Delusions of Grandeur and Unfocused Rage02 Dec 2009 08:42 am

Beacon Of Hope

By Kelvin

Christmas light switch-ons are quintessentially British, aren’t they. Not in the Nick Griffin indigenous racists way, but in the sense that they’re a bit shambolic and crap and low-rent and you’re ashamed to be seen enjoying one but even so they give you a little warm glow inside. Because even if we are a nation whose influence on the world stage is waning, even if we all have to wear sacks and eat glue while the bankers get to ride us like horseys, we can still do something to make the kids smile.

I don’t know what the opposite of the word ‘excelled’ is, but Belfast certainly did that this year – with some anonymous person dressed as Bob the Builder. ‘It’s for the children,’ someone shouted when I called the City Council cheapskates – as if a 21st century child would be fooled by someone in a Bob the Builder outfit. I think a slightly larger crowd might have turned out for Jim Carrey, Mariah Carey or Alexandra Burke.
Kevin, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Yeah, Belfast council, pull your finger out! If you’re going to get Bob The Builder, get the real Bob The Builder. If they start animating him in August he could press the button right on the dot! Or better still, just get in someone that Kevin from Belfast can have a wank over.

66 Responses to “Beacon Of Hope”

  1. on 02 Dec 2009 at 8:56 am   That Bloke in the Corner

    I don’t know what the opposite of the word ‘excelled’ is,

    Failed?,shite?,crap?,hopeless? there are many words you could use Kevin,expand your lexicon man.

  2. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:06 am   Theodore

    There are obviously too many hours in the day for poor Kevin.
    Having fought his way through the Belfast City automated answering service to speak to the organiser of the light turning on ceremony he then vented his fury by posting his feelings of disgust onto the BBC Magazine blog.
    Personally, I would have turned to the wife and said “That was a bit shit.”

  3. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:09 am   burnel

    They should have got Ian Paisley to switch on the lights dressed as Santa bawling about Fenians into a megaphone….might put the kids off Christmas a bit mind.

  4. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:10 am   Theodore

    I think a slightly larger crowd might have turned out for Jim Carrey, Mariah Carey or Alexandra Burke.

    It was a light turning on ceremony, not a public execution.

    Dummy.

  5. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:48 am   Ed aka Cuger Jaggar

    Fir-

    Oh. Never mind.

  6. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:52 am   alt-f4

    as if a 21st century child would be fooled

    Perish the thought. In the 21st century children are not so much born, as manufactured. They come supplied in a range of colours, with their heads pre-filled with essential modern knowledge about the names of TV celebrities, and facts about actors being dressed up in costumes aren’t really the people or characters they are depicting.

    Olde Worlde chrildren of previous centuries never knew this and they used to think that fictional characters like Bob the Builder, Santa, and Jesus were real people.

    Kevin’s children know better. They don’t hide under the bed from the devil, but they will shit themselves every time the otherwise unreliable Gordon Clown mentions muslims with MDW.

  7. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:59 am   That Bloke in the Corner

    ‘It’s for the children,’ someone shouted when I called the City Council cheapskates

    I lay odds that our Kevin would be the first to complain when his bins aren’t emptied because the council spent all their money on a sleb to turn the lights on.

  8. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:06 am   funny peculiar

    When my mate got married, the real Bob The Builder came to the wedding party for the kids to meet. My pal’s a model-maker and the company he works for makes the models for B-the-B. So they brought Bob along to add some A-list pazazz to the party. Actually this real B-the-B was one of five real Bob the Builders that live on a shelf in Altrincham. (that’s fame for you)

    The kids didn’t get it to be honest. All the parents were trying to explain that it really really really was Bob the Builder, but they weren’t allowed to play with him cos he’s worth five grand and squashy.

    I think they would have preferred some anonymous person pretending to be Bob the Builder.

  9. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:15 am   Jones

    I think it’s a safe bet that Kevin’s banned from all the Santa’s Grottos in Belfast.

