Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (753): Tue 9th Apr 2024

I slept in until the unheard of time of 12:30 today which is fucking insane. Seriously, I consulted various time experts and they told me they had never even heard of 12:30 before. To be fair I have been getting up half an hour early for this last run of shifts since I've started using a pedal bike to get to work after I could take no more of the motorbike so maybe that explains why I've been hitting the sack considerably earlier and sleeping in a lot later. I sometimes wonder if I would prefer going back to doing a nine to five job five days a week as this would ensure a much better sleeping pattern but I can't deny having three days off a week is pretty fucking sweet as it gives me a lot more time to waste at home watching the same YouTube videos over and over again. Well today at least I didn't spend all day pissing around on Youtube, I started reading Philip K Dick's second novel Voices From The Street and I'm already loving it. A man named Stuart Hadley has a really good and some would say enviable life, a beautiful wife, a steady job and a nice house but there's something in him telling him that he hasn't found the missing piece of the puzzle that is his life but he can't for the life of him figure out what it may be. His is insanely jealous of those who have found religion, a political allegiance or guidance in the form of philosophy as they must feel as though they have found that missing piece. I certainly empathise with this character as for a while now I've been looking for that missing piece in my life but until Hadley I know what that missing piece is as I am desperate to return to Jiu Jitsu but can't at the moment because of this useless fucking neck of mine that just won't heal. This book, like Dick's previous novel Gather Yourselves Together feels very Kafkaesque but because DIck wouldn't start writing science fiction novels until a few books into his career Voice From The Street still feels like it could take place in the real world. I can't wait to see where it goes and thanks to my ambient music playlist I can now read for much longer without worrying about distractions. Later on I heard that Hollyoaks is going from five episode a week down to three! But if I don't have an outlet for all the bollocks in my head for the other two days a week then I'll have to go back to fucking therapy! I hate to say it but this cast cull & going down to 3 eps a week might be the beginning of the end. The show's seen a decline in popularity since they took focus off young people & putting episodes online before they go on TV has given people less reasons to tune in. I think the makers of the show got complacent a long time ago because they figured their core audience would watch no matter what but they couldn't have predicted how the world would change and give their audience so many reasons to do something else

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (752): Mon 8th Apr 2023

Once again I tried to avoid the spoilers from last night's Mania but I just couldn't force myself to stay off the internet for ten hours while I was at work so I reluctantly got onto Wrestling Inc to get the results and….sigh. Look, I'm happy for Cody as I know how much this meant to him but I'm still not convinced that he's THE guy. I've always found his promo work to be substandard and I still contend that the only reason WWE took him back was because of how big of a star AEW was positioning him as (If AEW had never happened do you honestly think that Stardust would have just dethroned Roman last night>). Also WE don't exactly have a track record of providing good follow up storylines to capitalise on big wins. For instance Daniel Bryan's first feud after beating Orton and Batista in the main event of mania was against Kane of all people and after Drew McIntyre won the title from Brock Lesnar at Mania he was rewarded with a feud with Dolph fucking Ziggler. I hope that I'm wrong but I stand by my statement that Roman vs Rock was the right way to go this year and then have Cody win the belt next year instead.

I need to start saving up if I'm going to have enough spending money for my family holiday to Greece in the summer. However it will probably be a while before they start offering overtime at work so instead i've come up with a new plan to start making some serious cash. I've told my old friend from the call centre Kevin that if he doesn't give me a grand by this time next week I'm going to release a dossier of all the horrendous things he's said to me over the years. Kevin didn't believe I had the balls to do such a thing so I'm going to post the first few things in the dosier to let him know that I'm not bluffing. According to Kevin: "The Dutch only eat tiramisu and generally aren't very good at driving forklifts" "Everyone who has ever owned a Nintendo Wii deserves to get bowel cancer" "Transgender people and squirrels are basically the same thing" I know, absolutely abhorrent statements from Kevin and if he doesn't fork out the money I will show the world that these are just the tip of the iceberg. DO YOU THINK I HAV THE BALLS NOW KEVIN?!

