Farewell, Furious Gopher

After several years of mayhem and destruction, Furious Gopher met his demise this morning at 4.23am.

The exact details of his passing are still being pieced together, but authorities are telling us that he died protecting a new-born kitten from wolf attack.

RIP Furious Gopher

Britain is Fucked

I’ve been watching this series recently on BBC iPlayer called “World’s Strictest Parents.”

I generally avoid watching television programmes altogether (I don’t even have a working TV) and always steer clear of that dreaded superlative:

“World’s Wildest Police Chases”

“100 Fattest Children”

“Britain’s Deadliest Hedgehogs” –the list goes on.

But in this instance, the programme is pretty good.

Two unruly British teenagers from two different families (who spoil them rotten and have no discipline) are sent every week to live with another strict, traditional family in a foreign country. Invariably they arrive and are shocked by the “strict” routine of their new parents. (–Is forbidding alcohol to under-18s “strict”? How about refusing to allow sluttish/debauched behaviour?)

The programme should actually be called either “World’s Most Disgusting Teenagers” or “Britain: World’s Shittest and Least Civilised Country”, because the programme isn’t about strictness, per se, but more about how badly most children are raised in the UK. The overwhelming message of the programme is that if you give your children lots of expensive stuff, establish low expectations of them and allow them to behave like wankers/sluts/knobends then you’re probably in for a rough time.

Every family in WSP, without exception, has been loving, encouraging and proud of their children. In every instance the teenagers have left humbled and changed (though the BBC probably achieves this deliberately by engaging in a degree of editing, or even scripting, of the programme for the purposes of that dreadful expression: Good TV) and with a healthier life view.

Grotty British teens have been shipped off to Alabama, Ghana, Jamaica and India so far. The parents in these places have been strict, sure, but they’ve also been good parents. For my part, I couldn’t get through a week with most of these kids without flipping out and mangling their limbs in a lawnmower, so credit to them.

What’s really impressive is how good the schools have been, particularly in Jamaica and India. The teachers are inspiring and human; their lessons are not patronizing and more reminiscent of University lectures than classrooms in the UK. There’s an overall air of warmth and dignity in these schools and I find myself being rather envious when I watch this show that I didn’t have the opportunity to go to one of them myself.

Ultimately, Britain is fucked. That’s the message I get, not just watching World’s Strictest Parents, but just walking around the streets of this island, looking at them in their jewellery and their makeup and their “I don’t give a fuck” attitude and their belly-fat and all the other telltale signs of a failing race.

I gazed with admiration and awe at the diligence and intelligence of the Indian kids, hard at work in their school (well dressed, respectful, attentive, articulate) and thought to myself that it’s no wonder that country’s booming at the moment and surely they deserve a shot at the kind of wealth we’ve had in the UK (and taken for granted) for over a century? They deserve it, man.

The really sad thing is that some of the British teens sent overseas appear to have real potential, but they’ve been let down by their own society, families and educational establishments. I don’t see it getting better, either. I think in 100 years time we’ll all be sliding around in the mud with too many mouths to feed and zero literacy whilst the Indians and Chinese rule the world.

And I say: let them do it, I’m convinced they’d do a better job than we, The West, ever did. And the "World's Strictest Parents" is just another reminder in an ever-increasing list of quite how badly we fucked up.

FG

The Geek Files

I'm not envious of the office receptionist, not really anyway.

I have always thought of a car as a means of getting from point A to point B and very little else. I've been through three cars since I passed my test (1 write-off, 1 head gasket and one complete engine, clutch and gearbox meltdown) so I'm a little jaded -you never really own a car, you just "hire" it until it's too expensive to repair and then you move onto the next one. That's my philosophy anyway.

I tend to feel smug and superior in the company of people who go on and on and on about their vehicles like they're the only thing worth living for: for me life is too short and money too tight to "invest" in expensive automobiles.

So I drive a three-door Ford Fiesta 1.3l. Not unlike this one:

My bro describes it as "the little red roadster", which is kind of cute. The car has virtually no pulling power, but I'm of the school of thought that if you have to pull with your car then you've probably got quite a small cock, so I'm not all that concerned about the dweebiness of my car just as I am quite comfortable with my masculinity. The Fiesta is bright red and has 41k miles on the clock. Should last a few years and it's easy to maintain, so what the fuck?

