Money (it's a crime).

People keep telling me money can’t buy me happiness, but I'm becoming suspicious of this claim. Here’s what I’d do if I were rich, and you can tell me if it sounds like something that would make you happy:

I’d live somewhere warm, like an island. If an island couldn't be found with the right climate, I’d have one airlifted nearer the equator, because I’d be rich.

Every morning I’d waterski behind a speedboat driven by my butler. Then I’d discipline him for splashing me, and getting my tuxedo wet (I’d wear a tuxedo when I waterskied, because I’d be rich).

Then in the afternoon I’d recline on a marble statue of Diane Lane and watch my Sopranos boxset end-to-end.

I think that would make me happy, but I guess I won’t know until I try it, so donations are appreciated.

A Very Bastard Christmas

The strangest thing happened last night. I had just been fired from my job as desk clerk at Mr Potter's nuclear power plant for impersonating a clergyman, and was taking out my frustrations the usual way, by helping the blind beggars cross the road onto the middle of a roundabout, and leaving them.

Then for no reason at all, a bunch of youths started harassing me. They said "hey, that's not cool", and "don't do that", very aggressively, so I ran a safe distance and called the police. I explained what happened to a great big fat desk sergeant, who seemed to think I was joking. It's like there's no justice anywhere in the world. What if I had been violently beaten, or gored to death? It was pure typical victim blaming. Calling the police officer a fat fuck, I handed the phone back to the gentleman who'd kindly let me borrow it, and ran across the road, causing a cyclist to swerve and skid into a lamppost. This made me lel so much I started coughing, and coughed up blood all over the pavement.

I was looking for a doctor, but it was Christmas Eve and the lines were round the block. I decided if I was to get treatment, I would have to outdo some of these malingerers with their gaping neck wounds, so I hurried off to the theatre store to grab some fake blood, only to find that it had closed down and moved. Pouting in anger, I hurled a lady's small terrier at the deserted husk of a store, and spun on my heel, which caused me to slip and fall on the slick ground. Then the lady, totally unprovoked, started wailing on me with her umbrella like a dervish. I defended myself in the manner I've been taught by social media: by screaming and crying and playing the victim. A group of passing thugs heard my cries and hauled off the lady, who protested vehemently. In the confusion, I tied two of the thugs' shoelaces together and fled.

Bedraggled and potentially dying of consumption, I staggered onto the bridge, where I looked down at the icy river below. I contemplated ending it all by jumping, calculating that if I hit my head on a rock, I would probably only feel horrific agony for a few seconds, whereas if I missed I would likely die a slow death of pneumonia, unless I could remember to hold my head under the water long enough to drown, my lungs filling intolerably up with water. But no! That would be the coward's way out!!! So I had determined to live, when an angel appeared at my side. He said "no dude, you should totally jump. Heaven is totally unanimous on this".

Was he right? Should I have jumped? Fuck that, why am I asking you? The world needs me. I've seen the light! It's a Christmas miracle!! I'm going to live forever!!!!23$%*.

Bastard role models: Grey Seer Thanquol

Grey Seer Thanquol's contributions to bastardry are many and varied. Thanquol is a Skaven (rat-man) from the city of Skavenblight, in Skavendonia, in the Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy setting. I like Grey Seer Thanquol, not least because he's blatantly The Brain from Pinky and the Brain on hard drugs. He is most well known for his brilliant plots being defeated at the last possible minute by the evil Gotrek Gurnisson and his pet man-thing Felix Jaeger, but his antics have taken him from Kislev (Poland/Russia/Czechoslovakia) to Lustria (South America) and Hell Pit (Birmingham).

Among his many admirable traits including Warpstone addiction (think red Kryptonite for everybody) and running human specimens through a giant maze (payback for white rats in real life), Thanquol is a master of the art of scrolling revisionism. This is the process, common to modern political parties and ideologies, by which defeats can be recast as victories, inconvenient allies as enemies, recent enemies as noble allies, and your own mistakes as the treachery of any nearby underling of sufficiently low status in the hierarchy to blame it on. This must be a virtue, as it informs 100% of our foreign policy, especially with regard to the Middle East. Think about it this way: if scrolling revisionism weren't a virtue, then our leaders, media, and ideological gurus, both left and right, would all be liars, incompetents and charlatans from head to toe and back to front. So, you see, it must be good to scroll.

Thanquol's contempt for any and all life makes him an ideal leader. He successfully captured an enemy tower despite only outnumbering them ten to one, and had his army burn down half a major city before escaping, leaving his bodyguards to die with the promise of "inevitable victory". OK, so he's a complete bastard, but let me ask you this: do you see someone capable of such reckless optimism failing his next interview? And isn't that why the upper echelons of our society are filled with that thing that always rises to the top? You know what I'm talking about.

Bastard role models: Tony Soprano

WARNING: This post contains MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILERS for a show you should DEFINITELY HAVE SEEN by now.

Tony Soprano is the gold standard to whom all bastards aspire: he conducts business from a strip club, smacks his son upside the head, and saved money by giving his daughter a car for a present he'd extorted from a degenerate gambler.

