Are people idiots?

Ambulance drivers drive 200 miles in the wrong direction, following satnav instructions.


Overly obedient German drivers crash following satnav instructions.



What is wrong with people? Is everyone a bloody idiot?

Strictly Come Dancing

For a while I was living with the thought that 'Celebrity Love Island' was the most unentertaining programme on televsion. How wrong I was. Having been surrounded by what can only be described as 'people' for the past few days, I have been subjected to conversation regarding said television programme.

Today, I could not move without it being mentioned, be it tv, newspaper, internet... Thinking about it, I cannot understand the appeal one bit. People you have vaguely heard of given a dance partner and told to dance then being voted off. Rubbish. Where's the scandal? Where's the loveable dim-witted tart? Where's the fake dancer that was put in to pose as a dancer then ends up marrying a contestant? Where's the page 3 model falling for and marrying a failed popstar who go on to release a hideous christmas single?

I don't know. People will watch anything.

In other thoughts, no-one ever wins on the Great British Quiz on channel 5. They offer ridiculous sums of money, and yet people will still call up and give their answer to a seemingly easy question. Hmmm. Something is going on....

Monkey Magazine - Another Publication for Idiots

Monkey Magazine is a new mens magazine.

God-damn I hate those magazines and the sneery, laddish way they revel in their own stupidity. But this is not why I write. Rather, Monkey is to be online only.

This, again, is not really something to write about. So another website has lauched. Hoorah. But there is more to be said yet. First, it is being produced by Dennis Publishing, who also publish, among another titles, Maxim. Clearly they know their stuff in the field of idiot-mags. This marks then an interesting point at which the big magazine publishers are truly begining to see the possibilities of the web. And, finally, starting to take serious notice of their declining sales.

Bizarrely though, the magazine is, well, just that. a magazine. Or at least, a horrible faux-magazine. Complete with terrible page turning animation and a contents page that included page numbers but no links. Why? Why the hell would anyone produce such an over-Flashed product? In the modern internet, there is simply no reason for it. Just make a God-damned website. The internet is a medium, not a way of showing other media. How long untill corporations learn this?

Darwin Does Not Threaten God

US Group Truth in Science has supplied creationist teaching materials to British schools.

This debate has rumbled on for a ridiculously long time now. There is absolutely no way that Creationism should be taught in Science classes. It is not apropriate, by the very definition of science.

I won't go into this debate in any detail: everyone knows the details and everyone has a detail. But it just boggles my mind some times. I just can't grasp how stupid people can be sometimes. A merest flicker of thought allows one to see that Darwin does not impinge on Christianity. A further flicker to see that science should be taught in science classes and religion in religious education classes. Honestly, I despair sometimes.

A Silly BBC Thing

via Jeff Jarvis

How in touch are the BBC with their audience? It is a question I ask myself daily. Well, now we have cold, hard statistical data: http://cgriley.com/bbctouch/.

It's a silly little thing that compares side by side what the BBC thinks we should be reading and what we are. If you ignore the slightly overblown paranoia of "what the BBC tells us" overtones, it's quite fun. Most worrying though, is the level at which most of the audience is reading. Over the past two weeks "Cruise" is second and "Cruise Holmes" third. Today, "Danish" and "Road Safety", the story about Danish road campaigns with topless models is fourth and sixth.

Naturally I also enjoyed the Danish article, but Tomkat? People are idiots.

Congestion 'Supercharge'

Fantastic. Finally some action is being taken against the most depressing sight on our roads, the hideous 4x4. The 'supercharge' for entering the congestion charge zone in London in these 'vehicles', is one of the best examples of some form of governance actually doing something about reducing the levels of pollution emitted by this unnecessary form of transport in our choking cities. There is no need for cars like this. Just an act of utter selfishness in an attempt to stand out from the general population. Or an attempt to emulate Jack Bauer, in which case I can't encourage enough...
Not coming from London, I have no idea what the extent of this problem is, or to what extent this will do to solve it. I just find happiness in the vision of these drivers feeling victimised. Idiots.

A thing that makes me do sick

Overzealous Sports Fans

It takes a certain kind of idiocy to shout at a televised sport.
I am not talking of the moans and cheers here when fortunes change one way or the other: this is an unavoidable result of engagement with the game. Even I do that. Rather, I mean shouting at the actual match itself. Encouraging one team or player. Berating the other. Berating ones own team. Berating the referee or umpire. Berating the commentator. Berating the crowd, even. So often, just generally berating.
This kind of behaviour surely implies an absence of some vital brain-function that allows one to differentiate between reality and moving images on a screen. Maybe this even demonstrates a defective theory of mind: the over-zealous sports fan cannot tell what does and does not possess consciousness. He does not understand why the pixels flowing over the television screen do not respond to his shouts. His stupidity is one so deep that he not only misunderstands the workings of a television but also to utterly fails to grasp how we can assign a mind to an object. This is a fundamental, metaphysical idiocy on a massive level.
I really detest these people. With their beer bellies and their Carling, I really detest them. Then I feel guilty, because they make up so much of the population. I feel like a bastard. But, really, I detest them and all of their ITV-watching buddies.