Otter Zen

Zen 1120: Dude rides old lady vintage bike like a BOSS

2012-02-14T20:39:00.000Z

Like the title says.

Zen 1119: The creepiest cover for a children's book, EVER

2012-02-13T17:46:00.002Z

Creepier, even, than the paedotastic original cover to the unsettling Blyton story called 'Hello, Mr Twiddle'.

Zen 1118: 'Sound the alarm! You're going to be uncomfortably energetic...'

2012-02-13T13:46:00.002Z

This drink is real. I shit you not.

Via Keyboard

Zen 1117: Some observations on running from a non-runner

2012-02-10T19:57:00.001Z

I've generally made a habit of not running unless chased by something bigger and scarier than me, so imagine my surprise when I signed up for the London Marathon.

I am no Kenyan. By common reckoning, I'm approximately 30kgs too heavy for anything over six miles. Leastways, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

It's only recently that what I laughingly call my training schedule has taken me into relatively onerous distances - 10, 12 and 14 miles. It's only when you conquer a few of these landmarks you feel you're not 'jogging' but 'running'. Jogging is for amateurs. Running is for serious people in close-fitting synthetic fabrics. I know, I've bought some, and now the good burghers of Surrey and Belfast know what a rhinoceros looks like in Lycra.

So, now I'm a runner, I feel qualified to make a few broad observations about the runner's art.

1) Running hurts. You get blisters, muscle aches, abrasions, frostbite and bad skin. You need to love the hurt. You need to be kinky for it, or you might as well give up before you start.

2) Running is good for thinking, right up to the point where it hurts so much you can't think anymore. The less observant imagine that the cessation of thinking means their woes have been resolved. This is a useful illusion. Your brain has simply shut down and devoted itself totally to pain management.

3) If you are sick, tired, dehydrated, lame, wounded or bereft, run. These are all important ways to maximise the pain you crave.

4) If you have demons, run with them. A malignant imaginary father-figure berating you every step of your route for being a worthless quitter and worm is the greatest motivating factor known to man. Wars have been won and mountains conquered by lesser forces. Don't fight your demons, feed them.

5) Sponsorship is hard to come by these days. The runner with the sponsorship form is like an amiable leper in modern society. Smile and nod, but move quickly on. Even if he is only doing it because lifeboats are cool.

These are the things I have learned about running. I will share more when I have it.

Zen 1116: Next time you feel beaten, like it's all too much, watch this...

2012-02-09T23:55:00.000Z

... and revise your opinion.

Zen 1115: Boy Assad hacked by Anonymous because his password was '1,2,3,4,5'

2012-02-08T22:27:00.002Z

When the shadowy hacking collective Anonymous went calling on squinty, bungling Pink Panther gendarme lookalike Bashar 'Boy' Assad, they found the murderous little prick's email ludicrously easy to compromise because his password was '1,2,3,4,5', which, as any fule kno, is the password of dribbling fucking idiots.

Turns out he wasn't the only one and Anonymous was able to turn out the contents of 80-ish government inboxes, detailing amongst other things what a colossal bunch of evil shits run Syria.

And while we're on that subject, well done Russia and China. If your veto wasn't a licence for cold-blooded murder, what's with all the cold-blooded murder, eh? Wankers.

Apologies for the intermittent service on Otter Zen recently

2012-02-08T16:58:00.001Z

For some of you it will have been a blessed relief, but for those who can't go a day without some inane footage of a cat falling from a high building, an obscure music video, a curiously diverting art/extreme sports film, some geeky banter from the frontiers of the web or an unprovoked rant about something that probably doesn't bother you in the slightest, I'd like to apologise for the recent slump in posts on Otter Zen.

Three reasons. First, I'm working 14 hour days at the moment. Second, I'm training for the London Marathon, so when I'm not working, I'm running. Third, I've been trying to get an anti-harassment injunction through the civil courts and that shit takes time.

I know what you're thinking.

Zen 1115: Die Antwoord turn the freaky up to eleven, then rip the knob off and mate with your stereo

2012-02-02T13:37:00.003Z

Die Antwoord are one of those bands (?) whose music doesn't really make sense without the videos. Put another way - music: meh; videos: deeply unsettling but weirdly compelling. To say they have a unique visual style is like saying Ted Bundy had a way with women. Watch and be appalled. You might like it.

Zen 1114: Fox News declares war on 'cesspool' Netherlands - and loses

2012-02-02T12:42:00.000Z

For those of you not familiar with Bill O'Reilly, he's a right-wing 'commentator' on Fox News, by which I mean he's a knee-jerk blabbermouth endowed with the political sophistication of a peevish toddler and the IQ of algae. This pointless wooden-top recently got all hot under the collar about the 'permissive' Netherlands, which provoked a succinct and elegant rebuttal from Dutch YouTube user maxwezendonk.

O'Reilly couldn't leave it there and attempted to rebut the rebuttal, but only succeeded in revealing to the world that he's too intellectually challenged to cope with O-level maths.

Zen 1113: Data Pool 3 a.k.a. the massive payload of clusterf*ck that may take down The Sun

2012-02-01T19:04:00.001Z

So what could be worse than the police crawling all over every private investigator you've ever hired and said private investigators joyfully spilling their guts, thereby revealing your verminous practice of hacking the phones of murdered children and dead soldiers?

Rupert Murdoch works on his soap grip

Being an object of pleasure for every sadistic shower bull in Wandsworth prison possibly?

This is the fate that may or may not await News International executives after forensic computer geeks restored a 'missing' cache of NI emails - millions of them - dating back more than 10 years. It's called Data Pool 3 and it was deleted. But as we know, in the crazy binary world of the computer, nothing is ever really deleted completely. And now the police have found it.

The pool is so vast, it defies human analysis. The slow business of trawling through it will be the task of some muscular algorithmic programming, which isn't exactly the stuff of Hollywood thrillers unless you think of it in terms of the horrors this Mount Everest of News International filth is concealing and what will happen to the bastards responsible.

The delicious irony is that nobody knows what's in it. But I think we can all begin to guess, given the cavalcade of jaw-dropping WTF?!?! that was the phone hacking scandal. But that's not (necessarily) the reason NI execs should be panicking about becoming the prime ride in the South London Ass Rodeo.

The more pressing reason is that they may have ordered the deletion of the emails after the police and the courts requested them to retain all documentation. If such a thing were to have happened, it would be seriously and massively illegal, and would incur significant custodial sentences.

And it may not be only The Sun that's affected. Sister titles The Times and Sunday Times are dangerously close to the fire. It might just be that this snowballing scandal ends up taking more than just the tatty old News of the Screws down with it.

Zen 1112: Mmmmmmmm. Boobies.

2012-02-01T12:51:00.000Z

Rip off your own arm and walk away. A real man would.

This is the natural history equivalent of being rickrolled.

Zen 1111: Dude 'bungee' jumps into rocky river valley using climbing ropes

2012-01-30T10:25:00.000Z

I think it helps that this guy probably has the IQ of a housebrick. Mentalist.

Zen 1110: For anyone who's ever seen Jeb Corliss's 'Grinding the Crack'...

2012-01-30T10:08:00.000Z

This will make you LOL, ROFL and possibly choke on your triple-shot decaff soy latte frappaccino. (Zen 1043: Grinding the crack [LINK])

Zen 1109: Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration!?!

2012-01-27T00:13:00.000Z

This is stupid, but it made me laugh.

Zen 1108: TV quiz show appearance of a man who witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

2012-01-27T00:05:00.000Z

The last living eyewitness to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Samuel J Seymour, makes an appearance on a hokey 1950s game show called 'I've Got A Secret'. When I say 'eyewitness', I mean he was five and actually saw John Wilkes Booth jump from Lincoln's box at the Ford Theatre, but that's close enough for jazz. And Old Sam scored himself some sweet prizes too. Yessiree.

Zen 1107: You know, it's just some dogs, like, rocking out

2012-01-26T20:29:00.000Z

You see this and you think, it must be fucking brilliant being a dog. Except for the short life span. And getting your balls cut off.

Zen 1106: Rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling in the deep

2012-01-19T19:18:00.000Z

Adele covered. Some massacres, but generally pretty damn good. None, though, quite up there with the original.

Zen 1105: Dope Zebra

2012-01-19T19:10:00.002Z

Dope Zebra is dope. Bet you watch it more than once.

Zen 1104: Dogs bark the Imperial March from Star Wars

2012-01-19T17:56:00.000Z

I only post this because it has a Vizsla. And because it's about Star Wars. And because they have a whippet dressed as an AT-AT.

The wookie is rubbish though. We've got a much better one at home.

Zen 1103: This is a post from Reddit entitled 'Best. Wedding. Ever.'

2012-01-19T17:37:00.000Z

Judge for yourself.

