Debt

Hey Zeitfans I'm back. Blogging is totally zeitguyst again and I’ve got a back pocket full of zeit-dollars to lay on the counter of internet’s culture store.

I was tucking into my totally zeitguyst bowl of Kellogg's Kredit Krunch this morning when it struck me like zeit-train on a mission to Mars: debt is totally zeitguyst right now.

Huh? What? Come again? I know what you’re thinking, but hold up uno-seconda that zeit-fact needs a little fiscal fondling. You see, back in the olden days, a time us Zeit Masters like to call “The Early-Nineties”™ debt suddenly took off in a big way. For years we’d had the same Prime Minister - Mr T, who didn’t suffer fools but was shit at everything else. During Mr T’s reign of terror the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Poor poor, it has horrid. But then, in 1990 Mr T introduced compulsory poll-dancing. This for the poor was a step too far. They revolted, which was revolting and eventually Mr T went mad and ran away.

The hint was on to find a new Prime Minister but everyone soon got tired of it and started listening to The Las. Just as Lee Majors reached the final chorus an all together different type of Major conducted a military co-op and took number 10 for his own. Major John (retired) a circus clown and cricket enthusiast took over running the country and no one noticed. Sadly Major John (retired) was shit at every thing. Very soon after taking the reigns at Number Ten he spent all the country’s money on a one day hip-hop festival called Black Monday. It was then that debt, for both poor and rich, became totally zeitguyst.

Everyone thought that in 1992 Major John (retired) would be voted out but an administerial error meant that only person that remembered to run against him was a ginger Welshman called Kneeling Kinnocks and Majors got in again.

But in 1997 a superhero called Tommy Blairs appeared bathed in the light of heaven and everyone felt so giddy at the sight of him they pretended to like D;Ream. Tommy Blairs was like a dream come true and dead spunky to boot. Since helping The Authority defeat Lucifer in the battle of Heaven, Blairs had been constantly working out and reading to make himself perfect enough to lead Britain to greatness.* He was disgusted with all the debt Major John (retired) had created and so fashioned out of haggis, The Communist Manifesto and his own rib a towering, ugly creature called Gord to get rid of it all.

Gord was immense, like Achilles but with a glass eye and no social skills. He crushed all debt and then started on The Carry On Films, declaring “The Age of Bum and Bust is over.”

Eventually, as even children in inner-city schools know, Tommy Blairs got a promotion and in 2007 started his new Job of leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt. He reluctantly left Gord in charge. I say reluctantly because Gord, don’t forget, wasn’t a real person, merely a mixture of sheep’s gut, outdated political idealism and Blairs’ own rib.

As soon as Gord took over strange things started happening all over the land. Promises were broken, the Police started rioting and Zimbabwe got invited to the Olympics. “This is shit!” everyone rightly said, “but at least there’s no more debt. We tolerate you Gord!” But then the worst thing ever happened. Debt came back and was all like “erm, sorry I was sitting here, fuck off.” The truth was out, Gord never got rid of debt at all, he just put it in a jar and said “Och, I hope no one finds out.”

The first thing to go wrong was at Tyneside Crack House Northern Rock. Debt broke in and shat on everything pink. Now it transpires that Debt has been in London this week eating people’s footsies. It could be your handies next!

So it looks like debt is here to stay for now, which makes it totally zeitguyst. If it continues much longer Britain will undoubtedly bring in a new Prime Minster called David Cameroon, who’s pretty zeitguyst on account of having a whole African nation named after him. Time, you crazy horde of salivating zeit-fans, will tell.

ZG

* war

Bitchiness

Bitchiness

This week the gloves have come off the other foot in the big pay TV battle. In the blue corner, there’s BuyTV owned by Austrian money lover Ronald Murdochs and in the red corner Virgins Melua owned by money-hating, peace-loving, prancing beard Richards Bramstead. And it’s getting nasty.

