If Primal Scream lived in Chiswick

Spoken section at the beginning of the Track : "Loaded"/Album : Screamdelica

"Just what is it that you want to do? "

"We want to be free! We want to be free to do what we want to do!
We want to be free to ride.
And we want to be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man.
And we want to get loaded.
And we want the District line to stop at Turham Green at peak times as well as late nights and early mornings.
And we want to have a good time!
And that’s what we’re gonna do.
We’re gonna have a good time.
We’re gonna have a party!"

If Star Wars was set in West London - Part Deux

The Death Star slowly moves behind the massive yellow surface of Yavin in the foreground, as many X-wing fighters flying in formation zoom toward us and out of the frame. Light from a distant sun creates an eerie atmospheric glow around a huge planet, Yavin. Rebel fighters flying in formation settle ominously in the foreground and very slowly pull away.



INT. RED LEADER STARSHIP - COCKPIT.Red Leader lowers his visor and adjusts his gun sights, looking to each side at his wing men.



RED LEADER : "All wings report in"



INT. ANOTHER COCKPIT.One of the Rebel fighters checks in through his mike.



RED TEN : " Red Ten standing by"



INT. BIGGS' COCKPIT.Biggs checks his fighter's controls, alert and ready for combat.



RED SEVEN (over Biggs' headset) " Red Seven standing by"



BIGGS : "Red Three standing by"



INT. PORKINS' COCKPIT. PORKINS : "Red Six standing by"



RED NINE (over headset) : "Sorry, I'm still stuck on the M4 just coming up to Heston services right now. The traffic's horrendous, but of course John Prescott's bloody bus lane is still empty. Why on earth they wasted all that money to set it up when all it does is create more traffic problems is beyond me!!"



INT. WEDGE'S FIGHTER - COCKPIT.WEDGE : "Red Two standing by"



INT. LUKE'S X-WING FIGHTER - COCKPIT.



RED ELEVEN(over headset) : "Red Eleven standing by"



LUKE : " Red Five standing by"



EXT. LUKE'S X-WING FIGHTER. Artoo-Detoo, in position outside of the fighter, turns his head from side to side and makes beeping sounds.



INT. RED LEADER'S FIGHTER - COCKPIT.RED LEADER : "Lock S-foils in attack position - and Red Nine, if you want to risk the cameras in the bus lane, its your call"



EXT. SPACE. The group of X-wing fighters move in formation toward the Death Star, unfolding the wings and locking them in the "X" position, with one fighter still missing from the formation.

If Star Wars was set in West London

A long time ago in a Galaxy just off the Chiswick roundabout...


INTERIOR OF REBEL BLOCKADE RUNNER - CORRIDOR

The evil Darth Vader stands amid the broken and twisted bodies of his foes. He grabs a wounded Rebel Officer by the neck as an Imperial Officer rushes up to the Dark Lord.

IMPERIAL OFFICER : "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer."

Vader squeezes the neck of the Rebel Officer, who struggles in vain.

VADER : "Where are those transmissions you intercepted? "

Vader lifts the Rebel off his feet by his throat.

VADER : "What have you done with those plans? "

REBEL OFFICER : "We intercepted no transmissions. Aaah....This is a consular ship. We're on a diplomatic mission. "

VADER : " If this is a consular ship...where is the Ambassador? "

The Rebel refuses to speak but eventually cries out as the Dark Lord begins to squeeze the officer's throat, creating a gruesome snapping and choking, until the soldier goes limp. Vader tosses the dead soldier against the wall and turns to his troops.

VADER : "Commander, tear this ship apart until you've found those plans and bring me the Ambassador. I want her alive! "

The stormtroopers scurry into the subhallways.

VADER : "And when you've found them, I know a really good Polish bloke you can call - get him in to re-plaster and re-decorate. He's very cheap and does a great job, much quicker and better than those decorators from the Alderbran System we used on the Death Star. Actually, while you are at it, ask him if his mate Stanislaw - Stan they call him - is free to do a bit of plumbing too. This ship is in a great location, but I really think the resale value would go up significantly if there was another toilet, and if that bathroom on Deck Three had a walk-in shower unit instead of a sunken bath - they are sooo 1980's now"

The commander nods, opens his mobile phone and starts to dial a Hammersmith number..

Welsh Hotel Plumbing

Welsh Hotel Plumbing leaves a little to be desired.

Unless the toilet overflow emptying straight into the bath is normal.....?

