Let the election race... end already. Please.

So we have a new election system now. It's used to be a ruling party got around fourish years, and could declare an election whenever they wanted close to that wibbly time limit.

It clearly wasn't the greatest system, as it put way to much power in the jackasses currently running the show. Showing up high recently in the polls? Quick, take advantage of that and call a snap election! Got a short sighted economic plan, that whilst doomed to fail, will produce a temporary positive blip in a few months? Call it then. Been revving up you campaign engine? Catch the opposition flat footed by going full steam ahead whilst your opponents struggle for policies other than 'not want he wants.'

So now, like clockwork, we're getting them every five years. No ruling party cock-dickery, at last! 

There is only good sides to this, right?

Only now instead of fourish years of jackasses in power, it's five.

And instead of getting a election season that would last a few months at best, we're getting it for a whole fucking year.

Great. Fucking amazing. Because there is no one worth my time voting for, and I have to listen to them bitching at each other for the next year. So happy.

Let's go over them in turn, shall we?

I don't why David Cameron has bothered to turn up, as his leadership has proven he's utterly incompetent at everything.

I mean, fucking seriously, guys. He may of said that the depression was Labour's fault it so many times we've all started to believe it (in fairness, they didn't help much, but it was a global problem, not just theirs) but he has presided over the worst recovery in recorded history. And that article is two fucking years old, and it hasn't improved much since! He's fucked the NHS, fucked up on borrowing, fucked up education, fucking on welfare, fucked up living standards, fucked up on immigration, fucked up every service we had, fucked up everything including fucking because the one small bit of success he has had is pushing porn filters and porn censorship on us. His next step is Austerity 2: Austerity Harder which is pretty depressing because we're pretty sick of it now already, let alone what cuts his fevered wet dreams are about. The only reason he turns up is because people vote for him. Which is a reason, I guess.

I don't know why Nick Clegg turns up, as his word is worthless.

No, seriously, why is Nick Clegg even here? For four years he has been ripping up every pledge he ever made and pissed on it. Whatever he says now in this election race has to be taken in context that historically, whatever he says has no bearing on what he will do. His word is meaningless, and is completely untrustworthy. Hell, I'm not even being mean - you can find the videos of the bugger claiming things he later will shit on. Plenty of people voted for a Liberal Democrat years ago and got a Tory. The only reason he's turning up is to give credence to the notion he wasn't just in it for a single term of deputy Prime Ministering before he swanned off into the horizon with his cabinet pension.

I don't know why Ed Miliband turns up, as he's the wrong brother for the job.

Yeah, this point is actually a little mean. Strictly speaking, it shouldn't matter who you are, how personable you are, what you look like, what you sound like, if your ideas are good. Tragically, this is fucking politics, son, and all of that bullshit really fucking matters. It does not further help that he's spent the last few years flustered as people go, 'No, seriously, when is the other brother coming out?' so he's dropped all his notes and forgotten any ideas apart from aping Tory plans and sitting there awkwardly as he gets blamed for all our economic woes. I'm conflicted between giving him an encouraging hug and kicking him up the arse for handing the election to Davy' boy on a platter. He's only here because four years ago, everyone in the Labour party mixed his and his brothers names on the leadership ballot and now we're stuck with him.

I don't know why Nigel Farage turns up, because he only has one policy.

New, just in! You, sir! Have you tried Getting out of Europe! Why, it increases muscle densitity, concentration, encourages hair growth, tries the waistline, gets your wife back in the kitchen, gets those dirty gypos of the street, and increases the libedo! Nigel has one policy, and that's to get out of Europe. In fact, he's be better off not turning up but just leaving a sign up whenever question that just states "EUROPE=BAD" because at least that sign won't be caught saying anything racist, sexist, homophobic, or allegedly rigging postal votes. He's only turning up because he reckons more Tories will defect to him, and he's probably right.

I don't know why Natalie Bennett turns up, because everyone thinks she only has one policy.

It's the name. Green Party. Oh, that's the environment one, right? Of everyone has green policies, now. Pass. The Green Party needs a definite name change, or re branding, or media presence... which they will never get because the media is more blue than the air after Frankie Boyle stubs his toe. Tragically, the Green Party has a lot of good, popular policies - they want EU reform, failing that, a referendum, renationalising the NHS, power and railways (which everyone wants) and a whole bunch of decent economic ideas. Okay, fine, in fairness to the hatedom I have going they have some stupid idiotic policies on nuclear power and GM crops as well. However, nobody any of their policies, and nobody cares, because whilst the Greens have earned their own MP and councils for years, since UKIP scored a defector or two that's all the media will talk about. She's only turning up in rage that all their hard fought achievements are being ignored over the news of a Tory party member switching to a different Tory party.

I don't know why any independent candidates turn up, because our first past the post system actively conspires to keep them out.

And thank you so very much for that, Nick Clegg, aka The Traitor King, for fucking up the Alternative Vote referendum so bad. No, seriously, it is basically pointless to run as an independent.

Sigh. So I am left with no one. Or, as I insist on doing something in a voting booth because not doing so is consent to be treated like cattle, I am left with finding one that annoys me the least.

New rule: the party leader with the best rendition of 'Let It Go' has my vote. Done.

Catching up with Dragon Age 2

So I've being catching up with Dragon Age 2 now and shut up so it's been a while stop making this difficult because I remembered that I don't have to give EA any money if I can get someone else to lend me the game.

(No to very mild spoilers at best, possibly aided as I've yet to finish the damn thing yet.)

It's so far giving me a typical Bioware experience... only if Bioware had only thirteen days and seventeen pence to make a game and only the coffee boy had the time free to do any writing and level design. Basically, what traditional Bioware problems have are worse, and a few new ones have crept up.

In every Bioware game I've played, there's always been a moment where I went, "Whoa there, that is not what I wanted to say!" Mass Effect 1's moment was when talking to Joker about his disease, instead of politely asking if I he needed further accommodations, Shepard went all Jack Bauer in his face demanding his disease secrets least he betray me anew. In Dragon Age 2, I don't have a moment because it. Is. Non. Stop. I like my snarky Hawke - often because I like the neutral option between flowers, hugs vs, murder, voting UKIP but Jesus, Hawke. Pick your time. Or stop having such a cack handed delivery. I have the subtitles on, and when Hawke remarking wryly on the pun of a potion seller using the word remedy, I read the response and laughed... before Hawke then spoke the words, draining all humour likes the dregs of last night's curry down the pughole. Whee.

Your delivery is bad and you should feel bad.

Another traditional Bioware issue - repeating dungeon assests. Now Mass Effect 1 was bad, but we told them to knock that shit off and they did, even mocking it in a few occasions in later games. Dragon Age 1 had a few - mostly ambush sites and fields. I let that (mostly) slide. Dragon Age 2? That seventeen pence rears its ugly head because the world is awash with deja vu as everywhere I go I've been there before. It's getting embarrassing traipsing into the bandits lair, formally the spider lair, formally the old mine, formally the old caves, formally a different bandits' lair, originally the smuggler's cave. I tend to walk in, and walk past the enemies straight to their super secret treasure room out of habit.

At least they've worked on the influence system. I had issues with the precious one - to make sure everyone loved me (and thus would have better stats) I would say whatever I felt a party member wanted to hear in front of them. "What's that Morrigan? You love the colour red? Oh, me too! It's my favourite! And yes, Leilana, I do agree, blue is the best colour. No doubt. Oh and Zeveran? New black boots? Best colour choice ever, even when that's a shade!." I didn't feel my noble had a personality, just a shell of lies surrounding a deeply insecure person who'd no doubt go on to become the greatest politician of all time.

