all this marketing scam goes on unabated. It is all just a ploy to hold you hostage for up to 2 years on jumped up contracts which include the price of the device – trust me. No matter where you are, incompetent and deluded dudes calling themselves ‘Marketing Specialists’ rule the roost and get clean away with it, giggling away at the deceit. Hundreds of thousands go alone with it, because it is an easy way to get hire purchase.
I P a lot!
Another pathetic revenue scam is; telecos claiming some sort of ‘difference’ between voice traffic and data. In the past this could be somewhat justified but not since the advent of IP routed traffic on data trunk highways. It is ALL DATA now. You’ve all heard of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and most of us use Skype. There is no difference. It is all ONES AND ZEROS. Everything is routed by a matrix and your telephone number is really nothing much different from an IP address. Once the infrastructure is in place, and it is, it costs no more to link to Los Angeles from Bahrain as it does Riffa to Isa Town. This applies to anywhere else in the developed world. Even outside of that, the delivery method might be slightly different, but taking a call at the North Pole for example, the technology and method is EXACTLY the same nowadays. In fact, look up another blog of mine on ‘Bandwidth’ and test for yourself. In general, Skype has clearer calls than over your mobile phone. If your network speed it slow, then sure it might break up whereas it does not, or should never break on a mobile network, but mobile voice is so muffled in general. It does not have to be because these networks have bandwidth coming out their arses, but they just can’t get past the monopoly and 3 khz doctrine, so why should phone manufacturers concern themselves with hi-fidelity microphones and speakers?
Zain and Viva are playing the HD voice card with 4G, when all could have easily done much better with 3G, but they are all too anal and it is endemic across the world, except perhaps America as was. However with the imported British Telecom and Cable & Wireless mentality in more recent years, with the likes of T-Mobile, nothing creative or abstract is ever considered, until a competitor does it first, then they copy. In recent years, competitors have been non telecom schooled geeks who actually force progress on these dinosaurs holding the world to ransom. Across current telephone networks set to operate as they are, there is no such thing as CD quality voice. Whatever HD is supposed to represent it is all big time BS. For a start, the very cheap all singing, all dancing Chinese switches which seem to be growing ever popular outside of Europe run at a piddly 8 bit – 8 khz highly compressed format. This is standard Huawei format. By comparison CD quality , which is NOT high definition, is of course 44.1. khz – 16 bit. The higher the bit rate, the higher the sampling frequency, obviously the higher the quality.
Back to this 145 Dinars and any one else out there who has been burned; sure they will take my number away and hopefully take me to court eventually to try and recover this amount. This is when the fun will begin and we all need to get together to make it perfectly clear that; No signature, no request, no need, then no money honey either! ‘Off’ being the second word!
BRITISH BENDER CORPORATION – CHARTER TIME AGAIN.
Time for a rant, it has been ages: Oh, I seem to have picked the BBC again, how unusual. Or as a new friend on Facebook calls them: The Big Buggers Club, which I thought was hilarious.
Most have no real objection to a BBC existing, proving its funding is not by force. If by force continues, then the BBC has to have no foibles whatsoever. It has to be perfect, it must only set an artistic example of this perfection and can in no way be political or sexual. That can happen, but not in God’s lifetime.
As the BBC Charter continuation looms yet again, like every other controversy surrounding the Illuminati the BBC pretend to address it with seemingly serious intent, incredulous debate and near convincing discussion among their so many arrogant egotists. Oh Paxman will be popping up discussing the issue with some sweet looking, butter wouldn’t melt nanny looking Governess telling how fair and balanced and completely unbiased the output is and to such high standards. She herself quite possibly a lesbian now, but wasn’t really daring to practice until she joined the ranks and found she enjoyed this closet scene and could get away with it without being found out because this incestuous society propagate and look after each other, in unwritten secrecy. Conspiracy? WHAT?
