Advertising on the Internet...

I've made a point previously that, in my opinion, the internet is becoming worse from day to day. I recently tried to sell something on Ebay to find that there is little seller protection on the site. You can't even leave negative feedback for someone who has messed you around. As such, the only people who seem to sell on there now are big companies or independent stores. It is now very hard to get a bargain.

Facebook, Youtube and other major sites are now host to borders of adverts that systematically get as much (inaccurate) information from you as possible in order to sell you junk.

Corporations have hijacked every corner of the web, popups have been entirely replaced by whole screens that jump in front of your eyes to lock your PC, and you can't even watch a video without first having to sit through 30 seconds of advertisement.

Previously, clicking in the wrong place whilst browsing was a mild inconvenience; easily solved by pressing the 'back' button. Now, an incorrect click can result in you downloading something entirely unpleasant onto your PC. Even legitimate download sites are plastered with banners such as these that only promote confusion:

Circled are no less than three 'download' links. Of which two undoubtedly lead to bad porn.

People often think that because a guy is surfing the net, he is looking for porn and thus, any advertisement that leads to smut is going to be appreciated. I'm sorry to say that this is not true. Whilst 90% of a blokes time on the internet is undoubtedly spent looking at porn, the other 10% usually has a purpose and having the worst kind of depravity thrust in your face at every opportunity is never appreciated.

Don't believe me? Well see how you like it the next time this appears on your screen whilst you're trying to show your nan how to set up an email account:

And believe me, that is not the worst there is. For those of you who have not heard of 'Rule 34', it is a widely accepted internet rule that states "if it exists, there is porn of it." I have no doubt that it is true and you will undoubtedly see evidence for yourself if you surf the net for long enough.

I understand that hosting advertisements is sometimes necessary for a website in order for the maker to get a steady cash flow. It pays for the upkeep of the site and in some circumstances, it may even be welcomed by the person browsing if they are actually looking to buy something. But, I ask a simple question:

Has anyone EVER bought anything that was sold to them through an invasive pop-up or browser diversion?

I expect that few people have. The reason is simply because in this day and age, nobody trusts something that is thrust into their face. It's the same feeling when visiting an Egyptian market. If a person comes up to you with their wares and shoves it in your face and announces that you should buy it because it is what you like then you are immediately going to walk away. Even if you actually liked what was being sold, you would not buy it because it stinks of 'seller desperation' and human nature is to disagree when someone tells you what you should like.

The worst culprits are the advertisements which prey on sad, lonely or vulnerable people. Whilst browsing (on non-porn related) websites and forums, I have seen the following popups in the corner of my screen:

Now, it's not the 'look' of the models that I'm calling into question, nor the fact that the model that claims to be 30 looks younger than the one claiming to be 18; it's the fact that not a single one of them has got any reference to anything remotely 'Stokey' in their usernames. Much like similar advertisements for 'dating sites', I would expect real Stokies to have usernames such as 'Oatcakelass69', 'Pottersforever1' or at least some reference to the magnificent museum we have. I've even seen a picture of a girl posing in front of palm trees with a note underneath claiming she is from Stoke.

If you've never visited Stoke, I will ruin the fantasy for you now. There are no palm trees.

One day, I would really like to be able to use the internet without getting sidetracked by an advert, tricked by a banner, or accidentally downloading 'Interracial Granny Midget Trannies 5' instead of the finale of Breaking Bad.

... and guys, if you are looking for porn I'm sure there are far safer sources on the internet than the suspicious pop-up in the corner of the screen. 

The Things Men Say...

I live in Stoke. Yeah, on purpose. It's where I grew up.

The first thing I want to say is that it's not as bad as some people seem to think. Generally the crime levels aren't too high and there is not much violent crime. Whilst I have seen crime and experienced it firsthand, it's never been violent and I've never felt threatened where I live. I figured that Stoke hasn't discovered gunpowder or even iron yet so our gangs are still walking around with rocks tied to sticks and early Bronze Age weapons. This is probably why there isn't really much of a gang culture in my town.

Despite this, I do see the occasional chav in town arguing with his girlfriend. And then there was the guy who tried to kill himself by putting his head behind the wheel of a stationary bus after a failed attempt to hang himself with his jumper. So, I guess the reason we don't have violent crime here is because people are too 'simple' for armed conflict.