Some people think Tony isn't really a bastard, because he cares for his family. Which is true, except he tried to smother his mother to death, fucking killed his nephew, cheated on his wife with two Russians including one differently abled, and loudly announced that he wouldn't get a vasectomy because his son was too shitty to be his male heir, in front of his son. Tony is an inspiration to bastards everywhere.

He also mastered the art of positioning himself against even worse people, so if you were watching he even got you on his side. The fact that nearly all these people came up through his organisation is a minor detail, easily ignored. What sets Tony apart is that everyone rooted for him for seven years, even knowing about his murdering ways. I can't even get people on my side when I forget to flush.

The moral of the show is that you might as well be a fat, violent, addictive, antisocial personality, because everyone else is an asshole anyway. Even if he did get whacked in the final scene, he still had more fun than you.

Movie Tuesday Presents: ¿Onibaba?

Onibaba is the best movie ever.

When most people think of Japan, they think of squids banging schoolgirls, Godzilla, Sumo wrestling, sushi, and samurais, in that order. I've never been to Japan, but if it’s not all like that then I can’t imagine not being disappointed. Anyway, whatever. Onibaba is the best Japanese movie I've seen, and I've seen at least five.

Onibaba is about two women who live in a field of super tall grass and ambush samurais who stop by, so they can sell their stuff. They toss the bodies in a pit that goes straight down but doesn't lead anywhere. How did the pit get there? Did someone dig straight down until they couldn't get out again? What a dumbass.

Onibaba sort of feels like two movies. The first part has a guy come home from war and try to get in the younger woman’s pants (they don’t have names, because that makes them more universal. Names are for popcorn movies). It all seems to be playing like a drama with the younger woman torn between her mother-in-law and this guy’s affections. Then at some point, with a sort of dream logic, it switches to a horror movie, as this guy with a mask appears. I won’t spoil what happens but it’s pretty sweet. You should definitely see it. The word for this movie is: “atmosphere”.

Where's Wallie in the Garden of Earthly Delights

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Movie Thursday Presents: Point Blank!!?

Point Blank is the best movie ever.

I saw Point Blank by accident during a period of watching every movie on TV. And people said I’d never amount to anything that way. Well I proved them wrong: I saw Point Blank.

Point Blank stars Lee Marvin as the best character ever: WALKER. Walker is betrayed and left for dead during a heist in the classiest thriller location ever: Alcatraz. The rest of the movie is Walker hunting down and murdering everyone who betrayed him, except most of them end up killing themselves and each other in their panic over Walker.

In one scene he takes a car salesman out for a test drive and rams the car into everything, smashing it to bits. This scene probably (source) inspired Walter Hill’s movie The Driver, which you also should see. Oh yeah, and another time his girlfriend or whatever tries to beat him, so he just stands there until she tires herself out, and then goes to watch infomercials. Walker: 1, domestic violence: 0. Then she goes insane and runs around the house turning on all the appliances and hits Walker with a pool cue, but when he wakes up they’re already making out, because even unconscious Walker is the best.

The movie has witty socio-economic commentary too, like the scene where Walker tries to get his money out of someone who can’t pay him because it’s all tied up in overly secure investments. The movie explores the corporate nature of organised crime, and thus, by extension, the criminal nature of business. Even better, every shot in it looks super stylish, because it was the 60s. Point Blank makes your favourite movie look like bullshit.

In defence of tl;dr

Circumlocutory assholes on the interwebs are getting upset that nobody wants to read their pontifications, a point of view expressed since time immemorial by "tl;dr". tl;dr is, of course, Vietnamese for "too long, did not read" (source).

The reason people call tl;dr on your epic literature is because you can nearly always say the same thing using fewer words, which is considered common courtesy because no one's got time to listen to every idea you've ever had, especially not by way of a response to a two-word YouTube comment, like "this sucks", or "you suck".

There's a very complex algorithm modern homo sapiens sapiens use to determine whether something is too long to read. First, do they care what the conclusion is? Second, do they care more than they care about reading the next comment, or clipping their toenails? Third, is your writing entertaining? Why not? Didn't they teach you to write good at school? Why not?

tl;dr is an exhortation to write better; to be more efficient; to leave out the backstory about your dog.

If I were a literary critic (boring) I would call tl;dr on everything. Movies too. Drive was tl;dr as fuck. He didn't even drive that much. It's a soundtrack, not a movie. The Gone Girl was tl;dr too. The Hobbit? Too long for anyone to read. The book was like eight pages.

Anything tl should be dr.

Thinking Barbarian IV: The Final Thought

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James Bond is the worst special agent ever.

Since the title of the new James Bond film has now been released (SPECTRE), it seems like a fine opportunity to recap on the series so far. The doctors say this will be good for me ("whatever" was the word they used). This article will contain SPOILERS for the last three James Bond films.

Since Daniel Craig took over the role of James Bond in the 1967 comedy Casino Royale, starring Woody Allen, the world's most famous spy has failed to complete any of his missions, making him the British government's version of Team Rocket. Despite this, MI6 continues to employ him, sending him on mission after mission with all the dogged determination and shit-eating optimism of a gambling addict.

