My day in a confessional box

I popped into the newsagents to get some chocolate and stood behind a priest.  He was saying to the shopkeeper how he needed somebody to help him whilst he repaired one of the windows that vandals had recently smashed.

Being an atheist, yet appreciative of the value of buildings looking in good repair, I interrupted and said I'd be glad to help.

I followed him to his church, and he showed me to the confessional box.

He wanted me to take confessions whilst he worked on the window.  I protested and said I thought he meant help physically repair the window.

He was very apologetic, but said that he was a fully trained glazier and wanted to do the job on his own, as it was a specific skill and quite risky, whereas taking confessions needed no skill-set and besides, all the penances were written up on the wall inside.

So, I thought, "Why not?" and sat apprehensively in the confessional booth.

It wasn't long before I had my first customer.

"Forgive me Father for I have sinned," came the voice. "I have recently had impure thoughts about my wife's sister."

I studied the list, carefully looking up and down it until I found 'impure thoughts', and read what it said out loud, "That's three Hail Mary's my son."

To my surprise and relief, it worked, the first customer left a happy man.

Next customer hit me with a "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I recently stole a man's wallet."

Again I carefully scanned the list and found 'theft of money', and like a professional barked out, "That's two Hail Mary's and one Lord's Prayer my son."

I was getting good at this and confidently carried on for the next hour or so, until a customer said, "Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I recently got oral sex from a young boy."

I scanned the list up and down and couldn't find anything about oral sex with young boys.  I checked it again and again.  Nothing was written about it at all.  So, I sneaked out of the confessional box and called up to the priest who was working on the window, "What do you give for oral sex with a young boy?"

He instantly replied, "A couple of packets of crisps and a can of coke usually does the trick."

Breath-test car start

I recently laughed out loud at some drunk and drugged driver who killed herself by, well, being drunk and drugged and unable to control her car (here).  Luckily for the innocents she could have maimed or killed, she only killed herself and her willing passenger first.  Good riddance.

Just now I noticed that Professor David Nutt from the Independent Scientific Committee On Drugs recently proposed that all cars be fitted with a breathalyser and wired in such a way that they refuse to start if alcohol is detected.

This is a brilliant idea.

It does need to include a detection of drugs as well, since there are a lot of drug users who don't drink.  But, if it could reliably stop the huge number of innocent people maimed forever or killed each year by these vermin then it would be worth the inconvenience that normal car drivers might have to suffer in order to get their cars to start.

Nearly 10,000 people a year in the UK alone are the victims of the drunk and/or drugged vermin.  Hey, didn't we have a far more panicked outcry about pandemic-flu that ended up not actually hurting all that many at all? Yes we did.  Yet 10,000 people a year, every year, are hurt by the epidemic of drink and/or drugged driving scum.

Of the 10,000 victims of these selfish drunk and/or drugged drivers, over 250 died last year, and over 1,200 were given life changing injuries.  Now, I'm perfectly happy if it's the drivers themselves, ideally with them being part of the death statistic rather than still being alive and able to cause further misery or be a drain on our National Health Service, but I feel so sorry for the innocent victims.  People who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and were harmed by a selfish drunk/drugged driver unable to control the lethal machine they were 'driving'.

So, as I say, if every time I get in a car and start it up I'm asked to do a breath test, I'm happy with that.  It's only the scum that drunk and/or drugged drive that will object.

The next thing we need to do is work out how to stop the tossers that are only using one hand to drive because the other is texting or holding their phone.  Ah, yes, maybe actually enforcing the law might help!

Wear a boot on your head for man-made global warming

So, in Chicago they've just had the Seventh Annual International Climate Change Conference.  This event is a somewhat sceptical event, drawing together those who are looking for empirical evidence that man has any contribution to global warming and climate change.

Being sceptical means of course that the majority of the speakers and audience are generally not part of the highly funded eco-loonies who push the global warming meme as part of their indoctrination attempt in order to help build the New World Order to control us.

One highly funded group called "Face the Facts" did the best it could, but only managed to bring 30 'protesters' to make a noise outside the conference.  These are people who at all costs want us to believe that the world is warming and evil mankind is to blame.

Participants from the conference headed onto the street to try to engage the protesters in debate.  They were having none of it.  Not even the bearded guy wearing a boot on his head.

It's amazing to realise that really and truly the whole 'belief' in man-made global warming/climate change is now down to these remaining, er, 'ambassadors' now.  Most normal, rational people finally know it's all been a very expensive load of bollocks, and the planet is not warming but cooling anyway.  Humans aren't to blame for that, either, and the truth is seriously messing the eco-loonies heads up.  Take a look at them... 

