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What will you do over the holiday season?

November 13, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Does the impending holiday season now revolve exclusively around my TV? Firstly I should say that while tapping out this blog, the sky here in Malta is blue and the dogs are sunbathing in 22c/72f. Thanksgiving and Christmas are about as far from my mind as next year’s tax bill. However television commercials insist on dragging me away from my balmy reality into the fantasy of snow, turkey, goodwill to all men….and get me to start buying. I really do not understand how these companies who start commercials in November and scatterbomb the schedule for nearly two months with the same message, think this warms viewers to their cause. No matter how brilliant a commercial is, there comes a tipping point when repeated viewing turns into watching it again is worse than nails dragged down a backboard.

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Your title’s too long

Why...

Are the titles of television shows and movies so long? There is a movie on Netflix called The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. This is the tip of a particularly annoying iceberg that is intent on sinking my ability to search for shows. Nowadays with so many options to watch from Sky, to ITV Hub, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney + Uncle Tom Cobbly and all, I spend most of my time feeding titles into search engines. Fine if you are looking to watch movies like V, It, Up, Z, W or Us but more irritating than nails down a blackboard when it’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan or my recent favourite Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Zombified Living Dead, Part 2: In Shocking 2-D (1991)

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For ffff fakes sake

October 10, 2022
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Technology
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Why...

Care about a fake? I note with interest a puff piece in The London Times about the Hollywood nouveau riche hiring Art Consultants. The need is because these well coiffed beings can shuffle their A list clients to the heads of the queue to get a chance to gobble up a piece of art before anyone else. It also makes A listers feel less insecure having someone there to praise or confirm their good taste or have the expert lend Hollywood Royalty some of their own. Really? I agree if you made a few zillion dollars parading around in Spandex with the superpower to create a hurricane by blowing through your nose, you don’t really have much credibility as a Serious Actor; but in the art world, like any other, money is money. If the Hulk is prepared to pay more than a Titan of Wall Street for a scribble and dots by Cy Twombly, let the richest man win. I would lend more credibility to all these art experts were it not for the unfeasibly large amount of fakes or overbid artwork that has been sold to our brave Hollywood friends! As long ago as 1989 Sylvester Stallone sued his art consultant for $5m.(Brave person. I would have been more worried about a jab and a hook rather than a law suit). Steve Martin bought a fake Heinrich Campendonk (crazy name crazy guy) as have hoards of others. It appears these consultants no more protect you from a painting by Pinocchio rather than Pollock as anyone else

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Fill her up with four star, a packet of crisps, a bottle of Bordeaux and a butt plug please

September 18, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Sex Technology Travel/Nature
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Why...

Does the content mix of goods on display in some stores surprise me? I was recently in a small hillside village in the South of France when I stopped at the local gas station just outside town. It was a small family run business, not part of a major chain. When I went inside to pay, whilst I stood in the queue, I idly looked at the stuff on display. Oil, antifreeze, air freshener, alcohol (it’s France) then came across dildos, a massive butt plug and handcuffs. Enterprising as this may be, I just don’t see if you popped in for a few litres of fuel, you might suddenly decide… “Ah yes, I need a new butt plug.” Conversely, if you did need such toys, the last place I would think of to go and buy them would be my local garage. It’s not as if this was a major artery where long distance lorry drivers would pull in and buy themselves some personal amusement as they slept overnight in the car park. When it came to paying the elderly grey haired lady behind the till, I was so tempted to ask if she stocked any French ticklers. So now I have started to actively look for the unexpected in shops. Amazing. Dr. Scholl’s shoes in my greengrocer’s, rat poison in my office supply shop and ‘Jesus loves you’ ties and ‘Jesus saves’ Band-Aids at the local coffee shop.

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Oh, to be CEO of an energy company

September 13, 2022
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Why...

