Balance this, you pastor

Rabid preacher David Robertson of the Free Church of Scotland is in the news today whinging about the upcoming speech that Richard Dawkins is going to make at the UHI Millennium Institute.

This deluded god-monger is concerned that the event will not be ‘balanced’. He wants Dawkin’s stage to be shared with some other bible basher.

What utter tosh. How can you balance out a talk against religion. We’re talking evidence here. Not blind faith. We’re talking about rational thinking; a cold hard look at the facts and not the delusions and superstitions of the religiously afflicted.

Let’s hope the UHI doesn’t bow to his rants. Caving in to his ridiculous demand would be akin to giving Flat-earthers’ views the same credibility as those who believe the world is round.

BTW, if any of you reading this have been infected with religion and want a cure, see your doctor for some Olanzapine. It should help.

Welcome back Syphilis

I’ve been in the medical profession for almost 20 years now. I’ve encountered syphilis infection only 3 times in my career so far. What is surprising is that all 3 cases have been in the last 6 months. Like the proverbial buses, you wait 2 decades for it and then 3 come at once.

Some facts to keep you interested-

1. All 3 cases have been male
2. One guy is a homosexual who also has HIV
3. One of the heterosexuals is from Africa
4. Third guy is a local git who’s been sleeping around
5. Only the gay guy has completed treatment and the follow up so far
6. Sexual Health are busy chasing up the other 2 guys
7. You don’t want be catching syphilis- believe me, it’s not nice. It’s even worse than chlamydia or the clap

Moral- If you’re engaging in casual sex, chancres of you catching syphilis are increasing. Use your head- use a condom.

Do not insult me

Low-life soap-dodger Stephen Price was sentenced to life imprisonment at the High Court in Glasgow for the murder of Paisley man Scott Burgess. In the attack, Burgess was stabbed more than 60 times by Price. The attack was so frenzied that the idiot Price managed to stab himself in the arm. Also sent down were 2 sisters Karen and Irene Duncan who helped Price in the attack.

The court was told that there was no motive for the horrific crime apart from the fact that Price believed Burgess had made some derogatory remarks about his friends. I guess whether or not Burgess did insult Price’s friend will never be known.

But here’s my message to scumbag Stephen Price. I hope he won’t consider these remarks derogatory.

Stephen Price, you thick piece of canine excrement. You and your sub-normal friends should be castrated for the good of the human gene pool. Your girlfriend Karen Duncan has halitosis as well as injuries sustained from the fall off the Ugly Tree. Enjoy prison time and I’m sure your rectum will be most accommodating.

What a load of Dragon Balls

To those who don’t know, Dragon Ball Z was a Japanese cartoon TV series of the manga comic books. It ran from 1989 to 1996 and consisted of 276 episodes. Each episode was about 25 minutes long.

I can’t be bothered explaining the whole story because that’ll take about a month. You can read all about it by clicking the above link to wikipedia.

I tried to follow it in the late 1990s when it was aired on Cartoon Network on Sunday mornings- 2 or 3 episodes a week. It was pretty difficult at the time because of work commitments and/or Sunday morning hangovers. I think I caught episodes 15 through to 50 or so. Then CN stopped showing it on Sundays and switched it to weekdays afternoons which really buggered it up for me.

So for 10 years, I had to suspend my Dragon Ball Z addiction until last week that is.

I tracked down a torrent for DBZ and managed to download it over a couple of days. All 276 episodes, in Real Media format. Each episode is around 33Mb in size and the total size of the download is about 9Gb. Even with each episode at 20 minutes long (no intro song, no recap, no end titles),  it means that I need to find over 90 hours of free time to get through it all.

Wish me luck King Kai…

Ugly Scottish Politicians

Is it just me or are Scottish politicians really unsightly?

Here’s my case. Look at these prime examples of people who fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Wendy Alexander MSP. When abortions go wrong…

 Jackie Baillie MSP. Who ate all the pie factories?

 

 Robin Cook MP(deceased). Gnome Sweet Gnome.

Annabel Goldie MSP. The most ugly CD player ever.

