The Shitopedia » Culture

Christmas songs

wjms — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:48:56 +0000

As I was at home today I happened to speak with a relative in Australia. OK, it was early evening his time and early morning my time, but he happened to mention that – apart from having had a couple of G&Ts – he was listening to some cheesy Christmas tracks. This, spookily, got me [...]

April Fools

Jumbo — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:28:23 +0000

How very seasonal! How very wonderful! The day when we all get to lie to each other and call it a joke. April fools gags can be funny – wearing a sling to work, saying you won £5,000 on a scratchcard, or something equally harmless and witty, but when newspapers and tv stations feel the [...]

Otis the Aardvark

Bindi — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:46:57 +0000

Surely the most annoying character that the BBC has ever come up with. Not cute. Not funny. Just really, really annoying. You’d have thought that the licence fee would at least cover some decent script writers.

Derren Brown and the Big Con – sorry System

AngryOldWoman — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:01:42 +0000

Last night we watched Derren Brown, sois-disant Mentalist (mental might be the word) or illusionist, who had trailed his Channel 4 show, The System, as a foolproof way of beating the bookmakers. He purported to show a single mother, whom he had e-mailed anonymously with five horse racing winners in a row, then was to [...]

Metrosexual Males

Jumbo — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 13:19:09 +0000

Every now and then, a fashion or style comes along that leaves sensible people the world over shaking their heads in disbelief. One of the worst, and most frustratingly here-to-stay, is the Metrosexual Male. There are several examples of metrosexual styling, not least in the mish-mash world of sporting celebrity, just think of the following: [...]

Fuel Boycotts

Jumbo — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:37:16 +0000

Fuel boycotts are utterly useless. Here’s the premise: fuel (petrol, gasoline) is too expensive, what can we do? Boycott fuel for a day (or a week, or, as the French enjoy so much, block all the fuel trucks in with tractors/wagons)! Then they’ll surely reduce the price. Cash back for all! Except the issue just [...]

Networking

don — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:07:59 +0000

“Networking” involves standing in a room with (ostensibly) like-minded individuals who share a common desire to shaft one another given the first opportunity but must first bandwaggon in order to get into the position of being a “shafter” as opposed to a “shaftee”. Networking is the activity through which this may be achieved. It normally [...]

Pluto is Lost

AngryOldWoman — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:48:15 +0000

What has happened to Pluto? And I don’t mean the lovable dog belonging to Mickey Mouse. How many people does it take to demolish a planet? Only 424. Turned to a dwarf Pluto has been downgraded to the status of a dwarf planet and no longer counts as our ninth planet of the solar system. [...]

Poor Grammar

Bindi — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:19:16 +0000

Owing to a number of comments and posts on the subject, the time has come for poor grammar to be given a special mention here on The Shitopedia. I do not pretend to be a literary giant or a guardian of my mother tongue. I, too, make mistakes and typos. However, poor grammar in its [...]

Pokemon, manga, anime and Akira

Bindi — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:54:16 +0000

The artistry and pure ingenuity of these animations is admirable -but why are they so strange? Nothing has ever quite disturbed me as watching these cartoons. Maybe it was just poor translation or maybe they really were as bizarre as the script suggested. Since Pokemon became so popular, people started to watch other Japanese manga [...]

Useless Studies

Jumbo — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:13:43 +0000

Every day, it seems, we are given the results of a completely useless ‘study’ in news reports. These usually share one or all of the following elements of uselessness: Absolute mind-crushingly obviousness – e.g. “Scientists have discovered that people enjoy doing nice things…” Completely pointless research – e.g. “Researchers at the New York University have [...]

The Crazy Frog

Bindi — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:13:59 +0000

Never has there been a more infuriating little frog. On the scale of wierdness, the Toad out of The Wind and the Willows was pretty strange -but he was a gentleman of sorts and certainly didn’t have his male genitalia hanging out. The incomprehensible “Daa Daa Di Daa Daa” etc also adds to the perverse [...]

Harry Potter

Jumbo — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:38:07 +0000

Harry Potter gets right on my nerves. I have no problem with something which captures the imagination, and also feel that anything that gets children to read more books is almost always a Good Thing. However, when things become faddy, overmarketed, over-hyped and generally overdone, they become shit. Harry Potter is one of those things. [...]

Air travel safety talks – Crash landing at sea.

rudedog — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:09:44 +0000

The glamour and panache of working for an airline has slowly been eroded away over the years to become the stale smell of compressed air and lost dreams that the job now stands for today. Few people can reach the level of thinly masked contempt that the average face-painted, dead-eyed air hostess seems to convey [...]

Bill squabbling

rudedog — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:17:14 +0000

Picture the scene - 1. You’ve had a meal out in a restaurant with a large number of various groups of friends. 2. Everyone is slightly the worse for wear. 3. Someone asks for the bill. 4. The clucking and crowing begins followed by some rising screeching and ultimate claw scratching. After a brief round [...]

The Not O’Clock News

AngryOldWoman — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:37:25 +0000

After my complaints of yesterday (see Telly Vision), this morning’s offerings from the great and mighty BBC Breakfast, a “news” programme were the following: 1. Picture of “reporter” still living it up in Playa de Luz, Portugal, outside police station yet again telling us there was nothing to tell us. 2. Interview with McCanns’ new [...]

Busy People

rudedog — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:22:55 +0000

What is more annoying than people braying on about how busy they are? Not much. Living in a city can be a demanding experience. There is an underlying feeling of running out of time that’s driving everyone to scurry around cramming in as much ‘Warmest regards’ crackberry sign-offs between crayfish and rocket sandwiches as is [...]

Telly Visions

AngryOldWoman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:33:54 +0000

Why on earth does every news broadcast use meaningless outside broadcast shots to fill up space? For example, any crime story on the BBC has to have a reporter – or better call them commentator, for they don’t report – outside Scotland Yard (New Scotland Yard for overseas readers). There, the triangular metal signpost turns [...]

Emo

Jumbo — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 06:55:43 +0000

Being Emo is very 2005. Emos are shit because of the contradictions that they represent: “I don’t want to conform, therefore I’ll become part of a group”… and hang around outside a train station, or in a park, looking sad. Grow up. Just because you are a teenager, and you have a thousand hormones racing [...]