  10. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:17 am   Theodore

    My parents regularly use the services of a local builder called Bob to mend their leaky roof.
    I don’t think a fat bloke regularly flashing his arse cleavage, smoking roll-ups, swearing and sweating profusely would be ideal for kids to see turning on the Xmas lights. Some of the ladies out there who like a bit of rough may go for it though.

  11. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:42 am   That Bloke in the Corner

    I personally think Kevin should count his blessings, at least Belfast got someone most folk have heard of, we got four bods who auditioned for X-Factor and failed, never heard of them before and most likely will never hear of them again.

  12. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:43 am   funny peculiar

    Maybe if George Bush had got some huge Hollywood star to ceremonially fire the first missile of the Iraq War in 2003, things would have turned out better. It would have been a great ‘soft power’ scoop for the Iraqi’s hearts and minds.

    I think from now on celebrities should start all wars.

  13. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:47 am   Jesus Chris

    How about Neil Fucking Morrisey to turn them on? I bet he’d turn Kevin on, too. I mean, he’s into Jim Carrey, Mariah Carey and whoever the fuck the other one he mentioned was, so I expect he wouldn’t mind Neil turning up dressed as an elf or something.

    Miserable twat.

  14. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:56 am   millie

    They don’t hide under the bed from the devil, but they will shit themselves every time the otherwise unreliable Gordon Clown mentions muslims with MDW

    I used to shit myself at the idea of some fat bearded bloke coming down the chimney in the middle of the night. Think that’s what seeded the notion of athism in my head.

  15. on 02 Dec 2009 at 10:58 am   Silent Koala

    Kevin left out the bit where we had a wee mini-riot at the Christmas Lights switch-on. I mean, OF COURSE we fucking did. I can confirm that Bob the Builder escaped unhurt.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8377698.stm

  16. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:05 am   That Bloke in the Corner

    @Silent Koala, I,ve got to admit, you guys know how to do things with style. Did Bob offer to fix it all?

  17. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:41 am   Jesus Chris

    Ah, Silent Koala. I had a Firefox accident and lost your blog address, but now all is well again. Has your gaffer had her second stroke yet?

  18. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:57 am   Kelvin

    Silent Koala, I think I might be in love with your blog. Does it have a favourite restaurant so I can take it out to dinner, get too drunk and say something embarrassing to it?

  19. on 02 Dec 2009 at 12:01 pm   Olivia

    I’m trying to imagine what method Kevin could have been employing to call the council cheapskates that created the opportunity to heckle. To be honest, if he’s putting in the effort of getting a tent and a microphone every time he has a shitty opinion to air, maybe he IS a better authority on showmanship than the city of Belfast.

  20. on 02 Dec 2009 at 12:58 pm   Alex

    as if a 21st century child would be fooled

    My intellectual abilities have not improved since the age of twelve. Therfore children must be as intelligent as me. I was not fooled. Ergo QED.

  21. on 02 Dec 2009 at 1:01 pm   That Bloke in the Corner

    I think a slightly larger crowd might have turned out for Jim Carrey, Mariah Carey or Alexandra Burke.

    Well there was obviously enough there for a mini riot, how many more folk does Kevin want?

  22. on 02 Dec 2009 at 1:03 pm   Mr Cat

    This wasn’t even from the comments section of that article – but from a photo caption in the piece itself

    Nicolas Cage’s arrival marked one of the high points of the history of Bath

    Bath, the ancient Roman city with world heritage status in which kings have been crowned. But forget that – NICOLAS CAGE TURNED ON THEIR CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTS IN 2009. Everything else is a footnote.

  23. on 02 Dec 2009 at 1:10 pm   Stuart F

    Belfast should have got Martin McGuinness with a plunger detonator to turn the lights on, and maybe some kind of glitter cannon angled towards a nearby police station. I’m sure the whole community would have enjoyed that. (Ian Paisley would be better placed at the other end of the street shouting at the lights to go out. “Electricity! It’s a papish conspiracy!”)

