Flying Ice Cream vans

Walkin around town yesterday I caught a glimpse of a great sight.

It's not every day you see a flying ice cream van is it! I guess the warden was pissed off when he found no bubble gum in the bottom of his screwball.

I'm starting a campaign here and now to give Ice Cream men the right to park anywhere they bloody well like! They should have all the parking rights of the police, able to park on yellow lines to sell ice cream and to turn their jingles on to jump lights when ice cream is at stake.

If you agree with me that Ice Cream men are an undervalued vital resource and should be contactable by 999 please sign my petition in the comments box at the bottom of this post and when I get 100 signatures I'll send it to Tony Blair.

Live music

I've always been a big fan of free live music and walking around the underground system in London lately I've seen Carling are sponsoring buskers at some stations, providing them with their own little patch complete with stick-on "stage" on the floor.

On the one hand I think this is a bloody marvelous idea, selecting great buskers and giving them much needed exposure, although I do fear that corporate sponsorship of such grassroots culture inevitably leads to insidious cultural gentrification and dilution of the original ideal.

Take for example Covent Garden. Covent Gardens once had hip street entertainment, populated by loads of grubby buskers scratching a living from an acoustic six string but these have been slowly replaced by cloned paid-by-the-hour electric geetar types who plug their amps into council-funded generators to play identikit Coldplay and Pink Floyd covers for tourists before selling copies of CDs of covers.

This new generation of "respectable" buskers are now fully approved of by the authorities and are no longer moved on but actually allowed a patch of ground on which to practice their art.

By paying street performers, they can actually afford to have a bath and hence the grub factor goes and soon the watered down performer is born, the bstard child of music and corporate sponsorship.

This little compromise allows the authorities to keep the streets clear of ny undesirables while still retaining something of the "character" and "diversity" that buskers bring.

Real buskers who busk from the heart, singing rebel songs of passion and preaching about subversion then have to compete for the publics attention with a army of easy listening cover bands and soon the whole busking scene is reduced to another bland sea of grey, unthreatening to the casual observer, pleasing to the sponsors and frustratingly unexciting to the dedicated listener.

Using this logic I worked out the solution to Londons increasing homeless problem.
All of Londons beggars should be given a little patch of ground complete with stick-on cardboard box (sponsored by Special Brew).

Here they should be allowed to beg to their hearts content while simultaneously being paid by Mayor Ken for their good work in contributing to the diversity of sights in London. Keeping the streets "street". man.

Soon you'd have higher class of beggar, a corporate beggar if you will who no longer intimidates the public but instead becomes a respectable item of street furniture. As these beggars start to thrive the real, dirty beggars will soon find it hard to compete in the new corporate age and will have to find other ways to earn a living. Like getting a job.

Why stop there!?! Whores could be paid to stand on street corners soliciting, grafitti artists could be given free tins of spray paint if their work is blnd enough, flyposters, whorecard posters...

Lapdance Island part 4 - The final Chapter

Dear Lapdance Island applicant

I would like to apologise unreservedly to the tens of thousands of men who recently applied online to take part in E4's new reality show Lapdance Island at http://www.channel4.com/lapdanceisland

The show promised to take ten hot blooded male contestants to a deserted tropical island and have forty lapdancers gyrate around them 24 hours a day.

The truth is there are no lapdancers. There is no island. There is no show.

We made it up to promote The Pilot Show, a genuine series starting on September 8 at 10.30pm on E4. The Pilot Show hilariously dupes unsuspecting celebrities and members of the public into appearing in bogus TV shows.

Sorry about the lapdancers but, as compensation, you can laugh as other people get taken for a ride on The Pilot Show by watching the special preview clips at http://www.channel4.com/pilotshow.

Yours faithfully,

K Andrews
Managing Director, E4

Disclaimer: You have been sent this email because you subscribed to the Lapdance Island application form at channel4.com, according to the terms of the Privacy Policy stated thereon. Channel Four Television Corporation and 4 Ventures Limited (together .Channel 4.) will not send any further communications with regard to Lapdance Island. Channel Four will not disclose voluntarily provided details to third parties or use the information in any other way without prior consent.

Lapdance Island Part 3

Matt in Email
>> i'm applying for both lapdance island http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/L/lapdance_island/questionaire.jsp and fash's football challenge realityfootball.tv > see you on both>>

Matt in later Email
>> i've been increasingly convinced that Lapdance Island is a Chris Morris set-up. It isn't, but it is a joke http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds11577.html

Lapdance Island part 2

Andy Hoang is at least 1000% heterosexual (he's as red bloodied as Ramesis II, King of Egypt, who fathered over 200 children) and would like nothing more than to cuddle up with some busty blonde babe baring beautiful boobs on the beach (Note: Alliteration! Bonus points?)