Still, the 19-year-old receptionist ("Baby Wookie" to us) drives an Audi TT, which whilst being slightly gay, is definitely a bitchin' ride. this confuses me: I might not earn a lot, but I know it's more than a receptionist -so what's going on there? not that I care. Honestly.

So where am I going with this? Well, I'd like to discuss all the cool shit I've decked out my ride with. A humble car it may be, but I've definitely made it my own. Here's how: First up, I have a bumper sticker:

This is Cornwall after all, we like our pirates. I got the sticker in Penzance; and whilst being extremely funny it also serves as a safety device; warning drivers behind me of what I'm likely to do should I see any saucy wenches.

Next up, I have a badass roof-rack, for getting my surf kayak from beach to beach and river to river. It's completely awesome and rock solid. Occasionally a passenger of mine might stand up too quickly when exiting the vehicle and get clipped round the head with it, but otherwise it's completely rocking.

My kayak almost matches my Little Red Roadster in colour and, weirdly, in shape.

Blasting around the country lanes with that rig is, in my devestatingly educated opinion, far more awesome than prancing about in an Audi TT.


Next up we have all the wicked shit I use on the road.

I have a Hewlitt Packard SatNav, which is robust and simple. I don't like to rely on it (any more) so I also have an up-to-date AA road map with me at all times. Everyone should know how to use a map, but every now and then (driving in central London or any large city you don't know so well) a SatNav can be really handy. Maps are good at telling you where you should go, SatNavs are good at telling you exactly where you already are.

I have an old-school MP3 player, which holds 40GB of my music at any given time, and also stores album art (and other pictures) and plays videos. It's chunky, like a little black brick, and I attach it to my dashboard with a Velcro pad.

The input for charging my MP3 player is exactly the same as the input for my SatNav, which is probably the most useful thing to have ever happened, anywhere, to anyone ever. Long journeys when the SatNav is fully charged, I swap the charger to the MP3 player and I have perpeptual music and navigation. Sweet.

The MP3 player plugs into my extremely humble sound system via either an FM transmitter or a tape-deck converter, depending on my mood and the availability of fully-charged AAA batteries.

Next up: my power system. I became enraged when my cigarette-lighter power output cable broke (well, the fuse went) so I decided to think laterally and invested in a Belkin "AC Anywhere" 300W power inverter, which I'm planning to fit with straps in the passenger foot well, like a fusebox. The device means I can charge my laptop, phone or MP3 player/SatNav with their standard three-pin chargers without ever worrying about those pesky in-car adapters. Awesome.

So that's my tech stuff pretty much covered, but there's plenty of other stuff I always have in my car, just in case:

1.) I keep an oil rag wedged between the air filter pipes under my hood. This means I always have something to wipe off the dipstick with when checking my oil. This might sound obvious to most people, but it's extremely handy and many thanks to "the G-Man" for teaching me that.

2.) I always have my Exponent Bivvy-Tent in my boot, because you never know. It's smaller than a sleeping bag when rolled up, only has one sheet and got be put up in the pouring rain in about 6 minutes without the inside getting wet.

3.) My French army surplus sleeping bag rarely leaves my boot. It has a plastic sheet stiched to the underside, which not only keeps you dry when sleeping in it, but also means you can store stuff inside it when it's rolled up, with no risk of water damage. A must at £20.

4.) Two slingshots and several thousand 9.5mm and 6mm ball bearings.


5.) A spear gun, snorkel and fins. When travelling I take my wetsuit & wetsuit gloves with me too. Just in case.

6.) My fishing bag, complete with two rods (three-piece spinner, 9-piece fly) as well as a filleting knife, flies, lures, lines and tackle.

7.) A 20l water canteen, mainly for the windscreen wipers and the radiator, but also for emergencies.

8.) A big bag full of ropes, straps and ties so I can always fix stuff to the roof of the car. Also good for bundling firewood.

9.) Two dry-bags (canoeing class) to ensure I can transport stuff safely in wet conditions. Also handy for putting wet clothes inside after use.

10.) A rugby ball and boots. And a frisbee.

11.) A good book.

12.) Cigarette lighters and newspaper.


13.) Neoprene wellies.

14.) A lightweight waterproof jacket.


15.) A complete change of clothes and several extra warm layers.

And that about does it.

So Baby Wookie can take her TT and shove it.

FG

How To Make A Shit Film and Antagonise People

At school, when things went wrong our teachers would claim it was "a small minority of troublemakers ruining it for the rest of us."

