Sick
There reaches a point when you are off sick, where the benefits of avoiding work through not being able to breathe are outweighed by "You're not going to sit there all day feeling sorry for yourself, get up and hoover the stairs."
Today is that day, and I apologise to my esteemed colleagues in advance for infecting them.
I can still be useful, though. I'm going to cough into a jar and send it to the controller of Radio Four*. That'll learn him for messing with die-hard R4 listeners. I remember when people set fire to themselves when they started doing The Archers in stereo. It's like that, only far, far worse.
I am not mad.
* Esteemed colleagues: This is a lie
Minogues
It is now a Duck family tradition that all our pets are named in honour of the lovely Kylie (and not, I should point out, her skanky sister). So far, we have:
Ryan Minogue (hamster)
Molly Minogue (cat, d'csd)
Harry & Lucy Minogue (dogs)
and
The Fishs Minogues (some, but not many, d'csd)
It's not a short-arse pop-star with a better-than-average bottom, it's a way of life.
I am not mad.
Quote of the Day
From a work colleague who shall remain nameless.
"When I came to this country 30 years ago, you were free to do what you like. Now, you cannot go to the gym without shaving your armpits."
Comrade! I shall fight and die for your right to work out with the Black Forest under your arms.
I am not mad.
Catchphrase-me-up, again
After all that thrashing about last week, I've suddenly realised I do have a catchphrase which will be chiselled onto my gravestone. Yes.
I am not mad.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
AM, FM, All that jazz
AM, FM, All that jazz
A list of things that can be greatly improved with the addition of an FM radio.
As the compilers of the Argos catalogue already know, absolutely anything can be improved with the addition of an FM radio. I have seen, with my own eyes (and not simply a pair of eyes I've borrowed off a tramp), shelves of electric screwdrivers in B&Q which are also FM-compatible. Music while you screw is not a new concept, as anyone who has a Luther Vandross record will testify.
So, I ask you, what doesn't usually come with an added radio that clearly needs to benefit from inane DJ chatter, all the Girls Aloud you can eat and 16 minutes of adverts for taxi companies per hour?
* Fred Elliott, I say, Fred Elliott
* A Rock
* The Twelve-Inch Monster Kong "Black Mambo" Intruder (Whatever that is. I think they had a string of hits in the 1980s)
* Ear defenders
* A Trombone
* An FM radio
* Liverpool FC's freak of nature Peter "He picks up City FM really well for a player of his height" Crouch
* Emergency Defibrillator
* Oasis
* The Playtex "Sweet Sound Sensation" Brassiere. Reception, alas, is terrible and needs constant adjustment. The ideal gift from the man who cares.
Suggest-oh!
A list of things that can be greatly improved with the addition of an FM radio.
As the compilers of the Argos catalogue already know, absolutely anything can be improved with the addition of an FM radio. I have seen, with my own eyes (and not simply a pair of eyes I've borrowed off a tramp), shelves of electric screwdrivers in B&Q which are also FM-compatible. Music while you screw is not a new concept, as anyone who has a Luther Vandross record will testify.
So, I ask you, what doesn't usually come with an added radio that clearly needs to benefit from inane DJ chatter, all the Girls Aloud you can eat and 16 minutes of adverts for taxi companies per hour?
* Fred Elliott, I say, Fred Elliott
* A Rock
* The Twelve-Inch Monster Kong "Black Mambo" Intruder (Whatever that is. I think they had a string of hits in the 1980s)
* Ear defenders
* A Trombone
* An FM radio
* Liverpool FC's freak of nature Peter "He picks up City FM really well for a player of his height" Crouch
* Emergency Defibrillator
* Oasis
* The Playtex "Sweet Sound Sensation" Brassiere. Reception, alas, is terrible and needs constant adjustment. The ideal gift from the man who cares.
Suggest-oh!
Sunday, January 29, 2006
A "WTF?" moment
A "WTF?" moment
Despite the lurgi rendering me completely unable to speak, and unable to operate more than five feet away from a radiator, I am sorting out Mrs Duck's car insurance.
They're all thieves, naturally, who are doing their best to penalise us for having mad old women drive into the side of my car three years ago, but I am intrigued by one thing.
Diamond, the rubbish, expensive car insurance that's for women only. How come their application form has a "Mr" option on it? Are they catering for the pre-op trans-sexual market, or what? What?
I am not mad.
Despite the lurgi rendering me completely unable to speak, and unable to operate more than five feet away from a radiator, I am sorting out Mrs Duck's car insurance.
They're all thieves, naturally, who are doing their best to penalise us for having mad old women drive into the side of my car three years ago, but I am intrigued by one thing.
Diamond, the rubbish, expensive car insurance that's for women only. How come their application form has a "Mr" option on it? Are they catering for the pre-op trans-sexual market, or what? What?
I am not mad.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Mirth and Woe: The Kate Winslet Story
The Kate Winslet Story
Events seem to have run away with themselves - not least with a welcome bout of Florida-style ballot box stuffing - and I am forced to cave in to popular demands from my new friends in the Palestinian Authority to see The Kate Winslet Story published. Look, Kate, I'm really, really sorry, but you know how insistent people are…
Ah, Kate, how do we love you? It's a well-known fact that Berkshire-born actress Kate Winslet has got her baps out in every single film she has worked on, including the ones where the script stipulated that she remain fully clothed, the filthy slattern. But that's what you get when you come from a part of Reading where nudity is virtually obligatory in her part of town. They've even built a block of flats in her honour down the Oxford Road, with a removable roof.
In fact, on the cusp of fame, she was a well-known face in the (ahem) lively west of Reading, where sane men know not to walk, and the knocking shop on the Oxford Road hasn't even bothered to disguise itself as a respectable establishment. It was clear that La Winslet was going to be a huge, huge star despite her habits of swearing like a trooper and smoking like a chimney.
Well, I didn't know, did I?
I had an absolutely valid 100 per cent cast-iron excuse for going down that end of Reading that Thursday evening.
I was buying pornography.
A young man's got needs, and the Oxford Road has a number of newsagents with impressive top shelves catering for just about every peccadillo and perversion known to humankind. All strictly legal, you understand. And this month's Big and Fruity, the magazine for greengrocer fetishists and lovers of root vegetables had just come out.
Me, I was after a copy of Fiesta and this week's Auto Trader. Honest.
I always went to the same shop, a) because of the astounding selection and b) it was right next to a side street which was good for a quick getaway should the worst come to the worst and people started looking at you in a funny way in the midst of your jazz purchase.
Scene set? Good. The trouser itch activated and wearing my best flasher mac, I headed for the Oxford Road to make a small purchase. The coast clear, I dived into Mr Khan's emporium of fags, booze and smut and scanned the upper shelves (yes - plural) for suitable one-handed reading material. And Lordy, he knew how to hide the specialist stuff from view.
It would be several minutes before I could locate this month's edition of "Melons" and head for the counter. And I would have made it too, if it wasn't for the fact that the act of pulling this celebration of the juxtaposition of fruit and incredibly naked female flesh from the shelf and making for the till hadn't have brought me into direct collision with a Hollywood starlet, popping out to the corner shop for twenty Lambert and Butler.
In normal, comedic circumstances, you'd fully expect an explosion of pornography, the centre-spread fluttering to the floor between us. Happily, this didn't happen.
I merely prodded her in the left tit with a scud mag. A tit which, one day, would be painted by Leonardo di Caprio. The bastard.
"Ooh," she said. Unfortunately, this was not followed by the line "It's so hot in here", which, I gather, is obligatory in certain genres of filmed entertainment. "Ooh!"
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Winslet" I said, "I appear to have assaulted you in a rather tender area with a partially-folded adult publication. I'm related to a doctor, perhaps you'd allow me to see to the wound." Which came out like this:
"Gneep."
I dropped my spoils back amongst the motor magazines and fled, heading up the side-street towards the handily parked Scary-mobile. Leaning against the door, I breathed a huge sigh of relief following my brush with disaster. She had a stare that could sink ships, and would one day do so.
And there she was, following me up the road, cancer stick between her lips, puffing away in the provocative manner that only an habitually naked star of stage and screen can manage.
Sid James stirred inside me.
As she passed your humble scribe toward Winslet Mansions, she gave me a pitiful smirk. Or a come-on. Hard to tell with these actress types.
"Gneep."
I don't know about you, but I think I might still be in with a chance there.
Events seem to have run away with themselves - not least with a welcome bout of Florida-style ballot box stuffing - and I am forced to cave in to popular demands from my new friends in the Palestinian Authority to see The Kate Winslet Story published. Look, Kate, I'm really, really sorry, but you know how insistent people are…Ah, Kate, how do we love you? It's a well-known fact that Berkshire-born actress Kate Winslet has got her baps out in every single film she has worked on, including the ones where the script stipulated that she remain fully clothed, the filthy slattern. But that's what you get when you come from a part of Reading where nudity is virtually obligatory in her part of town. They've even built a block of flats in her honour down the Oxford Road, with a removable roof.
In fact, on the cusp of fame, she was a well-known face in the (ahem) lively west of Reading, where sane men know not to walk, and the knocking shop on the Oxford Road hasn't even bothered to disguise itself as a respectable establishment. It was clear that La Winslet was going to be a huge, huge star despite her habits of swearing like a trooper and smoking like a chimney.
Well, I didn't know, did I?
I had an absolutely valid 100 per cent cast-iron excuse for going down that end of Reading that Thursday evening.
I was buying pornography.
A young man's got needs, and the Oxford Road has a number of newsagents with impressive top shelves catering for just about every peccadillo and perversion known to humankind. All strictly legal, you understand. And this month's Big and Fruity, the magazine for greengrocer fetishists and lovers of root vegetables had just come out.
Me, I was after a copy of Fiesta and this week's Auto Trader. Honest.