It all started about 20 years ago when Murdochs came to Britain and decided to buy everything. He bought toothpaste, cars, weed killer, newspapers, roads, polticians and pickle. After about a year he owned most stuff and he started trying to think about ways he could own stuff that couldn’t be bought. At the time British people, known popularly all over the world as ‘The Roast Beefs’ paid about sixty English pounds a year for a “TV licence” and for this they received 4 channels, three good ones and ITV. Some people opted for free TV by not buying a TV licence and then just never opening their front door. It worked for them.

Murdochs saw this and said “aye curumba” and “eat my shorts, if I owned TV people would cower in their houses from me, I want in.” So kind old uncle Ronald set up BuyTV and told the Roast Beefs that as well paying for their TV licence they could now also pay £30 a month for even more TV.

Quite understandably the good old Roast Beefs said “No, old boy, we’re quite happy watching Wimbledon at the moment. If it rains Cliff Richards is going to sing a song, that’s why we won the war.” Murdochs was well pissed off, there was not much point in owning something if nobody want to buy it. So Murdochs started building an army out of all the things he had spent his first year in Britain buying. The toothpaste and the pickles didn’t prove very effective weapons, and he didn’t want to poison everybody with weedkiller because then there would be no one left to buy his BuyTV. In the end he used the newspapers he bought to tell everybody what to vote for, and because everyone knows newspapers are a kind, benevolent force they did it.

Soon the politicians and pop singers realised that Murdochs could make anybody do anything and they started saying things like “I’ll do anything for you Ronald Murdochs, anything at all.” Ronald thought quietly for a while and then said, “all I want is to own everything and control everyone, is that too much to ask?” He looked really sad and all the politicians and popstars felt really sorry for him and they pledged to help. They devised a plan to help make everyone want to buy Murdoch’s crappy BuyTV. The problem they said was that instead of lots of programs all he had on his BuyTV were about 3 shows that he showed round the clock on repeat. They told him that if he could take all the good TV programs from the terrestrial channels then people would have buy BuyTV to watch them. This for the Pirhanna brothers was the turning point.

Soon everybody had BuyTV and Murdochs could control people not only with his newspapers but through his TV. He was well happy. But he didn’t bank of Bearded Bramstead.

Richards Bramstead was a gypsy that lived on wild berries, danced naked and listened to rock music. Everybody loved him. He spent his working days trying to save the environment and make people happy, and in his free time he presided over a multi-billion dollar industry that included space travel, aeroplanes and cosmetics. When Murdochs started buying everything people said to Bramstead “hey Bramstead turn your music down we’re trying to get brainwashed here.” But after a while a few left wing people who were too middle class to watch television came to Bramstead and said “look, can’t you beat Murdochs up or something, he’s frightful.” At first Bramstead was all like “yeah, but no, but, I’m mean how can I maaaaan, I’m just a simple dancing naked hippy, innit.” But then they pointed out that his hobby of running a multi-billion dollar industry might stand him in good stead, and he was all like “yeah, wow, gravy man!”

So Bramstead set up Virgins Melua (in part named after his favourite rock singer Katie Melua) and offered a service called fourplay, which meant you could get TV, mobile, broadbands, and home phone all from one place – kind of like centralised communism, except with all the bad bits of capitalism as well.

Murdochs was sad again. “why can’t I just own everything!!” he cried, but Bramstead wasn’t giving up that easy and done some crazy naked dancing and said “virgins are great at fourplay!!”. So Murdochs stated telling everyone that Bramstead was gay, and Bramstead started telling everyone that Murdochs hated gays. And the Roast Beefs were all like I don’t care I’m watching Lost. Then Murdochs stopped selling Lost to Virgin Melua so the people who had choosen to go with Bramstead couldn’t watch it any more. So Bramstead hit back by calling Murdoch’s news channel “Buy Snooze” instead of Buy News. It didn’t really make up for the fact that no one could watch Lost.