Now, instead of pissing off people and they leave, I can piss off people and they stay out of pure spite. Delicious. I still have the odd issue of min-maxing - I am paranoid of starting new quests without the right people in the party to approve / disprove of my choices, and every quest I hand in becomes a shuffle contest - right, this guy I'm squeezing for coin, best get Isabela in here, this lass, I'm letting go to flee from the Templars - Anders, Merril, you need to hear this, fetch Fenris too, he's going to lose his shit!" It's got the point I have temporarily stopped playing as I am paralysed as I can't talk to anyone without consulting a guide. Stupid min-maxing habits.

Amusingly, I am successfully seeking friendship with my whole party... aside from Fenris, who I am starting to feel that me singling out for abuse is now me role playing a playground bully. That aside, it is hilarious to think of a group of people singing my praises whilst Fenris glowers in the corner, the smug git.

To victim blame here: it's all his fault. Look, Fenris - I know you hate mages, and think they should be under Templar control every second of the day. Tragically, my dead dad - and my still living sister, you ass - are mages. Who aren't blood magic abomination psychopaths. So it might mean your current audience - me - for your spoutings isn't fucking interested! So shut your face. I'd make a bigger deal of this, but rather annoyingly every time in this sodding series a mage escapes a Templar's gaze for a gnat's blink they blood magic all up in this hiz-house. Super awkward. YOU GUYS ARE NOT HELPING YOU OWN CASES, HERE.

Because doing this to yourself was clearly the smart choice.

That said, they're are a few good characters lurking. Fenris I count as acceptable because he at least makes me want him to stick around so I have pull his hair and give him wedgies (oh god I am a bully, I am a terrible person.) Merril surprised me - up came her blood magic, and out came my high horse to preach about her folly... and every time I tried to get on that sodding high horse I was beaten back by a wave of pure niceness and upbeatness. I don't even... wut? I imagine the demon she pacted with attempted something horrible but by the time Merril was done with it she left it making floral patterns and gushing about Pinterest. I wuv her so. No joke, with a w. I wuv her and if anyone messes with her I will pound them into the filthy Kirkwall street.

Varric is awesome, and is my bestest bro. A ranged rogue with a kickass crossbow? Count me in. I love his interrupts - Varic, please step up to the plate and weave a tale of something magic, please. I've enjoyed Bethany as well, but that may be based on enjoying the presence of any character for heals my main character constantly due to his disposition to find large groups of enemies irresistible to leap into.

And they solved the dog issue too! He's now a summon, not a party member who can't equip armour or weapons and has shit skills.

Of course, there is a saturation of bleh characters. Anders once was amazing, funny, witty... now is angst driven and full of literal Vengeance. Whee. Way to fuck him up. Also, come on Anders - I don't like Templars either, but these mages just will not stop with the blood magic. At a certain point, this animosity is kinda self-inflicted. Carver is allegedly a boring ass too, but he was polite enough to get his boring ass killed in the prologue for me.

Then we roll round to Isabella. You see, Isabella likes sex.

She likes sex so much she even forgets to put her trousers on in the morning, just in case it delays a chance of sex. Sexy, sexy sex. Sex. She's a sailor, a pirate queen of sex. Sex. Sex. Did I mention she likes sex?

BECAUSE SHE WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

WE GET IT ALREADY.

Look, I'm not hear to slut shame, or demand wimmen cover up. Nah. That's some bullshit right there. But her personality points are that she's a liar and wants to get laid... and nothing else. She reminds me of a 13 year old virgin boasting to his mates about all the sex he's getting - you know the type. On top of that, party conversation revealed that's she's riddled with STD's that even Ander's spectacular healing skills can barely hold back the cornucopia of venereal discharge - great. Fucking great. Instead of a sex-positive commanding pirate queen I have a pandering eye candy character. I can't take her seriously as every conversation, like the tides, inevitably rolls back to boning. I have had to texture mod her to possess a set of pants because I started feeling sorry for how cold she must be, let alone before I could see something that wasn't written and designed to purely stroke my ego... or at least the ego that Bioware thinks I have, which is kinda insulting. It does not help that as a melee rogue, she has no durability so constantly falls down on combat. Sigh,

Sooner or later I pray I see a glismpe of actual character or personality in there, but by then I'll be too busy dancing through the fields with Merril. You know, I honestly think I had exactly the same moan about this sort of shit in the Witcher 2, which is like, two articles down, not accounting for time. Hmm. Oh, also Aveline!

Aveline is there, I guess.

There might be another character but I'm pretty sure he is overpriced DLC. Big loss.

So that's how the characters are written, what about the plot, aka part two of my you buy a Bioware game? Unfortunately, the plot suffers from two faults. Firstly, they want Hawke to be Sheppard... so badly. So, while Sheppard did incredible things over the course of multiple games that you were part of, Hawke... has time skips, and everyone you meet next is like "Wow! Cool, Hawke, I'm your bestie from back then! You're so cool, because of the cool things you did, BUT YOU WILL NEVER SEE," Look Bioware, this isn't difficult - if it happened off screen, it doesn't count. The end. Don't tell me Hawke is a badass. Show me. Or better yet, let me be the badass. I am playing your bread and butter, a fucking power fantasy here people; work with me.

Secondly they seem to believe I am fascinated by the Qunari.

I am not.

One of the major problems with the Qunari is how insufferable they are. The subscribe to a code called the Qun, which is sort of interesting for five minutes until you coin onto the fact there is no code. Like Lost, there is no grand plan; just bullshit made up moment to moment with vague hand gestures trying vainly to pretend that they know what they're on about. Once you figure that out all sense of mystery is gone. So what is the Qun? A code glorifying slavery with a spiritualistic aspect. Boom. Done. Or in game turns, justfication to have them do whatever the plot demands they do because the Qun said so/ Here's me, like in every Bioware game, trying desperately to learn about this new and fascinating culture... but as they don't have one, they have to awkwardly shoo me away whilst keeping their noses firmly up their own asses. Basically, I am half way through this game and my official opinion on how to deal with this tense, diplomatic, multi-faceted problem is for me to load up and slaughter every one of the bloody horned bastards and call it a day... for a bunch of dudes essentially just chillin' out on the docks.

The combat is... well, it's different to the past game. Way more hack and slashy. Not inherently bad, just not the itch I was looking to scratch. The auto attack is a bit finicky, and it's not unoften I have party members stand around doing the medieval equivalent of checking their phone's Twitter for a few minutes until I notice and remind them we're in a desperate life-or-death struggle. Melee rogues have made slight steps to being usable compared to the first game, the issue remaining though that melee rogues ground themselves when attacking, and doing breaks them. Without the flank, they die, and rogues won't path to find the flank, and when you personally micro manage them the whole team groups up on the new leader and ruins the battlefield dynamic. There's a few new moves that let's rogues manoeuvre easier, but I've had rogues jump into the middle of a group and die horribly as often as jump out. Weirdly enough, I have found no party members that use longbows at all, but I keep finding them.

