"Fresh outrage over 'heads I win, tails you lose' banker bonuses"

Before I bore the pants off of you talking about our break to Barcelona I felt compelled to share this with you from today's London Evening Standard...

"Cuomo found that banks bailed out by the US government to the tune of £175 billion still paid 4793 bankers and brokers more than $1 million each last year in bonuses.

When the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well. And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by the taxpayer and their employees were still paid well"

"At Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase, bonus payments exceeded income. The three firms combined earned $9.6 billion, paid bonuses of nearly $18 billion, and received taxpayer funding of $25 billion..." and so it goes on.

I want to vomit

Rant over.

Post Office

I had the expensive task last Saturday of having to buy a new tax disc for our car. As the insurance was only just renewing I couldn't do it online and as we are off to Barcelona for the week I wanted to sort it out.

Firstly I went to our local PO and waited in the queue for a few minutes before being served. "Nope... we don't do car tax here - you have to go to the Post Office in the town centre" Okay off I go to the town centre. Get to the PO and the queue is right up to the entrance. There must have been about 3o people or so in line and 4 desks (out of 10 or so) in operation. I reckon the Post Office must employ the slowest people they can find... I'm not kidding if they went any slower they would be going backwards. It was UNBELIEVABLE! With warped fascination I stood there watching them. One halfwit girl actually stopped. Dawdled over to pour a cup of water and dawdled back again... then sat there fiddling with something on her desk before ever so slowly reaching up to press the button which gives the automated announcement "Next customer to position 4" or some such command.

What equally hacks me off is that you can't pay by credit card for a tax disc if you buy it from the Post Office (DVLA instructions apparently - another completely f*cking waste of space organisation) you can only use a credit card if you order it by phone or online... and then you cop a fee of £2.50. I'd like to see shops or other business' try that one on!

Rant over.

That's it for now... we are off to Barcelona so there will be a temporary suspension of Ranting but fear not. I'll be back!

The Proposal

Every now and again I have to go along with what N wants to see at the cinema, which is fair enough because I do see all the films I like.

The Proposal falls into the above category so I will give it a go at reviewing it. First of all who the f*ck is Ryan Reynolds? I guess he is one of these pretty boy tossers who proliferate on my favourite TV channel E!... Oh good grief N has just informed me he is married to the equally objectionable Scarlett Johansson!! Anyway the film revolves around Sandra Bullock who is the bitch from hell boss who to save her skin as she is about to be deported from the US (she is Canadian) blackmails her assistant (Reynold's) into marrying her. Anyway to carry out the deception they fly off to see his family in Alaska and after the usual fish out of water scenarios they inevitably fall in love for real and the story naturally comes out. It all ends happily.

Actually in fairness it's not too bad and Bullock outclasses everyone else in it. This is definitely a chick flick so if you're going to see it then make sure you take your wife/girlfriend.

Rating: 5/10

Barcelona - The Itinerary

Being very organised, N has worked out what we are doing in advance on our city break to Barcelona...

Monday

Leave home at 9:15am – to get the 9:45 bus to the airport. Arrive at airport at 11:55.
Flight leaves 14:50 – Terminal 3.
Arrives in Barcelona at 17:55 – Terminal B.
Make our way to the hotel – preferably by taxi.
Freshen up and go into the town centre – La Rambla – Metro – Catalunya – L6 and L7.

Tuesday

Open topped bus. Depart Pl de Catalunya – Metro – Catalunya – L6 and L7.
Get off and see sights.
Come back into town for dinner.
Wednesday
Any sights that the bus did not cover or we didn’t have time to see.
Visit the beach – Train to Premia or El Masnou from the Placa de Catalunya or Estacio de Sants.

Thursday

Shopping – Passeig de Gracia
Metro – Passeig de Gracia – L4

Friday
Depart for the airport after breakfast.
Flight leaves at 13:25 – Terminal B
Arrives in London at 14:40 – Terminal 3

Points I don't like are:

1) Taxi from airport to hotel... There is a perfectly good bus service!
2) Shopping on Thursday... Sounds like spending money!!

Yet another rubbish advert...

What is the point of the latest Barclays advert? A really ugly bloke gets onto a waterslide and slides all the way from work to home. En route he uses his "contactless" debit card (or whatever it is) to pay for things. Truly meaningless drivel. When you come to think of it what is the point of a "contactless" debit card? What does it do away with? It just means you don't slot the card into a machine... and also doesn't that mean someone can clone your card easier?... and as for that bloke - He is UGLY!

Rant over.

The Wrestler

One of the best scenes in this superb film is where Randy "The Ram" is signing autographs along with some other retired wrestlers and looks around the room and notices how broken down they all are. I loved this film - you really feel for Randy but it never becomes over sentimental. The fight scenes are brutal and it certainly looks like Rourke is doing all his own stunts. The bout where they use the staple gun and other implements particularly made me wince. His relationship with his daughter and the stripper (who he takes a shine to) are explored well and what is unusual is that everything ends on a downer (sorry to spoil things!)

