Tattoos: a tale of discrimination and narrow minds

Tattooing and tattoos themselves have been around thousands of years. Which makes it all the more strange that people still have such a hard time excepting them. I myself have a growing collection of tattoos, which are mainly on my arms but I would not rule out having tattoos anywhere on my body. The problem with this is the perception of tattooed people by none tattooed people.

Here in England tattoos are legal, yet taboo and frowned upon by many even with them becoming more and more popular. For instance I know of nightclubs that will not let people in with tattoos showing (well not men anyway, I’ve seen them let women in with tattoos on show). I’d think that this was classed as discrimination, which by definition is acting upon a prejudice, having preconceived ideas of people due to the way they look. This is not on in my book, I know loads of heavily tattooed people who are decent human beings, along with some who are not but the same can be said about people who have no tattoos at all. Personally I don’t believe that a persons tattoos should stop them getting into places unless their tattoos are offensive (e.g. racist). This reminds me of a story from a couple of years ago where Joel Madden from the band Good Charlotte was supposed to take a British Airways flight from London to Lisbon and was told he couldn’t board the plane until he covered his tattoos. This cements the backwards-thinking British mentality, we’re one of the oldest countries yet we seem to be stuck in our ways instead of moving with the times.

I also think that it is pathetic that in this day and age tattoos could stop you getting a job. As though the ink in your skin makes you less able to do the job. I don’t know what its like in other countries but I for one don’t believe that places like America for instance are so backwards thinking on this subject.

I personally cant work out why what other people do with their bodies is an issue for anyone else, as I don’t give a fuck what anyone does with any aspect of their life as long as it doesn’t effect me, and tattoos don’t effect anybody but the person they are on. People may say that they shouldn’t have to look at other people’s “ugly tattoos” well I think these people should grow the fuck up, as I for one would much rather look at someone’s “ugly tattoos” than have to spend a minute in the company of people with horrible personalities, who think that they are the center of the universe and that everyone’s opinions and way of life should align with their own, and these pig-fuckers hide in plain sight with no visual warning. I always say that tattoos are only a big deal to people who don’t have them, people who have them realize how unimportant they are, they are merely pictures and words on skin nothing more and they change nothing about the person who is sporting them.

Art is not a crime, nor should it be. Yet to some narrow-minded people in this country wearing your art makes you a criminal. This 1930’s mentality is spread throughout all areas in England from; tattoos, drugs, religion, politics etc… and is keeping us in the dark ages. We wonder why this country is as messed up as it is when the majority of the last 3 generations of people all share the same views and opinions as the generation that came before them. This country seems to take 2 steps forward and 3 steps back, and I fear that this is not going to change anytime soon.

Perspective

I am 22 years old and last year I had a sort of reality check when some I knew died. They were the same age as me and without going into too much detail they died suddenly. Now we were not close in fact we hadn’t spoke in years, but it was a shock and made me think nonetheless. All the clichés of wasted life and much too young uncontrollably filled my thoughts. It was almost like a moment of clarity for me, if I felt indestructible before I now felt fragile. This person died in an accident which may make you think that from now on I’d be more cautious with a sense of “if it could happen to them then it could happen to me” but I didn’t feel like that, I felt that I needed to do more with my life as it could be over at any moment. This is probably the kind of thing I’d hear some else say and call bullshit, but its true. This whole thing had a touch of chaos-theory about it, something that should have been rather insignificant to my life ended up making me contemplate the way I live and even more the way I think.

It’s an odd one really as I often think how much this may of impacted me if this person and I had of stayed in touch and been friends. Who knows how crazy this would have made me then, I’d probably have become a vegan or a Buddhist and spent my days doing yoga and drinking kale smoothies. Instead I have a try everything sort of attitude, I want to try everything and do anything that pops into my head. I think this probably has something to do with my newest desire to want a motorcycle after all “it’s the things that you don’t do that you regret”. Errr that cliché left a horrible taste in my mouth, I’ll have to remember not to do that again. In fact looking back this whole thing is full of clichés, oh well it cannot be helped lets move on.

