Goo Goo Ga Joob

A little story from my mate Jimbo, which is fast gaining status as an urban myth:

"Spoke to bloke I know that works on a local radio show in Glasgow.

Pie-loving Pop Idol winner Michelle McManus was in a while back doing some live songs. They had a phone-in to nominate a Beatles song for her to sing.

Overwhelming winner?

I am the walrus.

They wimped out and got her to sing something soppy instead."

I don't believe a word of it.

Meanwhile, over on my other blog Robber Rabbit, Secret Agent James Bond 007 talks about his kinky fetish of wanking into hats; followed by a full and frank discussion of the art of millinary masturbation, which we are assured is the "new black", or something.

Next week: Royal floozie Camilla Parker-Bowles on pretending you've got Tourette's Syndrome while in polite company.

The Scaryduck Archive

Hanging with the Reaper

Death came to call.

He likes to visit on a Wednesday, as there always seems to be a rush on Thursdays, what with it being pension day and everything.

As always, he sits down, has a cup of tea, and we take turns at trying to coax the cat down from the ceiling.

On Sundays, he joins me with my wife and kids for a pub lunch, followed by a spot of cricket, weather permitting, on the village green. He bowls a decent leg break, but his batting skills need a lot of work.

Ironic really, as he's an absolute whizz with the old scythe, but his defence is that "it's a completely different grip". Anyone who has ever picked up a cricket bat can see it's his leg work that lets him down. A decent chap all round, and he's hardly ever killed any of the oppostion. We don't talk about that dodgy LBW decision any more.

He's taking my Great Aunt Ada to a dinner-dance tonight. I hope she knows what she's letting herself in for - he only knows one routine, he's been dancing it for centuries, and like Lionel Blair, he'll never stop.

I just wish he wouldn't smoke quite so much. It'll be the death of him.

Consume! Conform! Obey!

DVD Review: Spy Kids 3D: Game Over

OK, I confess, I went out and spent hard-earned on cynically-produced Hollywood product. Excuse: unspent gift vouchers. So...

A relentless rollercoaster of juvenile espionage adventures with a sappy "family values" message tacked onto the end, just in case. The film saved only by Sly Stallone hamming it up like a pro; and the shonky 3-D effects that wrecked my sense of perception and still has me feeling queasy three days later. Spent the entire second half of the movie shouting "Khaaaan!" every time Ricardo Montalban appeared on screen. In other words: it's a franchise, what did you expect?

Immediately after the film, Scaryduck Junior went upstairs and bowked rich, brown vomit down the big white telephone for a good ten minutes, not spilling a drop on the lino - a testament to the quality of the 3-D colour separation technology, last seen in the 1957 3-D classic "The Texas Pole Vault Masscare". It was that good.

3-D movies are so bad they're brilliant, and this one scores 17/10 on the Eddie Murphy "Last Film I Saw" scale.

The Scaryduck Archive

Rumbled

I splashed out twenty quid and bought a new PC yesterday. It's got everything - woofers, tweeters, cup holder and an impressive-looking front panel that screams "Hey, look at me! I cost shitloads!", when, in fact, it didn't.

The last part of the sales agreement comprises a ridiculous series of questions designed to prevent this cutting-edge technology (only available on 95% of all computers in the world) from falling into the wrong hands.

"Q4.: Will the product(s) be used in connection with weapons of mass destruction, ie nuclear applications, missile technology or biological weapons purposes?"

Obviously written by someone unfamiliar with the concept of "lying".

WHOOPS! THERE GOES MY DICTATORSHIP: EPISODE SIX

SCENE: BUNKER UNDERNEATH THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN P'YONGYANG, NORTH KOREA. KIM JONG-IL IS SLOUCHED - WEARING ONLY A PAIR OF CRUSTY Y-FRONTS - IN A LARGE RED CHAIR WHICH WAS LAST SEEN ON THE SET OF JIM'LL FIX IT.

IN FRONT OF KIM IS A HUGE BANK OF TV MONITORS, ALL BUT ONE SHOWING PORNOGRAPHIC MOVIES - THE LAST ONE HAS THE TELETUBBIES.

ENTER OSAMA BIN LADEN

OSAMA: Wullah* They're on to us!

KIM: Shrieks (Presses button on arm rest - all of the screens now have the Teletubbies) That was close!

OSAMA: You damn infidel! The western capitalist running-dogs won't sell us the computers without knowing if we'll be using them to visit firey nuclear destruction on the hellish capitals of the Godless capitalist regimes.

KIM: (Scratches bollocks) Hmm... tricky one this. I shall only be using mine to play Samantha Fox Strip Poker.

OSAMA: True, I will only ever use mine to start provocative threads on Fark. And Mrs Bin Laden wants me to set up a website about kittens. Best tell them "no" then.

KIM: Right you are. (Presses button on remote control, the porn comes back). Eh-oh Po! Eh-oh Dipsy!

OSAMA: God help us if there's a war.

* Wullah: Arabic expression of surprise and alarm, roughly translates as "Christ on a bike!"

The Scaryduck Archive

Oil

JR Ewing: Bastard

I don't have to be here you know. By rights, I should be a millionaire, living it up on some island somewhere with champagne, caviar and all the buxom beauties I can eat. But no. Robbed I was, robbed of my rightful position in life of oil magnate and squillionaire at the tender age of five. See that JR Ewing with stetson hat and huge-shouldered wife? That should have been me. Instead, it's "This time next year Rodders, we'll be millionaires."

