Mirth and Woe: Gaylord

Mirth and Woe: Gaylord

In which S. Duck gets in touch with his feminine side

"Some of my best friends are…" Oh sod it.

There are times when even fully grown men fear to travel on public transport.

These times usually coincide with evenings out on the piss, when your usually familiar trip home has the added obstacle of brain meltdown and legs that go in the opposite direction to the body.

And I admit it. I was down the pub with Garry Bushell. Sorry. I was launching a football fanzine with a pub bash in central London, and the beardy Charlton-supporting loudmouth turned up on his own and wouldn't leave. The only other option was to get drunk enough to filter him out. So I did.

This might have been fine if I were near to home, and it was only when the promise of a floor for the night disappeared when the offeree went home by mistake, that I realized that I was left with the dread option: the last train home.

The only thing I remember about getting to Paddington from Westminster was having to get off the tube at Notting Hill Gate so I could take a desperately-needed piss. Several gallons lighter, I eventually got to Paddington, where I just caught a fast train to Reading. I didn't even bother with the luxury of a seat, as I knew I would be occupying the toilet for most of the journey, a prediction that was utterly fulfilled.

At Reading, I was faced with a further trip across town to get home. The buses packed up at nine o'clock, taxis were far too expensive, while my train ticket was good as far as Reading West. That'll do.

But poor, confused, drunken me.

Where are the trains to Reading West?

I asked a young chap in a British Rail uniform.

"Bloke! Where'sh trains t'Readin' West, mate?"

I don't know about you, but as far as I know this is not, in any way, some sort of gay slang. I've tried it out on friends who are good with colours since, and they all say "Platform Two", which is gay slang for "Call yourself a trainspotter?"

I repeat: the words "Where is the Reading West train?" do NOT equal "please touch my bottom".

"Platform Two", he said, touching my bottom.

Riiiight.

I got to Platform Two, and jumped on the train.

And there, sitting opposite me, was the BR Bottom-Touching Inspector.

Riiight.

He was staring at me, presumably to ensure that I got to my destination unscathed. Now that's customer service.

The train journey lasted a whole two minutes, and I blundered onto the platform. Now this was lucky! My guide was also getting off at Reading West! And hey - he's also showing me the way up to the Tilehurst Road, a three hundred yard pathway up through some incredibly dark trees behind a row of garages. What could possibly happen there, away from prying eyes, terrible criminals and bottom perverts?

Ah.

"Honk!"

Hand-to-bottom.

"Honk! Honk!"

A pattern was developing, mostly involving his hand, and my pert, manly bottom. Steps had to be taken.

"Look, fuck off!"

"Oh go on, just a quick one…"

A what? A quick what? Somebody appears to labouring under a misapprehension here. Mostly involving me asking directions in return for a quick bottom-grope.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was carrying an umbrella. I hadn't actually started the day with an umbrella, I hadn't actually been in any umbrella shops and it certainly wasn't raining. The only umbrella I remember that day was a red one under G. Bushell's arm as he entered the public house. Just like the red umbrella I was holding. Heh.

"Go on, how about it?"

"How about I stuff this umbrella up your arse?"

Oh ho! The collected wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde strikes again!

We both fled, in different directions, and it only took me about five attempts to get my front door key in the lock, and another three to turn it in the right direction.

I poured my poor, straight wounded heart out to Mrs Duck. She laughed.

God, I could have scratched her eyes out.

The Thursday Vote-o: Celebrity Swears edition

The Thursday Vote-o: Celebrity Swears edition

In a new and exciting twist to the world of internet mankery, today's Thursday vote-o will be delivered in the style of a TV game show. Didn't they do well?

Party III: "Look son, you're a useless bastard, and as far as I'm concerned you're just not cut out to sell sex toys. You're fired."

Meat: It was to be the last edition of Stars in Their Eyes Kids. Even as little Johnny Dexter uttered the words "Tonight Cat, I'm going to be Gary Glitter", the nation's streets echoed to the sound off boot hitting TV screen.

Gaylord: "We asked 100 people for things they do in the kitchen and you say..." "Masturbate into the wife's dinner."

Scat: "Stephen Hawking! Come on down!!! Oh, you can't."

Bad Dog III: The Kitchen Massacre: "And for the star prize," said Wogan, "here is tonight's Blankety Blank Supermatch: BLANK showers."

In the words of Paxman: Well? Get on with it!


Fridays, down the pub

This from locally-based spies:

Our local has a Friday tradition where a couple of shifty Chinese fellas come in of the evening, going from table to table selling porno DVDs.

All well and good, except they go from table to table shouting "Want DVD? Want porno?" at the top of their voices, and will make sure that the entire pub knows if you have a "special" request.

"Sir! We get golden showers for you! Next week! Next week!"

After intense speculation as to whether the landlord gets a cut of the proceeds, it was universally declared that he doesn’t. It just balances out the subsequent Salvation Army invasion an hour or so later. God knows what might happen should they ever meet.

My spies assure me they do not own a DVD player, nor to they ever intend to. Right.

Making Misty Happy

Making Misty Happy

Last week, we had an idea. A nice idea, to do a nice thing for an ...err.. nice person.

Y'see, partner in blogging crime Misty reached the climax of her court action to regain control of her family home from the clutches of ...err... not very nice people. She lost, and bastardry reigns supreme.

The plan was this: send Misty somewhere nice that doesn't involve court cases, yet indulges her love of very sharp axes. We're sending her to the 2006 Discworld Convention.

If you don't know our heroine, she is a bit of a celebrity in certain circles, as the author of this here book, which raised an awful lot of money for these very nice people. The author is also a bit of a performer, and would be guaranteed to give a good turn at any fan event. *cough*

So: I begged for money. And some very excellent people obliged. One hundred notes guarantees Misty and an axe-wielding friend, and I am very pleased to say that we are now more-or-less covered. You all know who you are - allow yourselves to feel warm inside. I told Tina on Monday, and she's still on the ceiling with excitement. Thank you all.

I know it's sappy, but this is what teh intarnets should be all about.

