Papercuts

Financial Zombie Film

Michelle Clark — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:22:16 +0000

It’s all about the credit crunch at the moment isn’t it? Or should that be spelt CREEEEDIIIIT CRUUUUUNCH. Now I am not going to be horrible about all of the city boys who have lost their jobs. That’s because from the moment there were any job losses in the city there seems to have been a resonating whisper warning the remaining population of Great Britain that they musn’t be horrible about the city boys losing their jobs. And it seems to have worked, since I haven’t actually heard any one utter an unsympathetic comment comment about the job losses. They’ve had it a lot easier than the miner’s then. But whatever, poor people getting a worse deal than rich people - it’s hardly news is it.

It is of course a terrible business. Mortgage rates are going up and it is becoming difficult for some homeowners to keep up with payments. Recession is never good news and thousands are losing their jobs. Credit Crunch is baaaaad.

I have a confession to make. I’m finding the credit crunch all a bit…. exciting. I know, I am terrible. At first I thought it was because I am selfish and as a modest earner who one day aspires to own her own home I am welcoming the correction of property prices. And it is a correction, the average salary in London is £38,000 pa and the average property costs £369,500.

But now I don’t think it is that. I’m empathetic and I understand that it is having a massive impact on people’s lives. But that’s sort of it - we don’t know how bad it’s going to get or what effect it’s going to have on us, I kind of want to stock up on non-perishable food items and bottled water and haul up in my living room until it’s all over - it’s like we’re living in a financial zombie film. And I LOVE a good zombie film.

A good zombie film, not Day of the Dead - the remake. Why is it called Day of the Dead when it is absolutely nothing like the original by the always brilliant George A Romero? How do they get away with it? They are not even Zombies. Firstly they can run - in fact they can crawl up walls and defy gravity and move faster than humans. And the people don’t die before turning, they just sort of go into a little daze.

Now I don’t mind a bit of playing with conventions but come on, this is a bit far. If it doesn’t suck blood, don’t call it a vampire. If it isn’t a re-animated corpse - don’t call it a zombie. And to add insult to injury they commit this attrocity in a film with George A Romero’s name on the cover, and he himself is a strict believer that it is simple - if you are a corpse and you run you’d break your bloody decaying ankles!! It’s not rocket science.

This blog is dedicated to all the city boys who won’t be getting a million pound bonus this Christmas.

Mc Ground Cow Teeth and Spinal Chord Deluxe

Michelle Clark — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:21:47 +0000

When McDonalds are in the news, especially when they’ve got the Prime Minister discussing them on breakfast TV, I generally assume they’ve done something hideous like keep children in their basements making milkshakes out of battery chickens all night. So you can imagine my surprise this morning when I saw the golden arches on the cover of the paper because of a story not connected not to ethical scandal, not even to the nauseating reality of their Mc Ground Cow Teeth and Spinal Chord Deluxe with Cheese Flavoured Latex, but about offering their staff a qualification equivalent to an A Level. Of course this is going to cause a stir. People love going on about how easy education is these days, how qualifications don’t mean anything and so on and on and on. I’ve seen people smash their own faces into slabs of pavement because they’re so disgusted that there is such a thing as a degree in Media Studies. They’d actually rather be unconscious than accept they live in a world where you can study telly and that. I don’t see what all the fuss is about really. They put smack in their burgers to make people stay buying their food (probably) so why not launch a qualification that means you’ll only ever be able to work at McDonalds? Good staff retention scheme, that is. Plus it’s not a bad qualification when you look at it. It’s better than an A-Level in working at KFC, their A Levels don’t even look like A - Levels, they’re kept in tiny cages and never even see daylight.

Free as a celebrity jailbird

Michelle Clark — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:44:48 +0000

Time must be flying by, Chris Langham is out of prison already - feels like he’s only been in there a couple of months. Oh no wait, he has. Apparently downloading kiddy porn isn’t that bad afterall, certainly not worth ten months of someone’s life. Well, not someone whose on telly anyway. With these high profile celebrity court cases it’s always nice to think that judges are aware of the example they’re setting to others when deciding sentences for the various crimes commited by the rich and famous, but it’s hard to believe that’s true. Unless judges want to spread the word to paedophiles everywhere that if you get put away for downloading category 5 child porn images (the category reserved for the most base and explicit images) in the summer, don’t worry - we’ll get you out by Christmas. Of course the official main reason for Langham’s early release was the remote possibility that he was telling the truth and the images were downloaded for research. That stage of a writers research where they’ve just downloaded all the porn their going to write about, but haven’t quite got around to writing any notes, performing any other research or mentioning the project to anyone else yet. But the accusations being thrown at the descision by child welfare groups seem to have an ounce more credibility - Langham was released early because he’s famous. If this is true then Langham today walks free and joins the likes of Paris Hilton and Pete Doherty in the Hall of Fame-means-we-serve-far-less-time-than-we-should-for-the-crimes-we-commit. But he’ll have to clime his way into the A list before he can join Micheal Jackson and OJ Simpson and be too famous to be tried for his crimes at all. Meanwhile us lowly normals better carry on trying to stay out of prison the good old fashioned way - by not committing crimes.