Monthly Archives: May 2012

Here are the rest of those bits I began posting yesterday.

Random Thoughts- Crude Health

While walking through the small town of Hebden Bridge recently I sustained an olfactory assault. One moment I was walking along smelling nothing more than bonfires on an autumn evening and the next I fell to my knees coughing and squeezing my nose. You see; I had ventured past a shop, which specialised in the sale of Aromatherapy products and bits of twiggy shite. You know the sort of thing, those mutant dried twigs, which can usually be found, displayed in the windows of council houses and crap pubs.

Anyway as I gasped for air and reached for a cigarette to take away the smell, I began to consider the vast array of bizarre and pointless alternative remedied that are on the market today and decided to write a piece for this mighty organ on that very subject. However the subject is far too vast for an in depth study so I have concentrated on but three treatments, which carry on below.

Aromatherapy

What in the name of Lisa Goddard is that all about? No don’t get me wrong I believe that smells can be very evocative, for instance when I smell beef roasting I think immediately of Sunday afternoons as a child and Simon & Garfunkle songs which were often playing on the music centre while my mum slaved over a hot stove producing yummy things. Lavender reminds me of an old wardrobe and cheese brings back the memory of Jeremy Bowen’s left cheekbone. Granted the smell of roast beef makes me feel happy, however that’s my own personal smell memory and peculiar to me. How then do the manufacturers of Evening Wangwart Oil know one whiff of it will make your nostrils better, what if for some poor soul that particular smell evokes memories of being buggered roughly by the games master (Not the one played by Patrick Moore or James Grout of course) and leads inevitably to the emergence of terrible memories and a costly prosecution. The fact is they don’t! Because one man’s Simon and Garfunkle is another’s maggoty crisp packet. No my friends this is a crock of shite and should be avoided. Incidentally the smell of a crock o’ shite reminds me of fleshy ankles.
Psychic Surgery

This one is actually my favourite and involves some basic close up magic techniques and a shyster of the first magnitude. You see what happens is a chap pops a card in the off licence window and waits for the gullible and desperate to come and visit him. When the conee gets to the Psychic Surgeon’s house he shows them to an examination table whips up their top or blouse and commences probing the effected area with his fingers. After a few minutes he begins to channel a sixteenth century surgeon who tell the sad victim that he can cure them and starts the surgery. First of all he probes a little more and breaks a blood capsule he palmed earlier to make it appear that he has broken the skin. Then after more channelling and discussion about Coronation Street in the sixteenth century he appears to produce a piece of gristle from the non-existent incision, wipes down the victim, tells them their terminal cancer is cured, relieves them of a few hundred quid and sends them merrily on their way.

Bit of a cunts trick really.
The laying on of hands

Now this is another cunts trick, however the practitioners of this particular ‘therapy’ are often delusional or religious fanatics and not wilfully misleading their clients. They simply believe they can cure people just my groping them and saying things like “Can you feel it getting hotter” of course it’s getting hotter! Humans are warm-blooded creatures for fucks sake. If it were getting colder the patient would be dead and in no need of repair. No sir, avoid these people like the plague and if you already have the plague take a course of antibiotics and call me in a week.
In conclusion, alternative therapies are so called because they are the alternative to things that work. In short drugs good, Evening Wangwart Oil bad. Always seek medical advice from somebody who knows what they’re doing.

Random Thoughts- The Diency Interview

We at Brainjam like not only to amuse but to educate. So last Wednesday I took a jolly trip to the research lab of St Marks Hospital in Roydon. to interview Dr Ptolemy Diency who recently shocked the medical establishment with his theories.

Let me start by saying Dr Diency that I think your work is marvelous, I especially liked your last book ‘Smile Yourself Fat’ (Harper Collins £6.99 ) in which you extolled the benefits of obesity. How did you find yourself entering the world of drink research?

It was an accident really; one evening I found myself alone in my house drinking whisky. After some hours I stumbled to the toilet and caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I looked ten years younger. The next day I began experimenting with drunken rats.

How’s the work progressing?