If anybody feels the urge to contribute further - there are still accommodation and travel expenses to cover - you might want to paypal funds to scaryduck at fastmail dot fm, or e-mail me at the same address for further details. Naturally, I will present Misty with the spends just as soon as I return from my holiday in the Bahamas. That is all.


The Wembley River of Piss - Slight Return

Poor Wembley Stadium. They haven't even finished it yet and it's falling down already. Not only is the roof falling off, but the weight of the entire edifice has crushed the stadium's sewage pipes flatter than a chocolate spread sandwich.

Anybody who remembers the old Wembley Stadium will find that the latest tale of mirth and woe surrounding New Wembley's collapsed sewers about as surprising as a post-match huff from Jose Mourinho, officially football's angriest manager.

Whenever I parted with far too much money to watch some event at the old ruined dog track, the legendary Wembley River of Piss would burst its banks and flow several inches deep around the concourse, and out down the grassy bank where they let the greyhounds do their business. I particularly remember a play-off final where never-been-to-a-football-match-in-their-lives wives and girlfriends discovered the impracticalities of open-toed sandals in an all-manky environment.

It is pleasing then, having controversially done away with the famous Twin Towers, that the architects have retained this important feature of the old stadium in the all-new Wembley Experience. And who says tradition is dead?


Mirth. And woe.

GW: Done a poo.

Poo (done a)

Poo (done a)

After several weeks, where I've done nothing but blog about the state of my bottom, there are times when all I want to do is sit down and write a scathing six hundred word blunderbuss on the corrupt nature of the Blair government under which we live. I would recall its reckless descent into a war which has wrought death and destruction both home and abroad, identity cards, legislation that borders on the fascist and the criminal mismanagement of the National Health Service before suggesting that Mr Blair might, perhaps, get to fuck. I would, in the end, feel a lot better for it.

Today, you will be pleased to hear, is not that day.

Today we are considering the names of famous pop songs and adding the phrase "Done a poo" to the title. I shall call it "The Done a Poo game". For example:

* "Done a poo in a bottle" - Christina Aguilera
* "Monkey done a poo" - The Pixies
* "Done a poo with tears in my eyes" - Ultravox
* "The Bitterest Done a Poo (I ever had to swallow) - The Jam

Or, the tale of how Paul Weller was spectacularly caught short on the way home one evening:

"Done a poo in the tube station at midnight" - The Jam

100% of FACT: I used to work with Radio 1's "Comedy" Dave. He doesn't know the meaning of the word. Get in there!

My car shame

My car shame

When I am world famous, I want to go on Top Gear and be the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. For the uninitiated, this is a spot where a celeb gets to race a mid-price family saloon round a race track in the presence of The Stig and his webbed buttocks. Then, to cap it all, you get to talk chummily with J. Clarkson about the experience, and the cars you've driven in your everyday life.

And that's where it will all go horribly horribly wrong. My car history is a story of true motoring woe. Look:

* Renault 4 TL
* Austin Allegro Equipe
* Fiat Strada Terrible
* Peugeot 205 GL
* Renault 21 with optional falling off doors
* Ford Escort Ponce Edition

These are all stepping stones, you understand. Stepping stones on the way to my Bugatti Veyron, a snip at 800,000 pounds (the price includes your own mechanic called Les on 24/7 call-out). At this stage, there are an awful lot of stepping stones still to go.

I have never, ever owned a decent motor, and the only one that didn't end up in the scrapyard was the 205, which I sold, disgusted with its 0-60 in 7.5 years performance.

The Fiat's engine actually fell out the bottom of the car after it got caught in a blizzard. In Reading. And somebody actually once broke into it, only to find absolutely nothing worth stealing. The Pug was the first car I actually paid more than 1,000 pounds for, and it was literally laughed off the road.

And I'm equally shamefaced to say - despite all its faults and awful, awful reputation - the best of the lot was the All-Aggro.

So, if any of you have a spare, decent motor that you no longer wish to use [fully taxed and MOT would be a bonus], why not let me have it? For nothing, like. Don't all rush at once.

Mirth and Woe: Whiskey Alpha November Kilo

Whiskey Alpha November Kilo

Oh, those puritanical seventies, he said, not entirely seriously. Born into a household ruled by parents of an age where the strongest words in the English vocabulary were "dash", "blast", "cotton twill slacks" and "filthy Bosch", you could be sure of one thing. If anything remotely filthy passed your lips, you could only accept one outcome: thrashed within an inch of your life, and back again with The Plastic Thing. Which was pretty fair, if you ask me.

In this respect, one of the defining moments of my life occurred when accidental profanity burst out of my mouth and ran around cussing madly in front of grown-ups. It was awful. I was playing with some toy cars with Richard Pearce from down the road in my back garden, and I just couldn't help myself.

"Brrrmm brrm brrrm!" I said, "Brrrm! Look at this little buggy go!"

Except it came out wrong. Bugger.

Thrrrrrassssh! went the Plastic Thing- the parental punishment tool of choice that was purchased as part of a Tupperware set - across my bottom, and the rest of the day was spent in my room, saying "bugger" under my breath and plotting destruction on my polythene arch-nemesis.

Glowering at the injustice of it all, I was still in the foulest of moods when my father returned from work, walking up the drive to the front door. I must admit that flicking him a V-Sign from my window was not, in retrospect, the welcome home he was expecting after a hard day's graft as bottom-doctor to London's rich and famous that particular evening.

Thrrrrrassssh! went the Plastic Thing, again.

After an hour or so, the word erawreppuT had just about faded from the back of my thigh.

So, I think I've set the scene here. Swearing in respectable middle-class southern England was strictly verboten. Off the menu. Interdit.

"What would Jesus say?"

(Very, very quietly) "Bugger off."

Thrrrrrassssh! went the Plastic Thing, again.

Tim Cummins had made up a new word. A new word that sounded really, really funny if you shouted it out loud. Funnier still if you shouted it really, really fast at the top of your voice. Not bad going for a seven-year-old genius.

