Well, it's good to hear that eating meat from cloned animals doesn't make your mobile rot your brains.

There's something wrong with science. Always reminds me of those old B&W 50's B-Movies... "You're meddling with things you cannot even begin to comprehend."

How do we know that there are no long-term effects on using mobile phones? Because science told us... How do we know that GM food won't make our grandchildren allergic to the very air they breathe? Because science tells us... And why are drugs that suppress the symptoms are better than therapies that deal with the problem? Because science tells us...

Boffins eggheads, crackpots. People seem to believe that scientists are NICE PEOPLE. All scientists are helping the world become a better place.

Sorry Bubba, you're wrong and a grotesquely ugly freak. Scientists are NOT NICE PEOPLE. Scientists are evil. Films protray them as evil, harnessing nature for nefarious purposes. Nazi scientists poured boiling water into the brains of Jews  just to see what would happen. they genetically mix cats with birds, make drugs that suppress humanity at is spiritual level, create and develop new and interesting was of removing humanity from this world.

so remember, when you see those adverts saying that BRAND NEW PANTERA [shampoo product] with NEW IMPROVED GLOBULUM-8 [made up word that means nothing but they have to make it sound better than it is] making it 23% [insert unproveable statistic to make it sound whizzy] stronger than any other leading brand...

...scientists made it out of the blood of the innocent. go and see you apocathary and get a dose of leeches.

It's a very important day to day across the country; flags are being raised, shoes polished, teeth cleaned, ties straightened, lines drawn. THe country is bursting with pride and the gods have looked down upon us and blessed us with a perfect cyan sky.

why?

The Grand National. Bunch of horses pissing round a track for the amusement of the rich. Forty horses, ridden by midgets from the Emerald Isles, past the aristocracy so they can pass vast amounts of money between them.

I am, but then I'm a sucker for throwing my money away. Aintree racecourse will be full of alcohol, hats and 'fa-fa-fah's' until the last horse falls only to get shot out in the paddock and ground into GM burgers for the French.

So, I'm off to shout at horses.

Oh, and some members of the royal family are marrying each other in the vain hope that they'll preed themselves out of humanity.

The race is on. I was in the pub when the news came through. I was attempting to interview Raymond Faust, a local eccentric obsessed with collecting decks of cards, when John Snow blurted out over the tranny [transistor radio--not fetishist with fashion leanings towards the opposite sex] in the corner of the bar, "Tony Blair has announced that this years election will be on May 5th."

"Fuck it!" I screamed, yanking away the Playboy deck I had used to entice the old freak, and leapt for the door. This was NEWS. The country has a month to get the political war on the map, and it's going to be a dirty fight.

Let me explain something about British politics: it's fucking dull and nothing ever happens. Lots of people walk around in suit, smiling and shaking hands with the working class and kissing babies. Then on election night whoever is in power stays in power, or they get ousted by another party who does exactly what the previous party did and ignoring any of their manifesto that got them there in the first place.

But it will still be a vicious fight. John Prescott won't back down as Number 2 without punching the fuck out of another Welshman. Tony Bliar will creep about leaving his trail of slime all over his photo album of Emperor Bush and Michael Howard will hire gangs of thugs to work over old ladies and foreigners to win the big fat seat.

For all those that have no fucking clue as to what goes on in the UK, here is the Idiot's Guide to UK Politics:

[1] There are only 2 parties Labour and the Conservatives. Any other parties you might hear about are not worth talking about or have been made up.

[2] The leader of the Labour Party is Tony Blair. Their Colour is Red. They are a bit like Democrats... Democrats that can organise a piss up in a brewery. They are currently in charge. He does what Emperor Bush tells him what to do [wouldn't you side with the most powerful and insane nation on earth if it was pointing a gun or a series of trade embargoes at you?] The Labour Party used to stand for the rights of the Unions and the Working Class, the Labour Class, if you wish. Recently, they have disbanded most powerful unions and generally ignore the working class as they're not good for capitalism, industry and clog up hospitals. The Labour Party are now right of centre in the political line. They used to hang out with the dictator of Zimbabwe, who now won't let them have their cricket ball back.

[3] THe leader of the Conservative Party is Michael Howard. He can't say "people" properly. He says "peepul". Their colour is Blue. Margaret Thatcher used to be a Conservative and hang out with Ronald Regan in a big White House. They haven't been in power since 1997 when Labour won the right to rule the country and live in a terraced house in Downing Street. The Conservative Party are a bit like Republicans that don't believe in guns. They do believe in industry, capitalism and making vast amounts of money. And if you don't they'll tax you. [If you do, they'll tax you too but look you in the eye while they do it]. They usually have poncy names like Tarquin and Lord Rothermere and shoot peasants on Sundays after church. They look after the upper classes by ignoring the working classes as they're not good for capitalism, industry and clog up hospitals. Foreigners are a no-no. They don't work, can't speak all proper, smell funny and try and steal the lead off the church roof. Don't let them in. In fact, seal off the Channel Tunnel and close all the airports. The Conservative Party are right of the Labour Party, Hitler, Bush, Mussolini, you name it. They sold Saddam Hussein the weapons of mass destruction that he used on the Iranians and the Kurds.