To be perfectly honest I’ve always had a sense of do what you want/do what makes you happy. I’ve certainly never done anything I haven’t liked/wanted to for long. But this event certainly backed that up for me. I believe that if you live like this you will be happy and get to where you want to go in life. aut viam inveniam aut faciam.

England, Idiots, Immigration, People & Politics - Surviving Over Living

Every man and woman has his or her own idea of “the right way to live life”. Most people I know work jobs they hate to be able to afford lives I wouldn’t thank you for, these same people put themselves on a pedestal, a sort of plateau for the high and mighty. They think that every view or opinion they have whether political or general lifestyle choice is gospel and if you think otherwise you are a buffoon, a lesser being, a good for nothing moron. They think that your life consists of huffing paint and trying not to eat your own shit.

Most of them are right wing loons who feel hard done to by the world, nay by their fellow human beings. They vote for politicians whose views align with their own, yet still complain about the choices made by them. They think that every person on benefits is abusing the welfare state, which makes them bitter. Their opinion is that these people don’t want to work and although this is true in some cases I don’t believe that it is necessary to tar every unemployed person with the same brush. These naive beings think that if every person in the country had a job the government would lower taxes instead of raising them when all they really do is line their own corrupt pockets no matter what.

The other major problem that divides this country (England) is immigration. After two world wars this small island was under populated to which we repopulated using people from Jamaica, India, and Pakistan among others. Since then we have been populated with eastern Europeans, Bangladeshi and hell anyone who wants to come here. At last check the percentage of foreign-born people living in the UK is 12% (based on 2011 census).

On the surface I would say that this is a good thing. It adds culture and that seems like a good thing to me. Unfortunately it’s not that simple as it rarely ever is. London is rife with none English speaking people, and the rest of the country is divided we have communities of people not integrated. How I wish black, white, brown, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Jedi, Scientologist or whatever else people may be, could live side by side and learn from each other instead of harboring hate for one another in some sort of segregated community reminiscent of America before the civil rights movement.

I have no solutions to this but I don’t think that ultra-rightwing political parties are the answer as they breed hate. These same parties see women as lesser beings and hate anyone who isn’t a white middle class middle manager at some bullshit company that rapes the world of good (or at the very least rips people off).

People are selfish and want what’s best for them regardless of what’s best for everyone. They care about their money and their house and their car and their life. If they want an extension on their house best believe they are voting for the party that will make it easier for that to happen regardless of if that’s the party most likely to go to war for no good reason. I mean who gives a fuck how many innocents die in the Middle East if you get to add another few square feet to your property to increase its value, hey?

These people are not living, they are surviving and believe me there is a difference. People who merely survive work 9 to 5’s or even worse shifts to afford the lives they have been brainwashed to think they want/need. They have kids, have the occasional drink but don’t do drugs. They look after their bodies, probably going the gym a couple of times a week so that they can be healthy, grow old with their families, and so that when they are incontinent and demented in the twilight years of their existences their kids can wipe their asses as they continue on the same surviving cycle as their parents before their kids have to do the same for them and so on and so on. Living on the other hand is being who you want to be, doing what you want to do and answering to nobody. To do a job not because of the amount of money you’ll make doing it nor for the ease of which the job can be done but because you want to do it, you enjoy doing it. Living is not being bound by laws created by another man, for other men. God, I sound like some sort of hippy-anarchist, time to wrap this one up. All I wanted to really say is do whatever suits you whether that’s working in a store, being a doctor or whatever else you may want to do, as long as it suits you that’s all that matters. Fuck the system.

Driving in England

England is a terrible place to drive, comparable only to Delhi’s free-for-all roads, a no holds barred battle of metal and rubber, bumper to bumper pollution with the odd elephant thrown in. Okay maybe it’s not that bad I mean the only elephants you see on the roads in England are behind the wheel, but it’s still a horrible experience nonetheless. I have nailed down the main culprits that make this so and will be exposing them, starting with old people.