Slowly very slowly, however we made a small breakthrough by discovering that it is the body rather than the alcohol alone which leads to the transformation. You see, the body is much happier with alcohol in it. We discovered that the human liver will actually release a hormone which causes the brain to produce youth & happiness endorphins (top right)
 when it is processing alcohol. If it is asked to process water or soft drinks it simply refuses to release any hormone, the liver at these times is in a ‘Sad’ state (bottom right) which can lead to unhappiness and ageing of other body parts including the face and buttocks.

You stated in your recent paper that it may be possible to halt or reverse the ageing process, how could that be achieved?

At this time we do not fully understand how the alcoho
l molecule interacts with the body to produce this temporary transformation.

Temporary?

Yes the transformation is only stable when alcohol is in the bloodstream. When the alcohol diminishes so do the positive effects.

How would you propose to make the transformation permanent?

Well that’s the million dollar question, an answer to which we are hoping to give very soon. If we can work out how the alcohol molecule interacts with the body then we can probably produce an anti ageing serum, but at the moment work is rather slow.

What would your advice be to people wishing to try alcohol therapy?

At the moment we are working to get alcohol made available on prescription. However you can start treatment immediately at your local pub or bar.

For more information contact St Marks Hospital in Roydon.

Random Thoughts- Election Fever

With only one day to go until the General Erection, I was wondering how elections started so have compiled a small history below.

Democracy started around the year 510 BC by a bloke called Cleisthenes, an Athenian who felt that the old system of absolute rule, killing and man buggery was letting the side down a bit. Therefore, he started something called an assembly, which was a large meeting of blokes who sat around discussing the old days of killing and man buggery.
Democracy then spread around Europe before being squidged by the Roman Empire who thought that man buggery and killing were fun, and saw no reason why they shouldn’t be reinstated. They also added sleeping with close relatives and marrying horses, which led to them eventually going off the rails and appointing a leader who thought himself a god. This David Ike style bloke came a cropper when one day he forgot to wear his dagger proof toga.

Eventually the Romans got bored of buggery, killing and horses so set about strengthening the power of the senate, which had pretty much taken over from the Ike type blokes, then the empire fell blah de bleedin blah.

After that Europe went into the invasion business, the main players in this new market were disinterested in man buggery and obsessed with lady fiddling. This led to lots of integration between invaders and invadees who set up houses together and fiddled with jugs & other pottery.

It took a while, but after some years of being ruled by various syphilitic Kings, a fellow called Cromwell got shit faced on fruit juice, chopped off the head of a bloke called Charlie and declared himself Lord Protector, banned fun, died, was dug up and hanged before having his head cut off.

Then Chuck II was popped on the throne before getting scared when he heard that a bloke called Bill wanted a pagga with him and running away. After that, Bill ruled for a bit and died.

Other people sat on the throne, found it lumpy & died. Then they decided to have elections. Eventually commoners and women got the vote and elected some blokes in top hats before going for blokes in raincoats, sports jackets and eventually dresses. After that, the world nicked the idea of democracy and set up British stylee parliaments, apart from the Americans who set up one like the Romans and filled it with men who secretly thought about man buggery and killing but only talked about moral values and taxes.

The End

Random Thoughts- Shaving Miss Daisy

Having been a bloke for many years…well apart from that time in the mid nineties, we don’t talk about that. Right OK! You twisted my arm, I’ll tell you. To cut a long story short the doctor was a fake and when the staples rusted and pinged out, it emerged (literaly) he’d not actually cut anything off, just tucked it all in. Was the most embarrassing bikini wax I’ve ever had, was like the scene in Alien. My member nearly took the beauticians eye out, terrible business.

Erm…where was I…ah yes.

Having been a bloke for many years I’ve had to shave almost every day and the tools I use (for the job) are a three blade razor, shaving brush and soap. However recently I became aware that there were other products than soap on the market to allow foamy facedness. So in the interest of informing and enlightening you, my only and lovely reader* I tested two forms of lathery product on myself and some animals, the results of which are published here.
1) Gillette Gel Foam: This was a rather nice product if a little wild. Having squirted a quantity into my palm I was shocked to see it expanding into a white foam which almost engulfed me. Luckily I was saved from smothering when in a flash I leapt from my bath and out of the bathroom window, where I hung from a ledge for some hours before the Fire Brigade were able to crane me down.