"Wank," he said.

"Wank!" we replied.

"WankwankwankwankWANK!" we chorused, across the playground and onto the school field. "WankwankwankwankWANK!"

And it is a glorious sight to behold, four hundred schoolkids, all acting as one, strutting about like demented robots, all singing from the same hymn-sheet. A hymn-sheet with the word "wank" printed on it, in large, easy-to-read letters.

"Wankwankwank!"

"Wank!"

"WankwankwankwankWANK!"

It couldn't last, and I think at least one dinner lady subsequently had her ears amputated.

No-one understood why we were in so much trouble. It's hardly as if we were lying under the climbing frame, looking up girls' skirts (again), or playing Doctors and Nurses with Naked Patients (again), or playing vampires with Nosebleed Andy's nosebleed (again) - these grown-ups were just far too sensitive. Ringleaders were rounded up, and bodies were piled half-a-dozen deep outside Mr George's office. And then, the letters home.

Thrrrrrassssh! went the Plastic Thing.

"Wank."

Three years later, punk arrived, and the Plastic Thing became part of my sister's wardrobe, if I'm not making this bit up.

Titchmarsh: the awful truth

Titchmarsh: The Awful Truth

Alan Titchmarsh - we know your dreadful secret.

You may or may not know that TV's genial gardener and best-selling author A.Titchmarsh writes a column for the Radio Times, in which he answers simple horticultural questions for the simple, green-fingered British public.

At least, that's what they want us to think. If his column in next week's edition is anything to go by, Mr. T hides an appalling secret, and there's mank in them there hills.

Oh, Alan.


Things your body cannot do

By way of a filler, a short list of things your body cannot do.

* Lick your own elbow
* Cut your own hair
* Look at arses whilst driving your car

Everybody knows these are a given. Even double-jointed members of the Cirque du Soleil cannot cut their own hair. After vigorous experimentation I have added a new item to this list:

* Take a photograph of your own arse, even using the self-timer and several mirrors

Don't ask me how I came to know this forbidden knowledge. Boredom was a factor.


Oh Lordy! It's a gee-enuine Thursday vote-o!

Hell freezes over, pigs fly, S. Duck holds a Thursday vote-o for tomorrow's tale of mirth and woe. Your selection, then, from the following:

* Party III: It was dreadful. His big night on Top of the Pops, and why didn't anyone tell him about Dave Lee Travis and his terrible secret? He would never be able to walk straight again.

* Meat: Seeing the bright side, he had a T-shirt printed up. "I joined Adult Friend Finder and all I got was Ann Widdecombe."

* Gaylord: The police broke down the door to his bedroom and all the rubber chickens tumbled out. Who was going to tell his parents?

* Scat: Sgt "Killer" Gregson squatted in his trench and readied himself for the attack. Rifle? Grendes? Bayonet? All ready. But with the Hun coming over the hill, he rued the morning he stepped out in a Cross-Your-Heart bra.

* Whiskey Alpha November Kilo: Another year, another budget, and once again nipple clamps remained VAT-free. Gordon Brown smiled to himself, and couldn't wait to get back to Downing Street where Cherie Blair would be waiting.

I'm sure you remember how to do it: vote-me-up!

The new Pepys

The new Pepys

A recent article on the BBC's DNA website accuses me of heinous crime of "literature" and asks the pertinent question in the face of this twenty-first century technology: "Is Scaryduck the new Pepys?"

Granted, Samuel Pepys saw enough plague-driven mirth and firey woe to fill several volumes, but did he try to grow tomatoes out of his own poo? He did not. Nor was he ever caught short and forced to take a poo in a shed. However, after literally minutes of study, his diaries (which all feature a map of the London Underground inside the back cover - FACT!) reveal the following striking similarities between his work and mine:

March 27th 1664: "Another fulsome nyghte of frolics with Mrs Pepys was rudely interrupted by a hammering on the door to my rooms just as I reach'd ye vinegar strokes. It was a messenger, sent from his Lordship Carlisle with some haste and demanding an immediate reply. It read: 'Pepys, my man. Done a poo, yr goode friend & mentor, Carlisle.' Damn his eyes, and his britches too!".

March 29th 1664: "Up betimes and away to Tyburn to witnesse the hanging of the brutal murderess Mistresse Horton, a most wanton trolloppe and slattern who woulde suffocate her gentlemen for the contents of their purses. She was indeed, as many of the London journals point'd out, most wond'rously endowed, and I had the goode fortune to find my good self in the very front row at this sad spect'cle, thanks to my patronage of ye arts. The unfortunate Horton expir'd quickly, but I could see right up her skirt as she thrash'd about in her final dance with ye Reaper. Bonus."

April 7th 1664: "Up betimes and to my office, where I argued with Mr. Wellbeloved over whether it is considered correct to break wind in front of a lady. I countered that it is not only correct, but de rigeur in these modern times. Puritan that he is, I feare he would not dare let his britches squeak for fear of causing offence to ye fairer sex. The quarrel ended with my production of a noise that would bring down the very walls of Jericho, causing Wellbeloved to storm out in search of a minister to administer extreme unction. Alas, my victory was short-lived, for I had followed through."

April 9th 1664: "The most dreadful day, for I fear Mrs Pepys may find out about my liaison with Barking Mad Sharon who works at ye Pie Shoppe as their apprentice slattern. My undoing comes in the form of a note which arrived at our rooms whilst I was attending to some unfortunate business apropos the dreaded plague, stating the followinge: 'Mr Pepys, are you going to pisse your rich, yellow waters on my heaving breast this evening, or what? Your lustful paramour, Sharon from ye Pie Shoppe'. This canne only mean one thynge: woe."

April 12th 1664: "Up betimes and to my offices whereupon I did have dealings with a M. de Villefort, and purchased five gross of 'Frenche Tycklers', which will end the dire shortage that has afflicted this fine city. On returning to my rooms after a celebratory sojourn to Ye Boar's Heade and several other fine hostelries, I was confronted by Mrs Pepys waving a familiar and somewhat ruffled sheaf of papers in my face. 'What,' she cried in such a manner I feare she may have the ragge on, 'in the name of all that we hold holy in this householde, is MILF porn?'. Alas, my resting place for this night shall be the spare room."