However, he is totally terrified of nudity, absolutely shit-scared, run-to-the-hills, bare-bollock cold-shit frightened by the sight of a naked beautiful woman. He needs to be cured, ideally on an island full of curvy 38FF temptresses.

He is also Vietnamese, which puts him in a minority group, and he'll sue you if you don't pick him.

Lapdance Island part 1

Dear Andy Hoang,

We have now received and processed your application to take part in Lapdance Island http://www.channel4.com/lapdanceisland. The referees you have supplied will be contacted and, if they are prepared to supply a reference, this will be added to your application.

If you are not andy Hoang, or you suspect that someone has applied on your behalf, please report this abuse of the application process by replying to this email, or contacting us at lapdance@channel4.com and your data will be removed.

Disclaimer: tests have shown that prolonged exposure to lap dancers can cause problems with vision and have detrimental affects on the male libido. E4 can not be held responsible for medical side effects produced by contestants taking part in the show.

Radio 1

Radio 1 needs to be saved desperately.

Having spectacularly missed my plane to Venice the other day by 5 minutes (I was 35 minutes early rather than 40 minutes early and those nice people at Ryanair wouldn't let me on) I found myself sat at home today whiling away the hours flicking through the channels on my radio for a decent Soca station, but found myself listening to Nemone on Radio 1.

It wasn't a particularly inspiring show musically, way too much MOR crap, Coldplay, Travis and watered down commercial dance sprinkled with rubbish pop. I thought I'd stick with it though as it's been a long time since I listened to the BBC's flagship station and I thought that there must be some real personality behind all this sub-mediocre crap to hold this together cos it obviously wasn't gonna be the music that pulled in the punters. I figured that Radio 1 must still have some listeners at midday so it might be worth waiting around to see what type of host could pull this feat off.

What I actually heard was probably the very worst attempt at radio entertainment I have ever heard. And I listen to some truly crap pirate stations in my travels of the airwaves. This Nemone character was so desperately unimaginative, so entirely devoid of personality and humour and so entirely absent in the taste department that I vowed there and then that when John Peel leaves I will never listen to Radio 1 again.

Her discussion topic/attempt at shock-horror humour was to start the show with "...so I dropped my phone in the toilet the other day and had to fish it out. My God! It was SOOO disgusting. Ring 02xxxxx and lets see what our listeners have dropped in the toilet. And did you get it out? That's the most disgusting part"

Now stop me if you're offended. When hearing discussions like this I really feel like I just don't understand normal social convention. I like to think that I understand the way that most people think but talk like this really confuses me. I really do not understand what audience she is trying to appeal to. What is wrong with fishing out something from the toilet? Have I missed a vital social convention? I have no idea why this is even worth talking about let alone for an entire show.

In India I saw a man drop his wallet down a hole-in-the-floor toilet on a train while taking a shit. He promptly dashed out of the train, scrabbled about for his wallet in the shite, picked it up and rubbed it off and put it back in his pocket. In Ghana, I heard about another venturer who dropped his camera in a 6 ft hole of shit and piss and a local jumping in knee-deep and scrabbling around in the shit with his hands until he found it. In my last job, I stuck my head down the toilet and flushed it just to see what it was like.

So what sort of audience are Radio 1 now catering for? A fucking mollycoddled middle-class bunch of nondescript twats who have never got their hands dirty? A nation of hypochondriacs?

Nemone was so completely dull in her delivery too. Poor subject matter with poor delivery and even poorer tunes. What the fuck has happened to Radio 1?!

Rewind to 1995. Jo Whiley and Steve Lamacq on the Evening Session followed by the magnificent John Peel or Giles Peterson. Now we have that fuckin egotistical prick Colin whatsisfuckingface who is so obsessed with talking about himself he rarely ever gets to play any music on the show at all. The Evening Session is no longer a showcase of new music but instead is a 3 hour show of radio Catharsis for a self-obsessed Irish prat.

The morning show was just a show that lost listeners slowly but wasn't actually that bad. Now after years of tinkering with Zoe Ball and Sara Cox it's been transformed into a show that loses listeners very fast and is absolute shite. Instead of just following their own agenda, Radio 1 feels compelled to follow everyone elses lead and try to better the opposition. With both eyes firmly on the opposition, they have no idea of where they themselves are supposed to be going.

Even as a garage fan I think they have fucked up. Spoony and Co are toothless as Radio 1 could never get EZ. Chris Moyles has been transformed from comedy radio genius into self-obsessed fat twat by horrendous scheduling. And what's happened to Mary Anne-Hobbs?

