-an OD of Toughts-

  A Manifesto Against Automotive Nonsense Because they're ruddy EXPENSIVE, you blithering idiot! Do you know why? Because modern cars have become a technological equivalent of a Swiss Army knife that also makes tea, sings lullabies, and can predict next week's lottery numbers! Utter. Bloody. Nonsense! The Rise of the Useless Feature Take the window controls. Not content with being simple up/down buttons, they've evolved into something so complicated that NASA uses the same system to launch rockets! Press briefly → window goes down automatically like some sort of robotic butler. Hold longer → window descends completely like it's trying to escape. Press down and pull up → window lowers just a smidgen, as if you're playing some bizarre game of "how low can you go?" Pull up and press down → window rises slightly, like it's doing a little window dance just for you! In the old days, you pressed a button, the window went down, you let go, it stopped. SIMPLE! ...

You know that moment when you sit down after a long day, crack open a drink, and think, Right, let’s watch something good,  only to realise that modern TV has turned into a therapy session you never signed up for? Well, that’s where I’m at. I’ve had it up to my eyebrows with the endless moral bushings and politically polished lectures that now pass for “entertainment.” So, I’ve gone back to watching old films and series, back when people made things to entertain , not educate you on the correct social vocabulary of the week. The Glory Days of Just Getting On With It In the old stuff, people simply did things . If there was a car chase, it was real, not a green-screened Tesla soaring through space while the main character delivers a monologue about personal identity. The actors smoked, shouted, fought, laughed, and didn’t give a toss about what Twitter thought of them, mainly because Twitter didn’t exist — and life was better for it. You had The Italian Job with Michael Caine...

 In 1776, Thomas Jefferson scribbled down a few words that would echo through history: “the pursuit of happiness.” Lovely, isn’t it? Sounds like an invitation to eat pizza in your underwear while watching Stranger Things until your eyeballs dry out. But here’s the twist — that’s not what he meant. Not even close. When Jefferson said “happiness,” he wasn’t referring to that fleeting, dopamine-fuelled nonsense we call fun. He wasn’t talking about a new iPhone, or a bottomless brunch with avocado toast and regret. Back then, happiness meant something a bit more… grown up . It was about flourishing. Purpose. Meaning. Doing something worthwhile even when life punches you square in the face and then reverses over you for good measure. See, Jefferson nicked the idea from Aristotle — a man who didn’t own a smartphone and probably didn’t smile much either. Aristotle said there are two types of happiness: Hedonic happiness — pleasure, comfort, distraction. Basically, Netflix and cri...

Every so often, television does something that makes you sit up, spill your pint, and mutter “well, bloody hell.” Fleabag is one of those things. It’s not so much a series as it is a high-speed collision between your funny bone and your nervous system.   On the surface, it looks like yet another “quirky London woman with problems” thing. You know the type — artisanal coffee shops, awkward dates, a bus with a slogan about mindfulness. But within five minutes, you realise Phoebe Waller-Bridge isn’t just acting; she’s practically kicking the fourth wall in the groin, staring you dead in the eye, and saying: “Yes, I did that. Now deal with it.” And here’s the thing — you do. Because every gag, every filthy aside, every dead-on observation about family, love, or why guinea pigs make terrible business mascots, is sharper than a butcher’s knife at Christmas. But then — and this is where it goes full speed ahead— just as you’re laughing at some brilliantly inappropriate joke, she hits ...

So, I sat down expecting yet another glossy corporate puff piece. You know the sort: a bloke in a tweed waistcoat banging on about “heritage” while stroking a sack of barley like it’s his pet Labrador. But no — what I got was essentially Game of Thrones , except with fewer dragons, slightly less nudity, and vastly more pints. The whole thing is Guinness flexing harder than a bloke at the gym in January. Every episode is dipped in sepia, poured through a pint glass, and polished until it looks like the inside of an Instagram influencer’s brain. Sweeping shots of barley fields make you think a knight is about to ride through with a flaming sword — but no, it’s just some farmer moaning about soil like it’s a long-lost lover. Then it cuts to a master brewer fiddling with pipes and valves as if he’s preparing to launch Apollo 11, when really, he’s just making sure some lad in Dublin doesn’t end up with a pint that tastes like bathwater. And the drama… my God, the drama. The way they go on a...

There’s a new show on Netflix called Black Rabbit . It stars Jason Bateman and Jude Law, which means immediately you’re dealing with more furrowed brows than a field of freshly ploughed soil. The setup is simple enough: Jude runs a fancy New York restaurant and nightclub, Jason turns up like a drunken uncle at Christmas, and within minutes you realise this family reunion is going to end with bodies in the bin. Now, the first thing you’ll notice is the lighting. Or rather, the total absence of it. Every scene looks like it was filmed inside a coal mine during a power cut. You’ll spend the first episode fiddling with your TV brightness settings, then eventually accept that this is just what New York looks like now: murky, brooding, and about as cheerful as a funeral in Wolverhampton. The story itself? Imagine The Godfather had a one-night stand with Ozark in the back of a nightclub kitchen. There are debts, gangsters, broken loyalties, and the kind of tense conversations where every...