The way that the above men act -- especially around their partners -- does make me ponder over popular things that men say or do that are unique and annoying. I figured I would list some of them here:

1) "I'm a nice guy" - I think we all know someone like this. This is the person who has a deplorable lack of personality but views himself as the most suave motherfucker on the planet. One of my close friends recently bought to my attention this particular phrase which I realise I've actually heard said in pubs and bars many times. The type of person who says this is someone who was, at some point in their life, popular (for unknown reasons) and has latched onto a distant memory of a drunken idiot telling them this. This is the type of guy who refers to himself in the 3rd person.

Hand gesticulations are a must!

2) Referring to himself in the 3rd person - People don't tend to refer to themselves in the 3rd person in common conversation however a quick peek onto Facebook does show that this is used more often that you would think. When someone refers to themselves in the 3rd person they are essentially advertising the fact that they think so highly of themselves, they like nothing more than to hear their name said aloud. Either that or they're suffering from multiple personality syndrome... and all of the personalities are complete knobs.

3) Giving himself a nickname - Nicknames are something which should only really be used at school or perhaps in various workplaces. Aside from people working for MI6 or the CIA, nicknames shouldn't be something you give yourself. The only people with nicknames outside of these environments are serial killers and sex pests. It might be ok for other people to give someone a nickname (although these people should probably still be avoided) however giving yourself a nickname is just sad. "Hi, my name is Bob but my friends call me Razor". The appropriate response to someone saying this should be, "That's nice Bob, but I'm going to call you Cuntychops."

When I was younger there was a man who used to walk around the Wedgewood area of our town who asked women for the time whilst he dropped his pants and played with himself. We called him the Wedgewood Wanker. He is the perfect example of the type of person who has a nickname.

Yeah, this man looks pretty trustworthy.

4) "I have really low self esteem/I'm shy" - If a guy says this, it roughly translates to, "I'm used to girls falling over to grab my attention but I'm showing you that I really have a soft side and, deep down, I'm quite worried about the way people view me." Or, to put it another way, "I'm vain and I know I'm attractive enough to get you into bed."

Obviously, if the guy who says this is cowering in a corner, playing online games in the dark or pissing himself as he speaks, then he’s probably telling the truth.

5) “I set the internet history to automatically delete itself” – Yeah, this means porn has been viewed. The most sordid, most disgusting porn sites known to man have been looked at through that monitor. You have to think, if these things are bad enough for him to hide them from you then it’s probably best you don’t know what he’s looked at.

6) “This is our song” – Something which blokes quite often say to their girlfriends to recapture a romantic moment from their past. You can usually expect this to be the soppiest, most sickly-sweet, diabetes-inducing, cheesiest track you’ve ever heard. Something like Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” or Robbie Williams’ “Angels”. I once knew someone who worked at a hotel which provided a hall where wedding receptions were held and they had to listen to these songs played over and over and over on a weekly basis.

If you’re going to have a song that is an audio representation of your love for someone then for God’s sake, make it unique… something like Slayers “Raining Blood” perhaps?

7) Saying “I bloody love you” (whilst crying) – If a guy does this then I’ve got bad news for you. A) He’s a chav. B) He’s also probably cheating on you.

Says it all, really. 

8) Cheating on his girlfriend/wife and then saying he can change – OK, so if this has happened to you, and you’ve believed it and taken him back, then I’m sorry but you’re an idiot. He’s probably cheating on your right now.

9) “No, my best friend is black/gay/Jewish” – Yeah, right mate. According to this common statement, black people, gays and Jews must be the most popular people on the planet because I have heard this said on many, many occasions.

10) “I’m not racist but…” (launches into hate-filled rant) – The football-obsessed thug that usually launches himself headfirst into this rant is probably a supporter of the EDL, convinces himself that Asian people are going to take over the UK and can’t pronounce the word ‘England’ properly.



It’s important at this point to mention that despite popular belief, and despite outward appearances, not all guys are terrible, terrible people. And, there are many things that women do that are equally annoying, but I’ll leave that list to a lady.

Rant over. Now, I’m going to go and delete my internet history before my girlfriend comes round.

Buried Alive by Porn...

Recently there has been quite a bit of emphasis on the ease in which children are able to get their greasy little mitts on the worst filth the world has to offer. Many broadband companies are having to implement new rules and barriers to prevent minors from being able to access 'adult' material online. The only problem with this is that I thoroughly believe it is impossible to protect children from adult material. To be honest, I think it's unnecessary and I shall explain why.

