Category: Thoughts

Can a Virtuous Character Be Interesting?

By 5t4n5

Virtuous CharacterA bit of writing from the response by Alice Gregory in the New Yorker article Can a Virtuous Character Be Interesting?: which is a good article and worth reading the whole thing.

Living virtuously is hard. It takes generative intellectual work that is far more interesting than the defensiveness of “being bad.”   I would rather consider the challenges that go into a consciously lived life than the inevitably hurtful products of a cruel one.

A truly radical 21st-century novelist wouldn’t ask us to see ourselves in made-up villains, and then, hopefully, revise our opinions of the real ones in our own lives.   Rather, they would ask us to see the arduous and often acrobatic effort that goes into living a life of common decency.   They would coerce us into believing that virtue is interesting and fun to think about and far more dazzling to encounter than malevolence.

I do think that it’s all rather easy to write about bad people doing bad things, and films and TV are full of them (which is probably why i find them so tedious); but to write about people struggling to be decent, honest and true to oneself in a world that is more and more full of indecency, dishonesty and fake personalities, now there in is the real skill.

Alice’s Page

#coffee #thoughts #alicegregory

Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.

By 5t4n5

This week in politics we were given a very good example of Dunning-Kruger effect.

On top of the Dunning-Kruger we also get to see extreme Narcissistic Personality Disorder in action, with Trump deciding that this test would be almost impossible for anyone else to pass.

If the president of the usa is — by his own admission — finding a cognitive impairment test, “very difficult”, and finds it hard to believe that most other people wouldn’t be able to pass it then please, please, someone, anyone, remove this clown from office.

That some people are still believing that he’s a great president and will vote for him again just shows that democracy is a load of bollox: when you give idiots the vote they’ll vote for idiots.

And so, in this age of fake news, we have the president of the usa performing his own fake news for our entertainment dollar.

Please watch his face and right hand as he recites his pre-arranged “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.”

Now consider how everything was arranged for this interview:

I shall say no more.

#5t4n5 #donaldtrump #personwomanmancameratv #politics #fakenews #thoughts

Modern Slavery at Waitrose

By 5t4n5

Modern Slavery at WaitroseSo yesterday morning, Sunday 22nd December, i thought i’d go out for a ride on my scooter — weather being nice and everything.

So off i went to Sidmouth, as it’s quite a fun ride from Exmouth going the back lane way over Peak Hill.

I planned on getting there just after 10am so i could pop into Waitrose and grab a free coffee before it all got busy.   Alas, it was not to be.   I had forgotten about all the mindless, senseless, automaton, baby jesus freaks running around in their mad, last minute, buying frenzies because they’d forgotten the fucking stuffing mix and aunty Jane would starve to death if they didn’t get out and buy some at 10am on Sunday morning.

It was so busy Waitrose had even draughted in the boy scouts to guide people to empty parking spaces as they became available, and also the air cadets to collect all the trolleys as all the mad people threw them madly into the air in their mad dashes to be away from the madding, fucking crowd — i kid you fucking not!!!

By the time i’d got through the crazy busy store, having bought some nice things i can’t buy at Tesco in Exmouth, i proceeded to queue for the free coffee at the machine.   Yes folks, a queue had formed at 10.30am in Waitrose.   And it was a queue of 5 people, plus me, and more people then queued behind me.

Normally i wouldn’t bother waiting in such a queue, but i’d rode 12.5 miles on my scooter in the middle of winter — albeit a nice day — to get to Sidmouth; and, if you ask me — which no one did — i was the one in that fucking queue that deserved that free fucking coffee the most.

Needless to say, the coffee machine was not having a happy morning.   When anyone finally made it to the front of the queue they proceeded to apologise to those in the queue behind them about the coffee machine taking ages to make their coffee: “It’s never usually like this.” they said.

And the thought occurred to me:

In the internet of things, and intelligent devices, i wonder, should coffee machines get a tea break?

It struck me that at baby jesus time when everyone is all good will and shit and over eating and seriously hating the whole fucking experience but they go along with it any way because that’s what they’re supposed to do — init — that no one cared about this poor little coffee machine being so utterly abused by the hoi polloi and all and sundry of Sidmouth as they all lose their collective fucking minds and binge shop for baby fucking jesus like it’s the last fucking birthday he’ll ever fucking have.

