Can I just take this opportunity to express how deliriously happy I am with the current form Liverpool FC is displaying? okthxbye

192 piss me off no end and now I find this new site Zoopla, a site which lists house prices with no way of delisting your property. Privacy just got stripped another notch. If you work for a company that provides this service or similar please drop yourselves down a bottomless hole.

I accept that a lot of information is available on the net mainly from my own activity. However I hate the method of reusing relatively private info (electoral roll, land registry etc) just to scrape some company ad revenue or database sales. I opt out where I can from these kind of registries but its like plugging a dam with a victoria sponge cake. Sites like this remove the hurdles from wholesale identity theft and it makes me so feckin mad!

I was a little miffed at hearing of a recent paydeal. The Daily Mash sums it up quite nicely. The mash could very well be my new favouritest site on the web. Oh and have this too!
This post contains no Youtubeness.

For the last decade I've been ranting to people about how our vocabulary is going to pot. Business-speak has slowly been encroaching into everyday speech. The BBC are just waking up to it and have published a rather good list of the most annoying: 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate. I'd dedicate a blog to it if I was incentivised enough to do a positive feedback that puts us all on the same page! It goes without saying that I hear this sort of wibble from people around me on a daily basis.

A long time ago I registered with 192.com, at the time it was an innovative way of getting free directory enquiries back when BT had a stranglehold on the phone service. I quickly abandoned 192 once it gave up its free stance and started charging. Fair enough, it has to raise money somehow. Anyway, I remained on their newsletter database having never got around to removing myself. The last few letters I've had have raised my hackles. It seems that their emphasis is now on the business marketeer industry and as such they are advertising their abilities to datamine the electoral role.
Now I know its getting harder to remain private in this modern world but when you've got companies that readily provide your personal info you begin to wonder where it will all stop.
Excuse me while I adjust the tinfoil.
Anyway, I long ago registered my details with the TPS and MPS, services which provide protection from overzealous direct marketing companies. This has stopped an awful lot of the sales calls and mail that I receive. However I hate the idea of companies (or individuals) being able to invisibly collect stats and data from my decision to register for the right to vote. I now mark my electoral role registration to remain off the commercial list - however before I got all paranoid I didn't mark my form as such.
So now I find that 192 are able to sell my data! The only way to stop this is to use the form on their Help and Support page. But now I'm wondering just how many other companies are able to sell on this info and how many cancellation requests I would have to send out to stop it. Gah, why do I feel like I'm trying to stick my finger in a leaky dam?
I think I need to check out the governments information commission site but its not loading at the moment.

The BBC has just posted this news item that the Premier league is considering extending the season by 10 extra games. These games would be played at a variety of overseas venues. How mental is that?
I originally read this as being ten extra games for each team but what it actually equates to is that teams play 39 matches a season instead of 38. The proposal is that the top teams avoid each other and a lottery is made of the remaining teams to see who plays who. What happens if the top team draws a match against the bottom team? How unfair would that be? Not just to the teams involved but to their rivals?

This is a great rant! Its not mine - I don't come from Texas. However it is a pet hate of mine where food producers sneakily downsize their products hoping you won't notice. They usually continue to charge the same price too. The rant I am refering to is of "Devoted Customer Upset Jimmy Dean Downsized Sausage 16oz To 12oz But Charges Same Price". Priceless - let it set the interweb alight! I'm not going to pass comment on the families size or of stereotypes of Texas dwellers, that just isn't relative, I just like his style. Now who wants a "Randy Taylor" t-shirt?

Ah, the power of the internet. I love that you can read about happenings all over the world and then caste judgement over them. The story that I'm linking to is a great escape from the jaws of a shark. Whilst I'm pleased to hear that the victim managed to evade a spiky end, I'm a bit ROFL about the way its been reported. For instance I love the fact that the people in the water had discussed previously what to do should they ever be shark attacked.

"We've talked about it a lot, " Glen said. "The policy is if it goes for you, then you go for it."

Did they happen to discuss this in a boardroom? Policy? Fek that. I hate the way business speak is invading every day speech. The bonus to this piece of journalistic delight is the final quote.

Freakonomics has an interesting post about trying to marry into money. If the lady looking for rich love interest is for real then you have to admire her honesty. Then you realise that she's a divorce waiting to happen and all her potential suitors probably can smell that a mile off. I think she might need to go back to the drawing board and get hitched to a plumber, after all they're all minting it these days ;)

Brazilian keeper Dida shows just how pathetic some players in football can be...

Don't get me wrong - I love football. I just hate divers! Here's another of Brazil's finest...

Just watching Undercover Mum on ITV (which is a bit of a shock). Interestingly, they are showing footage of an investigation they made of the beef sold in the local Bath Wetherspoons. Apparently (and allegedly, for you legal beagles) they are selling something slightly more exotic than the customers might think. There is less Mooo for your GBP and more Zebu. Zebu is a tropical version of cattle whose meat isn't quite as palatable as domestic british beef. So what this pub chain is doing is selling interbred cattle products to the masses without disclosing its origins. I wonder how many other chains are doing this?

The world has officially imploded! HMV have bought out Fopp, retaining only six of its stores in the UK. Hello to overpriced CDs and DVDs. Amazon and CDWow must be rejoicing at the news. And they wonder why there is a slump in sales.

Can somebody please take Kate Nash out to a tea and buns stall in a little known hamlet of East Anglia and leave her there please? That way she'll get confused amongst the bric-a-brac stalls and forget to bother the charts ever again. Could someone also take little Lily to an equally mundane destination at the opposite end of the country? Trust me it would really be doing the country a favour. Now I just need some mindbleech to rid me of all this o-ver pro-nun-see-ay-shun, but I cahn't.

Not that I'm a regular reader of the Daily Mail, but this story caught my attention. Yes, you have to read through the Daily Mails usual outraged spin on the story, but what remains leaves you still shaking your head in disbelief. The fact that councils are so tied up bureaucracy today, that everyday people just going about a seemingly innocuous task get landed with a huge cleanup bill, is rather sad. Personally, I'd just shovel the sand back anyway. Or, if pressed, I'd hire a wind machine and blow it back. Failing that, get a flatbed truck piled with the sand, drive it round to your council representative and blow it onto their drive.

One for all the Victor Meldrews in the land: Channel 4 just ran a show entitled "Who's digging up our roads?". It was full of holes, the type that beleague every street in every town. Its an outrage that these contractors employed to dig up the roads just end up costing us millions by time wasting. Here, look at me shaking my fist at you... *shakes*
I was most amused when they showed one guy who set up a website cataloguing every hazard in his district. That'll be me in a few years - just you wait and see.

Let's all pause for a moment and lament the passing of our beloved VW Passat. The timing belt went, smashing all the cylinder heads in the engine. Gone for recycling but never forgotten. We now have a Saxo - the gods are truly stamping on me.

Some cheeky twunt had a go at lifting my nano the other day as I left work. Luckily I reacted quick enough to clamp my arms to my chest trapping the ipod in my jacket. However I don't think it was a serious attempt - the geezer was drunk and trying his hand at making me rise to his bait. I think he just wanted to have some agro. Luckily I spotted his empty bottle of ASBO juice and decided that giving him the evils was exactly what he wanted, so I turned and walked away.