The Great Canadian Oil Rush, wrecked by treachery, I tell you.

Did I ever mention that I once lived in Canada? Whoops. Everybody's got to be somewhere, and there I was in Vancouver at the age of five, dodging the draft into the War in Vietnam. Couldn't tell you exactly where but Champlain Heights rings a bell. I was a small boy in a biggish city, so my entire world comprised of a large, modern, sensible housing estate that smelled of pine, school http://cook.vsb.bc.ca/ (note how the mission statement spells out "Anchors" - in my case, they appear to have missed the W off the beginning) and Safeways. We didn't have supermarkets back in England, and the buses still (pfffft) ran on electricity. How rare.

We weren't poor, we were in Canada so the Old Man could teach medical studentssecret stuff about bottoms, a profession that has stood him in good stead for the best part of thirty years. But imagine the great joy if number one son should strike oil.

Oil! The black gold! Countries go to war over it. Governments rise and fall because of it. The currency that makes the world go. And there it was, right on our doorstep. Quite literally.

Great big black lumps of ...err... oil.

Rich! Rich! And say it a third time - rich!

Even as a five-year-old kid, I knew there were two things to do here. Number one: stake our claim on the stuff or some other grabbing varmint's going to come along and pinch this fortune from right under our noses. Not quite knowing where the local Stake-You-Oil-Claim-Here shop was, I used my initiative and stuck a lump (by way of a sample) in a bag and stuffed it through the letterbox of our local newsagents. They never wrote back, the bastards.

Second: Get as much of the oil inside the house as possible and pronto. I corralled my brother, sister and her best friend, promising them equal cuts of the riches, and we stole every single grease-proof paper bag out of the kitchen drawer to scoop the stuff up with. It was, I recall, a raging success. Despite ruined clothes, black hands and fingerprints on the walls and curtains, Mum and Dad could only be pleased to see such unrefined wealth spread across the living room carpet.

Armageddon. I was ignorant of such phrases as "fully furnished rental" and "losing your deposit" back then, and I still am today. The sofa, I remember clearly, was blacker than Margaret Thatcher's heart, and a can of righteous whoopass was let loose on my world.

Look, cut a boy an even break here. How was I to know they'd just resurfaced the communal parking area outside our house? What was lying there was not a fortune in black gold, but ten bobs' worth of black tarmac in great filthy lumps which some lazy git of a workman was too lazy to take away with him at the end of the day. Live and learn, as they say, live and learn.

Sesame Street was banned in our household for a whole week by way of punishment. Parents can be so cruel.

And I'm still not rich. Bloody Canadian oil thieves.

The Scaryduck Archive

Losing cabin pressure

As Deanna Troi out of Star Trek said to me mere seconds before I stoved her pretty Tottenham-supporting Betazed bonce in with a length of lead pipe: "I... sense....anger..." Too bloody right I'm angry. I'm so cross I can barely get my clothes on in the right order of a morning; and by the looks of things (peers downwards) I've written some pretty bizarre stuff this week whilst under the influence.

So why the fury? In short, my precious book script failed to come up to the mark. Not to worry, things can be rescued by changing a) the plot b) the characters and c) the white spaces between the words, so all is not lost. And Scary Book II is shaping up rather well, so we'll just see how it goes. What I really want is to be taken on as a highly-paid gag-writer for Jonathan Ross. Anybody out there with clout/free beer, money and sex?

Any road up, it's Thursday, so it must be time for (dramatic chord) the Weekly Vote-o. The descriptions, naturally, may not bear close examination:

* The Raspberry Club: "Deja vu - all over again."
* Father Abraham: "Is that your blood?" "Some of it, yeah."
* Barmy ‘army: "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
* Worst. Gig. Ever: "May I advise against the lady eating clam chowder?"
* Space Dust: "It was beautiful. We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them."
* Oil: "Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."

Vote-o! Suggest-o! Send me money-and-stuff-off-my-Amazon-wish-list-o!

The Scaryduck Archive

Hobbies of the rich and famous

No.1: Shitting through letterboxes - top mailcrapper and TV football pundit Jimmy Hill anwsers your questions

Greetings football fans everywhere! When I campaigned to have football's maximum wage abolished back in the 1960s, many's the letterbox I had to dump my load through to press home our point. This turned from political necessity to a satisfying yet cathartic hobby; and I now fill my days enjoying the harmless pastime of mailcrapping, knowing full well that I shat through the letterbox of the FA Headquarters at Lancaster Gate so the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Patrick Vieira don't have to today.

Mailcrapping is a skill that can only be accomplished through years of practice and a suitable diet. Many a letterbox shit has been spoiled by poor stance and traces of nuts and/or sweetcorn. Champion mailcrappers are marked on style, control, damage and firmness. Badly directed stools and wayward spurts are the sign of poor sphincter control which can only be achieved through a regular training routine and an abstinence from bum sex.

Q: "This shitting through letterboxes looks remarkably difficult. Can I shit into a bag and post it through manually?"
A: Certainly not. In taking the coward's way out you are sacrificing the shock and awe that only a freshly laid log can produce. It's a direct arse/letterbox interface or nothing at all.

