Tub-Thumper - 1. A speaker or preacher who for emphasis thumps the pulpit; a violent or declamatory preacher or
orator; a ranter. (from oed.com).
This blog will be a combination of reasoned posting somedays and an occasional rant.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
INTERNATIONAL STRANGENESS DAY
Still happy about my first appearance on Blunt Cogs
Go Below the picture to see what INTERNATIONAL STRANGENESS DAY is all about.
This is my little character.
My strip is (currently) the second one down. Have a look through, it is a great site.
I have been blogging much more sporadically than before as it seems many people have been. Maybe all the anti-blog propaganda got to us eh? Maybe it is just summertime.
This however, is the first international strangeness day at thumping the tub. I have decided in the vein an old sketch (skit, if you are american) about answering the question previous to the one you have just been asked (who can spot the reference i wonder??) to go round all my favourite blogs and post a comment about the article I read on the previous blog. I just hope this is a more interesting way of promoting some of my favourite other blogs and hopefully making them connect with each other so we can really start to make a little community here? Yeah? Isn’t that the point? I wonder who will return here to find out WTF is going on?
The most important point of this is that I had three Microsoft word pages of full of blogs that I didn't check for a while and 1 and a half pages of them have given up (incidentally, M*crosoft word still refuses to recognize the word 'blog'). I am wondering if this is anything to do with all the anti blog propaganda or are people just bored of it?
Hmmm
Keep blogging, keep going, they hate us and that is the obvious proof we are doing something well.
Anyway, I am about to begin it now and the complete process should take an hour and a half or so and I will update this post with a list of the blogs I visited in the correct order after I have finished.
WARNING - I WILL BE GETTING STEADILY DRUNKER AS I DO THIS - WHICH I HOPE ADDS FUN TO THE EXPERIMENT.
Sites and links will begin from here, the first site I am visiting is someone who helped me with a few things when I started blogging so the comment on his site will be posted on the next one I visit..
and 3 hours and 6 beers later i finish where i started at born at the crest of the empire on the post "is the US losing the war on terror", which is a few posts down.
sorry to those i didn't mention (and there were plenty i could have) it was expediency rather than rationality at work here.
i will mention those i didn't mention in the next international strangeness day which won't be the same because that isn't what strange means
The Good people over at blunt cogs have decided to publish my little cartoon (the fools! haha).
It is currently the first one up. Take a look and see if you like it.
I wrote it but the redoubtable average tosser designed it and made it up for me.
I recommened you have a look through all of the archives. It is one of the most original and funny things in blogworld and I am damn pleased I got in it.
So happy in fact, that I typed in 'Happy' on a google image search and I got this... ... which may look like an amorphous blob but is apparently a 'Happy Octopus'.
It is in Goodfellas, "murderers come with smiles". So do fucked up people. The world is fucked up as we all know.
This is superb...
The people who grinned themselves to death
They smiled so much and waved their flags As she saluted to the military band Most of the people failed to see She had a broken bottle in the other hand And she took them by surprise When she took them by the throat And said my friend you’re not allowed to vote But they shook it all off With a nervous laugh and cough Next time, she said I’ll let those people choke
The people who grinned themselves to death Smiled so much they failed to take a breath And even when their kids were starving They all thought the queen was charming
She polished all upon the wall And ran her hands right through her hair So if the lady took the time to call All the houses on the street would not compare
And she thought it really funny That she hadn’t any money But those she looked up to, they had But they shook it all off With a nervous laugh and cough And when they took her riches it was sad
The people who grinned themselves to death Smiled so much they failed to take a breath And even when their kids were starving They all thought the queen was charming
I had a special post planned but events overtook me so for the moment I am posting this because every time I hear it fucks me up.
The australians have the whole "waltzing matilda" going. This is a song by an irish band about some of the things that happened in WW1 from the point of view of an aussie soldier at the time
Oh, and the battle in question was churchills fuck up. The idea that everyone in the UK regards winston churchill as a hero is absolutely wrong. Many people then and now regarded/regard him as a murderous bastard who made a couple of good speeches. On the whole, we're quite pleased he is dead. Ask the hunger strikers, the suffragetes and a million other people why. Anyway...