I once saw an elderly woman in a small rust bucket car (that looked older than she did) pull straight onto a small roundabout without looking, resulting in her getting hit from the side she was meant to give way to. No contest, she was to fault and after being hit decided to try to reverse into me as I was in the car behind her and she blindly reversed leading me to have to beep my horn so she was aware of my vehicle. Another example of the incompetence of old people behind the wheel is the fact that they passed their driving test 50+years ago and expect the roads to be the same as they were then, which they are not. There are these stupid speed control things on the roads which mean you have to stop and give way to the oncoming traffic before going around these stupid road blocks on the wrong side of the road. The person who thought this up should be scalped and be made introduce himself to all of his neighbors whenever he moves house so they no what a fucking scum bag he is. Anyway as stupid as these things are you have to abide by them, which old people seem to have trouble doing simply following the car in front of them past the road block without looking before nearly hitting decent people in their automobiles head on, oblivious that they are the one in the wrong. Along with these offenses they are also repeat offenders of doing 30mph in a 60mph area and still braking going down to 20mph for corners. I really think that OAP’s should have to take their test again, maybe take one at 60 and every 5 years from then on to make sure that they are safe to be driving.

Another burden on the road are rich middle class women in 4x4’s who are more suited to be driving a Ford KA or even a Rover Metro. You see them on the roads from 8:45 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. when they are dropping their doomed children off at school and again at 3:00 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. when they are picking them back up. They drive anywhere between 2feet and 5feet from the edge of the road on tight country lanes and shit themselves when anything comes the other way as though they are expecting to be the only ones on the road. Even in these massive four-wheel-drives these women are so afraid of putting two wheels on the grass at the side of the road to let other vehicles pass, as though if they get mud on the car their husbands will stop buying them expensive things. The only reason these snobby women drive such big cars is status, showing that they are a wealthy woman or at they very lest are married to a wealthy man.

Motorway lane changers are also idiots swinging from lane to lane with no signal, very often in cars with foreign number plates. All I have to say about these bastards is stay as far away from them as possible otherwise they may end up dragging you into an accident that they’ve caused.

One of the most annoying things about driving is when your satnav decides to take you on a route that has massive road works which are common place in England (although you wouldn’t think it as the state of the roads is awful) or even better when there’s an event such as a parade or my personal ailment cycling races (but I’m not getting started on those road-hogging low-lives again).  I don’t see why roads should close for events, although if necessary they should only close on a Sunday not a Saturday when everyone is off work and runs errands. Thinking about it closing the road for a cycling race or a marathon is horseshit. That should never happen, these idiots should be made to run/ride around tracks or designated zones where no cars go, not through the middle of towns.

God, I’m getting angrier and angrier writing this. I may have to go and punch a cyclist.

I live in the countryside where the biggest criminals on the road are tractors doing 10mph (never pulling over even with a line of 10 cars queuing up behind them) and getting shit all over the road which they NEVER! Clean up. Anyone else who made a mess on the road like they do would be fined, but because they are dim farmers who have the intelligence of a down syndromed cat they get away with it.

I often hear people complaining about motorcycles on the road, but this does not bother me. Motorcycles come behind you and they’re gone before you know it even if there is 3 or 4 of them, much unlike their un-motorized brothers who are the cholesterol of the roads clogging it up before leading to more serious conditions like a stroke or heart attack. (Shit, I went off on one about bloody cyclists again, best wrap this up and move on to more idiots on 4 wheels.) I actually think that motorcycles are my favorite form of transport and I may have to get one myself, for the freedom and the fun of it.

Finally I’ll end with; taxi drivers, buses and their drivers and lorries and their drivers. This elite group of morons thinks that as they drive for a living they own the roads. I’ve had buses pull out in front of me on a round about when they should have given way, I’ve been cut up by taxi drivers in traffic for no good reason, I’ve nearly been tail ended at a red light by a lorry that had to swing into the opposing lane missing me by inches, nearly hitting pedestrians crossing the road and running the red light. What is wrong with these assholes that they think that they can get away with this shit? I mean the latter one is a biggy as he could have killed/injured several people at once while breaking the law. These drivers are the worst by far in fact I would gladly put up with the old people, soccer moms and tractors etc… to get rid of these pricks (and cyclists).

Now I know I said I’d end there but I think I should round this off, I mean after all, my big gripe is with the bullshit roads themselves. Narrow winding lanes, speed bumps, speed cameras, and speed control give way things. All of which cause congestion and are unnecessary.