Q: "How about pissing, then?"
A: Good grief. What are you, some kind of weirdo? Can you imagine the damage that a springloaded letterbox could cause? Only those unable to shit (ie people with colostomy bags) are excused. Remember that many people taking a crap will often urinate as well. Why waste it? If you are exceptionally talented and/or hung you may be able to bend your hose backwards through your legs and simultaneously piss through the letterbox as well. Proponents of this supremely skilled "double" may score extra points for the highest mark on the wall.

Q: "What if I get caught mid-shit?"
A: Legging it is probably not an option, unless you're particularly adept at running like a penguin with your trousers round your ankles. If you are caught by the letterbox owner, you are an part of an avant-garde dance troupe offering tickets for a forthcoming production. Alternatively, you may wish to try Jedi mind tricks to convince the owner that mailcrapping will be included in the next Olympics.

Q: "What about training aids?"
A: Pop down to Argos and get yourself one of these to improve your skills in the comfort of your own home. Pretty soon, you and your entire family will be adept mailcrappers. Have you thought about starting a local franchise? Rock superstar David Bowie's one of us, and he practices his art throughout the south and west of London whilst singing "Here am I shitting in a tin can."

Q: "Is there a professional mailcrappers' organisation?"
A: Not as such, but most of our number are on Police "Most Wanted" lists.

Next week: James Bond 007 answers your questions on wanking into hats.

The Scaryduck Archive

Strumpet


Prostitute writes weblog. Weblog wins award. Rumours spread over the identity of mystery slattern. This 'Who is Belle de Jour?' thing's gone on long enough. OK, I might have been in there right at the start, spreading unfounded rumours (it's J.K. Rowling researching Hermione's fall from grace in the next Potter - 100% FACT), but I, along with many others have reached the giving-a-shit-event-horizon.

It's all bunk - someone at The Guardian knows who it is as they had to write out a cheque for the blog award prize money, after all. And let's not forget it's all been done before. There'll be a book. Then a film starring Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant, written by Richard Curtis. A British Pretty Woman with breathless reviews on GM-TV. Then I will have to kill somebody.

Somebody think of the children!

"A Thesaurus? Does it bite?"

Good news for Welsh people: Following a recent update, the word "sheepshagger" is now in the Oxford English Dictionary. As is air guitar, big white telephone, clit, f-word (though "fuck" has been in for years), numbnuts, todger, twelve-incher, wedgie and XXXX (and I doubt if this is in the Aussie lager context). Still no sign of "twunt", the bastards.

I'll get me coat

I see they buried Steve Thoburn, the infamous "Metric Martyr" who fought EU rules abolishing pounds and ounces in our shops and markets, following his untimely death. It's sad to think that he is now 1.83 metres under.

Game for a Laugh

The lights in our cavernous, windowless staff toilets are on a sensor. You walk in, the lights come on. They are, so the front panel says, on a timer set to ten minutes. I'm going to change it to one minute. Fine if you're just nipping in for a wazz; but anyone who comes in, drops their trousers and sits on the bog will be plunged into darkness just as they start nipping off a length.

Ah sod it, why wait until the first of April?

In a blatant attempt to fill up my comments - tell me your best practical jokes. I will endeavour to field test them over the coming weeks, and report back to you, scoring on the classic Beadle "Manky Hand" Scale. Better still, first hand accounts backed up with photos will win a small prize.

I am suddenly possessed of the sudden urge to piss in a whiskey bottle and leave it on a bus.

The Scaryduck Archive

Bumflaps

Nothing today. I'm in a bad mood after hearing news I'd rather not have heard, thank you very much.

Cheer me up, you bastards.

Grr.


Edit: I just copied this out of my big book of gags:

The game of Lawn Tennis, in its most ancient form, was originally played with extremely small bonsai badgers instead of the now familiar green tennis balls. Hence the term "game, sett and match."

There's worse, by God, there's worse.

The Scaryduck Archive

An Inspector Calls

Mmmm....

My good friend Pat was an Environmental Health Officer, and as far as I know, he still is. His job was to enforce environmental and hygiene standards in a certain London Borough that rhymes with “Willingdon”, ensuring the residents don’t get gnawed to death by rats, deafened by the two airports on his beat, or poisoned by any of the fine gastronomic establishments located in the area. A lovely job, spent knee deep in shit, and the second he got the chance to specialise in crap-free acoustics, he nearly bit his bosses arm off to get to the job application.

At the same time, I had just switched from my job at the Unemployment Office (too late, however, to avoid the life-long nickname of Coleman the Doleman) and got work for the Ministry of Agriculture as a verifier in the meat products division. We’d swap horror stories about the world of food production, and it became a bit of a competition to out-gross each other.

I knew what, exactly, went into budget meat pies - and not a great deal of it was meat in the traditional sense of the word. He knew, exactly, how long a doner kebab could stay on a spit before it started to kill people.

I had seen, with my own eyes, an imported meat consignment bound for a certain popular fast food chain containing nothing but dead kangaroos. Honestly labeled and fit for human consumption, it was passed. On another occasion, a high street competitor imported a shipload clearly labaled “beef lips.” I couldn’t resist, I had to open one of the containers to see for myself. The documents said “beef lips, fit for human consumption”, and again, it was 100% honest. Beef lips. Tons and tons of beef lips, looking exactly like a pile of spare parts at the Mick Jagger factory.

I started taking sandwiches to work.

But Pat trumped me with his finest tale. I had no comeback, EHOs get all the best gross-out stories and I just couldn’t compete with him on this score.