I get that feeling from time to time in adult life, be it the whole nine-eleven thing (now I can't take nail scissors with me in my wash bag. Thanks guys.) or bad drivers, rogue traders and inconsiderate surf kayakers -that last one might be a touch on the esoteric side, granted; but you take my point, right? It's all about a few arseholes ruining everyone else's fun.

It's the same in the film industry. When you consider the amount of labour, time and money required to put a movie together and then get it into cinemas so the great unwashed can go and see them; it's a miracle anything sub-standard ever comes out at all. I always used to think going to see a film at the cinema was a pretty safe bet. -Avoid the bullshit, by all means, but with the right actors, studio and budget it's bound to be watchable; yeah?

So it's baffling when a film like "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" is allowed to be written, cast, filmed, edited and aired.

The film is like having a fat, hairy Greek man urinate onto your head for an hour and a half, pausing now and then to molest your immediate family and kill kittens with a hammer. Don't be fooled by the cast: just because a film has Simon Pegg, Gillian Anderson, Kirsten Dunst and Jeff Bridges in it doesn't mean it will be any good.

HLFAP should have been good: (Jeff played Lebowski, after all; and Shaun of the Dead was frickin marvellous) but it was so consistently, offensively, shockingly awful that there were moments as I sat squirming in my stained and odourous cinema seat that I thought it was all some kind of big joke at my expense and at any moment the lights would come up and a TV crew would appear, telling me I'd "been had".

No such luck.

I'm not going to bother reviewing this leaking sack of pig spunk; it simply doesn't deserve the effort. What I will say is this: of all the hundreds of people involved in making it (I know who you are: you're in the final credits -arguably the best part of the whole fucking abortion you dare the call a "film") why didn't one of you stand up and say: "Wait a minute guys, isn't this just shit?"

I mean, come on.

The whole cinema experience was, for me, comparable to the feeling you get at the end of a busy day of root-canal surgery, prostate exams and scrotal-hair removal. Painful, humiliating, expensive and distressing.

I got the times wrong, you see (we wanted to go and see Taken but arrived 40 minutes early) and rather than hang around with the ugly, inbred, stinking zombie-locals drooling on the garish cinema carpeting we thought we'd take a gamble and go and see Simon Pegg and Jeff Bridges doing something funny. But before we'd even had the chance to realise the enormity of this mistake, things started going very wrong.

I tried to buy a hot-dog, but the machine was broken. How a hot-dog machine can be "broken" I don't know, but broken it was. So instead I made the near-fatal error of buying some "nachos" -a humble pile of fairly stale, Doritos knock-offs in a flimsy plastic container like a prison-food receptacle, but of poorer quality and design, accompanied by two of the most repulsive, un-refrigerated, synthetic "dips" I have ever had the tremendous misfortune to evacuate from my body at high-speed mere hours later. This, for about £5 per head.

It took forever to get served and the sight of the acne-covered, sweaty, slack-jawed vagrant dishing up our "food" was enough to make my already apprehensive stomach churn and bubble like the putrid pus in the centre of that vile teenager's many zits.

There were about 7 such wasters behind the food counter; engaging in some kind of ritual which involved a lot of nose/arse/groin-picking and staring vacantly into space. I am usually fascinated by the habits of primitive cultures, but being so close to these specimens was more frightening than educating and my spider-sense was acting up, so I grudgingly parted with £10 of my earth pounds and turned my back on them, taking the "nachos" with me.

“Maybe this is just the world we now inhabit.” I thought to myself, five minutes into one of the worst pieces of cinema I have ever seen. “Maybe I turned my back for a few minutes and suddenly everything, everywhere was just shit.”

As this thought crossed my mind I heard a (presumably) severly retarded young man laughing very loudly at an appaulingly written and delivered gag before predicting (incorrectly) in a loud voice what he thought was going to happen next.

The good thing about HLFAP is that it gives you a lot of time to think about other things and ponder the decline of our species. As such, I spent the majority of the film, when I wasn't exhaling loudly or squirming in my seat, trying to work out the five worst films I have ever seen at the cinema.

Here goes:

1.) "Hearts in Atlantis" -Allegedly a Stephen King story, which should be sufficient warning for most people aiming to avoid a dreadful film, this garbage features child actors (who are almost always annoying) and around 2 hours of incredibly poor dialogue. And absolutely no plot. Nothing happens.