I always went to the same shop, a) because of the astounding selection and b) it was right next to a side street which was good for a quick getaway should the worst come to the worst and people started looking at you in a funny way in the midst of your jazz purchase.
Scene set? Good. The trouser itch activated and wearing my best flasher mac, I headed for the Oxford Road to make a small purchase. The coast clear, I dived into Mr Khan's emporium of fags, booze and smut and scanned the upper shelves (yes - plural) for suitable one-handed reading material. And Lordy, he knew how to hide the specialist stuff from view.
It would be several minutes before I could locate this month's edition of "Melons" and head for the counter. And I would have made it too, if it wasn't for the fact that the act of pulling this celebration of the juxtaposition of fruit and incredibly naked female flesh from the shelf and making for the till hadn't have brought me into direct collision with a Hollywood starlet, popping out to the corner shop for twenty Lambert and Butler.
In normal, comedic circumstances, you'd fully expect an explosion of pornography, the centre-spread fluttering to the floor between us. Happily, this didn't happen.
I merely prodded her in the left tit with a scud mag. A tit which, one day, would be painted by Leonardo di Caprio. The bastard.
"Ooh," she said. Unfortunately, this was not followed by the line "It's so hot in here", which, I gather, is obligatory in certain genres of filmed entertainment. "Ooh!"
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Winslet" I said, "I appear to have assaulted you in a rather tender area with a partially-folded adult publication. I'm related to a doctor, perhaps you'd allow me to see to the wound." Which came out like this:
"Gneep."
I dropped my spoils back amongst the motor magazines and fled, heading up the side-street towards the handily parked Scary-mobile. Leaning against the door, I breathed a huge sigh of relief following my brush with disaster. She had a stare that could sink ships, and would one day do so.
And there she was, following me up the road, cancer stick between her lips, puffing away in the provocative manner that only an habitually naked star of stage and screen can manage.
Sid James stirred inside me.
As she passed your humble scribe toward Winslet Mansions, she gave me a pitiful smirk. Or a come-on. Hard to tell with these actress types.
"Gneep."
I don't know about you, but I think I might still be in with a chance there.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Catchphrase-me-up
Catchphrase-me-up
"Send more money and fish"
Loyal reader German Tony confessed yesterday that he comes to this site to be entertained by my shining wit and my endless stream of endless catchphrases. Like "poo", and …err… that's it. And here-in lies a dreadful confession. I have no actual catchphrases.
All my best one-liners, however, have been shamelessly stolen from other people. And!
"What could possibly go wrong?", "This thread worthless without pictures" are both well-known Farkisms, whilst all that "Done a poo" and "xxxx-me-up" business was ruthlessly pilfered from the warped mind of Mr Biffo. Take out all the ones that poor, dead S. Milligan
isn't using any more, then I am, sadly, completely catchphrased out.
So, help a poor Duckuss. If BBC Three can come up with a whole slew of dreadful catchphrase driven "comedy", you lot should find it a doddle. "Free beer, money and sex for every entrant.*"
Suggest-me-up!
* Beer, money and sex offer open only to residents of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, closes 19th October 1968.
Vote. No.
Here for the Thursday vote-o?
Ah.
You're four days late. This week we have been mostly holding a greatest hits vote-o o' doom for the bestest Scary Story ever, which is looking like an increasingly futile attempt to get the Kate Winslet story published again. So, get over there, and vote Winslet up. As many times as you can. Now.
Free beer, money and se... oh, what's the point?
"Send more money and fish"
Loyal reader German Tony confessed yesterday that he comes to this site to be entertained by my shining wit and my endless stream of endless catchphrases. Like "poo", and …err… that's it. And here-in lies a dreadful confession. I have no actual catchphrases.
All my best one-liners, however, have been shamelessly stolen from other people. And!
"What could possibly go wrong?", "This thread worthless without pictures" are both well-known Farkisms, whilst all that "Done a poo" and "xxxx-me-up" business was ruthlessly pilfered from the warped mind of Mr Biffo. Take out all the ones that poor, dead S. Milligan
isn't using any more, then I am, sadly, completely catchphrased out.So, help a poor Duckuss. If BBC Three can come up with a whole slew of dreadful catchphrase driven "comedy", you lot should find it a doddle. "Free beer, money and sex for every entrant.*"
Suggest-me-up!
* Beer, money and sex offer open only to residents of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, closes 19th October 1968.
Vote. No.
Here for the Thursday vote-o?
Ah.
You're four days late. This week we have been mostly holding a greatest hits vote-o o' doom for the bestest Scary Story ever, which is looking like an increasingly futile attempt to get the Kate Winslet story published again. So, get over there, and vote Winslet up. As many times as you can. Now.
Free beer, money and se... oh, what's the point?
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Boyband: Woe
Boyband: Woe
Some time last year I mentioned Scaryduckling's teacher, who left the profession to seek fame and fortune as a clown.
Well, he's back.
"People don't take me seriously."
However, the teacher's desire to perform is not dead, and this time he's seeking fame and fortune once more as a member of a boy-band.
He's gone and roped in the school choir as backing singers for their night at the Weymouth Pavilion. Scaryduckling is in the school choir. I have tickets (Genuine conversation with the Box Office: "I've got a block of three seats in row D" - "I'm not that keen" - "Row L then" - "Bingo"), for which good money changed hands.
I can hardly contain my excitement.
The teacher's desire to perform. Yes. The fact is, they have a captive audience, and like David Brent, they feel a desire to entertain. They envy the headmaster, because he gets the whole school at every morning assembly, and all they get is thirty disinterested oiks and the chance of playing piano at the school carol concert. They know it's their own fault for listening at school, going to university and finding a proper job instead of slacking off and joining a band.
One of my teacher friends - known as The Other Alistair - is a classic example of this sad state of affairs. A natural showman, he never got his big break, so he is reduced to teaching science to teenagers. Teenagers, who arrive in class to see Other Alistair in a rubber wetsuit, sitting in a tin bath.
"Today, I shall be talking about water displacement."
And with that he is fully immersed in freezing cold water.
Still, teaching's not so bad. Entertainment isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nobody should be involved with any profession that uses the phrase "Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls". It's up there with "Do you want to go large on that?" for tell-tale signs your life has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Some time last year I mentioned Scaryduckling's teacher, who left the profession to seek fame and fortune as a clown.
Well, he's back.
"People don't take me seriously."
However, the teacher's desire to perform is not dead, and this time he's seeking fame and fortune once more as a member of a boy-band.
He's gone and roped in the school choir as backing singers for their night at the Weymouth Pavilion. Scaryduckling is in the school choir. I have tickets (Genuine conversation with the Box Office: "I've got a block of three seats in row D" - "I'm not that keen" - "Row L then" - "Bingo"), for which good money changed hands.
I can hardly contain my excitement.
The teacher's desire to perform. Yes. The fact is, they have a captive audience, and like David Brent, they feel a desire to entertain. They envy the headmaster, because he gets the whole school at every morning assembly, and all they get is thirty disinterested oiks and the chance of playing piano at the school carol concert. They know it's their own fault for listening at school, going to university and finding a proper job instead of slacking off and joining a band.
One of my teacher friends - known as The Other Alistair - is a classic example of this sad state of affairs. A natural showman, he never got his big break, so he is reduced to teaching science to teenagers. Teenagers, who arrive in class to see Other Alistair in a rubber wetsuit, sitting in a tin bath.
"Today, I shall be talking about water displacement."
And with that he is fully immersed in freezing cold water.
Still, teaching's not so bad. Entertainment isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nobody should be involved with any profession that uses the phrase "Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls". It's up there with "Do you want to go large on that?" for tell-tale signs your life has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Hairy
Hairy
I'm hairy. Very, very hairy. Shave my head, and within a week it resembles Marge Simpson. It won't stop, and in this sense, I openly mock bald people.
However: I know when it's time to get my haircut. It is when I am mistaken for a woman in public.
Despite a very recent haircut, this happened last weekend at the petrol station as I went to pay for about six pints of fuel (thirty quid).
"What pump love?"
"Number two, duckie."
Alas, lack of funds mean I am at least two weeks from a haircut - I can either regain my manly, chiselled good looks or starve.
Things came to a head (geddit??) at work this week when I was personally jostled by David "Shagger" Blunkett. Sans dog, the man was clearly out on the pull - having been told by a minder who likes a good laugh as much as the next sadist - that he was visiting the Rub-a-Tug parlour, and not a press conference attended by several hundred journalists.
As hand connected with my tail feathers: "Whoops! Sorry miss."
He's staring at me now as I write this. God, he's in for a surprise later.
Also: Don't forget the mega-vote-o of mirth and woe-o.
I'm hairy. Very, very hairy. Shave my head, and within a week it resembles Marge Simpson. It won't stop, and in this sense, I openly mock bald people.
However: I know when it's time to get my haircut. It is when I am mistaken for a woman in public.
Despite a very recent haircut, this happened last weekend at the petrol station as I went to pay for about six pints of fuel (thirty quid).
"What pump love?"
"Number two, duckie."
Alas, lack of funds mean I am at least two weeks from a haircut - I can either regain my manly, chiselled good looks or starve.
Things came to a head (geddit??) at work this week when I was personally jostled by David "Shagger" Blunkett. Sans dog, the man was clearly out on the pull - having been told by a minder who likes a good laugh as much as the next sadist - that he was visiting the Rub-a-Tug parlour, and not a press conference attended by several hundred journalists.
As hand connected with my tail feathers: "Whoops! Sorry miss."
He's staring at me now as I write this. God, he's in for a surprise later.
Also: Don't forget the mega-vote-o of mirth and woe-o.
Monday, January 23, 2006
That'll be grand, then
That'll be grand, then
Well, here we go, (nearly) four years of blog and 1,000 posts, if my stats are to be believed. So, what should I do to mark this auspicious event? Beg for money? Too crass. A story about done-ing a poo? Been done. Full frontal nudity? Everybody I asked turned me down. I pondered a small, celebratory buffet, but the thought of posting you all a twiglet, a sausage-onna-stick and a sad-looking slice of quiche fills me with dread.