There was a raid. It was on an Indian restaurant, acting on “information received” from a member of the public, who undoubtedly pointed the finger after a weekend shitting through the eye of a needle. They were very polite. They went nice and early so as not to upset the customers, and they even knocked first. Then it was on with the latex for the detailed search of the kitchens, which were remarkably clean and well appointed.

It was when they started searching the cupboards that it hit the fan. Inside, they discovered several catering-sized tins of Marrowbone Pal, the ideal food to keep your canine friend healthy and his nose shiny.

“OK Gunga Din,” said one of Pat’s rather less than PC colleagues, “where’s the dog?”

“I’m sorry sir,” replied the manager, “We do not have a dog on the premises.”

The penny dropped.

“Jesus Christ, Mother Mary and the eight-legged sex machine! I ate here last week!”

The place was closed down within three nanoseconds. I believe it is now a beef lip and kangaroo establishment. Mmmmm.....

The Scaryduck Archive

( ')< - ascii ducks - >(' )

Another Thursday, another Scary story vote:

* An inspector calls: "It was a dark and stormy night. Except for the bits which were neither dark nor stormy, but life's a bastard like that."

As you may have noticed, I'm imposing a story on you. Reason: It is Scaryduck Jr's birthday on Friday, so I probably won't be around to do much more than press the "publish" button. Feel free to talk about me behind my back. You do anyway. Punks.

Brucie Bonus

The Scaryduck Second Novel was started last night, a tale of mirth and woe set in the dotcom boom and bust. Ever wondered how scaryduck.com got its name? Wonder no more:

"So, what," I asked, and I can only assume that I am by no means the first person to ask this particular question, "in the name of Satan and all his testicle-munching little demons, possessed you to choose the name scaryduck dot com?"

Margaret Hilda Roberts sighed, and told me. It was one of those moments of dreadful realization, the opening of a Pandora's Box of management bollocks-speak, and I just knew she was going to say things like "target demographic" and "consultancy". I bit the insides of my cheeks to stop myself from laughing, buzzword bingo card at the ready.

"We paid an awful lot of money to an image consultancy," she said, "After an exhaustive investigative process of interviews, questionnaires and the latest Feng Shui techniques, they told us that our target demographic is looking for something adventurous, dangerous, yet still craves something familiar and comforting. With me so far?"

"Ungh," I said, nodding furiously.

"So they came up with scaryduck. Scary for the danger, the great adrenaline rush our customers crave. Duck, because of the calming, soothing images of tranquil river banks it draws up. Scaryduck. Magnifique, n'est-ce pas?"

"And because no-one else was stupid enough to register it," said Lawrence, earning himself the Roberts Glare.

I paused, and considered my next question with great care.

"Were they on drugs?"

"Almost certainly."

The Scaryduck Archive

Bad punnage alert

I was down our local fast-food emporium getting dinner the other night, when I got into an argument with the bloke behind the counter. He swore blind that he had a role in the multi-Oscar winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, while I countered that he was speaking through his hole.

Oh no! He replied, third row back, fourth along in one of them big battle scenes, that's him. Why then, I continued, are you now serving me cod and grease in a low quality eatery in Weymouth? We agreed to disagree on this point, but still ---

There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvish.

I'll get me coat.

To make up for that one, swallow this link to Goon Show Radio - all cardboard cut-out idiots, all the time.

The Scaryduck Archive

Quimby

There are three ages of Tom and Jerry. Mark them well, my padowan learner, for much honour comes from this knowledge.

1. The Hannah-Barbera years: 1940 -1958. 114 cartoons. One hundred and fourteen! With full body animation, full orchestration, and more anvils on the head, pins up the arse and matches under the claws than I've had hot dinners. These are the ones you can sing along to the end of the theme music with the "Produced by Fred Quimby" caption. But did you know that the crew all hated Quimby because he spent all day sleeping in his office, yet taking all the credit at the many awards ceremonies?

Good grief, some of these are cinema history, for they were produced as shorts for the picture houses in the days before television, where you'd get a short, the newsreel and the main picture for the price of your ticket. Seven academy awards, and another six nominations, every time Jerry getting the better of Tom, and usually ripped to shreds by Spike the dog. And of course, there's a suicidal duckling...

Little known fact number two: All of Tom's screams and yelps of pain were William Hanna in an uncredited role. Now there's a man who suffered for his art.

AS TV took over in the 1950s, the budgets were slashed from 45,000 dollars per short to less than 3,000. Hanna and Barbera worked out their contracts, and did their own thing. The Flintstones. Wacky Races. Scooby Doo. They were responsible for inflicting Scrappy Doo on an unsuspecting world. The bastards.

2. Mid-life crisis: No budget, no bugger doing decent cartoons. It's got to be said that these shorts, by and large, are total crap. Chuck Jones of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck fame should have known better, but his work tended to rely on strong spoken word scripts as much as the action, so that's half his tricks gone already. By the time H&B took over production in 1975, the damage had been done.

3. Modern times: Tom and Jerry Kids. A movie in which the characters speak. Jerry Mouse wears a bow-tie. Somebody, somewhere, is having a laugh. In these days where cartoons are driven by the merchandise and spin-offs they create, the seven minute animated short is a lost art. Thank God for DVD and vintage Tom and Jerry marathons on Boomerang.

