Bwahahahahahahahaaaaaaa*

*Like an ordinary Hahahahahaaa, but evilerer. Cos it's Hallowe'en!

Anyways for anyone not a regular Sadlynaut, check out this batshit insane anti-Hallowe'en rant. Anti-genius strikes again.

Free sample:

The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:

· Sex with demons
· Orgies between animals and humans
· Animal and human sacrifices
· Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
· Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
· Revel nights
· Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
· Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Umm, Hi.

I wonder where that charming young man's got to, you've been thinking. Without those mots justes, my day is simply not complete.

Well, sorry for not calling. I've been out a lot recently you see.

Doing what? Well, I'll tell you.

Firstly I've been working a lot of hours, which has a funny way of leaving you knackered.
Secondly I've been going to quite a lot of meetings recently (see previous posts). Last week I went down onto a picket as well, which was a great experience. If you've never been before (none of my previous employers have been enthusiastic about the concept of unions), you definitely should. It's a great chance to see the strike from the striker's point of view, you can offer a bit of moral and, if you've been passing the bucket round at work maybe financial, support; and it reminds you that whatever the BBC says is largely false - particularly this stitch-up job right here. Instead of all that, go here, or here, or here (and particularly this). Or just talk to your postie. As one guy said to us on Friday, the bosses think the customers are the corporate clients, but for posties it's all about the average person in their houses and flats. So why not pass the time of day with them when you see 'em?

The only upside is that it turns out Amazon haven't permanently cancelled their RM contract, so one day we may be able to speak again. In the words of an animated moose in an altogether different context, "now our consciences are clear and the healing can begin." Except for the conscience bit of course.

Then there was some personal stuff, which need not delay us here, and a bloody awful cold to round it off nicely.

In the meantime, we've had a Nazi on telly, which at least thoroughly vindicated the case for no platform.*

We've had the frankly bizarre idea that a war criminal would be a good symbol of the EU. Not that member nations don't have their fair share of guilt in that regard of course, it's just unusual to use barbarity as your actual mascot. It's all a bit, you know, urgh. Thank the lords that's all over.

We've had the Tories unveil stupid and vicious policies clearly aimed at launching a major assault on the concept of public service itself. Nothing new there of course, but the scale of some plans is quite breathtaking. And they're going to be in power next year apparently.

Then the Mail had it's own Sachsgate, where widespread public outrage caused heads to roll at the highest level, sorry, I mean, the chair of the PCC's ethics committee, Paul Dacre, must have had to make some tough decisions over what action to take in the face of an unprecedented 25,000 complaints. Inaction was almost certainly the right ethical choice to make.

On the upside, there's been some good films out recently, I've got a talk coming up on Marx and Darwin that I hope should be reasonably interesting to anyone somewhat interested, and however debased and ridiculous our political discourse gets** at least there's always Americans.

Now I'm off to watch Generation Kill and listen to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.

What?

------------------------------------
*My favourite piece of shameless dishonesty by the way was 'I have not got a conviction for holocaust denial.' Quite right Nick, your conviction is for incitement to racial hatred, which shows you in a much better light.

**I'm thinking particularly of the now legendary HYSer who apparently unironically compared Nick Griffin to Atticus Finch. If there is such a thing as anti-genius, this is surely it.

CWU, Royal Mail and Policy Exchange

I was at this meeting last night when the news that the Royal Mail's entirely unsurprising document of evil had become public came through (and well done the Mirror, btw).*

Now, the SW this week has 5 good reasons you should support the strike anyway, but apart from that, the speakers and posties who were there had plenty of tales to tell: full-timers being replaced with part-timers or just not at all; bullying management; complete lack of interest from the bosses in adhering to the code that they agreed to after the last round of industrial action; bosses scabbing above and beyond their own union's advice...

So anyway I used the mighty iPlayer to catch up on the Newsnight breaking of the story. Just a couple of things:

• Did they really just show the Battle of Orgreave footage backwards AGAIN?
• All things considered, Labour MP not as despicable as she could've been. Hard to tell if that's just because her constituency's got a sorting office and the fact that there's also clips of the Prince of Darkness making her look better by default, of course. Having said that, flannelling over what the word 'shareholder' might mean in a wholly government-owned business was a bit pathetic.
  
• LET BILLY HAYES SPEAK, you twat. You didn't interrupt the bloke from Policy Exchange, did you? Which brings me neatly on to...
• Policy Exchange android Neil O'Brien is a cunt. And is either astoundingly ignorant or brazenly disingenuous at that. Actually, if you'd bothered to speak to the CWU you'd have found out that the CWU want 'modernisation'. What they want is to be a part of the process of updating the service so that it can be brought forward as a public service, not some privatised husk. Repeat after me: competition will only undermine a public service if policy makers let it. The free market is not natural, it is ideological. Now fuck off.

Sorry, but I really am quite angry about this. Support the strikes next week, in any way you can. Remember, as SW put it: a victory for them is a victory for all of us.

*Sample text:

A new relationship with our people is non-negotiable and will happen anyway, with or without union agreement.

Nice.

Snide Post

In which your protagonist lowers himself to taking the piss out of dim work colleagues for no other reason than petty vindictiveness.

Think less of me if you want/it's possible, but it was all I could do not to laugh. And besides, no names, no pack drill.

In the middle of a tedious conflict escalation regarding something that may or may not have been said about one colleague by another:

'I wish I'd been there, I would've ripped her head off. Cos I hate it when people are nasty to each other.'

Look, you've got to take your chuckles where you can find 'em OK?

Alright, alright, I'm sorry. I won't do it again.

Not unless it's very funny, anyway.

Luke Haines! LUKE HAINES!!

Seems to be doing a bit of a tour at the mo. To anyone who's missed this and is actually Tyneside resident, don't get wrecked at home, Christ, come see the best artist and be starstruck. How could I be wrong?

[/coat]

He's at the Cluny anyway. Friday 6th November. Tickets £7.

He's also got a brand new double album coming out - I'm genuinely, seat-squirmingly excited.*

*But I have to write it like I'm being sarcastic so I don't ruin my dead-cool image. Phew, that was close.

Time to Boycott Amazon Then.

Bugger. They're so convenient, and cheap, too. Still, scabs.

Troops Out Now

Oppose the Arms Trade

Support the Postal Workers

Nazis on TV? Fuck Off!

Last week we found out that both the BBC and the government feel that it's perfectly acceptable to put Nazis on TV now. There's going to be a protest at the Beeb's Newcastle HQ on the 22nd and we're aiming to make it as big as possible. If you can get there, do. 5.30 Thursday the 22nd October.

And why not come along to this afterwards?

Literary Parallels

Spotted at work:

Spotted in So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish:

'... the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do.'
The sign said:
Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
'It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.'

Edit:
It occurs to me that I've been carrying this around in my wallet for many years now*, for very similar reasons to the above. Funny really, the way some things become so familiar you forget they're there. See what you think: harbinger of the apocalypse or proof of the Hitch Hiker theory about the meaning of the universe?

*since I liberated it from my keyboard when I worked selling mortgages at a certain well-known North East based bank whose long-term plans for profitability were not, it turns out, as thoroughly contemplated as their health and safety advice.