Citibank Branch in Delhi

I can't quite put my finger on why, but this is still just plain wrong. And in so many ways...

"Save The Planet" signs in Hotels

Everyone who travels for business or pleasure will be familiar with the gratingly insincere "we want to save the planet so please don't ask us to spend money on washing your towels every day" signs in hotel bathrooms.

However this one from a Las Vegas Hotel I found particularly crass.

Maybe someone should point out to them that the reason Nevada and the South West United States are experiencing extreme drought conditions is because the region where these hotels have been built is actually a f--king desert, and has been for the last several thousand years.

So to experience "extreme drought conditions" should hardly be a great surprise, should it...

BBC Reporter misses a trick

Listing the prospective candidates for the vacant England manager's job, the BBC reporters say this about Italian Marcello Lippi

Lippi masterminded Italy's World Cup win in 2006 and has been a towering presence in Italian club football with Juventus.

But unlike Capello, the 59-year-old says that the language barrier would be a problem.

He says: "I love the Premier League but I don't speak English.

"Considering the way I see and experience football this is a big handicap, because a coach above all guides players and my primary concern is the squad."

Sounds like his English is pretty good to me.....

British Culture

Yet again an international trip brings me a free newspaper, which bangs on about the tidal wave of immigrants flooding the country.

This time its the dilution of British cuture they are concerned about.

Yes, all those old fashioned values such as not being afraid of hard work, having respect for ones family, being a regular church goer, being polite, well spoken and using good grammar, and having a couple too many beers and then driving home - are all being exhibited by immigrants all over the UK right now in a way not seen in England since the halcyon days of the 1950's. In fact many towns and villages have all the appearance of an episode of "Heartbeat" with Slavic cheekbones and a large amount of freshly-plastered walls in every scene...

Good job the native Brits have adopted loutish, slovenley alcopop-fuelled, drunken swearword-laden ranting whilst sitting comatose in front of banal reality TV game shows so enthusiastically - or there's be no counterbalance to keep British Culture firmly where it belongs...

Rising Obseity levels in Britain

Alongside Global Warming giving us all longer drier summers (and floods) and a tidal wave of hard-working, good looking contentious religious-observing East European immigrants, Britain is also "suffering" from a real problem - rising obesity.

However the general conclusion seems not to be that people are getting fatter because they are eating more (how crazy an idea is that????), but that our 20th Century Western lifestyle is fundamentally inimical to maintaining healthy fitness and body-weight levels. And for the health of the nation, things need to change and we all need to live a different lifestyle.

Or, put simply, people aren't working in fields or factories all day, so they need to go to the gym regularly instead.

Now, I'm a member of my local gym, and its very nice. Modern machines, lots of personal trainers on hand to advise, it has a nice bar and restaurant attached, lots of flat-screen TVs that you can watch whilst cycling or jogging on a treadmill. But looking around, it seems to be failing in its mission to help Britain not become a nation of fatties - because everyone in it looks to be slim, fit and healthy !

So, despite all the ingredients being there, something seems to be not working, as fat people aren't going to the gym. I've been giving it some thought, and as coercion and threats don't seem to work, a more customer-centric approach might be worth trying.

How about for starters, moving the bar and restaurant INSIDE the gym itself? Clearly fat people like food and drink, so making it a lot more convenient for them to get hold of whilst they are there would make spending time the gym more appealing.

And the exercise bikes and treadmills could be moved aside and replaced by the front seats of cars, as again obese people are more likely to take a car to the shops rather than cycle or walk - its all about making it more appealing to the fatties.

Immigration in the UK and its effect on schools

Two apparently contradictory facts:

1. Most of the immigrants to the UK are harder working, more contientous and more motivated by success than the indigenous population.

2. Standards in UK schools are slipping under the weight of a landslide of immigrants.

OK - so partly this could just be me reading the Guardian one day, and the Mail the next. But it does seem inconsistent that the type of people who would up sticks and relocate their entire family half way across Europe - or the world - and be prepared to work all the hours in the day, all for the chance of a better life would then sit idly by as their kids throw away this potential life-changing advantage by skiving off lessons and not doing their homework.

So, whats causing the decline in school standards?

Maybe its just that there are increasing numbers of children with foreign names that don't translate and simply sound so funny in English that today's teachers never actually get to the end of each reading of the register without the entire class dissolving into fits of hysterical sniggering and outright laughter?