After seven years of crappy toons featuring Badly-Drawn Man, Scaryduck Junior saw his first proper T&J last weekend. Two hours, back-to-back. I thought he was going to explode.

The internet being what it is, there are any number of deeply encyclopaedic fan sites for Tom and Jerry, telling me all kinds of things I didn't know I didn't know. For instance, I didn't realise that the (now) deeply un-PC woman we only see from the waist down is called Mammy Two-Shoes, and the duckling ("Friend to Jerry, Appetizer for Tom") is simply known as The Duckling.

In retrospect, they should have killed the thing off while they were on top, Veictor Meldrew stylee. All these poor quality comebacks are undignified. They can repackage them all they like, but nothing beats the gems from the 40s and 50s, where you knew a chase round a blind corner would always lead to a rake/cat interface.

Mammy Two-Shoes: "You is a good cat Thomas. I'll go put it in the bin, then I'll fetch you a nice big bowl of cream."

As Jerry Mouse well knew, Thomas only had to win once...

Stiff

Tragedy at the Scaryduck household, where Getaway Driver Hamster curled up his toes and shuffled off this mortal coil, the evil little git. I was all for a Viking funeral in the fishpond, but was over-ruled by people who just don't seem to appreciate the catharsis of good burn-up. Just don't come running to me when the cat digs him up in three days' time.

The Scaryduck Archive

Oh lordy! It's the return of Letters to the Editor

Sir -

When is this so-called government going to do something about the menace of mobile telephones in our once-proud nation?

In my day, one had to apply to the Post Office for a telephonic device, wait two years, only to be turned down because you did not possess the necessary academic, property and racial qualifications. These days, any Tom, Dick or Harry can walk into a shop and gain access to this potentially dangerous technology, using it for their own nefarious, and dare I say criminal ends.

On leaving my club yesterday, I espied one of these devices being used by - of all creatures - a woman. Horrified, I discovered it was Mrs Clackershaft, the popular cloak-room attendant in the Harpo who has worked there for twenty-seven years with never a blemish to her name. Naturally, I had her dismissed on the spot, and flogged by the rest of the committee.

Good grief, they’ll be giving them to children, our Commonwealth bretheren and people living in terraced housing next, and mark my words, this can only lead to the kind of revolution that would make Passchendaele look like a walk in the park. We can say goodbye to the “Great” in Great Britain and that other word in Scunthorpe. Hang the blighters high!

I am not mad.

Yours etc,

Lt Col Winston St John Cholmondeley-Cholmondeley Patel (Mrs)

Read the Colenel's entire correspondence with the editor of Sheepfancier's Gazette here.

The Scaryduck Archive

The Earl Grey Missile Test

Too lazy to read this? Then cut and paste the text into this fan-dabby-triple-dozy text-to-speech wossname and have a nice person at AT&T read Scary bedtime stories for you.

Tea, anyone?

The civil service! Career of choice for dopes and under-achievers, and at the age of twenty, I was both. Ideal that I should end up in a smart little side office on the tenth floor of a Ministry of Agriculture building in Reading. With town centre office space at a premium, and the Common Agricultural Policy running out of control, they had to jam us in any which way to get all the work done.

They managed to get eight of us in an office the size of a broom cupboard, and more fool the Ministry for making sure that at least four of us were straight out of college, gaseous as festering skunks. They should have known.

Out of the glare of our evil leader (who once tore a strip off me for reading a newspaper during my lunch break whilst still *gasp* sitting at my desk), our work-rate slumped from "very little" to "bugger all". Even on the day Ian Paisley paid a visit to shout at Miss Scary Boss, we were leaning out of the window trying to loogie on his bodyguards in the car park ten floors below.

Bored stupid by the lack of stimulation, and the bookie's phone number getting blocked by the switchboard, we had to make our own entertainment. We raided the stock cupboard - no mean feat, as it meant distracting the evil-faced old harridan who stood guard over it, make a copy of the key from blu-tack and some bent-up staples and break in, disguised as French farmers, after hours. We marvelled at our spoils. There was going to be hell.

We created dozens of elaborate elastic-powered missiles containing tightly rolled paper, drawing pins and paper clips. They grew weaponry, which, when fired from launchers cobbled together out of rulers, bulldog clips and triple-strength elastic bands, could easily break a) the sound barrier and b) any human skin it came into contact with. 007's Q-branch would have had orgasms.

We soon dreaded coming to work, and the pair of old biddies forced to share the office with the juvenile delinquents improvised defences out of filing cabinets and steel plates stolen from a nearby building site. My precious Joy Division poster ("Joy Davison? Who's she?" asked the philistine Geoff, who regularly went to Shakin Stevens concerts) was virtually shredded by the barrage.

Soon, our desks were fortresses with huge piles of files for protection (not to mention giving passing managers the illusion that actual work may have actually been taking place), with cunningly designed slits to fire our weapons onto the unsuspecting enemy. It was siege warfare, 1980s style, with a regular fax to the Ministry containing gross beef tonnage and battle injuries.

It would only be a matter of time...

Three shots caused our downfall. Call them lucky. Call them irresponsible. We called them downright funny, and we laughed all the way to the personnel office.

Shot 1: "You want dried leaves, in boiled water, with refined sap and liquid squirted from a cow?" I asked.

"Wha'?" replied Geoff.

"Tea, ya nimnod."