The sad thing is that with all these gripes, Dragon Age 2 isn't a bad game. Most characters are interesting, and even better Bioware games usually has one or two that fail to engage anyway, the combat is fun but needs work, and there is a sense of the grander world. The problem is that Dragon Age 2 does not measure up to being a Dragon Age title. The first set the bar pretty high for new IP and this is a blatent cash-in. If this was Hawke the RPG: Bullying Fenris from a little developer, I'd be a lot more generous with my praise. Instead this is the equivalent of Ferrari announcing the next Enzo... only to reveal it's a functional 49cc moped with middling mileage. You're better than that, Bioware.

So I hear Dragon Age 3: Inquisition is really good!

Just have to get over my Origin resentment first.

What to you mean, where have I been?

Right. So. I've not been here for a bit. And I have a really good excuse. Honest!

So I've moved house recently, something I think you'll appreciate, is a really good excuse. In the few weeks moving up to it, as I rent I've been nipple deep in painting everything on account of well, renting. They wanted it back to white, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact when we got the place it was a mix of bile and lime green. Yeah. Awesome. So off I went, painting and packing... in a motherfuckin' heat wave.

Once per year, Britain decides it's not the musty, overcast grey country we know and gripe about, but part of a tropical conglomerate. It's awful, because it's not like temperatures slowly rise and fall with the seasons, it's BLAM TWO WEEKS OF FURNACE HEAT and then back to fifty of grey spittle. So no one has any tolerance of the heat.

I don't remember what sleep is. I go to bed, feeling like undercooked beef roast, and a few hours later a get bored of lying in my own sweat and go to work. That's what the current night cycle is. It's as entertaining as it sounds. And I've been trying to paint in it, which is exactly what you wish to do in high heat: physically exert yourself.

So, I'm back. My internet access is still spotty (another wonderful excuse! If only I'd thought to, you know, address this ahead of time) but I have stuff to talk about, more stuff in the pipeline...

...but I think I just set my Wii U up, and on noes! I'm busy again.

Witcher 2: It hates you with a passion

So I started on the Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings a while back and shut up Payday 2 beginner guides are coming.

Anyway.

What was I saying?

Ah, yes, Witcher 2. It fucking hates me.

He ain't coming for the monsters, he's coming for you.

Okay, some of it was my fault. I booted it up, and thought to myself, "Hey, it's ported to Xbox, so it must mean I can use a gamepad on it, sweet." Oh, poor, stupid past me. I forgot it was an exclusive PC game first, and the first game in the series was a PC exclusive period, no fucking around. Witcher 2 sees your consoles and sniffs disdaininly.

I could feel it's contempt for me as I plugged in the gamepad, like I promised a good night of lovin' but immediately went for the off-limits back door. However, like a fool, I persevered with my decision. Along I went, until the combat started. And, well, the Witcher 2 likes their combat more realistic then most RPGs. This means if you fight multiple opponents at once... they surround you, and stomp your kidneys out of you via your testicles. And it's not like Assassin's Creed 'surround' you, where they surround you whilst politely attack you one at the time,like gentlemen, nah. Witcher 2 will gang slap you upside the back of your head and you'll tough it out, son.

Well, combat started, and went wrong instantly. Yeah, you can use the gamepad, like you can strictly speaking use a USB cable to drink soup. It's not going to easy, you'll do it in drips and drabs, you'll look stupid and everyone will wonder why you're not just using a spoon. The worst was the quick menu - I couldn't select a bloody thing, no matter where I waggled the stick, which wouldn't be a problem if the quick menu paused the game... which it doesn't. Ouch. So much ouch.

So I switched to the keyboard, mid-tutorial, without thinking about it. Most games nowadays recognise if you switch inputs and alter their instructions accordingly - not Witcher 2. It seemed to take my attempts to ingratiate myself with it poorly, and punished me for being a little brown noser. So whilst I was running around in little circles weeping to myself futilely trying to press the left trigger button that no longer existed, I came to the conclusion we weren't going to get on so I should just suck it up and start anew before it physically manifested itself and started strangling me in hate.

The second time round went a little better. Couldn't skip the tutorial so had to do it all over again... gah. However, Witcher 2 grades your performance on the combat tutorial - said tutorial, where they shrugged, listed each move in order, and called it a day. Great. Thanks. The fuck is Axii? Or Quen? Why aren't my spells called Knockback, Control, or Shield - you know, their actual descriptions? Nope. Take your made up words and go with it. And whilst I did a little better it still amounted to my embarrassing myself and collecting more swords in my upper intestinal tract than the Iron Throne. So Witcher 2 looked at me, sniffed again in disappointment, and decreed if I was going to be so shit perhaps I'd like to play it on easy, baby mode, like the ham-handed idiot child that I was.

By this point I was thoroughly beaten down, and just wanted to play the bloody game I had paid less than £3 for on Steam Sale. So the game started proper, and straight into some full frontal female nudity. Twenty seconds past of being humiliated for being shit at games and there's vagina and tits right in my face, with pubic hair modelled also. Normally I'd have to download a mod to have not. Er, not that I'd ever do that.

Look, video games? We need to have a talk. Stop that. Stop throwing female nudity in my face to attempt to please me. It's juvenile. Once again, if I want porn, I'm on my computer, the internet is here, I got this covered. Quite frankly at this point I wouldn't mind at least a little balancing this out with some wang. I don't really want to look at copious amounts of wang, but quite frankly with have to balance this shit out. You put wang in, I'll enjoy the tits more, because at least I won't feel that I'm enabling in the exclusion of a gender from my hobby.

Nope, not good enough. Take off the pants.

Moving on, all was well and good as I taught myself combat, as the game wasn't gonna. Namely, rolling. Rolling is the path to victory. Roll, roll, and roll some more. Fuck parring or riposte - nah, roll. Rolling then use Quen, which is the shield spell. Slap the shield on, and roll faster and further than Sonic the Hedgehog and you'll be able to manoeuvre around enough to stop being stomped into the crappy medieval pavement.

In terms of the story - okay, guys? How did you not see that monk was clearly an assassin? He was like eight foot tall and built of pork shoulder, with spiked knuckle gloves. How metal are the monks in your world that this sight didn't throw you? And secondly, Geralt, whilst being the brooding loner clearly works for you, next time you might want to point out nice and early hey fuckwads, my sword's shiny clean and why the fuck would I kill the king now? We're like bros. Coulda killed him way back, and you'd never suspect me, why now? Nah, instead go all dark and mysterious... and wind up being tortured and blamed for regicide. Smooth moves, genius.

Then the game crashed.

Repeatedly.

Turns out the game crashes with too many saves. Who'da funk it? This wouldn't be an issue, unless you're playing an RPG which requires plenty of saves, (which the Witcher 2 is,) or if the game autosaves every seventeen seconds (which the Witcher 2 does.) So. Manual deleting away we go.

And Jesus! This game still doesn't like me, after all the effort I put in. There's a billion fucking different menus, with cross-purpose uses - okay, so you get monster knowledge, right? That goes in the Journal, on the Monster tab. Great. Ah, no. You see, that's just lore knowledge. If you want to know tactics against a certain monster (and more lore knowledge, weirdly enough) you have to... keep up with me here... go in the Quick Menu, select Meditate (which is not always available) select Character, go in Attributes, select Monster, and then scroll down to what you want. Why. WHY THE FUCK IS THAT SO NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED? WHY DO I NEED TWO. FUCKING. MENUS. TO DO ONE THING? ONE. THING!