Proof positive, then. Today, in which case, I'll be off to set fire to London, to see if anybody remembers me in 300 years. Anyone got a match?*

* "My arse, your face."

Jenson Buttocks

Things Mrs Duck no longer finds funny, if she ever did, at all

A short list of things Mrs Duck no longer finds funny, if she ever did, at all:

* "Done a poo"
* Jenson Buttocks
* "Thirty-seven people choke to death each year on their birthday cake. Don't let yourself become a statistic."
* Gay Daleks
* My plan to encourage and nurture the family's hunter-gatherer instincts by hiding their dinner in the garden
* Jenson Buttocks
* "Marks out of ten? I'd give her one!"
* Jenson Buttocks

I think you can see a theme developing here, so by way of revenge on Mrs Duck's sense of humour failure, and providing me with a tenuous link to slip this entry into Revenge Week, I present my list of manky racing car drivers:

* Jenson Buttocks
* Michael Poo-macher
* Knickers Lauda
* Stirling Toss
* James Hunt
* Nigel Mansex

Having shot my bolt with Formula One - and not to mention the world's mankiest football team - I open the comments to your suggestions for disgustingly-named sports stars. Poo-la Radcliffe seems wholly appropriate right now, even if Mrs Duck no longer finds this funny either.

Revenge Week

"Blind Revenge on the Blameless Victim"

"Revenge is a dish best served straight from the microwave, garnished with dried dog poo, broken glass and the rotting corpse of a dead mouse." -- Sun Tzu, 'The Art of War'

"Do a blog thing about dreadful acts of revenge", says my colleague and former Hell's Angel Mr Bolton. "Do it or I break both your arms, and you'll only be able to type with a head dobber."

Fair enough.

He tells us of a former workmate who was both a truly unpleasant bastard, and had the ability to stink out the entire building with just a single waft of his armpits. In a building containing only single men who listed their hobbies as amateur radio, this was no mean feat.

A plan was hatched. A plan, in which he received two dozen cans of Tesco Value deodorant through the internal mail by way of a hint. He didn't take it very well, and was last seen working as the car park attendant at the Atomic Weapon Establishment.

"This your nuclear weapon? You can't park it there mate, not without a permit."

In my day, revenge was meted out on the unpleasant and deserving, by running them at a tree, one leg either side of the trunk. It was called "the tree", and from personal experience, I can tell you this: it hurt like fuckery.

"Ah, yes, very primitive," said Mr Bolton, "We used to build a wicker man."

"What? Alan Whicker?"

"No... one of these."

Harsh but fair, if you ask me. But more immediate and painful than ordering the entire contents of the Oilrigs and Frankly Massive Steel Construction Catalogue (lingerie edition) on approval. And with letterboxes coming with steel teeth these days to deter postmen, the act of the poo-in-the-mail-slot is becoming a lost art.

So, with the British Justice System falling deeper into anarchy day-by-day, we need to take the law into our own hands more often. What awful acts of revenge do you recommend?

Mirth and Woe: April Showers

April Showers

This is, perhaps, the mankiest story I have ever written, and contains scenes of an excessively fetid nature. The easily offended may wish to read on. You might learn something.

Sometimes I think this little episode was nothing but a terrible dream. An occurrence so excessively corrupt and manky that, even taking my own fetid life into account, I wake up sweating, knowing full well that NO, this could never have happened to me. Yet, deep down, I know this to be a lie. It happened, and the head-shrinkers have made a fortune out of me as a result.

I had a very demanding, filthy girlfriend called, and I'll be charitable here, Barking Mad Sharon. She was impossibly possessive, and in a short, doomed affair in the arse end of the 1980s, she rarely let me out of her sight in the whole two weeks we were together. This overprotective nature made my everyday activities such as "work", "shopping" and "going to the bog" incredibly difficult, as any attempt to leave her presence needed at least two hours' notice and an application in writing. Followed, on my return, by the Spanish Inquisition.

She was also, apropos of absolutely nothing, the hairiest person I have ever met.

Barking Mad Sharon, getting right to the point of this whole sordid debacle, had an ungodly thing about golden showers. Despite my obvious reluctance (it was a bugger for the laundry), she expected a full-on, gushing performance on each and every encounter during the two weeks of dreadful thrashing about that our relationship entailed.

So much so, on a rare occasion that we actually donned clothing and ventured, blinking, into the real world, she greeted me in the midst of a group of friends with the words "Are you going to piss on my tits tonight, or what?" She was a right charmer, that Barking Mad Sharon.

Now, I don't know about you chaps, but human biology being such that it is, I find taking a piss whilst aroused to be an incredibly difficult feat. What B.M Sharon didn't understand was that men are built with a valve. A valve that precludes doing the sex and doing the wee at the same time. Only with specialist training, or, in the case of certain continental art movies, a hidden tube and a bloke off-camera with a squeezy-plunger-me-do, can a normal person achieve what she wanted the most in her life: my waste water all over her writhing, hairy body. And everywhere else, for that matter.

Also, this whole pissing-on-demand thing just doesn't come naturally to most blokes. Many are the times I've stood at a urinal, completely unable to strain my onions, simply because someone else is doing the same, desperately fighting the urge to look at your nob. All you get in these strained circumstances as you stand there, eyes firmly screwed shut, concentrating on the job in hand, is a pathetic bottom-burp, which only adds to the embarrassment. And B.M. Sharon wanted it on tap.

Much to the dreadful Sharon's disappointment the most she got were a few pitiful drips. It also didn't help that I'd done an enormous wee and scrubbed my thing down with a Brillo Pad beforehand, just to be on the safe side.

Sensing the our relationship was doomed to the inevitable split, I did what any caring young fella would do in the circumstances: I pissed into an empty jam jar and put the brimming, steaming pot in a handy place for when it might be needed during that evening's gymnastics.

