Why is David Cameron writing to me?

You know, as I stared and the missing textures and infinite looping of Evil Genius' final cut scene, I broke down and lost interest in trying to be productive for that night, instead lost in the misery of being denied closure I had played so long for (*cough*Mass Effect 3*cough*.)

I thought I was being pretty damn lazy regarding my blog.

But no! It turns out it was some tactical inaction, as today I was blessed with this letter:

What.

What the fuck is that.

No, seriously, the fuck. The fuck is Davy boy writing to me. Me.

For contrast, I didn't get one single bloody pamphlet about the NHS data plans. They've already been sold off, and if I wanted to opt out of the data sell off I would have to be politically engaged enough to track down details of that online. But here we have Davy boy, writing to me, personally, wanting a vote. Uh, I realise you can't tell he's got my name that beneath the censor bars, but this letter isn't to a 'Occupier' of the address which I usually get.

It says my name.

Okay, fine, I just shifted the bars just enough so you can see the start of my name, which is clearly not 'Occupier,' because you should never trust anybody on the internet. Or TV. Or anywhere.

Davy boy knows my name.

Er, how? Because once again, while I never got shit about the NHS data sell off, Davy boy's Tories has my fucking name and address and I opted out of having my data available on the electoral roll. It's not there. It's so not here, that when I order machetes off the internet there's an extra song and dance we have to do to verify my age as most places check electoral registers before handing over a machete and yes right about now I want another fucking machete how could you tell?

So. Davy boy. You have my data. I wouldn't have, and have never, given you permission to have my. Fucking. Data. So why the hell do you have it?

Every other political party who tries to recruit me to vote for them gives me a blank 'To the Occupier' spiel and here Davy boy is, personally canvasing me for a vote, using my bloody name and address. Fuck. You.

Oh, I haven't even got to the bit where I personally attack the content of the letter! Sorry, been stuck on what appears to be an enormously illegal breach of the confidentiality of my personal data. Getting weirdly fixated on that.

Okay, lets looks at some bits.

Sorry, my hand was shaking with anger. Tumblr has some nice photo blogs, if you need a balance.

Okay, those three, somewhat hazy pics (because I was an idiot and left the macro off and I've already burnt the offending letter denying me a more professional second attempt,) I have some umbrage with. Namely:

• You didn't cut our budget. You slashed it. You gouged it deeper then what Jack did to working ladies in Victorian London.
• You veto was an inherently pointless bit of politicking which achieved nothing, only that the rest of the EU went off to act like adults whilst sitting you in the creche until you finished your tantrum. 
• You refused to bail out the euro. Big. Fucking. Whoop.

This whole letter is a plea to vote for him so that we, the people, get an in/out referendum on the EU. Which is funny, as that's something I sure not even Davy boy truly wants, because he's devious enough to know that the EU provides measurable benefits to our economy and nation. Hell, they've even suppressed a report that was meant to find the opposite of that when it came back all chummy about the EU. So I'm kind of sick of him on one hand, playing up that Mr. EU is the baddie, letting the jizz-rags of our tabloids slander it every day, whilst secretly knowing how much good it does for us. He'll let little Eddie Miliband hold the 'The EU is actually good for us, guys' card, and tear into him for it. He'll piss on our country's future prosperity to gain some points now.

I mean, I could start listing off further things that Davy boy has done that has pissed me off.

So I shall.

• There's the privatization of the NHS.
• The privatization of the Royal Mail at a knock-down rate.
• For showing me the Lib Dem's were heartless charlatans. 
• Tripling of student fees.
• Economy fuck up.
• Blaming the whole economy mess on Labour's spending. (Okay, Labour ain't blameless, but it's infuriating how their spinelessness in standing up for themselves has allowed the austerity bullshit to be justified in the public's eyes.)
• Legal aid cuts.
• Demonization of the poor, the sick, and the unemployed for being the source of all our country's financial woes, which is utter bullshit as I have already shown.