Zen 1102: Khan Academy explains why SOPA and PIPA will allow morons to kill your Internet

2012-01-19T08:31:00.001Z

The Khan Academy is excellent. Here, it does an outstanding job of explaining why you'd have to be a fucking idiot to support SOPA or PIPA and how it will kill the Internet if it somehow becomes law.

Zen 1101: What SOPA is and why you should hate it with every fibre of your being

2012-01-18T10:33:00.002Z

You may well have seen a bit of stuff on SOPA knocking about over the last few days and asked yourself: "Why should I give it shit? It's a piece of American legislation. I live a long way away from America. It cannot harm me or my Internet."

If you think this, you are wrong.

In summary, SOPA allows bloated American corporations run by cryptofascists like Rupert Murdoch to throw hand grenades at the Internet until it's in pieces small enough to flush.

What it effectively does is shift responsibility for copyright enforcement from law enforcement to websites and service providers, while extending the power of US law enforcement to attack non-compliers' right to exist in a number of wicked ways, wherever in the world they may be. Effectively, it extends a global licence to doughnut chomping knuckleheads to bully and censor on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

If passed, SOPA could be used to shut down many of the sites that define the Internet today. So if you fancy a world without, say, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and Google, where your opinions are copyright controlled by Fox News and Walt Disney and the only fun you can have has to be officially sanctioned by Sony, then here is a good place to start.

For the full list of the companies you should boycott for supporting SOPA, have a look at this list. See it as a sort of rollcall of fuck you.

Zen 1100: Transcript of the coastguard bollocking the captain of the Costa Concordia and telling him to get back on board

2012-01-17T23:29:00.001Z

Truly astonishing. This is an Associated Press translation of the conversation between Captain Francesco Schettino, commander of the Costa Concordia, and Captain Gregorio De Falco of the Italian coast guard. De Falco comes out if it well. Schettino sounds like a disgraceful little bitch. But don't let me colour your perception.

———

De Falco: "This is De Falco speaking from Livorno. Am I speaking with the commander?"

Schettino: "Yes. Good evening, Commander De Falco."

De Falco: "Please tell me your name."

Schettino: “I'm Commander Schettino, commander."

De Falco: "Schettino? Listen, Schettino. There are people trapped on board. Now you go with your boat under the prow on the starboard side. There is a pilot ladder. You will climb that ladder and go on board. You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear? I'm recording this conversation, Schettino…"

Schettino: "Commander, let me tell you one thing…"

De Falco: "Speak up! Put your hand in front of the microphone and speak more loudly, is that clear?"

Schettino: "In this moment, the boat is tipping…"

De Falco: "I understand that, listen, there are people that are coming down the pilot ladder of the prow. You go up that pilot ladder, get on that ship and tell me how many people are still on board. And what they need. Is that clear? You need to tell me if there are children, women or people in need of assistance. And tell me the exact number of each of these categories. Is that clear? Listen, Schettino, that you saved yourself from the sea, but I am going to … I'm going to make sure you get in trouble. … I am going to make you pay for this. Go on board, [expletive]!"

Schettino: "Commander, please…"

De Falco: "No, please. You now get up and go on board. They are telling me that on board there are still…"

Schettino: "I am here with the rescue boats, I am here, I am not going anywhere, I am here…"

De Falco: "What are you doing, commander?"

Schettino: "I am here to coordinate the rescue…"

De Falco: "What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?"

Schettino: "No, I am not refusing."

De Falco: "Are you refusing to go aboard commander? Can you tell me the reason why you are not going?"

Schettino: "I am not going because the other lifeboat is stopped."

De Falco: "You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared abandon ship. Now I am in charge. You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me? Go, and call me when you are aboard. My air rescue crew is there."

Schettino: "Where are your rescuers?"

De Falco: "My air rescue is on the prow. Go. There are already bodies, Schettino."

Schettino: "How many bodies are there?"

De Falco: "I don't know. I have heard of one. You are the one who has to tell me how many there are. Christ."

Schettino: "But do you realize it is dark and here we can't see anything…"

De Falco: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

Schettino: "…I am with my second in command."

De Falco: "So both of you go up then … You and your second go on board now. Is that clear?"

Schettino: "Commander, I want to go on board, but it is simply that the other boat here … there are other rescuers. It has stopped and is waiting…"

De Falco: "It has been an hour that you have been telling me the same thing. Now, go on board. Go on board! And then tell me immediately how many people there are there."

Schettino: "OK, commander."

De Falco: "Go, immediately!"

Zen 1099: Most of what you think you know about food is wrong

2012-01-17T14:26:00.000Z

Most of what you think you know about food is wrong. This is largely thanks to a multi-billion dollar global 'nutrition' industry of irresponsible wankers who make money out of flogging you misinformation. The horrifying thing is that modern Western society seems to have an insatiable appetite for the nutritionists' endless stream of quack cures, iffy supplements, fad diets and pseudo-scientific 'healthy eating' advice.

You too can be fluent in shite

If there's any justice in the world, these pricks will be next to the wall, right after we've settled the bent politicians, robber-baron crony capitalists and tabloid journalists. Fat is bad for you. Right? Wrong. Vitamin supplements are good for you. Right? Wrong. It's good to cut carbs out of your diet completely. Right? Wrong. Some foods are slimming. Right? Ed Miliband wrong (and that's about as wrong as you can get).

Healthy living is a very simple. Eat a balanced diet of fresh food with lots of fruit and vegetables. Eat in moderation. Take regular exercise. Don't smoke. Drink in moderation. Stay hydrated. Done.

The trouble is, nutritionists have convinced us that their brand of bullshit 'science' can improve on this winning formula so that you, the corpulent, lazy, over-indulged consumer, can chuck as much intemperate crap into your system as you like and then cough up money to avoid paying the physical consequences. It doesn't work like that. How it does work is garbage-in-garbage-out, which usually manifests itself as several kilos of ugly fat nestling in your very efficient subcutaneous stores, cirrhosis of the liver and the resting pulse rate of a terrified gerbil.

If you want a rough idea of how dangerously way off-beam these shysters are, have a look at this rather superb Which? magazine sting. Or better still, have a read of Michael Pollan's 'In Defence of Food' and see how confident you feel about the nutritionists' advice after that. Maybe you can discuss it with your Reiki healer. Your aura can only benefit.

Zen 1098: If anyone else tried this on a snowboard, they'd probably be dead

2012-01-13T10:24:00.000Z

Scott Stevens is not natural. Tell me I'm wrong.

Zen 1097: Would you eat a pizza that had just been used to chop off someone's knob?

2012-01-12T18:16:00.000Z

Oh you would?

Don't ask me to explain this stuff. I just find it, then inflict it on you.

Zen 1096: Just a guy climbing the stairs using only his head

2012-01-12T18:12:00.000Z

This basically proves that if you can imagine a world record obscure enough, it's yours.

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Zen 1095: The simple ingenuity of this prank is what makes it - that and the fact a guy gets hit in the nuts

2012-01-12T13:47:00.001Z

Can't wait to try this out on someone. Is that wrong? Via the All Knowing Patrick.

Zen 1094: US veterans hold 'eat in' to support local Iraqi restaurant attacked by moron

2012-01-12T10:24:00.000Z

This is a heartening tale. The Babylon restaurant in Lowell, Massachusetts had a large rock put through its window in what was thought to be a 'hate crime'. The restaurant is owned by an Iraqi and serves Iraqi food. An organisation called Veterans for Peace immediately arranged an 'eat in' to support the restaurant and booked it out twice (see vid) in a prominent show of support.

The dickhead who threw the rock was quickly apprehended and denied that the attack was racially motivated, but then he probably would given that jail terms for hate crimes in the US are considerably steeper than those for stupid acts of vandalism.

Either way, it's good to see that the majority of Americans are intelligent human beings with a well-balanced moral compass who have little in common with the sort of arseholes who piss on dead Taliban.

Zen 1093: This, apparently, is child poverty

2012-01-11T16:06:00.002Z

According to a report in yesterday's Newsround, these children are suffering from child poverty. Things are so bad, their family requires food aid. The dad had to shift to a low paid job and the mum had to pack in working completely due to illness. This is not a happy story and they are clearly living in straitened times.

Even so, they've got a fucking Nintendo DS EACH.

They seem like nice kids and things have clearly taken a turn for the worse. But don't tell them they're in poverty. They've got a fucking Nintendo DS EACH. And a dog. And a bloody Sky Plus box.

I bet there's a Sudanese toddler who's planning on sending them his milk powder ration just the minute the Janjaweed have finished murdering his parents and setting fire to his house. Get some fucking perspective people.

