When I first started trying to read a newspaper everyday, maybe four years ago, I used to read every article. It soon became clear that this was a failing strategy since, still having to run my fat little finger under every line, it took more or less the entire day to read the whole thing. I subsequently (2 years later – I’m not just a slow reader) discovered one of the many things they don’t teach you at school – much of the paper actually isn’t worth reading and if you filter the filler, you can always get through to the world news section of The Times, which is where all the real news is, by the time your tube journey is over. That is unless someone’s been plotting to blow up a plane with mentos and diet coke, which is just another example of how terrorism inconveniences us all.

In any event, the purpose of this post is to save you all the trouble of reading your papers, or indeed any news today, because it’s clear to me that the only story you need to know about is the Kyra Phillips one. I really sympathise with Ms Phillips – because if you’re going to fuck up like that, it’s worth doing it properly. She must be kicking herself that she just called her sister-in-law a “control freak”, which is hardly the most devastating of insults, when she had an opportunity to really put the boot in, in front of an audience of millions.

It’s also good to see that The Times didn’t fall into the trap of exaggerating the story: “… including how much you hate your sister-in-law — broadcast live in excruciating detail.”.

And the excrutiating detail in question? Ms Phillips said, “… but [she] is just a control freak”, and then someone told her to turn her microphone off. No exaggeration there, then. If you want to watch the whole unspectacular incident, it’s available here.

For those of you who read fast, there are some other news stories, but these aren’t really of any significance.

The stated themes of Shit Sandwich are: television (esp. BBC), music, sport, current events and bad grammar. I’ve almost certainly produced substantial quantitie’s of the lattermost, however, I haven’t really directly addressed any of the other key themes. So, with a view to remedying this oversight, it seems reasonable to discuss my current favourite TV series ever, and one that may well never have otherwise been mentioned on Shit Sandwich – Lost.

For those of you who already watch Lost, I feel it important to make clear that I thought last night’s episode (S.O.S) was shit. Ok, well it wasn’t that bad, but it was one of those episodes where nothing happens.  And if they’re really going to drag the story out over 7 seasons, I imagine we can all expect many more of this kind.

For those of you who don’t watch Lost, you’re faced with something of a conundrum. The problem is, if you leap in and watch the next episode on C4, Tuesday at 2200 you’re likely to end up a bit … well … lost, really. You won’t know who the others are, what the monster is, anything about the DHARMA initiative or the significance of the numbers (… but then I’ve watched every single episode so far and, frankly, neither do I). The logical thing to do, therefore, would be drop everything, resign from your job now, rush home via HMV, buy all the available Lost box sets (no, don’t order them from Amazon, that’ll take too long), watch them, and then watch all the not-yet-available-on-DVD episodes on the Channel 4 website.

Irrespective of whether you take that particularly absurd piece of advice, I do highly recommend Lost for a whole variety of reasons. Take your pick from: its fairly innovative format; perfectly decent acting and scripts; a substantial selection of varied “main” characters; Sawyer’s never-ending stream of humorous nicknames; Michelle Rodriguez; or even just the most addictive story line in recent memory that will have you screaming “What happens if they don’t press the fucking button? I want to know more!” at the end of every episode.

… a final recommendation, for those of you who, like me, hate surprises, there’s a whole Shit Sandwich load of information about Lost available at its Wikipedia entry – but be warned it’s replete with spoilers.

Addendum at the request of Legendmaker - a link to the official Lost website, where you can read official episode synopses and buy Lost shit. Enjoy!

As Shit Sandwich’s Technical Monkey, it probably makes sense to take advantage of my two week tenure as guest-editor to iron out any technical problems that readers may experience on a regular, or even irregular, basis.

So, technical problems? If you’ve tried turning it off and on again, or want to know how to toss your cookies, then please provide details in the comments section. I know Matt was experiencing problems with cutting and pasting – if you could let me know the details of what you were cutting from which application and where you were pasting it to then I’ll do my best to help.

Incidentally, The IT Crowd, which this post heavily references, is really quite good and, as Chez Guevara has done before, I’d recommend trying at least one episode to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

… and there’s a special nerd prize (specifically the recognition that you, like me, are a nerd) for anyone who knows what RTFM stands for on Roy’s (Chris O’Dowd) T-shirt (see picture above).

Following the result that 41% of Shit Sandwich readers couldn’t give a toss about who will suffer most from the new airline luggage restrictions (although personally I’m pleased that it’s pissing off that chopper Michael O’Leary), it seems to me that now would be a good time for a change of Poll.

As a result of much juvenile speculation in the past, I have developed a fairly reliable method for diffusing a political argument that looks like it’s about to become violent and possibly bloody (hence title of this post – it’s not a great pun, but it’ll do for me). This simple technique involves subtly moving the conversation on from serious / heated political matters to consider which relevant political figure would make the best drinking buddy.Remember, the key consideration here is best drinking buddy – not best equiped person to lead the free world. The poll isn’t large enough to outline some suggested reasons in favour of each candidate, so this has been done at the end of this post.

Incidentally, if I’ve missed any good potential drinking buddy candidates then please feel free to add them and associated reasons to the Comments section and I’ll add their names to the poll.

Reasons to choose …

George W Bush – this is obviously assuming that he hadn’t dried up in 1986. In my opinion, Ultimate G W Bush pretty much sells himself as a drinking buddy given his reputation for becoming “excessively uninhibited“. Not only would you get totally loaded, take lots of drugs and do some real stupid shit (possibly involving explosives or nuclear weapons), but since he’s “Leader of the Free World”, you’d probably never get into trouble for any of it … and his Secret Service body guards could clean up any fights you started.