Instead, I'm going to take the lazy man's option. There are currently 176 Tales of Mirth and Woe in the archive. Some of them, by all accounts, are quite good and have been extensively re-written for my almost-but-not-quite-ready-to-publish book called …err… Tales of Mirth and Woe. By the foul and eldritch powers of "Ip Dip" I have chosen several from the book draft, and by means of a hideously rigged vote-o, the best of these will appear on Friday.
And so, the short-listed stories are (with 100 per cent genuine quotes, for once):
* PiSS: "PiSS. PiSS. PiSS. PiSS. PiSS."
* I was a Teenage Bomber: "There were no terrorists, just idiots."
* School Fight Club: "He’d even had sex with a lady once, without having to pay."
* You Can't Get Rid of Porn: "You could see her flanges and everything."
* Cake: "See that candle?" Seany whispered to me, "It's been up my arse."
* Lab of Doom: "Sleepless nights battling the evil pickle."
* Glands: "The biggest pair of top bollocks that any of us had seen on any woman, ever."
* Firestarter: "A rather pleasing mushroom cloud hung over the recreation ground."
* Wedding from Hell: "Dear Fiesta, You won‘t believe the most incredible thing that happened to me at work the other day…"
* Rubber: "The landlady had the biggest pair of knockers I had ever seen, ever." (But not related to the "Glands" lady, obviously)
* Leaving Do o' Doom: "A river of piss, flowing across the floor in a miniature tribute to Wembley Stadium."
* Party: "I promise not to come in your mouth"
* Shitfaced: "I let fly with a brown laser of a turd"
* Manky: "…and wiped my arse on a handful of hamster bedding."
* The Kate Winslet Story: "Leonardo di Caprio. The bastard."
Get on with it, then. I want to see those ballot boxes well and truly stuffed by the end of the week.
Well, here we go, (nearly) four years of blog and 1,000 posts, if my stats are to be believed. So, what should I do to mark this auspicious event? Beg for money? Too crass. A story about done-ing a poo? Been done. Full frontal nudity? Everybody I asked turned me down. I pondered a small, celebratory buffet, but the thought of posting you all a twiglet, a sausage-onna-stick and a sad-looking slice of quiche fills me with dread.
Instead, I'm going to take the lazy man's option. There are currently 176 Tales of Mirth and Woe in the archive. Some of them, by all accounts, are quite good and have been extensively re-written for my almost-but-not-quite-ready-to-publish book called …err… Tales of Mirth and Woe. By the foul and eldritch powers of "Ip Dip" I have chosen several from the book draft, and by means of a hideously rigged vote-o, the best of these will appear on Friday.
And so, the short-listed stories are (with 100 per cent genuine quotes, for once):
* PiSS: "PiSS. PiSS. PiSS. PiSS. PiSS."
* I was a Teenage Bomber: "There were no terrorists, just idiots."
* School Fight Club: "He’d even had sex with a lady once, without having to pay."
* You Can't Get Rid of Porn: "You could see her flanges and everything."
* Cake: "See that candle?" Seany whispered to me, "It's been up my arse."
* Lab of Doom: "Sleepless nights battling the evil pickle."
* Glands: "The biggest pair of top bollocks that any of us had seen on any woman, ever."
* Firestarter: "A rather pleasing mushroom cloud hung over the recreation ground."
* Wedding from Hell: "Dear Fiesta, You won‘t believe the most incredible thing that happened to me at work the other day…"
* Rubber: "The landlady had the biggest pair of knockers I had ever seen, ever." (But not related to the "Glands" lady, obviously)
* Leaving Do o' Doom: "A river of piss, flowing across the floor in a miniature tribute to Wembley Stadium."
* Party: "I promise not to come in your mouth"
* Shitfaced: "I let fly with a brown laser of a turd"
* Manky: "…and wiped my arse on a handful of hamster bedding."
* The Kate Winslet Story: "Leonardo di Caprio. The bastard."
Get on with it, then. I want to see those ballot boxes well and truly stuffed by the end of the week.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Fan mail
Fan mail
I've been known to get fan mail. Some of it is even rather nice, and some of the time hardly any money has changed hands.
And to celebrate the 999th post on this site, proving that I'm as narcissistic as the next man, some highlights from my Inbox of Mirth and Woe. And lowlights.
You love me! You all love me!
"Scary just got sexy" - ITV
"Better than Jeffrey Archer" - The Guardian
"Stamp out this evil in your midst! This filth must be eradicated!" - a famous author
"Made my lunch come out of my nose like a dead pharoah's brains" - Nelson Mandela
Also:
"You make me sick" - Offended Texan
"A cacophony of shite" – Anon
"A jumped up little twat" - Anon
and my favourite troll, ever:
"A turd-in-process of being squeezed out of the fundament of his prolixity." – Xerxes
I thought Xerxes was such a good troll, he deserves fan mail of his own. So:
Praise for Xerxes:
"A cunt" - Scaryduck
Monday will be a 1,000th post spectacular. No pressure to write anything special, then.
I've been known to get fan mail. Some of it is even rather nice, and some of the time hardly any money has changed hands. And to celebrate the 999th post on this site, proving that I'm as narcissistic as the next man, some highlights from my Inbox of Mirth and Woe. And lowlights.
You love me! You all love me!
"Scary just got sexy" - ITV
"Better than Jeffrey Archer" - The Guardian
"Stamp out this evil in your midst! This filth must be eradicated!" - a famous author
"Made my lunch come out of my nose like a dead pharoah's brains" - Nelson Mandela
Also:
"You make me sick" - Offended Texan
"A cacophony of shite" – Anon
"A jumped up little twat" - Anon
and my favourite troll, ever:
"A turd-in-process of being squeezed out of the fundament of his prolixity." – Xerxes
I thought Xerxes was such a good troll, he deserves fan mail of his own. So:
Praise for Xerxes:
"A cunt" - Scaryduck
Monday will be a 1,000th post spectacular. No pressure to write anything special, then.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Mirth and Woe: Now, That's Magic!
Now, That's Magic!
Our family joined a local social club one year. The reasons for this were simple: all day, cheap boozing on a Sunday when every other pub and bar in the district put the shutters up. Membership also gave us the run of the oversized village hall, with its colossal stage at one end.
Unfortunately, this great big hulking thing sitting there mixed with large quantities of intoxicating substances got the brains of certain members working. And the fools said this: "Why don't we put on a show? For the whole village, like."
Oh God.
It soon transpired that virtually the entire membership of the social club had only joined for the cheap bar and had no desire to make fools of themselves on the stage whatsoever. But, as any social club member will testify, there exists the kind of person whose entire lot in life is to be far too cheerful and to organise things. They turned, heaven help us, to the Women's Institute, who weren't above that sort of slatternly behaviour if they got a cut of the takings.
With a promise of a cheap bar and a buffet at half time, we bought tickets and expected the worst.
And so the show began. And what a show.
The performing troupe comprised a raisin-like granny on the piano, and a load of pensioners that couldn't remember the words to all the songs they performed. It wasn't as if they hadn't had enough time to rehearse - not one number was less than fifty years old. It was the kind of thing drama school students put on for the inmates of old peoples' homes, to take "the old dears on a trip down Memory Lane", but only serves to turn them into raging, pension book waving maniacs; only this was in reverse, a sort of wrinklies' revenge.
Then: horror. The magic act.
"Can we have a volunteer from the audience?"
No takers.
The Great Wazoo's eyes settled on me, the terrible bastard.
Despite my protests, and tripping over by best tartan-checked flares, I was dragged out of the audience and onto the huge stage. After a string of dismal tricks that never quite went right, I had to hold up a curtain while the Great Wazoo's old and wrinkled assistant, Brenda, escaped from a box into which she had been rather poorly padlocked.
Well, bugger me stupid, if the old cow was only escaping out of a flap in the side. I was expecting proper magic, but got only trickery, and to this eight-year-old magician's assistant this clear case of fraud simply wouldn't do.
Nobody would listen to my protests at the extreme lack of actual magic going on, so I took it into my own hands to reveal the fraud that was going on in front of my very eyes.
I let go of the curtain.
I let go of the curtain, to reveal a surprised looking pensioner in a leotard, one sagging breast determined to escape from its nylon-clad captivity, as she tried to crawl to the safety of the wings.
I remember the Great Wazoo's words as if they were yesterday: "Brenda! Get back in that fuckin' box!" Then: "You little bastard."
I fled, catching a rear view of the Unmagnificent Brenda and a severe case of spider's legs as I helter-skeltered back to the safety of the stalls.
My stage career was over, and a lifetime of mental issues began.
Our family joined a local social club one year. The reasons for this were simple: all day, cheap boozing on a Sunday when every other pub and bar in the district put the shutters up. Membership also gave us the run of the oversized village hall, with its colossal stage at one end.Unfortunately, this great big hulking thing sitting there mixed with large quantities of intoxicating substances got the brains of certain members working. And the fools said this: "Why don't we put on a show? For the whole village, like."
Oh God.
It soon transpired that virtually the entire membership of the social club had only joined for the cheap bar and had no desire to make fools of themselves on the stage whatsoever. But, as any social club member will testify, there exists the kind of person whose entire lot in life is to be far too cheerful and to organise things. They turned, heaven help us, to the Women's Institute, who weren't above that sort of slatternly behaviour if they got a cut of the takings.
With a promise of a cheap bar and a buffet at half time, we bought tickets and expected the worst.
And so the show began. And what a show.
The performing troupe comprised a raisin-like granny on the piano, and a load of pensioners that couldn't remember the words to all the songs they performed. It wasn't as if they hadn't had enough time to rehearse - not one number was less than fifty years old. It was the kind of thing drama school students put on for the inmates of old peoples' homes, to take "the old dears on a trip down Memory Lane", but only serves to turn them into raging, pension book waving maniacs; only this was in reverse, a sort of wrinklies' revenge.