Your hero primes his weapon, loads his best missile - an arrangement with protrouding drawing pins called "Al's Skull Modifier", carefully aims and lets rip with the shot to end them all. And what a shot. It hit the spoon in Geoff's freshly made mug of Earl Grey, causing the contents to spill over Geoff, our so-called supervisor Mark (who was, as I fired, carefully lining up a shot at Andy's exposed arse as he fished something out of a filing cabinet), and a pile of files marked "In Confidence"

Shot 2: Laughing fit to burst, I stood up from behind my fortress so as to taunt Geoff further. Twack! Geoff's number one weapon "The Thug" caught me square in the bollocks. Enraged, we slugged it out on the carpet between the desks, teapots flying.

Shot 3: In stormed our department head, determined to put an end to this childish behaviour. Twock! Mark's "Disaster Area". Right in the flange. Doom.

She'd seen enough, and as soon as her eyes stopped watering, we were marched over the road to be dressed down by some senior personnel manager like a bunch of naughty schoolboys. Luck shined on us though. Dirty, rotten stinking luck. They wouldn't sack us, as low quality administrative staff was hard enough to come by as it was. We were split up, myself to the hell of accounts, Geoff got a cushy number editing the staff magazine while Mark got Export Document Registry, the civil service equivalent of Siberia, ruled with a rod of iron by a former school mistress who insisted on absolute silence and her permission for toilet breaks.

My first action in accounts was to get a pineapple, stick a stupid face on it and fire elastic band powered weapons at him until he turned to mush. The fruit wars had begun.

Note for people who don't get the title: The Old Grey Whistle Test was a late-night music programme on BBC Television, showcasing the best of new and established music acts. The pun, alas, is my own evil-doing.

The Scaryduck Archive

Google news

Searching on google for Kirstie Allsopp naked? You manky old spunker. I was, until yesterday, the number one search result for these *cough* sadly *cough* non-existent photographs, providing a steady flow of confused single-handed surfers to this site. The new number one? This pair. And her husband.


Expensive tap water news

Go to Coke's Dasani website. Click on "downloads" and hover your mouse over the picture of the woman. Dasani's secret ingredient will appear on the left side of your screen. No wonder it's so blummin' expensive.

Edit: I hear rumours that they've changed it, so there's a screen grab here.


Scaryduck’s ‘Did You Know...?’ No. 322

Russian president Vladimir Putin is the great-grandson of another famous Putin: the mad monk Ras Putin. To honour his infamous relative, the multi-talented Russian leader even wrote a song about him, which became a worldwide hit for Boney M. Oh, those Russians.


Round and Round went the Bloody Great Wheel

In and out went the pr... no hang on... time for the Thursday vote thing. Following last week's Mongolian confusion, it would perhaps be prudent to point out that there is a very good chance that the descriptions provided by the magic web marmot may not be one hundred per cent accurate:

* An Inspector Calls: "You will bow down before me, Jor-El. I swear it, no matter that it takes an eternity! You will bow down before me! Both you and then one day your heirs!"
* The Raspberry Club: "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
* The Earl Grey Missile Test: "Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see."
* Father Abraham: "The report read 'Routine retirement of a replicant.' That didn't make me feel any better about shooting a woman in the back."

Choose-o, vote-o and suggest-o. And let's not forget Um Bong-o.

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Superheroes

Some damn fool asked me: Is Thierry Henry wasted in football? Ask a stupid question...

Henry is undoubtedly the greatest player ever to walk on a football pitch. Even better than Pele, Diego Maradona, Wayne Wanklyn and the legendary Charles "Charlie" Charles. I, for one, think he should be doing more than playing football for a couple of hours a week, like fighting crime whilst wearing his pants outside his trousers. He could even use flamboyant Robert "Je suis un footballeur" Pires as his sidekick, defeating bad guys with his unusual facial hair.

In a world of super villains like George Bush, Michael Jackson, David Pleat, Beyonce and the biggest villain of them all, Rupert Murdoch, who, as we speak, is planning to turn over Fort Knox with an army of page three stunnas, the planet needs a superhero that can catch bad guys using only his knowledge of the offside rule and mind-blowing keepy-uppie skills. And since the sad demise of Gazza-man and his not-too-trusty sidekick Five Bellies, catching villains under the influence of pie and ale, we have been crying out for a new superhero to keep us safe in our beds.

Only Va-Va-Voom Man can save us. And his trusty side-kick, Bob.

Err... I am not mad.

Update: Two goals for Va-Va-Voom Man tonight, then straight out to rescue a cat stuck up a tree. Yay!

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Crap Towns: Dorchester

Or, putting the boot into the place while it's down

Once upon a time, the county town of Dorset was the centre of the universe. Now, people go there to die.

Dorchester gave the world Thomas Hardy, the sailor who Nelson tried to snog on his deathbed, and er... Thomas Hardy, the celebrated writer whose works are now available for a quid at any book store. Dorchester was also the scene of some of the best public executions outside the state of Texas as the infamous Judge Jeffries did his best to keep the population down, but the only way you'll get killed these days is by expiring through sheer boredom.

What's wrong with Dorchester then? It's the sheer apathy of the place. It's run by a council too scared to spend any money on anything, and will procrastinate for years rather than make a decision. They look six miles down the road at the bright lights of Weymouth with envious eyes, and swear they'd never do anything as crassly as the seaside town. So they don't do anything at all.

