Where's Spleenal?

Well of course the real Spleenal is here at his blog home - and a very fancy place it is too - he's a cracking artist and like me he can't spell for siht.


I've had a mini Spleenal with me on my travels, a little fella the real Spleenal made out of resin (or something) and sent me just before I left the UK.


Here's a movie I made using him (the mini Spleenal...)

Sound UP folks, sound UP, and select HQ - the low quality will be much harder - you'll see. Or just click on it and go to my youtube page for a bigger video - again much easier.




Bloody Youtube made me take out Stereolab - apparently the Prodigy is fine but you don't mess with th'Lab...

The Middle Class Child 12.11.8

Lizzie Jenkins and her almost thirteen-year-old daughter Esmé Jenkins-Strathmore (twelve years, eleven months and 8 days) are on holiday together at a beautiful coastal resort in Cambodia.

Esmé is unaware that only a relatively few short years ago this popular holiday destination for predominately Western tourists saw unimaginable horror during the regime of The Khmer Rouge, with over a million Cambodians, out of a total population of 8 million, dying from executions, overwork, starvation and disease.

All Esmé is aware of is the endless sandy beaches and the blisteringly hot sun which both her and her mother take care to protect themselves from whilst they work on their tans.

Her mother Lizzie intends to take Esmé to one of the many historic Killing Fields sites which she sees as part of Esmé’s world education, but not until late in the second week so as not to spoil her holiday in Cambodia. Ultimately this does not transpire, however Lizzie determines to discuss the history of the country with Esmé during the flight home. This also does not happen.

Recently split up from her ‘insufferable’ writer ex-boyfriend, Lizzie is starting to feel that time is running out for her to be truly happy, or even just content with her life. ‘Maybe just some time away somewhere sunny is the answer’, she thought to herself as she flicked through the listings on Tripadvisor.com a few weeks previously.

With her brother now permanently living with her father Marcus and his new family, Esmé is secretly pleased that it will be just her and her mother on holiday together. It had seemed like such a long time since they had had any fun together, in fact Esmé could hardly remember the last time she had seen her mother smile, let alone laugh.

By the second half of the break Lizzie is feeling relaxed, comfortably dividing her time between the beach and the resort bar. Esmé on the other hand spends a lot of her time with a sixteen-year-old Dutch boy called Gan, who is holidaying without his parents for the very first time.

During the next couple of days Esmé will try marijuana cigarettes and sexual intercourse for the first time.

She will leave Cambodia with the opinion that whilst she enjoyed having sex, she much preferred smoking joints as it made her feel quite lovely, helped her forget about all the sad things in her life, like her mother, and it lasted longer.

Britain bought out by Crocs.

BREAKING NEWS:

With the stock price plummeting and redundancies escalating at an alarming rate, Great Britain has been in danger of a corporate buy-out for some time now and today it was officially announced that Crocs, the manufacturer of ‘injection molded day-glo plastic clogs’, has bought out Great Britain for one pound and will commence the massive task of re-branding and re-training of Britain’s 60 million employees.

How the UK will look by 2010

Crocs are undoubtedly the smash hit fashion accessory of this decade and in the words of their own unique advertising campaign, ‘The single ugliest item of clothing ever created™’. Crocs put their success down to the simple fact that the design free and cheap-to-produce plastic clogs are absolutely irresistible to people with no sense of style, such as children and reality TV show watchers.

“Obviously our first move will be to ensure all our team wear Crocs” announced the company’s Dutch chairman Bo Gan Shuuse, “And then we will be working town by town, colouring each in a bright and exciting colour, some will be primary, some will be secondary and others will be more pastel in tone.”

PINK FOR BRIGHTON?

It is currently understood that London has already been designated as orange, with Birmingham and Manchester brown and lilac respectively. Further town colours will be decided in the next few weeks.

Britain has previously faced buy-out on several occasions, most notably during the crash of the late eighties when Amstrad expressed an interest. However it is only now that this abrupt sell-off of Britain, severely weakened by a cynical, shortsighted and morally bankrupt board of directors, has become a reality.

During a hastily organised press conference in one of the eight Oxford Street Croc shops, Britain’s current MD, Gordon Brown, hailed the news as ‘acceptable’, stating that “we were initially hoping that Apple would be bidding for Britain or even Starbucks at a push, but neither were interested due in large part to our work-forces’ growing love for infantile, tasteless footwear. At that point we realised that Crocs is a perfect match.”

BRAND RANT

The move has garnered predictable outrage from Britain’s militant union the BBC, whose leader Russell Brand claimed that the take-over was, “A f**kin’ disgrace”.

In a statement which Brand himself shouted out in the middle of the Lakeside Shopping Centre food court KFC, he bellowed that Brown was ‘once again short f**kin’ selling Blighty’ and that he himself would never wear a pair of Crocs, quickly adding “Not unless they are free, black and I can make a couple of quid from the celebrity endorsement”.