Am I feeling the teensiest bit envious today? They used to say the definition of rich was when you could not hear your spoon hit the bottom of the caviar jar. This winter in the UK, rich as Croesus will be if you can live in your home without wearing thermal underwear or not sucking on frozen TV meals like ice lollies. Meanwhile the Czars of energy will be taking a dip in their heated swimming pool followed by a nice sauna and a dinner of roasted lark’s tongues and baked Alaska, the country not the pudding. Well, my imagination is a strange thing but you get the picture. Now don’t get me wrong. If you build up a company from scratch, eat nothing but pot noodle and sleep on a bean bag for years, you deserve all the rewards you reap. But common decency also needs to step in. Do you really have to pay yourself £469m per annum (as is alleged for Bet 365 founder Denise Coates)? Greed seems to have made a comeback, making its first appearance in the 1980’s when it meant missing lunch with Gordon Gekko, look like it was a philanthropist. What is more galling is most of these energy companies are not run by the people who created them. Talented as I am sure they are, these are salaried people, whose risk reward ratio has gone potty. Someone was always going to be head of these companies. Unless I missed a trick, none of them persuaded Putin to duff up Ukraine causing a tenfold hike in what Vlad charges for a therm of gas, so resulting in the energy companies with a bonanza of profits and bonuses. The current situation for the energy companies is really serendipity.

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Just don’t mention the weather

Why...

Can I not turn on the news or pick up a paper without screaming about the weather? The UK news media liken what would be a warm day where I live as akin to the UK living in hail and brimstone. Beelzibub and his minions are stalking the hell-like streets. Pah! However, here in Malta this summer has been hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants. I like the beach as much as anyone but I cannot understand people flocking to be staked out on the sand with the sun hot enough to turn their bodies the colour of condemned veal. Certainly most locals shake their heads in disbelief at the tourists gently sizzling on the shoreline. So instead, my wife, the French bulldogs and I enjoy the view of the Mediterranean from the comfort of the air conditioning, with the occasional sprint into the pool. Even the dogs hop across the garden flagstones to jump into the flowerbed to pee. Forget booties for the snow, you need them to protect your tootsies from turning into ten chipolatas!

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Screw you, or do you want to get pulled?

Why...

Do I still prefer pulling a cork rather than unscrewing a cap? Logic has gone out the window here. No other business in the world would tolerate a (conservative) 5% failure rate, which is the figure given for 'corked' wines. That's one in twenty. We have hissy fits when one in in ten thousand IPads just blink. Can you imagine if one in twenty cars were faulty? And yet.... That seductive pop bursts so many pent up emotions. The sound rivals the soothing tones of a $500 an hour shrink. That pop can just as easily equate to the escape of bottled up sexual tension on a first date, to the release of frustration after the week from hell (I suspect David and Sam Cameron may well have yanked a few corks after Brexit). Then there is the whole wonderful bullshit theatre of the sommelier. Firstly he thrusts the bottle under my nose, ignoring if I was in mid-sentence or even mid- joke, demanding my undivided attention in his far more important world. I can barely remember the name of what I have picked out, let alone the year but I gamely play along with the charade, putting on my specs to carefully inspect the bottle. Then, deftly using one of those tiny contraptions I can never get to work, the wine waiter swiftly extracts the cork. If he is a sommelier par excellence he might even sniff what he has removed, and with a look of supreme indifference, pocket it as he pours me a thimble full of wine to taste. Of course if he really knew what he was doing he should know instantly if a bottle is bad and simply apologize and produce another. But he has his reasons and waits as I take a sip. The moment of truth. Occasionally when the bottle is so badly corked that my tongue dials the fire brigade, I am brave enough to challenge the wine waiter and suggest the bottle of botulism he has presented me with ain't quite up to standard. However I am ashamed to admit most times I am too intimidated if I think the wine is punching me in the throat rather than caressing my taste buds. Usually my party have drunk half the bottle before someone has the courage to say that "rather than suggesting a bouquet of raspberry with a hint of chocolate and whisper of tannins, this tastes like a bus driver's sock.” We then haul over the wine waiter. Depending on if we look like we might know what we are talking about he will inspect the glass and mutter an apology, or simply whisk the offending bottle away. I have never seen a sommelier actually taste a corked bottle. A good one that is not corked, yes. But a bottle of rancid wine juice? Never. As I said, they know from the get go, but hope your too sloshed to notice. The reason they say nothing is the staff will of course chalk up the bottle as rancid, add it to the claim of dud bottles they present each month to the supplier and open (hopefully) a decent bottle of the same vintage to enjoy once the bloody patrons have left.

