Painting in gloss(ary)

Dear reader,

Please find enclosed definitions for all the things you've heard of but were too afraid to ask about. Upon ingesting the list below you may bask in joyous knowledge-clouds, shaped like sweets.

Welcome to the learning zone; stef-stylie.

ABBR

An abbreviation. Should not be abbreviated further for the sake of brevity.

ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Also known as Spoilt brat who spends too much time on a PlayStation, has no manners, and one or two parents that won't engage it in conversation but wish to label said child with something to make themselves feel better disorder.

BBC

Britain Being Controlled: A rather apt acronym for the broadcasting corporation who spread fearmongering lies (in the form of "news") and badly thought out entertainment (in the form of everything else) into people's homes daily.

BBW

Big Beautiful Women: A semi-cutesy term for minging fat ladies who pose naked or perform sex acts like uncovering the remote control from an undulating river of thigh flab to the delight of deviant businessmen with catwalk model girlfriends.

BLOG

Boring Load of Geeks: people who believe their lives, thoughts and actions are so important to the rest of the world that they publish them on their web site in the vain hope that other people find them interesting and assign purpose to an otherwise perfunctory waste of effort. What started as a weekly or daily event has now been bite-sized into microblogging for the illiterate txt generation courtesy of Twitter. Example:

• 8:29 : todays gonna b gr8 i like cornflakes
• 8:33 : semiskimmed is da bomb
• 8:42 : half asleep i brushed my teeth wiv hydrakloric acid lol
• 8:45 : cant feel my mouth no more
• 8:46 : were r my lips?
• 8:47 : so thats wot burning flesh smells like
• 8:48 : god my eyes
• 8:49 : i have no face
• 8:50 : it hurts to much 2 blog ne more, bye crule world
• 8:51 : BANG!

EULA

End User Licence Agreement: an un-pithy attempt by corporations to obviate lawsuits by denying any involvement with an action you may take as a result of doing anything related to the thing you're about to do. Examples include:
1) opening a CD case containing software;
2) clicking a link to someone else's site from your own;
3) going near Charlotte Church;
4) swallowing.

IE

Internet Explorer: Often followed by a version number/name such as IE6/Win, IE5.5/Mac, this is Micro$oft's woefully inadequate excuse for an Internet browser. Outdated, insecure, unintuitive, annoying, slow, non-standards-compliant, bollocks. But enough of its good points...

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions: Or, more accurately a series of inane scenarios thought up by the makers of a product or service that bear little or no relevance to actual questions a user may have. For example, on the Charlotte Church web site, an FAQ entry might be "At what age did you start singing?" when an actual question might be "Why the fuck was a talented Welsh soprano singer allowed to make insipid pop music and host her own vacuous chat show?"

FCUK

French Connection UK: Hilarious marketing tool of said company, designed to make you laugh uncontrollably when encountering merchandise upon which their brand name has been skillfully replaced for the word fuck. For example: "I FCUK Charlotte Church". See what they've done there? Ingenious. Let me just pop my rib back in place. They must have spent minutes thinking that up.

GIMP

Gleefully Inadequate Male Personage: While its origins are unknown, this word has become synonymous with two professions: a) computing (implying a socially maladjusted individual who can only befriend skunks) and b) the sex industry (a mask worn to disguise the fact one is a sadomasochist and/or has a penis the size of a toast crumb). Judging by the number of web sites that employ porn banners, it is arguable the two uses are identical.

Gribble

Not actually a fish but the international measure of usefulness. One gribble is approximately equal to 26 mibbles, which in turn is 103 times as much satisfaction as a pet receives from nibbling kibbles. The gribble scale can take negative values, for example when referring to Charlotte Church.

Mistake

An error of judgement, for example putting an entry in the wrong place in a list.

IBM

International Bogus Machines: Once giant mainframe and PC manufacturer, now reduced to focusing their business efforts on, umm... errr, what the hell do they do now?

IMDB

Internet Movie Database: The resource for pretty much every movie or TV show ever made, or yet to be made, or written and never made, or maybe even just thought about. As a result, the IMDB forums are home to a bunch of twelve year old twats who appear to bunk off lessons to post exceptionally uninformed opinions about films they haven't seen, shouldn't have seen, or were too busy shagging their siblings in the back row to have seen.

ITV

Independent Television: A UK TV network paid for by a declining advert revenue stream that they'll do nothing about, cheap daytime programmes that appeal to the unemployed, and one prime time soap opera about a bunch of whining Northerners that the network have been milking for the last 50 years.

KFC

Kevlar Fried Carcass: Fast food franchise that prides itself in its subterfuge techniques. Patrons are informed by The Colonel (now resembling Rolf Harris) that the food will taste of anything but a gallon of salt. The limp collection of breaded chicken wings, beak, foot and mechanically recovered anus convinces otherwise. When ordering the bargain bucket, a Sara Lee ice cream cake will be lovingly placed in the top by society's finest, thus enabling the dessert to be enjoyed as a coating to your fries.