So in Casino Royale, Bond's first job is to capture a bomb-maker, which he seeks to achieve, Tom and Jerry style, by chasing him up a construction site. This chase ends when the terrorist hops a wall into a foreign embassy. Understanding the need for diplomacy, Bond backs out and informs M, who puts the squeeze on the ambassador to remand the terrorist into British custody. O WATE KNO. Instead, he hops in, murders the guy, and then flees like a buffoon. Presumably for several hours the foreign country gears up for war with Britain, until M is able to placate them.

Realising he nearly started a war just to kill a guy he was supposed to bring in alive, and therefore needs to stay on M's good side, he does the only appropriate thing, and breaks into her house like a burglar.

It's not even as if the screenwriters didn't realise that Bond was a colossal fuckup, as they then have M chastise him for these very reasons. Except rather than fire his incompetent, felonious ass like any normal person, she then gives him an even bigger mission. There's no reason for this: he isn't even James Bond yet, as this was his first mission. Is M supposed to be senile in the script? You or I could get fired for being late one time. James Bond can start a war, kill the guy he was supposed to capture, ensuring that an entire terrorist network goes free, and go on his merry way. What the fuck, M.

So then he's sent to bring in another guy, the guy that bleeds out his eyes. How does this guy not die all the time? I don't know. Anyway, again, it's essential to the mission that he bring this fucker back alive. The government also spot him a bunch of money to bet at poker, in what is easily the longest and most boring sequence ever filmed. Long story short, Bond loses all the money, gets the target of his operation killed, fails to spot that his lady friend is a double agent, and gets her killed too before she can tell him anything about the people she works for.

Why the fuck is this goober still employed? But to be ridiculously fair, this was his first two missions. So maybe he'll have gotten better by the second filO WATE KNO.

Quantum of Solace has our Inspector Clouseau stand-in bring home his one prize, a Mr White, to be interrogated. Instead of taking this dangerous criminal to a secure holding cell, he hauls him up in front of M. If M were as smart as, say, the mayor from The Naked Gun, she might well say, "are you crazy? Why have you brought this bleeding-ass terrorist into my office like a dummy?"

But she's nowhere near that smart, and in any case it doesn't matter, as her secretary then reveals himself to be a double agent and starts shooting everyone, allowing Mr White to escape. Did M hire this guy as well as Bond? Did she hire the double agent lady from the last flick? Is there a pattern we can discern here, like one of those magic eye puzzles, if we just stare at it for long enough?

So anyway, in the confusion, Mr White escapes, and Bond is powerless to overtake this limping gunshot victim. Possibly to get rid of him, M then sends him to Bolivia or some shit, where he has to uncover QUANTUM, a secret organisation whose name stands for BORING. Once again the film ends with Bond choosing for no reason to kill the bad guy who could have told him all he needed to know about the terrorist organisation. Is FUCKING BOND A DOUBLE AGENT TOO? At this point that would make more sense.

Then in part three, Skyfall, Bond has to recapture a device that gives the bad guys full knowledge of everyone in MI6. I don't know why such a device exists, but anyway. Naturally, he fucks up and gets shot in the heart and falls into the river, which counts as a pretty good day for him in these movies. The rest of the movie is spent trying to protect M from another agent she hired; a task at which he also fails, not only letting M die, but destroying his own mansion in the process.

I'll be honest with you, when I first saw these movies, I thought they sucked. But looking at them in a different light, I think they're brilliant. As a satirical portrayal of systematic incompetence they're up there with 4 Lions and Dr Strangelove. Maybe M's hiring practices are based on nepotism or something. Anyway, here's hoping Bond gets even one thing right in SPECTRE. That would be so unexpected I might just stop huffing CO2.

Who thinks this is weird?

I was standing in a queue with my bestfriend (guaranteed better than yours), and a thought occurred to me. Feeling I should share this thought, I told her: "what if we lived in a world where the only vowel sound was 'O'?"

"We'd count like: one, tow, thro, fo, fove, sox, sovon, oght, none, ton, olovon, twolve, thorton, forton, fofton, soxton, sovonton, oghton, noneton, twontogh".

She informed me that was weird. Is that true? Was my thought weird? Let me know (using only "O"s).

How I discovered Locrian, by Pat Bastard

So I was in the nursing home, convincing the Alzheimer's patients I was their son, when I heard the sound of a car crash on the street outside. Grabbing my host's walking stick, I ran out to the street to point.

There, on the street below, were two cars smushed together like lesbians. One of the cars had a broken light and it was all crumpled up, but neither of them were destroyed very much. Seeing there was little use in pointing, I sighed with a dejected shrug and prepared to go, but just then the old lady that owned the car that had crashed into the other car and the old man who owned the car into which the other car had crashed into which hopped out and started arguing. When old people argue it's best to stay out of the way and laugh quietly to yourself, just like when people trip and fall but are still big and mean. Smirking in a bastardly fashion, I backed away obliviously into a large metal person.

I like heavy metal (the music, and also the movie), so I figured this would go well. Having bumbled into this person, I sought to diffuse the situation by clenching my fist with my little and pointer fingers out, and screamed "hail Satan!" Unfortunately this seemed to unnerve the guy, so he jumped back reflexively and fell over a wheelchair which was carrying a differently abled person in it.

