» Random Acts of Evil

TV-AM
Not sure if this is random as it was pre-meditated but....

Many moons ago, before Daybreak and before even GM-TV, there was the breakfast show ratings heavyweight that was TV-AM. This was the show that gave us Anne Diamond and Nick Owen, Ulrika-ka-ka Jonsson doing the weather before she hooked up with Vic and Bob, and for reasons that nobody has entirely explained - the mystifyingly popular puppet rat called Roland.

They also gave us Wacaday and Timmy Mallett.

My brother worked for a security firm and the owner of TV-AM, Bruce Gyngell, hired them when he was having trouble with the unions over some deal or other and they had to sweep his offices for bugs and upgrade the building security. As a result my brother had the keys to all the doors.

Because of the nature of the show it started in the early morning and my brother had to be there every day before everyone else and so he saw all the presenters arrive. Which means he spent a goodly amount of time perving over Michaela Strachan. But for every up there's the inevitable down and TV-AM's down came in the form of the arrival of Timmy Mallet, the relentlessly chirpy twat of foam-hammer fame.

Timmy used to cycle to the TV-AM studios every day and would usually coast into reception on his bicycle and announce his annoying presence to all and sundry. His ride was exquisitely timed such that his presence would trigger the infra-red detector and the plate glass doors would slide open so he could cruise in without a pause.

So one morning my brother locked the doors....
(Fri 17th Feb 2012, 22:04, More)

» Conspiracy Theories

Hollywood films with an inverted hermeneutic (fairly long post)
You've all seen films with Satan. Either he, or one of his minions, is harassing young women or little girls, getting them to talk dirty and vomit pea soup all over the place while wearing spooky contact lenses. That's the Satan everyone's seen and is yawningly familiar with.

How many of you are aware you've seen literally dozens of depictions of Satan disguised so you wouldn't know you're cheering him on?

For example, the movie The Chronicles of Riddick. The bad guys in the Chronicles of Riddick are the Necromongers. They're a religious order that fly around in crucifix-shaped ships looking for the Underverse. They "crusade" across the star systems telling people they must "convert or die". Their deity is a three-faced trinity. Their leader, the Lord Marshal, has died and been born again and is now neither living nor dead but "something else". They are, in short, Catholics in space with a zombie Jesus figure in charge.

But if they're the bad guys does that mean Riddick is Satan? Yes. Yes it does. Riddick is depicted with the hallmarks of the adversary from various religious traditions.

He is captured and confined to Crematoria (Hell) from whence he must escape for the "day of days" fight with the Lord Marshal (his own words).

He is suspended in Crematoria, just like Satan is said to be suspended perpetually falling into Hell eternally in some traditions and the Lord Marshal even says "your fall will be eternal".

He falls in Crematoria. Satan is a fallen angel, he is always depicted in the inverted hermeneutic as literally falling.

He is destined to fight the Necromongers. Riddick's entire race refused to bow the knee to the Lord Marshal. The Furyans are the fallen rebel angels of Satan.

He is immensely skilled with weapons. In the inverted hermeneutic Satan is always depicted as a skilled fighter due to one of the fallen angels of the Book of Enoch, Azazel, being credited with teaching mankind the art of combat.

He was confined to a pit and is hurt by the light. Riddick was initially imprisoned in a penal mine and had his eyes doctored to see in the dark and is now hurt by the light. Azazel was cast into a pit and buried under rock and is likewise hurt by the light.

He performs a false miracle to come back from the dead. He shields himself with an opponent's body and pretends to be dead, only to come back and haunt the bad guys.

And so on. There's a checklist of attributes of Satan that are used when portraying Satan and if you stick half a dozen up there, those in the know know just who they're watching.

And Riddick is just one example.

Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon, just like Riddick

Falls when handcuffed to the suicide nut when handcuffed from a building

Is suspended and tormented under a shower by the bad guys

Is immensely skilled with weapons being one of the 8-10 best snipers in the world.

Performs a false miracle by "coming back from the dead" after stopping a shotgun round with his flak vest.

And just like Riddick who tells the imam in Pitch Black he believes in God and just hates him, Riggs tells Murtaugh to "hate God back, it works for me".

Oh and who does Riggs fight, at Christmas time, in LA? That would be a corrupt general whose side he initially fought on and his chief henchman Joshua (which is the same as Yeheshua which is the Hebrew name of Jesus). In fact, when Joshua is tortured for no good reason other than to lampshade who he is, the guy watching says "Jesus Christ" half a dozen times. They are, quite literally, telling you who the character is whom you are watching being tortured.