Then: horror. The magic act.
"Can we have a volunteer from the audience?"
No takers.
The Great Wazoo's eyes settled on me, the terrible bastard.
Despite my protests, and tripping over by best tartan-checked flares, I was dragged out of the audience and onto the huge stage. After a string of dismal tricks that never quite went right, I had to hold up a curtain while the Great Wazoo's old and wrinkled assistant, Brenda, escaped from a box into which she had been rather poorly padlocked.
Well, bugger me stupid, if the old cow was only escaping out of a flap in the side. I was expecting proper magic, but got only trickery, and to this eight-year-old magician's assistant this clear case of fraud simply wouldn't do.
Nobody would listen to my protests at the extreme lack of actual magic going on, so I took it into my own hands to reveal the fraud that was going on in front of my very eyes.
I let go of the curtain.
I let go of the curtain, to reveal a surprised looking pensioner in a leotard, one sagging breast determined to escape from its nylon-clad captivity, as she tried to crawl to the safety of the wings.
I remember the Great Wazoo's words as if they were yesterday: "Brenda! Get back in that fuckin' box!" Then: "You little bastard."
I fled, catching a rear view of the Unmagnificent Brenda and a severe case of spider's legs as I helter-skeltered back to the safety of the stalls.
My stage career was over, and a lifetime of mental issues began.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Offensive Productions Present, Again
Offensive Productions Present, Again
Following our recent and utterly triumphant "What if the Nazis Had Won the War?" post, I thought we'd better get on and balance things up a bit.
So, we ask:
What would be on our televisions if the Soviets had won the Cold War?
Yes, I know full well, we'd probably be waiting for our 14" black-and-white Stalin-o-matic to arrive from a factory somewhere in the Urals, where the cadres of the Shock Workers League are currently striving to smash their glorious Five Year Plan production targets, but you get the general idea.
So far, my evil assistants at Another Place have come up with:
* Red Peter
* Stalin in their Eyes
* Revolution Street
* Emmerdale Collective Farm
* The Sky at Nyet
* Five Year Plan-et of the Apes
* Tsar Trek
* Trot-ski Sunday
* The Buddha of Siberia
* I Am A Celebrity, Please Return Me To The Motherland
* Strictly Comrade Dancing
* Never Mind The Bolsheviks
* Proleteriat and June
* USSR You Being Served
* What the Communist Revolution Did For Us
* Richard and Judeski
* Marx and Mindy
* Only Proles And Horses
* Perestroika it Lucky
* Vladivlostok and Two Smoking Barrels
* Pravda and Prejudice
Suggest-me-up, comrades!
[No vote-o this week because I'm rather too busy in that there London tobe arsed handle one, so Misty's choosing. God help us all.]
Following our recent and utterly triumphant "What if the Nazis Had Won the War?" post, I thought we'd better get on and balance things up a bit.
So, we ask:
What would be on our televisions if the Soviets had won the Cold War?
Yes, I know full well, we'd probably be waiting for our 14" black-and-white Stalin-o-matic to arrive from a factory somewhere in the Urals, where the cadres of the Shock Workers League are currently striving to smash their glorious Five Year Plan production targets, but you get the general idea.
So far, my evil assistants at Another Place have come up with:
* Red Peter
* Stalin in their Eyes
* Revolution Street
* Emmerdale Collective Farm
* The Sky at Nyet
* Five Year Plan-et of the Apes
* Tsar Trek
* Trot-ski Sunday
* The Buddha of Siberia
* I Am A Celebrity, Please Return Me To The Motherland
* Strictly Comrade Dancing
* Never Mind The Bolsheviks
* Proleteriat and June
* USSR You Being Served
* What the Communist Revolution Did For Us
* Richard and Judeski
* Marx and Mindy
* Only Proles And Horses
* Perestroika it Lucky
* Vladivlostok and Two Smoking Barrels
* Pravda and Prejudice
Suggest-me-up, comrades!
[No vote-o this week because I'm rather too busy in that there London to
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Mangled
Mangled
Mrs Duck is actually incredibly clever. I've got to say that, or she'll be putting slugs in my coffee, again. However, and this has got to be said, she's got a way of mangling the language which sets my teeth on edge, and tempts me to put slimy things in her hot beverages.
Trying to correct her just leads to woe, so I am faced with no alternative but to tell the entire internet.
* Liable: "How dare she say that! Couldn't we sue her for liable?"
* Lozenger: "Suck on this lozenger, and your sore throat will get better."
* Dribble: "Stop talking dribble, you're making no sense at all."
And the clincher:
* Tubberware: "Don't touch that Tubberware container - it's got the dog's dinner inside."
No good will come of this.
The Gay Mug
And while we're on the subject of marital disputes, this is my favourite coffee mug.
As you can see, it is clearly purple.
"No it's not", Mrs Duck says, "It's pink. You're colour-blind and you drink from a big, gay coffee cup."
I put it to you, dear reader, that it is purple, and Mrs Duck is the Empress of Wrong. Purple? Pink? Tell me.
No good will come of this, either.
Mrs Duck is actually incredibly clever. I've got to say that, or she'll be putting slugs in my coffee, again. However, and this has got to be said, she's got a way of mangling the language which sets my teeth on edge, and tempts me to put slimy things in her hot beverages.
Trying to correct her just leads to woe, so I am faced with no alternative but to tell the entire internet.
* Liable: "How dare she say that! Couldn't we sue her for liable?"
* Lozenger: "Suck on this lozenger, and your sore throat will get better."
* Dribble: "Stop talking dribble, you're making no sense at all."
And the clincher:
* Tubberware: "Don't touch that Tubberware container - it's got the dog's dinner inside."
No good will come of this.
The Gay Mug
And while we're on the subject of marital disputes, this is my favourite coffee mug.As you can see, it is clearly purple.
"No it's not", Mrs Duck says, "It's pink. You're colour-blind and you drink from a big, gay coffee cup."
I put it to you, dear reader, that it is purple, and Mrs Duck is the Empress of Wrong. Purple? Pink? Tell me.
No good will come of this, either.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Heartbeat: Woe
Heartbeat: Woe
Last Sunday night, I accidentally watched Heartbeat, and a pox on the other networks for forcing me into this sad state of affairs.
And come on, admit it. You've all done the same at some stage in your sorry lives. Sunday. Too broke to go down the pub, the television's stuck on ITV and Nick Berry starts singing "Heartbeat....". Too late.
It was, as I expected, exactly the same as the last time I saw it - the copper who is not N. Berry is still solving crimes caused by mysterious outsiders with the help of the doctor with is not Niamh Cusack. Meanwhile, there is a predictable subplot involving an amusing yet doomed business deal featuring the wheeler-dealer who is not Claude Greengrass; while the girl in the pub is still nineteen despite all the evidence to the contrary and the fact she's been there for thirteen years.
On no occasion - but I have missed several hundred episodes - does one of these hour-long slices of mediocrity featured anything that is actually interesting. There was an episode featuring Lord Ashfordleigh being blackmailed by a mysterious outsider over his habit of buggering watermelons, but they shelved it at the last minute after that nasty business with Tony Blair's bins.
However, now is its FIFTEENTH series, and the producers are still clinging grimly onto the idea that it's still in the 1960s. The doctor-who-isn't-Niamh-Cusack-anymore drives a big French car with an "H" reg plate, meaning that the date is at least August 1969, while - so my sources tell me - they've had at least four 1969 Christmases already.
Perhaps there's now a special Hearbeat dimension, where they will never reach 1970, similar to the one in the Simpsons where Bart will never reach ten years old, or where Bobby Ewing never got out of the shower. Perhaps we're already in it.
Or maybe they're just going to bite the bullet, and a forthcoming episode of the nation's favourite gentle police drama will feature rolling countryside, the usual lovable characters and the Sex Pistols doing "Pretty Vacant". One can live in hope. But frankly, ten million people tune into this televised valium, so why should they bother?
Heartbeat, like Westlife, will never die - God help us all - but what year is it? Eh?
I actually went out and researched this piece, you bastards. That's what I call suffering for my art. Also: No apologies to colonials who haven't got a clue what this is all about. Bad television, that is all.
Last Sunday night, I accidentally watched Heartbeat, and a pox on the other networks for forcing me into this sad state of affairs.
And come on, admit it. You've all done the same at some stage in your sorry lives. Sunday. Too broke to go down the pub, the television's stuck on ITV and Nick Berry starts singing "Heartbeat....". Too late.
It was, as I expected, exactly the same as the last time I saw it - the copper who is not N. Berry is still solving crimes caused by mysterious outsiders with the help of the doctor with is not Niamh Cusack. Meanwhile, there is a predictable subplot involving an amusing yet doomed business deal featuring the wheeler-dealer who is not Claude Greengrass; while the girl in the pub is still nineteen despite all the evidence to the contrary and the fact she's been there for thirteen years.
On no occasion - but I have missed several hundred episodes - does one of these hour-long slices of mediocrity featured anything that is actually interesting. There was an episode featuring Lord Ashfordleigh being blackmailed by a mysterious outsider over his habit of buggering watermelons, but they shelved it at the last minute after that nasty business with Tony Blair's bins.
However, now is its FIFTEENTH series, and the producers are still clinging grimly onto the idea that it's still in the 1960s. The doctor-who-isn't-Niamh-Cusack-anymore drives a big French car with an "H" reg plate, meaning that the date is at least August 1969, while - so my sources tell me - they've had at least four 1969 Christmases already.
Perhaps there's now a special Hearbeat dimension, where they will never reach 1970, similar to the one in the Simpsons where Bart will never reach ten years old, or where Bobby Ewing never got out of the shower. Perhaps we're already in it.