This game screams 'PC exclusive' with is unnecessary complexity. Simple little things, like demanding I use the Enter and Arrow keys. No. Listen you bastards, the left hand is on the WASD keys, the right on the mouse. Don't make me move my right hand back on the keyboard when I'm just gonna need the mouse in a second. It's ridiculously inefficient and an uneconomical use of your input device. One time, I had to draw out a glyph by instructing a man to toddle around at a distance. I'd been given the glyph earlier... but could I pull up that page so I could look at it whilst directing the dude? Could I fuck. I had to wander away, open up the inventory, find the bloody page again - a fucking nightmare, as by this point I had thousand of quest items cluttering up my inventory because once the quest's done they don't go - draw out the glyph on a piece of envelope left on my desk and then do it. Did I feel clever? No, I thought the Witcher 2 was being annoyingly bloody minded and inconvenient for kicks.

...I have no idea what's going on here.

Tragically, by this point I was drawn in. Originally, I was setting out to beat it to prove I could, now the story was interesting enough to make me continue looking up forums and videos to fix the many, many bugs. About a few hours in, though, something clicked, and there was no ham-handed idiot child - I was Geralt of Riveria, murder machine. I'd charge into combat high of multiple toxic potions and purée multiple opponents with my sweet skills, before rolling off into the horizon, setting a few traps, chucking a few bombs, and blam! Back in the frey again, my sword awash with blood.

That said, the lore and story definitely kept me going as my skills in combat grew. Watching a whole world attempting to tear itself apart whilst you struggle to hold it together purely to clear your name - and I'm a monster slayer, damn it! I kill monsters for you! For very little pay! I deserve a motherfuckin' parade, you miserable bastards! And I'm still debating going through and playing a second time, this time with skill and bugfixes at hand to explore what I missed, and choose perhaps better life choice.

Do I think it was worth the trip?

Eventually, yes. It did help I brought this on the cheap, paying full price for such a buggy game would of infuriated me. At least I got a dev on Twitter to point me towards some help.

The combat was very different to what I was used to, and was very entertaining once I grasped it. It's a pity that the game itself was so bad at teaching me what I needed to know, but getting into it was very rewarding. Once I had it down, I went into many fights only taking hits when I was messing around, and wanting to up the difficulty for more challenge. It hit both my challenge and tactical movement buttons. Each time I saw a fight approaching, my though process was "Hell yeah!"

The story was definitely engaging. Unfortunately, knowledge of what happened in the first game is kinda important, and whilst I managed without, they threw words, politics and factions at me thick and fast at the beginning and I got swamped, to resurface later and get my place. The lore of witchers are fascinating - here's your powers to kill monsters, and here's your powers to bone women better. Not a bad deal, really. Whilst I had issues with the brooding Geralt, an early scene with his friends opened him up to me - he doesn't like people in general, but values his friends, and actually smiles and jokes around. Without that scene, just seeing his brooding poker face would of got tedious. Around people he trusts, he actually inflects things! Nice. And yeah, there's some bad guys you're gonna want to rip into tiny pieces.

Lots of little touches pleased me - Dandelion's voice actor was superb, as was your journal entries, which he writes for you. While I've complained about it being needless obtuse, sometimes they get it right and send you on a quest with enough instructions that lets you explore and feel clever for figuring it out, without resorting to hand holding. Which, admittedly, a little would be nice. It's also very pretty - so damn pretty. Like, staggeringly pretty. There's quite a few games out there that could learn a thing or two about it's optimization.

I'll be awaiting Witcher 3, but just might put off buying it immediately... yeah. Not 100% confident about the developers releasing a fully working game right out the gate. But I see it's gunning for a simultaneous console and PC release, which should iron out a few of the more prevalent menu waffle and stop it from falling back on a slipshod buggy release. I hope.

Upcoming guide

No post tonight - I've decided to write my next beginner's game guide, and it's taking a while. Stupid research.

The upcoming guide will be on Payday 2, so prepare your crew and get ready to rob some banks... and kill about 75% of all police in the greater Washington district.

On TalkTalk? Then you can't see this!

Hey. Hey. Hey.

Guess what?

If your ISP is TalkTalk, you can't see this!

Should've put spoiler tags in the title.

Do you remember when I complained how the filters idea was bullshit? And then later, how it was still bullshit, but had been pushed through anyway? Yah. Still here. Still bullshit.

You know, the original titles to those articles were a joke - "hur hur, I'll have a title with naughty words that'll get banned by the filters" - not that unique or witty, true, but I wasn't exactly expecting it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I always assumed I was way to small fry to bother with. NOPE.

Okay, let's have a look at why I'm banned. This'll be fun!

Now, I wish it is because of my withering criticism of the government, ISPs, big companies, and several rather cruel nicknames of various high-ranking officials, but somehow I doubt I'm that lucky to be on the receiving end of somebody important's ire. More likely I'm being picked up by an auto-filter.

That being said, kinda wish Davy Boy had singled me out.

Anyway, let's have a gander. Several ISPs come with default adult content blocking, mmkay. Well, in that case, perhaps those titles are to blame. Not changing them. But, ah, it's TalkTalk specifically who is blocking me.

Whelp, for TalkTalk, they have default turned on KidSafe. Okay. So. Have I fallen afoul of...

• Dating: I have only fallen afoul of this insomuch as being exposed to my wit seduces everyone into wanting to date me.
• Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco: I talked about cider last week, and how I miss it. Damn!
• Gambling: Er. Not guilty, your honour. Unless I was talking about Payday 2's level randomisation.
• Pornography: Probably those article titles again. Also, considering how many people find my Farcry 3 article by searching for porn of Citra, maybe that.

I'm not even kidding. You people are depraved.

• Suicide and Self-Harm: Wut. No.
• Weapons and Violence: Have I talked about my extensive sword collection before? Maybe. Have I wished violence on certain members of the public? Probably. Oh, that Guns Guns Guns article. Jesus. So many of my titles screw me.
• File Sharing Sites: Well, I ain't one. But I did talk about them when some were blocked, by name even. Whoops.
• Games: Well, there aren't any here. But talking about them? Guilty as all hell.
• Social Networking: I have a link to my Twitter on the side that barely works.

Clearly, I am a threat to modern Britain's decency.

I'm guilt of rampant swearing, and near-absent proof reading, I'll give you that. I am certified not KidSafe. Oh and by the way, another fucking two words lumped into one with no spaces but capitals. Is that a thing we all must do now? Because it's bloody stupid and I wish we would stop it. Personally, I blame HP for starting the trend. Fuck you, JetDirect and LaserJet. That's bleedin' idiotic.

But yeah, in all seriousness, I'm kinda being blocked my freedom of speech? Expression? Whatever. I am admittedly on the lowest tier of blocking - it's the KidSafe that's triggered, no BT's bullshit 'partner respect' trigger or 'extremist' content. It's still rather unsettling that there's a company out there that views little old me as something to block as par for the course. Regardless of how minor, here I am, blocked, for expressing my rather boring, mis-spelled, centrist opinion. Here I am, complaining about it...

...unless you can't see me.

Kinda upsetting to think that my country would do this. I liked to think we were better than that.

I am considering kicking up a shit storm with TalkTalk about blocking me... especially because I HAVE A PHONE WITH THEM. Yep. Of course, there's no standardized way to go unblocking yourself, because why would there be? Pity. Because it looks like I'mma gonna hafta find the standardized form to switch providers.

The permalink to this site's block is: https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=http://sarcasmisaverb.blogspot.co.uk/

I would like to thank https://www.blocked.org.uk/ for the service and information they provided me with.