Seeing my mistake, I decided to do the decent thing and point at the differently abled. "Hey asshole," I shouted, "watch where you're going!" "That's alright dude", said the metalhead, picking himself up and dusting off his Cephalic Carnage T-shirt. "What the fuck is your problem?" said the differently abled. I realised he was talking at me, so I did what anyone would do. "Are you gonna let him talk to you like that?" I shrieked at the metalhead. This caused the metalhead to glare at the differently abled. "Kill him!" I squealed, and ran off.

Later I hid in a bookstore, and someone there mentioned they liked Locrian. I checked them out. They're awesome. Return to Annihilation is a great album. It's right up there with Dr Octagonecologyst and the Blue Record.

Self-portrait

They should hang this in schools.

Bastard role models: Jabba the Hutt

My role model is Jabba the Hutt.

Some people think Jabba the Hutt is a vile gangster, but I think Jabba the Hutt has many good qualities that make him suitable to manage the Tatooine underworld and be my role model.

Jabba the Hutt managed to earn respect and live in a giant space palace despite two very significant handicaps: he couldn't speak English, and he was too fat to move. He also showed his willpower by seeing right through Luke’s Jedi mind trick, which is essential for good management. Jabba the Hutt was also an equal opportunities employer: his staff included pig-faced orcs, that guy with the tail on his head, Salacious Crumb, a blue elephant and many more.

Jabba the Hutt also took an active role in preserving the landmarks of Tatooine, like that giant mouth in the desert. Jabba the Hutt kept it well fed with his prisoners. How else was the mouth going to sustain itself? Did it just wait for space camels or whatever to wander into it? That’s just stupid.

In conclusion, I think we should all be more like Jabba the Hutt. He’s a conscientious employer, cares for the environment, and knows how to accessorise his slave girls. I wish Jabba the Hutt was my dad.

Moar phun with travel.

Many years ago I wrote a piece about how travel broadens the mind (and Warrington kills it). Looking back through my travel pix I noticed more unusual things worth sharing, so here it is.

This is literally the equivalent of show and tell, using the stuff you find in your pockets. I'm so burnt out :(

Sideways DVDs on sale in Spain.

So far as I can tell (after literally some research) this is only happening in Spain, and perhaps Spanish speaking countries. Why make sideways DVDs? Well, why make vertical ones? And for that matter, why put the North Pole at the top of the map? Why not the bottom, or even the side? And then it hits you: in the whole wide universe, which way is up? The way our magnetic north faces? But why? And then you picture rotating the universe on its head, just because of a weird promotion in a Spanish mall. When I said travelling expands your mind, I meant it in the drugs way.

Things I learned from Berlin:

-Their little green crossing man wears a hat

-At least one mall has a toilet that rotates and cleans the seat

-There's a man dressed as the Predator (or the Predator himself) outside the Brandenburg Gate:

The best clock in the world: as the man's sword arm drops, the globe rotates, leaving the monkey pointing to the current hour.

See that strip of green in the distance? That's the fabled Green River melon fields.

Every year in September Green River, Utah, hosts a Melon Days festival, during which the town swells to literally thousands of people. Highlights include a large carved effigy of a melon slice being carted through the town as a float. I was so sad I couldn't make it this year that I went to the movies instead.

The toilets in Sun Studio are shaped like guitars.

This is so cool, it makes me want to spend even more time on the crapper, preferably reading Tim Gautreux and listening to "Walk the Line" or "Mystery Train". Goddamn I love America (srs).

Have you heard the good news about Braco?

Braco, known as the Gazer, is a Croatian man who stares at people. He is way more popular than most of the artists in your music library, he has a following all around the world, and he never speaks in public.

Braco's gaze is said to have the power to heal, but it is not known by whom, as Braco states he makes no claim of any healing power resulting from his gaze. This means that thousands of people all around the world pay large fees to see a man stare at them who claims to have no special powers at all. On the other hand, his website warns that:

• Pregnant women are not allowed to attend after their third month of pregnancy due to the intensity of the energy.

• People with illnesses are advised to follow the recommendation of their doctor before and after attending a gazing session.

So, according to his own website, Braco claims to have no power, but may cause complications in pregnancy, or disease. This individual is richer than everyone you or I know put together.

He is an inspiration to us all.

Spam callers keep arguing with me :(

A spam caller just called to ask if I was my dad. I told him no, and THE FUCKER ARGUED WITH ME. He said "you SOUND like Mr. Bastard". When did Poirot get a job at a call centre?

This isn't the first time this has happened either. Another caller went through a checklist of family members before asking, triumphantly, "are you a robber in the house?" Busted.

Are spam callers bullying anyone else? Are they going to take my lunch money over the phone? Are these people deranged? I don't know. Are we witnessing an escalation of rage in society? Did I deserve it? What's going on? Leave a comment (on the Samaritans' voicemail).

Update: it is happening again.

The Thinking Barbarian 3: Think Harder

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It's the Great Pumpkin, Pat Bastard!

Before I begin, I'd like to reveal to you a bit of background that will help you understand this story. You see I always identified with Linus in the Halloween special. All Linus ever wanted was to get a great big pumpkin for Halloween. All I want is someone to tell me I'm a good boy. All the other kids laughed at Linus. They called him a "silly billy" and a "shithead". Every year I plotted my revenge for poor Linus. Why couldn't those kids do like the other kids in the 60s, and play in old refrigerators? That was how my dad died*.