Some days later when they released me from hospital I resolved to try it again. This time I squirted a smaller amount into my palm and applied it all over the beard area of my face. The sensation was marvelous and I haven’t felt so refreshed since I had my face blown by some boys in Morocco some years ago. Then for the acid test, I took my razor and began to shave, it was smooth and wonderful, probably the smoothest shave I’ve ever enjoyed.

Later in the day after calling my friend to express delight, I shot some into a cow’s eye and it lived.

In conclusion: A superb product which like most things in life should be used in moderation.
2) Mentality: The Ultimate Experience: Shaving Oil for Men: This product promises much in the title but delivers little. Having wet my face and taken ‘Just 3 Drops’ into my hands, as the instructions bade me, I applied the oil to my face where it seemed to disappear. There was no foaminess or indication as to whether it was actually on my face at all. However as the title promised ‘The Ultimate Experience’ I continued in earnest and took my razor to the stubble. Immediately I realized as my razor snagged at my reddening face the product had no effect at all and I discontinued shaving to apply some shaving gel.

Later I rubbed some on a cat, it smelled.

In Conclusion: Absolute bollocks, how the manufacturers of this non product sleep at night I really don’t know.

Well that’s it I do hope you learned something from my experiences and if you would like to read more then a hosepipe and a family car may be your only hope.

Good Day

*Mad Brian

Random Thoughts- War Songs

Anyway I digress; I was writing about the songs of WWII. Now don’t get me wrong I think they were terrible as do all normal bipeds, but I wonder whether Tommy Atkins considered them so. Did he sing ‘We’ll meet again’ on the front line while bullets rushed at his face & legs or dance around singing ‘Hang out your washing on the Siegfried Line’ while bayoneting a Gerry? This we will never know, because the moment any old person starts to speak, most of us go to the happy place in our skull and assume that they are talking about the Common Market or decimalization.

At the moment Britain, America & some other countries are still at war. This means that we have a real opportunity to witness the role of popular songs on the front line of bangy places. Do American and British troops taunt rebels by ‘Shakin that ass’? Or perhaps their milkshakes bring all the Al Qaeda boys to the yard.

At this very moment Elton John and Cliff Richard are being dropped over enemy soil to sap their morale. Misletoe & Wine was deployed to great effect in Bosnia and led to the surrender and suicide of many enemy operatives and troops.

However we still have the most powerful force in the war against terror and that is David Bowie. He has constantly produced good tunes to boost the morale of British troops. In fact an entire regiment went androgynous during the Gulf War after listening to Space Oddity and were dropped behind enemy lines to seduce and kill bad men. Sadly (Haha!) a French regiment was slaughtered when they tried to improve cheeriness by playing French pop music. Well I stay slaughtered; they actually killed each other in a way reminiscent of the film ‘Event Horizon’ only without Sam Neill gouging his eyes out for a laugh.

Tomorrow: Fake History

Here are some short bit I wrote for a website, back in the olden days.

Random Thoughts- Surveys

The subject on which I wish to address you on this rainy day is that of a plague; one more virulent than the Bubonic and more annoying than the great itchy gusset plague that ravaged the wearers of nylon underwear in the 70s. This plague is not a virus or a bacterium, it’s a group of human beings more tenacious than a summer cold and twice as annoying. They are the people who stand in the street calling to passers by “Excuse me could you spare a few minutes…” They may say more but nobody ever hears, as the response that those words elicit is generally “No I’m busy”. Well not always, I forget the sad and lonely who will stop and talk to anybody. This disturbs me a little, because if these clipboard grasping creatures are collecting details of the tastes and desires of the consuming public and the only members of that public representing those tastes are the anoraked kiddie fiddlers what will we see in shops in a few years? I have listed what I think will be ‘in’ next season.