I can be dead thoughtful at times.

And so, another night, another deeply religious experience ("Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!").

Then, at the height of the fighting:

"I've got a present for you. A special present."

"What?" she gasped, the hairs bristling lasciviously on her arms.

"Your ultimate desire..." I teased, realising only then that the contents of the jar had, in fact, gone stone cold.

"So what's that then?" she asked, as I unscrewed the lid, unleashing the fetid smell of stagnant wee into our den of lust.

"It's me piss. In a jar. For you."

"You filthy BASTARD!"

There's no pleasing some women.

There was the inevitable, dreadful row which ended up with one of the protagonists storming out, semi-naked, screaming words that would only be regretted later: "I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire!"

She's a copper now.

On shameless innuendo and rubbish excuses

On walking into the room at exactly the wrong bit in a conversation on the subject of a particularly tough cross-country race which took place in Devon last week

"Yeah, he's running in The Grizzly this weekend."

"Bloody hell - he must be mad!"

"Too right. Eighteen miles, cross-country, scaling cliffs, through all sorts of mud and crap."

"D'you know they actually supply spare running shoes for the contestants who lose their trainers in the muddiest bits?"

Enter Mrs Duck.

"So I hear. They're always getting sucked off in bogs."

"......!"

Exit Mrs Duck.


Bejebus! Begorrah! Bevote-no!

Tomorrow is St Patrick's Day, which to the delight of every bar and pub manager in the world who has ever uttered the word "Begorrah", falls on a Friday this year. And what way to celebrate a country where it always rains than with a story about golden showers?

In which case, unless I chicken out again, tomorrow's story will be the foulest, mankiest, most shameful story I have ever written. And in honour of the man who banished snakes from Ireland, it will feature a genuine Irish trouser snake.

Oh God, I'm going into hiding for the weekend, and I may never return. So, in lieu of a Thursday vote-o, I present its bastard low-quality offspring, the Thursday suggest-o.


Excuses, excuses

What's the worst excuse you've ever used?

Caught out horribly, I have used, to my eternal disgrace, the utterly hackneyed:

"My brother ate my library ticket."

"The dog ate my homework."

"My watch is running slow - see?"

...so I suppose I thoroughly deserved the ensuing detentions, letters home and rampant floggings. Such was my lack of imagination in the face of abject terror, I couldn't even bring myself to blame everything on Mexican bandits. For shame.

Why make excuses, then, when you have the burning sword of truth on your side?

"Doctors appointment. Licked a tramp."

Tell the truth, and you'll get your reward in heaven. And if you've got the Tramp AIDS, that might be sooner than you expected.

On Geller

On Geller

My life has crossed paths with Uri Geller on several occasions. He is my favourite famous person in a terrible, appalling way, simply because he’s managed to get away with it for so, so long, criticism falling away from him like water from a duck’s arse.

Claims to fame: I’ve told him to “fuck off”, I’ve been to his house (he wasn’t there, but there was a rather unfortunate cutlery incident) and I’ve been to far too many football matches where he has cadged free tickets and blagged his way onto the pitch at half-time for a spot of self-promotion.

“I love you all!” he once crowed at Ipswich Town to a chorus of boos, his ability to gain free entry the only genuine magic he has ever demonstrated in the last thirty years.

Am I too harsh on my arch-nemesis? He is indeed a great showman and self-promoter, but even up close you can tell it’s all show. But give him a vacant mind, and they’ll lap it up.

My favourite moment was at Elm Park, the old football ground in Reading, where Geller was filming something for his terrible TV programme during half time in a dour second division match.

They distributed different coloured cards around the ground, and on The Great Fraud's instruction, we were supposed to hold up the card that matched one he had previously put into an envelope. The implication being that he would use his psychic skills to influence our choices and make him look good.

Yellow. Red. Blue. Simple choice.

Uri shouts "NOW!" and 12,000 the crowd raise cards EXACTLY one third of each colour.

"See? I was right!" he yells in triumph, but he is laughed off the pitch.

The red cards came in handy later in the match when one of the opposition got sent off.

The least said about his stint “saving” Exeter City FC the better…

My favourite Uri thing: On Holiday With The Gellers, the most cringe-making television programme ever, where a TV crew follow Geller and family around Croatia as he tries to impress the locals with his “unique” psychic skills.

Random quote

Geller: "That dog is three years old! How old is that dog?"

Non-plussed local: "Eleven."

And:

Uri is sitting in a large bell-tower. There are large bells.

Uri: “I can make this bell ring, just by using the power of my mind”

The bell rings.

Uri: “See?”

Producer (off camera): “Uri, it’s three o’clock…”

Television at its finest. Uri Geller = excellent celebrity value. Where would we be without him?

The Golden Turd Awards

The Golden Turd Awards

And you thought that I'd forgotten. You'd be right, too. What with all this crapping-in-gardens business, I'd completely forgotten my call for the most hateful inventions of this modern age. So, here we are then.

I started the ball rolling with the Tork T-Box, that dreadful bulk bog-roll holder designed solely to make your trip to the workplace toilet as miserable as possible. And what did I get in return? My, your lifes are miserable, aren't they?

* The mini-roundabout, and its bastard cousins...
* The speed bump and the traffic-calming scheme
* The entire Kleeneze and Betterware catalogue range
* Vacuum-packaging on food, CDs, bulk packs of Vac-Pack etc
* London bendy busses
* The Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker
* Electric hand-driers
* RFID (Radio Frequency Identification. Those little chips they've started putting inside things like packets of razor blades, consumer products and national ID cards, so The Man can track them. And you.)
* James Blunt

My money's on Fat Tongue's useless kitchen device, which he really ought to consider marketing with a heavy-duty battery and ribs up the side. As with the majority of pointless kitchen products it does the same job as something you've probably already got, or can pick up in Kwik Save for 50p. Oliver, you're a cunt.

Bog roll? Kitchen crap? Anti car devices? Blunt? You decide. YOU!