2.) "G.I. Jane" -Demi Moore is always awful; which makes her the most consistent actress in Hollywood, and you've got to respect her for that. I was about 15 when I saw this in the cinema and spent the entire film making out with my rather homely Polish girlfriend; which although basically a bit unpleasant was significantly better than GI Jane.

3.) "America's Sweethearts". It's a sad day in any young man's life when he realises that John Cusack is a stink-machine. His droopy face, limited acting ability and single facial expression, however, are the best parts of this film. Simply ghastly. I would literally rather crawl inside a long-dead sheep on a hot day with Noel Edmunds in a thong than watch this again.

4.) "Troy." -Dude.

5.) "Alexander." -There mere thought of Alexander makes me gag like someone's opened an out-of-date, sun-warmed can of sardines in peri-peri sauce under my nose on the morning of a severe hangover. Because Colin Farrel can't do accents, they decided to make everyone in Greece Irish. They show one battle, than skip through all the others using a kind of "flashforward" narrative device, then flashback for the final battle, by which time I had left the cinema and was arguing with the swamp-donkey at the box office about why she/it should give me my money back.

What was your worst cinema experience? Maybe you could email me the name of the film and how it made you feel: admin@gophuramungus.com and we can compile the definitive list of stinkers.

Adios.

FG

Knock-off Nigel

There's an advertising campaign in the UK which has been on for a while which aims to deter people from downloading films illegally. The idea is to shame people into buying DVDs, not downloading films from the internet. The adverts feature a song with the refrain:

"He's a knock-off Nigel, downloads knock-off films..." (It doesn't rhyme.)

And also mentions things like: "gave his girlfriend a watch that he found in the street".

I take exception to this advertisement on a number of levels and would like to point out one or two truths about a "knock-off Nigel" who I know quite well:

1.) He's a knock-off Nigel, he feels that if a film has already aired on public television, people may tape it (VCR) record it (DVD recorder) or digitally store it (Sky+ etc.) -everybody does this. Are these people Knock-off Nigels too? If not, then what's the difference between what they do and downloading it on P2P software?

2.) He's a Knock-off Nigel and he thinks that Hollywood is making quite enough money through the box office already (not to mention merchandise, product placement etc.) and it's criminal to expect everybody to pay for every film, especially since many of them are so very, very shit. I hate to do it, but there have been a number of times in my life when I have walked out of a film in the cinema before it finished. Did I get my money back? Did I fuck. Make better films, maybe more people will pay for them (I BOUGHT "No Country For Old Men" last week, for example).

3.) He's a Knock-Off Nigel and he always has a look in the "reduced" section of his local supermarket when he goes shopping. ALL products there are within their sell-by date (it's the law) and are 100% edible. Are you telling me it's better to buy a carton of smoothie for £2.99 which goes out of date next week than to buy one for 50p which you have to drink by (horror of horrors) tomorrow? Fuck off. Being sensible about what you choose to spend your money on (and how much you choose to spend) should be commended. This kind of "shame advertising" is despicable and highlights just how vile our consumer-driven (failing) capitalist society really is.

4.) He's a Knock-Off Nigel, he earns £6300 LESS annually than the average salary in the UK. This is despite three seperate (high-grade) FE/HE qualifications, which in themselves cost a significant amount in student loan repayments every year. This Knock-Off Nigel doesn't even own a TV (well, he has one, but refuses to pay the TV License, so he's manually ripped all the aerials out of his flat and frequantly responds to letters from the license people with the words: "bring it on". I digress.) You're going to tell this guy how to spend his money? He pays for his broadband connection, doesn't he? He pays for electricity, he bought all of his hardware. He pays income tax, road tax, VAT -you wanna bleed him dry? Go fuck yourself. And yo momma.

In conclusion: "Don't be a Knock-Off Nigel"? How about a little campaign to the people responsible for this drivel: "Don't be a cunt".

ENDS

Summer's coming to an end. The old couple in the house with the big garden have swapped their pruning shears for rakes, the air is chilly in the evenings and the tourists have left; they have strapped their surfboards to their roof-racks and hit the road.

This little town is more or less dependent on surfing to support itself. For five months of the year the place is dead: just locals drinking too much. Such are the winters here.

