January
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| What do you get when you cross Wyclef Jean, the Haitian flag and some superglue? |
2010 got off to a rather bleak start when Haiti, no stranger to hardship, suffered the first of two horrific disasters. Numero uno appeared on the 12th when a devastating earthquake hit near the capital Port-au-Prince, killing over 230,000 people and leaving many more homeless. The second arrived in August in the shape of Wyclef Jean, a Haitian-born ex-Fugees member who thought his musical talents could be put to better use by becoming President of a politically unstable third-world country and he wasn’t going to let a little thing like a complete lack of suitable credentials whatsoever stand in his way. Luckily for the people of Haiti his nomination was deemed ineligible, although Sisqo retains his post as Foreign Secretary.
February
Not to be outdone by a Caribbean island, Chile got in on the act by experiencing its own earthquake, although the measly 521 death toll meant that the media quickly lost interest. Thus began an ingenious conspiracy to capture the imagination of every nation on earth, and all it would require is a mine and a bunch of men in hard hats...
Movies
The Good...
1) Inception
2) Toy Story 3
4) Cemetery Junction
The Bad...
1) Four Lions
2) Killers
3) The Collector*
4) A Single Man*
5) Defendor*
The Disappointing...
1) Iron Man 2
2) Alice in Wonderland
3) The Crazies
4) Kick-Ass
March
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| "It's this big." Obama finally confirms the age old legend about black men. |
The Richest Country in The World™ (hint: not Greece) finally passed into law a reform for health care, despite the protestations of far right nut-jobs who think NHS is Newspeak for KGB. Actually their concerns were understandable; who wants a multi-billion dollar health service to cover all those pesky casualties? (Though admittedly there’d be far fewer if they didn't cling so blindly to that silly second amendment of theirs).
We Brits call this irony.
April
Just as Iceland’s volcanic ash was providing UKIP with yet more reasons to distrust EU integration, an accident of far greater magnitude was occurring slightly closer to the equator when an off-shore oil rig went tits up and made the Exxon Valdez affair look like a mere drop in the ocean... (wink). Cue footage of disgruntled fishermen and Pelicans painted black interspersed with the occasional glimpse of Obama surveying the devastation like a Bush in New Orleans. Meanwhile our century-old special relationship became fraught with complications as Tony Hayward, then BP-head and current corner-cutting advisor to Pakistan, delivered such career-killing quips as “I just want my life back”, a comment which could not have been more insensitive had it been uttered whilst slam-dunking a seagull. In fact, so unrestrained by gravity were those smug lips in offering a compassion-free apology that it would have been more forgivable had he turned up in Florida with a box of matches.
The Best Books What I ‘Ave Red
1) Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
2) Needful Things by Stephen King
3) Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
4) Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
5) Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Close, But No Cigar
1) Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
2) Under the Dome by Stephen King
3) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
4) The Basic Writings of Nietzsche by Friedrich Nietzsche
5) Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
May
In the same month that Britain got a new government, it also got just a teensy bit racist. Having been absent from the headlines for all of five minutes, Israel once again became the pariah of choice for liberal loons after a raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla resulted in the deaths of several innocent terrorists. Leading the anti-Zionist (see: anti-Semitic) tirade was the ever-reliable BBC whose, ahem, unbiased coverage was less one-sided than a Murray/Nadal match. Of course a cynical, less reputable network would have provided us with a menagerie of trivial information regarding the flotilla and its passengers, such as their direct ties to Hamas; video footage capturing the brutal murder of an Israeli soldier; the possession of weapons aboard a supposedly ‘peaceful’ ship; the chanting of a provocative Islamic battle cry celebrating Muhammad’s victory over the Jewish village of Khaybar in 629; refusal to allow an inspection by armed forces despite repeat warnings which had been pre-empted by a general determination to use resistance against any Israeli occupation; the comments of one 'activist' who confirmed she was awaiting martyrdom; blah, blah, blah...
In fact a true sceptic would no doubt point to Israel’s superior human rights record, the 15,000 tons in aid which it provides to Palestine every single week or the almost orchestrated manner in which mass demonstrations appeared across the globe within mere hours of the incident being reported. Not that I am in any way suggesting this was a conspiracy – and even if it was, I’ll bet the Jews were behind it...
Game of the Year
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
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| Prettier than a room full of Japanese girls. |
June
"England has been knocked out of the World Cup."
In other news, the Earth is round and AIDS is bad for you. As per usual the country built up its hopes, choosing to become fiercely patriotic for all of two weeks before succumbing to that good old fashioned British pessimism and tearing down every St. George flag in sight. Of course the real controversy over the summer was the vuvuzela, a bizarre horn capable of drowning out the cacophony of racist chants by uninformed white men who presumably expected the natives to celebrate using nothing but spears.