I would also like to thank http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/ for bringing this to my attention. Both of us are blocked by TalkTalk. We're blocked buddies!

Suddenly being allergic is actually a thing

Actually, I was wrong. Something did happen recently. I became allergic to a bunch of food.

I don't even know how that's possible. One day, fine, next day, blam! You're allergic to this particular foodstuff, buddy. The rest time you eat it for the rest of your life, have fun with that.

I'm both blessed and cursed. For starters, my allergies appear to be on the tame side, for now. I just break out in hives and rashes, and they always start on my right hand's ring finger middle joint. Yes, that is ridiculously specific, that's where it wants to flare up, I can't stop it. So at least I am not dealing with a throat-closing up dramatic death scene every time I sniff a peanut.

The cursed bit is that with a bit of narrowing down, I'm pretty sure it's sulphites.

Want to know what sulphites are in?

FUCKING EVERYTHING.

Pictured: FUCKING EVERYTHING

Look at that list. Look at it! What the fuck can I eat now? I'm down to bread and water... wait, bread's baked? Shit. Hmm. Chocolate doesn't appear. Fuck it. Chocolate and water. Let's ride this fucking train.

This is utter bullshit. How, how! How do you become allergic to everything as an adult? Look at it! That is everything. Apparently, the next time you're sat down in front of someone's signature dish that they're really proud of but they can't cook for shit you can legitimately go: Sorry, bra. Turns out I am suddenly allergic to all that shiz-niz, yo. Well, peace outy, I'm laters! and that's something that really happens. The allergies, I mean. That sort of language only appears on Dog the Bounty Hunter, and that's probably staged.

And how do allergies develop? Am I stuck with an itchy joint forever, or in a couple of months am I looking at a heart-breaking tear-jerking lifetime special movie?

I am far too old to pull this sort of crap off

It's not like my whole life I've battled with an rash on my knuckle, or dealt with asthma like symptoms. A month or two ago, I was like, huh, I have a rash. A few weeks later, huh, the rash is back, same place, weird. For more weeks and I'm keeping a food diary and yep, sulphites are the common thing, god damn it.

It's also delicious irony. Which is more delicious irony because it's keeping me from delicious things. It's multiple layers of irony, (like an onion, which I probably can not have) which as we all know using irony correctly now makes me ridiculously attractive on the internet.

Anyway, getting back to the irony bit,  for religious reasons, I used to not drink alcohol. Later in life and outside that constriction, I was watching the pennies and people vomiting over themselves in university and just didn't start. Didn't see the need. I can be bad enough sober for fuck's sake, I did not want to see me without what little common sense I had turned off.

whoops

Out of sheer curiosity way later on, I tried wine. I didn't like it. Then I tried cider. I didn't like it. Then I tried peach and apricot cider and oh my god what is this delightful beverage. Now, I like my ciders. I like them a lot. And so, I drink them a fair bit. Because of the whole liking thing, and I'm an adult, with my own disposable income and everything. Sure, it's basically a slightly more grown up alco-pop, but fuck you, they're delicious.  I still only ever drink the one and done, because hey, keep that remnants of common sense turned on for as long as possible, but now? Every cider. Every bloody cider has sulphites. Every. Single. One.

Now this atheist can't have cider.

Or anything, really.

This is bullshit. You hear me? Bullshit. I don't have to put up with this, body. I don't have to put up with your shitty, malfunctioning eyes. I don't have to put up with your shitty, malfunctioning guts, and I especially don't have to deal with your shitty, malfunctioning immune system!

I'm calling in the warranty, and I'm getting a new one.

Something happen, please

No update today out of sheer lack of anything happening, and I feel guilty about that. I mean, I was intending to get more material out of England being shit at football, but we managed to eliminate ourselves in a mere two matches so that's great. Thanks England. Way to suck even harder then I expected you to. Your prize is my further contempt, which is a bit of a let down as I got you that last year.

Oh, there's a story going round that Nick Clegg is toxic for the Liberal Democrats.

Please.

Considering what they've done in their half power, it's clear that the Liberal Democrats are toxic for the Liberal Democrats.

We won't win the World Cup. I can change that!

Whelp, time for another World Cup. Now this wouldn't be so bad, if that was all it entailed. But no, I am British, or strictly speaking English, so I have endure weeks of 'this year could be our year!' and 'come on England!'

It's not going to be our year.

Because our football team sucks.

This may come as a surprise to you

The last few World Cups they looked like people who got a free holiday but all they have to do is a one-hour meeting about the benefits of buying a timeshare. Every minute on the pitch they sulked about, eager to get the fuck off and back to the bar. So far, the only difference this year is that they avoided looking like this for 45 minutes before they lost interest in the sport.

I mean, fuck it, we're not going to win. Patriotism doesn't trump reality. So why not have fun with it? David Beckham wanted to play one last time - why not? It wouldn't hurt our chance. Hell, let's get nostalgic and ask if Linker or Gazza is free. Super dedicated fans have travelled to Brazil to watch their team play: why not let them participate instead? Hold a lottery, or hell, just point to random people in the crowd and tell them to jump in. Don't want to play? Well, why don't you manage instead? Knock yourselves out. There's Make a Wish Foundation too, if they want to get in on that. It's not like it'll hurt our chances!

Perhaps we could roll with this, and use the fact we are just not sucky enough to fail to qualify every yeah, and use it as a bribe. We exchange our place in the World Cup to the Scottish football team, and we'll publicly announce that this means, yes, they are better than us at football... just that they gotta stick it out with us in the union. Why not? Scotland, for one, they would actually want to be there, and once again, it's not like substituting Scotland would hurt our chances.

I'm saying our chances are 0%, right? You got that?

As much chance as this ending well

In fairness, while I'm bashing on our team for sucking more than an atomic power vacuum cleaner, it's not entirely their fault. Every year the media hypes up our chances and our players until they talk of Wayne Rooney being some form of football messiah who's descended from heaven to lead us to glory... when he's clearly not. And we play a team of people who barely know each other, as we grab random players from a menagerie of rival teams and tell them to ignore all the training and teamwork they've done with their individual teams and play with these practical strangers... and what do you know, they play like shit. Funny, that.

Now some of you are reading about my bitching and wondering if I don't like it, then I can shut the fuck up and go home. Fine. But it bothers me that me embarrass ourselves like this every year. So, thinking to myself, I devised a plan. It's a glorious plan, literally. My plan will not only win ourselves a World Cup, but I guarantee a second World Cup - yes! Defending champions, something only shared with Italy and Brazil. And just maybe - maybe - an unprecedented third cup in a row. Three in a row baby! Though I do admit that'll be hard to pull off.

So here's my plan. From the get go, it's long term. I will need twelve years. So, we're going to suck for another twelve years. But look on the bright side: without my plan, we'd suck for twelve years, then continue sucking after that. With my plan, suck for twelve years, then GLORY.

So I'm going to need about a hundred children.

And their parents! Jesus. Calm the fuck down. You see, where we suck now is that we don't have players trained early enough, and trained early enough together. We need team-mates, not acquaintances. So, I need a hundred children, about six years old or round about, who love football, and want to play. See? Not so sinister. Then I will train them.

The first few months the children will be monitored closely. I'm looking for passion and talent, and more of the former than the latter - I'd rather have trained skill then people relying on just talent. Then after the first few months, I'd let the injured and the not caring go.

Then the real training begins.