Zen 1092: If you didn't want to go to Iceland before, you probably will now

2012-01-11T13:04:00.001Z

Klara is a filmmaker from Austria (allesklara.com). She shot this video of her summer spent walking across Iceland alone. It's rather lovely. She also seems delightfully bonkers and the soundtrack is nigh-on perfect. A good way to spend 20 minutes.

MADE IN ICELAND from Klara Harden on Vimeo.

Via Dominique Javet, Swiss super-producer.

Zen 1091: James Bond is apparently a bit of a prick

2012-01-11T12:43:00.000Z

Lovely crisp song about James Bond. It's quite sweary and misogynistic, so if you don't like that sort of thing, I'd give this a wide berth. And James Bond.

Zen 1090: Lovely use of Daft Punk to improve listening comprehension in English students

2012-01-10T13:32:00.000Z

This is to cheer Kayte up after a shit morning.

Stick with it. Cute rather than mindblowing, but this does prove that Engrish can be fun!

Zen 1089: How did Jackie Chan make his stunts look like they really hurt?

2012-01-10T13:23:00.000Z

By making them really hurt, it turns out.

Zen 1088: Now that's how you advertise a fuckin' sale

2012-01-09T19:12:00.000Z

Via Lord Jim. Only in Japan.

Zen 1087: I'm sure there's only so much cute you can take before your head explodes

2012-01-09T13:03:00.001Z

I defy you to tell me this didn't give you a goofy chump grin. It didn't? Goddammit, you people are inhuman.

Zen 1086: Nice guy kayaker dude rescues dog, gives sad story a sort of happy ending

2012-01-09T12:48:00.002Z

This really is a terribly sad story and I might not have blogged it but for the fact that we all love dogs and I, in particular, love Vizsla dogs and in this story the Vizsla dog comes out of it OK. And if the dog's owner were still around, they would probably be heartened by the fact that their beloved pet made it against all the odds.

The kayaker dude in question was out fishing off the coast of Florida and videoing himself for what was presumably intended to be his entry into some sort of world's dullest home video competition. Suddenly, out of right field swims said Vizsla dog, Barney, who is out way too fair and on his last legs. Nice Guy Kayaker Dude rescues him and You Tubes the video with a cheery 'man catches dog while fishing' headline.

It subsequently turns out that Barney and his owner were hit by a drunk driver. His owner, Donna Chen, was killed outright and Barney was pretty badly banged up. Seems that traumatised doggo just ran and ran until he hit the sea and then started swimming. Lucky for him Nice Guy Kayaker Dude was there to pull him out of the drink. I told you it was sad.

Zen 1085: Step aside you Jackass sissies, Nitro Circus is the new self-harming sheriff in town

2012-01-06T13:08:00.000Z

I'm unspeakably excited about this film. It looks dangerous and stupid. Like, two whole hours of dangerous and stupid. What could possibly be better?

Zen 1084: What the Bible really says about sex, rather than what right-wing Christian douchebags say it says

2012-01-06T11:50:00.007Z

Looking at it objectively, it doesn't seem to be the smartest move to base your life on a book that was written even decades ago, let alone several millennia. Lord of the Rings is a fine tome, but is questing through Middle Earth with Elves something the thrusting 21st century neophyte should really be doing? Discuss.

The Song of Solomon: Well erotic

The central theme of the New and Old Testaments is "be good". The problem is that being good for most of human history has involved some pretty warped, time-and-locality specific morality, and the Bible, frankly, can be as warped as any other crumbly book written by beardy types whose life experience didn't extend much beyond the five mile radius of their shitty just-post-Bronze Age village. Credit where credit's due, the New Testament is a big step in the right direction, but even then I think we've moved on quite a way.

Not that this stops the Christian Right from thinking that the 'Good' Book (or rather the bits of the Good Book they chose to acknowledge) is some sort of arbiter of truth in a modern, pluralist society where the majority of people choose not to believe in that specific deity, if they believe in one at all. They also seem to be massively hung up about sex, which almost certainly says more about them than it does about the people they vilify. Does the thought of all that naughty, illicit sex give you some uncomfortable feelings, chaps? You know, down in the trouser department? Thought as much.

According to Fox News, the global mouthpiece of blinkered conservative stupidity, the Bible says that men and women are different and complement one another (Genesis 1:27-28); Love is more like a song than a maths equation (Song of Solomon); Marriage is for one man and one woman by God’s design (Genesis 2:24-25, Matthew 19:4); God created sex and designed our bodies for it (Genesis 2:24-25); Sex outside of marriage is a sin (I Corinthians 6:9-11,18-20, Hebrews 13:4); Sex is to be done in such a way that there is no shame (Genesis 2:25; Proverbs 5:18-23); and your standard of beauty is your spouse. (Genesis 2:23, Proverbs 6:20-35).

This is all true, inasmuch as it's in the book. But then it also has the bit about Jephthah sacrificing his virgin daughter to God. And Abraham having children with both his wife Sarah and his servant Hagar. And Jacob getting hitched to Rachel, then her sister Leah, then their servants Bilhah and Zilpah. And Naomi and Ruth devoting their love to one another 'until death'. And Lot offering up his virgin daughters (emphasis here on virgin) to save himself from a baying mob. And Deuteronomy condemning female adulterers to death. And the Song of Solomon being basically a very lengthy paean to unbridled eroticism and unmarried sex ("My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door and my body was moved for him."). And Ruth jumping Boaz out of wedlock. And Tamar getting jiggy with her father-in-law after posing as a hooker. And the condoning of marriage between very old men and very young girls; And anyone who thinks Jonathan and David weren't into each other in more than a manly, back-slapping, brothers-in-arms type way clearly isn't reading the same book.

The people spouting this phobic bullshit and seeking to control what consenting adults do in the bedroom are, generally speaking, very, very rich people. My advice to them is to quit the prurient curtain twitching and get their Luke on: "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

Or your Mark: "One thing you lack: go your way, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying and went away grieved: for he had great possessions."

Or your Matthew: "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

God seems pretty clear on this point, ladies and gentlemen. Certainly a lot clearer than he is on the subject of shagging.

Zen 1083: Make your own My Little Pony! Errrr ... for the kids ...?

2012-01-05T19:23:00.000Z

Maybe I shouldn't have sounded quite so excited. Apparently this isn't a licensed product and is all the work of a lady calling herself General Zoi, who apparently likes My Little Pony quite a bit. Like you, I went: "Pshaw! What nonsense. I'll have no truck with cutesy ponies!" Then I made this. How fucking rock and roll am I?!?!

Not very, it transpires.

General Zoi's Pony Creator [LINK]

Zen 1082: How hyper-conservative US presidential hopeful Rick Santorum became synonymous with anal sex

2012-01-05T09:35:00.001Z

The all-important Iowa vote in the race to find a Republican challenger to Barack Obama placed the virtually unknown (in the UK at least) Rick Santorum a very close second behind the improbably named Mitt Romney.

To bring you up to speed, Mr Santorum is another of that virulent strain of right wing Christian nutjobs who think that anyone who isn't a preppy, white, phenomenally wealthy, glad-handing ballbag is hated by god. He's basically an intolerant twat.

Back in 2003, he did an interview with AP in which he expressed a distaste for "homosexual acts", and asserted that sex between consenting adults that doesn't adhere to the scribblings in a 2,000 year old religious manual (which in any case condones all sorts of 'forbidden' acts) should be illegal.

That's when sex columnist Dan Savage Google-bombed him. Savage ran a highly successful vote to name a sex act after Santorum and so, rather wonderfully, the name came to define the foamy mixture of lube and ... errr ... other things that is the by-product of a bit of back door action.

For most of the intervening eight years, the search terms "Santorum" and "Rick Santorum" gave you results about buttsecks first and the politician second. Even now, anal is ... errr ... right up there in the listings.

So, for anyone who is still unsure why the Internet is such a brilliant thing, there's your answer right there. Put that up your pipe and smoke it.

Zen 1081: Goalkeeper scores goal like a boss, doesn't even celebrate

2012-01-05T08:37:00.002Z

Yeah, just sort of stuck me foot on it, good bounce, done the other keeper. Tidy.

I don't normally do kissball, but impressed by the goalie's absolute refusal to celebrate.

Zen 1080: In a satisfying twist of fate, Stephen Lawrence's murderers have ended up living as they would like black people to live

2012-01-04T11:42:00.002Z

The Indie did a nice backgrounder today explaining the half-lives the scumbags who knifed Stephen Lawrence have been living since they carried out their hateful crime 18 years ago. Apparently, the poor lambs have been hounded, unable to hold down jobs or build relationships, treated as pariahs, subjected to violence, taunted, spat at, rejected and marginalised. Rather as they would have liked black people to live, if indeed they were to be allowed to live.