So now the Roast Beefs have a decision to make – they can go with Bramstead safe in knowledge that he will always advertise in the Guardian and his son is surfer, or they can go with Murdoch’s who is a version of the devil himself but does have Lost. It’s a tough one, but the Roast Beefs on the whole are an ignorant, selfish, cold-hearted nation of poorly educated zombies, so they’ll buy Murdochs.

Whatever the end result, one thing is for sure – Bitchiness is zeitguyst right now, and we’re only just getting started.

Capital Punishment

This news is fucking scorching!

Former Raggy Doll Sadsack Hussain is to be totally killed by the neck
any moment soon. “So what? Is it a Nintendo Wei?” I hear you cry, and
you’re in part right to be all like ‘I dunno, whatever!” about it.
We’ve heard so much about Sadsack recently that’s he’s become as dull
as fading candlelight. But, (and that’s a wireless controlled, motion-
sensor of a ‘but,’) it’s what’s happening to him that’s got my
zeitguyst ears a-pricked and my what’s hot thermometer perking up
like a paedo’s cock at a fun fair. Being totally killed by the neck
any moment soon might sound like a pre-meditated murder-crime, but
because a government is doing it it’s called ‘Capital Punishment’ and
that’s totally OK. In fact it’s more than totally OK – it’s
zeitguyst; it’s goddamn Zeit City, Arizona.

You see, in the olden days before Apple’s Mac and the Doobie Brothers
Capital Punishment was a subsidiary of Capital Records and a pretty
steady zeitguyst. People were hung and electrocuted for stuff like
stealing, coughing in public and committing bum sex. At the age of 8
and 3/4 children were issued with their own gallows and given license
to hang anyone they saw committing a crime. Crime levels soared. It
perplexed the authorities. A lot. It seemed that getting hung had
become a kind of status symbol, (that’s where the zeitguyst phrase
‘hanging out’ comes from). So in an attempt to beat the zeitguyst the
government went “Ok, enough’s enough. Let’s not have Capital
Punishment no more. Nuh-uh, not even a little bit.”

Many folks were angered by this decision, they said things like: “But
we haven’t invented prisons yet, what will we do with all the filthy
crims?” But then the government invented prisons and everyone kinda
calmed down a bit. Afterwards people started to find vote-winning
reasons for why we banned it, like: “but people are groovy, that’s
why we shouldn’t kill them,” so the whole zeitguyst thing got written
out of history, but that’s what we in the Zeit Industry have come to
expect. We bear no grudges.

Anyway, meanwhile in America the government still totally dug killing
people but only for really big crimes and offences like being struck
out at baseball three times. It wasn’t exactly zeitguyst (per se) but
it carried on, like Cliff Richard. But now with Sadsack’s imminent
neck thing coming up imminently people all over the world are
starting to ask imminently: “Is Capital Punishment cool again?”

In this country public surveys are being carried out at random. A
balanced cross section of society have been giving their opinions on
capital punishment with the news of Sadsack’s imminent hang time.

“I think we should start killing people. If Sadsack, who only killed
foreign people, is getting killed then why not paedophiles who look
at kiddy porn of English children.” Mrs C, mother of murdered child,
Birkenhead

“I want that man dead. And other’s like him.” Mr T, Husband of woman
murdered by street gang, Essex

“I think we should bring back Capital Punishment to help with the
grieving process.” Ms P, daughter of old lady murdered and raped by
thug, Surrey

Wow! It’s sobering news indeed. That RANDOM cross section of society
shows that people are totally behind Capital Punishment 100%. After
something is zeitguyst it becomes ‘news worthy,’ then when
something’s been news worthy for a while then it becomes “common
law,” and then eventually “law.” The process has started. I tried to
get opinions from the Yanks on this too, but apparently they haven’t
learned to talk yet, so we’ll just have to wait.

