Natural selection at its finest

As this marvellous story shows, the stupidity of some members of the human race truly knows no bounds. Perhaps it was a failed attempt to win a Darwin Award. Or maybe they were just retards. Who knows?

However, in the interests of full disclosure I have to concede that I once did something just as imbecilic. In my defence, I was only about twelve at the time and my reasoning was impeccable, if fundamentally flawed.

I was messing about with a chemistry set in the garage one afternoon. The little meths burner which came with the set had either been mislaid or the wick had burned away to nothing, so I was burning meths on a little metal dish supplied to mix crystals and suchlike on. It was shortly about to go out when the meths burned out and I couldn't be arsed to go in the house to get some more. So I thought, I'll pour some paraffin out of this can here on the side of the dish - like it was powder or something - and that'll save me getting up. You may possibly have spotted the flaw in my reasoning: not taking into account the small matter of the existing flame's likely interest in this additional fuel. To add interest to this spectacle, the can in question contained not paraffin, but petrol, and was also almost empty.

The resultant confluence of naked flame and a five-litre can of highly combustible fumes came as a interesting surprise to me. There a massive, if somewhat predictable, FWUMP! as the garage doors were blown open and a pool of burning petrol materialised on the floor. My mate from up the street got hit with a bit of said flaming liquid on his leg and ran off screaming, the big girl, thus ensuring an inquest later. It was all a roaring success.

Sadly, even without my mate legging it home, there was no possibility of my not getting busted for this. My mother was in the back room ironing at the time. She dropped the iron when there was an unexpected loud bang as the petrol ignited and the garage doors flew open. She was, for some reason, less than impressed with the results of this experiment. Shortly I found myself confined to my bedroom, attempting to fend off a flurry of furious slaps upside the head. I don't know. Anyone would think there was something wrong with a bit of scientific experimentation.

I am old

I realised a couple of weeks ago when listening to the excellent new Bruce Springsteen album Devils & Dust that I have been a Bruce fan for twenty years. What the hell? How could this have happened while I wasn't watching? I'm not old enough to have been a fan of anyone for twenty years, especially not starting at the age of eighteen. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not! Oh fuck. Yes, I am.

Another reason I'm glad to live in the free world...

...and not in the Orwellian nightmare into which George W. Bush and his cronies are rapidly converting the proud nation formerly known as the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free.

If you are American and this does not scare the living shit out of you, then I recommend that you try exchanging whatever medication you're on for black, unsugared coffee, start listening to Henry Rollins and Steve Earle and get mad real quick. Because if you don't adopt Henry's mantra and shout "Not on my watch!", you can't complain when the grim reality of the systematic dismantling of the freedoms your nation has been proud of for two hundred years hits you full in the face.

Over here in the United Kingdom, our government is trying to impose something similar but because they cannot railroad such legislation through Parliament without debate the way this is happening in America, we get the opportunity to tell Grinning Tony to bite our collective black, white and brown arses.