It looks like the day of Radio 1 is over. With competition from pirates, determined and professional local and specialist stations on analogue and digital radio and internet stations popping up all over the place, Radio 1 really offers poor value/time expenditure.

Listening to radio is an investment of your time and an expenditure of your energy. Don't be complacent and listen to any old crap. Vote with your knobs and stop listening to Radio 1 until they sack the management. Enough is enough.

Final nail in the coffin of my gay fantasy

I've been trying to read all day, too scared to brave the 39 degrees outside, but finding I couldn't even manage Winnie the Pooh, I gave up and remembered that it's been some time since I updated this ere blog.

As I sit here typing, my bro, Uy is sitting passed out by my side from heat-induced lethargy but my nan is out shopping, being more active than both of us two put together.

There's quite a bit to catch up on so I'll get the death-defying stuff out the way first and move on.

My JCA boss, Tim and his bird/my fellow instructor George (real name Charity, but we call her George cos she looks like George from the Famous Five apparently, whoever the hell they are) came up from Dorchester last weekend and we had a mini-reunion with some of the other London-based JCA lot.

After a couple of pints in Covent Garden I decided that Tims suggestion of climbing a scaffolding up a building in the main square of Covent Garden (opposite the old Doc Martins store) was a good idea. Hell no not just a good idea but a great idea that could be improved by monkeying out to the overhang 25ft up and hanging by one arm.

At which point I shit it and dashed down the scaffold and legged it before the police could arrest me.

And speaking of police, the next morning I had an interview with the police in Hendon that resulted in them having to take my fingerprints, more of which later...

That night we went back to Wood Green for a barbeque and the conversation soon went round to my failed attempt to be gay just to get laid, which was deemed by all to have been a little half-hearted. In response we devised a test to test conclusively if I was gay, straight or even bisexual.

Tim (who you must bear in mind was my boss) and George (that's a girl in case you needed reminding) both agreed to snog me while I wore a blindfold. Depending on my reaction we could determine if i was indeed straight, a bender or a fuckin weirdo.

So I blindfolded up and started panicking real bad. Considering that the last person I snogged was Jayne at Warwick over 2 years ago, I was nervous about snoggin a bird let alone a bloke!

...and that's when I felt his lips on mine and his stubble. I screamed and ran off, stumbling over everything in my blind panic.

so it turns out I'm just too homophobic to be gay and probably too frigid to be straight. It was decided there and then that the only way that I am gonna get laid is to find someone who is neither male nor female.

Guess I'd better book that ticket to Thailand then....

Next morning I had an interview at 10am... with the police

Fear not readers, despite my past misdemeanours I was in no trouble with the law. Quite on the contrary, I had actually applied to be the law. I had applied to be a special constable, which if you don't know is a special police officer. So special in fact that they don't get paid. That's pretty special if you ask me.

The interview had been conveniently rescheduled from 1pm to 10am that day and I was told about it the day before on the mobile in the pub in Covent Garden. As a result I had no time to get back from Wood Green to get changed so I turned up smelling like yesterdays barbeque with spilt beer on my scraggy T-shirt and Jeans. After I got the job by the skin of my teeth the interviewer asked me if my bad hair was a religious thing as he couldn't believe that I would have it by choice. Hilarious!

So I am now officially PC Hoang I guess, protector of the people and upholder of justice, Add to that the uniform, truncheon and kinky handcuffs and I think you can safely say I'm gonna get laid some time soon, be it by power-hungry chicks or strange gay men with Village People fetishes. Preferably more of the former and none of the latter.

I then spent Monday to Wednesday doing a Raleigh Challenge workshop, which had nothing really going for it but that I done High Ropes for the first time. What a rush!

Only one more month before I climb back into the graduate clone machine....

This week I'm diggin...

1. Black-eyed peas "Where is the love?"
   
2. Chillin with my old work colleagues and takin my life into my own hands
   
3. That feeling of anticipation of knowing that this time next week I'm going to be on stage at Alexander Palace
   

and I'm buryin...

1. Raleighs Challenge Workshop. A seemingly pointless venture which just struck me as 3 days of being told off. There is some bad mismanagement going down in SW6 if this is the standard of my favourite youth development charity and it's really saddening to see it. Alienation of your primary support groups (Raleigh in the UK) and cutting your funding from MV doesn't strike me as great business sense.
   
2. Any lingering doubt that I may not be straight
   

Personals

Tim - Shave the stubble. It's a bad giveaway and a real homo-turnoff

Soppy - Perhaps you should treat Moomin to some cottage cheese next time you meet in exchange for some of my jism. It could be like a big jizz exchange

C++ and Desperately Seeking a Shag Boy (DSS-boy) - Are you both in Seattle? How frightening.