Learning to snowboard in a day

[I can’t be arsed anymore with this 3rd person crap. Back to good ol’ 1st…]

As I wrote in a previous post, I was going spent a whole day on Saturday learning to snowboard at the Sno!Zone in the Xscape complex. For a princely sum of £150, you get a board, boots, etc and tuition that gets you from zero to hero in a day (well, up to recreational level anyway ie safe to use the big slope).

The day started at 10am and it would go on until 6pm. I had booked online with my credit card a few weeks ago when I mustered enough determination and finance. I had already invested in a ski jacket and pants as well as good gloves. Handy also for tobogganing with the wee Lad which is well worth trying at the Sno!Zone.

Joining me for the day were 4 others from various walks of life, from IT, sales, business support and a housewife. At 10am we started onto the training slope. Our instructor was a young hip snowboarder by the name of Kate and she took us through all the stages of our snowboarding odyssey.

It was pretty intensive training from the word go. A 20 minute drinks break half way through the morning session was much needed. The air inside the freezer-like atmosphere of the slopes is extremely dry and you can almost felt your lips and skin being desiccated.

By lunchtime at 1pm I was fairly proficient with my heel edge and toe edge turns. A quick snack at TGI Fridays and we were back on the slopes for 2pm. We spent the next 2hrs honing our link turns on the training slope before another drinks break and then we were onto the main slope. By this time the quads were starting to feel it. I’m in fairly good shape in terms of stamina and fitness so I was powering ahead and getting my turns sorted for the main slope. 2 in the group were starting to cool off after the drinks break and so gave the main slope a miss.

The button ski lifts were a breeze to use with boards and after a couple of trial runs from the half way part of the slope, we made it all the way to the top. It seemed a bit daunting at first but after a few runs down, I was starting to carve some snow. I was shredding big time. I could have gone for another hour or two just from the adrenaline but at 6pm it was all over. The slope closes for an hour for the machines to condition the snow for the evening session.

After getting changed and getting the certificate, it was the drive home and that’s when the fatigue started to set in. When I got home I was shattered. A hot shower and a bite to eat, and I was in my bed by 8.30pm.

Overall, it was a great day. A real sense of accomplishment. I’d recommend it to anyone but you’d need a reasonable level of fitness to get the most out of the day. I can’t wait to back onto the snow again.

For a week before the lesson, I was doing exercises to condition my leg and back muscles and this is a must if you don’t want to be crippled the following few days. I’m feeling slightly stiff this morning but I’ve been off to the gym for an hour on the cross trainer to loosen me up and then a session in the steam room. I might still call in sick on Monday though.I’ve heard that the slopes are pretty quiet on a Monday morning…

No More Neds Please

News of missing girl Shannon Matthews being found alive has dominated this evening’s news programmes.

Jokalew appreciates that this a good news story and that it must be a massive relief for the Kirklees community to have one of their own found safe and well after so many weeks of agony. However the near saturation of the television airwaves with fake Burberry baseball caps and shellsuits has distressed Jokalew. Chavs should be herded off and not seen.

“Never in the field of evening news were so many schemies filmed by so few news crews.”

Let’s Shred

Last year Jokalew made a decision to learn at least one new skill in 2008. To that end, he has booked a whole day (8 hours) snowboarding lesson at the Sno!Zone indoor real snow ski slope. It is housed within the Xscape complex in Braehead, just outside Glasgow.

Jokalew has never been snow boarding before but after a couple of hours on the internet and a few youtube videos on ‘How to Snowboard’, he is confident that it’s all a bit of a breeze.

However, Jokalew’s armchair analysis of snowboarding has been met with derision from one of his GP partners in the practice. Dr She-Who-Goes-To-Whistler-Every-Year has told him that he is going to be very sore afterwards, possibly even crippled and that it might be a good idea if he cancels his Monday surgeries.

Jokalew is inclined to ignore advice- especially if it’s spurious and wrong. We will see who is right…

The 3rd Person

Jokalew has decided that from now on, he shall be referring to himself in the third person singular.

This decision by Jokalew was made sometime during lunch today and more specifically during a rather challenging mastication operation involving a gristly piece of sausage.

Jokalew feels that self-referencing in the third person is cheap and cheerful way of adding some gravitas to this otherwise lightweight and poorly viewed blog.

Lets hope it works.