  24. on 02 Dec 2009 at 1:17 pm   AndyS

    Jim Carrey, Mariah Carey or Alexandra Burke.

    he’s missed a trick there, purely poetically that’d have been much better as “Jim Carrey, Mariah Carey or former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey”

  25. on 02 Dec 2009 at 1:47 pm   Mr Cat

    As an aside – just been reading silent Koala’s blog based on praise here (I thought it was sarcasm at first) – really very very good stuff.

  26. on 02 Dec 2009 at 2:16 pm   Kelvin

    My intellectual abilities have not improved since the age of twelve. Therfore children must be as intelligent as me. I was not fooled. Ergo QED

    Vis-a-vis! Concordiantly!

  27. on 02 Dec 2009 at 2:50 pm   Ceannair

    Silent Koala, I think I might be in love with your blog. Does it have a favourite restaurant so I can take it out to dinner, get too drunk and say something embarrassing to it?

    I’ll fight you for it!

    Dear Neil Craig

    Read the Koala’s fine work and realise you’ve been pissed all over.

    And not the way Marjorie does on special occasions.

  28. on 02 Dec 2009 at 3:17 pm   Clovis Sangrail

    Koala – you have a fkn fan club now!

  29. on 02 Dec 2009 at 3:26 pm   Rotwatcher

    @Koala – me too.

  30. on 02 Dec 2009 at 3:38 pm   Silent Koala

    Shhh, yiz’ll make me blush.

    Also I am sort of revolted by the thought of pissing all over Neil Craig. And sort of aroused. But mostly revolted.

    Anyway. Here’s a picture of Kevin at the Christmas Lights thingy, which I have liberally stolen from the Daily Quail -

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4yjFXWcsUp0/SLrRO1p4ifI/AAAAAAAAACQ/XVtq7RuSX4Y/s200/down+with+this+sort+of+thing.jpg

  31. on 02 Dec 2009 at 3:43 pm   Horses Fuck Horses

    I imagine Kevin to be the sort of person who sits heckling the school nativity, sporadically shouting out “shit” and “rubbish” with a disgusted scowl on his face.

  32. on 02 Dec 2009 at 4:22 pm   Clovis Sangrail

    @HfH – then Kevin was at the last nativity I went to (last year) where they (children between 5 and 9) dared mention ‘…and other celebrations in this holoday time’ or something – and this after 30 excruciating minutes of Christian bad-acting – and some fat old fuck at the back started shouting “it’s Christmas! CHRISTMAS! NOT BLOODY HANNUKAH!” It would have been funny but for the frank look of terror in the eyes of the tiny shepherds and kings.

  33. on 02 Dec 2009 at 6:02 pm   Horses Fuck Horses

    @Clovis- Good to know that there are people out there willing to put those arrogant pc brigade first schoolers in their place. He wasnt dressed as King Herod with swastikas engraved with a compass on his forehead as well was he?

  34. on 02 Dec 2009 at 7:47 pm   john Adair's Gerbil

    Oh, Koala, such fun…

  35. on 02 Dec 2009 at 8:15 pm   Cropped trousers

    Oh, Silent Koala. Silent Koala, Silent Koala, Silent Koala. I’ve just read all your blogs and am wiping away the tears of joy. I’ve tweeted it too and I think you have some new followers. No thanks are necessary. No, really. No, please, I couldn’t possibly, really, no.

  36. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:07 pm   Danivon

    Oh dear. SK’s blog is becoming very popular, and people are tweeting it.

    How long before his insane boss finds out?

  37. on 02 Dec 2009 at 9:09 pm   Ben C Rugrat

    All this fanboyism is unseemly on SYB..

    It is a very amusing blog though.