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It only has to do one thing

July 30, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Technology
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Why...

Is it so difficult for simple things to do the one thing they were designed for? We have a set of drawers in our bathroom in the built in cabinets around the sink. However, they are all coy. Instead of fully opening they half open. I have checked the runners etc. They are specifically designed only to be drawn out half their depth! I spend my life with my arm half bent rummaging around at the dark recess of the back for medicines, pills, chargers and other bathroom paraphernalia having to sweep them to the front so I can see them. I would really like to meet that designer and warmly shake him by the throat.

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Disco. It still exists. Only in nightmares. Or holidays

July 17, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Sex Travel/Nature
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Why...

To add to the list of things you do on holiday and leave on holiday is dancing to disco music.

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If an airline can charge you for a seat on a plane that does not exist, why can they also charge you if you don’t appear at the gate?

July 3, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Are some airlines hellbent on pi##ing off their passengers, whilst some notable exceptions bend over backwards to be helpful? Let’s face it. Airports in certain cities are in chaos. I recently heard of a passenger checking into First Class on an international carrier asking for his bags to go to Rio as he went to New York. An exasperated check in staff called over the manager who explained this was simply impossible. Baggage had to accompany the passenger. “Well, you managed it last time I flew to New York”, came the response, to a ripple of applause from other passengers.

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It’s not about the money … honestly

June 19, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Sport
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Why...

Is everyone so coy about admitting ‘I am doing it for the money?’ There is a huge brouhaha going on because a bunch of sportsmen dressed in awful tartan and plaid clothing have decided to whack a few balls around God’s largest bunker, Saudi Arabia. Now, dear reader, have a guess what attracted these already rich men to play golf there? Was it… 1. The quality and diversity of the golf courses bathed in 100 degree heat 2. The range of free alcoholic beverages on offer 3. The chance to dance the night away with local unescorted ladies in some jiving nightclub and the wonderful variety of nightlife and entertainment 4. The opportunity to mingle freely with people of either sex or sexual orientation without fear of segregation or arrest 5. Their support to the regime that chopped up poor journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, and has a habit of beheading people whose sexual orientation or religion they disagree with, bans free speech and can use torture as a punishment from courts…… or 6. Could it possibly be the multimillion dollar prize money? Whilst trying not to reveal themselves as the money grabbing venal people most of us are, the golfers have tied themselves into a Gordian knot trying to say money was the last reason they agreed to the tour. Such a shame. I would have hugely respected the man who had piped up and said: “The only reason to visit this godforsaken sandpit with stone-age rules about women and gay people is to make vast amounts of money. If people honestly believe my presence here has anything to do with supporting a repressive regime they are either dreaming or drive in Formula I.” Previous F1 events have taken place in such well known beacons of human rights as Russia, Turkey, Bahrain, China, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and AbuDhabi.

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It’s an ATM not a Nintendo game boy

Why...

Do I seem to always be queueing at an ATM with someone who seems to be playing a game on the console? Just put the card in and take out the money! Maybe people miss the interaction with a bank teller? For all I know they could be typing in ‘Good morning, how are your kids/cats/bunions?’ All I see is cards go in, lots of typing, staring at the screen, then reading slips of paper… only to repeat the whole process all over again with another card. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Maybe I am the mad one expecting people just to extract money from an ATM rather than a prolonged electronic dialogue.

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Why a spring break is like a Pringle

May 29, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

During two years of lockdown and feeling like Papillon on Devil’s Island, locked in and no way out, my wife and I took the sports car to Sicily then on to Calabria and Puglia in the boot of Italy. The problem was we did not want to come home. After being cooped up in Malta, an island so small you could carpet it in an afternoon, the sense of freedom was overwhelming. And just like a single Pringle, a short break is not nearly enough. Had we not had two pooches waiting for us, we would be in Croatia by now on the way to Istanbul!

