Everyone hates corporate buzzwords and boardroom slang. Everyone. Even newborn infants, yet to glimpse the world for the first time or hear anything other than the beating of their mother’s heart are filled with a primal, instinctive dread at the very thought of modern business phrasiology. It is an unspeakable horror, more twisted and vile than anything described in the pages of H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Cthulhu’ mythos.

By far the worst however, by several orders of ghastly magnitude, is the term “singing from the same hymn sheet“. Derived from the slightly less foul but equally forbidden “reading from the same page”, this sickening utterance not only fills the meeting rooms of the English speaking world like a deafening, crackling static, but by introducing hymn sheets to the fray drags Christianity into the fucking equation. Bloody Christianity.

While contemplating this term and the various methods I would employ to dismember any soul foolish enough to use it in my presence, it occurred to me that it would offend me far less if there were a variety of multi-faith equivalents that could be used by, for example, our Islamic chums or those nice Buddhists.

Some examples:

Take note, international people of business. Take note, or I will punch your stupid heads off.

What is HORTO GRAVANDA? HORTO GRAVANDA is the language of pleasant greetings. While other languages are cluttered by words for all manner of different things, HORTO GRAVANDA is perfect for greeting people in a pleasant fashion as its only word is ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘, roughly translating as ‘hello‘. While ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘ would be regarded as two words in any other language, it is made into one by the secret punctuation unique to the language of ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘. When you say ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘ to someone, you’re not just saying ‘hello’ (or ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘) to them, but you’re saying ‘hello’ (‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘) to their mother. This is the beauty of ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘.

So go on, say ‘HORTO GRAVANDA‘ today!

Cobra Beer have a lot to answer for. Whichever vile marketing goons they hired for their current advertising campaign have fashioned a thing of such utter repugnance that spermatozoa actively sterilise themselves in order that future generations aren’t born to witness it.

In each of these vomit-inducing animated vignettes currently airing predominantly on Dave (the BBC’s unofficially sanctioned repeats channel) three blokes exchange what is supposed to be the channel’s trademark witty banter. Unfortunately the level of wit possessed by Cobra’s marketing chimps is significantly less than Wildean, and after scrawling some inane drivel on a napkin in their own shit they bounded off for another tea party prior to prolonged session of horrifying medical experiments.

Worse still, the pedestrian musings of these woeful simian shitklaxons is almost invariably sandwiched between funny, intelligent programmes like QI or Have I Got News For You. The contrast between the whimsical observations, disarming charm and knee-quiveringly smooth voice of Stephen Fry and the grating, screeching idiocy of these adverts is so jarring that I’d be amazed if it hasn’t contributed to at least one death. I expect the long term effects of exposure to this must be comparable in terms of permanent physical injury to gargling cocktail sticks or regularly bathing in Sabatier knives, and so the deaths are sure to come sooner or later.

Do you hear me, Cobra Beer executive types? Deaths! You have the blood of innocents on your hands! You have lured a nation into a bottomless pit of mental deterioration! You pigs! You swine! You diabolical fuckers!

Poor Christian Bale. It’s tough being an actor, you know. It’s tough being rich and pampered and adored and not having to cry yourself to sleep every night or make the cuts in your arms to stop the pain, but then some utter cunt comes along and walks behind you.

Want to hear what Christian Bale has to say when someone on the set of Terminator Salvation walks behind him? Click here for the funny (mp3, 3.5MB, NSFW)

(Thanks to Scones for the link)

Surely I can’t be the only one who, when bombarded by a seeming endless string of adverts for gocompare.com, finds themselves screaming the words “go fuck yourself dot com” back at the television through gritted teeth, fists clenched and eyes bulging in a fit of murderous rage?

(Those speculatively checking the existence of gofuckyourself.com may wish to avoid doing so at work, as it appears to be an pornography)

I write down all of these ideas.

Recently my list of ideas has got a little overlong, and realising that I’m never going to do anything with any of them I thought I’d do a little spring cleaning, get them out in the open, and ultimately out of my notebook.

Here goes.

Phlegmange
It’s a pudding made of phlegm. There’s not really any more to it than that. I’m not sure exactly how the phlegm would be set into the shape of a pudding, nor where such large quantities of phlegm could be sourced, but I like the sound of it enough to write it down for posterity. I briefly contemplated rendering a phlegmange in Photoshop before realising that such a thing was not only beyond my capabilities as a graphic manipulator but almost certainly more than I could stomach on any given day.

