I'm wasted on my peers.

Yesterday, I started to doubt my comedy genius. I'm convinced I'm the next Andy Kaufman, really I am, but I tried to make the same brilliant joke yesterday THREE times, with THREE different people, and in THREE different ways, but all I got was blank looks. It's ridiculous.

While they are two very sad news story's, the troubles in Gaza, and the alcohol-fueled absconding of Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne, you can't ignore who similar Gaza and Gazza are. Hilarity must ensue! Surely!

Ok, attempt #1 : 0745hrs : Wife :

She says to me "It's terrible what has happened to Gazza isn't it?" So I saw my chance, and responded with lightning quick reflexes, normally reserved for serpents. "Yeah, but to be fair, he keeps firing his home-made rockets at Israel..." She looked at me like she'd caught me arm wrestling a panda. After a long explanation, she still didn't even raise a smile. 0-1

Attempt #2 : 1235hrs : Colleague A :

Staff room, lunchtime, she says "I don't know which side's worse in Gaza" I respond, more cautiously this time, making sure I make the most of the opportunity. " With alcoholism, there's never a winning side." Not as good as response 1, but, I had a bigger audience, so I held out a bit more hope... NOTHING! Nobody even gave what I said a second look! Shitehawks.

Final Attempt : 15:50 : Colleague B:

My office, she says "The problems in Gaza are getting worse aren't they?" This was it, I could feel it, my final chance. I had to make this one count. The heat was on. I paused for breath, and thought long and hard about my retort. Finally, I felt good about it, I felt the time was right, my gag was good, clever, witty, insightful. I had it. Time to cease the moment...

"Not as bad as your FACE! Hahahaha! BURN!

The pressure was just too much.

Number 3 with pilau for 55412

I've read today that the maximum-security Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire spent £3,500 on takeaway curries for Muslim inmates, after they complained about the quality of the food they were being served.

I firstly thought I'd misread this, mainly because it's the most ridiculous thing I've seen since Indie's fridge. At what point did we start caring what prisoners thought of prison food? There was a time that they had to live on water, as part of repaying their debt to society. Instead, they can now moan that the Tarka Dahl is a bit moist, and they get to ring the local Tandoori?

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not), but aren't prisoners being punished for committing crimes?  Isn't that the whole point of prison? If it was meant to be a holiday camp, the Ministry of Justice would have a much larger water slide portfolio than they currently carry. Call me a cynic (I'm not), but I wonder if they would have been so ready to nip to McDonalds if caucasian prisoners had complained that the chips were too earthy?

If you commit a crime, you go to prison, if you go to prison, you eat whatever rat feces riddled garbage the MoJ decide to feed you.  If you don't like it, don't do crimes, m'kay? Surely the whole point of prison is punishment and reform?  This is not punishment, and how are they going to reform if their 3 month sentence is like one holiday after another? Not much of a deterrent is it? Quite tempted to get myself a few weeks in Strangeways at easter.  Maybe a long weekend at February half term.

Good food, no work, and ping-pong tables a-plenty!  Can't wait.  It's a lot cheeper than going half board to Butlins, and if you actually commit a decent crime before you get caught, like say, theft of an Argos truck, you can stash all the stuff and have a fair butty waiting for you when you get out.  Wanna buy a knocked-off Wii?

Don't Tase me bro!

Tasers are perhaps the coolest thing Sci-Fi has ever suggested that has actually come into fruition. Although to be fair, automatic doors from Star Trek are the only other ones so far. As undeniably awesome as Tasers are, there aren't too many of them about, until now!

Yes, that's right, exciting taser-based news ahoy! The government has announced plans to issue additional Tasers to the Police.  Currently, 3,000 specially trained firearms officers carry the non-lethal weapons. 

For some bizarre reason, Amnesty International has a problem with this, and Tasers in general.  Were they never children? These hippys say that it's dangerous to be shot with 50,000 volts of electricity. Don't they realise it's the amperage that kills you? Do they not watch Mythbusters? Anyway, Amnesty International, call me old fashioned, but I reckon the chances of getting all brock-up by a Taser are significantly less than being shot by the MP5 or sidearm of Armed Response. (An MP5 is a gun, by the way, not a music file.)  

The man responsible for selling the Taser to the UK's Police forces, Peter Boatman, claims to have been shot by the device over 200 times, and describes it as like "bad cramp all over your body"  but says the pain stops the instant the device is shut down.  The same cannot be said about a bullet to the torso.

Also, if you are in a position where the police are going to Tase you, you're doing something wrong. So, you know, don't. If you are in the unlucky position of being suspecting of doing something wrong, but haven't, like Jean Charles De Menezes, wouldn't you prefer a temporary electric shock to a permanent death?

Why is it there aren't other inventions from Sci-Fi in the shops already?  Fair enough, a lot of stuff from Star-Trek was pretty ambitious, but in the 42 years since the original series started, someone should have invented something, surely? Or the Bond gadgets?  At least the dagger-shoe from "From Russia with Love" or the Rocket-fag from "You Only Live Twice" should be in the shops by now.  I'm sure someone from Aston Martin has that DB5 from "Casino Royale" sat on their drive.  Come on, share the wealth.

Sirius Black

The Sirius Star, an Arabian oil tanker carrying $100 million of crude oil, has been hijacked off the Kenyan coastline by, wait for it, Somalian Pirates!

I'm sure this is devastating for someone who was a boat and a load of black stuff down when they woke up this morning, but for me, this is the greatest thing to happen to the world in a number of years.  Think about it, when you were a nipper, all you ever wanted to be was a pirate. (That or a princess, but the tablets stopped those feelings.) The dream of millions of young lads worldwide have been recognised by a band of Buccaneer Somalians.  Remember Somalia?  Famine, drought, scrawpy looking kids covered in flies?  Well, these are the same people who are now charging about the high seas with peg legs and parrot donned shoulders.  Presumably.

Fair play to them, I'm actually proud of them. It's like when the geeky kid at school turns into a popular kid in all those films we don't believe.  Only this is real.  Thankyou humanity! My faith in you is restored.

Somalians, on average, earn $600 per year. This means that at face value, this 1 boat could pay the wages of over 166,000 of them!  Not taking into account if they flog the boat afterwards. A used oil tanker fetches between $42m and $116m depending on the size. Great bit of business that. (I realise they probably aren't going to spread the wealth, but I just love these guys right now, so go with it.)

These Pirate Gods, as I like to see them, haven't hurt any of the Sirius Star's crew, which would have been more "Pirate" but not hurting them just makes them even cooler for me.  Now, this may cause a rise in crude oil prices, granted, but this tanker only carried 1/4 of the daily product of Saudi Arabia.  A real drop in the sea for a massively rich country like Saudi, so it shouldn't cause a price hike, but the greediness of the oil barons no doubt will.

Whatever the outcome please join me in a toast for the Somali Pirates, Arrrrrrr!