1. Tartan Thermos flasks
2. Tartan shopping trolleys
3. Anything Tartan
4. The greasy look anorak
5. Nylon Y-fronts
6. Geoff Love and his orchestra play Slipknot
7. Prozac flavoured Smarties
8. Trainspotting PDAs
9. The book of the week: How to get onto local radio phone-in shows
10. Pre-smellied trousers
11. Puppies

However, your clip board toting inquisitor has one valuable use – they keep large swathes of pavement free from pedestrians and thus reduce wear and tear. Most of us would rather walk under a bus than go within 15 feet of them. We use old women as shields as we pass them and take massively exaggerated sweeping arcs often taking in the scenery of neighbouring towns. Which brings me onto my next theory – local council conspiracies to increase pavement longevity… Ah but that’s another story.

Random Thoughts- HR

There is a combination of words that is guaranteed to make my blood boil and my capillaries pop. The first of these words is ‘Human’. A nice word. A word that expresses our species on this planet and, by putting us in that context, our frailty and in some ways our nobility. In the same way as ‘Marsupial’ or ‘Canine’, it expresses our place in the natural order. The second word is ‘Resources’, in itself a humble word merely plodding about referring to materials or our personal emotional strength. It is a good word, a word that is useful, in fact a resource in itself.

However…

Put those two words together and you get ‘Human Resources’, which makes me want to vomit. At one time you called a company asking for a job and were put through to their personnel department. I liked that, it expressed what they were and what they were in charge of, and it sounded a bit like personal which I liked. However, call a company today and you will be put in touch with Debbie in HR. Yes my friends, they are so ashamed of the title they shorten it so they can feel better about themselves.

In itself you may feel that ‘Human Resources’ sounds anodyne but the image it conjures up to me is a huge mine where humans are dug out of the soil. Where we are nothing but coal or oil, utterly worthless in our own right, only a commodity to be bought and sold. Well there’s food for thought. It seems strange to me that in these times where the cult of the individual is espoused by every newspaper and magazine; where supermarket shelves groan under the weight of self help books; that we are lumped together in the corporate mind as an amorphous blob. Perhaps that’s why self help books sell so well? They are bought in an attempt to escape the collective in which Debbie from HR has placed us.

In short humans are not a resource we are people with emotions. We love, loath, hurt and are angry , sanguine, or apathetic. We are more than the sum of our parts. We are not computer operators, clerks, analysts or managers, we are people and we demand the same rights as an Elk or Giraffe to be regarded as part of a species. Human but not a resource. So lets get rid of this title and replace it with something new. Something meaningless like ‘personnel’. Yep that’s good.

Random Thoughts- Better

It is part of the human condition. We all suffer from it in one way or another. Some people are inflicted with it in an extreme way and some in a more passing, whimsical way. It is the desire to change; whether it’s to change oneself or one’s environment it dogs us throughout our lives. We are condemned by our natures never to be satisfied, to always be striving for extra. The advertisers know this which is why we’re always getting ‘ten percent extra free’ in our packets of crisps, noodles, washing powder and shampoo. We want our cars faster, our computers more powerful and our sexual partners more sexy and skilled.

It isn’t only our goods and services we want better, we want ourselves better. We want ourselves better educated, better looking and healthier with better teeth, more hair, less hair, bigger hair… A few months ago I read that 80 Percent of men are unhappy with the size of their manhood (poor souls) and approximately the same amount of women are unhappy with their breast size. Why is this I ask myself? Is it the media, as people suggest, or is it this basic need to be better? I find it difficult to blame the media for a bloke being unhappy with his John Thomas, after all how many glossy magazines (other than the obvious) have pictures of blokes tackle out? However women are constantly bombarded with pictures of melons and feel that they need to conform to these pictures. Lets just take a ‘ for instance’ – if there were no media would men still worry about the size of their manhoods and women still crave bigger Bristols? Personally I think it would make little difference; the desire to please our sexual partners will always win out over any media influence and if we think that we can make them happier by being larger and better then we’ll continue to crave extra in those areas.