I was never the most popular kid. When I fell down a well, Lassie went to get lunch. As a baby, I was passed around as an emetic. Sometimes baby birds die when I walk past a nest.

One day in late October, I was being chased by a group of townspeople (as usual). They were shouting "freak!" and "scallywag!" and one of them threw a pitchfork and it missed me and hit an old man in the heart and he died.

Then I turned round a corner and saw that they were making jack o'lanterns out of pumpkins. There, in the middle of it all, was the greatest, biggest pumpkin I had ever seen, more like a pumpKING. I asked the boy who was scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, "quickly! Let me climb inside the pumpkin! I shall give you gold". Then I dove into the pumpkin and I hid inside while the  mob passed me by.

Up inside that warm soft pumpkin I crawled and nestled, until I fell asleep. I curled up in the pumpkin, warm and safe from the outside world, with its deadlines and wild animals and piers morgan. I fell into a deep, deep sleep, sleep, sleep, for hours after hours after hours.

I went to sleep bathed in an orangey glow, but I awoke in total darkness. The pumpkin was still, and a faint breeze blew in from the eyeholes and mouth. Outside it was night. Suddenly the pumpkin's sides started contracting, and I was pushed slowly, head first, into the world.

I flopped onto the front steps of a stranger's house. The pumpkin that had birthed me sat there wheezing like a squeezebox. As I looked up I was carried away by two pumpkin doctors in white coats and stethoscopes. They took me to an incubator, where I was tubed. Looking around, I saw dozens of other people incubated too. Then I saw the pumpkin doctors come and carry one away - a great big dinner lady from my primary school. The pumpkins took her out to a spot behind the building and planted her. THIS WAS WHERE PUMPKINS CAME FROM!!!!!

"Oh no", I said, looking all around me to escape. What would Linus do, I wondered? No, snap out of it; Linus is a child. I'm a great big manchild. When the pumpkins came, I would make my move. I would pick them up and punt them. I was so happy with my plan. Then trick or treaters came running down the road, dancing and prancing with their costumes. One of them was Charlie Brown.

With a sheer effort of will, I leapt from my incubator. Summoning all my wits and guile, I screamed at the nearest pumpkin doctor, his attention buried deep in a chart. "HEY FUCKSO THEY'RE OVER THERE", I yelled, and legged it into the night. The sounds of children screaming rang in my ears and I laughed manically as I fled like a coward through the night.

*I'll tell you the story another time. It's even better than this one.

ZOMFG new Jack the Ripper theory!!!

A few years ago, I published an article about the then-current Jack the Ripper identity. I have no idea if this theory is still popular, or if it is now widely agreed to be nonsense (but it's that one), but it got me thinking about the true identity of the Ripper, and I've come to a shocking conclusion.

"A Study in Scarlet", the first Sherlock Holmes novel, was published in 1887, marking the first appearance of the popular TV detective (Dr Spock). Shortly afterwards, in 1888, the Ripper struck.

Why wasn't Sherlock Holmes, the best detective in London's history, successful in catching the killer? Indeed, I contacted the Metropolitan Police Force in a dream I had, and they denied any record of working with Holmes at all on the case. Fans of BBC ITV's Sherlock Holmes will be aware that the police, in the guise of Inspector Gadget of Police Squad!, always turn to Sherlock Holmes to help them solve their most important cases. Yet where was Sherlock Holmes during the Whitechapel murders?? Coincidence??????????????????

????????????????

I can therefore reveal, for 100% truth, that Sherlock Holmes himself WAS the Yorkshire Ripper.

Case closed.

France loves me!

I'd like to give a shout-out to my French fans. Even though I've spent a total of about a day in France when I was too young to remember much (last night), it's good to know I've made an impression. I've always been a fan of you guys' rousing yet fucking terrifying anthem about blood and violence (La Marseillaise), and your policy of keeping hunchbacks in the towers (just kidding hunchbacks; I know you're my main demographic).

I feel confident in saying French universities teach an advanced qualification in me, which is a considerable honour (source). Plans to rename the Eiffel Tower "The Bastard Tower" in my honour are expected to be rolled out in the new year, by at least one person.

Why does France love me so much? Is it because I smell like onions? PLEEZ ANSWER BEFOAH AI DAI.

Movie Sunday Presents: DEAD END!!!

Dead End is a 2003 movie starring Ray Wise (everything) and Lin Shaye (everything else). It's about a family who go to see their relatives for Christmas, but fortunately get stuck on an endless road to nowhere instead.

The movie is very cool and funny and it piles on the creepiness very nicely, with the family so distracted by typical family bickering at first that it only slowly creeps up on them: the realisation that they're the only car driving on this long road through the woods, and there's no one around to save them.

Part of the movie's genius is to situate a normal family car journey at the heart of its weird, purgatorial premise. The family are afraid to get out as they're surrounded by dark woods and nothing else, but they don't want to stay in the claustrophobic space of the car where they all have to put up with one another.