Also

Running - quite literally - into celebrity brick out-house Sir Steve Redgrave last night, I have somehow promised to plug his world record attempt at charity fund-raising on these here pages. So: Donate-o-Steve, or he'll snap my arms off. Lovely guy. Lovely.

On Bookage

On Bookage

My fortieth birthday brought me a pile of book tokens from kindly relatives, which allowed me to head out and purchase two of the finest reference works ever published on these shores.

I refer, of course, to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a real door-stop of a work listing the origins and meanings of many of the phrases and idioms used in our everyday lives.

And the Viz Book of Top Tips.

Brewer's has everything you'd ever want from a reference book, from lists of saint's days, to entries on Doris Karloff (see Something of the Night), Sodom and Gomorrah ("Sodom was known for its exquisite pottery until your ancestors rolled in"), Teletubbies and Captain Scarlet. The only dictionary you can read cover-to-cover, only to emerge, stinking, three days later to wonder what happened to your brain and why there are bibles in existence that omit the word "not" from the seventh commandment.

But the Viz book is funnier, and contains such important nuggets as:

Always fart into the rings on top of your gas cooker. This will turn back the gas meter, and save you pounds over a period of time.

And the bad taste classic:

Anorexics. When your knees become fatter than your legs, start eating cakes again.

Wise words, indeed.

However, and changing tack somewhat, I can't help thinking that Brewer's entry on Famous First Lines in Fiction needs jazzing up a bit:

Brighton Rock: "Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton for three hours, that they meant to murder him. Such was the life of a football manager."

The Hobbit: "In a hole in the ground lived a Hobbit. Then, some bastard did a tomato-laden turd on his head."

Lolita: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. Come upstairs and listen to my Gary Glitter albums."

Peter Pan: "All children, except one, grow up. And welcome to my weblog."

There. Fixed it.

And now: You! (I understand this might involve actual work. In which case, I'd advise you to make something up. Nobody will notice. Trust me.)

Because it's not all me, me, me

Because it's not all me, me, me

Mentions for two people that deserve mentioning this weekend while I'm feeling nice:

1. My father-in-law Ken, who has just undergone sight-saving surgery and now has to spend the next two weeks face-down, watching TV through a mirror while his eye recovers. Get well soon, guy.

2. Fellow blogger Misty who will mostly be spending this week in the Royal Courts of Justice to put right a wrong forced on her family by a bunch of evil bastards and shysters. Hint: Judges are always impressed by the daily gift of a Terry's Chocolate Orange.

Normal service, including more references to dogs' bottoms and hole full of poop, will return tomorrow.

Edit: I can contain the serious facade no longer. And why? My referrer logs today contain nothing except google searches for Kirstie Allsopp nude. Poor K. Allsopp. What have I wrought on her spotless reputation?

Mirth and Woe: Dibs

Dibs

Now, this is a first: the first time I've actually chickened out over publishing a Friday tale of mirth and woe because it is too manky for sensitive eyes. This isn't the story Zoe chose - which is currently getting a drastic re-write for next week - so here's one you never vote for.

Dibs: A game the entire class can play!

And we played it hard, and we played it often.

Far too often as it turned out.

The rules of Dibs, like all the best classroom-based games were simple.

And the rules were this: When you do a fart, you have to start tapping your temples with your index fingers to broadcast the fact that you have dropped one. This act is called "dibbing". Other people will notice this otherwise normal behaviour, and they too have to start tapping their fingers against the sides of their heads in the approved manner, until the entire class is "dibbing".

The last person to start dibbing (usually one of the swots who is far too busy doing actual work to notice that kind of thing) is forced to take a mouthful of the fart gas. This, on occasion, may involve a short, merciless act of violence, teaching the unfortunate non-dibber a lesson or two about the innate cruelty of the human condition.

This all went smoothly until Mr Wallis* came back from sorting out the soon-to-be Mrs Wallis in some faraway stock cupboard. His usual entrance ("Sorry I'm late - I've got a spunk bubble") was cut short as his gaze fell on a room full of O-Level maths students dibbing away like there was no tomorrow.

"And what the bloody hell's going on here?" Wallis raged, the pain from his legendary spunk bubble twisting his brain, his NHS glasses flying from his head in the contortion of rage, scuttling under a radiator, never to be seen again.

"Well sir," said Michael S, "Every time someone farts you have to..."

He never got a chance to complete his explanation, which I thought was rather unfair, although you could argue that it was, too, a hard-earned lesson about the innate cruelty of the human condition.

The fact that Wallis also, in his rage, took a large mouthful of disastrously pungent bum-gas probably didn't help our cause much, either.

Result: 2,000 word essay on the digestive system of the cow. From that day on, "Dibs" was a clandestine activity, practiced only by the very bravest of the brave.

The glasses were hot property on the school black market, and I believe they were eventually purchased by the remainder of the maths faculty and used in a bizarre, yet effective voodoo ritual. I always knew that Mrs Smith and her see-through dresses were up to something.

* Barnes Wallis Jr, son of Barnes Wallis, the bouncing bomb inventor and genius engineer. Like his father, Barnes Jr possessed a massive intellect, but alas, as a teacher to disinterested bottom-gas obsessed secondary school pupils, he sucked greatly.

Operation Manky Garden, Again

Operation Manky Garden, Again

Good God, the world's gone mad.

What started off as a jokey idea to see if you really could cultivate tomatoes out of your own turds has spiralled out of control. This I blame entirely on Ginger Ninja Rob Manuel of B3TA for including my hair-brained scheme in last week's newsletter. Result: more hits on this site than I've ever known, and it looks like I've really got to do the thing now.

Oh, poo.

I suppose you'll be after a progress report, then.

The success of the whole thing is in the planning, so I've chosen my plot, bought a trowel (that's GBP 2.99 I won't see again, you B3TA fiends!) some latex gloves (you can never tell) and waited for some warm weather so I won't get a cold arse come the Time of the Great Poo of Woe.

It may be hot and steaming when it hits the sod, but one decent ground-frost will kill this experiment stone dead. And Mrs Duck won't let me use the conservatory, not after that business with the shed.

