DO YOU HAVE AN ‘UNHEALTHY’ RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR SMARTPHONE?

Nomophobia (Photo credit: Foomandoonian)

What is ‘your’ greatest fear? Is it drowning at sea…crashing in an aeroplane…being buried alive in a collapsed building…dying on the operating table…being blown up in a terrorist outrage…never getting married…catching the AIDS virus…never having children…losing a limb, or two…dying from cancer…being the victim of rape or identity theft…losing your sight, or perhaps being unable to experience an orgasm? Would you be surprised to learn that OUR biggest fear is NOMOPHOBIA…the fear of being separated from out CELL PHONES! Preposterous, but true, according to a recent survey. It gets worse! There is even a ‘MOBILE PHONE ANXIETY ADVICE CENTRE’...nomophobia.com!

iPhone 6! Thousands of desperate shoppers recently queued outside the Apple store in Covent Garden, central London, hoping to get their hands on the new iPhone 6. By the anxious looks on their faces, you would have been forgiven for thinking they were queuing for the Ebola antidote! Meanwhile, the queue outside the Manhattan Apple store stretched 12 city blocks! The first iPhone sold was to one Dave Rahami, who despite the fact he ‘s reserved one, flew to Sydney, Australia to get his texting fingers on a smartphone!

A ‘not so’ magnificent obsession! Would you ever admit to being obsessed with your cell phone? Is it is never more than inches away from your fingertips? Has the gizmo become an extension of your personality?  Does your relationship with a smartphone rivals any relationship with a friend, relative, boyfriend, girlfriend? If you have answered ‘yes’ to the four questions posed, then may I humbly suggest you’re in t.r.o.u.b.l.e? Weaning yourself off its use must be as difficult as a cokehead passing up the opportunity to snort! Have you thought of trying the NoPhone, which is a completely tech-free lump of plastic that isn’t even as useful as a dildo! Perhaps if the inventor incorporated liquorice in its manufacture, we could at least lick the surrogate smartphone when we’re feeling anxious or vulnerable?

WiFi Heaven! Apparently even GOD has gone digital! Apps and social media are causing a ‘digital shift’ and changing the way that people worship, new research has revealed. Christian scripture app Bible, from YouVersion, recently surpassed 100 million downloads in the App Store, placing it on equal grounds with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in number of users. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that in say 500 years, children will be taught that the ten commandments came down from Mount Sinai in digital form on an iPad!

Paper is so last century! As more religions embrace digitization, there are now apps available including iQuran, iTorah and Book of Mormon. There is also a Buddhist Meditation Trainer, and JewGlass to translate Hebrew and find synagogues. Earlier in the year the Vatican unveiled MISSIO, the just-for-Catholics app that updates users with homilies, videos and other Catholic related news. Why even Pope Francis has Twitter account, which has several hundred thousand followers.

Once upon a time, the telephone was merely used to make and receive phone calls. Wow, how times have changed! See you, wouldn’t want to be you!!

PHONE ME…WE’LL DO SEX!

English: Arianna Huffington attending the premiere of The Union at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the results of research commissioned by the Huffington Post and online magazine Real Simple, nearly half of all women would rather go a month with no sex than be without their phones for the same amount of time. But surely, with the facilities now available on smartphones, women needn’t go without either? According to an ex-girlfriend of mine, “If a woman can’t bring herself to orgasm using her vibraphone, then her vagina should be on life support!” Yes, that’s right…I was indeed replaced by technology, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time. We should all know our limitations, and I certainly know mine. Denise complained I made love like an android, so she went straight out and bought a smartphone with an Android operating system. How fair was that?

I GUESS I’M A MALE CHAUVINIST PIGGY!

The key to any successful long-term relationship is undoubtedly compromise. Unfortunately I am so stuck in my ways, I find it impossible to do it! Thus finding myself unable to compromise, I leave it to my better half to compromise for both of us. To find a woman so malleable is not easy. I found my Sandra tending sheep on a hilltop in the Outer Hebrides. ‘Come,’ I said. ‘Come with me to London where you can cook and clean for me and cut my toenails. In return I will appreciate you!’

All joking aside, of course I have ‘inner beauty’, but it’s way down deep!

 

LADIES, PUT ON SOME MORE SLAP!