After sitting in planning for years, they council opened a long-awaited skate park, filled entirely with kiddy ramps from the local branch of Argos. It was closed within a month. The Christmas lights have won national competitions three years in a row for their crapness. They doubled the budget in 2003, so there were two strings of white lights. But steps are being taken! Some bright spark organised a town meeting to combat apathy in the town. Two people turned up, one of whom was the photographer from the local paper.

One of the absurdities of local boundaries means Dorchester actually controls part of Weymouth, and it has become WDDC's mission to become as obstructive as possible in the running of the place. Little men in big offices.

And the football ground's built out of lego, and Weymouth beat the 8-0 on Boxing Day.

When you thought things couldn't get any worse, Prince Charles came along and built Poundbury next door. It is HRH's idea of a rural idyll. It's got a word to describe it, and the word is "nice." Nice as in harmless, organised, token-village-store, token-village-pub and a list of prohibitions the length of your arm. Poundbury makes Dorchester look like Vegas, but they are of the same blood, the same living death.

Just five miles up the road, carved into a hillside is a man with the biggest dick on the planet. A stone age monument? A Roman fertility statement? Or, as current thinking suggests, a work of satire on Oliver Cromwell? I like to think it's the people of Cerne having a laugh, waving their mighty mallet at the good burghers of Dorchester. The world's biggest white-eared elephant.

Oh, and they closed the brewery closed down in 2003, which makes the place even worse now that we've all had a chance to sober up. I pity the people of Dorchester. They need help.

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Lurgi

This weekend, I have been mostly laid low by Special Duck Rabies, a non-life threatening little number which involves much shouting soup and trips to the toilet. This little episode did have one benefit - solving life's great mystery: Where does vending machine tea come from?

Normal service etc... tomorrow.

If you've ordered a t-shirt, they will be posted to you today. I promise to wash my hands first.

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Paul

Another Paul

Some people are blessed with brains, some with brawn. Some with a friendly nature, others with the minds of a psychopath. Others, unfortunately, have none of these and that's where society's problems start. I've met many no-brain Sun reading neanderthals in my time (mostly through my existence as a Dole Office clerk, where they queued up to print their names on a piece of paper and say 'Where's my fuggin' monee?'), but none of them quite take the biscuit like Tommo.

Paul "Tommo" Thomas. We called him a mate, but it was 'mate' in its loosest possible definition, that being 'thug of limited intelligence who kept kicking people in the nadgers.' In a bar brawl on a far off world, he'd be referred to as "Let the Wookie win".

We figured, as you do in the school playground, that the best thing to do is to keep the lunatics near you where you knew where they are. Perhaps they might not kick you in the ballsack quite so often. Some chance. He wore steel-capped boots to school, and left a swathe of destruction in his path, usually piles of kids clutching their groins in agony, puking in fear, smelling more rank than goat curry.

Repeated visits to the headmaster, the vicar, local law enforcement officers, counsellors and the school 'special' doctor failed to cure his impulses. In fact, the doctor never came back, and as far as we knew, never fathered children.

Something had to be done.

The tree.

It had been used before, but only as a last resort. Lure the victim out onto the school field. Overpower him (which with Tommo was tougher than you'd expect), then carry him by arms and legs towards the conker tree. One leg party to the left, one leg party to the right, bollocks right up the middle. Never fails.

He must have had bollocks of steel. Like an injured rhino, it just made him worse, and the carnage was terrible.

We were defeated. Nothing would calm his gonad-crushing urge. Even sidling up to the school caretaker and asking "Do you have any spare toilet paper?" by way of an improvised pad failed to alleviate the agony. Enter Tommo's dad.

Tommo's dad was madder than his son, but with one exception: he had a brain.

Tommo's dad was what's known as a piss-taker, and was always thinking up practical jokes from the public bar of the King's Arms. It was he who diverted the flow from the toilet trough at the village fete right through the beer tent. It was he who diverted traffic for miles round the village "just for a cackle" and changed the script of the royal opening of a local community centre to incvlude "Unhand my camel, fiend!" It was he who rescued us.

One blessed morning, Tommo's dad told young Paul, that due some unspecified trouble with the law, his family would be changing their surname to "Backskin" as part of a witness protection programme. Terrified, Tommo fell for his dad's deadpan delivery hook, line and sinker. It would be down to him, son number one, to tell everybody at school his new name.

So he did. Friends. Teachers. Form tutor. Headmaster. The lot.

Paul Backskin.

It took him three days to realise what we were laughing about, and he fled, humiliated, screaming for home.

I'd like to say at this point "and he never kicked us in the bollocks ever, ever again." But he did, the bastard. He'd mellowed out though. He didn't take a run up any more.

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Consider the Lillies...

...they're well chuffed!

Thursday again, and that can only mean one thing. But enough of my kinky wellie boot fetish, here's this week's vote for tomorrow's Scary story.

* An Inspector Calls - live from London fashion week!
* Paul - how Mongolian tribesmen made my life hell
* The Raspberry Club - stop stalking me TV's Orla Guerin, or I shall call the police
* The Earl Grey Missile Test - bogies. Bogies. BOGIES. BOGIES!

You know what to do - vote-o!, and suggest-o-phrases-for-the-winning-story-o!

And on the good news front, the Scary novel that's been taking up most of my time over recent weeks is more or less completed. Woo!Yay! Houpla! and indeed Panowie!Chapter thirty-five is hidden somewhere on the interwebnet and can be traded for sexual favours.