How old we were 20 years ago on Euronet

Well then.  If you read my previous missive about Euronet, the radio station THEY wouldn't allow to party (here), you'll have noted that I didn't have a recording of the non-party in question.  Thanks to some kind Welsh bloke, this has now changed.  I've been driving around listening to all 8 hours.

What were we thinking?

Actually, the 'links' (the talking bits) were almost all brilliant and subtle, and built the 'story' really well.

But.

The music?

What were we thinking?

Ok, we were a bunch of lads with, in 1992 (twenty years ago), ages ranging from 28 to 38, I'd guess.  So, why our obsession with old records?

The random 'playlist' is all over the place.  One moment it's a bunch of 1950s rock'n'roll, next it's 1960s Motown, or 1970s rock.  There doesn't seem to be anything from, er, 1992.  Or 1991.  Or 1990.  Or 1989... Yep, 'music died' in the early 1980s, it seemed.  And, worst sin of all, all the songs are the bleedin' obvious ones.  Cutting edge?  Pah!  Who the feck would be listening?  Well, only other anoraks, obviously!

Using today's measuring stick, people over 35 are at the beginning of the age range catered for by Radio 2.  They are a very long way from being part of the demographic of Radio 1, and just about on the cusp of leaving the Capital Radio demographic.

You know, I don't think we realised how 'old' we had become.  Musically, Euronet, at least on this non-party day, was Radio 2 with a chill pill.  This really surprised me.  Gulp.  Maybe we were a bit more modern at other times. I hope so.

The other thing that I noticed was a lot of segues (playing records back to back).  Segues?  I loathe segues!  Why so many segues?  Maybe we needed them in order to pad out the 'story', but, double gulp, segues?  Segues?  I hang my head in shame.

It's fascinating to think that this non-party broadcast took place twenty years ago.  Let's examine what was around then.  Or, what wasn't.

So, there was no internet, no broadband.  There were no computers in the studio.  These days everything runs from a playout program, most of which include 'count down' aids to ensure the presenter knows exactly when the 'vocals' will start.  In 1992, we were playing music from a selection of gramophone records and CDs (probably about 50-50), with no 'count down' aids to assist us not 'crash' the vocals as we 'deejayed' up to them.  Yes, in those days it was a skill you had to learn by 'feeling' the song and being part of it.

It's a sad fact that as technology has advanced creativity has declined.  You'd think that with computer playout systems, fast assisted editing and all mod cons to help, radio creativity would be, well, just 'out there'.  Where's today's Kenny Everett, eh?

In the Euronet studio we had record decks, CD players, DAT players (whatever happened to the DAT format?!!), cassette players, 'cart' players (a professional version of the old 8-track player, with large 'carts' with a loop of tape inside that will start playing 'instantly' and then stop where it's ready to play again), a telephone 'balance' unit to take calls to air, and a couple of microphones.  We recorded everything onto a video tape running at low speed such that a 4 hour VHS tape will happily hold 8 hours.  And that was all we had in those days.  Heh, to us it was cutting edge!

As I said, these were the days before the internet as we know it.  People used the phone, or wrote letters. Mobile phones were around, but only a minority had one, and there were no texts.  Hey, it was a life before Facebook, Twitter, Google, and all the social networking we take as a given these days.  And yet it was only 20 years ago. There was no Virgin Radio (now called Absolute Radio), no Talk Radio (now called talkSport), no Heart, and Classic FM was only three months old.  John Major (who?) was our Prime Minister, and Princess Diana was still alive.

In 1992, when we broadcast our non-party, none of us would have dreamt that 20 years later I'd be able to drive around with my mobile phone streaming 'through the air' the entire broadcast from my (Google) 'cloud' storage hooked up to the speakers of the car music system.  Or indeed, that I'd be able to listen to any radio station from anywhere on the planet, come to that.

In conclusion, once again, thanks to everybody who spent a small part of their life being a part of mine by coming and playing with Euronet.  It was interesting hearing the voices again.  Via obsessively stalking most of them on Facebook, I know where nearly all are now, and it's interesting seeing what unfolded in their lives in those very fast 20 years since we were all together in our studio above a curtain shop in Hoxton, North London.

Those were the radio days, eh...!

Driving drunk and drugged

At 6 in the morning on New Year's Day, 19 year old Sasha Jarvis was driving herself and her mate Sian Lloyd Davies in her car when it hit a wall in Snowdonia, spun and hit other walls, smashing itself to pieces, killing both girls.

Ha ha ha. Serve them bloody well right!

Well, ok, maybe Davies was innocent, being the passenger, but she was knowingly being driven dangerously, and contributed to her own death.

(Luckily, nobody innocent was harmed)

Jarvis was not only travelling 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, but had drunk so much that she was more than three times over the limit, and would have been considerably drunk.  On top of this she had consumed well over the toxic levels of cocaine, which, combined with the alcohol, would have meant she was completely over-confident and so driving drunk and drugged.