So, Thunderbirds are go, then. I'm already on an all-tomato diet, and will lay the all-important log as soon as Charlie Dimmock's nips reach the required seasonal texture. Then, it's hot-foot to Scary's Secret Garden for the laying of the cable. I have already stocked up on large quanitites of Guinness ("When the bottom's falling out of your world, drink six pints of the black stuff, and soon enough the world will be falling out of your bottom"), as I am certain that - combined with an all-tomato diet - the resultant Irish Bhajis will contain everything we need for a decent crop.

What, then, could possibly go wrong?

Apart from the neighbours calling the Police, the dog getting involved, filling my own kecks through poor squatting technique. I'm doomed, aren't I?

Steeled as I am for this momentous - and almost certainly illegal - occasion in my life, you will forgive the lack of a Thursday vote-o, again. Tomorrow's story has been chosen by Zoe Myboyfriendisatwat, and contains a predictably high filth content. So, while I'm waiting for the local fuzz to show up, why not amuse yourselves by discussing the most heinous crime you have ever committed?

Well? Get on with it! Own up!

Best TV Theme, ever

Best TV Theme, ever

Greetings, dear reader, and welcome to yet another piss-poor excuse to fill my comments with a frantic ...err... mass debate with this question dreamt up sitting in my under-crackers in front of the Devil's Own 37-inch plasma screen:

"What's the best TV theme, ever?"

I know what you're going to suggest, so I say "Feh!" I see your Match of the Day and the bit that goes "BoooinnGG!" in the Grandstand theme, and raise you The Flashing Blade.

Oh hang on, scratch that, I forgot the raw guitar-and-harmonica Roobarb tune.

This calls for a red-hot discussion thread. Oh yes.

And: the worst. Star Trek Enterprise. End of discussion. Hang your head, R. Watson.

An appeal from my corrupt Uncle Brenda

On dressing up in woman's clothing - an appeal from my corrupt Uncle Brenda

My corrupt Uncle Brenda needs your help.

He wants to know where I ...He... can get larger size shoes from an understanding shop that won't smirk when he walks in wearing a lovely gingham frock. Please help me ...err... him. He's also got a certain problem with going into Marks and Sparks and lying to the assistants about my ..his… err… dress size without coming out in a hot flush that makes his foundation run.

Despite Marks and Sparks being full of women who clearly share my …errr… Uncle Brenda's harmless hobby (or, merely have a face like a bag of spanners and need a damn good shave), he was pulled up by the store detectives trying to leave the lingerie department with a dozen pairs of hi-leg panties tucked into his brief case. The police took a dim view of this type of thing and took him down the station for some “fashion tips”.

Uncle Brenda tells me he's had enough of this kind of thing in Peacocks as well: “We don’t cater for those sorts of tastes in Basingstoke. Try Aldershot, I hear that anything goes over there. Now get out and don’t darken my shop door again.”

Oh yes, Aldershot, being an army town, has got plenty of specialist shops, just right for the kind of guy in tight, tight foundation wear and smooth, black seamed stockings under a starchy nurse's uniform, just how I ...errr.... he likes it. But the parking's terrible, and there's every likelihood he'll run into cousin Julia and his dreadful blackmailing habits.

He says mail order's a dead loss. He tells me the wife (Aunty Brian) is bound to find out, and the office mail room will always x-ray, open and ruthlessly stain anything that looks the remotest part frilly.

Uncle Brenda needs your help! Do you think he should try jumble sales, charity shops, or should I …he… just brazen it out and head for Matalan?

And while we're here - tights or stockings? Fake pearls, or the real thing? And is a French Maid's outfit in public considered particularly tarty? Educated minds need to know.

GW wrote half of this sad act of uncley confession, I suspect from personal experience. Read his blog.

Woo!: New blog-me-do by TV's Mr Biffo.

Saxon violence

Saxon Violence

I had this awful dream last night. I dreamed I had joined the Anglo-Saxons in a huge battle against a bunch of terrible Vikings led by towsel-haired beserker Boris Johnson. Armed only with a biro and an Adidas bag, I fought my way through the axe-wielding hoardes, leaving a trail of broken, moaning bodies in my wake, whilst Anne Widdecombe sung extracts from Wagner in the background.

As the battle died and the bodies twitched no more, I was brought before the head Saxon: the much-feared "Das Crab" in his luxury caravan, where I was given my Anglo-Saxon name. "Dave."

"Das Crab" also gave me a quest, a quest to prove my worthiness as an Anglo-Saxon called "Dave". I was to be sent to Currys to by a new stereo, so they could listen to their national anthem - "I'm the Urban Spaceman" by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

And I think you can see the anachronism here - they didn't have any Currys stores back in Saxon times, so I was forced to buy the boom-box in a local Euronics Centre from that camp beardy fella Jeremy Spake. A terrible quest, indeed.

I returned to "Das Crab", who told me I was not worthy of a "Dave" because I had shelled out sixty groats on the extended warranty. Instead, I was to be allowed a tent and a limited supply of pointy sticks, which is a result in anybody's book.

Then I woke up. I've really got to lay off the cheese.

I am not mad.


Bookage

To the Ducklings' school on Friday, where they marked World Book Day by dressing up as the book character of their choice. No problem for Scaryduckling, who attended as a Narnia-type child, whilst I donned my best frock and thrilled the crowds as the Snow Queen as portrayed by the not-bonkers-at-all Tilda Swinton.

Scaryduck Jr, however, was a completely different kettle of fish, as he had no desire to put on a pointy hat and a cape and join the expected swarms of Harry Potters.

In the end he put on his best suit and went as Patrick Bateman.

And what a palaver that caused. Well, we weren't to know chainsaws were against School Rules. It's not as if it was plugged in, or anything. Live and Learn.


Mank news

I am no longer surprised by my referrer logs, and it is pleasing to see they are a fair reflection of current events. Yes: this site is the number one source on Yahoo for Tessa Jowell nude. Poor Tessa Jowell's husband. He's missing her already.