Yeah, that phrase is never preceding something good

It's going to be fucking brutal. It's going to be harsh. These children will learn nothing that is not related to football. Sure they're learn some maths - engineering and trigonometry because you better learn the angles son, because if you don't I will kill your parents.

Fine, we've moved back into sinister territory, but we haven't won a cup in over sixty years and desperate times call for desperate measures. Those children will be playing for more than the love of the game - they'll be playing for their parents lives. Eh, major psychological trauma on a few dozen children versus multiple World Cup victories? The public will be on my side.

They will become the greatest football players known to man, though I must admit I recently watched Soldier with Kurt Russell and I may be basing my entire plan on that film's plot, but whatevs, it's not like Hollywood lies to us.

Originally I planned on whittling down the player to a final team by some form of football themed gladiatorial death matches, but I eliminated that as being needlessly wasteful. For starters, if I had thirty equally skilled players, then it's a hella waste when spares will do fine. Secondly, I don't want to encourage individuality, I want teams of players. I want them to band together, united by hatred of me and and desire to save their loved ones. United they'll be an even better team.

Thirdly, it'd just look ridiculous.

And they will march on the pitch, at eighteen years old, and fucking annihilate the opposition. They will march to victory without pause or mercy. And they'll return at twenty two years old. And twenty six. Depending on the attrition rate, or whether of not they get other their unholy fear of me and beat me to death in some back alley somewhere. Besides, maybe I don't have to kill all the failed player's and their parents - maybe the first set of six, and the rest can just disappear.

Sure, it'll be an awful, protracted crime, but two to three World Cups! Maybe four!

Metro: Last Light shows you how not to do a silent protagonist

Why do we still have silent protagonists? Or rather, why do we still use them so badly?

I've been catching up with Metro: Last Light recently, or perhaps known by it's less catchy name: 'Miserable and Bleak Soviet Apocalyptica: The Game.' Whilst I'm being drawn in by it's world, the atmosphere, I am constantly being taken out of it by the way my character stares dumbly at people whilst they talk at him. By the end of what's laughably called a conversation, I wordlessly go do what they said. It's gone from unsettling to really creepy, and it's putting me in mind that my character is the world's ultimate doormat.

No, this doormat is way to interesting for Metro's main character.

I doubt I would feel this way if I was playing the first Metro game, but I'm playing a sequel. Silent protagonists are great for putting yourself into the situation, but that's not really relevant now. My character, WhatsHisNameSki, has done stuff without. Done a lot of stuff the last game. A lot of world changing, morally ambiguous stuff. So what this character has, strictly speaking, is character. He's no longer the blank slate; his slate has been appropriately muddied with experiences and life choices and the fuck I know of any of it, making the doormat feature of my personality super awkward.

I live in terror of playing Half Life 2 again and finding myself unable to enjoy it because of the shared mutism.

Twice now I've ran into old friends, who've greeted me warmly and I've stared at them quietly for a bit, before getting bored and rifling through their stuff for ammo, which they've either politely ignored me thieving what precious little they have left of they view it as an endearing character trait of mine, and if it is, I'd love the game to share it with me. What's WhatsHisNameSki likes, dislikes, what's his parents like? Does he have hobbies? Does he like ham? I would really like to know. Fucking seriously. Tell me - something - about this dude. His room was sparsely decorated - it had a box of books in, so he might like reading? But I couldn't see the spines so I have no idea what he reads (aside from the Metro series of book ha ha get it?)

My only other insights into him is a little internal monologue between chapters and his diary, which apparently he writes ahead of time for everything that'll happen in the day and scatter them randomly about the level ahead of him, because adding collectable items is a quick an easy way to extend game length of reasons.

So clearly he's a amnesiac time-traveller.

The internal monologue has indicated he doesn't like communist, but he dislikes Nazis way more. Well yip-dee-fucking-doo, everybody dislikes communists but hates Nazis more. Also he's sort of conflicted about killing the last Dark One off, but Grr Grr Duty Grr. Actually, come to think about it, the last time I passed a mirror the developers never bothered to animate the character in. So I have no idea of what my character looks like along with no knowing what he is. Aside from being a vampire, obviously. An amnesiac time-travelling vampire.

It's a definite pity, because god damn is this word interesting. The very first opening fight is against the Dark Ones, who look weird and toothy and as you drop each one, they turn into your mates and that is creepy as all hell. They get into you mind, but my character has somehow communicated with them before, which no one has accomplished before or even though possible. So I'm an amnesiac Chosen One time-travelling vampire.

But I'm a post-apocalypse nut, and this is one of the few downsides. As stated, the world is vividly interesting - mankind stuck after the bomb in old Russian metro stations - and the scavenging aspect to survive on the poisoned surface really appeals to me. What's especially interesting the the weird physic phenomenon on the surface. I was wondering around on a crashed plane, and my partner warned me to keep it together. Keep it together, geez. What, is my dude well known for having an over-active imagination? Do I need to add it to the bullshit list I made up? It's getting kinda long now.

Well, it turns out that the world itself gives you an over-active imagination, as we both starting having flashbacks of the plane's final moments. It really killed my partner, as to escape the smoke filling the cockpit in the flashback he ripped off his gasmask... and proceeded to choke on the poisoned air of the surface. A little later, whilst dicking around looking for bullets and filters dead men started to appear in the corners of my vision, and I ended up crawling out as they got more real. Well done Metro: Dead Space taught me to explore through my fear, you taught me to stop exploring as it's terrifying again.

Then I run into another person who talks around me for a bit, and I'm completely taken out of the experience.

Say something! Anything! TELL ME YOU LIKE HAM.

This is not to say silent protagonists are inherently bad. I'll contrast another - Isaac Clarke from the first Dead Space. Now Isaac Clarke didn't speak, and was ordered around a lot. Fair enough, you're a low ranking engineer, and most of the orders you're getting involve the phrasing 'for god's sake fix this part of the ship before we all die,' which doesn't necessitate much response other than 'yep, on it.' No leisuerely chats between friends, here. But we know we're looking for his girlfriend (look, a relationship!) we know he's scared out his damn mind, and everything else has been stripped out to put you in the place he is so you are likewise scared. Unlike Metro, your weapons are cobbled together tools for the most part, and you lumber around in a heavy rig suit, taking away the super-soldier feel. By the time Dead Space 2 rolls around, having survived and grown some, Isaac talks and is his own character SEE METRO. That's what you do. In horror games, a blank slate can be key for helping you to immerse yourself in the threat.

And don't try to contradict me by saying Metro is both a horror game: once you have a shotgun and thus can apply said shotgun to threat's face the horror is suitably diminished.

Pictured: Reassurance (in noisy form)

Want to have a silent protagonist with a past? Make it mysterious, and make it the point of uncovering it. If your past is spread over previous games, and you keep running into prior acquaintances, then trying to justify your inability to open your damn mouth and say, no, I don't want to go down the spider's nest alone where the horrible spiders that eat your eyes and lay eggs in the empty sockets are, as that sound's fucking stupid...

Well, it get's rather daft, see?

That being said, please don't mistake this bitching as that I'm not enjoying Metro: Last Light, that while your character may be bland the world certainly isn't, and I look forward to seeing what the amnesiac Chosen One time-travelling vampire becomes next. I'm hoping for a robot!

I'm still here! Mostly.