Dead End is very creepy and cool, well paced and has a mysterious vibe to it. It also uses creepy vocal sound effects well, which is getting pretty rare among the horror movies of today. Compare this year's own Deliver Us From Evil, which employs dark lighting to make it dark, but then has the possessed lady talk like your aunty trying to scare a small child.

Dead End is the best. Watch it alone at night and then go for a drive on a deserted backroad. Very cool movie.

Imagine...

Being a fan of horror movies, perhaps as a consequence of an active imagination as a child, you always check the backseat of your car before you drive at night. There's never anyone there, and it's reassuring. You won't feel the sudden urge to look behind you in the mirror as you're cruising down the yellow-brown-lit motorway.

What you don't do is check the boot, of course. You're five miles into the stretch and it's dark, and you're almost starting to drift a bit in your lane, as your eyelids flutter just a little. You shouldn't have left so late, but what choice did you have? It's not like you have time to do everything. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

So when you hear a bump coming unmistakably from the boot, you're easily startled. Did you leave something in there that's got loose? You try to remember and your eyes drift just a second from the road, and you quickly lurch to correct your idle drift. It's probably nothing the first time. Then it happens again, a deliberate bang, like a fist hitting, like someone trying to get out. Is there something in there? Or someone?

You check to the side. There's no hard shoulder for another mile, and no one on the road. You wonder what would happen if you stopped. And then did what? Opened the boot? You don't know what could happen. Who would see you? Who would stop for you? You'd be alone with whoever - whatever was in there.

You keep on driving, trying to ignore it. The banging increases. Your breath's catching in your upper chest now, and you try to correct it as you notice it. You'll get to where you're going. You'll get where it's safe, where there are people all around you. Then you'll call someone. You'll call the police. This sort of thing just doesn't happen. There's no way you're opening that boot by yourself, in the middle of nowhere. You've barely seen another car since you've been gone. You can imagine it being hours before anybody stops to check out the pulled-over car with the empty boot and the empty seats...empty of you. No clue as to what happened. You imagine everyone reacting to you as a missing person, all your friends concerned, your close ones crying. Anything but what might happen to you. Focus on their grief, that's easier. You're dealing with a known quantity there.

As you've been drifting deeper into this morbid anxiety you've failed to notice that the banging's stopped. It takes you a second to realise, like all the creatures in the forest suddenly went silent. What happened? Was someone in there? Did they stop? Are they OK? You can imagine rushing to their aid to find a killer, a grinning stranger reach out grabbing for your throat. No. Don't risk it. If there's someone there, they'll wait until you get to help. That's if there's someone there - it could have been some object, something you forgot to throw out. You're tired. It's late. Maybe there was nothing. There are no warnings on your dash. The car was locked when you got to it. There's no reason to suspect something's amiss. How would someone have got into the boot in any case? Who else has a key?

You shake your head to clear it of the thoughts. This isn't going anywhere. You're tired. You're stressed. It's probably nothing. And then that barrier of silence is broken by a voice coming from back there. "Pull over". "Pull over".

Your heart beats madly in your chest. You didn't recognise that voice. It's thirty miles to where you're going. You look for a sign to somewhere there are people. You fear that you'll be missing in tomorrow's paper.

Diary entry #2

There was a face at the window. I went downstairs to get a glass of water. It was dark inside and out but I was lit by the streetlights from across the road. There was a face there, not more than two feet from my kitchen window. I had never seen that man before. I still wonder to this moment what was in his eyes? Was it anger? Pleading? Fear? Was that face afraid of something in that big night, or was he the something to be feared? I didn't know. There was no knock, and he said nothing. He just looked at me, and my heart stopped dead. I don't know who he was or where he came from. No one else on my street heard or saw anything.

I have no idea who that man was, or what terrors his expression told.

Diary entry #1

I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and was surprised to see my mother standing there in the hallway. She was wearing a long white dress like a nightgown and had a serious look in her eyes. She said to me "did you go to church today?" I hadn't seen her all day. Her mouth opened very wide and the back of her head tipped back as if it were flopping loose from its connection to her neck and spine. I walked very fast into my room and shut the door tight. She's been out there for a long time now and I've heard nothing. That was not my mother.

Movie Friday Presents: ZARDOZ.

Quick, name the best movie ever mWRONG. ZARDOZ.

Actually set in 2293, which handily avoids the Terminator problem where we pass the future in real time. Also avoided sequels.

Zardoz is the classic science fiction fable from the mind of John Boorman (Point Blank). It was made in the 1970s, when everyone wore awful clothes, dropped acid and listened to Pink Floyd. This was the best era for ridiculous future-society epics, such as the dystopian classics A Clockwork Orange and Soylent Green, and the utopian classic Logan's Run, in which everyone is killed off at 30 (awesome).

Zardoz concerns Sean Connery's exploration of a future world divided between the Eternals, who live forever in an enclosed community called the Vortex, where they hoard all learning and knowledge and dress like one of those scary Greek college houses that are always covering up dark secrets, and the Brutals, who live outside the Vortex in poverty and ignorance, and dress like BDSM dungeon keepers. Sean Connery plays a Brutal given guns and instructed to act as an Exterminator by the flying stone head known as Zardoz (all capitalisation necessary for great scifi). Zardoz drops such Ingsoc-sounding wisdom as "The gun is good. The penis is evil", for great dystopia. Connery and his moustache must discover the connection between Zardoz and the Vortex, instigating a chain of events designed to bring down the Eternals' self-imposed dystopia. I won't reveal what happens but it's better than my life and twice as weird.