Admittedly, it would have been much better if the gang had been in prison these 18 years, being routinely bummed half to death in the showers by big beefy, non-Aryan lads, but there's still time. I'd imagine that's just around the corner for Messrs Dobson and Norris. Keep a tight grip on that soap lads.

It turns out that of the five lowlifes originally fingered for the murder by no lesser campaigning organ than the Daily Mail, only the youngest, Jamie Acourt, appears to lead anything like a normal life. Dobson and Norris are off to clink, while Neil Acourt and Luke Knight still live with their parents, hiding from the press and doing odd jobs to bring in money. Fingers crossed, they too, one day, will be had up before the beak and sentenced to long stretches. All it takes is for one to crack, especially if they're staring down the barrel of a life term. Eh Gary, David?

Tick tock.

Zen 1079: Nutters 'air fishing' under the ice in Finland

2012-01-04T11:22:00.000Z

In Vaala, Finland, you have to make your own fun.

Zen 1078: Aussie dude nails the world's biggest BMX dirt jump

2012-01-03T11:14:00.000Z

I love the way that "working it out" basically involves falling from enormous heights onto different parts of his body. This is Dane Searls, a BMX legend who seemed to have a key screw loose in the 'fear of heights' and 'fear of landing after falling from great heights' departments of his brain.

He's dead now. No, really, he is. Killed himself trying to dive off a pub balcony into a pool last year.

Zen 1077: Space is bent! Einstein's Theory of Relativity explained by the creators of Betty Boop

2012-01-03T10:53:00.001Z

I'm slightly underselling it here. This is a 20 minute-long theatre release version of a 1923 educational documentary, produced by the Fleischer Studio that also created Betty Boop and made Superman cartoons. It's very basic, but quite elegant for it. It also features a demonstration of the non-relativity of the speed of light using two pistols tied to a wagon wheel. Who says physics can't be fun?

The Einstein Theory of Relativity 1923 from ricordidimenticati on Vimeo.

Zen 1076: How Indiana Jones stole his opening 13 minutes from older, crappier movies

2012-01-03T09:51:00.000Z

Admittedly some of this is a bit tenuous - there are only so many ways you can shoot a scene - but the rest has nonetheless been quite blatantly lifted from earlier movies. Not that this detracts in any way from the outstanding Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh no. We have the sequels for that.

Zen 1075: Mystery of the giant North Korean soldier mourning Kim Jong Il

2011-12-30T17:03:00.001Z

In amongst all the Photoshopped footage of Kim Jong Il's funeral is this apparently genuine oddity - an eight foot soldier at the end of a line of mourners. At this height, he'd be on for the tallest living man, but no-one seems to know who he is. Maybe he's some sort of mutant super soldier carefully positioned to rattle the Capitalist Yankee Running Dogs.

In Communist North Korea, even the mourners are on a heroic scale.

Zen 1074: What are you doing New Year's Eve?

2011-12-30T09:05:00.001Z

...ask Zooey Deschanel and chum Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Why? Who knows. I don't think they're planning on inviting you round. But, hey, they make a good sound, so what's not to like?

Zen 1073: Essential Christmas skills - how to wrap a cat

2011-12-24T11:05:00.002Z

No really.

Zen 1072: Not ronery anymore - a bumper year for dead bastards as Kim Jong Il checks out

2011-12-19T07:16:00.002Z

According to official reports, he poked it due to "mental and physical overwork". Whatever the real reason - more likely the product of years of overindulgence as millions of North Koreans died of starvation - the important thing is that the world is one pampered pigmy fuck short this morning.

A Kim top 10. He really was a proper fruitloop.

And here's North Korean TV treating his death with a big more reverence than I have.

Zen 1071: So this bloke comes running up to me and says: 'My mate wants to fight you...'

2011-12-17T08:57:00.003Z

I was walking back to my hotel, it was about midnight and I was mildly hammered.

I took my headphones off.

"What?"

"My mate wants to fight you," says the lad. He looks about twentyish. Judging by hairstyle and dress, he is probably an estate agent.

I look back up the road to where his mate is standing. I look at the estate agent.

"Well, I don't want to fight your mate."

The estate agent looks offended, like I've turned down an offer of hospitality.

"What's he saying?" says the mate up the road.

"He says he doesn't want to fight you."

I start to walk off, but the estate agent steps in the way.

"Look, I really don't want to fight you either, so if it's all the same could you just fuck off?" says me.

"How much do you weigh?" says the estate agent.

I'm wondering where he's going with this but decide that talking is probably preferable to fighting. It's been a long night.

"I'm about 17 stone."

"What's that in kilos?"

I am exasperated.

"About a hundred and something."

"Ah Jesus," says the estate agent, "He's too big."

"He's too big. More than a hundred kilos," he shouts to his mate.

"He's never," his mate shouts back, "He's lying to you."

"Have you two finished?" I ask.

"Yeah. I suppose," say the estate agent, taking an executive decision, "It's a shame Shane's not here."

"Yeah," says I.

"Goodnight mate. Happy Christmas," says the estate agent.

"Yeah," says I.

Belfast is a strange place.

Zen 1070: Google's Year in Review - the world of 2011 in search terms, which is much more interesting than it sounds

2011-12-15T18:18:00.000Z

Apparently you win a billion dollars if you can name everyone in it.

Zen 1069: The cure for the common cold is to have an angry Japanese capsule aggressively mate with your face ... apparently

2011-12-15T13:01:00.003Z

Advertising, as only the Japanese can do it. You have to click on the link to watch it because this is inexplicably not on You Tube. Via Craig Christ.

杉の木課長篇‐CM情報　: コンタック [LINK]

Zen 1068: UPDATED: UVF 'B' Battalion welcomes you to South Belfast, and all for a Hello Kitty Cool Cardz maker

2011-12-14T20:45:00.002Z

Back. Still have kneecaps.

Here's a tip for urban survival: Google "Starbucks" then navigate back via. Safe as houses. Posh, even.

********************

I thought it would be a nice thing to do. My little girl wanted some ghastly branded plastic tat and I found a shop on the Interweb which said they had it on the shelves. Naff all else to do, so I walk the three miles to the shop. Only, the thing is that postcodes in Belfast sometimes don't even manage a passing flirtation with the place you're trying to get to. One dodgy estate full of sectarian graffiti and an altercation with some evil looking geezers in a knackered Sierra later and I finally get to the shop. No Hello Bastard Kitty Cool Cardz Maker. By this point, rational considerations had departed and getting the damn cat had become an article of faith. Happily, an excellent fellow in a red polo shirt sensed my air of manic determination and basically turned the store over until he found one. Hail fellow, well met. I have my gaudy plastic tat. Now all I have to do is make it back again.

And bloody Santa Claus is NOT getting the credit for this one.

Zen 1067: Never mind the god particle, CERN used Comic Sans in their presentation, the losers

2011-12-14T09:40:00.000Z

NMA World Edition treats the latest report from CERN on their hunt for the elusive Higgs Boson 'god' particle in the way that only NMA World Edition can. The funeral scene in particular is a lesson in popular newscasting that the BBC would do well to learn. Who says science communication can't be fun?

Zen 1066: I can't begin to express how much I want one of these

2011-12-13T14:05:00.000Z

Frankie Zapata is the man who invented this thing. He calls it a 'Flyboard', despite it not being a board and having more to do with diving. I don't care. It looks like an amazing way to hurt yourself.

In translation, the girl is saying: "Zis sing is making me hot in ze pants for crazy Frankie Zapata ... like French women in all ze films, ah 'ave an irrational attraction to men 'oo step outside ze cultural norms, especially if zey smoke Gitanes and treat me like sheet."

To which Frankie replies: "Bof. Zut Alors. Ennui. Citroen Picasso."

Zen 1065: Bye bye Jonny, we'll miss you

2011-12-13T13:48:00.000Z

Legend.

Zen 1064: You know what? Fuck pandas. They are the vegans of the animal world and a gift to creationists.

2011-12-12T20:55:00.002Z

Pandas are bloody annoying. Normally, I'm in awe of majestic Nature and particularly in awe of the elegance of evolution, a principle of breathtaking simplicity that nonetheless describes the complexity of every living thing that ever was and ever will be.

Yeah, yeah, cute. Now do everyone a favour and die the fuck out.

Well, every living thing with the possible exception of pandas. I suspect only an intelligent designer could come up with something as flawed and utterly pointless as a panda. It's the Ford Edsel of creation. The fly in evolution's otherwise perfect ointment. It openly and brazenly defies Darwin.

The defects of the panda are well rehearsed. It can only mate on one-and-a-half days a year, and then only if it's within range of a receptive mate, which is itself a slightly rarer occurrence than someone with taste and decorum winning the National Lottery. (Seriously, when you're relying on a handjob from a Chinese guy in a lab coat to save your species, wouldn't dignity be telling you it was time to throw in the towel for the good of you both?)