AND THIS IS ONLY OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD. I mean, if I sat down and thought about it for a moment, instead of nursing my red-hot rage-

• Lobbying bill that would actively hurt legitimate charities.

-yes, fine, if I sat down and thought about it, I would have some-

• Not chasing some of the biggest tax evaders because of reasons. Yes. Reasons.
• Tax cuts for the rich, and tax hikes for the poor.

OKAY. Yes. Fine. There are many reasons why I personally dislike Davy boy, (not included his big smug stupid face I just wanna punch it so bad) I just never thought I'd have to add; uses my personal data for funsies on top of that. Gah. Davy boy. Stay the fuck out of my data, and stay the fuck out of my letterbox.

Though I will allow you to write to me personally to ask politely for me to stop calling you 'Davy boy.'

Because I will frame the crap outta that letter.

Before setting it on fire.

No NO NO NOO NOT NOW YOU PIECE OF SHIT damn you

I have the best feeble excuse.

You see, I was playing Evil Genius, and I was right about to finish the game - the game that I've never been able to complete - and on the final fucking cut scene... I bugged out. Yeah. Don't have the Evil Genius sit at their desk whilst the game ends, or it bugs out.

I am so sad right now.

And that's my excuse about why I'm updating tomorrow, and not today.

Sorry.

Dear Scotland, please don't go!

As the date towards the vote on Scottish independence draws ever closer, I am reminded of a old, bitter couple, now with one of them having a foot out the door, forcing the second to finally notice that something isn't right. Sadly however, instead of protests of innocence and crooning encouragement to come back into a warm and happy union we've seen my side raise their fists and threaten bloody murder on Scotland should they try to leave.

Where do we start? Well, that whole thing over the military shipbuilding yard, where we made it quite clear that an independent Scotland would see those jobs vanish over the border. We've had the spiteful spat that an independent Scotland would also lose the pound, which is fairly damaging as the EU won't just hand over the euro to be used by a fresh-faced country. The hat-trick of backhands was complete when we've indicated this pile of credit card bills stashed behind the sofa, and your name's on 'em too, darlin,' and if you try fuckin' walkin' out you can take your bloody debt wid' yer! So basically we English have been our usual charming selves.

Pictured: English charm.

It doesn't help that this pleading has been led by the Tories, as they're currently in charge the buck falls on them to be the peacemakers. Considering that Scotland hates them some Tories and we've got a real contender for by the end of this September having a new independent Scotland on our books.

But don't fear! While my government wave belts menacingly and issue dire threats, I'll stand outside Scotland's window with a boombox of love telling them all the sweet nothings to woo them back into giving us another chance. Let it be me, on my tiny blog, to re-unite our two peoples.

Scotland! You want to be part of our union, baby. Why, stick with us, and you'll benefit from a host of pleasures! Like...

1. The West Lothian Exploit

Now, for those of my readers without an understanding of the infamous West Lothian Question, it goes like thus: certain matters of English law can be voted upon by Scottish members of Parliament that exclusively effect England and not Scotland. Basically, it the best thing ever. Hear me out: Top Up Fees for student debt and Foundation Hospitals are two laws that firstly have no relevance in Scotland, as their students go free and have no foundation hospitals, yet only passed with Scottish parliamentary support. Scotland, as part of our union, you can troll the shit outta us. You've already done so with the Top Up Fees!

As an independent nation, you options to fuck over the English are rather limited, seeing that you would have to do so via international law. However, as part of our union, you can enable us to pass the stupidest, most fucking petty and ridiculous of laws and laugh about it safe and sound over the border. Think of the chances to make us look like utter fools with our own legislature! That's worth sticking around and milking for all it's worth.

2. We're A Damn Money Pot

Look, think of the stupidest thing you could want, like a centre dedicated to knitting tiny woolen coats for polar bears. You can fund that through us. I'm serious, dead serious. Just walk up to Davy boy and ask for it. When he says no, as is his habit, point out it's a unique part of your Scottish heritage and tell him if he wants to be the big, mean Tory who keeps neglecting Scotland. He'll hand over the cash then, for sure. Hell, you could also do it for expensive and frivolous infrastructure projects should you desire for something sort of sensible.