Similarly, Shane Black who scripted Lethal Weapon and who in interview has said he's fascinated by "fallen" heroes, reprised the character of Riggs with Joe Hallenbeck in The Last Boy Scout.

And on it goes. You can play this game yourself with a lot of Hollywood movies, preferably ones with two male characters who are based on Shemyaza and Azazel from the Book of Enoch.

Han Solo and Luke Skywalker - fall down chasms, check, threatened with a 1000 years of torment in a pit, check, blinded temporarily by the light after encasement in carbonite rock, check, etc etc. And who are they fighting? Oh that's the Godlike Emperor and his right hand man who was born without conception, was prophesied to be born, talked to temple elders as a youngster, stormed the same temple as an adult, is obsessed with life over death and actually quotes the words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew in the final prequel. Star Wars is the story of the rebel angels, told from the rebel angels point of view and they even tell you it happened a long time ago.

This is, by far, my favourite conspiracy theory I've ever come across and I like it because it's testable anytime you sit down to watch a film.

Anyway, apologies for length but I find this theory very interesting and thought I'd put it out there so everyone can enjoy it.
(Thu 1st Dec 2011, 15:58, More)

» Lies that went on too long

I was Monty's (son's) double
Backpacking around Russia with a friend back in the day I was on an overnight train to Moscow. The carriage attendant was a friendly old chap and liked talking to travellers. Our only problem was we spoke English and French and he spoke mostly Russian and German with only the odd phrase here and there in other languages between us.

Nevertheless, with the aid of mime, a phrasebook and our smattering of words we could all understand we established the friendly old codger's name was Binyamin and he was a Jew who had fought in WWII against the Soviets for the Germans (the world is indeed weird). Since he brought up WWII, I informed him that my father had fought in that war also, with Montgomery, in the 8th Army.

At this revelation Binyamin pumped my hand, slapped me hard on the shoulder and led us off to his small compartment where he plied us with vodka.

"He's got really friendly," said my friend.
"I think he's got the wrong end of the stick and now believes that my father WAS Field Marshal Montgomery in WWII," I said, trying not to splutter on the practically pure ethanol he was serving us in the guise of vodka.

This was confirmed when other staff members passed and an excited Binyamin would drag them in and inform them that I was, in fact, Monty's son; whereupon it would be handshakes and backslaps and more vodka. I never disabused the good chap of the notion and I imagine he still tells people to this day that he once drank with Monty's son.

More of a misunderstanding than a lie but I still feel guilty about not setting him straight.
(Sat 10th Mar 2012, 19:52, More)

» Churches, temples and holy places

Nicosia
On a group tour of some Greek Orthodox Church in Nicosia led by full-on bearded, black-robed, funny-hatted priest who looked and sounded (with the aid of his megaphone) like Brian Blessed.

As we approached a spectacularly tacky gilt crucifix of our Lord I whispered loudly into the ear of my friend, only for "Brian" to take his first pause for breath of the day, thus enabling my comment of

"Nailed the bastard"

to be heard by everyone.
(Thu 1st Sep 2011, 14:54, More)

» Irrational Hatred

Agnostics
I shouldn't hate agnostics, I really shouldn't. As an atheist we are, after all, more in synch with each other's positions than we are with that of theists. Neither of us actively worship deities and we all live our lives without giving the slightest thought to the viewpoint that our actions are going to be judged when we die and our souls confined to hell. We both have our reasons for not actively worshipping a deity; an atheist can tell you their reasons and the agnostic will sometimes give the same the reasons or the philosophical position that it's all essentially unknowable.

So why do I hate them?

Because to a man (or woman) they're inevitably smug, self-satisfied cunts, and their agnosticism is invariably delivered from this self-appointed lofty position of smug faux-authority. Turns out, when you question them, they once heard some piece of postmodernist philosophical wank from some prick follower of Derrida or another gobbledigook peddling 60's revisitionist bullshit artist and it's lodged in their brain like some annoying song they haven't managed to dislodge for umpteen fucking years.

And now they're crawling out of the woodwork with their fashionable whinge that "atheists are just as bad as Christians waaaaaaah" shite that they get from Guardian op-ed pieces. And some of them claim they hate "fashionable hatreds". Oh the irony.

Yes I'm looking at you Vagabond you smug, self-loving "look at me, look at me - I really must respond on every fucking thread because my ego needs huge amounts of validation" useless waste of fucking space.

There. I feel better now.

Cheers
(Fri 1st Apr 2011, 0:34, More)