Criminal Masterminds At Work

It seems that a collection of the world's stupidest people have attempted to defraud the Bank of England to the tune of £28bn ($64bn). I say "attempted", to be honest, a child could have made a better attempt.

Basically, there used to be a £1000 bank note in the UK, but it was withdrawn in 1943 and the location of all bar 63 of them are known to the Bank. Apart from the "avalanche" that these super criminals decided to forge. Badly. And the £500,000 note they decided to completely make up. Badly.

Armed with all these completely fake notes they went to the Bank and asked them to deliver on the promise to "pay the bearer on demand". Now, if I'd been the Bank I would have asked if they wanted paying in £113 notes or $4.99 coins before telling them to fuck off out my bank, but the Bank of England played the long game and decided to press charges so the rest of us could have a laugh too.

Remember kids, while the $2 bill is real, the £1k note was real, there's nothing worth more than £50 in legal UK currency.

Mucky Pup Quiz Night

Just a quick posting to say that tomorrow night (Wednesday 24th October) I will be the quiz master at the Mucky Pup. Nick and Debs are both unavailable for the evening and they've left the event in my less than capable hands.

So come along and laugh as I probably give the answers out along with the questions and then try to pretend it was a multiple choice question anyway.

You Fat Bastard! You Fat Bastard!

Ah, happy days listening to "Sheriff Fatman" by Carter USM. And a chant quite often sang directly at me when I was DJing. Although seeing the size of some people on the streets these days, I don't feel quite as fat as I once did. It's almost like I was ahead of the game and society has not only caught up with me, but is racing ahead.

There's recently been a report suggesting being fat is "not the fault of the individual" but was an inevitable consequence of a society in which energy-dense and cheap foods, labour-saving devices, motorised transport and sedentary work were rife. Being thin, it surmised, was a "surprise".

So you can imagine my own surprise when the Nanny^W Government decided to issue reports to any parent whose child was overweight. Because you know what'll happen next, parents will be fined. For something that's apparently not their fault. Although really, it is.

Now, I can see that the over-feeding/under-exercising of children by their parents can be tantamount to a form of child abuse. I'm not sure that fining the parents - who are probably on the lowest income and education levels and truly believe a McDonald's Children's Meal represents a nutritionally balanced value-for-money diet - is actually the way forward.

More can be achieved - in my opinion - by the introduction of free school meals, as has been muted for Scotland. Obviously they would need to be force fed to some of the kids, and I'm sure some of the parents would still try to pass bags of chips through the fence, but for me, that's the way forward.

Kids go to school - in theory anyway - to learn things. If learning what to eat in order to not get obese doesn't happen at home, then surely it should be taught in school? I'm not one for shoving more responsibilities onto teachers - I think parents should be the ones teaching moral guidance etc, but frankly take a look around you, it ain't going to happen - but bring back compulsory Home Economics lessons!

Fuck Me Again!

Unbelievably, Newcastle managed to beat a decidedly out of sorts Spurs side last night. The first half was, on the whole, rubbish, and Michael Owen was - apart from one shot which the keeper did well to tip round the post - totally anonymous all game. So much so that I did wonder if I'd missed a substitution.

Defensively we looked alright - apart from Habib Beye who did his usual wandering - and Emre looked good in the midfield alongside Butt. One thing, surely if we're at home against a bottom three side, you can at least play both the wingers we have at once? Milner (who scored Newcastle's 500th Premiership goal at St James's Park) having come on for N'Zogbia at half-time. Not entirely sure about playing Geremi on the wing.

Still, a win's a win and we're currently sat just a point behind Chelsea with a game in hand.

Well Fuck Me!

According to some research today, swearing in the workplace can actually remove stress.

As I work in a place where swearing is actually encouraged - and recommended by management - I can heartily fucking agree.

Unfortunately, in the US a woman has been charged with swearing in her own house. As ever, the Register provides the information - despite the obvious lack of a technology angle.

Two Things That Make Me Question Law

If anyone was sick of my football ranting recently, welcome to IT ranting instead. Just read two separate stories and they've both infuriated and confused me.

First up, from Slashdot, Jennifer Pariser, the Head of Litigation at Sony BMG says (in the current Thomas v RIAA trial) that copying music from a CD you have bought to use on another device - like an iPod - is illegal and should be considered theft.

Yes, you read that right, if you rip a CD that you own to your hard-drive or wherever, you have committed a crime in her eyes. Thanks Jennifer, you've made millions of people criminals and brought down the barriers a lot of people had from downloading music illegally - they wanted to stay within the law, but you've decided they're law breakers anyway. Good work. You fucking moron.

Secondly, from The Register, a story about a guy who was importing Genuine Microsoft software from the US and re-selling it in Europe for less than Microsoft was. So Microsoft took him to court and he's been fined for parallel importing and selling at a lower cost than Microsoft were.

Now, I'm guessing he was still making a profit from doing this - otherwise what's the point of doing it? And if he was able to make a profit at the lower price, then just how fixed is the Microsoft official price? Here's a clue. On amazon.com the price of Vista is $320, on amazon.co.uk it's £320. Yet the current exchange rate is $2.04 : £1.

What the fuck is going on here? Who exactly are the criminals in these cases?

Led Zeppelin Tickets

According to the website people who have got tickets for the O2 Arena gig are supposed to have been told by today. I'm guessing from the lack of an email that I've not been chosen.

Anyone on here got tickets? I'm personally not bothered one way or another, but if anyone does have one, I know a Serbian guy who would pay SERIOUS money for a ticket.

Ta.

Dear Sam Allardyce

Please fuck off back to Bolton for the following reasons.

1. 4-3-3 will not work when you play three defensive midfielders in the middle of the park away from home, it ends up being 4-5-1. 4-5-1 is not particularly effective going forward, unless there's some threat through the middle and decent delivery from the wings.

2. Stop changing back to 4-4-2 when we go a goal down. Start with 4-4-2 and then, when we go a goal up, consider changing to the much more defensive 4-5-1 by all means, but don't do it the other way around. It's obvious and desperate and the opposition can sit back and defend it easier.

3. Try a tactic that doesn't involve lumping the ball up the middle of the park. It was dull when you were at Bolton (with limited resources, apparently) and it's even more dull now.

4. Try playing players in their natural positions. I know it's a revolutionary idea, but N'Zogbia is a left winger so try playing him there from the start of a game. This, combined with 2 & 3 may actually allow for some crosses going into the box from the wing and not from the half way line.

5. Give post-match interviews to the BBC. I know you don't like the fact they showed you in the Panorama investigation, but seeing as our previous assistant manager was sacked for a much smaller role, you're lucky to be here, so speak to them. I don't want to have to pay Sky to hear what you think you've done.