  38. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:05 pm   Jesus Chris

    I LIKED IT WAY BEFORE YOU GUYS DECIDED IT WAS COOL.

  39. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:19 pm   john Adair's Gerbil

    @Jesus Chris

    I was a punk before you were a punk.

  40. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:22 pm   YeGods

    Our Parish Council arranges Xmas lights on the village green.

    This year the Village Hall decided to have lights as well, on the same night, 20 minutes later.

    Wonderfully they each arranged a Santa to attend.

    Tragically, this was spotted and one was stood down. Oh to have seen the two Santas brawling in the street!!

    Mind; two Bobs would have been better. Or two Mariah Careys. Methinks.

  41. on 02 Dec 2009 at 11:40 pm   Bit Special AKA La Spesh

    Me and TYF had to walk past the Xmas lights-turning on shebazzle in our crappy shitpit of a town tonight on the way back from the supermarket. Various signs announced that they were being turned on by ‘Santa and his loyal helper’. Brilliantly, this turned out to be… Banana Man. ‘Random’ and ‘WTF?’ as I believe the young people would say.

    Regarding Silent Koala’s blog:

    Here’s Me: fucking brilliant.

  42. on 03 Dec 2009 at 8:30 am   Felix Castor

    In fairness Mariah Carey and Alexandra Burke are both worth wanking over.

  43. on 03 Dec 2009 at 9:13 am   That Bloke in the Corner

    @Silent Koala, sorry to join in with your new found admiration society, but thank you. That is possibly one of the funniest things I have read in an age.I pity you, I truly do, no person whatever their crime should have to deal with such moronic managerial ineptitude. My sympathies, but thanks for the laugh.(I know have to clean my monitors, as they experienced a grade 1 coffee spurt whilst reading the saga of the cheaper flights and the airport).

  44. on 03 Dec 2009 at 9:23 am   Mr Cat

    So many top stories. I’ve managed to read them all now. The gravestone one is sheer genius while the Whitman/Deepthroat monologue is unbelievable.

  45. on 03 Dec 2009 at 9:39 am   Ceannair

    This is not good.

    I had the Diet Coke spurty moment yesterday and am now sniggering like a small child at the comments.

    My boss (a wonderful person btw Koala – nowt like your witless dingbat!!) now thinks I’m even more mad that she had previously suspected.

    Class, my furry marsupial friend, pure bloody class.

  46. on 03 Dec 2009 at 12:16 pm   self-employed millie

    I love my boss too.

  47. on 03 Dec 2009 at 12:20 pm   Theodore

    My boss is as fucking mad as yours Koala but very rarely in an amusing way. Control freak, OCD and a damn forriner!

  48. on 03 Dec 2009 at 1:29 pm   That Bloke in the Corner

    @Theodore, with those traits, your boss doesn’t happen to be of Austrian extraction and dreams of a thousand years of world domination?

  49. on 03 Dec 2009 at 2:18 pm   Mal

    My boss is a right cunt but I guess that’s the danger of being self-employed.

  50. on 03 Dec 2009 at 2:37 pm   Clovis Sangrail

    @Felix Castor “In fairness Mariah Carey and Alexandra Burke are both worth wanking over” – sorry, but who IS Alexandra Burke? I think I was thinking of Cathy Burke but after your comment I’m pretty sure that I am wrong. If I’m right.

  51. on 03 Dec 2009 at 2:38 pm   Theodore

    @That Bloke in the Corner

    Dutch, but not your laid-back joint-smoking type. He’s more of a frothing-mouthed, hysterical psychopath.

  52. on 03 Dec 2009 at 3:02 pm   Manly J. Panda

    I read the title for this post as ‘Bacon Of Hope’.

  53. on 03 Dec 2009 at 4:06 pm   Andy Pacino

    Poisonally, I took my son to see Shrek turn on the lights i Manchester a couple of years ago and I enjoyed it just as much if not more than he did. Come on, you lights.