MILF

An Americanism that stands for Mom I'd Like to Fuck; more accurately a wannabe trailer trash munter who will jump anything for that last shot at fame. Usually, the resulting atrocity is a skanky 46-year-old troll with trowelled-on make-up and collapsed collagen due to over-exposure to the sun. In an effort to appear seductive, she'll often wear a leather mini skirt, high heels and a crop top that reveals scabby stretch marks. A pierced labia, flaps halfway down her thighs and a tattoo on her privates are common bonus material, as are acne-ridden mons.

Money

An illusory system of control administered by a few key people who own a printing press. Backed by nothing, the pieces of paper and metal in our pockets are worth precisely that: nothing. Only copious quantities of legislation, media skullduggery, and propaganda lead us to believe otherwise. The system only benefits businesses; most of whom are ultimately owned/controlled by the people who operate the printing press. Incestuous huh?

PC

There are two common terms for this:
1) Personal Computer: A device that is anything but. Hardware is licensed by numerous vendors from one or two big players and is obsolete the moment you buy it; software is licensed from one or two big players and you are permitted to use it, carefully, for as long as they can be bothered to support it. Which is about 3 weeks after purchase (Linux notwithstanding).
2) Political Correctness: A form of self-censorship promoted and controlled by governments, rooted in the belief that you cannot say anything for fear that someone might be offended. Free speech implies I can say with impunity: "Sponging immigrants are driving the wages down and are encouraged to do so by governments; they should all fuck off back to their own countries." Political Correctness, however, converts that to "All our overseas friends are welcome to stay as they play a vital role in our economy. The freebies are that way."

Phishing

The act of sending a bogus email to people requesting their bank login details, password, cashcard PIN or other personally identifiable data after an alleged "server upgrade" or "computer crash" or some other lame excuse. The email directs you to a site that looks exactly like the real corporate site, often with a similar or hidden address. Akin to viruses, trojan horses, Nigerian scams, and clicking links to be removed from mailing lists, this scheme preys on the stupid. Anyone who falls for it deserves their money stolen and to then be anally raped by a jellyfish. Or forced to spend a night with Charlotte Church.

PIN

Personal Identification Number: A random collection of digits that enable you to interact with something masquerading as a secure system. As much use at fraud prevention as Charlotte Church is at keeping her legs shut. Shopkeepers don't have to be vigilant any more because they can be safe in the knowledge that if the PIN checks out, you must be the owner of the card. Also has the benefit that you'll either a) forget your number a week after you change it, or b) you'll change all your cards to the same number, thus making it easier for anyone to pretend to be you. IMPORTANT: It's a "PIN" and not a "PIN number"; a Personal Identification Number Number sounds rubbish doesn't it.

RSVP

Reply, s'il vous plait: Wrapping this acronym up with French is a lacklustre effort at disguising its idiocy. Not to be confused with any other kind of reply to a wedding or party invitation. For example, "Please don't reply. I've never liked you because you smell of pork products and I'm only inviting you because I feel obliged, Miss Church."

Spam

Popularised by the Monty Python sketch, stolen by the computer industry to mean unsolicited electronic junk mail. Like its counterpart -- a virus -- entire businesses have sprouted and thrive on providing filters and snake oil software to combat spam. The irony of course being that companies are the only people who benefit from sending it out. Contrary to popular opinion, there is actually no need for a spam filter, and in fact their enforced use should be heavily lobbied. Providing you're not a) stupid enough to give your only e-mail address to a company, b) the owner of only one e-mail account, the solution to spam is simple: register a free account and use that when you sign up for stuff. Use your real account solely for your friends and never publish it anywhere on the web. And don't give it to any stupid friends who might get a virus; get a special e-mail account for them too.

TLA

Three Letter Abbreviation: Primarily used in the corporate/IT world as an attempted humorous self-reference to the fact that pretty much every piece of equipment or business process is shortened to a catchy three-letter acronym. Stupidist one I ever heard was referring to some poor bloke as a Business Unit Manager.

Virus

Something that spreads quickly and efficiently. Not to be confused with Charlotte Church. Primarily now used in software circles to indicate a malicious program downloaded and executed by someone who is too dim to own a computer. Viruses are written by two entities: 1) clever, intelligent hackers who are bored with PCs and society being dull 2) Symantec Corporation to keep people living in fear of what might infect their precious files, thus ensuring a steady revenue stream from people suckered into employing ineffective bloatware that cripples their machine. Best advice: don't ever install a virus scanner of any description. Ever.

WAG

A generic, unimaginative term used by the press when making reference to the Wives And Girlfriends of anyone with "Celebrity" status. A Celebrity in this instance is anybody who is related to anyone who has appeared on television for any amount of time in any capacity. Being a contestant on Big Brother or in an advert is enough. Note that Whiny Affected Gritbin is the correct definition when referring to Charlotte Church.

WWF

Wildlife Wrestling Federation: the governing body of a cruel and unsportsmanlike form of entertainment.

This page is in no way endorsed by Charlotte Church, her management, production company, dolphin or microphone. She does actually have a great voice when she's not applying it to vapid pop songs.