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Hmmmm. A gorgeous hint of bullshit, with on-the-palate flavour of Edward Lear nonsense poems and a strong aftertaste of swallowing a quaalude and The Complete Oxford dictionary. Welcome to tasting notes on wine and spirits

May 8, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Life
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Why...

Are descriptions of taste so pompous and indecipherable? I read recently that a wooden cask tub of Macallans Whisky, which was bought for £5,000 thirty years ago on a whim of I suspect some rich dipso, has just sold for over £1m! To justify this ludicrous bar bill, that works out at around £2,000 a bottle, the descriptions of the taste have reached epic proportions of nonsense. Can anyone really tell me what… “a yellow halo with a mesmerising nose with a scent of salted caramel drizzled chocolate brownie restrained with a background of fresh orange marmalade and neroli with a dying hint of tobacco leaf” really smells like? To me it stinks like an Oreo cookie covered in Robertson finest Golden Shred marmalade, sprinkled with fag ends. And that’s just the smell. The rapturous pretentious waffle goes into overdrive when describing the taste; I dare you to read this and take it seriously. “On the palate waves of sweetness carries and mingles mature oak and library leather bound book dryness. This breaks into a regal spice mix of nutmeg ginger and ground coriander, over a wash of ginger perkin biscuits, soft buttery dates and freshly baked Danish apricot pastries.” (London The Times 27 April 2022) A perkin biscuit? WTF is that? I mean, just line up six whiskies and tell me which one they are referring to. “I say, Cedric, I think it might be this one though I not sure if the spice mix is regal enough and I think sweaty sock juice mingled with old leather football boots more apt than library books.” What makes my jaw hit the floor in admiration at the effusive nonsense is the ingredients of scotch are simply malted barley, water and yeast. And yet it reads here that someone tipped half the content of the unused drawer in the kitchen into the still used to ferment the whisky. The people who write this tripe I assume double as Real Estate novelists. The people who describe bathrooms as bijoux when you have to stand on the loo to shut the door.

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🎶 Here comes summer … or does it?

May 1, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life Technology
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Why...

Is the weather schizophrenic? Winter this year has behaved like the house guest who outstays his or her welcome. I have to admit that summer 2021 was hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants, therefore I was relieved for the respite of a winter chill. However, it’s now the beginning of May , yet Nanook of the North would have pulled on extra clothing over Easter here in Malta. Grey skies, a wind that could yank the eyebrows off your face and rain horizontal enough to win a limbo dance competition. Today the sun is shining but according to the forecast, it’s a deception worthy of David Copperfield (the magician, not the Dickens character). In a few days time, the temperature is set to drop low enough to make my pubic hair crackle; so the Ambre Solaire will go back in the cupboard and out will come my hot water bottle.

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My wife can’t shut the front door

Why...

Can my wonderful wife not close the front door? In nearly everything she achieves levels of saintly patience with me that would justify beatification. However, she likes to play the hokey-cokey with the front door. She closes it. Thinks. Opens it. Goes into the house to drop something off, retrieve something or check if something is switched off, then closes it… and repeats. I have asked a few of my married friends and they all admit this particular square dance with the front door is more common than I thought. I assume most airline stewards/stewardesses are not married or they would never close the aircraft door.

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I never know what to put in each recycle bin

April 10, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life Technology
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Why...

Do I have so many types of garbage bins when I deeply suspect it all goes into one galopata galopata machine anyway? Don’t get me wrong, I am doing my best to save the planet, whether it means only cleaning my belly button with a Q-tip once a month, or recycling my dogs poop by tossing it over the wall onto my next door neighbours’ geraniums. But bins? I have a battalion of these things standing to attention outside my door. The list is endless. Bins for bottles without screw top collar, sacks for those with them… and then subdivided between clear green and brown. 6 just for glass. Life is all receptacles for spectacles, crates for ash from grates, containers for retainers, hoppers for party poppers and repositories for suppositories. The subdivision for rubbish has gone mad. Surely what burns easily and is non synthetic like paper, real food, clothing and coffee grinds in one and synthetics like plastic, tin and any takeaway food in the other… and maybe one for glass.

