Tag Archive: Justin Timberlake


The Sunday Roast – The Christmas Card Operation.

Filed under: Sunday Roast — 1 Comment
December 15, 2013

Dec 15 - Christmas Card

Ahh … now I know Christmas is coming.

Christmas in my house would not be complete without the Stroods.

I imagine puzzled faces on those who have only read my Roasts over the last year. I shall explain. Mr and Mrs E Strood live a few doors down and over the road from me. Their house is one number different to mine.

The view from my window with the Stroods house on the corner and about the hundredth scrap van seen this morning

Since I arrived in 1997, I have had a Christmas card for the Stroods, wrongly delivered to my house from their friends, Betty and Bert. Now, how do I know it’s Betty and Bert? Ahem! I mistakenly thought it was for me and opened it that first year. Stupid, I should have known. I’m a miserable Bah Humbug bastard. Nobody sends me Christmas cards.

Anyway, the situation in my street is you don’t converse with your neighbours until the day they depart to a new house and then only if you’ve spent years nodding good morning at them. Therefore, every year I don the balaclava and mount a clandestine operation in the middle of the night to deliver the card to the correct address.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and it’s the same thing asked every year. Why the hell don’t I tell the Stroods and hand it personally? That’s just it. I don’t. Year after year, I carry out my mission. One occasion I got in trouble and set off two security lights, knocked over a wheelie bin and got chased by the dog. Then there was the year it snowed and I left tracks everywhere and had to go back with a brush to sweep them away.

As I say, I speak of this Christmas card every year as those of you who’ve followed me from Myspace will remember when the Sunday Roast appeared there. For people who can’t remember my roasts on Myspace – tough, you can’t see them any more as Justin Timberlake and his consortium erased all the blogs when they took over.

Back to the Stroods … and Betty and Bert. I always wait with anticipation for this card. You see, I get worried now. What if the Stroods move house and don’t inform Betty and Bert? Come on, in 16 years, they haven’t told them they’ve been sending a card to the wrong address, so it stands a chance. Then again, what if … what if … Betty and Bert … have died?

Nooooooo!

This was the major worry last year as (horror and concern) I didn’t get the card delivered to my house.

I was traumatised. Okay, there could have been the logical explanation that Betty and Bert had finally updated their address books, but come on, we all know that’s not likely.

However, I have the greatest pleasure to announce, yesterday. Saturday December 14, the card to Mr and Mrs E Stood – finally arrived … at my house. Its got glitter in it this year and I can rest in my sleep. At least I will once it’s past midnight and my in the dead of night military operation to deliver the bloody card is well and truly completed.

And a late tribute.

I know Nelson Mandela died over a week ago and he’s being buried as I speak, but I didn’t do a roast last Sunday so couldn’t comment.

I don’t think I have ever seen a person’s passing marked so universally with everybody I know, praising them.

When I see good folk dying young while scumbag tyrants like Pinochet, Mugabe and Thatcher live to a ripe old age, it reinforces my belief that there isn’t a God. However, here is one guy who deserved the long life they received. Below is a picture I posted over a year ago when he met David Cameron while perfecting the art of turning into a chameleon.

July 22 Chameleon Mandela

Yes, it’s a joke, but one I think Nelson would have laughed at as he did seem to have a cracking sense of humour. Must have done to describe meeting the Spice Girls as being one of the greatest moments of his life.

Dec 15 - Nelson Mandela meets the Spice Girls

Stormy Weather.

There has been some terrible weather in the last week or so and much of the East Coast has been badly affected. I saw one piece where David Cameron visited the oddly named coastal town, Wells-Next-The-Sea.

I feel for anybody in a situation where homes are ruined, but feel for the local council. They are now going to have to change all their stationery to read, Wells-In-The-Sea.

Bad pun? I expect to get a flood of complaints now.

More sights you see about town …

Last time out, I posted a picture of a shop window displaying what I can only describe as decapitated heads.

Dec 1 - Head (1024x579)

Well, I saw another one this week which stirred my interest. Monsters from Doctor Who.

Dec 15 - Flower Heads (447x1024)

Don’t believe me? Look at this picture from the 1986 story, Trial of a Time Lord.

Dec 15 - Doctor Who Vervoid

Hey, December 15 and I’ve only said, Bah humbug, once.

Twice, Damn it! Oh well, think of me tonight as I deliver the Stroods card … probably waking the entire neighbourhood in the process.

Cheers.

Nick

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The Desecration of the Grave at the Hands of Myspace.

Filed under: Writing Stuff — 2 Comments
August 15, 2013

As some will know, before antonynbritt.com, I was a prolific user of Myspace. Now when I say Myspace, I don’t mean the second-rate music streaming service they have now. I’m referring to the days when Myspace gave you what was equal to a ready made website. Here, you could customise it to your desires, fill it with photographs and most important … post blogs.

myspace logo

I was a regular user from 2006 to 2010, a time when I posted over 400 blogs, gaining 100,000 page views and thousands of comments. I regularly topped the Myspace blog charts for the UK but Myspace was more than a blogging platform to me, it was a community.

You had groups, a network of friends, all which formed an integral part of the online family.

Unfortunately, these are now gone.

What happened was the incompetent mismanagement at the hands of the owners – Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. People left in millions, departing to the more friendly Facebook as Myspace committed suicide. Groups were shut down, users had their profiles forcibly changed and the entire site became a pain to use. My once, pastel blue customised blog was now a generic white with no scope for formatting, the same as everybody else. Not that it mattered. Nobody was still around to read it, anyway.

June 10 Myspace

I continued blogging on Myspace until September 2011. By then, the company was in the hands of pop star Justin Timberlake, a man intent on inflicting masses of streamed music of the banal kind he produces. He was not interested in blogs, nor cared that millions worldwide once lived within the Myspace community.

Users were unimportant … so he killed them.

After setting up this site, I still stepped back for a visit at least once a week, but it was hard seeing the neglect. Pages taking an age to navigate, and much content lost. You could tell the owners didn’t give a damn.

First to go were many of the photos on my blogs, thus rendering the text useless when referring to the pics. At some point last year, all the lovely comments I had received over the years, vanished. Then, in June 2013, Timberlake and co desecrated the grave.

A new Myspace had been launched, but most of the old users still wanted the classic Myspace. They were not interested in the music streaming site Timberlake was forcing on them. If they had wanted it, they would have gone to a half decent one. Still, on June 13, it was reported the entire classic Myspace had gone. Millions of blogs and photos – lost. Also, emails and comments, many of whom were from people now dead, were wiped.

Do they still exist? It was reported that new Myspace were asking users to vote if they wanted them back. How condescending. Complaints flooded in their thousands but the more vociferous ones resulted in simply having their new profiles removed.

What is sad is that I met so many good friends on there. Some have found me, but many will be gone forever. I can think of a number of lovely people from Myspace who have since died. While their blogs were still visible, my friends were so alive. Now, Myspace has trod on and killed them all over again.

Thank you, Timberlake and Myspace. You have pissed on the graves of millions.

Shame on you.

August 4 Timberlake

Nick

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