Slap-Happy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First it was diluted cobra venom in face creams, now it’s crushed black diamonds that is supposed to boost the supply of collagen! £90 for a 30ml bottle seems uncommonly fair! It seems that cosmetic companies will go to any lengths to enslave women to their products. Yes you too can be the best looking corpse in the graveyard! Isn’t there something to be said for growing old disgracefully? I am about to bring out my own face cream. ‘INSTANT ATTRACTION L7’ is a combination of bat shit, cow dung and Devonshire clotted cream, and at £6:00 a GALLON, you can’t go very wrong! I intend offering a money-back guarantee of 27 seconds. If it doesn’t work, you can always put it around your rose bushes.

TELEVISION ADVERTISING DRIVES ME ‘NUTS’!

Monkey and Al (portrayed by Johnny Vegas), as shown on one of ITV Digital’s adverts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Folks, I’m sick and tired of having my favourite TV programmes interrupted every 6 to 9 minutes by advertising slots that can last for up to 5 minutes! I’m beginning to think the programmes are slotted around the adverts! Really, I’m phobic about it! To solve this really annoying problem I recently bought a HUMAX digital recorder. This way I can program the machine to record everything I like, and I watch it later. Below are just some of the adverts that really get on my tits!

“Have you got hard dry skin on your feet? Well now there is an answer…F**KING AMPUTATION! NOMOREFEET.COM are opening up in a town near you!”

“Do you have unsightly facial hair? Well now there is an answer…F**KING DECAPITATION! HEADSYOULOSE.COM (affiliates of nomorefeet.com). This mega solution also helps with WEIGHT LOSS!”

“Do you need car insurance from a company that GUARANTEES NEVER to pay your claim? Then come to F**KTHEPUBLIC.COM”

“Take the STRESS out of moving homes…come to FRACKINGCOUNTYPROPERTIES.COM. We guarantee to find you what you’re not looking for! Complimentary hard hats are provided for every new customer!”

“Have you tried new ‘SPECIAL Q’ high fibre breakfast cereal? Low in fat, salt and calories…SPECIAL Q guarantees to give you wind all day long!”

“Are you sick and tired of going through reams and reams of expensive TOILET PAPER, particularly on CURRY NIGHT? Then try new STUCKO medicated toilet tissue. STUCKO won’t tear, nor for that matter, flush. STUCKO toilet tissue, THE STANDARD FOR YOUR BEHIND!”

Yes, of course my ads are quite ridiculous, but no more so than the ones we are forced to watch. The amount of money a company is willing to go through in order to sell its product is mind-boggling. Plus there’s the cost of celebrity endorsement! “Because you’re worth it!” Oh do F**K OFF! Half the so-called celebs can barely read & write! Furthermore, only an idiot would buy a product where the salesperson is a GLOVE PUPPET! Wait a minute…actually I think I may have. Oh dear!

I SHIT YOU NOT!

Rainbow of chemicals (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TERRORISTS…before you flush your toilet, think once, and then once again! Swedish scientists working at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), have developed sensors that can be fitted inside waste tunnels and used to detect bomb making chemicals in raw sewage. If suspect chemicals are detected, the sensor alerts the authorities who can carry out infrared laser ‘sweeps’ above ground using mobile units to locate the precise location of the bomb-making factory. The system is called EMPHASIS, which stands for Explosive Material Production  Hidden Agile Search and Intelligence System.

So, if a bomb-maker flushes chemicals down the  toilet, or the chemicals from bomb making are ingested into a person’s blood  stream and ultimately enter their urine or poo, these chemicals will pass through the sensors leading to your piss and poo giving away your precise location. Huh, brings new meaning to the word…floater, doesn’t it! I suspect terrorist bomb makers of the future will be wearing catheter bags and nappies!

 

 

 

 

SOCIAL MEDIA UNDER THE MICROSCOPE!

Twitter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“I’ve made so many new friends on Facebook and Twitter!” Isn’t that what people say? Surely a friend is someone we make physical contact with? Those we communicate with but never meet…well, aren’t they merely cyberspace acquaintances? On the other hand, for those of us who find it difficult to get out and meet people, social media is a lifeline, is it not? Particularly for reclusive individuals. Again, communicating initially with strangers via the Internet precludes us from prejudging people based on looks. I think the important thing to remember is, there is a whole world out there, and it is at our fingertips. Just be careful what you reveal about yourself until you are as certain as you can be that the acquaintance is now a friend. Let common sense rule, and if you haven’t got any, buy it off Amazon!