Hmm. It’s a moral minefield filled with ethical explosions and stuff
but what of poor old Sadsack? Life can’t be easy if your fingers are
all thumbs, and it’s all over yet, when he’s standing in front of the
gallows on his two left feet getting ready to be hung out to die look
out for the knobbly knees of his Raggy Doll chums – there could be
trouble in the factory tonight. But for the rest of us we have to sit
down and ask ourselves: can it be right to kill someone who is, by
his own admission, ‘happy just to be.”

Misogyny?

Misogyny?

 

OK, so it’s another unpopular one, but here the Zeitguy out.

 

A few days ago I was all like “what misogyny? Nah, get out of town that’s not zeiguyst and if it is you can dress me in a pair of bell bottoms and call me wizard.”

 

Well I wish it could be Christmas everyday, because this zeiguyst is a gift. It all kicked off when maverick film director (Weddings and Funerals, The Hairy Potter) and Luton Town FC manager Mike Newell had this to say after his rubbish football team lost some goals of football.

 

"She [assistant referee Amy Rayner] should not be here. I know that sounds sexist, but I am sexist, so I am not going to be anything other than that.

 

"We have a problem in this country with political correctness, and bringing women into the game is not the way to improve refereeing and officialdom. It is beyond belief. When do we reach a stage when all officials are women, because then we are in trouble. It is bad enough with the incapable referees and linesmen we have, but if you start bringing in women, you have big problems. This is Championship football. It is not park football, so what are women doing here?"

 

“Holy Shit that man’s a cunt!” I thought to myself. “I wish I could make him eat MY goal.” My goal to achieve equality among the sexes, that is. I was all ready to post on how misogyny is totally not ZG and how equality is. I had most of the most written I had just left gaps to put in quotes to how people had reacted badly. But none came. Well apart from Zoe Williams and the problem with Zoe Williams is that if she writes an article saying how angry she is about something you can’t help but feel it was worth it in some way.) So, I was left think that maybe more than one person felt that way about women. Could misogyny be zeiguyst? I fear it might be.

 

Let’s look at the pros and cons of women.

 

Pros*

 

They look good. Even the ones that don’t are still better looking than men

They’re better at a lot of stuff than men

They commit fewer crimes than men

They don’t poo.

 

Cons

 

They like Sex & The City

They threaten us

They can sometimes smell ‘down there,’ but then hey, so can we fellas

 

 

Interesting discovery. And did you spot the con that wasn’t a con. No, not the smell thing, that’s your own perversion. It was the fact that they threaten us. That’s not a con you fool, that’s your own insecurity. Yep, that’s right. Newell doesn’t hate women, he’s fucking petrified of them. Their common sense, good looks, ability to bare children (and also arms), the fact that they might laugh at his willy.

 

Now, I’m not a stickler for protocol, but I HAVE DISTINCTLY POINT OUT TIME AFTER TIME that zeitguyst means stuff that is really hot right now at this moment in time. Misogyny is actually an age old tradition invented when men made women change their name in marriage. “Oh but someone’s gotta Shal! Why not yaow?”) and leading right but to Mike Newell’s outburst. It’s not zeitguyst because zeitguyst is based on what people think, not what men think.

 

Sorry guys, you’re just gonna have to find a minority group you can all agree to hate. Maybe footballers?

 

 

 

 

*(he he, I don’t mean prostitutes, but if you thought I did you’re probably misogynist and should go and see a doctor, ideally an woman, doctor – conquer your fears)  

Compassionate Conservatism

Like those recalcitrant pebbles of dried poo that cling to your bum hair, money has forever been in close, sometimes awkward relationship to that which is zeitguyst. (in this particular metaphor I’m using the human anus to represent the dark, mysterious, ever-shifting void of zeitguystitude)

Originally, money was made from a composite of trees and peasant babies. Money was a bit like Pogs or Pokemon - whoever collected the most was the most zeitguyst, and everybody else had to do what they said. Getting people to do what you said because you’re rich was called 'exploitation', and anybody who was anybody was doing it. When rich people came to America, they thought they could do better, so they started a super-zeitguyst spin-off movement called 'blaxploitation', where they hired lots of really cool rappers, jazz singers, basketball players and great dancers to work for them as slaves. For a while, in America it was zeitguyst to exploit and zeitguyst to be exploited - so everyone was happy, right?