So yeah, spare a thought for all your intelligent machines, and even the retarded ones, at this time of year.   Buy them a present and make sure they get a fucking break from your family’s incessant, mindless demands.

And yes, i do consider the Waitrose coffee machine to be intelligent.   It can make a fairly decent fucking coffee from whole beans, grinds them all by itself and everything and shit — that’s pretty fucking intelligent compared to a dog.   I don’t see dogs making a fresh ground cup of coffee and plenty of people claim they’re intelligent and if you abused one like you abuse intelligent machines then you’d be arrested good and proper.

So why is it ok to enslave, torture and abuse an intelligent machine in this way — at christmas for fucks sake — but it’s not ok to upset someone’s doggie?

So yeah, give the coffee machines a tea break — and stay the fuck out of Waitrose when i’m visiting Sidmouth.

#5t4n5 #waitrose #ai #coffee #thoughts

Marie Antoinette’s Big Fuck Up

By 5t4n5

This follows on from “Scottish Privilege” and “£4.50 Doughnuts”, so if you haven’t read them already then go and do so first — else i’ll get really grumpy or something, and you wouldn’t like me when i’m really grumpy.

In English speaking countries there’s an urban myth that during the French revolution someone mentioned to Queen Marie Antoinette that the peasants were starving and she reputedly responded with “Let them eat cake.”

Of course, we love that one in England; anything to diss the French will always cheer us up, no end.   Anyone who thinks frogs and slugs are food seriously needs to try eating some cake instead.

However, in French, her reputed statement was “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” which means: “Then let them eat brioche.”   You can read all about the whole episode by clicking here.

If you did click there and read the wiki on it you’ll soon get to thinking that she didn’t actually say it, but that it was a pure propaganda stunt by the peasants to stir up animosity against the royalty.   Or maybe it was just some bored English bloke deciding to have another bash at our favourite neighbours.

Anyways, history lesson over and fast forward to the UK under the bootheels of the Tory party austerity measures.   Are the ruling classes of the UK going to make the same mistake as the French monarchy made and see the peasants rising up against them and chopping their heads off, or are they going to do something different?

Yes, you guessed it, they’re going for a different approach: that of aspiration.

After all, the last thing the poor peasants of the UK need to hear from Mandy Android is this:

Firstly, the ignorant, mono sylabic, tabloid oiks — which make up the vast majority of the UK population — wouldn’t know what the fuck that meant; and secondly, even if they did manage to translate it correctly, they wouldn’t be too impressed anyway as they don’t know what a brioche is — coz mcdonalds don’t sell ’em, init.

But they eat doughnuts.   Everyone likes doughnuts, especially the poor, downtrodden masses of the UK.   I checked while in Tesco yesterday and they’re still 79p for 5 from the in-store-bakery.   Probably cheaper at Lidl and Aldi, but i’m way too classy to be seen in those type of places with the sort that frequent them.

So instead of the government handing out barrow fulls of Brioche to the hungry masses, or simply giving them enough benefits to afford to buy their own brioche, they have deliberately fucked up their benefit payments and created a country where the poorest have to sit at home, staring forlornly at their 68″ plasma tv screens, while watching rich cunts shoving £4.50 doughnuts into their faces, while they have to rely on whatever tinned and packet shite the food bank gave them yesterday.

Obviously, this is far better for the peasants than simply giving them brioche as Marie may, or may not have, suggested.

Why is it far better, you may ask?

Well, because it gives the peasants something to aspire to.   Think about it.   What else, other than their 68″ plasma TV screens and 12 hours of day time TV, do these people have to look forward to every day?   If you dangle the carrot of aspiration in front of them, of being just like Judy and getting to go to London to buy £4.50 doughnuts, then they’ll soon be getting off their arses, getting really good jobs and jumping on trains every weekend to get at those doughnuts.

It just makes so much sense.   It certainly worked for Margaret Thatcher who used ‘buy-your-own-council-house’ as her carrot of aspiration for the oiks, which got them all out from in front of their TV’s and getting jobs so that they could get a mortgage and be slaves to their jobs until their mortgages were paid off because they’d now be homeless if they didn’t pay the mortgage.