Ken Livingstone – because you could push someone over a 15ft stairwell, insult a reporter and refuse to apologise, clamp the US Ambassador’s car, pick a fight with some Scots, and then spend the following weeks having a front page bitch match with the Evening Standard about the whole incident.

Charles Kennedy – because he’s probably already drunk (too much, too soon?).

Tony Blair – now Tony’s a tough one. On the face of it, he might just be quite boring. But whenever I’ve seen him drinking orange juice at a carefully staged photo-opportunity, I like to think he’s always had the air of a man who wants to sink 8 pints and do body shots off strippers in Spearmint Rhino  … plus at one stage he wanted to be a rockstar which I think bodes well in the partying department.

Boris Johnson – This clip just about says it all when it comes to Boris Johnson – a rugby tackle in a game of football, what a legend!… remember, suggestions for additions are welcome.

This post was originally entitled “Monkeys take over the Zoo”, however, having spent some time producing the Technical Monkey picture (right) and then ages crafting the most intelligent, humorous and thought provoking post ever written anywhere, I left the latter at home. In light of this, Morons seems more apt.

And so here we are – the Technical Monkey’s first post since the beginning of my temporary reign over Shit Sandwich that began on Saturday. For any new readers, Shit has gone on holiday and left me in charge for two weeks. I strongly recommend browsing the archive of excellent posts for a feel as to what to expect when he gets back. I’m simply keeping the seat warm – if I manage not to drive away all his readers, then I’ll consider this a success.

For all his regular readers, I will do my best to keep up the high standard of commentary – but you should be warned in advance that my posts are unlikely to be as witty, intelligent, grammatically perfect or pun-tastic as the standard you are used to. I suggest that we all start off with a giant love-in at the novelty of it all, and slowly descend into a state of mutual loathing and hatred (much like any good relationship). Then on 10 September you can all heave a vocal sigh of relief that Shit is back and possibly utter “Thank fuck for that!” under your breath as I am re-caged and resume my role as Technical Monkey.

More seriously, I hope you enjoy the next fortnight, and I would again like to thank Shit for foolishly allowing me this opportunity. Now for some actual content, as opposed to self-indulgent rambling. Let’s start with a change of poll …

Kelly Brook has been voted “Body of the Decade” - front-page news on Yahoo. Whoop-de-pooping-doo. Yet again, a thick bint with big hooters is paraded as if she were some kind of role model for doing little more than having big hooters.
How about “well-informed person of the decade”, “generous-spirited and conciliatory person of the decade” or even “unnecessary number of guitars-owning person of the decade” making the headlines for once? Any ideas for more “proper” awards?

Shit “Ten Guitars” Sandwich is shortly off on one of his regular peregrinations to the land of his forefathers and, in an attempt to bring a breath of fresh air to the site’s poorly-researched and frankly stale editorial content of the last few weeks, is appointing none other than Le Singe Technique to guest-edit for a couple of weeks (26/8 to 9/9). Expect a marked upturn in the quality of posts on the site. More guest editors may well follow in the future.

Thanks to the ministrations of Le Singe Technique, from whom you’ll be hearing a lot more over the next few days, we at Shit Sandwich can expose the scuzzy profiteering of www.carbonneutral.com. Check out their “Bio Bulb“, a regular low-energy bulb which is “pleasing to the eye” “may improve mood or aid S.A.D. suffers” and provides “ideal visual ambience for hugging trees (or at least blowing kisses at houseplants)”. OK, I made the last one up.

The price is slightly less environmentally friendly - £14.99 plus postage. An identical bulb on eBay? Buy it now, with free postage? £2.99. And I thought BP were ruthless…

BP are starting a “carbon neutral” initiative called “targetneutral“, whereby motorists pledge money to emission-reducing schemes based on their annual car mileage. This is a dreadfully insidious idea.

BP are mentioning a figure of around £20 per year for an average car. Just £20 per year - less than the average round of drinks - to salve the guilty conscience of any driver (maybe a bit more for a 4×4 owner) and to make them feel that they can happily buy as much petrol as they want, as long as they donate a few pennies to a given charity.

The oil giant states “(there is) huge demand for a scheme, but the general feeling from customers is that they don’t know where to start”. Absolute bullshit - even the most moronic car driver could type in “carbon neutral” into any internet search engine and find a number of well-established schemes. The fact that BP is starting one is a blatant and rather sickening greenwash attempt.

The government, not the oil lobby, should be taking the lead in this, by introducing a supertax on the profits of the companies which pollute the most, like BP. If it’s eventually decided that more tax needs to be raised from the motorist, do it at the pumps - that way, people will think carefully about NOT using petrol, rather than gas guzzling and then making some meaningless token guilt offering after the event.

And if BP want to help, maybe they should donate some of their record profits to environmental organisations - or at least stump up the cash to mend their leaking, polluting pipes in Alaska.

PS 1 - A considerably more intelligent take on the issue is to be found in the Guardian - unfortunately, I penned my rant before reading this

PS 2 - Having investigated search results for “Carbon Neutral” and come up with sleazy profit-mongers www.carbonneutral.com, I suggest that anyone interested enters “carbon offset” as a search term instead.

Excellent article in the Guardian about how crap BBC sports coverage is these days. It’s as if someone in the upper echelons of the beeb in the early ’90s decided to take all the money out of sport and put it instead into a raft of identical antiques shows with orange presenters. And then came up with the corporate motto: “This is what we do - fuck all”.

And last night saw BBC 3’s much-trumpeted “Little Miss Jocelyn“. It wasn’t as terrible as I’d been expecting, there was the odd tolerable gag; but considering the creative talent which worked on it (people from “League of Gentlemen”, “Smoking Room” and “Victoria Wood”), I was entitled to hope for something better than a blacked-up Little Britain, which is essentially what it was. Very predictable formulaic catchphrase comedy. Again.