CHERYL COLE’S ROSE TATTOO!

English: Cheryl Cole wearing a Lurex dress whilst performing with Girls Aloud at Battle Abbey, Hastings. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Beautiful Cheryl Cole, 30, ex-footballer’s wife, pop singer, TV talent shoe judge, businesswoman, ambassador for L’Oreal hair care products…has revealed a splendid multiple rose tattoo encompassing both buttocks and lower back that is said to have cost the price of a small car. Since roses thrive when introduced to manure, the proximity of the tattoo in relation to the young lady’s back passage can only enhance the ink work! A word of caution to the media icon! As we age, we spread. When ‘la Cole’ reaches middle age, it is likely her tattoo will resemble a rose-bush! Let us hope and pray the ink-work doesn’t turn out to be a thorn in her side! Anyway, good luck to her in all her endeavours, particularly the horticultural ones, after all, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet!’

Hold the phone Joan! Now that Cheryl Cole has remarried, wishing to be known as Cheryl Fernandez-Versini, the media ‘icon’ is having a ‘Mrs C’ tattoo removed from the back of her neck. This is to replaced by ‘gardening instructions’ above the rose tattoo: ‘Water twice a day!’

CHOCOHOLICS UNITE!

A chocolate bar and melted chocolate. Chocolate is made from the cocoa bean, which is a natural source of theobromine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Unlike some of you, I don’t pay chocolate just LIP service. Oh no, my homage goes far deeper. To me chocolate is a religion, and as such I will eat it morning, noon and night, before, during and after a meal. Why I even have a shrine to the cocoa bean in the corner of my spare bedroom. Huh, and you say you’re a chocoholic! Why I’ve even been known to incorporate it IN the meal itself. Why I was pouring chocolate over my venison long before it came back into fashion to do so, but unlike you amateur gastronomes, I didn’t incorporate chocolate in the jus (gravy)…chocolate WAS the bloody jus…melted in a bowl and poured straight over the meat. Try melted chocolate and cherries over duck. Ooh I say vicar!

I once split up with a girlfriend when I discovered that she didn’t like chocolate. ‘You can’t be serious,’ I hear you say, oh but I am! I couldn’t possibly date someone who was more savoury than sweet! Relationships are all about balance, don’t you think? I split up with another girlfriend because she ate too MUCH of MY chocolate. Why only last week I bought two boxes of Lindt ‘Lindor Truffles’, one milk chocolate and one plain. Now I’m not completely insane…obviously devouring chocolate doesn’t offer quite the same exalted experience as say making love to a beautiful woman, but I tell you what, it’s better than masturbation! And do you know what the best news is…my cholesterol level is below normal and I don’t suffer from diabetes. Life is sweet, chocolate sweet! Now come on, envy doesn’t become you!

GEORGE BUSH HAD A HEART ATTACK!

From left to right: Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush and Silvio Berlusconi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No, not that George Bush, but his namesake, my friend ‘Jewish’ George Bush, from Hertfordshire, England…and I don’t mean an art attack where you go around with a pen and paper frantically scribbling down everything you can  see…but an honest to goodness heart attack, or if you wish me to be more precise…a coroner…CORONARY, or was it a cardiac infartion…INFARCTION. Anyway, George is doing okay. More than okay in fact. When he found out he had a heart valve from a pig with a pedigree sewn into his pump, George said, “Finally, after 41 years I can dump the kosher diet. It was killing me!” Anyway, his proctologist CARDIOLOGIST put him on a strict diet…no fat, lots of vegetables, lots of regular moderate exercise, such as walking, no smoking, no excess alcohol, oh, and lots of regular horizontal jogging if he’s up to it. When George told his wife Susan, she said, “But that’s no good! We haven’t had sex for well over two years. George, you know I went off of it!” George replied, “But this time it’ll be different…it’s on prescription, which means I won’t enjoy it in the least.” And his wife replied, “Well that’ll make two of us, and by the way George, what did your surgeon think caused the heart attack?” George replied, “The extra-marital affairs! Susan, from now on I’m strictly a one woman man!”  Susan replied, “Oh what a pity!”