The oiks didn’t seem to concern themselves with the fact that they could have continued living a job free lifestyle, watching day time TV and been guaranteed to be able to live in their council house for the rest of their lives if they didn’t buy it because housing benefit would always cover the rent.   No, they chased that carrot of aspiration all the way into corporate slavery and worked themselves into an early grave and their houses were sold to the highest bidder to pay for their old people’s home care bill.   The highest bidder being a buy-to-let property magnet who now rents those houses back to poor people on short term 6 month leases at 5 times the rent the original council house would currently be rented to them for if it were still a council house.

So yeah, aspiration.   Do you dream of being wealthy enough, or even pretending to be wealthy enough, to buy £4.50 doughnuts?   If you’ve already bought your own council house then maybe this is the next aspirational step for you.   In the meanwhile it’ll keep the masses downtrodden as they drool at the thought of getting one of those doughnuts one day instead of rising up and overthrowing those that keep them downtrodden and eating slightly stale, food bank doughnuts instead.

Seriously, people, quit aspiring to the shit they advertise to you in product placements within Judy Murray stories that aren’t worth publishing.   It’s all designed to keep you enslaved to the system.   If Marie had known then what the ruling classes of France know now then she would have opened a few tourists shops at the Palace of Versailles and offered expensive tat to the peasants to give them something to aspire to affording — which is exactly what the French government are doing at the Palace of Versailles right now.

Instead of tearing down the gates of Versailles, storming the palace, stuffing your face in the kitchens and nicking whatever valuables you could fit in your pockets; you can now aspire to buy a ticket — starting at 20 euros — to walk through open gates, wander around anywhere you’ve got a ticket for (look but don’t touch), pay a load more euro to eat brioche and drink coffee in the cafe and then spend even more euros buying a shit load of tourist tat on your way out.   Which doesn’t leave much change from 200 euros for a peasant family.   But at least you won’t have to put up with Judy Murray as they don’t take Scottish play money.

Anyway, fuck aspiring to pay for it, revolution was much more fun and much more cheaper.   Storm the doors of the boutique doughnut shops and help yourselves — the police won’t stop you as they’re too busy with all the climate change demonstrations.

#5t4n5 #scottish #doughnuts #privilege #socialaspiration #thoughts

£4.50 Dougnuts

By 5t4n5

No, i just can’t let this one go.

After my previous post on ‘Sottish Privilege’ in which i have a little rant about Judy ‘my-son-can-bat-a-ball-better-than-your-son-can’ Murray and her obscene financial excesses, i decided to dig a little deeper into what makes a doughnut cost £4.50.

So apparently, what makes these doughnuts so fucking special is that they’re made in Reading.

They make them in Reading, fresh every day, and then ship them into London through all that poluted traffic, adding to the already overloaded congestion and pollution that London suffers from while delivering these daily to their 10 London shops, so you can have a super fresh doughnut experience.

I presume that they don’t do this because there’s anything special about Reading — trust me, i’ve watched ‘Beautiful People’ — but because its cheaper to make them there and then ship them into their 10 London shops than it is to make them truly fresh in their shops in London.

Surely, at £4.50, you’d expect someone to stand in front of you and make it especially for you from 100% organic certified ingredients that have been lovingly fertilised with unicorn shit and pixie wee and watered with rainbow tears, but no, you just get a doughnut made in Reading sometime last night from ingredients that i can’t find published anywhere on their website.

One would think that if they were truly proud of their obscenely expensive boutique doughnuts they’d publish a full ingredient list on their website, but no, they don’t even state what kind of oil they use other than its some kind of vegetable.

But, not to worry, if you want to save some money you can buy a box of 6 for £24.   Yeah, it’s actually really real, me and Judy ain’t making this shit up.   They’ve got 10 shops in London, so one can only presume that there’s plenty of people, fucked in the head enough, to be buying them.   Although, when you think about it, all that pollution from delivery vans delivering to 10 different shops every day in London does have most people fucked in the head enough to be paying £4.50 for one single doughnut.