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (751): Sun 7th Apr 2024

Today was daylight savings and not the good one where you gain an extra hour of sleep but the shitty one where at one AM your five hours sleep IMMEDIATELY becomes a fucking four hour sleep which is no fucking good. Luckily I find that after a few minutes on the pedal bike to work the it shakes off the cobwebs due to the lack of sleep and starts to pump the adrenaline through you so I woke up pretty quickly. On my lunch break I saw that Angus Young was trending and I thought “Oh fuck off” but turns out he’s not dead it’s just his birthday which is a good thing not just for me but for the universe because if I had paid £180 for the AC/DC gig (not including travel and accommodation) only for it to be cancelled for a reason as trivial as the lead singer dying then I would get to work on that doomsday device I've been planning since I was four. I realised it would be stupid to try and avoid the spoilers from night one of Wrestlemania all day so I just checked them out on Wrestling Inc. I wasn't surprised that Rock and Roman won their match and I suspect that Cody will overcome the odds tomorrow night even though I'm still not sold on him being the one to end the most historic reign of the modern era. I was happy to see that the tag titles were finally split because there are a lot of tag teams on the roster who could use the rub but haven't been able to recieve it because there has only been one set of tag titles for the last two years. I was sad to see that Gunther's historic Intercontinental title reign came to an end last night. I love Sami Zayn to death but the one to beat Gunther should have been Chad Gable. They could have done a Daniel Bryan style grassroots movement to get fan support behind him then had Gable win a chamber match for the title shot. On the subject of wrestling news also broke today that AEW is going to air the footage of CM Punk and Jack Perry's backstage confrontation during All In at Wembley. Under normal circumstances I'd say that this deemed like a desperation move and a ploy to get a bump in the ratings if not for the fact that Punk fired the first shots on Ariel Helwani's podcast. Prior to this Punk and AEW seemed to be agreeing to a non-disclosure deal where neither side would bash the other but Punk threw all that to the wayside when he described Tony as "a great guy but not a boss" and said AEW is full of people who are content with "some goof giving you a five star match and performing to a quarter full arena". I get what he's saying but to say the entire roster are marks for Meltzer is being disingenuous plus I can't imagine that any of the roster are happy when they look out and see that the building isn't full but that's Tony Khan's fault not theirs. If they're doing this in order to get extra heat on The Young Bucks and potentially to debut Jack Perry as a member of The Elite then fair play to them. It still feels a bit childish but as I said Punk fired the first shots and said that he was just telling the truth so if AEW have footage that shows he wasn't telling the truth then they should 100% air it.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (750): Sat 6th Apr 2024

I got up at six to see what the weather was like because if it was dry I was going to cycle to work but it was drizzling so I had to throw my clothes on quickly and speed walk to the bus stop. Lucky for the first time in the history of mankind the bus was actually on time and it got to Concord bus station on time meaning I could treat myself to a nice vegan sausage roll and a hot chocolate from Greggs while I waited for my second bus to take me the rest of the way to work. Maybe the extra money these guys got after striking all the way through Christmas has encouraged them to actually start being on time in order to earn their wages though I don't see why because the bus company didn't punish them before when they used to turn up whenever the fuck they felt like it so I see no reason why they wouldn't continue to do so.

After I got in from work I took Luna down to Smyths to buy a new game which was closed because of the cunting bank holiday weekend so we had to go to Sainsbury's instead. I love this little pest more than anything in the world but man she was doing my fucking head in tonight. She was running too far ahead of me and screaming like a mental case. I was terrified that she was going to trip over and bust her face or run out into the road and get hit by a car. Then when we got into the supermarket she kept leaning out of the trolley and trying to tip it over. Luna means everything to me but it's days like today that I'm glad she isn't my kid. I don't know how I would cope if I couldn't hand her back to my sister when I'd had enough of her antics.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (749): Fri 5th Apr 2024

Tuned into last night's Dynamite and I'm still not exactly sure how this ranking system works. Could any roster member just decide to pull an Adam Copeland and hold an open challenge every week in order to accumulate some wins? Also what if Tony’s only booking you once a month like Lance Archer? Watched Private Party's match and while they are great in the ring they need a rejiggered gimmick or they need some more mic / vignette time to develop their current gimmick because the two years they spent on Dark with Matt Hardy have done a lot of damage that needs repairing. I liked the vignettes for Strickland vs Takeshita but they should have had them as the opening video package and had them running throughout the night. You should always be plugging the main event. Another really good show in terms of in ring action but I'm still holding out hope that one day soon Tony Khan will realise they need more direction and focus on story. Tuned into tonight's Hollyoaks which featured more chaos within the Osborne household. JJ continues to torment Frankie while the rest of the family are oblivious to what's going on. The end of the episode featured Frankie sat on the opposite side of the table from JJ looking forlorn as Darren complimented him for his recent football prowess. The scene ended with Suzanne commenting that they were finally becoming a real family. Yes, living with your two children, their Dad, his wife and THEIR children, just like every other home in the UK right?………..well maybe in Sunderland. The episode itself ended with Nancy's pregnancy scare being all for nothing as it was revealed she wasn't pregnant but that she wanted Darren to get a vasectomy and I posted the following hypothetical exchange on Twitter:

Nancy: Darren you're getting a vasectomy Darren: How will gluing a bunch of jewels to my willy stop you from getting pregnant? Nancy: That's a Vajazzle, Darren. And only women can get them Darren: Well what's a vasectomy? (Nancy whispers in Darren's ear) Darren: AAAAAAAHH!

Good episode of Hollyoaks tonight. Much better than that episode of American Dad! where Steve and his friends get trapped in the school but nowhere near as good as that episode of Mad Men where Don is revealed to be an imposter

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (748): Thu 4th Apr 2024

This afternoon Dad, my sister and myself went to a car dealership to get an estimate of what kind of money I'd be expecting to pay for an automatic car. My sister had Luna with her since she's off school today as they are going on holiday tomorrow. Dad took Luna to McDonalds while my sister and I walked around the car. I'm not even going to try to remember the names of the cars we looked at because that shit goes in one of my ears and out of my arse. We did however discover that I'd be expecting to pay around £50 a month in finance towards the car and with my sister being on my insurance it should be around a tenner a week extra. This sounded like a lot initially but then I remembered that I was paying £45 PER WEEK for my fucking bike insurance and because it was a piece of shit I was constantly having to get it serviced and have the parts replaced whereas this car has been newly built and not by the Chinese so it's guaranteed to last a long time. We're going to hold off buying the car until my sister gets back from holiday but I now know what I can expect to pay when we finally put pen to paper. I can't deny I'm excited to finally have a reliable set of wheels and not having constant anxiety that the thing is going to break down after time it get caught in a light drizzle. When I got back I listened to the latest episode of Evil Genius with Russell Kane which is one of my favourite podcasts at the moment. The subject this week ws George Harrison who I didn't realise until now was quite the misogynist but the panel ultimately determined that he was more genius than evil. I've got a note on my phone where I add famous figures who I think may be fitting subjects for Evil Genius in the future. The only condition of being discussed on the show is that they are dead in order to avoid legal troubles so I think the following would make for fascinating examination in future episodes: JD Salinger (Paedo), John Peel (Paedo), Spike Milligan (Adulterer and violent), Jerry Lewis (Misogynist and arsehole), Richard Wagner (Anti-Semitic), John Wayne (Racist and homophobic), Billy Graham (homophobic and anti-Semitic), Howard Hughes (racist, womanizer, tax dodger), Bobby Fischer (Anti-Semitic), Sean Connery (wife bete), Philip K Dick (tried to murder two of his wives), Chris Benoit (murderer but maybe because of brain trauma), Steve Jobs (pretended to be infertile so he didn't have to be in his daughter's life) and Henry Ford (anti-Semitic). I'm sure there are many more but the fact that these were just off the top of my head shows that Evil Genius should in theory be around for many years to come as it will be hard for the shoe to run out of material.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (747): Wed 3rd Apr 2024