Zardoz is the most visually inventive movie ever made. Every frame looks like a prog rock album cover. Everything from time-lapse aging to the sum of human knowledge being projected on people's faces and reverse slow motion gets a look-in, making the last 36 years of Best Picture winners look even lazier by comparison.

One of the most amazing things about this movie is how many people seem to think it's unintentionally funny, like a kitsch embarrassment best forgotten, when in fact it's completely intentionally over the top. Like Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, it's a pretty overt satire using camp as a device, like mood lighting or soundtrack, to give a certain insight into the madness. One clue is when the floating head of Arthur Frayn says "it's a fucking satire" right at the start of the movie (aktyooal kwote). I think people who don't get that think that people in the 70s were stoopid, probably based on their clothes.

The themes of Zardoz concern class and social hierarchy, overpopulation, groupthink and politically correct consensus, length vs quality of life, and the importance of LSD in shaping the art and culture of the 20th Century. Zardoz is the classic time forgot. I can't even find a Halloween costume of it, while stupid shit like Avatar keeps shifting units every year. Let's bring back Zardoz, for great justice.

Diary entry #0

Today I saw a man dressed all in black wearing a cowboy hat walk across a busy box junction. I have no idea who he was or why.

Several days ago, I saw a lady pushing her dog in a stroller, like a human being.

Life is going slowly, very quietly, insane.

Travel broadens the mind (Warrington kills it).

Ever since the womb, I've hated flying. Flying is when you wait twelve hours to get shoved into less space than a bus, between a great big fat person and the one window seat that doesn't have a window, only after getting molested by jackbooted throwbacks who used to beat you up in school. I'd rather travel by Cuban refugee boat: seventeen twigs held together with rubber bands and prayer and a crew of wild-eyed desperadoes paddling with their dicks. The good news is, flying can take you to places in other countries, specifically that aren't Warrington.

Vans around the world: New York and Barcelona. Note that in Spain, Garfield bears the eight-pointed Star of Chaos.

Everywhere I've been around the world has had something interesting to show, except Warrington. Some have thought-provoking art and history, others beautiful scenery, or unique culture, or wildlife, or even inexplicable craziness like this:

Berlin statues, left to right: Boy staring melancholically at armadillo; holy shit!

Dicks on sale in Barcelona.

Even cool things can be found in unexpected places: Green River, Utah, which is basically a truck stop, five houses and two joggers (source) has a sweet cool museum about John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Confederate Civil War veteran who mapped the Colorado River, losing nearly all his crew in the process. This is exactly the kind of thing you could drive past and never know.

Pictured: Green River + entire population.

The great mad bastard himself.

Warrington is the worst place on Planet Earth. In a survey of over 100 squirrels, not one person recommended Warrington as a tourist destination. The only recognisable picture of Warrington you'll ever see is of these big gates:

Looks impressive...until you go there, and there's nothing to either side of them. Spread the word: Warrington crops.

Warrington's top attraction.

Return of the Thinking Barbarian

The unfathomable thought processes of posters on the Internet's most popular websites.

Presenting the best and most inexplicable posts from popular websites. All screenshots are edited only for cropping purposes and represent the entirety of the threads at the time of this writing.

Click on image to read (source)

I have no idea who Sid Paxton is, or what this poster was hoping to achieve by posting about him in the Basket Case board. Since doowopfan is convinced that Sid Paxton has been dead since the Great Depression, it's possible that mwschoon was referring to another Sid Paxton, maybe from his high school, who was a fan of Basket Case, or films about a boy and his deformed basket-dwelling companion in general. mwschoon doesn't seem to have replied to doowopfan in the last seven years, so we may never know.

Click on image to read (source)

This is probably my favourite piece of original writing on the Internet. The title "jo oj jo" defies our cultural norms and clickbait expectations by providing no information whatsoever, and the resulting feedback doesn't disappoint. There can be no higher seal of integrity than GCD's top reviewer rank of 5,330,585. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Who were these people? Where did they come from, and where were they going? Questions like that shouldn't keep me up at night, but they invariably do.

Everyone loves ants too much.

We're always hearing about how ants can lift ten times their body weight...big deal. I can lift ten times an ant's body weight too. How come I don't get any credit?

Ant tossing an aphid's salad.

The only thing ants are good for is food. People in far distant countries squat at the opening of ant holes, pinch the heads of the ants, and eat them. Think about how long that must take: you would burn off more calories in the process of eating one ant than you would gain. People in these countries are getting fed up with ants' bullshit. I would be.

The Thinking Barbarian

Should walking lessons be mandatory from age 5?

No one walks right anymore. Did anybody ever? I don't know. When I go out in town everyone veers about like assholes. If they drove the way they walk, everyone would be dead.

I believe in mandatory walking lessons. If you don't have a walking license, you shouldn't be allowed on the streets. Walkers, like drivers, should learn when they can merge into a stream of foot-traffic, instead of charging right across it like a herd of cows. The penalty for walking without a license would be the classic Medieval correctional device they used in my old nursery: the stocks.