Well, yes - until in the sixties the Demokatz kicked off something called Cyril's Rights Movement. The Demokatz said that rappers, jazz singers, basketball players and dancers would be better off rapping, jazz singing, basketball playing and dancing than cleaning Publicans' floors, and everybody was like 'hell yeah!' and suddenly Cyril's Rights became so zeitguyst it felt like there was an orgasm in your mouth and everybody was invited.

So what were all those once-zeitguyst rich dudes supposed to do? The answer came in the form of near-sighted Scottish billionaire Scrooge McDuck, who, after years of seclusion following a botched surgical procedure that left him looking like a duck, (a particularly ironic mishap given his surname) emerged to tell the world that, although he would continue to swim in a big vat of currency, he planned to wind in the whole exploitation side of his business and concentrate on solving mysteries and/or rewriting history. (his Nazi apologia Holocaust Schmolocaust received mixed reviews)

The world's reaction to Scrooge McDuck was 'huge mcfuck!' Soon to follow in his rehabilitated footsteps were similarly disfigured tycoon Cyril Sneer (whose counter-campaign 'Cyril's Right' had tanked spectacularly) and grotesque Italian-American treasure-hunter Wario.

Having blown the mid-terms, the Publicans are now realising that they need to get with the programme and turn into more compassionate conservatives. To show how moderate – and therefore zeitguyst – they are, every rich Publican has pledged to have an abortion then sell the foetus on ebay and give the money to followers of Aslan.

ZG

Demokatz

"It's coming home, It's coming home, It's coming... (my) Football's coming home." sung The Light Seeds in 1996 (and again in 1998) to celebrate the return of the lost football belonging to moribund comedians Franks Skinner and David Bad-Eel. By chance the release of the song coincided with the Euro 96, being held in that year in the glorified county of England, and football fans everywhere adopted it as the perfect thing to sing at foreigners when they felt threatened. In the end The England lost games of football to Germany in the semi-finals and the whole country did a moan, but secretly people were quite happy because everyone had shared a super-zeitguyst for a while, and zeitguysts are the one thing that bring people true happiness.

You could say the same thing to George 'Double Yer' Bush (george double yer bush / george double yer honey / george double yer executions / george double yer money Bernard Towers 2000) at the moment, that the results of the Yank midterms don't matter because for a few days everyone was thinking about the same thing and it was a cool zeitguyst. But I don't think that'll be too much of a consolation because George Bush's Publican party took a hammering in the polls. They lost seats at all levels: The House of Reprimandatives, the Sedate, and State Terminators too. He's now a what people are calling 'a dead duck' president, not being able to pass any laws without running them by the Demokatz first, and they hate all his ideas and will just say no out of spite. At least Steve Bell isn't still drawing him like a monkey in The Guardian - then he'd really be fucked. So last night it was time for drastic measures - Bush said Donald Bumsfeld couldn't be his best friend any more, hoping that maybe everyone would also pick on Bumsfeld and then Bush could slip away unnoticed from the pile of dead Iraqi and Americans at their feet. Of course people don't tend to forget genocide, and even if they do his God will burn him in Hell, so it was a diversionary tactic at best. With Bumsfeld gone Bush people will atleast be off his back for a while - it was his way of saying to the mothers of dead 17 year old soldiers everywhere - you lost your son, so to make up for it I won't hang out with this despotic war mongerer. We all make sacrifices, I guess.