Of course, Davy boy would counter by turning his pockets inside out and making a sad face about having no money. Don't believe him. It's utter tripe. Earlier this week he was announcing that money was no object for flood relief victims, and even before that he was banging on about a big pension pot increase year in and out. He's been arguing austerity for so long that we've come to believe it: he's lying. No money left for the poor, the disabled, the vulnerable, the unemployed, but apparently an infinite pile of moolah for flood victims and the ever important voting bloc of the elderly? Nah, bullshit. We've got money, he's just playing favorites.

And if he continues to protest poverty then get him in a headlock and noogie him until he submits. He's a little Eton toff, and you're all fucking powerhouses made of beef over the northern border. He'll crack within seconds.

3. Our Wussiness Will Make You Feel Like Mighty Gods

Between you guys and the Gurkha, I'm confident we need you to solve all our collective military issues. And we're England, we get in fights all the damn time. And we pick the best fights! You don't want to pass on the opportunity to further emasculate us.

Look, the muthafuckin' Romans gave up trying to fight you. That's all I'm saying.

4. Don't Leave Me Alone Down Here

This point is fairly selfish, but here goes. Scotland. Please. For the of God don't leave me down here all along with the Tories. Look, I know one of the reasons you want out is that we English keep fucking up and vote the Tories in, who you hate. I get it, I hate them too. I mean, I dislike Labour, and I despise the Liberal Democrats, and I weary of the Green Part, but please! Your massive block of anti-Tory votes up and leaving would trap me in England with the likelihood of becoming a near permanent one-party state.

In attempts of fairness, let's equate something important for holding up our country by a metaphoric arch and see what each party would do to it. A Labour government would remove the vital keystone and watch the arch collapse - but they'd do it through incompetence, genuinely believing by removing the keystone that they would be helping. The Lib Dems would create a four hour television musical about how they'd never remove the keystone and then immediately after would remove said keystone looking you dead in the eye whilst doing so before passing it off to someone else. The Green Party would remove the keystone because the arch was unnatural and was better off collapsed. But we all know the Tories would sell the keystone off in a heartbeat, have the arch collapse on a load of poor people and then piss on them whilst manically laughing. In all cases, the arch has collapsed, which is not good. But sweet merciful Jesus do not, do not fucking trap me down here with them.

I swear, I swear to any fucking deity you care to put before me if you fucking walk I will be right up on your border without minutes, hopping over Hadrian's wall with my bloody suitcase and you'll have to deal with me, your newest tenant. And you don't want that at all.

Okay, fine, we're back to threats again but please don't go Scotland. Please. We love you. We can make this work.

And please don't take all your sexy attractive red heads with you. That's just mean.

(Incidentally, I have noted that I start nearly every post with 'So...' and I'm sorry, and I'm desperately trying to kick the habit.)

Sochi Winter Olympics - because gay bashing is easier than fighting corruption

So, the winter Olympic's is happening now, which I'm sure some people are very happy about. Some strange, now doubt perfectly nice people, but strange nonetheless. Then again the luge is basically competitive sledding, so that's kinda cool.

It's also been a big deal this time round that Russia quite frankly is being the biggest of all dicks it can be this time round, as they seem to have quickly decided that instead of acknowledging in being 2014 they'd like a mind view from the 1950s, thank you very much. It's sort of funny, in a not-actually-funny way. I mean, when the 'no homosexual propaganda' laws passed I will admit a lot of confusion - funnily enough, I know some gay people, and they've never tried to repeatedly sit me down and tell me tales on how being a homosexual is the best thing ever over and over until I break down and suddenly become gay. Because that's a rather stupid thing to believe happens, and Russia didn't have stones to pass an outright 'Gays are icky' law.

Incidentally, the only time I can think of being told repeatedly how awesome gay men and man on man lovin' is from of a couple of my woman friends.