Or maybe they're just going to bite the bullet, and a forthcoming episode of the nation's favourite gentle police drama will feature rolling countryside, the usual lovable characters and the Sex Pistols doing "Pretty Vacant". One can live in hope. But frankly, ten million people tune into this televised valium, so why should they bother?
Heartbeat, like Westlife, will never die - God help us all - but what year is it? Eh?
I actually went out and researched this piece, you bastards. That's what I call suffering for my art. Also: No apologies to colonials who haven't got a clue what this is all about. Bad television, that is all.
Monday, January 16, 2006
"Oh God, No", again
"Oh God, No", again
I know I shouldn't keep banging on about my vasectomy and my attempts to become a jaffa, especially since you're having a scotch egg for lunch, but I got a letter from Dorset County Hospital the other day.
"Thank you for your latest sample. Unfortunately, the lid came off in the laboratory…"
Oh God. NO!
Do they not realize the inconvenience I have to go through to get a jar-full of man-sauce all the way to Dorchester just for some junior technician to mistake it for a bottle of mayonnaise? Do they not realise that to fill said jar with gravy whilst Mrs Scary sits downstairs, coat on, car keys at the ready, my face resembling the death scene from a Dennis Potter play is the most joyless exercise in the whole world? Do they? They do not.
I am told by my esteemed colleagues that "I should have screwed the lid on tighter." Au contraire, screwing was the first thing on my mind.
The Quest for Jaffa continues.
I know I shouldn't keep banging on about my vasectomy and my attempts to become a jaffa, especially since you're having a scotch egg for lunch, but I got a letter from Dorset County Hospital the other day.
"Thank you for your latest sample. Unfortunately, the lid came off in the laboratory…"
Oh God. NO!
Do they not realize the inconvenience I have to go through to get a jar-full of man-sauce all the way to Dorchester just for some junior technician to mistake it for a bottle of mayonnaise? Do they not realise that to fill said jar with gravy whilst Mrs Scary sits downstairs, coat on, car keys at the ready, my face resembling the death scene from a Dennis Potter play is the most joyless exercise in the whole world? Do they? They do not.
I am told by my esteemed colleagues that "I should have screwed the lid on tighter." Au contraire, screwing was the first thing on my mind.
The Quest for Jaffa continues.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Mirth and Woe: Potman
Potman
My old dad was in the Territorial Army. An officer too, status afforded to him by the fact that he is a doctor, and the armed forces need people who can glue soldiers back together after they've been blown apart.
See? Listen at school, and you get your own green uniform, a great big ambulance and people who have to call you "sir" without the prefix "I think you should leave now".
You also get Thursday nights at the centre of the known universe - Duke of York's Barracks in Chelsea, home to a splendidly appointed officers' mess.
There was a rota for the bar, shared between the officers, the NCOs and the other ranks, and when it was dad's turn, we kids were dragged along for the evening, told to be good and left to guard the crisps and peanuts.
And if we were good, we were rewarded. It was about this time that I developed a taste for Schweppes Indian Tonic Water. Being an officers-only zone, it was the only non-alcoholic drink they stocked, and by God, we went through gallons of the stuff.
To alleviate the boredom, and to stop us from running amok round some of the British Army's darkest corners, we were put to work in the bar.
Employed as a six-year-old pot man, I would be sent out from behind the bar to collect the empties. The officers thought this was incredibly cute and encouraged me to "finish their drinks for them". An incredibly charitable act, that has been hidden in the darkest recesses of my brain ever since, and for very good reason.
So, drink up I did.
I drunk and I drunk, and some of it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be.
I drunk until I was as pissed as a little beetle. Then, my new friends taught me a couple of party tricks, including a song about (and I quote) "A stupid dicky-di-dildo", which I then repeated to my parents, at length.
I declined the offer of a cigar, though. Even then, I had standards.
The rest of the evening, I must confess, was a bit of a blur, and a telling prediction of what would lie ahead in my young adult life.
They found me, hours later, in a pool of my own vomit, curled up in the back of a military ambulance.
I swore the next day: "Never again."
Yeah, right. Next Thursday would roll around soon enough.
My old dad was in the Territorial Army. An officer too, status afforded to him by the fact that he is a doctor, and the armed forces need people who can glue soldiers back together after they've been blown apart. See? Listen at school, and you get your own green uniform, a great big ambulance and people who have to call you "sir" without the prefix "I think you should leave now".
You also get Thursday nights at the centre of the known universe - Duke of York's Barracks in Chelsea, home to a splendidly appointed officers' mess.
There was a rota for the bar, shared between the officers, the NCOs and the other ranks, and when it was dad's turn, we kids were dragged along for the evening, told to be good and left to guard the crisps and peanuts.
And if we were good, we were rewarded. It was about this time that I developed a taste for Schweppes Indian Tonic Water. Being an officers-only zone, it was the only non-alcoholic drink they stocked, and by God, we went through gallons of the stuff.
To alleviate the boredom, and to stop us from running amok round some of the British Army's darkest corners, we were put to work in the bar.
Employed as a six-year-old pot man, I would be sent out from behind the bar to collect the empties. The officers thought this was incredibly cute and encouraged me to "finish their drinks for them". An incredibly charitable act, that has been hidden in the darkest recesses of my brain ever since, and for very good reason.
So, drink up I did.
I drunk and I drunk, and some of it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be.
I drunk until I was as pissed as a little beetle. Then, my new friends taught me a couple of party tricks, including a song about (and I quote) "A stupid dicky-di-dildo", which I then repeated to my parents, at length.
I declined the offer of a cigar, though. Even then, I had standards.
The rest of the evening, I must confess, was a bit of a blur, and a telling prediction of what would lie ahead in my young adult life.
They found me, hours later, in a pool of my own vomit, curled up in the back of a military ambulance.
I swore the next day: "Never again."
Yeah, right. Next Thursday would roll around soon enough.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Creme Egg Mystery
The Battle of Misty's Dog
Misty is convinced that her dog is cuter than mine. "Feh, woman," I say. "Feh!"
Battle is joined, and I'm afraid to say the stats do not lie.
Lucy Minogue = TEH CUTEST.
Pudsey = Evil duck killer.
Case rested.
Crème Egg Mystery
The time: 1300 hours, Tuesday 9 January 2006
The place: Tesco, Dorchester
The event: First sighting of 2006 Easter Eggs, some four months before the event. They didn't even have the decency to see off Valentine's Day.
I am certain that Creme Eggs are smaller than last year. When I was a kid, they were the size of ostrich eggs, now they are as very, very small peas.
Does anybody happen to have a collection of antique Creme Egg wrappers to back me up? The 2006 model is 39 grams. I bet they weight half a fucking ton back in the dawn of time, and if you wanted a Creme Egg and a Waggon Wheel, you had to take a fork lift truck to the sweet shop.
Thursday vo-toe
And following last week's fiasco, I'm only going to ask you to choose-o from stories that I've actually written. quote-os, as usual don't necessarily match up with the story. Hint: The value of puffins may go down as well as up. Don't put all your money in puffins!
* The Operator: Waking up from a drink-induced slumber he saw what could only be Jeremy Paxman frotting up against several members of the Shadow Cabinet. "Bloody biased BBC" he shouted at the screen, collapsing into unconsciousness yet again.
* Potman: "And I'd like you introduce you to your new cell-mate. Hey Bubba - some fresh meat for ya!" Poor, poor Lord Archer, he'd never be able to sit on a bar stool again.
* Driving Test: "No you fools!" Albert Einstein raged at the Nobel Committee. "That's no equation - it's my street name. MC Squared. Bo selecta!"
* Now, that's Magic!: So I joined the Salvation Army. I lasted ten minutes, right up to the moment I said "What d'you mean I don't get a fucking gun?" Humourless bastards.
* Dibs: "You insensitive bastard!" she screamed as he served the first course, "My mother died with a watermelon stuffed up her arse!" Dinner that night, he realised, would be a tense affair. He suddenly dreaded the cheeseboard.
* Pickle: "Women! Can't live with 'em, can't bludgeon 'em to death with a claw hammer and bury 'em under the patio." In retrospect, Prime Minister's Questions could have gone better that day.
* Party III: "So, it's decided then," said Mother Teresa O'Hara, her mouth a slit as the words hissed out to the packed yet silent room deep in the Vatican, "Julie Andrews is fucking dead meat."
Vote-me-do!
Misty is convinced that her dog is cuter than mine. "Feh, woman," I say. "Feh!"
Battle is joined, and I'm afraid to say the stats do not lie.
Lucy Minogue = TEH CUTEST.
Pudsey = Evil duck killer.
Case rested.
Crème Egg Mystery
The time: 1300 hours, Tuesday 9 January 2006
The place: Tesco, Dorchester
The event: First sighting of 2006 Easter Eggs, some four months before the event. They didn't even have the decency to see off Valentine's Day.
I am certain that Creme Eggs are smaller than last year. When I was a kid, they were the size of ostrich eggs, now they are as very, very small peas.
Does anybody happen to have a collection of antique Creme Egg wrappers to back me up? The 2006 model is 39 grams. I bet they weight half a fucking ton back in the dawn of time, and if you wanted a Creme Egg and a Waggon Wheel, you had to take a fork lift truck to the sweet shop.
Thursday vo-toe
And following last week's fiasco, I'm only going to ask you to choose-o from stories that I've actually written. quote-os, as usual don't necessarily match up with the story. Hint: The value of puffins may go down as well as up. Don't put all your money in puffins!
* The Operator: Waking up from a drink-induced slumber he saw what could only be Jeremy Paxman frotting up against several members of the Shadow Cabinet. "Bloody biased BBC" he shouted at the screen, collapsing into unconsciousness yet again.
* Potman: "And I'd like you introduce you to your new cell-mate. Hey Bubba - some fresh meat for ya!" Poor, poor Lord Archer, he'd never be able to sit on a bar stool again.
* Driving Test: "No you fools!" Albert Einstein raged at the Nobel Committee. "That's no equation - it's my street name. MC Squared. Bo selecta!"