It's slow and lazy. So lazy, in fact, that when confronted with one of the very few predators that can harm it, it will only attempt to escape if there is a downhill slope and it can frankly be arsed to fall down it. And the camouflage. What the hell? I live in a forest. It's very green. Sometimes its brown. Therefore I will adopt a coat that will conceal me only if hiding on a pedestrian crossing or in footage shot before the advent of colour.

But perhaps the most wilfully ridiculous thing about Ailuropoda melanoleuca is its diet. It eats bamboo. Nutritionally speaking, bamboo is in the same category as Samuel Johnson's cucumber, namely, it should be "well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing." The stupid animal has to eat tonnes of the stuff to even approach the amount of calorific intake a creature of its size needs to absorb.

And here's the kicker. The panda has roughly the same dentition as other bears, which means it could be chowing down on juicy flesh, or rummaging through the bins for leftover doughnuts and chicken wings. In other words, it could be eating well and as Nature intended, but it chooses not to. I know what you're thinking. It's a fucking vegan. So frankly, the sooner it shuffles off into oblivion and lets the fundraisers get on with saving proper animals like tigers and elephants and blue whales, the better*.

* No, polar bears do not need saving. They are about as endangered as you are.

Zen 1063: I am on UR internets degradin' UR language with my apathy and ignorance: An academic guide to LOLspeak

2011-12-12T08:59:00.000Z

A really super very jolly good little chat about the emerging linguistics of LOLspeak. It has much to do with cats and deliberately mangled grammar, and little to do with witless noobs who end every status with LOL (!!!). Observe.

Zen 1062: Europe veto - it's irrelevant why, there was only ever one option

2011-12-10T10:47:00.001Z

Lots of fluff in the papers today about David Cameron grovelling to his rabidly Eurosceptic backbenchers in vetoing a new EU treaty designed to save the Euro, thereby sacrificing Britain's place at the top table and forcing us to watch from the sidelines as they stride into a brave new future.

Cameron maintains he was protecting Britain's interests by seeking guarantees that would protect the City, which, like it or not is very important to our future financial health, even if they are largely responsible for fucking everything up in the first place.

Just to recap, the proposal he vetoed was a wholly undemocratic lurch to a federal Europe using existing treaties as the instrument of change, with absolutely no guarantee that it will work. It required a massive and far reaching surrender of sovereignty, the like of which hasn't been seen since the last time Germany marched on Paris.

Frankly, it was a rubbish plan. It really wouldn't have mattered if Cameron vetoed because he believed it was a plot by space aliens. Or because he's a crypto-fascist in league with the Illuminati. Or because he was feeling peaky and just wanted to get off home quickly for a lie down. He had no other choice. The point is moot. The dice were loaded from the start. If you can prove any different, I'll give you a multi-trillion Euro bailout.

Zen 1061: Japanese Supergrind - it's skateboarding, but not as we know it

2011-12-09T10:59:00.001Z

From Daisuke Takahashi's 'Subspecies' apparently. Whatever. The guy can do unreal things with a rail and a skateboard.

Zen 1060: 'Father Christmas?' 'Yes, son?' 'I want to kill you' - it's The Doors' undiscovered festive album

2011-12-09T08:43:00.001Z

This is a true story.

Zen 1059: Wooden ties. Well, why wouldn't you?

2011-12-08T21:50:00.001Z

Ties are stupid. Why not make them out of something stupid? Hence wood ties from woodthumb.com. Wood Thumb aren't stupid. But their ties are. Because ties are stupid. See where I'm going with this?

Zen 1058: Join the petition to pardon Turing, the man who saved Britain, invented the computer and described artificial intelligence

2011-12-08T13:14:00.000Z

Alan Turing was beyond brilliant. In 1936 he wrote a paper called 'On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem' which described a simple machine that could do any calculation as long as it could be represented algorithmically. This is the theoretical basis of the computer and represents such an astonishing and utterly original idea that this alone would place him in the pantheon alongside the likes of Newton, Darwin and Einstein.

During the Second World War, he worked as a cryptanalyst in charge of Hut 8 at Bletchley Park. The machine he created to work out Enigma cyphers - the 'Bombe' - arguably shortened the war and prevented Nazi Germany from choking off the convoys between Blighty and the United States. Not only that, but the basic components of the Bombe are still essentially the basic components of any modern computer. It's the forerunner of the whole shebang. He did a bunch of other stuff as well, but for the full skinny on him, you're better off going here: Wikipedia: Alan Turing.

The reason you may not have heard of him is, bluntly, because he liked boys. This was still illegal back in the early Fifties, so when Turing reported one of his lovers to the police for burglary, the police charged him with gross indecency. Rather than go to prison, Turing agreed to 'chemical castration' - treatment with female hormones designed to kill off his 'dodgy' urges. It might seem a backward and stupid thing to do to such a fine servant of his nation, and you're right. It was. Monstrously stupid. But also monstrously tragic, in that Turing ended up killing himself with cyanide in 1954.

In 2009, saggy-faced walking clusterfuck Gordon Brown actually did something right as prime minister and apologised for Turing's "appalling" treatment. But it would go a small way to correcting a terrible wrong if he were actually pardoned, hence the epetition currently underway. To add your name, click on the link below.

e-petition: Grant a pardon to Alan Turing [LINK]

Zen 1057: Bum, baccy and tinsel: Merry Christmas from the sailors and airmen of HMS Ocean

2011-12-08T09:03:00.003Z

Sent away for seven weeks training, HMS Ocean was redeployed for Libya and is sailing back to the UK seven-and-a-half months later, just in time for Christmas. When the crew found out, they made this video. Mariah Carey apparently tweeted was the best thing she'd ever seen, thereby immeasurably elevating her in the estimation of millions. Outstanding. Especially the sailor in the bath. Aye aye.

Zen 1056: Critics' choice: Lyne and Longcross School redefines theatre with daring Nativity

2011-12-07T08:35:00.002Z

The theme was traditional - a children's fairytale exploring the traditions of Christmas. The production, however, was a searing Brechtian polemic that dwarfed the limited creative space and permitted the actors to wrestle with their immediate environment even as they grew beyond it.

One does not invoke the unquiet ghost of Brecht lightly, but here there is little doubt what the directors - a quite deliberately raggle-taggle cooperative that achieves every creative decision through painstaking negotiation with the cast - were seeking to achieve.

Like Brecht, it is their absolute determination that you should never be in any doubt you are watching a play. No coy flights of artifice and illusion here. From the sparseness of the set - nought but stage blocks and a humble tin foil star suspended above - to the homemade feel of the costumes, one never truly leaves the here and now, even if one is occasionally transported to another, perhaps surreal, place by the performances. Indeed, the actors constantly wrestle with their costumes, ceaselessly fidgeting and fretting as if to escape even these small concessions to theatrical tradition.

But the Epic Brecht is also here, fervidly wringing the immense tract of history from every gesture and utterance. The themes are prosaic enough. The innkeeper cannot sleep. But this is no introspective story of the fleshly travails of the insomniac. Here, insomnia is the vehicle upon which is laden the collective burdens of humanity.

Why can the innkeeper not sleep? He cannot sleep for the seemingly endless procession of visitors at his door; sinister in their nocturnal perambulations and yet strangely naive in their humble requests, first for board and lodging, later for directions to a mysterious "new arrival".

More than a nod is given to Beckett, such that this is less Looking for Jesus than it is Waiting for Godot. Consider the weighty, excruciating pauses; the broken dialogue; the sotto voce mouthing of one another's lines; and the uneven delivery - sometimes frighteningly blank, at other times wrought with violent emotion. "Round the back!" roars the innkeeper as yet more strangers assail his door in the depths of night.

What do these strangers want? What does it all mean? I am but a humble critic, but I would hazard that this play is about nothing less than world peace. Humanity is constantly roused from dumb slumber by the interjection of conflict. But it is the slumber itself - the somnambulant failure to deal proactively with the base, warlike instincts of men - that is the metaphorical elephant in the room.

Seasoned theatre-goers may find such lofty ambition too idealistic - nay, trite even - for their blood, but for the extraordinary denouement. For, in the end, the innkeeper and his long-suffering wife (here played as a withering satire on the changing-yet-permanent roles of women in post-industrial society) succumb to their curiosity and do go "round the back".

For a moment, you are dangled in suspense. What will they find? Some hellish Bacchanal; a bloody injunction against the interventionist, militarist tendency in Western political discourse? A crashing termination of hope on the altar of intolerance? The void?