I rewatched one of my favourite movies of all time: Vanishing Point. To casual moviegoers the plot of the movie sounds dull, a car delivery man speeds his way from Colorado to California while the police give chase. However the joy of the movie is getting to spend time with the driver Kowalski and trying to understand his motives. You really don't get character study movies like this one any more. Movies where you spend a few hours in a character's company and make up your mind about what kind of person he is. Throughout the movie we see various flashbacks to incidents in Kowalski's life namely him crashing his car during a professional race and the time he was a cop and he saved a girl from being raped by one of his coworkers which led to him being fired. My own personal interpretation of the film is that these are not flashbacks, they are fantasies. I think something happens just before the events of the movie which makes Kowalski think he has wasted his life and that before he dies he wants to have at least one big adventure. That's why he makes a bet with his friend that he can get the car to California in four days even though it doesn't need to be there for a week. Throughout the journey the things he sees prompt fantasies in his head as he imagines how his life could have been. This is also a beautifully choreographed film with extreme stunts being performed with no reliance on CGI. There's one stunt where we get a shot of Kowalski driving his car along the bottom of an embankment shot from the perspective of the police car at the top. Kowalski then drives up the embankment across the police cars path and runs him off the road. My one gripe about the film is the music. The framing device of the movie is that there is a DJ named Super Soul who hears about Kowalski's police chase and sympathises with him. Throughout the movie we hear the songs Soul plays on Kowalski's radio. The trouble is since this film was made in the early seventies the songs are mostly soul a genre I'm not a fan of. If this had been made 10 - 15 years later it would have had a heavy metal soundtrack and this would probably bump Vanishing Point up to being my all time favourite movie (Even though it's currently still in my top ten). Later on I tuned into tonight's Hollyoaks which featured more bollocks from Mercedes and Warren. At the start of the episode we saw Mercedes texting someone known only as F and leaving the audience to speculate on who it might be. I suspected that it could possibly be Flounder from the Little Mermaid but thinking about it now this would've been very unlikely. He wasn’t much help in the film so he’d be even less handy on dry land. Anywho it turned out to be Freddie Roscoe and to be honest I quite out of the loop during the Roscoe family years so I'm not exactly sure why he's been brought in by Mercedes to combat Warren. Does he have some ties to the criminal underworld similar to Warren or does he know MMA or something? I'm so glad Warren is leaving that I actually might just start skipping whenever he's on screen since I don't care what his exit storyline will be. There was a moment where Warren had a heart to heart with Norma where she reminded him that Mercedes is carrying his child….yes he actually needed reminding. Then Warren went round to Mercedes for a heart to heart. Even during his last weeks on the show theyre still trying to get us to sympathise with this character? He went round to Mercedes heart and tried to reconcile and fucking BLAH BLAH BLAH. He smashed up her house & now thinks a simple apology will fix things? He started off as a decent character who was portrayed as a bit dodgy but only hurt those who hurt the ones he loved so occasionally I could sympathise with him. But for the last few years his switches between good & bad have felt so arbitrary that I just don’t care about him any more. Awful character. Terribly written. Just PISS OFF! Can't wait till he's gone

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (746): Tue 2nd Apr 2024

I went over to Dad's to cancel the insurance on the motorbike. I told them that it was broken and I couldn't afford to get it fixed anymore so I just wanted the whole thing cancelled. The cunts actually charged me a £79 cancellation fee. I guess this was the money I was still due to pay for the remainder of the month but still the very idea that you should have to pay money in exchange for someone not providing a service for you any more is ridiculous. Also what would happen if you lost your job and you didn't have any more in your account? You wouldn't be able to pay the monthly payments but you also couldn't afford to cancel the fucking insurance. Well anyway at least I did and it's over now. I won't have to worry about this useless piece of shit breaking down on me ever again. I was planning on fixing it and selling it on but it would cost so much money just to get it repaired to the point I could sell it to someone wanting to use it that at this point it might just be easier to sell it for parts (though the parts are so cheap and poorly made that I think any potential buyer could just make parts that are equally reliable if they just pop down to Smyths and pick up some Lego).

Tuned into tonight's Hollyoaks which featured Frankie getting drunk to try and tune out the fact that her brother JJ is sexually abusing her. Lucas found her at Ella's grave with a bottle of white wine and eventually she poured some of the wine onto the grave so that she could "join in the party". Absolutely disgraceful behaviour from Frankie on Ella’s grave. Everyone knows Ella was a red wine person. The episode ended with Warren and his thug friends donning balaclavas and smashing up the McQueen's house in what had to be the most half-arsed home invasion ever. It looked like the actors were taking care NOT to break the props. Whatever plot they use to write Warren out I guarantee will be piss weak compared to the DOZENS of times that Warren SHOULD have been thrown in jail & would have been if it were real life. Hell the police once caught him BATTERING Liam & James got him out the next day. Can't wait till this guy is gone.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (745): Mon 1st Apr 2024