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Sporting Heroes

No.2: Eric Bristow

Once in a lifetime, a sportsman arrives on the scene who is so radically different from the established order that the whole world is forced to sit up a take notice. Pele. Zatopek. Cryuff. Ali. Hulk Hogan. Eric Bristow.

"When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer. Bristow's only 27." One man had the world at his feet.

Eric "The Crafty Cockney" Bristow was that man. The world of darts was rocking drunkenly on its heels in a shirt made out of a sail and XXXXL trousers. Eric was thin. To start with. And when at the ockey, he only saw one dart board, insead of having to cover one eye and aim for the middle one.

While the sport was dominated by the likes of John Lowe (whose brother was also world famous in the role of Captain Mainwaring, fact fans) and Jockie Wilson (whose Top of the Pops appearance was legend), Bristow came along and wiped the floor with them and his cocky wink to the audience was the stuff of legend. Nothing could stop Bristow except Bristow himself. And the fact that he suddenly couldn't hit the board if it was twenty feet across.

Bristow reign supreme, but soon his time was up, and after a rash of skinny streaks of piss winning the coveted world crowns, the sport has quite righty returned to the domain of the fat bastard whose aim improves with alcohol intake. Only when darts is properly recognised as an Olympic sport will Bristow's legacy be finally fulfilled.

In the words of the great Sid Waddell, darts commentator extraordinaire: "There's only one word for that - MAGIC DARTS!"

Druuuuugs news

First it was Nicotinell, now this! The Boots Joint Patch. Feel the need, just stick one on your arm, and on the 3-for-2 offer as well. What will they think of next? And more to the point, does Mr Blunkett know?

Crab news

Joe Stalin's giant bulletproof man-eating crabs are coming to eat our spicy brains!

I, for one, welcome our totalitarian crustacean overlords. From Neil Gaiman.


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Spies

Riddle me this: If Tony Blair's such a champion of "free and open government", why is he so reluctant to divulge the legal reasons behind going to war with Iraq? Is it because,as Mr Blair claims, this legal case is based on intelligence so sensitive that to bring the source into the public domain would cause a serious breach of state security? Who am I to doubt the integrity of a here today, and dare I say it, gone tomorrow, elected representative?

I trust Mr Blair implicitly to do certain things: to keep the economy on an even keel; to stop people shitting in my airing cupboard and wiping their arse on the net curtains; and not to take our nation into war illegally, sending brave servicemen to untimely deaths, pissing billions of our national debt up the wall on shonky advice from the Attorney General. And hey, the Butler Inquiry's not going to be Hutton Part II, either. Honest.

Therefore I can only assume that Tony's motives are one hundred per cent correct, and that our great nation is faced with one of the following dread scenarios in the face of an evil, unwashed airing-cupboard-shitting enemy; revealing Mr Blair as the best Tory leader since Churchill (steady on - Ed):

1. Working on a secret mission in a public urinal in central Baghdad, there is no way Blair's going to blow George Michael's cover.

2. The Attorney General's adivce to the British Goverment in full: "Oh, go on, then."

3. War declared to deflect public attention away from David Beckham's sale to Real Madrid.

4. "Saddam called me a bumsexualist and threatened to blackmail David Blunkett over his entirely innocent dog-rimming habit."

5. George said it's okay *cough* oil *cough*, and absolutely nothing to do with that alien lizard illuminati thing that's been on the Discovery Channel.

6. You know how it is these days - the war against drugs won, the communist threat crushed, spam a thing of the past and now we're left with a heavily armed military kicking its heels. They've got to do something, as far away as possible, if it can be helped. Cruel to be kind. Kofi Annan suggested it - here, it's in this transcript.

7. "With reference to chapter three, section IIa, paragraph four of the Treaty of Hounslow; and in pursuance of article IX, pages 237-79, 281 and 1,431 of the Catford Accord of 1879, recognising the precedents set in the 1763 occupation of Hammersmith, Fulham and Parsons Green by forces loyal to the Duke of Croydon, it is Her Majesty's Government's sound conclusion that... Hey! Look over there! It's... it's... ELVIS! *sound of feet running away followed by distant voice*: "Any further questions should be directed to Mr Campbell"

So, God bless our government, taking risks in a dangerous world for the good of us all. Except for that bit about George Michael, it's just a hobby to him.

Hypocrisy corner

The Sun gets all self-righteous about Stan Collymore's dogging habit. This being the same publication that offered a ten thousand pound reward for the "first televised Big Brother bonk".

So, who's the pervert then? The Sun: talking bollocks, daily. And always in the public interest.

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If you think you're having a bad day...

...spare a thought for cute ickle Scarydog, who today with be mostly having his bollocks cut off. Eighty quid! And just think, I know a brickie who'll do it for nothing. If anyone cares to join me for a commemorative round of golf tomorrow, you are more than welcome. Bring you own balls.

And while we're on the subject of gender confusion, the Scaryduck posse spotted yet another bad transvestite at a party on Saturday night. It being a fancy dress them (your humble narrator attending as Disco Stu, complete with studded jacket), it took Mrs Duck and I the best part of the evening to decide whether the square-jawed bruiser in a blonde wig, realistic lady-bumps and a liking for Guinness was the genuine article or not.

Conclusion: Laura Ashley season ticket holder for certain.

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