No. Rather, the play discerns a brighter future for us all through the power of collective will. What this play says is that all it takes for war to end and dictators to fall is for us to join together and speak the words. There is an unspeakably powerful moment at the finish when the marvellous ensemble cast join together in a song, some waving to individual members if the audience; all smiling; inviting you, the passive viewer of the piece to interact; to leave your innkeeper-like slumber and feel the awesome potential of this theatrical Arab Spring.

It is rare indeed that this hardbitten theatre critic finds nothing to criticise, but let it be said that this production, so deceptively simple yet so breathtaking in scope and ambition, was nothing short of perfection. Bravo.

Zen 1055: 'Do you have any daddy butter?' - shopping for idiots

2011-12-06T12:32:00.000Z

I found the Michael Stipe guy's habit of laughing a bit irritating to begin with, but stick with it - they nail it in the end. Use video 1 as a sort of "concept setter" before moving onto videos 2 and 3. Stove Babies? A Teeny Weeny Mussolini? Dr Normal's Condoms for One? You're in the right shop.

Zen 1054: Santa trumps God, Spiderman and the Spanish Inquisition - the definitive proof

2011-12-05T23:51:00.000Z

You can't say it ain't so. It's so so.

Zen 1053: Charlie Chaplin's speech from the end of 'The Great Dictator'

2011-12-05T18:55:00.001Z

It's probably a bit melodramatic for modern tastes, but Chaplin's speech is one of the greatest moments in cinema. The movie was released in 1940, with the US still uncommitted to the fight against fascism, and features Chaplin in dual roles as the eponymous dictator and the oppressed Jewish barber who, in a case of mistaken identity, ends up making this eleventh-hour speech. Not bad for a boy from Bermondsey.

Zen 1052: Lovely compilation of one-in-a-million shots

2011-12-05T08:09:00.001Z

All done by some guys called A Normal Day with apparently no trick photography, which is cool. I love the studied boredom.

Zen 1051: Satanic Mack, the devil dog

2011-12-02T22:30:00.001Z

According to ancient lore, if you rub a Wire-haired Vizsla on a German, you can raise the Beelzebub. And no, that's not a euphemism. Although they do both look quite happy.

Zen 1050: Bobby McFerrin literally plays the audience to illustrate a point about the pentatonic scale

2011-12-02T15:31:00.000Z

You'd have thought that, musically speaking, crowds don't come much tougher in singalong terms than a starchy academic audience at a psychology conference, but Mr McFerrin (yes, he of 'Don't Worry Be Happy' fame) succeeds in rocking the room.

Zen 1049: Star Wars AT-AT made from gingerbread - how cool is this!?!

2011-12-01T14:59:00.001Z

I have cake envy.

Zen 1048: You vill enjoy ze Hamburg Miniatur Wonderland vezzer you like it or not

2011-12-01T11:28:00.000Z

The voiceover literally made me LOL then ROFL. Like, literally. I defy you not to lose it at around 2 mins 15 seconds in.

You didn't? What are you? German?

Zen 1047: Must watch - utterly inspired Nando's 'Last Dictator Standing' ad really upsets Mugabe

2011-11-30T10:39:00.001Z

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a guilty secret, but I really like Nando's. After seeing their latest South African ad campaign, crisply titled 'Last Dictator Standing', I now sort of love them.

Predictably, the Chipangano, Mugabe's gang of assorted pubescent lickspittles and psychopaths, has threatened boycotts and violence against the chain. Nando's Zimbabwe has quickly - and perhaps wisely - distanced itself from the campaign, calling it "insensitive" and "in poor taste". Apparently they didn't know anything about it, but since TV from South Africa is also available in Zim, things are looking Mild to Hot, with Extra Hot available if you're feeling brave. (See that. That's a Nando's in-joke. Right there. Giggity.)

Zen 1046: Cracked Chinese dude sets fire to own mouth, seems to thoroughly enjoy it

2011-11-30T08:31:00.001Z

Safe to say he needs to change the battery in his smoke detector.

Zen 1045: I'm no hairy-chested feminist, but there should definitely be some birds in the Sports Personality of the Year shortlist

2011-11-29T16:06:00.003Z

The omission of women from the nominations for BBC Sports Personality of the Year would be questionable at the best of times, but in a year that boasts triathlon world champion Chrissie Wellington, world champion rower Kath Grainger and world champion swimmers Keri-Anne Payne and Rebecca Adlington, you'd have thought they would have had ample excuse to go cock-light and squeeze in some sheilas.

The shortlist, for the record, is Mark Cavendish (cycling), Darren Clarke, Luke Donald and Rory McIlroy (golf), Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss (cricket), Dai Greene and Mo Farah (athletics), Amir Khan (boxing) and Andy Murray (tennis).

That's Chrissie Wellington. Don't pretend like you knew.

It's hard to argue with Cavendish, Strauss, Cooke, Greene and Farah. Each has achieved excellence in his field. Each one is a Proper Fucking Legend (see Zens passim). But three golfers? Really? I mean, really really? As expounded at length before (Zen 426: There is no excuse for golf), there is no objective measure that qualifies golf as a real sport. Golf has more in keeping with a parlour trick or a novelty game than a sport. If we're going to include golfers, why don't we make space for the man who can juggle burning skittles, or lift heavy weights using nothing but his scrotum? Why, indeed, don't we throw it open to the dancing dog community, or your drunken uncle who can play the William Tell Overture on the spoons while belching Rule Britannia? Why indeed.

Then there's the boxer. Boxing only narrowly qualifies as a sport these days, although purely because punching people in the face is a notable and entertaining feature of other, proper sports, such as rugby, ice hockey and crown green bowls. In fact, the only really competitive element to modern boxing is the whoring and grafting that goes on between the promoters. Sporting titan? Amir Khan? Meh.

And last, but not least, we have the hilarious inclusion of Andy Murray. It's fair to say that 'Sports Personality' is an oxymoron at the best of times, but this poe-faced Jock ball-slapper takes it to hitherto unrealised heights. He is to charisma what a black hole is to light. Not only that, but he's won dick all. OK, he might have raised the silverware at the South Bumblefuck Festival of Grunting and Gurning (*sponsored by Shorts That Ride Up Your Arse) but he hasn't beaten anyone that matters and he still hasn't won a major, which means he can be safely disregarded on both counts, 'sports' and 'personality'.

Of course this isn't the BBC's fault, since Aunty doesn't choose the nominees, a coterie of 30 cigar-toting ex-Taliban regional and national sports editors does. Even so, they are supposed to know their job and it should be apparent, even to the lay-man, that the likes of Wellington and Payne have achieved more and are more deserving of recognition than half the shower of shit they actually ended up choosing. Solidarity sister.

Zen 1045: Reassuring or really quite disturbing?

2011-11-28T22:51:00.001Z

You could definitely read this two ways. Think I might walk.

Zen 1044: Guess which one's gay?

2011-11-28T21:00:00.000Z

I don't normally post Facebook grabs, but this is pretty good.

Zen 1043: Bad sex

2011-11-28T16:21:00.000Z

Modern Toss is now doing a regular strip for the Grauniad. Sadly, most of them are crap, but here's a good one.

Zen 1042: Oh sodding hell, I only went out to weed the patio

2011-11-28T06:20:00.003Z

Yeah, well, you try living with OCD and a sledgehammer.

And the perfect post-destruction cocktail - a 'Where's the Bloody Patio Gone!?! Mary.

Zen 1041: England's failure was down to the fact that Martin Johnson was basically a big girl's blouse

2011-11-24T13:44:00.004Z

The slew of leaked reports following England's shambolic World Cup campaign makes entertaining, but very ugly reading. Neither the Rugby Players’ Association, the Rugby Football Union or Premiership Rugby offer the current set-up much in the way of a get-out or redemption. It was a cock-up, pure and simple.

Between the venal, boozy and lazy senior players and the coterie of pampered, golf-obsessed, tactically inept coaches, only two figures come out of this dung-spattered fiasco not trying to whittle cow shit out of their ears. One of them is Graham Rowntree, the scrummage coach, who is apparently a Proper Fucking Legend and conducted himself impeccably throughout.

The other - bizarrely - is Martin Johnson, who the players seem particularly reluctant to implicate. But then that, right there, is the essence of the entire problem: misplaced loyalty.

As a player, Johnno laid waste to all comers and hoisted the Webb Ellis Trophy in possibly the best final ever, and on Australian turf to boot. Proper Fucking Legends don't come much more Proper than that. Get ye gone hence anyone who dare besmirch or degrade Johnno the Player. He is immaculate and untouchable.

But as a manager, he inherited a national set up where the coaches were all his ex-Leicester mates and the senior players were all his muckers from the England glory days. Confronted with this gaggle of pleading, doe-eyed, familiar faces blinking myopically through the stardust at him, he took one look around the room and, frankly, bottled it.