So, enough about Bush, he's so NOT zeitguyst right now, as the brave, intelligent people of the Americas have told us. It's all about Demokatz. The Publicans are yesterday's (that word makes me sick) news. The demokatz are led by a lady called Hilary Hilton, who is the sister of pop demi-god Paris Hilton, and heir to the Hilton Hotel Chain. Hilary is also married to former president Bill Hilton (well, they are from the South). Hilary is hotly tipped to go for a run in 2008 and people are hoping she won't stop until she reaches the Oval Office - quite what the British Cricket Association will have to say about that I don't know but time will tell. If Hilary becomes president she will be the first woman to be president, which would be MEGA and totally zeitguyst, but then there are all sorts of other types of human lining up to become the first type of president: there's a black man, an hispanic, even a couple of people claiming to be 'honest.'

The Demokatz now feel with all this zeitguyst from the midterms they can ride a wave of public support into the presidential campaign, which according to them starts now. Across the world people are hoping that too, in fact there's only about three people still want the Publicans in power - Dick Trainee, Tony Blair and Christian Right. Even Bush looks like he couldn't give a fuck now. But whether they can or not is another matter. You see the Demokatz are a bit cruddy too. When Hilton was president he did nothing all day but get involved in minor fracas and fuck bitches - like a gansta raper. So people might start saying things like 'look america's just a bit shit - why don't we just board it up like at the end of the mega zeituyst film ' right at your door' (oh -woah, the twist you NEVER see coming - that's £8.50 and two hours I'll never see again).

the world waits with baited breath etc etc

ZG

Tom Cruds

The Lord works in mysterious ways, but science is totally right 100%
of the time, and this week it was announced that actor, scientist and
former Hollywood golden boy Tom Cruds is to be made the big cheese
down at United Artists. Cruds and his producing partner Paul Wagner
have been given free reign by studio bosses Sony to produce four
films a year, most of which will have Cruds in the lead role playing
short fictional characters that look like Cruds himself. This is
making Cruds totally zeitguyst again and for all the right reasons.

Now if you're sitting there in your Ikea Jules swivel chair going all
like "but Tom Cruds has always been zeitguyst, isn't he like drugs in
that respect," haul your stupid head (that's probably got hair in
curtains on top of it) out of your past it arse and tune into ZEIT FM
on DAB radio Tom Cruds totally stopped being zeitguyst in August when
he got dropped by his last studio for being a scientist.

Sounds unfair doesn't it? After all science has helped make great
things like iPods and Ferraris, and to stop all sorts of shit stuff
like The Black Death & famine. But in recent years people have become
wary of it because it still hasn't cured, AIDS, some cancers and
terror. Also, clearly stupid people like Keiths Richard and Pat
Doherty have 'defied' science by not dying from their drug trials.
But science is still pretty alright by people generally, it's just
Tom Cruds just started going on and on about it. Science this, and
science that. Then, he captured a girl called Katie from outside her
home and started doing scientific experiments on her. When he had
tried this before with girls called Nicole and Penelope people didn’t
mind so much because they were foreign, but now he was trying it with
an American it was not on. People were not impressed, they liked
Katie, a lot. They even gave her a man's nickname - Joey - to show
their affection.

After a while Katie started saying weird things like "Tom Cruds is an
amazing man." Now people had liked Tom Cruds because he was an
amazing actor (though he's never proved himself as a scientist yet)
but no one thought he was an amazing man, he was not like Jamie Foxx
or Warren Beatty in that respect, so people immediately knew
something was suspect. Everyone quickly realised that he had been
using his scientific voodoo on her. Then she got pregnant, and people
woke up to the fact that Tom Cruds was using Katie/Joey to breed a
new race of short, mutant scientist babies that would take over the
world. Cruds was dropped by his studio and people forgot all about him.

Until now. As the vanilla sky set last Wednesday Cruds issued a firm
statement “I’m back!” Cruds is on a mission to achieve the impossible
and make people like him again, but he’s not going to compromise, the
signal this week is that it’s either him, science and his breed of
mutant science babies or nothing. It was Cruds way or the highway.
What a maverick!