* Now, that's Magic!: So I joined the Salvation Army. I lasted ten minutes, right up to the moment I said "What d'you mean I don't get a fucking gun?" Humourless bastards.
* Dibs: "You insensitive bastard!" she screamed as he served the first course, "My mother died with a watermelon stuffed up her arse!" Dinner that night, he realised, would be a tense affair. He suddenly dreaded the cheeseboard.
* Pickle: "Women! Can't live with 'em, can't bludgeon 'em to death with a claw hammer and bury 'em under the patio." In retrospect, Prime Minister's Questions could have gone better that day.
* Party III: "So, it's decided then," said Mother Teresa O'Hara, her mouth a slit as the words hissed out to the packed yet silent room deep in the Vatican, "Julie Andrews is fucking dead meat."
Vote-me-do!
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
People who deserve a punch
People who deserve a punch
Some people exist just to get on my tits, and frankly they deserve a good, hard punch up the bottom. In no particular order:
* People who say: “Do you know who’d make a great Doctor Who? Dawn French”
* People - especially those who run or have recently taken part in buzzword-bingo driven management seminars - who say "Don't assume – you just make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'." I've got an assumption for you, mate: You're a cunt.
* Made-up TV singing group G4 for releasing an “operatic” (used in the loosest possible context) version of Bowie’s “Life on Mars”. It’s wrong – pure and simple, and quite the funniest thing I have ever heard if it wasn’t so sacrilegious.
In fact, you can actually recreate the G4 sound in the comfort of your own home without the expense and embarrassment of buying the record. Simply stand in front of the bathroom mirror, take a big mouthful of Listerine mixed with bleach and sing the following: "Hey man - look at those cavemen go”. It’s what the fat one does, and is entirely authentic. Then leave the comfort of your home, seek out these G4 tarts, and give them a punch.
* Caravan owners, who should actually be forced to punch themselves to save us the futile waste of energy.
* Rubbish terrorists. I am reliably informed that this whole “72 virgins” business you get on your so-called martyrdom may be up for a slight re-interpretation. Arabic scholars, you see, are in dispute over the translation of what martyrs actually get in heaven on the event of their earthly demise. Some say “virgins”, which is all well and good. Others say the word is, in fact, “raisins”. Can you imagine the embarrassment once they’ve found all your bits and stitched you back together on The Other Side? Crap terrorists – enjoy your fruitcake.
* Jimmy Carr, just to be on the safe side
Some people exist just to get on my tits, and frankly they deserve a good, hard punch up the bottom. In no particular order:
* People who say: “Do you know who’d make a great Doctor Who? Dawn French”
* People - especially those who run or have recently taken part in buzzword-bingo driven management seminars - who say "Don't assume – you just make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'." I've got an assumption for you, mate: You're a cunt.
* Made-up TV singing group G4 for releasing an “operatic” (used in the loosest possible context) version of Bowie’s “Life on Mars”. It’s wrong – pure and simple, and quite the funniest thing I have ever heard if it wasn’t so sacrilegious.
In fact, you can actually recreate the G4 sound in the comfort of your own home without the expense and embarrassment of buying the record. Simply stand in front of the bathroom mirror, take a big mouthful of Listerine mixed with bleach and sing the following: "Hey man - look at those cavemen go”. It’s what the fat one does, and is entirely authentic. Then leave the comfort of your home, seek out these G4 tarts, and give them a punch.
* Caravan owners, who should actually be forced to punch themselves to save us the futile waste of energy.
* Rubbish terrorists. I am reliably informed that this whole “72 virgins” business you get on your so-called martyrdom may be up for a slight re-interpretation. Arabic scholars, you see, are in dispute over the translation of what martyrs actually get in heaven on the event of their earthly demise. Some say “virgins”, which is all well and good. Others say the word is, in fact, “raisins”. Can you imagine the embarrassment once they’ve found all your bits and stitched you back together on The Other Side? Crap terrorists – enjoy your fruitcake.
* Jimmy Carr, just to be on the safe side
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
An idiot writes
An idiot writes
Dear Sir,
I'm all for the new medium of "e-mail" which young people are using with increasing frequency these days. I dare say it keeps them off the streets and back in harm's way where they belong.
The problem is, I keep getting so-called "e-mails" that tell me "Congratulations! Your e-mail address was entered in the Dutch National Lucky Millions Lottery sponsored by Microsoft and you've won $1,000,000!!!" I must be the luckiest man on Earth, as I've won dozens of times this month alone.
Every time I contact these people to get my money, however, they never pay up despite my cheques for bank transfer fees disappearing from my account at a rate of knots. I'm beginning to suspect that there might not even be a Dutch National Lucky Millions Lottery sponsored by Microsoft at all, and SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE about these blithering incompetents!
How many times have they "mixed up names and numbers" so far? I would have thought, even with Microsoft's so-called assistance, they would have some sort of system in place by now. It's costing me a fortune and these people are destroying my faith in what is clearly an otherwise genuine enterprise.
I mean, for example, what happens when my e-mail address REALLY wins $1,000,000 in the Dutch National Lucky Millions Lottery? I'm going to think twice before handing over another five hundred smackers for the administration fee, aren't I? And then who's going to be the loser, answer me that.
I'm getting to the point where the money's going to come is handy. The last lot of penis enlargement pills didn't work, and I need the funds to pay for my next order. Get a grip, you Dutch imbeciles!
I am not mad.
Lt Col Winston St John Cholmondeley-Cholmondeley Patel (Mrs)
PS I'm grateful to my bankers, Douche-Despittle-Degaryglitter for embracing this new technology. Their frequent e-mails asking me to verify my account are a real boon, and have put my mind at rest over the security of my hard-earned pension, relieved from the ungrateful natives during the Battle of the Sindhigar Kush in 1927.
There I was, I remember quite clearly, shelterin' behind the bullet-riddled carcass of a dead yak in the town square with "Squiffer" Featherstonehalgh, surrounded my the lifeless bodies of me former comrades-in-arms of the Princess Kylie's Light Goat Botherers, lettin' rip at the chargin' Phansigars with me trusty Lee Enfield when I espied out of the corner of me eye… (continued on p.37)
Dear Sir,
I'm all for the new medium of "e-mail" which young people are using with increasing frequency these days. I dare say it keeps them off the streets and back in harm's way where they belong.
The problem is, I keep getting so-called "e-mails" that tell me "Congratulations! Your e-mail address was entered in the Dutch National Lucky Millions Lottery sponsored by Microsoft and you've won $1,000,000!!!" I must be the luckiest man on Earth, as I've won dozens of times this month alone.
Every time I contact these people to get my money, however, they never pay up despite my cheques for bank transfer fees disappearing from my account at a rate of knots. I'm beginning to suspect that there might not even be a Dutch National Lucky Millions Lottery sponsored by Microsoft at all, and SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE about these blithering incompetents!
How many times have they "mixed up names and numbers" so far? I would have thought, even with Microsoft's so-called assistance, they would have some sort of system in place by now. It's costing me a fortune and these people are destroying my faith in what is clearly an otherwise genuine enterprise.
I mean, for example, what happens when my e-mail address REALLY wins $1,000,000 in the Dutch National Lucky Millions Lottery? I'm going to think twice before handing over another five hundred smackers for the administration fee, aren't I? And then who's going to be the loser, answer me that.
I'm getting to the point where the money's going to come is handy. The last lot of penis enlargement pills didn't work, and I need the funds to pay for my next order. Get a grip, you Dutch imbeciles!
I am not mad.
Lt Col Winston St John Cholmondeley-Cholmondeley Patel (Mrs)
PS I'm grateful to my bankers, Douche-Despittle-Degaryglitter for embracing this new technology. Their frequent e-mails asking me to verify my account are a real boon, and have put my mind at rest over the security of my hard-earned pension, relieved from the ungrateful natives during the Battle of the Sindhigar Kush in 1927.
There I was, I remember quite clearly, shelterin' behind the bullet-riddled carcass of a dead yak in the town square with "Squiffer" Featherstonehalgh, surrounded my the lifeless bodies of me former comrades-in-arms of the Princess Kylie's Light Goat Botherers, lettin' rip at the chargin' Phansigars with me trusty Lee Enfield when I espied out of the corner of me eye… (continued on p.37)
Monday, January 09, 2006
On recycling
On recycling
I remember the days when we had just the one bin. Every Sunday night I could be seen standing on top of it, trying to get the lid down in time for Monday morning's collection of household waste, dead badgers and assorted engine parts, which would then be thoughtfully buried in a big hole in the ground. Of course, that big hole in the ground would one day become a large, new hill and the future venue for the town's dry ski slope; which just goes to show that slashing and burning the planet's resources does have its uses.
But no. Apparently, dry ski slopes and big hills with their own supply of methane gas have fallen out of fashion, and in the name of preventing our low-lying coasts from disappearing into the sea, we've got to stop landfilling and start recycling.
So, instead of seeing my hairy-arsed bin men once a week, we've now got the following rota, and more bins than I can shake a shitty recycled stick at:
* Monday: waste paper, glossy magazines with the pages tuck together
* The other Monday: plastics, perished rubber goods
* Tuesday: Tins and glass
* The other Tuesday: Garden waste
* Thursday: Food waste and cardboard (handy if you are on an all-McDonalds diet)
* Friday: General waste, dead badgers and engine parts
* Daily: Dog poo, through letterboxes
This is quite obviously a huge pain in the arse, but we can happily sort our waste full in the knowledge that we're saving Norfolk from a terrible, terrible fate. If only we'd started thinking out of the box:
Dear Viz,
Global warming is a menace that will affect each and every one of us, and we must do everything we can to protect our country against rising sea levels predicted by these so-called "greens".