When she unlawfully killed Davies, neither of the girls would have had much of an idea of what was going on anyway, both being so comfortably numb.

So, as I say, whilst this might be tragic for their families and friends, good riddance.  The only thing I am thankful for, well, apart from the fact that one more dangerous and extremely selfish driver is off the road, is that no innocent people were hurt.

Jarvis could have killed somebody who was innocently driving or walking along.  Happily she didn't.  Yet, so often these scum do.  Luckily, the only victim she managed was voluntarily taking the chance with her life by being sat next to her stoner mate.

We have to cut the crap of offering sympathy and feeling sorry or calling this kind of thing a 'tragic death'.  We would have a different attitude to a person who decided to load a gun, put a blindfold on and then randomly shoot it into crowds in a shopping mall. It's that attitude we should have towards all drunk and drugged drivers, dead or alive, including this one.

19 White Dogs

Yep. 19 white dogs. Count them. Honest. 19...

The madness of today's shame and dishonour system

I recall working with a rather nice lady in her early 30s.  To protect her from being identified I'm going to slightly lie about where she came from, and I'm going to change her name.  Let's call her Abida, and pretend she was from a rather remote area of Pakistan.

The rest of this story is true.

When she was 12 she was forced into a marriage to a gentleman from a neighbouring village to her own. She was removed from her family and all she had known, and was kept under virtual house arrest in the home of her husband's parents with him. By the time she was 14 she was pregnant. By the time she was 15 she had already repeatedly suffered broken ribs, black eyes, head injuries, and had a permanently stooped back owing to the injuries her husband had inflicted upon her.  She can recall no real reason for him doing this to her, as she spent most of her life in fear and trying to please him in order to avoid the next beating.

At the age of 17 she managed to run away, taking her son with her.  She was rescued in a manner that we don't need to cover, and she ended up in London, England.  In the UK she lived in a very Western way. She mainly forgot her religious upbringing, and wore modest European clothing.  She educated herself and built a new life.  She made contact with her family back home, and also tried to divorce her husband.  This he refused, although he wanted nothing to do with her or their son.  Indeed, he had since remarried a number of times (more than one concurrent wife is perfectly fine; they are after all nothing more than property, like having more than one pair of shoes).

Eventually, Abida found love. A kind and gentle man with a different cultural background to hers moved in with her and they lived ... well, not quite happily ever after.

Don't get me wrong, they were and are very happy together.  They've been together for many years now. However, they live in a state of absolute secrecy and public denial.

The guy has all his stuff permanently in suitcases, and they have a well rehearsed plan to 'disappear' him from their house and into a hotel at a moments notice.  Her son knows he has to pretend that he lives alone with his mother.  They've had to evoke this disappearing plan on three occasions when distant family have visited Abida and her son.

Now, you might be thinking they have this plan ready because they are a bunch of social security scroungers worried about losing benefits.  However, both have extremely well paid jobs and have always worked, and her son is sitting A levels hoping to go on to University.  They are very respectable people.

But, here's the problem.  With her husband refusing divorce she cannot marry the new guy, under local 'laws' back from where she came.  Yes, she could legally do it over here, but over there it wouldn't be accepted as a true divorce.  Currently she is living with a man to whom she is not married and that is forbidden.

Now, you and I might say, "So fecking what?  She lives here, not over there in a backward village, and she can do whatever she wants to do, it's a free country."  And, yes, we'd be right.  Except for the fact that there'd be consequences for her family.

You see, what she's currently doing brings shame onto her family.  It brings shame onto her village.  If anybody was to get wind of her situation back in Pakistan, her family (parents, grandparents, siblings) living back where she came from would have to be 'cast out' by the rest of the village, in order to ensure the whole village wasn't rejected by the elders controlling the area.

Now, you have to understand what this 'casting out' means.  It means that nobody can talk to you.  You cannot buy or get food.  You cannot work with others, you have no means of getting an income, and you literally starve to death, or kill yourselves to show remorse.

This is what will happen to her extended family if it ever becomes known that she is living with a man to whom she is not married.

Strangely, the facts that she lives as a Westernised woman, doesn't cover herself or dress in traditional ways, doesn't go to mosque or pray, drinks alcohol and does all the 'evil' stuff that the rest of us do, doesn't seem to bring with it the potential for her family to be rejected in their village.

The fact that she lives with a man that she chose because she loves him brings shame and dishonour.  It doesn't bring with it a punishment for her.  It brings with it a punishment for those related to her.

How can this primitive and barbaric way of life be allowed to continue in this modern day and age?  Surely these people have to be educated away from all their mumbo jumbo and totally insane mentality that seem based solely on bullying, revenge and punishment.