I am writing again! Just getting over neck pain and wrestling with my feeling of pointlessness of continuing with the blog, so, you know, a Tuesday. I'll put it up tomorrow. I mean, I could put it up now, but I having yet giving it my cursory typo and spelling check... and you're aware how bad I am after checking?

You don't want to see my posts before the check.

People die.

Wanted: New neck. Old one defective.

I have done something god awful to my neck. I think I've thrown it out, if that's possible, and if it isn't I want to throw the damn thing out and get a new one. I am functional only by a combination of Deep Heat and ibuprofen.

So.

No updates until it fixes itself, as it hurts to sit in chairs, lean down, lift thinks, or walk. It's a good thing my day job has all those things, right?

Perhaps we don't deserve free movement of persons

So for the European elections the far right has made definite gains. whilst the turnout was shit as always, both UKIP's rise in here and the National Front's gains in France suggests a few things. Namely, we can't have nice things, and secondly: is freedom of movement between borders worth it?

From my perspective, that's a definitive yes. However, it's undeniable there's a big swell of thought in Europe right now that we have too many foreigners wanderin' around.

When I talk to people, there's constant fear and anger about people in this country walking along the street talking a different language, or wearing different clothes. And I was be the only person who doesn't give a shit. Whatever. You're talking something that's not English. You're wearing non-English traditional clothes. I'll be over here, looking for my fucks to give.

I don't even give a fuck about the lack of apostrophes in this picture.

Tragically, my incredible tolerance / incredible apathy isn't a universally shared thing. UKIP and the National Front has been making their gains of the back of an anti-immigration stance, with many comments levelled at the stance 'they're finally saying what we're all thinking!' Well, awesome. But you know why the Big Three parties (well, Big Two after the Lib Dems dismal showing) have never got round to doing anything about immigration? It's a boring answer, I'm afraid. It's because we gain a net economic benefit.

That's not the story that every newspaper, and every 'everybody knows' story that's been doing the rounds for god knows how long. And the stories that are wrong, or blatantly false, like Farage's '29 million Romanians and Bulgarians are totally going to come here,' (even though there's only 27 million of them, and god damn is that stupid to suggest) are never really challenged, or called out for the scare-mongering lies that they are. But whatever. Clearly we just don't like immigrants.

So what's next? Perhaps we should have tiered freedom of borders, like the big players in Germany, France and England can wander freely, but everyone else in the EU can wander around themselves but need border checks coming into the big three. It is admittedly not a good system, and is brutally unfair, but hey, it lets me dodge getting visas when I go on holiday. It does somewhat stop the 'takin ma jobs' cries, as look everyone - we're all just well off white people wandering around, amiright? Non of those, poor, ethnic chaps!

Excuse whilst I go puke for writing that.

How I feel about myself right now.

However, this, whilst politically perhaps more acceptable to the public, would be immediately challenged as other countires would want to get into this tier of free movement. Then you have the problem we don't have any internal borders, so you'd just have to walk around to get it. And thirdly, the big three want immigration, to do those jobs cheaply we don't to do or fill skilled roles we don't have, and not having it would make us exceptionally uncompetive. Also, I have friends who live here but aren't from Germany and France, that I'm basically determining that they gotta be deported. Er. I don't want to do that. I did say this idea was fucking terrible, right?

Perhaps we should have a leaflet to anyone turning up, quietly saying, 'Welcome to Britain! We fucking hate you. Please do us a favor and hide your unquie cultural hertiage and pretend to be just like us until we decide we're cool with you. It will only take, twently, thirty years, tops. Peace out!'

Or we could have the media stop fellating Murdock's wrinkled cock, and actually tell the truth about immig-

Heh, I made a funny.

Yeah, fine, that's not going to happen.

You know, immigration is never going away? It's never going to end? It's been with use for-fucking-ever? And that some of our best people were from abroad? Oh, hey, the big man, Winston Churchill's British, right?

FUCKING WRONG HIS MOTHER WAS FROM AMERICA.

What about Brunel, our famous engineer?

NOPE, HE'S FROM FRANCE, A FUCKING FRENCHIE.

T.S. Eliot, poet?

AMERICAN AGAIN, FUCKFACE.

Okay, the guy who designed that weird twisty thing in the Olympic park? That weird thing is the British thing ever. It even stands like it's embarrassed at itself.

KEEP LOOKING, ANISH KAMPOOR'S WAS FROM INDIA.

Fine. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon, he's as English as you get, right?

AS ENGLISH AS A FUCKING IRISHMAN. WHICH HE WAS.

Dame Helen Mirren, the quintessential English-

DAD'S A RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT, YOU. UTTER. FUCKTARD.

This, this! Is what people who bitch against immigration stand against. One generation, two generations, and they are British. One of us! Even earlier, if they want to be. Whatever. Fine. No immigrants. Woo.

I'll be over here, watching Eddie Izzard's Mongrel Nation again.

Utterly confused about media coverage

I'm blanking on what to write about, so I'll feebly excuse myself until tomorrow.

I will leave with a parting thought. Alongside the European Elections, we also had a whole bunch of local elections. What makes me confused is the accepted story on how UKIP did really well, and Labour not so much. This is weird, considering that Labour made net gains of over three hundred seats, and took many councils outright, where UKIP, whilst having a bunch of seats, were shotgun scatted giving them precisely... jack shit. No councils taken, no not even being the opposition for a council. For fuck's sakes, the Green Party has a council, and is an opposition! That's not even including the fact that it looks like UKIP's percentage share of the vote went down compared to the last council elections.

So what I ask you is this - if this is Labour doing badly, and UKIP doing well, what the utter fuck would Labour doing well and UKIP doing badly look like?

Doing a protest vote right at the European Elections

The European elections are coming up, and you don't care!

Ugh. Politics.

Why would you? They are very boring. Also, as a Brit, common knowledge is that the EU is ridiculously undemocratic so what's the point of voting anyway? Er, aside from democratic accountability and shutup.

But there is going to be in all likelihood a lot of votes for UKIP, as a protest vote. Yeah. We need to talk about that.

Okay, so you don't like the EU. Or the Tories. Or Labour. Or the Lib Dems. I get that. I am with you 75% of the way with those statements, and depending on the day, maybe even 100% behind you. However, if you really don't like the EU, I'd recommend passing on voting UKIP as in doing so you're not helping. What you're doing is voting in people who won't bother turning up - thus missing your chance to do anything meaningful over the EU - and who take every penny they can from the EU. Before you chortle that they deserve it, please note that money is our money. We pay it to the EU, which then gets claimed by UKIP who don't turn up to work. So yes, they are in fact wasting British money in doing so.

They are also not a protest vote. Sadly, if your attraction to them is that they seem different to the main three parties we have (and I am sympathetic here, the main three parties as undeniable arseholes and incompetents) they are just like everyone else. They're primarily funded by Paul Sykes, as ex-Tory backer, and are staffed by plenty of ex-Tories... when they're not jumping ship back to the Tories. I mean, come one, Neil bleedin' Hamilton is a UKIP member, and the only reason he's famous is for being a Tory MP whilst being on I'm a Celebrity. Also Nigel Farage himself used to be a Tory. Go figure.

So they're basically Tories who don't like the EU. Which to me, sounds like they're basically Tories. The only thing I found in their manifesto (which I'm not sure is the right one, as they've disowned previous manifestos for being kinda bonkers) that's different to the Tories is that stand opposed to the Bedroom Tax. That's it. Everything else seems to be roughly the same, bar whatever bonkers bits they keep, which may include making the Circle Line a circle again (wha?) more freedom to manage their own expenses (Hell. No.) and a flat rate of 31% tax of everyone earning over the pitiful sum of £11,500 per annum, which is fucking terrifying. Do you earn enough to lose 31% of your wage? The hell you do!