My sister rang me up and asked if I still wanted her to book the operation for Lucy. I've been considering this ever since I spoke to the vets but I don't think I can go through with it. Ever since I got the news I've been picturing Lucy panicking as the vets try to give her the gas to knock her out and me trying to calm her down and assure her that everything will be alright because frankly I don't know if it will be. Also the fact that on the morning of the operation I'll have to take her to the vets on the bus and she'll just think that it's another ordinary day out completely oblivious to what's about to happen. The idea that she might not come back has been haunting me ever since and I just don't think I can do it. The vet told me that the older you get the less chance you have of surviving anesthetic and according to her Lucy's heart murmur is a five out of six. My sister was relieved when I told her this because she doesn't think she'll survive it either. When I spoke to the vet she didn't explicitly say that Lucy is in pain she said that if she is then she might get to the stage where its too painful for her to eat and she will start to refuse food. However after less than a week of her taking this medication they gave me she has already stopped making that weird clicking noise and her breath is better so perhaps this was just a minor infection and the meds have cured it. Plus she doesn't seem to be in any pain, if she was she would be yelping all the time. I know that this might be the cruel thing to do but I can't face the idea of losing her when she might have several good years left in her. She still has so much energy and enthusiasm for life after all. When I get in from work she's always there in the front garden waiting for me to give her a treat and take her upstairs so she can sit with me while I watch the wrestling. I want to have that companionship for as long as I can

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (744): Sun 31st Mar 2024

Tonight before bed I rewatched the 2004 version of Around the World in 80 Days. I'm attempting to rewatch all of my DVD's and I'm starting by getting all the easy watches out of the way and I remembered this film being a turn your brain off kind of movie, the kind of film you'd watch on a plane to pass some time. I was surprised to discover that the film in my opinion has a lot more going for it than I'd remembered. For one it has the most ridiculous Jackie Chan stunt ever committed to film where he grabs two henchmen by their belts then does a backflip, taking both the henchmen with him while booting another henchman in the face who is directly in front of him. This is the kind of stunt that the Mythbusters wouldn't even bother testing out. The film was criticised heavly at its time of release for making this a partial kung fu movie when there is nothing of the sort in the original novel. However I actually think this benefited the story and I can certainly see the writer's thinking. In the book there are so many grand scenes featuring hot air balloons, trains, aircrafts etc and since Jackie Chan is famous for utilising hit sets / props for stunts I can certainly see how they thought he would be a good fit for the film. In an interview promoting the film Steve Coogan says that his portrayal of Phileas Fogg is meant to be an amalgam of Fogg from the movie and Jules Verne which I think works to the films advantage because in the book Fogg is just a rich guy who undertakes the challenge for a lark whereas in this cinematic version he actually has a motive. Although I think the film could have done with one or two rewrites to pack it full of jokes there are still a few good ones sprinkled throughout: Lord Kelvin: What’s the point of hiring a corrupt policeman if he can’t even abuse the law properly? Fogg: This is what happens when you leave your home: you meet…people! Prince Hapi: I'm not an inventor but I did develop a new way of irrigating dry land so that no one in my kingdom ever has to go hungry Passepartout: …Mr Fogg invented wheelie shoes Lord Kelvin: These are the ones who robbed the bank of England Monique: Nonsense! Where is your proof? Lord Kelvin: This is the Royal Academy of Science. We don’t need to prove anything These are funny lines but they are few and far between, I wish they'd brought in a script doctor to fill the thing up with lines like these. The big set piece scenes are also really well done particularly the scene where Jackie Chan is fleeing a group of henchmen and trying to grab onto a rope dangling from a hot air balloon and the climax where Fogg and co return to London in their flying machine. I can't say the movie holds up as well as I thought it did when I was a kid but if I could go back and point out all the good things about the film I've noticed in adulthood I think fifteen year old me would appreciate the movie even more. After watching the film I also realised that this film is twenty fucking years old. Holy shit where has the time gone and what have I done with my life?!

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (743): Sat 30th Mar 2024

Cycled to work in the sunshine this morning. It's been a while since I've been able to enjoy my journey to work due to not worrying that my mode of transport is going to break down on me. At least with a pedal bike if the chain comes off I'll be able to wheel it to work / home rather than forking out £180 to get the fucking thing towed. The journey was made even more pleasurable by listening to Frank Skinner's latest podcast from Absolute Radio. It's been years since I've been on a pedal bike so my legs weren't quite used to the strain and I did have to stop a few times to get my breath back. As shitty as my jobs at Aldi, TSB and HMRC were, they were at the bottom of the large hill that my house is at the top of so I could get there for free and I got to stay in bed until twenty minutes before my shift started. This is the first time I've ever had to pedal on my bike to get to get to work rather than just sit on it and gradually wake up while the bike takes me there. Luckily I set off an hour before my shift was due to start and got there in forty five minutes. Hopefully once my leg muscles get used to riding this thing on a regular basis I'll be able to cut the journey time down to half an hour.