Trash Daytime TV

I am currently between courses and between jobs. So when I’m not reading I tend to pick up on the bag of dog shit that is daytime TV. There’s one show in particular that is utter trash, without naming it directly, it’s the one with the silver fox and all the reality show rejects reading out the most mental of people’s tweets about the show. To think that there are people who sit there watching this shit and then want to join in by tweeting bullshit about it makes me realize that this generation is full blow fucked!

Anyway the last couple of times I’ve been unlucky enough to turn my TV on to this tripe, I’ve seen stories about a 30-year-old guy who has multiple girlfriends and in a massive twist to the story it turns out they are all 60+ women, some as old as 90. Sick fuck they branded him a “cougar chaser” which I suppose is less offensive as “pervert”. This guy was like the opposite of a pedophile, and I couldn’t help but sit there and wonder why the granny snatcher was the way he was and what he gets out of it? You know apart from all the hard candies and the fact that they’ve probably got a free bus pass so it doesn’t cost them anything to meet you. Thinking about it I think they were all American so I have no idea as to whether they would have free bus passes, but I’m guessing the hard candies things still the same.

Just when you think they’d sunk as low as low can be with trash TV. This morning I caught the end of what appeared to be a woman who collects these creepy dolls with china faces and that… wait for the major plot twist again… they all have the spirits of dead people living in them. I don’t know what to say apart from maybe this woman should be sectioned? I mean I guess she’s not harming anyone except the viewers many of whom probably felt dumber having watched this shit, which I know I certainly did.

Other stories I have caught in the past have been; a couple who think they’re vampires and drink human blood, “mmmm hepatitis” and a couple that drank their own piss, “mmmm asparagus”. How do ‘stories’ like these get put on TV? I mean can you imagine being the guy who choses what gets put on the show? “Now there’s a guy who eats food by shoving it up his ass or a woman who thinks her Labrador is the reincarnated spirit of Anne Frank, it’s a tough one but lets go with Anne Frank the Labrador”.

This show is so infuriatingly awful that I find myself having to watch it from time to time just to see what crazy ass holes they’ve rounded up. This said I do feel dumber every time I watch it and thus feel obligated to read a few chapters of a book directly after as a sort of mental redemption in the hope that there is no lasting damage, in fact I prescribe that for every ten minutes of this shit you watch, you read a chapter of a book, preferably something factual that is challenging and that you will learn something from and expand your mind.

KFC at closing time. Food waste, HS2 & Scottish Independence.

Last night after a night spent at a function and a day spent barely eating I was starving and decided at 10.45pm to call in at a KFC not too far from where I live. I assumed the Drive-Thru part of this place was closed as there were huge industrial bins blocking the entrance to it. So I pulled onto the nearly empty car park where the only other beings were a middle-aged man in a small white Vauxhall Corsa, who was fidgety as though he had lost something and a couple of teenagers in a shitty Peugeot 106 which sounded like it had a massive hole in the exhaust. Needless to say I took down my satnav (which had tried to take me down a closed road on my way home and then decided to take me on a ten minute detour so was not in my good books) and I headed inside.

On entering the “restaurant” I noticed that there was a small queue consisting of two drunk men, one of them was clearly Scottish and was reading the menu out-loud to himself, the other was from Manchester and was ordering his food while getting confused when the woman serving him was trying to explain that his order would be cheaper as a meal rather than as separate items. Eventually she gave up confusing him and just put his order through. The Scottish bloke was mumbling something about deep fried Mars bars before ordering. The Manc then turned to me “Do you work here?” “No” I replied before a few moments of silence. He then turned to me again “you know they throw all the already cooked stuff away, right? Into those big bins and they’ve got padlocks on so no one can steal it. Why don’t they just give it away for free? Or give it to a homeless shelter?” This drunkard lunatic had a point. I took a second to think and replied, “its stupid isn’t it? There are hungry people worldwide who are crying out for some MSG” (Monosodium glutamate, if you don’t know what it is look it up, its not good). He looked puzzled, he wasn’t sure if I was being sarcastic or not so I decided to jump back in with a less cocky response “Surely it wouldn’t hurt them to give it to homeless people. Wouldn’t cost them anything to do it, would it?” He nodded, realizing we were on the same page.