Mirth and Woe: Pickle

Pickle

The accusation that "See that Scary Duck? He's only got one bollock" is the worst stigma that can be applied to any young man going through secondary school, and could be enough to tip even the mildest-mannered of schoolboys over the edge into a life as a raging egomaniac.

Eddie, you're a bastard.

Eddie's malicious rumour had come from the fact that I (along with about three hundred others) had been kicked in the crotch by Mad Paul, who was into that kind of thing until they rounded him up for all sorts of correctional therapy. Barely a lunch break would pass without Mad Paul singling out some poor sap in the playground before felling him with a well-practiced Dr Marten to the testicles. Every school had a mono-browed frog-eating psycho, and Mad Paul was ours.

The fact that I was felled on the last day of term, before spending the entire summer holidaying in Ireland was taken by Eddie to mean that I was in hospital having my shattered meat-and-two-veg sewn together, and he took the opportunity to tell as many people as he possibly could.

The bastard.

It turned out, however, that Eddie, the lad who went to great lengths to tell everybody that virtually any boy in the school only had one bollock, was himself lacking in the plum department to the tune of exactly one plum. His anti-social behaviour had all been some nefarious plan to cover his own testicular deficiency, a plot thwarted by a loose tongue and several bottles of own-brand cider.

Now, as the late Peter Cook might have said, I had nothing against Eddie's singular bollock. The trouble is, neither did he.

In his drunken stupor, he had told all to several people who were rather less drunk than he was.

"You won't tell anybody?" he slurred.

"Ooooh no, no ,no, God bless you no," we promised, "Your mono-testicular woe is safe with us."

God, we certainly knew how to tell a lie in those days.

School started at 8.50am on Monday. By 8.51am, everybody knew. And that included the deaf kid who only did sign language.

And here's what the entire school population knew. It's in the wild now, so it's only right to share:

Poor, poor Eddie.

He had been playing on the swings with some mates, trying to out-do each other with tricks and stunts. The stunt of choice was one where they swung as high as they could, jumped off, landing on the soft grass congratulating each other on their rock-hard stuntman status.

This wasn't flash enough for Eddie. He had to take the stunt to its inevitable conclusion. Having seen it done on countless westerns and car-chase movies, he decided to swing as high as he could before jumping off and landing on his bike saddle, riding away in triumph as his friends roared their appreciation.

What could possibly go wrong?

Poor, poor Eddie. Or as we called him: Pickle, after the pickled onion the hospital gave him as a false one.

Modern Life is Rubbish

Modern Life is Rubbish

What's the most hateful invention of modern times? I was sitting on the toilet at work the other day considering this very question. Job done, I glanced to my right and saw the answer staring me in the face.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Tork T-Box, bog-roll holder of choice to the corporate world. And there it sits, malevolently hiding the end of the roll behind evil plastic teeth, the company's representative in the cubicle telling you two things:

"We know you steal the bog paper. We'd like to see you try now", and "Are you still here? You're not paid to shit - get back to work!"

Speaking as a toilet connoisseur, it devalues the whole done-ing a poo experience, with its penny-pinching attitude to bottom care. The mega-sized rolls they use are of the cheapest quality imaginable, guaranteed to tear under the slightest tension and lose the end up in the gubbins. And there you are, scrabbling around once again, trousers round your ankles, trying to find the end of the roll as the evil plastic teeth nibble away at your wrist.

Tork T-Box. Damn you. Damn you to hell.

Now: I am certain the T-Box is only the very tip of a huge, looming iceberg of banality and crapness forced onto us by people who think they know better. I feel a poll coming on. A poll to find the crappest, most hateful invention that blights our lives.

Suggest-me-up, then - preferably with reasons for your choice - and in the coming days I shall openly mock a select few, before presenting the coveted Golden Turd to the most deserving. Sod it, I won't even bother with the gold paint. No matter how much you polish it, it's still shit.

The 2006 Turd Award is born.


Situation normal: Vote-NO!

Today, I shall be mostly yanking myself furiously into a jar at Dorchester County Hospital, an act which is far less fun than you will imagine. And as usual, I've said far, far too much. So: you will have to make do without a Thursday Vote-o for tomorrow's Scary Story while I lie in the recovery room, tended by scantily-clad, lightly-oiled nurses.

In which case, when tomorrow's story appears, blame Wrath of Dawn, for she has chosen. Complain, and face her wrath.

On Neuroses

On Neuroses

Manky old bastard that he was, Freud was right. Our lives are dominated by our own private battles against our neuroses, and when you thing you have won, you are presented with a new set many, many times more complex.

As we know, Freud eventually gave in to his, and used his so-called Freudian analysis to see as women in the nip as he possibly could.

To boil the coke-addled Freud down to the sweet-smelling glue of this theories, you find that it's all to do with discovering you have a Johnson at an early age, whilst your mother does not. There follows all those sticky problems associated with wondering what to do with all your spare parts, and why trying to stick them in the wrong hole is generally seen as a Bad Thing in polite society.

The problem I have with Freudian analysis is this: it's all bollocks. Bollocks that conveniently ignores the fact that 99.9 per cent of us have absolutely no desire to see the furry axe wound of a close relative.

And besides, I confess that I am a Foucaultian. It's all about the power, people. Power in relationships, the power we hold over others, and the power others hold over us through the use of knowledge, authority and big pointy sticks with nails through the end. Michael Foucault knew all this, mainly through having them stuffed up his bottom in a way that Sigmund Freud could only dream of and blame his mother afterwards.

Still, I have yet to come to terms with my unnatural desire for office cleaners, yet somebody still has to come every morning to empty my bin. That's "empty my bin" in the true get-rid-of-my-office-waste sense; and not in any other sense that Dr Freud wrote several closely-worded volumes on, summarizing that I want to see office cleaners in the nip. It's a power relationship, that's all it is. Things have never been the same since she traded up to a Dyson.

This is what happens when you allow somebody such as myself to get an education.

Edit: I can't believe I left this off the end:

I am not mad.