To compound this dickholeness, we first of all had the whole 'There are no gay people in Sochi' line from the mayor, which exactly the sort of line I'd expect from someone hiding sweaty fireman videos in their sock drawer. He also asked gay people to not force their habits on others - either he seriously believes that homosexuality passes from person to person like a flamboyant version of the T-Virsus...

"THE GAYS ARE SWARMING FOR MY HOT BODY, HOLD THEM BACK!"

...or much more likely he's the sort of person who weeps himself to sleep at night haunted by the image of his male secretary's tight ass. You know Pakhmomov, it's okay. It's who you are. You don't have to lash out like this. We also were blessed by a terrible attempt at damage control by Putin. Remember, the 'it's okay to be gay just stay away from our kids' bit?

Yes, because you are clearly the sort of person with impeccable heterosexuality

Sigh. I'm not going to go into a blow by blow on how fucking stupid that line is, so I'll quote Jim Sterling's summary on how paedophiles and gay people are different. Ahem. How did it go again?

"Paedophiles. Fuck. Kids."

Ah, there we go. I don't even have the energy to explain that being gay is just that. Woo. They're not hiding behind the couch to ambush you and convert you, they're not all sex-crazed maniacs who can't keep their hands off you. They're just people. They also bizarrely get the whole 'non-consent isn't cool' thing just like most other straight people get. Funny, right? It's almost like they're people!

 Also you'd need to work out a bit more before anyone would want to grope you, let alone someone of your own gender, so there's that.

Weirdly enough, I was waiting for a whole bunch of countries to come out and boycott the games so I was kinda reassured that this didn't happen. For starters, everyone boycotts the Olympics all the damn time, so it's not like it's an actual statement any more, other than you making the host's lives a little easier by not having to plan for you. Also, anyone boycotting would of been tactically implying that everyone else going was totally cool with hatin' on gays, which isn't something fair to start saddling people with. Pulling yourself out of co-operation rarely help with anything, compared to subtly making snide remarks behind the assholes' back. Which is what we got instead, in spades.

We started off with Google, and their rainbow Olympic banner. We swiftly moved onto Canada, who set the bar high with a glorious quick little video:

However, they were all beaten to the punch by America. No high level delegates bothered to turn up, which is a fun snub... and then the ones they did send by a strange, random coincidence all turned out to by gay. Heh. Well played. Bringing passive-aggressiveness into the diplomatic scene is something I always enjoy.

Perhaps this is all a smokescreen on Russia's part: whilst the last winter Olympic's cost a cool $7.4 billion we're looking at least a $30 billion bill that Russia has to cough up. Now either they're giving each security person their own personal jump jet to take on terrorism threat or Russia has a slight problem of endemic corruption, and I'm leaning on the latter, if only because I'm sure the Russia security forces would rather ride grizzly bears instead. Well, that price tag is what happens when you hand out government contracts like candy to all your friends.

However, no one is being brilliantly passive-aggressive about corruption so it's less interesting to discuss.

So relax and enjoy the Olympics, and allow yourself the tiny thrill of schadenfreude whenever a gay athlete lifts a gold medal - because if anything is homosexual propaganda, it'll be that.

One man, one shop, one bloody stupid idea

So today I found myself not using my God-given day of rest to exercise but to stand in Chelmsford high street, eating a toffee slice, a situation completely reversed from my usual attempts of a day of preventing my inevitable death by arterial failure. A situation that I find myself now finding Games Workshop utterly to blame, rather than my own lack of self control.

You see, profits are down with the mega-giant of little fiddly miniatures, as we might be seeing at long last a turning point for Games Workshop: when we at ultimately see their loyal fans say, 'Fuck this noise, this is way too expensive.' Oh noes!

Whilst as a student a few of my peers spoke enviously of my supposed finances considering a didn't smoke, drink, or do anything interesting outside, rather preferring to stay inside playing Dawn of War. Ah, I would respond wearily, but I play 40K. And a few who knew what I was talking about then nodded sagely and sympathetically. They would then turn to the audience who spent their free time actually going outside and having a life to imagine the state of my finances as having the equivalent of having a severe coke, heroin, and prostitute dressed as sexy nuns addiction to get the gist of my expenditure.