When I got home I tuned into yesterdays episode of Hollyoaks that I missed because I was busy fantasising about all the ways I would torture the inventor of the Keeway Superlight 125 to death. The episode was mainly focused on Ste wondering how he was going to protect himself from Warren because although he survived being pushed off the top of the building by him…somehow…Warren has friends in jail who are willing to kill Ste for him. I put the following hypothetical exchange on Twitter:

Ste: Warren's got mates on the inside and one of them will kill me. Please can I stay an extra day? Sharon: I'm sorry but we don't have the bed space Ste: There's only one thing for it James: A plea deal? Ste: No, I need you to break my other leg The thing I don't understand about this whole Warren / Ste thing is that James has been Warren's lawyer for years so you'd think he would have plenty of dirt to get Warren locked up. At the very least why doesn't James just kidnap Warren's kids and threaten to glue both their heads to an airplane unless Warren agrees to leave Ste alone? That's what I would do.

I found out that Sharon is leaving the show. I'm not going to act like she was a great character but I think she had potential. However like so many characters with potential over the last few years she was relegated to just being a bystander in someone else's story (Mainly Felix's). If a character is in the show they should be part of a meaningful storyline, not just be there for the centrepiece of the storyline to talk to or vent at. You'd never get this in a sitcom or a drama where you have a regular actor on salary and all they ever do is come in whenever the actual characters need to discuss their feelings or aspects of the plot. I also learned that Jamelia, the actress who plays Sharon has actually been in the show twice before this regular role, both times as different characters so someone involved with this show clearly likes her and wants her to be in the show but just doesn't want her to do anything ever.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (742): Fri 29th Mar 2024

On the way to work this morning the fucking gears on my bike got stuck and would only move between second and third gear and wouldn't let me go down to first. I still got to work fine but I realised this meant that I was going to have to call someone out to fix this plus get the sprockets changed and then take it to BDS to get its service. After taking a minute to reflect on how much financial strain this bike has put on me plus the fact that every time I set out to work I'm paranoid that something bad is going to happen I decided…fuck this piece of shit. This is the sixth or seventh time that something has fucked up with this thing and I haven't even had it three years yet. It's just not worth it. To be fair to the people who sold this useless hunk of junk to me most people who get a 125 do so to practice on it so that they can pass the actual test and progress on to getting an actual bike that isn't made in China out of old chopsticks and held together with glue made from frog saliva. There's still such a backlog of people waiting to book lessons and tests due to the coronavirus however that I've been unable to make steps to progress to a proper bike and I've been stuck with this turd on wheels. The plan was to renegotiate the insurance on the bike and if I could get it low enough I would keep it in the garage and use it when the sun was out but use the car for rainy days. However this new shitty development has changed all that and now I'm just going to cancel the insurance flat out. I rang up Dad and asked if I could come to his on Monday so that I could cancel the insurance. I told him I would ask around to see if any of my friends had a pedal bike I could use for work but he told me that he had one I could use. Although it was half nine at night I asked if I could come over to his to pick it up and he said yes. Luckily the buses were still running (of course they were still running, UK buses are not made in China) and so I got over there fairly quickly. He got this bike during the pandemic but could never be arsed to use it. it's an electric bike so I can even use it to get up hills with minimal effort too. I pedalled home happy that thanks to me good old Dad I'd managed to make the best out of a bad situation and without the motorbike I can hopefully save a bit of money between now and getting a car.

Dear all motorbike dealers in the UK: STOP IMPORTING CHINESE MOTORBIKES. It's the only way Chinese bike manufacturers will be encouraged to start making better, more reliable bikes

^ Now that Lenny Henry's not doing Comic Relief anymore I feel like I might be able to get him to be the face of this campaign

