'Art', Quiz Nights and Global Cooling

It's been a while but the time has come for yet another literary eruption of opinion, prompted by a rather eventful weekend, including (bet you can't guess from the title) art galleries, a quiz night and some bloody cold temperatures - "brassic" as my girlfriend would say.

My weekend started with a trip to view a gallery of light 'installations' at the Hayward Gallery on London's Southbank before heading to the Tate Modern. The Light Exhibition I could take; a few things I'd probably put in my flat, alongside a few things that looked like they'd fallen from the ceiling. It's the truly modern art that I don't get...from the pretentious knobheads who sit in galleries murmuring superlatives in posh undertones, to the so called pieces of art these 'trendies' are seen to admire, "yaaaaar, isn't this piece just stupendous Orlando, it'd look just perfect outside on the driveway next to the Prius!"

Let me make this clear, shitting in a box, sleeping in a box, or presenting a dead fish in a box are not pieces of art. In fact putting anything in a box does not constitute art, even if there is a story behind it. I'm fully expecting people to disagree on this note, and I'm not saying my opinion is the right one, but until someone can convince me otherwise I will continue to give kitchen appliances or cutlery at weddings and refuse to offer my faecal matter with a bow on it.

For those of you thinking I'm just an uncultured individual who despises anyone expressing themselves, I am often seen farting, burping and drawing cocks on car bonnets in the snow. I can appreciate good drawings or photography, or even good drawings of photography. In fact I'd actually be more than happy to go to an art exhibition at the Tate if it featured photos of dogs wearing sunglasses!

After an afternoon of art cynicism, I headed home with my lucky lady to a charity quiz night for a very worthy cause I've mentioned in previous posts, Macmillan's Cancer Care, in memory of my friends inspirational Dad. As a naturally competitive person, quiz nights are a good opportunity for me to accuse others of cheating and showcase my affinity to useless facts. Did you know that women blink nearly twice as often as men and the dot over the letter i is called a tittle?! You do now!!!

As the night went on and the alcohol flowed, we encountered mustard tasting tests, 'is it a car or cucumber?' questions and even an arts & crafts round. In a move that could have ended in tears, scissors were handed round the room, along with other materials, as we were instructed to build a London landmark of our choice. In the 15 minutes we had to do this, my team produced something incredible. Something which could have been put in a box and displayed at the Tate. Our fully functional scale replica of Tower Bridge (see below, in its online debut) featured lifting and closing bridges, oversized origami cranes and even a giant made of blu-tack. A 9/10 score felt unjust and only served to bring the quiz into disrepute in my mind.


We ended up finishing 4th, driven partly by a clear lack of recognition, probably due to some point fixing and also by the fact the winning team had too many members (or cheating douchebags as I shall thus refer to them). Despite the team limit being 6, this team of cheating douchebags contained 8 cheating douchebags. Fuck charity, that's cheating in any situation! Cheating fucking douchebags! In my dads loudly voiced opinion, "at least we will sleep easy in our beds tonight knowing we played a fair game". P.S. I'm not a bad loser...!

I realise this blog has once again escalated into another rant and my final point is not going to change this. 'Global Warming' (or 'Global Warning' as my step-sister calls it) is apparently playing havoc on the UK's weather. For those not based in the uk who haven't heard our incessant whining, we've faced "brassic" temperatures which have been below zero degrees for weeks. Apparently this is a sign that years of pollution are messing up our weather systems, failing to note that extreme temperatures were about long before we inhabited this planet. Yes, we probably aren't helping matters, but its not all our doing.

If the 'Warming' ever occurs, I'll be more than happy. It'll save me hundreds of quid a year on holidays to hotter climates and my apparent obsession with dogs wearing sunglasses may become a reality...and to avoid the blind leading the blind, guide dogs should be the first ones to receive a pair of complimentary RayBans.

So until next time, don't shit in boxes, don't be a quiz-douchebag and go buy your spaniel a pair of sunglasses!

Over and out.

By Jon Shed with 2 comments

The Budget, More Protests and Upside Down Dogs

As George Osborne walked out the front door of Downing Street with this years Budget, he must've known he would soon be one of the most hated men in the country. Holding the famous battered red briefcase in front of him like it was full of explosives, and looking like a pretentious twat, he took his place in front of the journalists and following Gaddafi's lead, proceeded to ruin the lives of thousands of people. Marches followed in London, with thousands sticking up a defiant middle finger to all the cuts, George Osborne being one of them!