Admittedly, as I said that, I never brought any 40K as a student because that shit was far too expensive. And that was when I was a student, a very long time ago. Now, it's even worse. I mean, the recent Tyranid codex now tops out at £30 with two or three more additional supplements in the pipeline. Yeah, Games Workshop had the nerve to introduce freakin' dlc into their codex's. Well done, you turds.

Nowadays, let's say you want to start playing. Let's go as cheap as possible. Two squads of Space Marine tactical marine box sets and a headquarters unit is the bare minimum for a legal army. A quick scan for their cheapest HQ unit, and our total price is... £58.20. (1 x Chaplin at £8.20, 2 x tactical marines £25 for 10.)

That's... that's a fair bit of start up investment.

Only it isn't.

You see, that army is way to small as the smallest battles I regularly see played have around 1000 points worth of models. To bulk that up, you'll want a tank, a devastator squad, and dreadnought and a bike squad. Okay. hazy maths would be that extra just over £100 more. (1 x Predator tank at £35, 1 x devastator squad at £20.50, 1 x dreadnought at £28, 3 x bikes at £20) Okay, at that point, fuck it, we'll go cheaper and buy a whole strike force for £140 as the cheaper option. Cool. That's now a fucking hell of a start up investment.

Only it isn't.

You're going to need the rules now. For the main rulebook and Space Marine codex adds another £80, and we're finally ready to paint...

Only you're aren't.

You forget to buy paints. And sprays. And tools.

We're already over £200 before the paints and this is a small points value army. Yeah. There's your problem. No one new is going into your hobby at this rate, especially not the young kid demograph, who you want in to become addicts for life. Talk to Nintendo about that, it's their business model.

I found this, and the scary thing is, this is probably a good deal.

They sell tiny plastic models. They cost pence to make. And yet price gouging is not the end of their cock-dickery, because in an effort to save costs we go back to why I was in Chelmsford eating a toffee cake slice doing terrible things to my health (thanks for that, Games Workshop) because I had to be in today because tomorrow their store shuts for two weeks. Renovation? Repairs? Nah. The only bloke that works there is going on holiday.

You see, to save money they now operate a one man, on store policy. Each store only employees one dude. Yup. This is stupid for many reasons, let's start with the holiday; your one dude has no cover. He gets sick, on holiday, dies from overwork, goes for a piss, no one is manning that store. In this scenario, he's off for two weeks. Rent's still due. Tax is still due. That's some fixed costs you're not making back.

This also ignores the fact that most stores are a hub of gaming. Most shops cater to their addicts with tournaments, painting classes, and open late to give fans something to do and to keep coming back. Yeah, one man one store works in theory - if that man owns the shop. Then it's his time, his money. This poor dude's a salary man. He doesn't have time to cook up the proverbial meth to keep the addicts through the door. And as I get to this point I realise I've used rather gendered language this whole time, but considering that most long term 40K fans describe themselves as 'neck beards' I think I'll let this slide this one time.

That being said I don't expect Games Workshop to change any time soon. Profits were down, as said, but still there. They're still making money, just less of it, and it's a surprising loss with the launch of a few new codex's which traditionally see profits go up. They're proven themselves remarkably resilient to change or to compete on price or intelligence. I mean, I was only in there today because I needed some white spray. White spray for these:

The crowd goes wild for their intro song, Black Sabbath's Iron Man.

Say hi the future Helmsworth Iron Men, a Dreadball team from Mantic games. I got the rules for free, (they offer them for free, it turns out) and this whole team cost me £15. Which is a whole, legal team. Whilst perhaps a tad unfair to compare a single unit game versus 40K, an army game, Mantic also produce Warpath and a box set of a complete small army costs £50. With free rules.

So, Games Workshop. I'll be seeing you later. My money is going to the people who don't try to force their genitalia into my wallet.