By this time the Scottish bloke and finally got through to the woman behind the counter, I felt sorry for her as I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying, it was though he was speaking some sort of foreign language with the odd English word chucked in. It was my time to order, which I did more elegantly than the drunks before me, I paid and all that was left for me to do was stand around with these drunks until our orders were complete. It never occurred to me at the time what a Jock (colloquial term for a man from Scotland not a teenage American boy who was into sports) and a Manc were doing in the middle of England on a Wednesday night but looking back it was sort of peculiar, I assume that they were here on some sort of work although in the current climate that in itself also seems a little odd as this area isn’t a hotspot for work.

The Manc who ordered first got his big bag of food and stood away from the till distracting a KFC employee who was trying to mop the floor, still going on about them wasting food while also trying to score freebees. The Scottish bloke then got his slightly smaller bag of food and was just waiting on his Coke, which he repeatedly harassed the woman who took his order about, but she was either ignoring him or didn’t understand a slurred word he was saying. “Ess’cuse me love? Wha aboot mee coke? Missy? Yee’d be a shite drug dealer, I jus want me coke.” My order then came as well as the drink I ordered while the woman then explained to the man that he never ordered a drink in the first place. I exited as he fumbled round in his pocket for some change to buy a coke.

I got in my car, checked my phone and started my engine. I pulled off and as I turned out of the car park I noticed the two men walking towards the town, I remember thinking they must have sprinted out of the store to be ahead of me. I then pulled up at a red light, I could see the two men in my rearview mirror walking along the path in the same direction in which I had just come. They seemed to be wondering the streets with no direction just enjoying what was a mild night while enjoying their genetically modified mutant fried chicken. Carefree full stomached fools of the night.

I drove off and all I could think about was the food waste from that particular KFC that night, damn drunk Manc got in my head. So I decided to look up KFC’s food waste policy and after a quick Google search I found a statement on their own website which read:

“We work hard to minimise the volume of food waste our restaurants generate and in 2014, some of our restaurants will pilot a food reuse scheme that safely distributes unused cooked food to local charities. We will work through the operational and health and safety hurdles of the pilot in partnership with Harvest, they have successfully helped us to implement similar schemes with KFC in the US and are also testing with KFC France. We will report progress in the next CSR update.

From January 2014, 80% of all food waste from back of house areas in Scotland will be recycled via Anaerobic Digestion. Our plan is to roll-out back of house food waste recycling to all other restaurants throughout 2014. We will report progress on this scheme in the next CSR update.

Food waste in Scotland

In line with the requirements of the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012, we will:

• Minimise food waste and exceed voluntary targets currently requiring that at least 70% is reused, recycled or composted, and none is sent to landfill. Our own target is at least 80%.
• Provide effective education and publicity about waste and recycling.

One requirement is to provide collection points in our restaurants for customers to dispose of food waste. We are currently trialling ways for customers to recycle rubbish, and the solution we choose will ensure the maximum amount of rubbish is recycled.”

http://kfc-csr.co.uk/environment/food-waste.html

Seems like Scotland have got something right, so if they can do this for some restaurants in England why not all? They are after all doing this in Scotland (80% of at least and I’m guessing there are some bits that aren’t fit for human consumption which I’m guessing is that other 20%).  Then it dawned on me the later part of that statement, The Scottish government have put regulations in place to stop unnecessary waste while the English government are busy planning a railway line from London to Manchester that will only benefit people going to/from London, Birmingham and Leeds. Which believe it or not there are trains that already do that on existing lines (just a little slower than the proposed HS2, and never mind that traveling across the country is a nightmare as the lines that used to run from east midlands to west midlands have been closed since I can remember, which if reopened would surely benefit the country and be cheaper than building a new unnecessary railway).

So props to Scotland in addressing another real life issue as they’ve previously done with university fees rather than the bullshit English government worrying about how fast yuppies can travel the length of the country. Jesus, no wonder they want to be independent.