ROMAN CATHOLICS HAVE IT EASY!

Pope Francis met with media (Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales))

Newly installed Pope Francis doesn’t waste time! ‘Plenary indulgencies’, which absolves followers of a LIFETIME of sin, can now be bestowed via TWITTER! The only thing is, users will have to participate in online prayer services. Well, that’s a small price to pay for an absolved conscience! Neither the Pope or his followers ever need get out of bed! I envisage many of the confessional booths being torn down for book shelves. It’s times like these I regret being an atheist!

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has been sneaking out of the Vatican at night to give money to the poor on the streets of Rome. If true, kudos! A first in modern times!

POPE FRANCIS…’TOP OF THE POPS’ ON FACEBOOK!

St. Peter’s Basilica at Early Morning (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thanks in part to the Vatican’s public relations guru Greg Burke, Pope Francis aka Jorge Mario Bergogliohas taken the world by storm since his ascendancy to the papacy. Social media sites are abuzz with his name, for Pope Francis tops the list of what Facebook’s 1.2 billion users are talking about worldwide. Why he even beat Nelson Mandela and Miley Cyrus! Furthermore, a survey by Twiplomacy named Pope Francis the most influential world leader on Twitter. The Pontiff’s, @Pontifex account gets an average of 8,200 retweets for every English tweet. Without doubt, Pope Francis is the most-talked about person of the year online. “To proclaim Christ in the digital era is a special field for the work of the young,” said the Pope. The Pontiff may well be redefining religion by reaching Christians who may have been hitherto unreachable? Not wishing to sound too much of a cynic, its easy to be an armchair Christian paying lip-service to Catholicism. I do wonder how many of the Pope’s online followers live…or will live the life he advocates? Popularity means nothing if it doesn’t lead to something significant! I further wonder what the Christ would have made of the social media phenomena? He might say, “Get out there and do as I did…make a personal sacrifice for the benefit of another!”

THINK BEFORE YOU TWEET!

Twitter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘Think before you speak!’ Remember being told that by a parent or teacher? Just because a thought occurs to you, it doesn’t mean it will be looked upon favourably when you announce it! You might make yourself look a fool, or you may unintentionally offend someone! With easy access to Twitter some people announce their thoughts via their fingertips before they’ve given themselves a chance to consider the consequences! Re-tweeting the protected names of sexual violence victims, or revealing the details of an ongoing trial, thereby causing bias, or libelling someone in the public eye, or making unfunny, crass comments about a helicopter crash landing on a Glasgow pub, an accident in which people died. Think before you tweet! 

NIGELLA LAWSON BREAKS WIND…err, ‘TWITTER’ SILENCE!

Nigella Lawson at a Borders book-signing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TV chefetta Nigella Lawson has broken her silence on Twitter amidst a series of allegations being made against her in court. She spoke up on the day she was described as an habitual criminal” by Anthony Metzer QC, during pre-trial proceedings. It comes a day after Isleworth Crown Court in west London heard former husband Charles Saatchi alleged Lawson was “so off your head on drugs.”

Lawson tweeted a recipe for “Holiday Hotcake” as the “perfect recipe to show thanks for all your support & to those who hashtag #teamNigella. Italian sisters Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo are due to go on trial accused of using a company credit card to buy themselves designer handbags and flights while working as personal assistants to Lawson and Saatchi. Under cross examination the sisters can expect to be severely grilloed! Saatchi alleges that ex-wife Lawson was so high on drugs that she was unaware of what she had or had not permitted the sisters to spend money on. Meanwhile Nigella Lawson is steeling herself, for she is expected to give evidence during the trial. Oh how f**king embarrassing…and humiliating it’s going to be! Cocaine is God’s way of telling you, you’re making too much money!

I SAY, I SAY, I SAY…DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT…

Image via CrunchBase

Recently anointed Pope Francis has 7 million followers on TWITTER (the @pondifex account). Each of his tweets attracts an average of 60,000 followers. Can you imagine how many new followers the Pope would attract if he starred in a break-dancing video? Pope a-popping!