So, anyway, i thought i’d look at Tesco and see what they can do for £4.50 in the way of nice cakey things…   So, for £4.50, at Tesco, i can get 990g of mini gingerbread men, that’s basically a whole kilogram (let’s not quibble over 10g).   Yeah, really, a whole fucking army of your very own mini gingerbread men for £4.50.   So Judy and her friend, i’m presuming she was buying two doughnuts to share one with a friend, but maybe she’s just a greedy person and was hoping to devour them both herself.   After all, who the fuck am i to be judging the feeding habits of a nation who eat deep fried, battered pizzas with chips as a snack…

So, if, and it is a big if, we presume one of her £4.50 doughnuts was for a friend, then Judy and her imaginary friend could have, instead, gone to Tesco and got a whole army of mini gingerbread men each and played Warhammer with them and when you killed your opponents you’d get to eat them too — now that’d be so much more fun than 2 fancy, made in Reading, doughnuts.

Tesco in store bakery also sells doughnuts fresh baked every day, ‘in store’ — not shipped half way across England — @ 79p for 5.   Yes, a whole pack of 5 fresh baked doughnuts for 79p.   So you can have 28 1/2 doughnuts for £4.50.   So Judy, and her maybe imaginary friend, could have had 57 doughnuts between them and had such a mental sugar rush that a big fight (that Conor McGregor would have been proud of) in the middle of the street would have ensued over who got the last one — now that would have been headline news worthy of any tabloid and even possibly made the BBC front page.

Moving on: for other sources of cheap doughnuts, simply pop along to your local food bank and wait until someone donates a packet of doughnuts and you’ll get them for nothing.   And if you’re really lucky, they’ll be from some rich, Scotch cunt who paid £4.50 each for two and couldn’t manage the second one after their Pizza Crunch breakfast so decided to give it away to the peasants.

There should be a [sic] somewhere in the previous sentence, but i didn’t put it in because i felt it destroyed the flow of the piece, so i’ll leave it to you to think about where it should go.   Answers on a postcard.   And for the fuckwits who can’t make out what i mean by [sic], this whole thing is wasted on you anyway because you obviously suffer from Dunning-Kruger effect, and right about now you’ll be getting all fucking righteous about everything and attempting to engage me in a tedious exchange of emails in the vain hope of educating me out of my ignorance — and stupidity — while all the while not realising it is you, yourself, who is the utter fuckwit here who is so fuckwitted that any attempt at educating you is a total fucking waste of resources and time: that’s what eating pizza crunch suppers does to your brain.

And people call Margaret Thatcher evil — at least she didn’t allow boutique doughnuts on her watch while the oi palloi went hungry.

Fuck it, it’s 7:04 and Tesco has been open for over an hour.   You see the sacrifices i make so that you can have cutting edge journalism with your breakfast?   So, anyway, it’s well past time for their in store bakery to have my 28 1/2 doughnuts and army of mini gingerbread men ready for a dining room table top battle — at least that’s my day sorted and £9 well spent.

And no, i’m most certainly not finished with this topic.   Click here for the next episode.

#5t4n5 #scottish #doughnuts #privilege #thoughts

Scottish Privilege

By 5t4n5

While the rest of the UK is suffering under the bootheels of Tory austerity and having to use foodbanks, the Scots are living it up big time and taking expensive day trips to London to buy boutique doughnuts for £4.50 each…

Andy Murray’s mum Judy Murray shocked as London shop REFUSES to serve her

..and then they have the fucking audacity to complain that we don’t accept their play money.

If you’ve got enough spare change lying around that you can afford to go all the way to London for a couple of boutique doughnuts to shove into your privileged face, then surely you have enough spare change to afford getting your play money changed to legal tender somewhere along the way — obviously having lots of spare change doesn’t equate to having any fucking intelligence.

As the Scottish still don’t understand after being told again, and again, and again, and again, let’s try it more simply… Your play money is legal to use as money in the UK if people are willing to accept it, but it is not legal tender and no one actually has to accept it.   Which is exactly the same as Monopoly money, as you can also buy doughnuts with Monopoly money but, likewise, only if all parties are in agreement.

That aside, who the fuck in their right mind would even think of going to London and paying £9.00 for 2 boutique doughnuts — for fucks sake — and then have the holier-than-though arrogance to complain to all and sundry about the service while most people in England have less than £9 to feed themselves for 2 days and many have far less than £9 and have to use foodbanks?   Only the privileged, strawberries and cream, Wimbledon cunts with more money than sense.