The biggest story to come out of the Budget in my opinion was the rise in alcohol prices. A few months after the VAT rise made pints start costing ridiculous amounts such as £3.07, they have decided to put another 4p duty per pint on top. With 15p increases in the cost of a bottle of wine and a 54p rise on the price of a bottle of spirits, it seems that drowning our sorrows this year could cost that little bit more. As an ex-student, this won't put me off drinking alcohol, it'll probably just stop me spending money on a portion of chips for the stumble home!

With fuel prices dropping by 1p per litre, George Snobsborne seems to have finally done something right, but if you look through the smokescreen, how much will this really save you? After much estimation, pummelling of a calculator and using the full extent of my Maths degree, I have worked out that this cut is saving me a grand total of £0 per year - mainly due to the fact I don't own a car. If you do have a car though, you are inevitably one of the people who gets EXACTLY £20 of petrol...or at least tries to, so you won't really notice a drop in the price as you will still be paying the same price at the pumps. Yes you will get more petrol, about 100ml on average or the equivalent of 3 mini milk ice lollies, but this additional fuel won't even drive you an extra mile!

It's for these reasons, as well as the cuts to the NHS, Police and Military amongst many others, that there was an organised march through London on Saturday evening. The country at large are not happy with the Tories and their lapdog Lib Dem sidekicks making cuts to the core services of our nation. Unemployment is high, jobs are few and far between and The Only Way Is Essex is still on TV. I am worried about the future of this once great nation, and so were thousands of others that took to the streets a few days ago. There were also a couple of hundred people who took to the streets purely to cause trouble and ironically cost thousands in policing that needn't have been spent. They vandalised Trafalgar Square, knocked leaflets on the floor of a branch of Santander and climbed on a roof. To be honest, as far as riots go, we are useless! In the Middle East, riots have led to wars and have forced Mickey Rourke lookalike, Gadaffi, to take his army of attractive female bodyguards with him everywhere he goes. In London, riots have led to 201 people being arrested and David Cameron has gone for a run with a couple of sweaty blokes.

In the style of The One Show, I will now completely change topic with no conceivable link to the previous discussion at all and talk about upside down dogs. Yes, you read that correctly, people are laying their dogs on their back and taking photos of their faces. This makes the dog look like it's smiling, and if I'm completely honest, it's bloody genius! Here's a selection of my favourites (click the image to see it enlarged).

Please follow, comment, tweet, or politely applaud this blog if you've enjoyed the read or even if you didn't, but just liked the pictures of upside down dogs. Thanks.

By Jon Shed with 3 comments

Protests, a dog and Andy Gray

So this week, we've discovered football presenter's are sexist and Egypt don't like their Government...these 2 stories have dominated the front and back pages, but what is new?!

Does any country particularly like their Government? The answer to that is clearly "No!". So why are the Egyptians protesting? I honestly haven't read a newspaper or watched the news so I have no idea. I'm guessing they don't like their Prime Minister for a reason...but how much worse can he be than Boris Johnson, the man who can turn entire cities against himself in one sentence. All I do know is that in every major protest in the past 3 years, one dog has got involved. It's name, Kanellos, dubbed the "Greek Dog Of Protest". I think the protesters in this country should look up to Kanellos! Now a protest veteran, there have been no reports of the dog throwing fire extinguishers off of a roof or swinging around on the London Cenotaph. Arguably, as a dog this would be an achievement in itself and would probably be applauded rather than cause distress, but this is beside the point. This brings me smoothly onto my final summary that I think all future protests should be made up entirely of dogs. We would have no broken windows, no falling fire extinguishers and no horse-like royalty being poked with sticks. Protests would be peaceful. However, we would have to hope that with so many dogs around they don't all start having sex with one another, as they are normally so horny that a table leg would do!

Talking of horny, Andy Gray and the other guy from Sky Sports have been sacked due to off air comments about lineswoman Sian Massey probably not understanding the offside rule and making jokey sexual comments to Charlotte Jackson, pictured left (clearly a strong believer in women being equal and not looked upon as inferior pieces of sexy flesh). Do the majority of men feel they know more about football than their wives or girlfriends? Of course they do. So why the uproar? Well, in the politically correct world we live in today, where we have to call a blackboard a chalkboard due to the potentially racial connotations, no-one is allowed an opinion which is in any way slightly controversial. If we did a poll of the whole of the UK, asking every person to explain the offside rule, I guarantee that more men will be correct than women! Does this statement make me sexist? I don't think so, but some people do. Luckily I'm unemployed so can't be sacked for having this opinion. Having seen many football games myself, I do believe that the majority of officials do not understand the offside rule, so this whole argument is irrelevant anyway.

By Jon Shed with 1 comment