As a child who spent several formative years in a tropical climate, British winters can be tough, so it's with a sense of disappointment that I put my sandals and Hawaiian shirts back into the cupboard in exchange for proper shoes and a musty-smelling coat. Did I make the most of the sunshine? Are my solar banks adequately recharged? Can I last till the spring?

A friend of mine threw a party last night; a celebration of the end of the season. There was a maquee and some bands and lots of familiar local faces milling around, but an air of depression saturated everything. So I drank too much and walked home in the dark and was sufficiently inebriated to purchase an end-of-the-night giant doner kebab from the vile and depraved Peruvian meat kiosk in my high street, which has made me violently ill all day.

Farewell, sweet Summer. You've been the only reason I have stayed in a job I hate for so long and now that the days are getting shorter at both ends it's time to consider what's next.

Any suggestions? Visit the forums on www.gophuramungus.com and share your thoughts.

FG

Livepages

My (already tenuous) grasp on reality is slipping a bit and I'm finding some of my aliases coming to life. For example, I've been emailing the webhosts of Gophuramungus because some of their software isn't working. Here's what I wrote:



Enquiry: Hey man, I'm still having problems with my livepages and nobody's been back in touch yet so I'm like freaking out. I get to the "publish site" section and I get a "general error" at the "create wbesite" stage. Am I signed in wrong or something? I mean, I got gophuramungus.com AND gophuramungus.net -which one should I be logging in as? Am I putting the right password in? I thought I was, it all worked fine until recently, you dig? Help a brother out man, I could do with making some ch-ch-ch-changes on the site. "Furious Gopher"

----

Dear Mr "Gopher", Thank you for your enquiry from 17.09.2008 After looking at your Live Pages I have seen that the error code E4 appears. The E4 error code means that one of your links within your website is broken and needs to be repaired before the website can be published. What I would recommend to do is check all your links within your website before publishing the site again. I hope this solves your question and would like to wish you a very nice day.

-----

Enquiry: hi guys, I hope things are going well with you and stuff. I'm all like, fully confused about some of the Livepages features. I'd really like a forum which allows users to have avatars, you know what I'm sayin'? I'd also really like a live chat facility on the site. Is this the kind of stuff I might be able to get if I upgrade my Livepages? I'm a pretty rubbish coder so I like the way Livepages does all the work for me and shit, you dig? Thanks for your time, Peace out. Furious Gopher

-----

Dear Mr "Gopher", thank you for your enquiry from 19.09.2008 I will recommend a content management system using a database to install the data. Livepages does not support the use of external html or scripts and it will not be possible to use avatars and chat. Please have a look at the very cms which suites what you wish to do, it includes a photo gallery, content management system, forum and you can add a shout box for chat on line: LINK REMOVED I recommend an upgrade of your current package to any other package which includes a database.

Thank you for contacting our customer services, and do not hesitate to contact us again, if you require any
further information.

With kind regards from Berlin

------
Enquiry: OK, so I've redone the site in livepages, yeah? And I've got it down to 14 pages, ready to publish. But when I actually click "publish" it tells me I have 26 pages and that I have to upgrade to continue. So I go back to check how many pages there are in the "outline" section, right? And guess what? I only have 14. Please help me! It's messing with my head man.


FG
----

Dear Mr. Gopher,

Thank you for your enquiry from 23.09.2008

In this case, I have to write a ticket. It could have something to do with the outdated project saved, but I am not sure. Your ticket number is NUMBER REMOVED. As soon as I get a response I will let you know. As for now, consider it a "bug". Thank you for your patience. With kind regards from Berlin

---

Enquiry: Hi there! I have done as you said and "considered it a bug" but considering it as a bug does not appear to have fixed the issue thus far. I have also made a new backup copy of the project as it now exists, in that hope that this would overwrite the old project and reset the number of pages we have (we have 14) but this hasn't helped either. It's actually not that urgent, but there is some new content we'd like to get up there for our increasing volume of "followers" so whenever it's fixed an email my way would be, well, it would be just terrific. Thanks for your ongoing support. Could you tell me a little about what an updated Livepages package would entitle us to? Many thanks once again, I hope you have a truly fantastic day. Rocking.

FG
---

Dear Mr. "Gopher", Thank you for your enquiry from 24.09.2008 We are still looking into the bug. As soon as we have a response we will inform you. The upgrade to a "higher" Livepages account will just enable you to create more than 26 pages. That's all. Thank you for your patience. With kind regards from Berlin