I totally 100% recommend this film.

Rating: 9/10

The Big Lunch?

Needless to say there is no "Big Lunch" down our road... our neighbours (the one's with the troll-like offspring) would be the last people on Earth I would want to have lunch with. Sitting around a table with "Baldy" in his bloody shorts - I couldn't think of anything worse!

Rant over.

Chicago's Sears Tower is renamed

"The Sears Tower in Chicago - one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world - is being renamed.
The 110-storey structure, which opened in 1973, is being rechristened the Willis Tower on Thursday.
London-based insurance brokerage Willis Group Holdings has secured the naming rights as part of an agreement to lease space.
But the name change has angered some protesters, who have launched a website called www.itsthesearstower.com."-- BBC News website.

What an absolutely retarded idea that is. Let's take a world famous building and call it something else because some bloody tedious insurance company is renting some of it. Tossers.

Rant over.

We Choose The Moon

Check out this website... it is following the Apollo 11 mission in real time!

http://wechoosethemoon.org/

Celebrity Masterchef

I watched two or three episodes of this years Celebrity Masterchef the programme that (thankfully) dumped the idiotically voiced Loyd Grossman. The food does look great and I'm not criticising one iota the skill of the contestants but it does make me laugh (as with all these "z" rated celebrity shows) at how desperate these non-entities are to kick start their flagging careers. Who the hell is Jayne Middlemiss you have to ask yourself? I vaguely remember her introducing a few nondescript programmes but that is about it. In fact if you check her out on Wikipedia you can see how her career has slowly gone down the toilet. Bugger all from 2006 onwards... until of course winning Celebrity Masterchef. When it came to announcing the winner the look of elation on her face was incredible. Not for winning the competition (after all who gives a f*ck) but for the fact her sh*t career may have been resurrected!

One other thing... I checked out the two prats that do the judging and amazingly the bald headed one... Gregg Wallace - is not even a chef. His background is selling vegetables. No cooking, doesn't own a restaurant. Nothing. Sorry mate why are you judging this programme? Go boil your bald head... dickbrain

Rant over.

Public Enemies

I really enjoyed Public Enemies. All the actors give excellent performances especially Johnny Depp who portrays the charismatic John Dillinger who of course was branded Public Enemy No 1 by J Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI.

The film is shot ultra-realistically as if you are watching real footage of the real events and the various shoot outs are chaotic and not cinematic in the way stylised shoot outs are filmed in other films (if that makes sense?)

There is a great scene near the end where Dillinger accidentally wanders into the FBI office that is investigating him and he takes a look around finally finishing up by asking a group of agents who are listening to a baseball match on the radio what the score is. They reply back without realising who he is.

I would heartily recommend seeing Public Enemies.

Rating: 8/10

Lord Adonis

This bloke keeps popping up now and again on the news. Most recently about the East Coast Railway Line returning to public ownership because of National Express f*cking it up. Anyway I can't think of more inappropriate surname (real name Andreas Adonis - his family are Greek).

Wikipedia's definition of Adonis is "His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths" - Not in this case then!

Rant over.

"Chef Ramsay sees profits dive 90%"

I detest Gordon Ramsay... he is an obnoxious, arrogant dickhead and the article below (taken from MSN) astounds me as being news worthy...

.

Profits at Gordon Ramsay's UK restaurants have plunged nearly 90% in a "turbulent" year in which the celebrity chef was forced to pump his own money into the business.
Ramsay's latest company accounts show that the restaurant empire came close to the brink as revenues collapsed while debt and tax bills mounted up.
The precarious situation caused the TV chef and his father-in-law and business partner Chris Hutcheson to inject the business with £5 million.
Ramsay's business problems were blamed on ambitious expansion as well as the closure of key London restaurants like the Savoy as pre-tax profits tumbled from £3.05 million in 2007 to £383,325.
The Savoy Grill was shut because of refurbishment at its host hotel, while the Connaught lease expired. The two restaurants alone accounted for a £9.5 million reduction in revenues.
A statement from the firm said that, after a restructuring of operations, it was confident the group had "successfully undergone change for the better" and was now "well-placed to grow its operation with a more stable capital base and a more manageable overall structure".

.

Hang on a minute... he is still making a profit? Only a tenth of what he made a couple of years back. "Came to the brink" eh? He still made a PROFIT... how can that mean he was on the brink of going under. Total and utter shite. Do I feel sorry for him? NO I DON'T.

.

Rant over.

Another annoying advert...

I've posted previous rants about price comparison websites... the parasitic way they leech off of companies that actually do something. However what I wanted to say this time was how I intensely dislike the advert for "gocompare.com". The irritating music for one - which has been dredged from some crap seventies sitcom and the idiot with the bandy legs who steps across the graphics on the screen, leans from side to side taking in the "5 star rating". Aaaarggghh!! I would dearly like to stamp on his head or kick him the crotch and make him even more bandy legged.

Rant over.