Wimbledon

Firstly, Sue Barker. A Marks and Spencer cardholder looking somewhat like Jack Nicholson in full Joker makeup, Barker is one of many of the BBC’s specialist white middle-class presenting team. She knows her tennis from having been a pro before, but it’s strange that in the age of ASBOs, terrorism and knife-crime, Sue Barker still has a job.
Always looking like the bank manager’s wife at a village fete, Sue Barker’s presenting style whether it be live sport or A Question of Sport (Note to BBC: END IT!) is that of a woman who has led a life without worry and just sort of mumbles on about tennis because it keeps her happy.
Increasingly out of touch with a robbing, stabbing debt-addled nation of alcoholics it seems that Sue is just the figurehead for a sporting event so preposterously rubbish it makes you wonder why anyone turns up. Cliff Richard, Strawberries and cream, Tim Henman, orange barley water and a scoring system based on multiples of 15, until the end where it goes up in 10s – it’s a catalogue of rubbish. If they scored it 1,2,3,4 then people would soon realise that all the ‘love’ and ‘deuce’ crap is just another way of saying ‘nil’ or ‘draw’.
Essentially there’s two people, each trying to knock a ball somewhere the other person can’t get to it. So that means once you ‘ve seen it go to one side of a player, or behind them or once they’ve reached for it but couldn’t get it you’ve seen all the permutations of tennis there ever will be. Doubles is similar but with twice the ponces on court, thus half as exciting.
The reason wimbledon is still on television at all is because in Britain it’s quaint to see an outdated sport like tennis given some national coverage. It’s a window on the 1950s almost, except “eagle-eye”, (it should be called “Judgement laser”) and the Sue Barkers of this nation need their hands held and to be told it’s alright to watch tennis in England, it REALLY is the greatest contest in the world. Cliff Richard is still a big star, there’s no immigrants in rural Buckinghamshire and John McEnroe’s pathetic tantrum made him the “bad boy” of tennis, feared by all.

Public Transport

It’s official, Britain has the world’s worst public transport ever. And British people are the most ill-equipped to cope with it.
Anyone who’s used the London Underground system will tell you that it smells, bad. The humid bacteria-rich air that wafts at you as you walk along it’s psycho-friendly platforms is a sickening reminder that no matter how practical something is, Britain can make it rubbish. Lots of stops, efficient service and plenty of room, right?
Wrong. There IS plenty of room on the Underground, but at peak times it’s crammed with wage-zombies clawing their way through wave after wave of each other to keep their overlords happy. Possibly. Yes it’s practical, but it’s also 900 years old and prone to silly screechy blackout breakages.
Want to take a bus? Brilliant. But it’s difficult to recommend. As they do on any other mode of transport, British people adopt one of three states on public transport. Ninety-five percent of the population are content with the middle-distance ‘thinking to self stare’, which is generally targetted out of the window and may involve headphone use.
Three per cent are engaged in an activity or conversation, such as reading a newspaper or talking to a baby.
One percent are early-teens roling up bits of paper and throwing them, or calling each other gay and/or whores.
The final percent is the distressing “wot u looking at” crackhead kind usually wearing a hoody and just tweaking on the back seat, looking for stray eyes to make contact with and threaten and thinking of their next fix of sweet, sweet crack.
The dangerous psychotic can insult or murder whomever he likes on the public transport, because British people are not naturally inclined to interfere with people going about their business. He is unlikely to be challenged by the middle-distance masses, who will keep staring out of the window or at the A4 posters dotted around them.
ALL of Britain’s public transport networks are overpriced. Compared to other European nations or the USA, we could rightly expect our ticket premium to pay for killer robot police patrolling the networks, but it doesn’t. It pays shareholder dividends.
You have to suppose that nationally, until we stop pretending everyone else isn’t there, we’re all going to be obsessed with one day being rich and becoming that shareholder, literally anally raping each other to climb the career ladder until we become millionnaires. Of course it’s preposterous to think we can all be millionnaires, there simply isn’t enough money in the world, but until we realise that and start spreading the love a little, public transport is rubbish.

Threatening TV-licence / Road Tax adverts

Your government hates you. Since watching the Matrix in 1999 a select team of Whitehall policymakers latched on to the idea of humans as giant batteries for their evil planet-straddling automatons. Although being reminded about your TV licence or road tax by mail may seem some distance away from breathing nutrient-rich liquid as one of 10-million souls in a mile-high stack of human battery pods, it’s a step in the right direction.
It starts with the letters, a database of every household in the country without a television licence so says the advert. The implication being that they’re constantly visiting these addresses to see if the residents appear to be watching telly so they can fine them. After a while this is going to prove effective. They’re catching the perps but still need to get budget down. So off they go, rationalising the staff. Those weaselly detector-van men are fired en-masse and replaced by robots. The robots get stolen, so they give them knives, then guns…then they go all Terminator on your ass.
It’s ok if you’ve got nothing to hide, but that doesn’t mean you enjoy the fear they’re trying to imbue in you.
Road tax database adverts are similar. They say they’ve got a database of all the cars in the UK and they’ll mail you a reminder when it’s due. Which is fine, I like that. It makes life easier. Eventually there won’t be a single decision it’s possible to make without the government reminding you beforehand.
This is the sort of message that MIGHT be displayed on your personal bluetooth PDApod that’s sewn into your eyebrow at birth.

“A delicious wheat-bisk based breakfast would set you up with complex carbohydrates for the day, allowing you to toil on grimly through the rest of your life until your joints wear out or you have a nervous breakdown. Whichever’s first. Have some Omega 3 and you can extend your toil-span by another 15 years if taken regularly.”

I never wanted to be a civil servant, but the people at the jobcentre laughed if you said you wanted to be a cowboy. So battery-pods it is then.

Society’s lack of a modern Jim Henson

People who’ve got no love for bearded uber-mensch Jim Henson and his many creations are going to hell. No doubt about it, an eternity being poked up the arse with a trident by a muscly red-man with hooves. Yes people with no Henson-love are going to burn in a very strict, inquistion-era catholic idea of hell and I’m going to pay their damn train fare to make sure they get there.
Nobody’s replaced Henson, not even Brian, his son, who had a bloody good go for a while. It seems some of the things Brian puts out get ignored by a harsh general public, but they shouldn’t cos they’re at least ok. Thing is when Jim did it, back in the day, it was much more pure. Muppets were new and kids brains weren’t so rigorously controlled to reduce possible future anarchic thoughts. Disney bought Henson out after his death, so I guess it’s all gonna be shit for ever more.
What are the alternatives these days? There’s nothing comparable to the original puppet-variety show. Lazytown? Get real, it’s Scandinavian salad-fascism. What’s wrong with burgers Sportacus? Hmmm? What’s next, the fucking Sportacus youth? The Swedish chef would never agree.
There was a day when bearded guys pulling faces with children weren’t paedos, but it looks like they died with Henson. Jah bless Jimbo.