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Beelzebub is extremely grateful to TV’s commissioning editors

April 3, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Politics Technology
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Why...

Is streamed TV drama suddenly so boring? I don’t know if you have noticed but after a cracking first few years, Netflix, Prime and Hulu et al are abandoning main stream entertainment for more PC and worthy subjects. “Shame on you,” I hear you all cry. However, this is my blog and you are welcome to challenge me. My theory however, is very simple. Back in the day when Netflix etc. were Davids to the established broadcast Goliaths, the middle aged owners took a keen interest in the commissioning process. Not least because they simply did not have the luxury of appointing high flying commissioning editors. They sought out established producers which gave out massive hits like, Bosch, Money Heist, Sneaky Pete, The Grand Tour, Catastrophe, The Kominsky Method, The Handmaid’s Tale etc., etc. (Before you say Breaking Bad remember that was an AMC show that caught fire on Netflix due to every episode being available in one go).

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Things I want to buy Duty Free

March 27, 2022
Finance/Law Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Are we so desperate to buy Duty Free? The truth is duty free is daft. I mean who said… “I know. Let’s fill all departing aircraft with more weight to burn more fuel. In addition, let’s fill the passenger compartment with a bunch of combustibles; booze, perfume, tobacco and raffia or plastic tat.” The truth is airports don’t give a fig about passengers so long as they can claw money off you in the two hours they hold you captive. The logical thing to do of course is to buy items to be collected when you land, thus avoiding transport cost and safety issues. That means all the crap you buy at the airport for friends and relatives because you forgot to buy on holiday will fall by the wayside. And no more local hootch that most of the time is used as paint thinner anyway. If you are desperate to buy a diamond encrusted watch or unobtainium rings because they are massively cheaper than at home, then search them out and buy them when you land. Makes the custom clearance queues shorter for the rest of us.

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Orgies are overrated

March 20, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Sex
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Why...

Ever since some Roman Oligarch came up with the idea of a vomitorium, have orgies have gone down hill? In this little cubicle there was a flowerpot full of feathers with which you could tickle the back of your throat, throw up then go back to eating and fornicating with an empty stomach so you could start eating again… but with breath that could strip wallpaper. I mean would you snog a puke smelling orgy participant, even if it was Bradus Pittus or Angelina Jolia? The orgies from the Ottoman’s must have been as exciting as watching paint dry. One bloke, the Sultan, and dozens of members of his harem. I suspect the whole shebang lasted five minutes with most of the girls just casual observers till the Grand Vizir, seeing his Lord and master already spent, called for a time out with a round of backgammon and some squares of Turkish delight. A male fantasy but in reality all over before all the ‘toys’ have been unwrapped.

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See all posts for

What will you do over the holiday season?

Why...

Your title’s too long

Why...

For ffff fakes sake

Why...

Fill her up with four star, a packet of crisps, a bottle of Bordeaux and a butt plug please

Why...

Oh, to be CEO of an energy company

Why...

Just don’t mention the weather

Why...

Screw you, or do you want to get pulled?

Why...

It only has to do one thing

Why...

Disco. It still exists. Only in nightmares. Or holidays

Why...

If an airline can charge you for a seat on a plane that does not exist, why can they also charge you if you don’t appear at the gate?

Why...

It’s not about the money … honestly

Why...

It’s an ATM not a Nintendo game boy

Why...

Why a spring break is like a Pringle

Why...

Hmmmm. A gorgeous hint of bullshit, with on-the-palate flavour of Edward Lear nonsense poems and a strong aftertaste of swallowing a quaalude and The Complete Oxford dictionary. Welcome to tasting notes on wine and spirits

Why...

🎶 Here comes summer … or does it?

Why...

My wife can’t shut the front door

Why...

I never know what to put in each recycle bin

Why...

Beelzebub is extremely grateful to TV’s commissioning editors

Why...

Things I want to buy Duty Free

Why...

Orgies are overrated

Why...