Further Evidence...

..that the man on the street is a cunt:

It's also cast-iron evidence that makes an open and shut case for hanging 99% of all people that would bother to vote in a phone-in poll on capital punishment. They should be hanged.

In a place of lawful execution.

By the neck.

To death.

The cunts.

Ohhh, the hypocrisy!

The hypocrisy!

Fortunately Scattergum's Legal Representation is Second to None.

On viewing Sitemeter (that little tab at the bottom of this page, it lets me see who and for how long has been looking at Scattergum - you can look too!) I found that the Unified Court System, State of New York has taken a passing interest in Scattergum's activities:

I expect to be "renditioned" any day now. Don't worry though, I've put in those tough hours building an immunity to being tied down while some meat-necked shit pustule pours water over my face and tries to get me to admit to a whole bunch of shit that wouldn't stand up in any civilised court, I look great in orange and get on excellently with most members of the Muslim community.

Most importantly, if the worst comes to the worst and I'm not sent to be tormented by conventional means. If they send me to suffer the most tortuous fury a 500 billion bucks a year budget can possibly rain down on one man. If the most awful thing imaginable happens to me. If my fate is to be one truly worse than death. Don't lament my plight too greatly.

Because being forced to listen to dullard New York media fuckwits pontificating endlessly (especially about an overlong electoral process) like their opinion matters for shit, has little to no effect on me. I've been through that on many occasions. I used to call that a holiday and paid plenty of pounds (pounds being way better than dollars) for the privilege.

So bring it the Unified Court System, State of New york, bring it. There's fuck all you can do to me that I haven't already done to myself in your fine state.

Actually, we all know what 'mercans are like, the three things they love to do best are suin' folks, shootin' folks and giving folks infected blankets so they can steal their land. All that's likely to come of this (if anything) is that I'll get sued then shot.

I don't own any land.

Master of Cinematic Suspense or Watcher of Teenage Onanists?

In the late Eighties my Dad got sent to some kind of painter and decorators' college.

They taught him how to make all kinds of smeared paint upon smeared paint effects that look really crap, because it was the late Eighties and smeared paint upon smeared paint effects that look really crap were totally in fashion with folks with money.


They liked it in their bathrooms because it helped them relax while they took a power-shower or power-bath or power-shit or something.

My Dad loved to come home and try out his newly learned skills. He still does. You haven't lived until you've wondered if it really is 2008 whilst marvelling at the audacious tackiness of a home made coffee table festooned in a brown, green and white rag-rolled paint job.

They also taught him how to Artex a ceiling. Because folks with (and without) money like that too.



The bastards.

This ruined my early teen solo sweaty hand fun for at least a year.

When religious types take random stimulus and interpret it into significant images they might, and have seen Jesus in the knots on a door or the Virgin Mary on a toasted sandwich or the word Muhammad (I'd wager the word rather than an image of his no doubt lovely beardy face for many of the reasons those clumsy Danish cartoons caused all that trouble the other year - but what do I know?) in a tomato. It's probably no wonder they see representations of their favourite significant dead people, or even that they think that their god has time to go around signing his name in their food just in case they want a tasty, yet perishable autograph.

We all do it all the time. That pesky theory of evolution is probably why it's hard wired into our awesome human brains. Maybe as some kind of defence mechanism.

But don't try telling that to some of those religious types.

Pareidolia is what they call it, but I didn't know that at the time. All I knew was that a significant dead person was watching me wait for my older brother (we shared a bedroom) to go out for long enough for me to have my sticky fingered imaginary way with girls I went to school with.

I never saw Jesus, I saw something much more sinister than him up there in the random Artex squiggles on the ceiling above my bed, I saw this:

Clamp your eyes shut as hard as you like (and doing what I was doing when I first noticed the Droopy look-a-like master of suspense up there on my bedroom ceiling, you probably will at some point ) but the sneaking suspicion that the dead might be peeping in at you at your most exposed, no matter how irrational, can really put the dampener on even the most "festive" of moods.

Don't believe me?

Try this then; next time you are getting it on with yourself imagine some dead movie director, or dead movie star, or dead dictator. Or better yet Jesus, or even better yet, Jesus if he looked just like your grandmother, yeah that's good, Jesus if he looked just like your grandmother, crucifix pose, palms exposed, stigmata weeping pus and blood while a single shameful tear rolls slowly, so slowly, like salty syrup, down the sagging cheek of the deity/post menopausal old bastard.

Imagine that looking at you next time you are wanking.

Or fucking.

Have a really good think about that watching you.

Go on, really, really do your best to visualise her/him, all ashamed that the baby she/he/it made loving cooing noises at is all swollen and stretched out into an adult that is moving its hand like that while touching that. That the infant that she/He/your fucking nan held in her arms and doted on has grown into something that has that part of that person in their mouth/arse.

Imagine it.

Make your best mental picture.

Still in the mood?

Are you?

Are you?

Well are you?

You sick little fucker.

Ahem.

So what have we all learned from all this?

I'm not sure really.

Maybe that the human brain is amazing in its capacity for interpretation and imagination. That we will all spot patterns in our lives that aren't there?