However there is another side to this – often those who are already what most people aspire to want to be different. One of my friends is beautiful, yet cannot properly see it. In some ways this is good because if they really could see themselves in the way other people did they would be impossible to live with. However they still want to be better – the beautiful golden hair has to be dyed a different colour etc. Frankly if I woke up looking like them I would spend the rest of my life in front of the mirror and as the new Narcissus I’d have myself photographed and copies sent out to every underprivileged area of the country to lift their spirits. I must admit though, if it was me that was beautiful I’d no doubt want to change something, but I can’t think what.

When push comes to shove I have given up fight to be better, after all you can’t polish a turd, but I do want a slightly more powerful computer.

Random Thoughts- Hot!

It’s Hot!
It’s summer in the city of Halifax, it’s also monsoon season by the look of things. Luckily I’m sitting in a comfortable air conditioned office sipping on hot tea (the best thing ever) and typing this while I try and avoid the gaze of my boss.

Every year it gets this hot and every year I hear the same things when it gets a bit hot. They are listed below…

• Ooh must be global warming.
• Didn’t used to get this hot.
• Ooh ozone layer…
• Did you know that Yorkshire used to have a tropical climate during Roman times?
• Can’t ever remember it being this hot.

Everybody is utterly convinced that the weather is the hottest it’s ever been in the history of everything. They fail to remember that up to three months of summer is hot; they only ever seem to remember one week of it. Simply because the moment it rains they seem to think that the season has simply disappeared and can’t grasp that it is still summer even if it’s raining and still warm.

Myself I could do without summer. Summer makes the streets smell of urine. It bites, stings and burns. Not only that but if you are cursed with a light pigmentation in your eye colour you end up with splitting headaches. Have researched this and it is true, people with lighter pigmentation are more sensitive to light, I have blue/green eyes which make me susceptible to headaches created by bright light. So this proves categorically that summer sucks. No don’t argue, I’m right…

My suggestion to eliminate the evil that is summer is to push the country further north towards the polar region. Then, my friends, we can enjoy cold winter mornings all year round. There is nothing nicer than getting up to a foggy winter’s morning, so how cool to get up every morning to a chill wind and maybe some snow. Ah heaven!

Random Thoughts- Tea

Today I wish to extol the virtues of a particular kind of beverage. It comes in many flavours and strengths and has many different odours and colours from brick red to light green. It refreshes, helps one relax and is an integral part of my and many other peoples day. I know what you’re thinking: “Ah BB’s talking about beer and booze”, however you would be wrong in that assumption, for the beverage of which I speak is Tea. Yes tea. A drink once so prized and expensive that in households during the 17th Century servants would sometime have half their pay made to them in tea leaves. You have only to walk around any stately home or museum to see a wealth of highly crafted tea caddies showing the importance of this particular leaf. Even tobacco was not shown such high regard and was generally kept in earthenware jars, but tea came in gold and lacquered boxes, lead lined to preserve the moisture and taste of the leaf. The leaves were infused in boiling water in magnificent tea pots and the resulting drink was drunk sparingly – due to the high price – in tiny cups. Later on in it’s evolution, as a drink in England, milk and sugar were added to take away the natural slight bitterness of the leaf and the Great British ‘cuppa’ was born. This is still the way I like to drink most teas. My favourite tea is Earl Grey; when you brew Earl Grey and add milk and sugar, it takes a a very ordinary infusion and turns it into something wonderful. The flavour is intensified and the smell of Bergamot fills the nose as you drink it. Frankly I say Pah! to aromatherapy oil because a cup of EG is all the aromatherapy I need.

However some people dislike adding anything to tea, including sugar, which is fair enough. I myself wouldn’t dream of drinking Chinese tea or any green tea with milk and sugar because that would utterly spoil the flavour, but for Tesco’s own brand and Earl Grey I prefer a spoon of sugar and a dash of milk.