(If you actually do can I have some? So hungry.)

But if I've convinced you to not bother with UKIP, but you don't like the EU, the Tories, Labour, Lid Dems, and want a protest vote, the fuck can you actually do?

Well on Thursday the 22nd of May you can go into that polling booth and draw a giant, throbbing phallus all over your voting card. That's a protest and a dick joke, so that's a twofer there.

I'm serious. Boom. Spoil your ballot with a giant dick joke. That's a much more effective protest vote than voting in more of the same with UKIP, and is absolutely hilarious to boot. You could also draw a big pair of breasts, a dinosaur, a spaceship, or even a second, bigger penis.

MIND. BLOWN.

Or you could vote. Now, the electoral process for the MEPs are done by proportional representation, so unlike our First Past The Post bullshit where you can live in an area where it makes no difference who you vote for as you're against a cliff wall of voters, this means you vote matters a little more. There's less safe seats, so change actually happens. Weird, that. Also, fun fact - if you get an alternate party in, even a little, then the bigger guys may notice and nick some of their policies. Democracy in action! Sorta!

So let's look at a few parties that are actually legitimate alternative groups. For starters, let me introduce you to The Pirate Party. Not only do they have a bitchin' as fuck name, they stand for the reform of patent and copyright laws, greater protections to freedom of speech and less government surveillance, of which I can say Yes Fucking Please to all three of those things. Particularly the last one, as government, get the fuck out of my emails. And that first one? If you're the sort of person who sees nothing wrong with perusing a torrent site of two, that may be relevant. Of course, patent law while boring is becoming a utterly farcical hammer in recent years, and that's gotta stop.

Of course, those guys aren't probably running in your area, so you might be in mind for someone more widespread. Then funnily enough the Green Party might be for you. For starters, they're big enough that they're challenging the Lib Dems for forth place and I'd love for them to win that to blast the Traitor King further into obscurity. They stand for a bunch of things that you'd probably like - bringing public services such as mail, NHS, trains and energy back under public control which oh. My. God. Wow. That. I love that. How much has your energy bills gone up? How shit are the trains, which we still pump money into and raise above inflation every year? Also, remember that whole line about what if you don't like the EU? The Green Party doesn't like the EU either. They want some urgent reforms, and failing that, a referendum, which is doing EU management correctly - instead of having a hissy fit and walking, they want to reform to make it better, and leave if they can't. Admittedly, that sounds an awful lot like what Davy boy said, but I reasonably sure he doesn't intend to ever have a referendum and regardless of what happens with the EU he'll declare Mission Accomplished so the referendum's averted. The one sticking point for me personally is how they hate them some nuclear power, and I love me some nuclear power. Can't have everything, I suppose.

There are some more, but go research them yourselves. Go on! Go! I'm bored of researching already. You can be to.

It's worth noting that I'm still researching who to vote for in the elections, and drawing a giant throbbing phallus is starting to sound really tempting. Nor am I affiliated with any party, beyond once joining the Lid Dem university group on the sole reason that if I signed up I got a goody bag of lollipops and condoms.

At only £2 to join I strictly speaking made a profit.

The halal non story

Enough with the Daily Mail bashing, I hear you cry. Fine.

I can bash The Sun instead.

I see three headlines, a hat trick of offensiveness!

So The Sun is mad that there's a bunch of halal chicken being served in Pizza Express right now that nobody bothered to announce. And by a bunch, I mean all of the chicken is halal chicken. And by nobody bothered to announce, I mean it's all over their website, just not their menus and for some reason this is important.

Admittedly, I know the reason. But we'll get back to it.

So I paid attention to this story for about thirty seconds, long enough for every other newspaper to run a mini-story on it. My attention briefly flicked over if the chickens were stunned first, and thus humane, and they were, and I just stopped caring. Look, I don't care what you say over a dying chicken, unless your whispering at it how you're going to fuck it's new holes, it which case, damn, that is creepy. As most (like, 90% more most) of the meat is pre-stunned, and thus like every other piece of meat served to me, this means the only difference a halal chicken and a non-hahal chicken is the that little prayer the halal stuff gets. I'm an atheist. Praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monsters is equally valid to me, in that prayer is utterly invalid to me. Praying to the dead chicken makes no difference, it's like talking to plants - only that plants benefit from the carbon dioxide in your breath. If anything, praying is a sort of selfish action. It makes you feel better, but muggins over here stuck in hospital thinks you're just wasting your own time and mine.

Besides, if you're religious but not a Muslim, surely that prayer is as equally invalid? As every religion claims they're the only right one? ...yes, I don't know jack shit about religions, I kinda gave up of them a while ago.

As long as the animal was killed humanly with as minimized suffering as possible, I'm down with that. Look, abattoirs are gross. And you know what? If you're not cool with that, don't eat meat. I know plenty of people who've decided that, and good for them.

So the story went on to look at the multiple places that sold halal meat and whether they announced it, and you know what - they probably should. A lot of meat nowadays seems to be halal to hedge the bets that everyone is cool to eat it. But that's really where the story should of stopped. But it kept on.

So why then? I mean, it's all stunned humanly, and no one's talking about the animal welfare beyond the death - not one mention about mistreatment - so why's this going on? Well, I'll tell you.

It's because The Sun is fucking racist.

What? I said it. I know plenty of well meaning people who are obsessed that there is a secret Muslim conspiracy to overtake Britain and that my friends, is lunacy. Lunacy! We're a country run by rich white men, and we'll always be run by rich white men. Our pastimes are bacon butties and beer. It ain't happening.

Yet we get the hysteria about sharia law: they're running their own courts! Of course they are. Just like Jewish courts, or Sikh courts, we actively encourage people to set up their own courts to deal with financial bullshit because if someone wants to go through a court and be legally bound by that court whilst not going through our courts, thus not costing us any money, we're normally all for it. Because, you know, it's not costing us anything. And then we're got Muslims taking over our schools! So we lose our fucking minds and send in a counter terrorism expert - way to proportionally respond... to a likely hoax. Now they're sneaking in their halal food! Only that is wasn't snunk in, we invited it, and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH.

As this adds up to a nasty piece of xenophobic hate mongering. Whenever I see those bloody Facebook shares of someone crying about animal welfare... look at the group promoting them. One of those nasty, cruel, nationalist right winger groups, right? Because that's the first thing they do to try for legitimacy; they attempt to claim they're kind. They loves them some fluffy animals! Yeah. No, you don't care. You're just bashing, and your types always do this.

Enough.

Any Irish here? I need you to do me a personal favor.

I need you to be our terrorists again.

Look, it can't be the Jews, they're still getting shit. It can't be anyone remotely brown lookin' to the average Dulex paint range racist as they've already been lumped into the Muslim camp. It can't be the Welsh, as we don't belive they care at all about anything beyonf their borders. And we built a wall around the Scots, thus keeping us safe from them forever.

FOREVER.

Just phone up a couple of prank bomb calls, and let us make horrible potato based racist slurs for a bit until we all calm down. That's as far as we'll go - you're in the EU now, you're safe from us unless we... uh... leave. Hmm. Yeah.

Scratch that.

It'll have to be the Welsh. Sorry.