But why should we sacrifice our luxurious standard of living when the answer is staring us all in the face? Instead of burying all our refuse in expensive and wasteful landfill sites outside every large town in the country, why don't councils simply sell their waste to coastal areas, which would simply use this rubbish to build higher sea walls as a defence against melting polar ice caps?
The thought of burying Brighton in a huge wall of household waste, used sanitary products, dead badgers and engine parts fills me with great joy. I can only encourage citizens to make a start on this plan right away by labelling their rubbish sacks "Freepost, Brighton".
This scheme would also encourage seagulls to actually live by the sea where they belong, which is a bit of a bonus, in which everybody wins. Except people who live by the sea, obviously.
I am not mad.
Dan Prick
I remember the days when we had just the one bin. Every Sunday night I could be seen standing on top of it, trying to get the lid down in time for Monday morning's collection of household waste, dead badgers and assorted engine parts, which would then be thoughtfully buried in a big hole in the ground. Of course, that big hole in the ground would one day become a large, new hill and the future venue for the town's dry ski slope; which just goes to show that slashing and burning the planet's resources does have its uses.
But no. Apparently, dry ski slopes and big hills with their own supply of methane gas have fallen out of fashion, and in the name of preventing our low-lying coasts from disappearing into the sea, we've got to stop landfilling and start recycling.
So, instead of seeing my hairy-arsed bin men once a week, we've now got the following rota, and more bins than I can shake a shitty recycled stick at:
* Monday: waste paper, glossy magazines with the pages tuck together
* The other Monday: plastics, perished rubber goods
* Tuesday: Tins and glass
* The other Tuesday: Garden waste
* Thursday: Food waste and cardboard (handy if you are on an all-McDonalds diet)
* Friday: General waste, dead badgers and engine parts
* Daily: Dog poo, through letterboxes
This is quite obviously a huge pain in the arse, but we can happily sort our waste full in the knowledge that we're saving Norfolk from a terrible, terrible fate. If only we'd started thinking out of the box:
Dear Viz,
Global warming is a menace that will affect each and every one of us, and we must do everything we can to protect our country against rising sea levels predicted by these so-called "greens".
But why should we sacrifice our luxurious standard of living when the answer is staring us all in the face? Instead of burying all our refuse in expensive and wasteful landfill sites outside every large town in the country, why don't councils simply sell their waste to coastal areas, which would simply use this rubbish to build higher sea walls as a defence against melting polar ice caps?
The thought of burying Brighton in a huge wall of household waste, used sanitary products, dead badgers and engine parts fills me with great joy. I can only encourage citizens to make a start on this plan right away by labelling their rubbish sacks "Freepost, Brighton".
This scheme would also encourage seagulls to actually live by the sea where they belong, which is a bit of a bonus, in which everybody wins. Except people who live by the sea, obviously.
I am not mad.
Dan Prick
Friday, January 06, 2006
Mirth and Woe: Stiffy
Stiffy
Close relations are involved here, so names have been changed to protect the guilty. Let's just say "Karl" and "Joe" are corrupt uncles of the Duck household. Yes. Corrupt uncles. And coming from a large, and larger than life, family, they got about a bit.
In the countryside near where they lived was an old church. No longer used, no longer consecrated ground, the place was left to rot. And naturally, it became a magnet for lads of a certain age looking out for somewhere exciting to play, take unescorted lady-friends and hide publications of a certain nature.
And what a playground the church was. A spooky graveyard, a none-more-dangerous tower, an empty nave that doubled up as an indoor football pitch. And the crypt.
Oh yes.
After several visits to the place where neither Karl nor Joe could summon up the courage to plunge into the ghostly darkness, they rustled up a couple of candles from their mum's kitchen, and headed off to the old church on their bikes. They would conquer the land of the dead.
And, by candlelight, the lowered themselves slowly into the waiting abyss.
Empty.
The church people, in closing down this particular place of worship, had moved out all the bodies and taken them to consecrated ground elsewhere. To prevent, basically, local oiks coming in and waking the dead whilst blundering about with mum's stolen candles, looking for a likely place where they could stick their hands up the local skirt.
Empty.
Except, in the far corner, for reasons unknown, there was a tomb. And lifting the top slab off the tomb, there was a coffin. And inside the coffin was a skull.
"Gottle of gear!"
So, what do you do when you find a dead person's head in the crypt of an old church? As any sane person knows, the right thing to do in these circumstances is to run away like buggery with the thing under your arm, stick it on the rack on the back of your bike, take it home and hide it under your bed. So they did.
That night, their shared bedroom writhed with fear. Always, always, it seemed as if someone was in the room with them. Watching. Waiting. Doing a bad ventriloquist act.
After a week of fitful sleep, punctuated by strange, terrifying dreams of years gone by, and the awful revenge of an unseen figure, the terrified duo dug a big hole in the garden, threw the skull in and buried it.
Then, they moved house.
Silence.
A few years later, a policeman came to the door.
"Is anything wrong, officer?" asked Mum.
"Yes, it's about your previous address, madam," he replied.
"What about it?"
And so, shit met fan.
The new tennants had decided to do a bit of gardening, dug a hole for some new shrub, and had found Gottle of Gear staring back at them through lifeless sockets. They had, the policeman said matter-of-factly, "crapped their pants, madam".
"And we wondered, madam, if you might know anything about this?"
"KAAAARL! JOOOOOE! GET DOWN HERE NOOOOOW!"
Being the 1950s, punishment was swift and merciless: a good old fashioned clip round the ear and justice was well and truly served.
Close relations are involved here, so names have been changed to protect the guilty. Let's just say "Karl" and "Joe" are corrupt uncles of the Duck household. Yes. Corrupt uncles. And coming from a large, and larger than life, family, they got about a bit.In the countryside near where they lived was an old church. No longer used, no longer consecrated ground, the place was left to rot. And naturally, it became a magnet for lads of a certain age looking out for somewhere exciting to play, take unescorted lady-friends and hide publications of a certain nature.
And what a playground the church was. A spooky graveyard, a none-more-dangerous tower, an empty nave that doubled up as an indoor football pitch. And the crypt.
Oh yes.
After several visits to the place where neither Karl nor Joe could summon up the courage to plunge into the ghostly darkness, they rustled up a couple of candles from their mum's kitchen, and headed off to the old church on their bikes. They would conquer the land of the dead.
And, by candlelight, the lowered themselves slowly into the waiting abyss.
Empty.
The church people, in closing down this particular place of worship, had moved out all the bodies and taken them to consecrated ground elsewhere. To prevent, basically, local oiks coming in and waking the dead whilst blundering about with mum's stolen candles, looking for a likely place where they could stick their hands up the local skirt.
Empty.
Except, in the far corner, for reasons unknown, there was a tomb. And lifting the top slab off the tomb, there was a coffin. And inside the coffin was a skull.
"Gottle of gear!"
So, what do you do when you find a dead person's head in the crypt of an old church? As any sane person knows, the right thing to do in these circumstances is to run away like buggery with the thing under your arm, stick it on the rack on the back of your bike, take it home and hide it under your bed. So they did.
That night, their shared bedroom writhed with fear. Always, always, it seemed as if someone was in the room with them. Watching. Waiting. Doing a bad ventriloquist act.
After a week of fitful sleep, punctuated by strange, terrifying dreams of years gone by, and the awful revenge of an unseen figure, the terrified duo dug a big hole in the garden, threw the skull in and buried it.
Then, they moved house.
Silence.
A few years later, a policeman came to the door.
"Is anything wrong, officer?" asked Mum.
"Yes, it's about your previous address, madam," he replied.
"What about it?"
And so, shit met fan.
The new tennants had decided to do a bit of gardening, dug a hole for some new shrub, and had found Gottle of Gear staring back at them through lifeless sockets. They had, the policeman said matter-of-factly, "crapped their pants, madam".
"And we wondered, madam, if you might know anything about this?"
"KAAAARL! JOOOOOE! GET DOWN HERE NOOOOOW!"
Being the 1950s, punishment was swift and merciless: a good old fashioned clip round the ear and justice was well and truly served.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Stiff, and a sort of vote-o
Stiff
A few years ago, I used to run a Celebrity Dead Pool, a complete pain-in-the-arse of a website in which over 200 punters sailed as close to the wind of bad taste as humanly possible, hoping that their list of ten famous people would hurry up and die.
Everybody scored points when Princess Margaret died, and I'm glad I'd closed the place down by the time the of the Pope's unfortunate demise at the hands of a shadowy group of Ninja Nuns.
I remember standing in a chip shop on the Portland Road (since changed hands, I wouldn't bother now) one Saturday evening when programmes were interrupted by the National Anthem and the announcement of the Queen Mother's death. My only thought was of the amount of work I'd have to do on the website that night, sorting out who'd won The Queen Mother Champion Hurdle. The selfish old moo.
I was particularly proud of my gushing obituaries:
Jan 12th 2003: Maurice Gibb: World famous member of the Bee Gees singing group, sadly taken from us following a heart attack during emergency surgery. "How deep is your love?" they sang. About six foot deep.
It's been a slow start to the year for celebrity deaths. Perhaps the death of dear old Ronnie Barker has bucked up a few ideas in the elderly celebrity camp, and shocked the old devils into staying alive; but perhaps the untimely demise of Sheikh Maktoum recently is just the start of something big.
The received wisdom is that Fidel Castro is the bookies' favourite this year, although Saddam Hussein (expected to be swinging from a rope just before the US mid-term elections) is coming up on the rails.
Who, then, are you rooting for this year, dear reader? Let's make this competitive. I'll print off the comments for today's post - prize for the first corpse. One entry per poster, please. And I've got first dibs on notorious pie-smuggler Ariel Sharon*.
* I've published this last thing Wednesday evening. All I can say is that he'd better not cark it overnight. That'll show me up as a right old sick bastard. As usual.
And a Thursday lottery-o
Go on, make me do some work tonight.