Quicksand warzone
Based on the flimsy premise of two programmes adjacent to each other in my Virgin Media television guide one evening (‘Quicksand’ and ‘Warzone’, whatever those televisual treats might have been), I concatenated them in my mind to ‘Quicksand Warzone’ and thought it would make a hilarious idea for a TV show. Imagine two teams of contestants from the general public forced to fight each other to the death using only the equipment available to common infantry during the First World War. Now imagine that bloody bayonet-based battle pitched in a no-man’s-land made entirely of perilous quicksand. That’s what I imagined. I wrote it down too. In a fit of opportunist pique I suggested it to Robert Llewelyn (formerly of Scrapheap Challenge, among other things) but he sensibly ignored me.

Ambiguous condemnation-based website
Enraged at the utter cuntishness of the brief Israeli/Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip I felt obliged to register my outright condemnation of Israel’s actions (while desperately attempting not to appear an anti-semite). For a brief moment (albeit a moment long enough to permit the idea to be written down) I thought that I could set up a website where the general public could express their outright condemnation of anything they chose, before realising that this had already been done by the BBC’s utterly mental Have Your Say.

whocomparesthecomparisons.com
Overwhelmed by the sheer number of comparison websites currently advertising in every corner of the media from television adverts to children with gocompare.com scratched into their foreheads, I came up with the staggeringly original idea of a comparison site comparison site. This would of course be done in a very silly fashion, perhaps cashing in on the forthcoming Watchmen film through woeful overuse of “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?“. Unfortunately this is probably far funnier in my mind than it would ever be if realised, and I lack any meaningful ability when it comes to shoving databases up the internet. Fuck that for a laugh.

Whorecasting
Despite the name I’m sure this had nothing to do with prostitutes or their dubious practices when I thought up the idea, but now I can’t think of it meaning anything other than weather forecasts by whores (already expertly realised by Ulrika Jonsson) or some sort of scientific analysis of which street corners hookers were likely to occupy at any given time. Oh dear.

Meat smoothies
Another Photoshopportunity completely beyond my meagre abilities, this would be a smoothie made out of mince. Considering my vegetarian tendencies I appear to be developing a rather unhealthy obsession with meat in all its forms, and in particular new as-yet-undiscovered forms. Like a bottle of pureed meat. Mmm.

Sradno Vada
At some point in recent memory I decided that it would be a jolly good idea to change my name to Sradno Vada. I might have gone with this had I not already decided to change it to Baxter 1935. You heard it here first.

So there you go. I didn’t say they were any good, but now that I’ve purged them from my mind and notebook I’m quite confident that the nightmares will stop.

For now, at least…

Two Chinese men have been given the death penalty for their role in the contamination of milk which led to the deaths of six babies and which made 300,000 others ill.

I do hope they’re going to be milked to death.

By Sean Penn.

You don’t rent the or buy the Zohan either. You don’t ever watch the Zohan under any circumstances. You do not allow others to watch the Zohan. You do not speak of the Zohan.

Now I like racism as much as the next man*, but someone needs to tell Adam Sandler that there’s only so much comedy material to be found in parodying stereotypes of Jews and Arabs, and certainly not enough to fill one hour and fifty six minutes.

ONE HOUR AND FIFTY SIX MINUTES OF MY FUCKING LIFE THAT I’LL NEVER GET BACK.

Wouldn’t it be funny if I was Arab, and declared a fatwa on Adam Sandler? Because he’s probably, like, a Jew and stuff? And Arabs are just mental and declare fatwas all the time! Hah! That’s comedy fucking gold, right there.

* A funny joke. Take note, Sandler.

While biting into my brie, basil and tomato poncewich today I noticed that luncheon whores Pret A Manger are now giving away their secret magic recipes on the back of their conscientiously recycled paper bags. The economy has spazzed out so badly that now even the most shamelessly overpriced high street eateries are advising us to make our own fucking lunch.

What next? Will Woolworths plaster the windows of their rapidly emptying retail outlets with placards recommending that each member of the general public open their own shitty knock-down tat store in their garage? Could Clarks simply give up selling shoes overnight and start handing out leaflets detailing how to entice magical shoemaking elves into our homes? Will B&Q shut up shop and recommend that next time you need a hammer you just pop round to Peter Sutcliffe’s house?

These truly are the end days.