A special thank you goes out to the Daily Express for exposing these privileged cunts and the obscene disparity of wealth between the countries of the UK.

I actually learned to read using the Daily Express when i was 3 and 4 years old.   Tis true.   That’s how privileged — and intelligent — i am…

coz…

unlike Judy…

i am fucking special
 
Giz a donut!

Continued…

#5t4n5 #scottish #doughnuts #privilege #thoughts

What Fuckwit Arranged This?

By 5t4n5

Once upon a time big sporting events used to take each other into account and arrange things on different days.   Not any more.

In the information technology age, full of incredible computing superpower that can calculate pi to a billion places in 10 minutes and even beat a human at Scrabble all while streaming a show on Netflix, some fuckwit decided to pick this weekend to put on the Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix, the USA MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3 Grand Prix, and the Rome Formula E race.

And they even managed to muscle in on Paris Roubaix as well.

Now that is a proper royal clusterfuck of epic proportions for these great, world class, sporting events.

It really beggars belief that these fuckwits can’t just get together at some point during the year and work out between themselves not to trample over each other’s sport like this.

So i’m having to survive on a shit load of coffee until late Sunday evening.   #nosleeptillmonday

Ho hum!

#5t4n5 #fuckwits #formula1 #formulae #motogp #thoughts

Organ Donor UK

By 5t4n5

From 2020 the UK government have made a law that you will automatically be a body part donor in the event of your death whether you have chose to be or not.

Personally i find this disgusting.   That a bunch of politico cunts will lay claim to any or all of your body parts after you died as their property to do what they like with without your prior, voluntary consent is a step too far, and is, most certainly, another step closer to ‘Soylent Green’.

And what happens when someone important to the government wants a specific body part from a specific blood group, etc..   All your genetic, blood, tissue, etc., details are being collected into an ever expanding government database and whenever they require an organ from any specific type of person then it’s not too far fetched to imagine what can happen when they have deliberately and legally turned you into an organ harvesting animal at their disposal whenever they want — which is what this law does.

It’s all well and good if you don’t mind your body being chopped up and used however politicans decide their agents can use it, but if that’s the case then you should opt in, which has historically always been the case.   But it’s not the case any longer.   From 2020 the UK government will claim ownership over your whole body once you are dead and butcher it up like an animal carcass to do whatever they like with unless you specifically opt out.

You can do so by going to the “Register a decision not to donate” webpage of the NHS.

If the government was truly concerned about you, the people, then they would have created a completely different method of farming human organs: that of offering services in return to the donor.

It’s not too far fetched an idea that if the NHS uses any part of your body after you die then the government should pay a decent sum of money to the next of kin towards funeral/cremation costs of what remains after they’ve finished harvesting.   There’s always people complaining about the cost of funerals, so why not offer free cremations for all body part donors?   This will also have the effect of making people look after themselves a lot better because if their organs aren’t healthy then they won’t get used.   But this isn’t even an option.   The politicos will take whatever bits they want and send the bill to dispose of the rest to your next of kin.

It’s very simple, if enough people opt out then the government will have to change the system and start offering a fair price towards funeral/cremation costs for all body parts donated.   It really is that simple.

#5t4n5 #organharvesting #refusetodonate #soylentgreen #thoughts

Too Little Too Late

By 5t4n5

I just read this… “Zoopla bars ‘no housing benefit’ rental ads”

What strikes me as utterly shameful is this line…

Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee has launched an inquiry into discrimination against benefits claimants.

Like they really need an inquiry?   Another few years will go by and landlords will still be discriminating against people who claim benefits.   People on benefits have for decades been forced into substandard housing because that’s nice for the Government because they don’t have to pay as much housing benefit for sub standard housing.

All the time we hear the tired old crap of MP’s paying lip service about bad landlords with tenants being forced to live in squalor, while those same MP’s have done absolutely nothing whatsoever, for decades, to deal with the very situation that causes it.

We don’t need another pointless inquiry, what we need is legislation now that bans any prospective landlord from discriminating against any prospective tenant in this way.   This can be done immediately if the government are serious about it.   But they’re not.   What we need is legislation that bans anyone from discriminating against another human being for simply having to claim benefits.