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (741): Thu 28th Mar 2024

I also realised that ten years ago today I left HMRC. At the time of my departure I would have called this my worst job ever but prior to this role I had only had one other job, working at the Glass Centre which was awesome so bestowing the distinction of "worst job ever on it" wasn't exactly harsh since it had to be the worst job by default. However I'm now at the stage where I've had six proper jobs (one temp job and one that I can't really call a job beca use I only worked there for ten days and fucked off without collecting my paycheck because it was so awful) so I can now start to rank all of them from best to worst. I don't think I would class HMRC as my worst job ever anymore because although it ended badly mainly due to them putting me on a stage two sickness warning even though the time between my two instances of sick leave was over a year, it did at least start out well when it was exclusively a data entry role. I think the dubious honor of my worst job ever would definitely be between Aldi and TSB now. Aldi was fucking awful mainly due to the stupid rules the enforced namely that I had to be clean shaven all the time and that they try to sabotage their shelf stacker employees by taking things off / adding things to the pallets they need to empty by the end of the shift and then quiz them to see if they spotted them all like a game from the fucking Krypton Factor. TSB on the other hand was especially painful because unlike HMRC which had a script for their employees to follow when talking to customers, TSB had no such thing they just gave you a four week crash course and then told you that you needed to remember the whole thing and not make any mistakes because three mistakes in the space of a month could lead to dismissal. Also they fucked me over by telling me that any overtime you did past five hours meant you would get paid double so naturally I worked overtime every day for the month of February and then on pay day was told that the double time thing wasn't true and I was just paid my normal wages. As bad as TSB was it was a blessing in disguise because it made me realise that I can not do jobs where I have to interact with customers and as such I've now landed a warehouse job where I'm mostly left alone. I suppose this means I should have a fraction of gratitude to TSB and this should edge Aldi just ahead of it in terms of worst jobs but it's still like trying to decide between diving into a swimming pool filled with horse piss or donkey piss. I can still remember the day I left HMRC like it was yesterday. Tragically I can't remember what my final call was about because I finished it at around ten minutes before the end of my shift and my manager just told me to turn off my computer and sit out the final ten minutes (presumably so I didn't abuse my final customer which I totally would have). I shook hands with all my team mates and after handing in my badge my manager escorted me out of the building and I made my way up the hill listening to The Prisoner by Iron Maiden and I was in such a good mood that I stopped off at the toy store to buy Lacey a new Toy Story racing car. I was so happy to be free of that place and optimistic for what the future would hold. I wonder if I could travel back in time to that date and tell past me what the future held would he be put off? If I told him he would end up on the dole for a year and a half before working a temp job for a campaign to get children off fatty food, then working a job in a supermarket that started at five AM and wouldn't let me have a beard before a six month stretch in another call centre would his spirits be as high as he walked up that hill? I suspect if I also told him that he would re-enter the catering industry for a great job in a cafe that would last five years and would allow him enough free time to go see all his favourite bands then he probably wouldn't regret his decision to leave.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (740): Wed 27th Mar 2024

I took Lucy for an appointment at the vets about her teeth this afternoon. She was loving being on the bus for some reason. Probably because the rain has been nonstop over the last six months or so meaning she has rarely been out of the house. I've wanted to start taking her to the seaside for ages but I've always been worried that she'll do a piss or shit on the bus but now that I know she's well behaved and mostly just stares out of the window I might start taking her on days out. While Lucy may have been having the time of her life on the bus I was having a nightmare because there was a screaming baby at the front of the bus and a trio of really loud schoolkids threatening to knock each other out behind me. Neither of these things would have bothered Lucy because she's partially deaf but I was wanting to blow my brain out. Once we got to the vets I had to wait for around fifteen minutes where animals were constantly being brought in and out by the owners so I was constantly having to pull Lucy back to me on her lead so she didn't get pestered by the other animals. We got called in and I had to squeeze Lucy past a dog that was genuinely the size of a small horse. I thought about turning back and asking if their dog got hurt in the Grand National. I put Lucy up on the examination table and explained to the vet that her breath has been extra smelly lately and that she's been making a weird clicking nose with her mouth. The vet tried to examine her but Lucy wouldn't even let her open her mouth to look at her teeth. After a quick examination of the rest of her body and answering a bunch of questions about her history the vet then gave me some shitty news and then some really shitty news. She says it looks like the teeth are infected so if the medication she's given her makes no difference she might need to have another operation to remove them. The worst case scenario is that shell need them all out and if this is the case then I'll have to pay £850 for it. Now for the really shitty news. The vet also detected that Lucy has a heart murmur due to her age (we think she's around fifteen). She said heart murmurs are graded on a scale of one to six with six being the most severe and Lucy's is a five. The older the animal then the riskier it is to put them anesthetic so this operation is going to be incredibly risky for her. It has to be done though. I can't risk letting her teeth rot to the point where it's too painful for her to eat but the thought of trying to keep Lucy calm while they put a mask over her face to put her to sleep for an operation she might not wake up from is too hideous to contemplate. It would feel like an utter betrayal of her trust. I'm really depressed and upset right now, so much so that I didn't even think of the obvious joke which would have been to say that when I left the vets the giant dog was having new metal shoes put on the bottom of it's hooves until much later.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (739): Tue 26th Mar 2024