As the gaffer, he should have been looking at every facet of the England machine and engineering it to deliver the one and only thing that matters: glory. His sole goal in life should have been to hone a collection of 20-plus titanium-skinned killing machines with the express intention of stuffing Graham Henry's head so far up his arse on Final Day that it popped out the top again, with Johnno applying the Dirty Sanchez as a coup de grace.

Whichever way you look at it, he didn't come close. He clearly and emphatically lacked the heavyweight spuds required to look trusted colleagues in the eye and say: "Sorry mate, it's not personal, it's business" just prior to putting a metaphorical cap in his ass. Sadly, Johnno was always more Donald Duck than Don Corleone. More Good Samaritan than Goodfella. More Swiss Tony than Tony Montana. You get the picture.

In summary, England failed because Johnson was too much of a sissy girl to do the job he was paid to do. Everything else is secondary.

Zen 1040: Crazed strongman act goes beserk as horrified talent show hosts look on? INDIAN!

2011-11-23T20:40:00.000Z

These are the Warriors of Goja, a Sikh strongman act appearing on India's 'The Ultimate Talent Show'. Marvel as they fuck up themselves, the studio and the minds of the audience with total abandon. And the bit where they wheelspin while running a guy over in a car, then get a motorbike to run over his head isn't even the finale.

Be-turbaned mentalists? INDIAN! (I think the host actually says as much at the end.)

Zen 1039: FENTON! FENTON! Jurassic Jesus Christ

2011-11-22T20:32:00.001Z

It was only a matter of time.

Zen 1038: I wasn't going to write about it, but that John Lewis Christmas ad is too horrific to leave alone

2011-11-22T17:22:00.003Z

I don't even know if 'vomitorious' is a word, but if it isn't it should be. There's no better adjective to describe the mixture of superb production values, nifty scripting and excellent acting in this £6m festival of arse-retchingly cynical bollocks, in which a podgy-faced hobbit whiles away the hours to Christmas, pining for the moment he can dash past his own grotesque, towering, stocking-shaped monument to mammon so he can deliver his White Stuff-wanker parents a box containing the severed head of a dog. OK, that last bit is unproven, but, as Charlie Brooker pointed out, John Lewis haven't denied it. I simply stuffed the word 'meritorious' up the gaping turkey orifice of 'vomit-inducing' and came up with 'vomitorious', my own personal contribution to the English language. You don't have to thank me.

I have to admit to being a bit of a latecomer to this one and was going to leave it where I found it, steeped in the howling derision of those who quite rightly find the idea of a grown adult human person sobbing to this trite tit-wash only marginally less offensive than stumbling in on your granddad knocking one out to the Killing Fields.

But then I watched it. Holy fucking Christ. And to think that an entire Brad Pitt fan club's worth of of drippy-eyed cast-offs from Loose Women are declaring that advert the greatest achievement in cinematic art since Battleship Potemkin. It's been generating the sort of positive feedback ad execs like to stroke themselves to tumescence over when they're not snorting coke and drowning hamsters in acid.

It was at this point I realised that our entire nation has sold not only its soul, but its critical faculties, its sense of shame and any semblance of taste and sophistication to Goldman Sachs. Or the Devil. I forget which is which. I offer no remedies, but instead invite you, Britain, to look yourself in the eye and answer the following question: if you have become such a barren husk that it takes the shallow pleadings of a haberdasher to ignite a spark of sentiment in your chip-fat clogged soul, do you really deserve Christmas? Do you? I thought as much.

Zen 1037: Gorgeous, mesmerising Earth, as seen from the International Space Station

2011-11-22T13:23:00.006Z

Stunning timelapse video of the Earth shot from the ISS. Watch it embedded here, or better still in all its full-screen HD glory over at Vimeo. Either way it's a stunning joyride through natural and man-made spectacles, from phosphorescent cities to cosmic rays streaking through the paper-thin atmosphere. Forget double rainbows. This is oh my god ... oh ... WOW ... intense. What does this mean? It's so beautiful (sobs inconsolably ad nauseam)*.

Second reference to double rainbows in two days. For those not aware of this popular meme, here's the skinny:

And here's the inevitable autotune remix. You get the picture.

Zen 1036: Crazy French dudes mash up 40 internet memes in one epic medley

2011-11-21T16:41:00.000Z

If you get them all, you're a freak, but be sure to watch out for Nyan Cat, Keyboard Cat (a bit 'Dutch rudder' this one), Trololo Guy, Rick Rolling, Rage comics, Friday Friday Gotta Get Down It's Friday, Dramatic Chipmunk and the Whooooooooooooooa - Double Rainbow. God bless you internet. You never let us down.

Zen 1035: Bloody hell. Could it be the Tories were right?

2011-11-21T16:27:00.000Z

First, the Conservative Party spent some of the Eighties and most of the Nineties tearing itself to pieces over Britain's place in Europe. One of the outcomes of this internecine warfare was that Britain didn't join the Euro and secured a series of opt-outs that the other major political parties and a good chunk of its own members voted against. Even Blair's Cool Britannia Party (or whatever it was called) was in favour of joining the Euro in principle. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, this hard-won Tory Eurosceptic opt-out looks rather inspired.

Second, when the Coalition came to power it announced immediate and stringent cuts to government spending. Everybody got up in arms about Osborne and Co "killing the fragile recovery", including that fatuous wind-filled bag of toss Ed Balls, the man with a greater chunk of responsibility than most for getting us into the massive shit-caked debt chasm that we currently inhabit. Bearing in mind that Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain have all flirted with default after huge runs on sovereign debt, it seems like the height of fiscal responsibility to ensure that sovereign debt (cutting of) is right at the top of your list of priorities, especially with Italy teetering on the brink and France next up for walking the plank.

Naturally, many will read this and assume that because I've said that one party got a couple of things right, I buy into every last decision it ever made, including all the really nasty and divisive ones. So much for nuance.

Zen 1034: 'Your chubby lass can be belle of her class!'

2011-11-18T17:05:00.002Z

How do you mitigate the horror of having a fat kid, 1957-style? Why, with Chubettes of course! The sensitively named fashion range for the child raised on Belfast sandwiches.

Zen 1033: When they make you a sandwich in Belfast, they don't screw around

2011-11-18T17:01:00.001Z

Yes, that's a full-sized dinner plate. It cost a fiver. I've still not finished it. In fact, I may never. Epicosity in sandwich form

Zen 1032: Drinkify - a website that suggests what you should drink with the music you're listening to

2011-11-17T16:14:00.000Z

Spend a diverting 5 minutes working out whether they were right to mix wheatgrass and gin with Snoop Dogg or bourbon, bitters and Red Bull with Guns 'n' Roses. My favourite is The Clash - a straight mix of Grenadine and cocaine. London's Burning all right.

Drinkify [LINK]

Zen 1031: Teutonia - the downhill skateboard race where anything under 70 mph is for sissies

2011-11-17T12:35:00.000Z

This is a refreshingly low-octane and rather beautifully shot mini doc about one of the fastest downhill skateboard events in the world, at a place called Teutonia, Brazil. With place names like this it makes you wonder how Simon Wiesenthal didn't find all those old Nazis sooner.

Zen 1030: Nigel? Nigel? Is that you Nigel?!?

2011-11-15T14:31:00.001Z

Strange incident. At work, looking for a meeting room. Encounter two middle-aged women, both looking a bit pinched and ferretty.

First woman: "Nigel?"

(I look over my shoulder for Nigel. Nigel is not there. I realise that they must mean me.)

Second woman: "Nigel? Is that you Nigel?"

Me: "Errr, I'm not Nigel..."

First woman: (Looking unaccountably annoyed) "Well he's very late."

Me: "I'm sorry, but I don't even know Nigel. I think I'm here for a different meeting."

Second woman: "Well, if you must."

Me: "I'm sorry?"

First woman: "You could have been more helpful."

Me: "What, by being Nigel?"

Second woman: "I'm sorry, but we have a meeting."

Me: "Yes. With Nigel."

First woman: "Yes."

Second woman: "Yes."

I think I just walked into a Samuel Beckett play.

Zen 1029: Lego Ninjago birthday cake

2011-11-14T21:11:00.001Z

Thing One. Seventh birthday. Requested: Lego Ninjago birthday cake.

Yeah. So proud I blogged it. I'm all man.

Zen 1028: Han Solo's 'Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs' gaffe revealed not to be a gaffe at all

2011-11-14T20:15:00.002Z

As any fule no, Han Solo's brag that the Millennium Falcon "did the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs" doesn't make any sense, because parsecs are a unit of distance not time. Turns out that Han wasn't such a chump after all. Apparently his boast refers to the Kessel Run spice route that flirts around the edge of a black hole cluster called 'the Maw'. The Millennium Falcon was so quick that it was able to skirt closer to the Maw than other ships without being sucked in, thereby cutting the standard 18 parsecs required for safe passage down to 11.5.