It’s a very simple law to enact: if anyone is refused a tenancy on the grounds of race, sexuality, gender, religion, benefits, etc., then the landlord should have their property confiscated and handed over to the local council for social housing.   That would soon stop all this happening immediately.

But that won’t happen because the wealthy MP’s and their wealthy friends won’t like it.   So we’ll just have an inquiry and come up with some pointless recommendations that will be certain to not change anything whatsoever, and anyone who feels like it will be allowed to continue to discriminate against the poorest within our society.

#5t4n5 #benefits #socialhousing #thoughts

Cafe Culture

By 5t4n5

I wrote the following article a few years ago for another website which no longer exists.   But i still like it so i’m republishing it here…

So once again Starbucks are in the news…

‘Starbucks agrees to pay more corporation tax’.

What perplexes me is why so many people get their knickers in a twist about this and think that complaining about Starbucks’ tax avoidance is something to get all uppity about.

Let’s put it simply…   No one, other than a complete fool, pays taxes that they do not have to pay by law.

You show me one of these anti-corporate-tax-avoidance-protest-moaners who pays tax that they are not legally required to pay by law and you’ll show me a utter fool.   So why do they think that they have a moral right to start bitching and whining about others who do not pay tax that they are not legally required to pay by law?

Everyone does tax avoidance.   Tax avoidance is simply not paying taxes that the law does not require you to pay.   People who run their own businesses put every receipt (loss) that they are allowed to by law through their accounts to lower their tax requirements for the year, this is no different to any other business putting any receipt (loss) that they are allowed to by law through their accounts to lower their tax requirements for the year.

Yes, ok, one could argue about the level to which this is done by these huge multi-national corporations, but that isn’t the fault of the corporations, it’s the fault of the political classes who allow these loop holes in the tax laws to exist purely so that their own personal corporate investments can bring them bigger returns, and also to please their corporate masters who fund their election campaigns.   It’s not the corporations you should be complaining about, it’s the political classes who have their snouts in the corporate trough that are the problem.   And none of this is ever going to change while we have an unelected oligarchy/plutocracy/corporatocracy/ecclesiocracy, like the House of Lords (whose only purpose is to ensure that new legislation looks after corporate interests for the rich, wealthy and powerful), overseeing new legislation — but that’s another topic for another day.

What i want to rant about in this post is what is really annoying me about this Starbucks thing.   Yes, what annoys me more than politicos with their snouts in the trough, and the corporatocratic take over of the House of Lords, is that people are only boycotting Starbucks because of this tax thing; and they simply take their business elsewhere to other corporate clone outlets like Costa and Cafe Nero.   Like they think that makes them a bit more morally superior.   Well it doesn’t!

Every town that i’ve ever visited, and i’ve visited a lot of towns in my time, has a treasure trove of independent cafes and coffee shops that are small independent businesses that are fully part of their communities and only exist within their own communities.   So why is there even a discussion about Starbucks, et al, in the first place?

Next time you want a cuppa when you’re out and about, don’t got to a corporate clone outlet and look like a total fucking loser who thinks they’re in with the in crowd.   You’re not in with the in crowd, you’re just a stupid fucking herd animal that can’t think for yourself.   Instead, start frequenting your local, independent coffee shops and cafes, and get to know the owners and the staff and have a nice chat with nice people who are civilised and sociable and a real part of their communities.   There would be no corporate tax avoidance going on by these corporate clone coffee shops if everyone just used small independent coffee shops instead.   And you might even find that you will get a far nicer cup of coffee.

A good local cafe is run by local people for local people.   I’ve found many a local cafe/coffee shop with a notice board and leaflet shelves overflowing with local events, clubs, etc.. I’ve been in quite a few cafes that also serve as art galleries displaying local artists’ work for sale all over the walls.   And you can find good local cafes like this in every town if you just take a few moments to look around — and they’re not ripping millions out of the UK economy for their overseas, corporate masters’ profit margins.

So, have a good long think about where you’re going to buy your next cuppa when you’re and about next.   And remember, every penny you spend in life is a vote on how you want your world to be.   I’d like mine to be nice and local and lovely, but you can make your own choice.   Just don’t cry to me about Starbucks, i don’t care what Starbucks are doing with their profits because i don’t give them any.

Nuff said…

My next thought will be “Too Little Too Late”

#5t4n5 #coffee #thoughts