[4] The UK gets one month of pimping from these buffoons and then you have to go to a run-down church or village hall to tick a box. It always seems on a Thursday. So everybody is at work and can't be arsed to go.

[5] You can only vote for your local representative of each party. I couldn't vote for Tony Blair, even if I wanted to--i'd have to vote for some tit called Miriam because she's the Labour Rep in my area.

[6] Nobody votes. Last time only about 38% of the population [of 66 million] went and put an X in a box.

[7] THe evening of the election half the population will go home and drink beer in front of the football. The other half will go home and drink beer infront of the election results.

[8] For the next four years it will feel like nothing has changed.

ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT UK POLITICS, SEE ME AFTER CLASS.

It’s been a long time since the days of hairspray, black velvet, black leather and black heads, but the other night I braved the world of darkness once again to go to a Goth gig.

Soon as I walked into the place I knocked into about eight people I knew--looming out of the dry ice like wraiths--before I hit the bar. Literally; and then proceeded to drink it devoid of life.

These fractured people; shot through with amphetamine, jarring like mannequins to the electro feedback and wailing femme fatale crammed into a corset that a Baz Luhrman movie would die for. Inkubus Sukkubus rocked. Bass lines that remoulded your metabolism, spidery hands sketching pagan signs in the air as the band played on. A couple of songs I recognised from way back. Plus a fantastic version of the Stone's Paint It Black, when, for a split second they were the best band on the planet.

It's not as much fun reviewing a good band, so lets just say that they rocked, as did Abigail's Mercy. They had ROCK all over them. And YET ANOTHER corset-riddled Goth girl wailing in the foreground, hanging onto the key as if her career depended upon it. They totally looked the part, but the image was ruined as I saw the girl collect her lyrics from her Fiat Uno outside. Should have been a hearse.

I'd like to talk about the support: they call themselves Caudia Pavonis, I'd call them something far less savoury. Not from round these parts, I collared what I hoped was a local Goth and bothered him about them.

"They're THE local Goth band, see there: Singing Sue and Drumming Dave. Everybody round here loves them," he intoned before tearing free of my grasp and hurling himself at a drunk Gothette who was having trouble keeping it together, upright and in her corset. I wondered if i could complete the quartet with Bessie Bassist. Turns out they are Chris and Jess respectively.

He was right; the moshpit was throbbing with bodies hurling each other round the sampled drumming. Even the token psycho was muttering "It’s a Bad Omen" in rhythm to their cheap sequencer.

I failed to see the point. But then that's just me. I like all sorts of music so my range is wide but thin, I just thought the body was willing, but the spirit was clichéd.

I did a little research, this basically involved buying drinks for people taller and scarier than I and assaulting people younger and weaker than I. it’s a successful technique I picked up when researching locations of the local Masonic societies when I was living down in South London: new Bassist. Cute, huge breasts, seemed a little surprised that there was a bass slung across her front as she delicately plucked at a few notes that were lost amongst the military precise drumming. Guitarist looked the part. Oozed of Bauhaus androgyny, more human than human. Dave Wainright, maestro extraordinaire on skins. The band is his baby, you can tell. it reeks of I’ll tell you all what to play and how. And Su out on front looking like a crazed Cathy Burke and sounding like Andrew Eldritch passing by on a Harley D.

Put it all together and you get a very keen cliché that makes a few good songs that all sound the same.

When the dry ice cleared, I had to make good w/ my legs and flee. I'd spotted Scotty, a guy I used to liberate recreational pharmaceuticals from. He was under the misapprehension that I owed him drug money and disliked it when I reminded him he owed me 6 months of my life for fleeing the scene of a crime. A brief conversation later and I left him collecting his thought through the blood miasma a broken nose generates.

All in all... an experience to reflect over a pint of snakebite and black.

The ailing Pope is in my thoughts at this time; for several reasons.

[1] Human Illness and suffering is the bane of our world and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemies. I hope he recovers and leads a relatively happy life in his twilight years with plenty of love, company and laughter.

[2] If God gives you flu, then pneumonia, then a heart attack, it's usually his way of telling you to come visit him.

[3] I have him in my dead pool and I may become £25 better off... unless Boris Yeltsin gets mown down by an errant Chechen Rebel.