Up early for an automatic car driving lesson and man this was a real fucking eye opener. Without the constant urge to look down at the gears I could finally drive with zero anxiety. It was like driving one of those dodgems at the fairground. The lesson lasted two hours and the instructor hardly gave me any pointers or things I could have done better, literally all he gave me were directions and instructions. The only thing I kind of struggled with was the parking but since most automatic cars have a screen with built-in reverse parking guidance this shouldn't be a problem. Plus most of the time the car park at my work is half empty anyway. The two hours flew by and at the end of it the instructor told me that I didn't need anymore lessons and if this had been a test he would have passed me. He said that if I'm only going to be using it for work then I should just go ahead and get one but if I ever plan some trips away I can call him and he'll help me get used to the motorways again. After I got home I felt a mixture of elation and sheer anger: elation at the how much easier my life is going to be once I get this car but anger because of how much time and money I wasted on automatic car lessons. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed my time with Joe my instructor who is no longer with us as he was hilarious but I must have paid for about a hundred lessons and failed my test twice before I finally got my manual car licence. The whole time I could have just jumped in an automatic and passed in a fraction of the time. Tuned into tonight's Hollyoaks and when John Paul got too inquisitive about Carter's classes with Lucas (which JP doesn't realise yet are gay conversion classes) Carter threatened to suspend John Paul by making up a lie that he caught him drinking at work. After the episode I wondered if Carter suspended John Paul and said he was drinking at work couldn't he just take a breathalyzer to prove he hadn't? Anywho later on in the episode Carter gets down on his knees and begs Maxine to take him back. I thought it would be funny if later in the episode Declan, the leader of the gay conversion cult Carter is a member of saw the dirt on Carter's nees and said " You've been with John Paul again haven't you?"

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (738): Mon 25th Mar 2024

Tuned into tonight's Hollyoaks which featured more of Carter lying to himself and trying to resist his homosexuality. I was already pissed off at the fact that I'd never get to bang Maxine because she's fictional but as if that weren't bad enough the guy who is banging her doesn't even WANT TO! At the end of the episode the fellow members of Carters gay conversion cult found out that Carter kissed John Paul outside of the school. The episode ended with two of the cult members grabbing Carter by the wrists while the other members put their hands all over him and prayed to God to cure him. Yeah being forced to hold still while a group of men roughly grope him…that'll teach him not to do gay stuff right? Speaking of Hollyoaks news broke tonight that the producers are planning on a mass cull, getting rid of up to 20 characters. On the one hand last time they did this they did end up introducing some great characters but on the other it's a bit of a dick move putting 20 actors out of work! Naturally I'm a bit worried because Nancy and Maxine have been two of the best things in my life for years now and if they are axed then what is the point of anything anymore. The report also stated that the show will soon be going from five episode a week down to three! But if I don't have an outlet for all the bollocks in my head for the other two days a week then I'll have to go back to fucking therapy! I hate to say it but this could be the beginning of the end for the show. The show's seen a decline in popularity since they took focus off young people & putting episodes online before they go on TV has given people less reasons to tune in. I hope I'm wrong.

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (737): Sun 24th Mar 2024

I thought that there was a new OSW Review dropping tonight but it turned out it was the one that was released earlier this month on Patreon. I was incredibly angry and thought about going out and killing a bunch of random people with a chainsaw but then I remembered that I didn't have a chainsaw and that murder is still illegal. So instead I just watched the review that I'd already seen. I read on Yahoo News that Hatfield has been described as the most boring town in the UK. A representative from the town tried to rattle off some reasons why they considered Hatfield to have more going for it than the survey would have you believe but I fell asleep while I was reading it. It's odd that someone would try to counter claims that their town is boring by citing the museums and the people etc instead of announcing they'd be commissioning a rollercoaster or something like that. That's what I would do if I was the mayor of Sunderland and some newspaper described it as boring. Actually I'd be so happy that Sunderland had been downgraded from a hotspot for yobs that I would take boring as a badge of honor. People aren't going to be afraid of having dog shit thrown at their car in a city that has been dubbed the most boring in Britain are they? If I had carte blanche to do anything I wanted to improve the city I would start fining people £1000 every time they were caught listening to music on public transport without headphones, make it illegal for people to drink alcohol and watch football at the same time (I wager it wouldn't be long until people stopped watching football anyway since they only way it becomes tolerable is if you're drunk) and I would get rid of the pothole problem entirely by introducing hover cars to the city.