I have no idea what the original drunken sort-of-French sort-of-lyrics nonsense I posted here was.

Then again, it was posted at 4AM on New Year’s Eve/Day, so I’m not too embarrassed about its pisshead qualities. I’m far more embarrased at the fact that on waking hungoverly at 9AM I’m checking the web and email for traces of embarrassing last-night activities…

Happy New Year, anyway.

From The Friday Thing‘s Review of the Year:

Post office clerks put up signs saying position closed

And journalists turn on typewriters and sex up their quotes

And ministers padlock the gates

On national security grounds

And protestors powder our parliament floors

While some other ones dress up as Batman

And it’ll still be Tony tonight or Gordon tomorrow

Gentlemen time please, you know we can’t serve anymore

But your binge drinking needs will be well catered for by casinos that open ’til four

While in Fallujah everyone’s dead

And every third car is a bomb

But ignorant people still sleep in their beds

Until I’m a Celebrity’s back on

And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all

Blunkett will bounce back sometime in the spring

And we’ll all sing along like before

And there’ll still be Tony tonight or Gordon tomorrow.

Excellent.

Don’t take an MBA course in Germany.

Pompous arse.

You must read this rant from Damian Counsell. It is a good rant.

Asian earthquakeness is thoroughly terrible. Go give money to the Disasters Emergency Committee or Save the Children.

Then read this disturbing comparison (from the comments at Crooked Timber): "present estimates of 77,000 (which are probably only 50% or less of the final total for the tsunami) are about the same number of people who have died from AIDS in Africa since December 19th (i.e., 10 days ago)."

At this point, you may despair.

One of SBBS’s secret sources received an interesting tip-off last week. The source worked as a phone-tapper; he set up taps on the basis of requests from the police, MI5, and various other bodies – including David Blunkett’s private office.

There are two main ways in which phones can be tapped. One involves calls being recorded and listened to by intelligence agents; the other involves collating a list of all numbers dialed to and from that phone.

Mr Blunkett’s private office often made such requests, particularly the latter sort, as he and his staff sought to protect us all from the terrors of freedom. So the newspaper’s source wasn’t particularly surprised in early 2004 when asked to monitor call records for a private individual’s London phone number and send them to Mr Blunkett’s private office.

After all, there was no reason at the time for the name Ms Kimberly Quinn to ring any alarm bells…

As far as I can make out, everyone who claims that Islamist terrorism is a genuinely significant threat to the survival of Western Civilisation falls into one or more of these three categories:

1) They are a professional liar (politician, spy).

2) They have a direct personal interest in persuading the public that there exists a terrible threat that only they, with the help of copious amounts of public money, can tackle (politician, spy).

3) They have access to no evidence other than that provided by the politicians and the spies, which they believe (everyone else).

In the absence of any evidence for a serious terror threat other than the word of professional liars who stand to gain from making us believe there’s a serious terror threat, why would anyone join the camp in point 3? Very mysterious…

Apparently, if you impose draconian policing policies that involve arresting more people for trivial non-crimes, then 40% more policemen get assaulted.

It would be a terrible shame if "you should have the right to kill people at will in your house, but not to get a drink at 3AM or go out without ID" police commissioner Sir John Stevens were to become one of them. Indeed, I’d be very nearly as distraught as I was on the day of David Blunkett’s ouster.

Yet again, I’ve run into the upsetting combination of crap central heating systems and crap landlords. Oh well, I’m sure the cold will toughen me up. And at least this house has an immersion heater.

Hope everyone had good Christmasses. Mine was amusing; the highlight was when my horrendously racist grandma turned on the TV for the delights of the Queen’s Speech ("wonderful lady, been through such a lot"), only to be so disgusted by its message of multiculturalism and being nice to black and Asian people that she turned it off again…

If you only download one illegal and highly offensive satirical cut-up AC/DC-sampling MP3 this Christmas, it’s got to be this one. Now officially the Most Played Track on the SBBS iPod.