Jimmy Saville, Guardian support, Socialist doctrine, demographic change etc etc. Of course, these clubbers are merely fooling the dumbed down nation unaware that it is all smoke and mirrors. Indeed the very same junkies who create this charade enjoy it as a journalistic high. (By the way, I mention the known exploits of a good few Jimmy Saville era personalities in my EGO rant *** hopefully*** coming up).
An extremely privileged bunch of very connected and lucky upstarts for most is how I see the BBC and its octopus network, with underground cavities with nooky bunks all the way to Westminster, the nest! On the contrary they say; a society stalwart and loved by billions. The iniquitous BBC might be British in name, but it has long been out of character with the indigenous folk of the Isles. Infiltrated by Muggaridge-ites, political socialism, immigrants of varying faiths and little art and given the job under the BBC’s gross obsession with ‘minorities, labeling them as under privileged, so favoured so easily above other struggling talented citizens – oh and we don’t forget the abundance of just plain old sexual deviants. For imagery only, the BBC keeps its old agenda making, plummy family farts, lovingly referred to and worshiped as ‘doyens’ - the John Simpsons, the dimblebys and a good few more, filling the rest of the necessary 24 hour coverage with football wives and throw away society to make us all feel connected.
The BBC really does very little to warrant the age old, perceptions it once had. In fact, its reputation is appalling in learned circles who are not part of the clan. Never mind, the masses are still fed and indeed believe the old adage that the BBC is the broadcasting benchmark and the dog’s clangers in integrity. Wait, I can hear someone saying; ‘But I like the BBC, I think they are very professional.’ Ho ho ho ho! Gimme a bucket. Oh! And; ‘What has someone’s sexuality got to do with it?’. A lot if you want the job!
YOU PAYZ YER MONEY – BUT YOU DON’T GET YER CHOICE:
Anyway: Predictably, this week we have a Tory ‘plant’ spouting yuckspeak; ‘Unconstitutional demand for fees rather than voluntary – being so out of place in the 21st century and that if the public are forced to pay, they should have a say’. Oh that rhymes, let’s slogan it!
Our Tory might be talking but the ‘random’ public are not and will never be allowed to broadcast the real story – not while we still have East Enders.
The yap will continue with the same old BS: ‘Accountability’ – ‘objectivity’ – blah blah blah… ‘ until the ink is dry, which for sure it is already. Of course it has already been decided, because some imaginary ‘NO’ decision being suddenly made 2 years from now would mean that the monster that is the BBC being given short notice to cease operation. As if!
We all know that not a single politician from any party (except maybe the National Front ) has the gonads to even remotely contemplate a real cull, without first being licensed to run their own station or at least have sympathetic broadcast platforms. (Not that it would influence too much anyway, but still it is never going to happen in Britain).
Fox News is of course available on most sat providers, but hey….Not a British version. NOT ALLOWED!
The BBC’s assumed influence outside of Blighty is staggering and extremely dangerous if of substance. Yet we are bombarded and conditioned to perceive tabloid platforms like FOX NEWS to be demons, thus will never be given grace to established such media in Britain with Murdoch the Antichrist for most UK media cohorts. Astoundingly, with Spitting Image like destruction, the British Media not owned by Murdoch has managed to convince most of the nation that Murdoch is none other than the devil himself. Just the mention of Murdoch leaving his office, never mind his name on a passenger list somewhere, causes sudden changes of underwear in the corridors of Aunty and Labour HQ, especially the immigrant Lords in their dens.
Think what you like about glitzy rah rah FOX and co, until Britain is allowed the same real freedoms America is allowed, the BBC and its Fabian base, the pseudo Marxists will prevail and the rest will fall in line.
So my guess is, the decision is already final and cemented long long ago in favour of continuation and all this talk is just pure hype and decoration. My God, they’d have to make wimp Chris Patton a Lord, he’s done everything else un-elected and there is nowhere else for him to go. The rest of the Fabian governors meanwhile sit in their closets supping chino and laughing like hell at us.