When I was a young man I carried my pack And I lived the free life of a rover From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun And they sent me away to the war And the band played Waltzing Matilda As we sailed away from the quay And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers We sailed off to Gallipoli
How well I remember that terrible day How the blood stained the sand and the water And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell Nearly blew us right back to Australia And the band played Waltzing Matilda As we stopped to bury our slain We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs Then we started all over again
Now those that were living,did their best to survive In a mad world of blood, death and fire And for seven long weeks I kept myself alive But around me the corpses piled higher Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit And when I woke up in my hospital bed And saw what it had done, christ I wished I was dead Never knew there were worse things than dying And no more I'll go waltzing Matilda to the green bushes so far and near For to hang tent and pegs, a man needs two legs No more waltzing Matilda for me
So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed And they shipped us back home to Australia The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay I looked at the place where my legs used to be And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me To grieve and to mourn and to pity And the band played Waltzing Matilda As they carried us down the gangway But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared and they turned their faces away
And now every April I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march Reliving old dreams of past glory And I see the old men all twisted and torn The forgotten heroes of a forgotten war And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?" And I ask myself the same question And the band plays Waltzing Matilda And the old men still answer the call But year after year their numbers get fewer Some day no one will march there at all
Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda Who'll go a waltzing Matilda with me?
All of the government ministers who always want to build more roads and have less public transport have chauffeur driven cars
Most of the soldiers in World War One hated their officers more than they hated the opposite side. There were many cases of officers being shot in the back as the soldiers advanced.
Most of the people that say global warming isn’t happening are large corporations whose profit-making would be seriously curtailed if there were any effective laws introduced.
Most of the people who are so incensed by even the slightest criticism of Israel are from the United States.
Most of the people who don’t believe in sex before marriage also believe you should be fruitful and multiply (thanks to Bill Hicks!)
Most of the people who believe you should ban smoking DON’T also believe that you should ban driving, which is another habit that kills both users and non-users, causes pollution and creates an unpleasant smell.
Most of the usually right-wing protestors that support hunting in the UK that were arrested got considerably more lenient sentences than those protesting on the opposite side.
Sometimes political debate is technical in nature, sometimes it is bigoted and nationalistic.
Other times it is just completely bizarre.
This little bit from the daily show is funny but as much as the presenter is funny, it is difficult for him to make the piece any more bizarre than it already is...
Unfortunately i can't embed it, so you will just have to follow this link..
My 3rd little film. This one is the product of not being able to sleep and is only 22 seconds long.
Oh, and in case anyone got the wrong idea, the previous post was not anything against gays in the military, the people who wrote those little pieces were actually gay. It was just a good little bit of absurdism...
Sometimes the smallest and most normal things can change the way major events run. Imagine how differently things would have turned out if this had happened...
the first ten seconds is something else...then it starts...
This one is an early idea about gays in the military...
I really need to get back to doing some posting but I have been doing a lot of writing for my non-tubthumping ventures.
In the meantime I just wanted to point you toward this little video. It is John Cleese speaking at the funeral of Graham Chapman (the member of Monty Python that died).
For my money it is the SECOND funniest thing I have seen that is to do with funerals an that sort of thing. The funniest is the headstone of british comedian, Spike Milligan, which simply reads "I told you I was ill."
Name: michael the tubthumper Home: Glasgow, Scotland About Me: Tub-Thumper - 1. A speaker or preacher who for emphasis thumps the pulpit; a violent or declamatory preacher or orator; a ranter. This blog will be a combination of reasoned posting somedays and an occasional rant.
28 years old, I write and research for a couple of websites and also do my own stuff. See my complete profile
Thumping The Tub Video
I have made a few short movies. Here are links to free downloads for them all in the order that I made them (as far as I can remember). Please feel free to use, distribute, disagree with, shout at etc etc
The inaugural 'Arse of the month' award goes to our very own Scottish First Minister Jack (Joke) McConnell. He seems to spend a lot of his time sucking up to english politicians and yet it appears they don't even know his name. Follow the link to see..
A list of some other Scottish sites and blogs most of which, if not all, are pro-independence. I don't agree with content on all of them obviously. Some are Scots at home, others abroad.
If you like this site and think it is time to start getting informed here are a few real favourites of mine that will help you blow away the corporate and government propaganda you are constantly bombarded with. It is added to every so often.