It took Brand’s own party members a further 4 hours to end his rambling speech, in which he lashed out at such targets as ‘the footie’, ‘funny things from yesteryear’ and ‘my discoloured willie’. The speech subsequently emptied both Lakeside Shopping Centre and much of Thurrock.

Brand’s dismissal of Crocs is particularly ironic; Brand has also described himself in the past as being irresistible to people with no sense of style, such as children and reality TV show watchers. However, Crocs have never been called ‘talentless’ or described as an obnoxious gobshite middle-class teenage Robert Smith wannabe prick.

SPAZTANIA

Speculation is now rife as to whether Crocs will change Great Britain’s historic brand name, with a suggestion that by the end of 2009 the former UK will be known as either ‘Croc Britain’, The United Crocdom’ or more simply ‘Spaztania’.

Bo Gan Shuuse elaborated on the current geo-political situation, “Where once the world was fought over on ideological grounds, now it is the footwear manufactures that vie for dominance”.

Crocs currently control much of Western Europe and at least 45% of Asia, whereas Australasia is controlled by Havaianas and the Americas by Converse. As a footnote to this, Birkenstock do not own any continental landmass but they do have more retail outlets then taste should allow.

I got a letter the other day...

Priceless.

It's stuff like this that brings joy to my cynical heart... I received this email yesterday morning;


Hi there!

I recently searched online and came across your blog and came across your interview with the Bliss editor, Helen Jenkins. I am currently a third year journalism student and doing my dissertation on the sexual content in teenage magazines and was wondering if I could include your interview? Just need to verify with you that it is truthful and it was conducted, etc etc...I know that sounds silly but it needs to be done! Do let me know if you can let me use it, as soon as possible... Also, any further information on the interview would be great.

Thanks so much for your help.

I look forward to your reply.

Thanks,

Jennifer.


This is the post she is referring to;

Bliss Magazine - teenagers guide to fucking!

I can only assume she never actually read the post because lets face it, I ain't being subtle here.

This is almost as good as all the attention I got from the castration folk over my Castrato Academy I did a few years back.

Well, that's it, I'm definitely getting me one of those personal websites when I get back, all flashy like. I might even try my hand again at some satire, subtle or otherwise... and then maybe I'll get a job...

Leaving the tropical Island we're currently on and heading back home to England in 16 days. Is it true no one has a job there anymore and that it now resembles the future earth from the Terminator movies... only with more crappy telly?

Herge OUT.

The Lonely Lemon

They called it the last great unfilmable work, but I've proved them all wrong and filmed it.

For your viewing pleasure I suggest you play it with either the sound turned UP or with headphones in.

Enjoy...



For the source material click here.

Random scenes from an Australian Trip

*sigh*...



...back to reality I suppose... But first...

Who loves the sun?

It’s very grey in Sydney today. In fact it has been since Monday.  The record temperatures of last week that contributed (along with ‘firebugs’) to the multitude of bushfires that raged through Victoria and parts of New South Wales have now abated and it feels very much like last summer in Brighton; sort of warmish, but you may need another layer and ‘Is it about to rain?’.

 

Almost like Futurama

The reporting of the fires has gone from honest and raw back to the media’s default position of hyperbole and bullshit, which in itself is strangely comforting. I’ve been struck by how different politicians and officials here are to the ones I’m used to seeing at home. Kevin Rudd (Ozzie PM) has been by varying degrees tearful, empathetic, encouraging, genuine and angry.

Makes quite a change from the increasingly distant and disaffected Brown, who seems to feel that going into a Churchillain mode, calm and steady, is the only way to present oneself as leader during the current economic storm.  The British perhaps are far too simple for honesty.  You never hear how as British people we need to be realistic and prepare for the rocky road ahead, how frankly things are a little bit fucked up at the minute. No, instead we get ‘It’ll be alright, I’m working at getting us through this. Go about your business and don’t worry’ I’ve seen Rudd talking at various times on TV here and when he talks about the economy he is unflinching, basically telling Australia that ‘Things are shit’ and the only way they’re going to get through it is to ‘work together’. 

Despite the population here being far more disparate in terms of geography there seems to be a more innate sense of community; a large proportion of the fire services are volunteers; everyone is an Australian and they are proud of it. Australia day which was last month is a big deal, ‘a chance to say thanks for the sun, the beaches and for Kylie’ as the advert said. I’m not naïve enough to think that this is as universal as it would appear; apart from anything else the aboriginal people are still the elephant in the room, a challenge no administration seems to properly be able to tackle.  And I’m not surprised; so much damage has been done, from an intention of genocide to the very recent and still very raw disgrace of the stolen generation. How can things be made right? Maybe they can’t now, maybe it’s too late.

I’m hoping it’ll be sunny again soon, I’ve had to start wearing jeans again, and that just won’t do.