However, whenever I go to meetings in my work I am only ever offered coffee. Why? Coffee gives me headaches, makes me twitchy and frankly makes my bowels go into overdrive. Whereas tea, although it contains caffeine, also acts as a natural diuretic and antioxidant – in other words it’s good for you. So let’s loose the adiction to coffee and all become addicted to tea, it’s much nicer

Random Thoughts- Insomnia

It’s early in the morning and I’ve tried masturbating, warm milk, whisky and thinking of government health policy.

If that sounds familiar to you then you’re probably suffering from insomnia. That annoying condition that strikes most of us during our life. Myself I’ve been suffering now four nights in a row which is very unusual for me as my bed is my favourite piece of furniture, I love it, there’s nothing better than snuggling down under my duvet all warm and toasty and going gently to sleep and dreaming of pubs.

However the past few nights I’ve lay in my toasty bed thinking of such things as why my brain wont switch off and if I bang my head repeatedly against the wall how long it would take to loose consciousness or whether trepanning could be performed with a wiggly cork screw.

Just a sec I’ve had an idea.

Nope that didn’t work I just ran to my housemates room and tried to pick a porn video very fast and run back down, thinking that running and laying my hands on Top! porn would in some way wear me out, sadly being as I am stark naked I twanged the end of my knob on the end of a badly positioned floor fan and now I feel a bit dizzy, think that idea maybe ahead of it’s time and I wont be submitting it to ‘The Little Book of Calm’.

Not that long ago in such situations I would call a friendly person and they would supply me with a soothing preparation to alleviate insomnia, but now I’m a sensible 30 Year old, I do not count such people within my social circle, they were generally smelly people anyway.

So what to do? I’ve drunk the warm milk lake and counted more sheep than a MAFF vet at a barbecue, I’m now wearing tartan winceyette pyjamas to try and fool myself into thinking I’m an old man. The annoying thing about insomnia is that you want to talk to someone anyone, but they’re all asleep and generally don’t take kindly to being called in the middle of the night for a chat.

THAT’S IT!!!!

Have finally thought of an idea that will make my fortune The Insomnia Hotline a premium rate helpline staffed by interesting people who will talk to you all through the night about absolutely anything.

Call them now and make me rich Awahahahahaha! Ooh I think I need some sleep.

Well it’s back to the Open University program on fish stocks.

Goodnight, wake well.

Random Thoughts- A Review of an Art Gallery

Review of the Wanger Art Gallery; Halifax.

On entering the gallery I was struck with the strong sense of foreboding that accompanies the work of so many artists. As I passed the mummified kipper I was thinking about how we humans are rather like kippers, sitting in the fridge waiting to be smeared with butter and eaten, when I was suddenly confronted by Hans Beinricht’s work ‘The Sink’ an installation in the form of a sink which occasionally emitted a tape recorded fart, which I believe the artist recorded from his own anal emissions. It is a humbling work of great importance which reflects the societal need for monetary wealth while at the same time extolling the values of truth and smiling.

Having stared at the Beinricht for some minutes I moved onward to a larger room in which was hung the three huge canvasses of Radlett’s triptych ‘No Booze’ in which the misery of living under a Thatcherite regime is expressed almost polemically through the use of oils and bull semen. Strongly evoking the miners strike and poll tax riots of the nineteen eighties it is to be approached with great care.
At this point in the exhibition I bumped into an old friend and we wept together for some minutes before embracing and continuing onto the third room of this gallery.

Lying in the centre of this room was the wax figure of a naked man, (Dead Naked Man by Phillip Mews) which was incredibly detailed; the only indication that this wasn’t a corpse was the penis; a tiny Hitler. Both I and my friend believed this was a representation of the desire to throw off the shackles of reasoned argument and return to the pugilistic tradition of our forebears.

As I walked away from the gallery, occasionally stopping as cars wound around and past me, I felt renewed, it was as if my soul had been fed with a big bottle of cultural milk. It is an experience I strongly advise you to take. However leave the kids at home, there is a chance of molestation in the ‘We like pink arses’ installation.

Tomorrow I’ll post more of these bits. There are loads.