That we too readily make our own or buy into group superstitions? That we would all be a lot happier if we just rationally thought about the reasons we find patterns in the most random of things?

That your "aura" isn't all out of wob and the wrong colour?

That your Chi wasn't misaligned, you were sick and getting stabbed with some pins wasn't the thing that fixed it, you just convinced yourself it was?

That you aren't all full of bad Thetans, you're maybe just as messed up as everyone else is and those cunts aren't interested or capable of really helping you, they're just after your money?

That Alfred Hitchcock's ghost has no more seen my penis than you are being silently judged by some invisible fucknut that will see you tortured horribly for all eternity the most minor transgression?

That there is no pattern or design to it all and that's why it can be so frightening but also so much amazing fun to be alive and in possession of one of those awesome human brains?

I'm sure my writing isn't anywhere near being good enough to convey sentiments and ideas like that with any subtlety though.

Maybe all we've really learned from this ultimately shameful little piece is that crappy looking smeared paint upon smeared paint effects on walls and furniture have been unjustly overlooked in the recent comeback of eighties fashions. My old Dad could coin it in for sure.

Oh, and that I should avoid ever taking a Rorshach test, and you should probably never ask me if I want to borrow your Hitchcock boxset.

Or look after your elderly relatives.

Especially when I'm feeling "festive".

Concerning the Smoking Ban

In reaction to the up and coming smoking ban, Elliot Armstrong would like it known that it is now compulsory to smoke in Elliot Armstrong's flat (at least three cigarettes per hour).

It will additionally be compulsory to smoke when in Elliot Armstrong's company, when talking to him on the telephone and when enjoying any CDs, DVDs and books you might have borrowed from him. Oh, and you must also light up whenever you think of him. Which will obviously be often.

Elliot Armstrong understands that there are many sickly, weak and sanctimonious types lacking in character that just aren't very enthusiastic about fun in the world. This is why Elliot Armstrong is offering "Nicotine Offsetting" Just send any cigarettes you should be smoking in accordance with the above rules (plus £25 sterling admin costs) and he will kindly smoke them for you.

That is all.

Tht Hold Steady

These past few days I've had this cyst thing growing inside my ear. It's been getting progressively worse and this morning on the way to work it had become so painful and swollen that I couldn't get my right earphone in. Nasty.
I'm not just sharing this with you in the spirit of openness and frank honesty between friends though. There is a point.
And that point brings us nicely to the new album by The Hold Steady, Boys And Girls In America. One thing I did today was listen to this album for the first time. Another thing I did today was take a scalpel and jam it into that painful cyst in my ear to let the fluid collected inside it out (I wear a white coat to work, that more than qualifies me to carry out minor medical procedures on myself). I'm sure only the thick kids at the back haven't already worked out where I'm going with this, but here goes anyway. Can you guess which of these two things was more pleasurable? Which I'll have the fonder memories of?
That's right, scalpel in the ear over this piece of shit album every time. I'm not sure if it was the band's intention to conjure the mental image of the singer from Stiltskin, on the toilet, groaning his way through Road To Hell by Chris Rea whilst he tries to strain out a particularly stinky one caused by a nasty bout of egg over-indulgence induced constipation as The E Street Band look on and play arthritic Green Day covers in the corner.
If it was I take my hat off to them on a job well done, but I hate to credit the kind of people that could come up with this album with that much imagination.

I stole this album from the Internet and I still feel I would be justified in writing to somebody to ask for a refund.

I can't remember who recommended this album to me (I have a long history of alcohol abuse), but if you are reading this please never make any suggestion to me again. About anything. Ever. You bastard.

The Hold Steady photographed by idiots last week

The Panda Thing

The only amusing thing I ever wrote, and it's not really even very amusing. It's like like the greatest hit of a one hit wonder that never really had that much of a hit in the first place. Top twenty at best. It's like Scooby Snacks by the Fun Lovin' Criminals but only slightly less annoying. It's the Pandas=Bastards thing:

Pandas are rubbish, it's a fact that only I and certain other mentally ill types seem to have noticed. Why do pandas piss me off? Because they are a bunch of useless, obdurate, selfish, lazy, fussy, fraudulent bastards who more than deserve to be up the evolutionary creek they are up right now. They are a prime example of the pointlessness of animal that aren't good to eat.

So what if they're dying out because their habitat is being destroyed and they've no bamboo to eat? They really aren't in a position to be all discriminating about their diet.

Goats will eat anything, there are loads of goats, goats are good to eat, goats are cool.

Anyways, when some do-gooder does get two of the fat idiots in the same room ( at great expense ) no amount of mood lighting, Barry White music and oysters will ever get them to mate. Why? Because even pandas hate pandas.

You won't ever have this problem with pigs because pigs are good to eat, pigs are cool.

Ever see a panda? All the useless twats do is sit around looking sorry for themselves. Monkeys, on the other hand are very entertaining. Clint Eastwood even made a movie with one.

Monkeys probably aren't good to eat but they're still very cool.

Pandas aren't even real bears-FACT

Panda cola is shite, Penguin bars are tasty.

I rest my case.