I have six completed Friday Scary Stories and a further 25 in production. In lieu of a vote-o, simply think of a number between 1 and 31, and by a complex system of bistromathics, I shall spend a frenzied evening writing said tale for publication on Friday. What could possibly go wrong?
A few titles picked at random from the stuff-pile include, for your titillation:
* Meld - "Don't worry, I've never seen a grown man naked either." But then, even in her lightly-oiled state, she was a nun.
* Stiffy - In a previous life, he decided, he had been David Bowie. God forbid if he should ever meet himself.
* Nose - "Hey! Anyone like The Carpenters?" Gay night at the Army Barracks was one tough gig.
* Hairy palms, again - She was an excellent musician. Also, she had passed Grade 8 in the Pink Oboe.
Number-o! Dead person suggest-o! O!
A few years ago, I used to run a Celebrity Dead Pool, a complete pain-in-the-arse of a website in which over 200 punters sailed as close to the wind of bad taste as humanly possible, hoping that their list of ten famous people would hurry up and die.Everybody scored points when Princess Margaret died, and I'm glad I'd closed the place down by the time the of the Pope's unfortunate demise at the hands of a shadowy group of Ninja Nuns.
I remember standing in a chip shop on the Portland Road (since changed hands, I wouldn't bother now) one Saturday evening when programmes were interrupted by the National Anthem and the announcement of the Queen Mother's death. My only thought was of the amount of work I'd have to do on the website that night, sorting out who'd won The Queen Mother Champion Hurdle. The selfish old moo.
I was particularly proud of my gushing obituaries:
Jan 12th 2003: Maurice Gibb: World famous member of the Bee Gees singing group, sadly taken from us following a heart attack during emergency surgery. "How deep is your love?" they sang. About six foot deep.
It's been a slow start to the year for celebrity deaths. Perhaps the death of dear old Ronnie Barker has bucked up a few ideas in the elderly celebrity camp, and shocked the old devils into staying alive; but perhaps the untimely demise of Sheikh Maktoum recently is just the start of something big.
The received wisdom is that Fidel Castro is the bookies' favourite this year, although Saddam Hussein (expected to be swinging from a rope just before the US mid-term elections) is coming up on the rails.
Who, then, are you rooting for this year, dear reader? Let's make this competitive. I'll print off the comments for today's post - prize for the first corpse. One entry per poster, please. And I've got first dibs on notorious pie-smuggler Ariel Sharon*.
* I've published this last thing Wednesday evening. All I can say is that he'd better not cark it overnight. That'll show me up as a right old sick bastard. As usual.
And a Thursday lottery-o
Go on, make me do some work tonight.
I have six completed Friday Scary Stories and a further 25 in production. In lieu of a vote-o, simply think of a number between 1 and 31, and by a complex system of bistromathics
, I shall spend a frenzied evening writing said tale for publication on Friday. What could possibly go wrong?A few titles picked at random from the stuff-pile include, for your titillation:
* Meld - "Don't worry, I've never seen a grown man naked either." But then, even in her lightly-oiled state, she was a nun.
* Stiffy - In a previous life, he decided, he had been David Bowie. God forbid if he should ever meet himself.
* Nose - "Hey! Anyone like The Carpenters?" Gay night at the Army Barracks was one tough gig.
* Hairy palms, again - She was an excellent musician. Also, she had passed Grade 8 in the Pink Oboe.
Number-o! Dead person suggest-o! O!
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Offensive Productions Present
Offensive Productions Present
Accidentally witnessing the climax to The X Factor recently got me thinking, once again, that our popular culture is doomed, held to ransom by Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and their formulaic blandities, with a key change near the end.
Then, returning to a book on the WWII Battle of the Atlantic, it set me thinking: Where would our culture be if Hitler had won? The simple answer, of course, would be "right down the toilet", with Edward and Mrs Simpson installed as our new puppet leaders and George Formby up against the thin wall.
Working on a premise gleaned from Star Trek: The Next Generation, that history has a habit of snapping back into place, it would be little things we take for granted now that would be subtly changed by our new, jack-booted Aryan masters.
Comedy classic Allo Allo, for example, would have been a documentary; and I am certain Dad's Army would have been left completely untouched, except, of course, for the ending. We would almost certainly be studying Sven Hassel in our schools instead of the works of Shakespeare. So, not all bad, then.
A look back, then, through our recently altered history, reveals the following from the studios of 20th Century Wolf:
* Third Reich from the Sun
* Strictly Come Marching (into Poland)
* Hi-de-Heil
* The SS Factor
* My Parents are Aryans
* Fuhrer Ted
* What Not to Wehrmacht
* Ubermensch Behaving Badly
* I'm Alamein Partridge
* Goering for Gold
* Gestapos in their Eyes
* Only Fools and U-Boats
* Queer as Volkswagen
* Extreme Makeover: Poland Edition
* Triumph of the Will and Grace
Speaking as someone of at least 1/8 to 1/4 Jewish extraction (there's a Rabbi somewhere in my family tree, and grief, he's cross), and the grandson of a airman who spent large parts of the war dropping red hot exploding metal onto Rommel's Afrika Korps, I have done my best to avoid anything really, really offensive because - face it - extermination camps are never going to be funny. But, my God, the temptation to add "How Clean is Your Race?" and much, much worse* was almost overwhelming.
Oh.
God, I hate Nazis. Good thing we won, then.
*And believe me, you should see the ones we rejected.
Vote-yes!
Hey! It's the 2006 Bloggies!
Once again, far be it for me to influence your nominations, but I'm particularly chuffed with my tagline "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, stuffed up a dog's bottom", even if it was written by somebody else.
Accidentally witnessing the climax to The X Factor recently got me thinking, once again, that our popular culture is doomed, held to ransom by Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and their formulaic blandities, with a key change near the end.
Then, returning to a book on the WWII Battle of the Atlantic
, it set me thinking: Where would our culture be if Hitler had won? The simple answer, of course, would be "right down the toilet", with Edward and Mrs Simpson installed as our new puppet leaders and George Formby up against the thin wall.Working on a premise gleaned from Star Trek: The Next Generation, that history has a habit of snapping back into place, it would be little things we take for granted now that would be subtly changed by our new, jack-booted Aryan masters.
Comedy classic Allo Allo, for example, would have been a documentary; and I am certain Dad's Army would have been left completely untouched, except, of course, for the ending. We would almost certainly be studying Sven Hassel in our schools instead of the works of Shakespeare. So, not all bad, then.
A look back, then, through our recently altered history, reveals the following from the studios of 20th Century Wolf:
* Third Reich from the Sun
* Strictly Come Marching (into Poland)
* Hi-de-Heil
* The SS Factor
* My Parents are Aryans
* Fuhrer Ted
* What Not to Wehrmacht
* Ubermensch Behaving Badly
* I'm Alamein Partridge
* Goering for Gold
* Gestapos in their Eyes
* Only Fools and U-Boats
* Queer as Volkswagen
* Extreme Makeover: Poland Edition
* Triumph of the Will and Grace
Speaking as someone of at least 1/8 to 1/4 Jewish extraction (there's a Rabbi somewhere in my family tree, and grief, he's cross), and the grandson of a airman who spent large parts of the war dropping red hot exploding metal onto Rommel's Afrika Korps, I have done my best to avoid anything really, really offensive because - face it - extermination camps are never going to be funny. But, my God, the temptation to add "How Clean is Your Race?" and much, much worse* was almost overwhelming.
Oh.
God, I hate Nazis. Good thing we won, then.
*And believe me, you should see the ones we rejected.
Vote-yes!
Hey! It's the 2006 Bloggies!
Once again, far be it for me to influence your nominations, but I'm particularly chuffed with my tagline "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, stuffed up a dog's bottom", even if it was written by somebody else.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Vote-No!
Vote-No!
Mike at Troubled Diva writes that he could never bring himself to vote Conservative after a visiting Tory MP ran over his teddy bear on his parents' drive. It is such fortunate experiences in your formative years, he writes, that forge your adult personality. If ever he gets a temptation to vote for the newly smug David Cameron, he need only to think of poor, flat Teddy to ensure his cross goes in the right box.
It took me years to see myself as a Labour supporter, simply because, as a kid, the unpleasantly smug Tefal-headed family over the road had "Vote Labour" posters in their windows. Every time I got the urge to support Foot, Kinnock or the late John Smith, four grinning, egg-headed tossers would appear in my mind's-eye to remind me that We Aren't The Type That Votes Labour. And living in a part of the country that would vote for a hat-stand with a blue rosette on it*, the futility of voting for anyone except the incumbent government was rammed home to me on a somewhat depressing frequency.
I could never bring myself to align myself with these people, which resulted in my unfortunate voting for... John Redwood in 1987. I'm so terribly, terribly sorry, and have made a full recovery.
Still that Cameron fella. If he can get Geldof on board...
* (c) R. Mayall mayherestinpeace
Mike at Troubled Diva writes that he could never bring himself to vote Conservative after a visiting Tory MP ran over his teddy bear on his parents' drive. It is such fortunate experiences in your formative years, he writes, that forge your adult personality. If ever he gets a temptation to vote for the newly smug David Cameron, he need only to think of poor, flat Teddy to ensure his cross goes in the right box.
It took me years to see myself as a Labour supporter, simply because, as a kid, the unpleasantly smug Tefal-headed family over the road had "Vote Labour" posters in their windows. Every time I got the urge to support Foot, Kinnock or the late John Smith, four grinning, egg-headed tossers would appear in my mind's-eye to remind me that We Aren't The Type That Votes Labour. And living in a part of the country that would vote for a hat-stand with a blue rosette on it*, the futility of voting for anyone except the incumbent government was rammed home to me on a somewhat depressing frequency.
I could never bring myself to align myself with these people, which resulted in my unfortunate voting for... John Redwood in 1987. I'm so terribly, terribly sorry, and have made a full recovery.
Still that Cameron fella. If he can get Geldof on board...
* (c) R. Mayall mayherestinpeace
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