I love the fact that someone took the time to come up with this story. However, it's sadly balls. The original novelisation of 'Star Wars: A New Hope' corrects the mistake, referring instead to 'standard time units'. I like the black hole explanation better.

Source: Wookieepedia [LINK]

Zen 1028: Han Solo's 'Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs' gaffe revealed not to be a gaffe at all

2011-11-14T20:15:00.000Z

Zen 1027: It's like this clip was created for Kayte...

2011-11-10T12:43:00.000Z

An understated, modest, but likeable foreign man with tremendous talent plays an obscure musical instrument while displaying musical virtuosity of a hitherto unimagined variety. All that's missing is a photograph of an Asian dictator on the wall and an obscure reference to idiomatic English.

Zen 1026: Perhaps the pithiest, most rational explanation of the Euro crisis I've read

2011-11-09T19:00:00.002Z

From former UK ambassador Charles Crawford's Telegraph blog:

"The whole point about the crisis engulfing the eurozone and European Union was that it was essentially a political, not economic event. Europe’s politicians had borrowed too much money and had set up policy arrangements of such complexity that they were unable to weather difficult times and now no longer looked credible. ‘Markets’ were not some mysterious, zombie-like formation attacking us from outer space, or a cruel scalpel in the hands of a cabal of cunning bankers. Markets were the savings of people in the UK, China and everywhere else around the world looking for a sensible investment.

In short, global funds were asking the EU a simple question: “Are you a safe investment?” Since the answers coming back were increasingly ambiguous if not downright weird, the world’s fund managers were deciding either not to invest in the EU space, or to charge the eurozone space higher rates of interest for borrowing money.

In other words, it was highly desirable for the markets to ‘control’ governments – and anyone else – in this way. Markets represented honest business dealing. What if things were the other way round and governments controlled markets? That was not a recipe for success, as the USSR had showed us over 70 years."

It's definitely worth a read of the whole thing: Do markets threaten democracy? [LINK]

Zen 1025: These cats will haunt your dreams and eat your brain while you sleep

2011-11-08T15:58:00.000Z

Tell me I'm wrong.

I'm not wrong.

Otter Zen

Zen 1120: Dude rides old lady vintage bike like a BOSS

Zen 1119: The creepiest cover for a children's book, EVER

Zen 1118: 'Sound the alarm! You're going to be uncomfortably energetic...'

Zen 1117: Some observations on running from a non-runner

Zen 1116: Next time you feel beaten, like it's all too much, watch this...

Zen 1115: Boy Assad hacked by Anonymous because his password was '1,2,3,4,5'

Apologies for the intermittent service on Otter Zen recently

Zen 1115: Die Antwoord turn the freaky up to eleven, then rip the knob off and mate with your stereo

Zen 1114: Fox News declares war on 'cesspool' Netherlands - and loses

Zen 1113: Data Pool 3 a.k.a. the massive payload of clusterf*ck that may take down The Sun

Zen 1112: Mmmmmmmm. Boobies.

Zen 1111: Dude 'bungee' jumps into rocky river valley using climbing ropes

Zen 1110: For anyone who's ever seen Jeb Corliss's 'Grinding the Crack'...

Zen 1109: Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration!?!

Zen 1108: TV quiz show appearance of a man who witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Zen 1107: You know, it's just some dogs, like, rocking out

Zen 1106: Rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling in the deep

Zen 1105: Dope Zebra

Zen 1104: Dogs bark the Imperial March from Star Wars

Zen 1103: This is a post from Reddit entitled 'Best. Wedding. Ever.'

Zen 1102: Khan Academy explains why SOPA and PIPA will allow morons to kill your Internet

Zen 1101: What SOPA is and why you should hate it with every fibre of your being

Zen 1100: Transcript of the coastguard bollocking the captain of the Costa Concordia and telling him to get back on board

Zen 1099: Most of what you think you know about food is wrong

Zen 1098: If anyone else tried this on a snowboard, they'd probably be dead

Zen 1097: Would you eat a pizza that had just been used to chop off someone's knob?

Zen 1096: Just a guy climbing the stairs using only his head

Zen 1095: The simple ingenuity of this prank is what makes it - that and the fact a guy gets hit in the nuts

Zen 1094: US veterans hold 'eat in' to support local Iraqi restaurant attacked by moron

Zen 1093: This, apparently, is child poverty

Zen 1092: If you didn't want to go to Iceland before, you probably will now

Zen 1091: James Bond is apparently a bit of a prick

Zen 1090: Lovely use of Daft Punk to improve listening comprehension in English students

Zen 1089: How did Jackie Chan make his stunts look like they really hurt?

Zen 1088: Now that's how you advertise a fuckin' sale

Zen 1087: I'm sure there's only so much cute you can take before your head explodes

Zen 1086: Nice guy kayaker dude rescues dog, gives sad story a sort of happy ending

Zen 1085: Step aside you Jackass sissies, Nitro Circus is the new self-harming sheriff in town

Zen 1084: What the Bible *really* says about sex, rather than what right-wing Christian douchebags say it says

Zen 1083: Make your own My Little Pony! Errrr ... for the kids ...?

Zen 1082: How hyper-conservative US presidential hopeful Rick Santorum became synonymous with anal sex

Zen 1081: Goalkeeper scores goal like a boss, doesn't even celebrate

Zen 1080: In a satisfying twist of fate, Stephen Lawrence's murderers have ended up living as they would like black people to live

Zen 1079: Nutters 'air fishing' under the ice in Finland

Zen 1078: Aussie dude nails the world's biggest BMX dirt jump

Zen 1077: Space is bent! Einstein's Theory of Relativity explained by the creators of Betty Boop

Zen 1076: How Indiana Jones stole his opening 13 minutes from older, crappier movies

Zen 1075: Mystery of the giant North Korean soldier mourning Kim Jong Il

Zen 1074: What are you doing New Year's Eve?

Zen 1073: Essential Christmas skills - how to wrap a cat

Zen 1072: Not ronery anymore - a bumper year for dead bastards as Kim Jong Il checks out

Zen 1071: So this bloke comes running up to me and says: 'My mate wants to fight you...'

Zen 1070: Google's Year in Review - the world of 2011 in search terms, which is much more interesting than it sounds

Zen 1069: The cure for the common cold is to have an angry Japanese capsule aggressively mate with your face ... apparently

Zen 1068: UPDATED: UVF 'B' Battalion welcomes you to South Belfast, and all for a Hello Kitty Cool Cardz maker

Zen 1067: Never mind the god particle, CERN used Comic Sans in their presentation, the losers

Zen 1066: I can't begin to express how much I want one of these

Zen 1065: Bye bye Jonny, we'll miss you

Zen 1064: You know what? Fuck pandas. They are the vegans of the animal world and a gift to creationists.

Zen 1063: I am on UR internets degradin' UR language with my apathy and ignorance: An academic guide to LOLspeak

Zen 1062: Europe veto - it's irrelevant why, there was only ever one option

Zen 1061: Japanese Supergrind - it's skateboarding, but not as we know it

Zen 1060: 'Father Christmas?' 'Yes, son?' 'I want to kill you' - it's The Doors' undiscovered festive album

Zen 1059: Wooden ties. Well, why wouldn't you?

Zen 1058: Join the petition to pardon Turing, the man who saved Britain, invented the computer and described artificial intelligence

Zen 1057: Bum, baccy and tinsel: Merry Christmas from the sailors and airmen of HMS Ocean

Zen 1056: Critics' choice: Lyne and Longcross School redefines theatre with daring Nativity

Zen 1055: 'Do you have any daddy butter?' - shopping for idiots

Zen 1054: Santa trumps God, Spiderman and the Spanish Inquisition - the definitive proof

Zen 1053: Charlie Chaplin's speech from the end of 'The Great Dictator'

Zen 1052: Lovely compilation of one-in-a-million shots

Zen 1051: Satanic Mack, the devil dog

Zen 1050: Bobby McFerrin literally plays the audience to illustrate a point about the pentatonic scale

Zen 1049: Star Wars AT-AT made from gingerbread - how cool is this!?!

Zen 1048: You vill enjoy ze Hamburg Miniatur Wonderland vezzer you like it or not

Zen 1047: Must watch - utterly inspired Nando's 'Last Dictator Standing' ad really upsets Mugabe

Zen 1046: Cracked Chinese dude sets fire to own mouth, seems to thoroughly enjoy it

Zen 1045: I'm no hairy-chested feminist, but there should definitely be some birds in the Sports Personality of the Year shortlist

Zen 1045: Reassuring or really quite disturbing?

Zen 1084: What the Bible really says about sex, rather than what right-wing Christian douchebags say it says