Cyclists and Kurt Sutter

 

I think that all cyclists should be shot! Or at the very least pay road tax.

Most cyclists I see are elderly men most of them closet homosexuals who need to ride a bicycle in order to wear spandex without anybody questioning them, they really want to be wearing leather but they’re afraid of dying at 100mph on the motorcycle that they would have to ride in order to get away wearing it.

They ride side-by-side 3 a breast down roads like they are the only ones allowed to use it, oblivious of cars, vans or trucks wanting them to move out of the way instead of acting like a roadblock that crawls along a 4mph.

Putrid low lives, worse than heroine addicts sucking the life and soul out of humanity. I’ve seen loads of near misses caused by these idiots. On one occasion I saw a cyclist almost hit a car head-on as him and his 4 “bike buddies” were riding side by side along the road meaning one of them encroached on the opposite side of the road. Fucking idiots riding along chatting without a care in the world oblivious that they could cause an accident or even better a car could speed around one of the many country lanes I see them on killing them.

Yesterday I nearly got hit head-on by a van overtaking one of these assholes on a bend I swerved and he missed me. Now I know that was the fault of the moronic van driver who was presumably speeding round the cyclist in order to get to his next job as fast as he could so he could spend his whole day working really hard (either that or the idle bastard was rushing home on an unusually sunny Wednesday afternoon, where he could get pissed while his kids play in a paddling pool, before serving questionable meat off the BBQ).

The whole cycling things seems to have increased tenfold since we hosted the Olympics 2 years ago, which leads me to say, “fuck you, Chris Hoy!” fuck you for making every day driving in the sun miserable when it should be a pleasant experience cruising around listening to Country or Rock or whatever your poison and enjoying the weather all of this is not possible because of these two-wheeled go slow road hogs which God forbid I should knock off as I’d be the one in the wrong. There's your Olympic Legacy right there, morons clogging up the roads, yet all the kids are still fat and sat on their arses at home instead of outside playing real sports.

Scrolling aimlessly through Twitter the other night I came across a post by Kurt Sutter (@sutterink) the show runner of the amazing American TV show Sons Of Anarchy which for all you ignorant fucks who haven’t seen it is about a Hells Angles styled motorcycle club in California who are tied up in all sorts of crazy shit. The tweet read: “Why are cyclists such arrogant cunts? Hey, Mr. Lycra fancy pants, you’re on a fucking BICYCLE, get the fuck out of the middle of the road.” I couldn’t have put it better myself!

Luis Suarez Bites Again.

Luis Suarez decided to bite another player last night in Uruguay’s final group match against Italy at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

This is the third time that Suarez has bit another player; The first was Otman Bakkal a PSV Eindhoven player who was bitten in Suarez last ever match for Ajax in 2011, The second victim was Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic in 2013 and the third (and probably wont be the last) was Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini.

Suarez somehow thinks that it’s ok to bite people (a move that would presumably even get you kicked out of the UFC). I just wish this idiot would bite someone who would kick his ass. Where are Kevin Muscat or Vinnie Jones when you need them? They would have sorted this cocksucker out. I think our best bet would be for Luis Suarez to come up against Joey Barton (which will happen next season) hopefully Joey will do us all a favour and cripple this moron or at the very least knock his teeth out so that he cant so much bite people as gum them.

Enough of vigilante justice, what are FIFA going to do about this? The video is clear, he bites an opposition player the ref sees it and does nothing. Now don’t get me wrong Suarez is probably one of the best footballers in the world at the moment (that’s if you don’t take all the diving and biting in to consideration) but that doesn’t mean that FIFA should just slap him on the wrist with a 10 match ban and a fine as they did last time. I think they really need to pull their fingers out and do something this time! Lets face it what’s a £100,000 fine when that’s just half a weeks wages to him?

If we are using a U.S.A. law stance on this it should be 3 bites and you’re out! Too harsh to ban him from playing? I don’t think so. We are talking about a very talented human who decides to taint his own talent by acting like a complete idiot.

Fuck it. Hang him. Shoot out both his kneecaps and throw him to the lions show him what a real bite feels like.