When I was about 10 I had a friend who lived very close to me and had some very open-minded parents. This was a very good thing and I feel I should say that their openness and love towards each other has kept them together to this day. It was, however, a point of interest to us as ever-curious youngsters because we could see hints of their bedroom antics occasionally around the house in the form of the occasional saucy bit of underwear or erotic chocolate treat. I must stress however, that as 10 year-olds, we really didn't care about such things or want to know what was going on behind closed doors.

It is worth noting that no matter what you do to avoid such things they will, occasionally, jump out and smack you in the face when you least expect it. That is exactly what happened to my friend...

When I was younger I used to go fishing with my friend and we fancied ourselves as avid fishermen and were always eager to learn more about the sport. Upon discovering that there had been a large number of carp released into our local canal, we decided that we would try to catch one of these beastly fish, but in order to do so we would need advice. So, when my friends parents were out, we went searching for fishing magazines that we knew his Dad had, with the intention of learning the art of catching carp.

Bob Nudd, make me proud!

The search in the garage yielded no results and there were none in the downstairs cupboard so we commenced our search of his parents bedroom. Sure enough, in the top shelf of his Dad's wardrobe, we could see a picture of Bob Nudd -- a championship angler -- poking out from a pile of magazines. We had found the motherload and smiled in anticipation at learning how to fish like a pro. My friend, being the taller one, reached up and grabbed the magazine, pulling with all his might. This was when it happened...

With a yank, the whole pile of magazines collapsed out of the cupboard and fell onto my friend, literally knocking him back onto the bed behind as they poured out of the closet. The fishing magazine was buried -- along with my friend -- amongst the most humongous pile of porn magazines I have ever (and will ever) see. One magazine even landed, open, with a centre page spread on my friends chest.

My point here is that we were not looking for smut, nor were we interested in it, but our childish search for fishing magazines instead led to my friend being literally buried alive by porn. When my friend lifted the centre page spread from his chest, his reaction was not, "Whoa, that's nice" but "What the fuck is that?Urggh!"

Yes, my friend. That was a vagina.

We frantically pushed the magazines back into the cupboard, ignoring the pages that appeared to be stuck together and tried to assemble them into the same order as before. There was no curiosity to look into the unknown any further, we just made off with Bob Nudd and tried to wipe the experience from our minds. The funny thing is, my friend was pulled up at a later date by his Dad who had apparently kept an 'order' to the magazines and had guessed that his son had found the stash. His assumption was that he'd searched for it; the truth was it had almost killed him.

Children are not interested in porn until their teens and when we were introduced to it at a young age, rather than being aroused, we were put off it for a good while. There is no way to completely 'protect' children against porn and there is no need to go to extraordinary lengths to do so.

Obviously, times have changed and now the internet is the worlds largest library of pornographic material. The ease in which people can access porn, even accidentally, is quite staggering. I always used to joke that anyone could find a picture of a naked lady within 30 seconds of logging on, even on a blocked PC. I've not yet been proved wrong.

A good example of this was experienced during my time at college. I was 17 and studying Geology. Most of our time was spent in the classroom studying rock types and formations however we did occasionally get a chance for a field trip or, on this particular day, a trip to the computer room. We were learning about igneous intrusions and our tutor urged us to use the internet to find examples of them and in doing so, he managed to accidentally get every computer profile in the class blocked for a week.

An igneous intrusion is where rock strata has had magma injected into it, leaving a 'blob' or 'sheet' of volcanic rock surrounded by softer rock. There are many types of these and when searching for batholiths, sills and diapirs we quickly found what we were looking for. When it came to dykes however, our results were inconsistant at best.

Some of us found this:

Whereas some of us found this:

Obviously I had not wanted to search for porn but that was exactly what I found. It is worse with the modern internet search engines because it seems that typing in something as innocent as 'tea cup for girls' is likely to bring up results '2 girls 1 cup' and all fetishes related to cups. Despite this, I don't think young children are going to be tempted to click on the more filthy links and if they do, boy will they regret it.

Teenagers on the other hand will search for porn. They will search for it and they WILL find it and nothing in Heaven or Earth can stand between a teenager and porn. Even if he doesn't find porn in the strictest sense, anything with any iota of flesh showing will do: FHM, Art websites, African tribes, science websites anything and I mean ANYTHING will do. All this means is it's completely futile to try and stop a teenager from accessing porn and preventing access or making it difficult to get hold of will only add to the fun of trying to find it.

So what do I say to parents trying to discourage their children, or teenagers, from accessing porn? Show them the most sordid, horrible, disgusting, foul material you can get your hands on. Show them the horrors of the internet and suddenly, it might not seem quite as much fun.