July
Much like Cheryl Cole’s malaria scare, the conclusion of the Raoul Moat saga turned out to be as disappointing as a Coronation Street tram crash. Following the Cumbrian re-enactment of Derrick Bird’s Taxi Driver (1976) only a month before, Britain was quickly becoming home to more serial killers than a Hitchcock boxset. Although the final body count deemed him ineligible for serial status, the media’s unhealthy interest in larger than life stories spiralled out of control to frighteningly Natural Born Killers (1994)-like proportions. Through every fault of their own, journalists inadvertently painted this fat tumour with a pulse as a modern day anti-hero who soon garnered support, via the web, from chav-tastic fuckwits who had difficulty spelling their own name let alone that of the Facebook pages in his honour. It all ended rather dramatically when, following a six hour stand-off with police, he shot himself upon discovering his hair was still ginger. An official enquiry later revealed a plume of unanswered questions: What drove him to murder? Could his death have been avoided? And why was a white man named Raoul?
The Biggest... Occurances?
1) Returning to work
2) Beginning therapy
3) Getting circumcised
4) Completing therapy – new and improved
5) Collecting all of Super Mario Galaxy 2’s 242 stars
August
This was the month in which, thanks to animal lover Mary Bale, a cat found itself the new resident of a town called wheelie bin. The fallout was huge: Britain came to a standstill, the FTSE and NASDAQ plummeted, mass demonstrations occurred throughout central Europe; not since a Dutchman drew naughty pictures had the world reacted so reasonably. That this could be the cause of so much controversy when OXFAM and CAFOD appeals attract nary a second glance merely underscored how woefully irrational the general public really is, a point to which the culprit herself alluded by declaring, “It’s only a cat.” And hey, at least it put Coventry on the map. My thoughts on the matter? I’m more of a dog person.
Most Satisfying Image
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| UKIP leader Nigel Farage emerges from a plane wreckage. Priceless. |
September
Taking a break from re-interpreting scriptures and sending fags to hell, ex- Hitler Youth member and all around pedo protector Pope Benedict arrived in Britain espousing the importance of unconditional faith whilst placing his own in the inventors of Kevlar and bullet proof glass. The hypocrisy didn’t end there though, as theists everywhere were warned about the supposed rise of belligerent non-believers; an amusingly belated call to arms considering they have long outnumbered Catholics in the UK by approximately 2 to 1. Still, this didn’t stop his holiness going straight for the Darwinian jugular and holding atheism solely responsible for the holocaust; an embarrassingly shallow argument which not only fails to take into consideration Hitler’s religious background but also unintentionally indicts religion as an enabler; man may have killed the Jews, but it was your God that let it happen. And while many were no doubt lured in by this apocalyptic condemnation of Godless heathens, one should remember the following: No one ever flew a plane into a building because they didn’t believe in God.
Besides, you believe in a talking snake.
Atheism -1, Religion – 0.
Douchebags
1) Julian Assange
2) Clare Solomon
3) Wayne Rooney
4) James Cordon
5) Sarah Palin
October
Folks love happy endings, so rarely do they occur. Take for instance the rescue of 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped underground for a whopping 69 days. Amidst a flurry of gay sex jokes there were scenes of great jubilation as people everywhere took to the streets in celebration of a country most of them would have difficulty locating on a map. The party was short-lived however, when one of the men was revealed to have been having a 10 year affair and another became a media sellout and Elvis impersonator – because there just aren’t enough of them around. Thanks a lot Chile...
The Annoying Comments of Toys ‘R’ Us Customers
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| JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! HE'S GOING TO EAT US!! |
1) (Regarding the boardgame ‘Operation’) “You haven’t got any? You had loads in the Coventry store."
2) “How can they not have them in? It’s the year’s most popular toy.”
3) “My grandson won’t like that, he’s very advanced for his age.”
4) “I’m looking for something for my niece, do you have any suggestions?”
5) “You don’t have any adult games?”
November
Horrified at the prospect of having to pay for their education, alienated teenagers swarmed en masse upon our capital city, driven by both conformity and the frustration of not knowing entirely what they were rebelling against. Ever since Vietnam, universities have become little more than breeding grounds for revolutionaries who care less about their degree than fighting for something – anything, just to give a sense of worth to their piddling little existence. My advice to students is this: If you’re that desperate to belong, go join a religious suicide cult and do us all a favour.
December
It’s a sad day for democracy when a suspected rapist isn’t even allowed to publish official government documents for the whole world to see, irrespective of whether or not the public should have legal access to said information. For being a threat to national security, WikiLeaks I thank you.*
*For maximum effect, this paragraph should be read as sarcastically as possible.
Happy New Year!
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