  54. on 03 Dec 2009 at 4:31 pm   Mal

    @Clovis
    I’m informed that Amanda Burke is a singer who won the apparently popular televisual talent contest called Opportunity Knocks or something. I have no further information regarding the relative masturbatory utility of the Burkes, Kathy and Amanda.

  55. on 03 Dec 2009 at 4:53 pm   Ben

    Shame he couldn’t think of a third Carey.

  56. on 03 Dec 2009 at 5:09 pm   Tiger's Wood

    Shaggable minor celebrities, you say? But can she serve drinks?

  57. on 03 Dec 2009 at 8:58 pm   Felix Castor

    Alexandra Burke triumphed in last year’s X Factory. She recently topped the charts with her pop anthem “Bad Boys”. The song is shit, obviously, but Ms Burke is reasonably attractive and I suspect it is possible to wank over her image.

    Scientifically speaking I should probably test that theory. BRB.

  58. on 03 Dec 2009 at 9:03 pm   YeGods

    I once attended (pretty much by accident) the switching on of Xmas Lights by Ken Dodd. Being Ken Dodd he was late, very late, and the various minor council employees and micro-local radio personalities desperately tried to keep the punters happy. “Let’s sing along with Jonah Louie once more”

    Eventually they clearly decided f*** it, and switched the lights on themselves just as the funniest man in the Western World* arrived.

    He leapt onto the stage** and started his routines as his entire audience streamed away to the car parks to go home.

    A life-affirming experience.

    * I made this bit up. He’s not funny at all actually
    ** And this bit. After all, he is 102 years of age

  59. on 04 Dec 2009 at 12:00 am   Ben C Rugrat

    Where’s the footnote for “f***”?

    Ken Dodd was quite amusing a long, long time ago, but not as funny as Max Wall.

    If I’m right..

  60. on 04 Dec 2009 at 12:21 am   Jesus Chris

    @YeGods

    Stan Boardman was way funnier. Or still is. I don’t know if the cunt’s dead yet. It’s not hard to be funnier than Ken Dodd, but it’s hard to get repeated laughs out of “De Germans? Dey bombed our chippies!”

    Which he did.

  61. on 04 Dec 2009 at 1:00 am   Cropped trousers

    When did it become Ok to stop talking about how fab Silent Koala is. Eh, eh, eh?

  62. on 04 Dec 2009 at 1:13 am   Ren C Bugrat

    @Cropped trousers

    You wouldn’t be Silent Koala’s little sister by any chance?

  63. on 04 Dec 2009 at 1:39 am   Bit Special AKA La Spesh

    @Manly – you weren’t the only one.

  64. on 04 Dec 2009 at 9:00 am   That Bloke in the Corner

    @Jesus Chris, I’m fairly sure Boardman is alive, I am positive that he was on some lame show on Radio 4 not long ago with Simon Mayo at around 6.30 in the evening, you see how the mighty have fallen? It wasn’t funny and he did keep rattling on about Germans bombing chippies,that was about the sum of the humour for the entire god forsaken half hour.I’m sorry I haven’t a clue,it was not.

  65. on 04 Dec 2009 at 4:51 pm   Tiger's Wood

    As I recall, Stan did his other Teutonic laugh riot, making extensive use of the word Fokker, on some chat show pre-watershed. He didn’t do so much TV after that. Either that or Alexei Sayle’s fab Bobby Chariot brought comedy commissioners to their senses. If I’m right.

  66. on 04 Dec 2009 at 5:07 pm   -273

    From a Guardian fluff piece about the best adverts of the last ten years…

    That Cadbury’s Gorilla ad is shite. Clichéd crap. The sort of ad only made by ad execs to win awards. And don’t get me started on that fact that he’s not drumming in time and DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE A REAL GORILLA.

    I’m sorry, it just makes me angry.

    Back in the day, PG Tips would have a real monkey drumer tortured into shape quick smart for our advertainment!