I'm amazed people are so bad at something they've all been doing since like two. Most walkers don't even check to the side before they change direction, making them even less coordinated than the average herd. Then there are the ones who stop dead in their tracks while they're in front of you, causing you to swerve wildly into another group of dead-eyed chumps.

Did I mention old people, who move slower than a snail in special ed? OK, they're old, their legs don't work so well anymore...so why do they have to advance in fucking echelon, like a phalanx in the army of slowing everybody down? Even worse are kids, and then for fun there's the occasional cyclist who took a wrong turn and is somehow powering through the early afternoon shopping crowds like the Angel of Death.

The only problem with having walking licenses is that you'd need more cops to enforce them, which means more jackasses in uniform harassing people in the streets. Instead of cops we could have gibbons. Gibbons would be fair and impartial. They always are to me.

Jack the Ripper identity leaked shock.

As you may have read over the past few days*, 19th Century hairdresser Jack the Ripper was recently outed as notorious murderer Aaron Kosminski. This story has been reported by over a billion news outlets worldwide (source). This raises important issues about Jack the Ripper's privacy. Some people are saying if he didn't want to get caught, he should never have jacked off on that shawl, and some are even going so far as saying he should never have murdered that hooker, but this is a clear cut case of blaming the victim. Doesn't Jack the Ripper have a right to privacy??? Pls answer!!!

Knowing that one of my childhood heroes wasn't a connected Freemason ninja/James Bond with a cool top hat but, in reality, was probably just a fucking mental barber from the East End who never showered and ate bread off the streets because he was insane is like learning that Bonny and Clyde weren't real, or that the Easter Bunny's legend has been greatly whitewashed and exaggerated over time.

What do you think? Is this DNA evidence for real? Let me know.

*I'm a slow reader myself.

Applying for jobs online is giving me suicide.

I'm suffering from a severe case of suicide after ragequitting another 400-page choose-your-own-adventure novel known as an online application form, in which the possible endings range from "An unknown error caused our shit website to lose all the data you just entered. Please start again" to "thanks for your reply. We will never get back to you, making the last four hours you spent telling us your dead dog's middle name and which aisle of your local supermarket is your favourite a spectacular waste of time".

What blows my tiny mind about this is that there are people without jobs, and there are people who are employed to design websites, and this is the result. Writing as someone slowly suffocating from a noose that would make my scoutmasters proud, and suffering as I may be from Owl Creek Syndrome, this still strikes me as fucking bullshit. My favourite examples are the websites that require you to enter each job, school and meal you've had individually, and then still ask for your CV at the end, which is like sending someone on a hike across country to pick up a train ticket to where they've gone.

So as I sway here in the early evening breeze, several things occur to me:

1. Application forms are overwhelmingly designed to filter out applicants, in response to the perpetually flaccid economy driving up applications into the thousands.

2. Employers show their contempt for the people they supposedly want to hire by flagrantly disrespecting our time with their poorly thought out forms.

3. All employers should be required to pay a small fee for each line applicants are required to write about themselves. Half this stuff they have no earthly reason to ask anyway, and the rest is already more easily covered elsewhere.

4. By "small fee", I mean £10 million.

Let me know what you think. Should I run on this platform? Should I cut the noose? What would make you happy? Leave a comment (in my spam folder).

Vic and Eddy

I don't know pop culture anymore.

Thor's a chick...Nicki Minaj wrote a song about her big dick...is South Park still on? Are Pink Floyd still a band? I don't know pop culture.

Is Justin Beaver a criminal? I keep reading about him in the news papers. Is it like Al Capone? What's going on?

I don't know pop culture...can anybody help me?

How do you go about getting a restraining order?

Not for any legal or sensible reasons, but because restraining orders are a great way to make money. You could take one out on some schmuck who rides the same train to work. Then you could chase him up and down the carriages, and if you caught him, he’d have to pay you a fine. You could sneak up behind him on a crowded escalator and he’d have to vault the barrier and go down on the other side to get away from you (this would have the bonus effect of ruining his day).

The only problem is if you accidentally picked someone who should be restrained against, in which case if you chase him he might cut you, so always wear protection.

Welcome to my blog!!

Hello everyone. My name is Patrick H. Bastard. This is my blog. I wrote it because I want to be famous. I would like to be the #1 blog on all the internets. My hobbies include knocking the ice cream out of children's cones, telling people their parents died, and playing with my toy soldiers.

Politically, I think the voting age should be lowered to 8 so I can vote, and we should be allowed to wee wee in public. I think the Prime Minister should be replaced by a balloon animal artist, and the House of Commons should be used for hoboes and vagrants when Parliament is not in session. Zoos would also be expanded to include major metropolitan areas so the animals would have more space.

I like animals and I like lots of nice things. One day I will have a great big room to play Lego in (not Legoes; that's wrong). I like juice. One day I will own my own fridge, and only put nice foods in it. Nobody who likes legumes will be allowed.

People say I'm no good, but they don't know me. If you know me you'll find I'm a sweet and gentle flower, and I'm only different, not bad.

I hate you.