In Praise of BBC 6Music

The Duck's Top Ten of 2010: In Praise of BBC 6Music

Another year is dragged screaming into a sound-proofed room, bludgeoned to death with hammers and buried under the patio of history, writes Berkshire resident Peter Sutcliffe. Meanwhile, back in the world of I Am Not Mad...

2010 was the year I fell back in love with music, and I've got the BBC to thank for that. If they hadn't decided to close down the BBC 6Music radio station (a ludicrous decision that was thankfully reversed), I wouldn't have heard half of the songs I enjoyed this year.Thanks to 6Music, I shall be clinically deaf by the time I am fifty.

I know that any top ten is pretty subjective stuff and quite possibly the worst thing you can do as a blog article, so for every song that I like, at least 90% of you will either hate or shrug "Well, I've never heard of them."

10. Gypsy and the Cat - Time to Wander
The perfect fusion of Australian and French pop music, because you can never get too much Australian and French fusion pop music

9. Broken Social Scene - All to All
I listened to some other Broken Social Scene stuff, and thoroughly disliked them. This is pretty good, though

8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unless you hate it, then: No. No No.

7. Delphic - Counterpoint
"The next New Order". Except they're nothing like New Order.

6. Wolf Gang - Lions in Cages
Another monstrously talented individual pretending to be a band when, in fact, it's just him.

5. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
Miserablists strike gold with this marvellous slice of misery

4. Gorillaz - On Melancholy Hill
"Oh, I've heard of them. Pretentious Mockney bastards."

3. Freelance Whales - Generator Second Floor
Charming band from New York who really ought to be introduced to...

2. Megan Washington - Sunday Best


In which Megan Washington (with whom I am not obsessed) is NOT my top song of the year. That accolade goes to...

1. Sage Francis - Best of Times


Because 2010 was the year I went mad, got better, and fell in love with this. Trust me kid: It's not the end of the world.

Happy New Year.

On playground fun

On playground fun

"What's going on there?" asks my charming daughter Scaryduckling as we drive past a children's playground near the seafront in Weymouth.

"What? Where?" I say, my concentration entirely given over to not driving the car off a bridge and into the harbour.

"Those kids in that playground - that's either their grandad with them, or it's a paedo."

At length, we come to a halt in a traffic queue and I am able to see what she means."

"No," I say, "It's far worse than you think."

We wind down the windows to hear the words "Dance, hobo, dance!" echoing up from the playground.

"They've kidnapped a tramp."

On living in The Matrix

On living in The Matrix

"Oh God, Dad, these people are going to make me late for work."

As usual, Scaryduckling isn't quite on time for her Saturday job at Weymouth's finest tat emporium (marshmallow willies and cuddly meerkats a speciality), and her lift to work has been slowed down by a little old lady in a Nissan Micra driving like she's behind the wheel of a hearse.

Luckily, we too are in a Nissan Micra. An excellent one with jet engines mounted with afterburners, warp coils and phased plasma rifles.

I nip down a side street, take a diversion through a back alley - tramps diving for their very lives - narrowly avoid a paperboy as we rattle down some steps behind the fire station, to emerge, turning on a sixpence with a little help from the handbrake *just* in front of our dusty-minged arch-nemesis.

I catch my reflection in the rear-view mirror.

Above my head - for the briefest of moments - are the words "Player One: +2XP", confirming what I've always suspected: We're all trapped in a first-person shoot-em-up.

This can only be a good thing. Once I get past the boss battle, I unlock the Bugatti Veyron.

Job Interview

Job Interview

"So," I asked of our most promising candidate yet, "What do you do when you're not at work?"

That standard question that reveals oh-so-much about our future employees.

"Well," she replied, "I'm a Line Dancing Pilates instructor."

"You're a what what whaty what?"

"Line Dancing Pilates. It's like Line Dancing. And it's like Pilates. Only with the fun and health benefits of both."

"Please leave."

NOT SENT FROM MY IPHONE

NOT SENT FROM MY IPHONE

I got an email from a business contact the other day.

"Blah blah blah", it said, "blah blah blah de blah."

Followed up with: "Blah blah de drone blah"

And signing of with: "Sent from my iPhone"

Enough.

I don't have an iPhone because I am not a ponce.

To this end I have changed my email signature:

"Not sent from my iPhone because I AM NOT A PONCE."

Just to make things totally clear: NOT. A. PONCE.

Weekend Festive Video

Weekend Festive Video

St Etienne and Tim Burgess - I Was Born on Christmas Day

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

I know it. This is going to be The Best Christmas Walford's Ever Seen.

On deep philosophical inquiry. And arsing about

On deep philosophical inquiry. And arsing about

Poor dead Thomas Edison once said: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration", and he should know having won medals for his prodigious sweating throughout his lifespan.

He obviously did not have access to the internet, for these days the saying would be: "Genius is 0.1% inspiration, 0% perspiration and 99.9% arsing about on Twitter".

Yeah, our atheist pals point out that blind faith in an invisible sky zombie, his lucky story book and a bunch of blokes in funny hats who knew larger blokes armed with swords and easy access to kindling led to much the same result. For eg: Centuries of arsing about and nothing getting done.

What did lack of scientific advancement give us? The plague, that's what. And bald blokes who were really, really good at drawing capital letters.

We're over that now, and by rights we ought to have all the monkey butlers we can eat.

So: Where's my monkey butler?

I'll tell you where. Nowhere. And that's because all the monkey butler scientists are arsing about on Twitter thinking up #toiletsitcoms or #insertthewordbuttocksintomovietitles instead of working on monkey butler technology.

We cannot let our civilisation fail now that we've come this close to the Holy Grail of Simian Domestic Help.

Twitter MUST BE STOPPED.

Happy car / Angry car

Happy car / Angry car

Awww! Look at his cute ickle face!

It is THE LAW that whenever you spot one of these Daihatsu Copens, you MUST shout out "Happy car!" I am nearly 45 years of age.

On the other hand:

BMW Minis = Right miserable bastards.

Mobility scooters = Horribly, relentlessly cheerful and MUST BE STOPPED.

FIRE ALARM

FIRE ALARM

Tuesday. 9.45am. Coffee is served. Some hardy types are already looking dreamily out of the window.

"There now follows a test of the fire alarm system. When you hear the fire alarm, please do not evacuate the building."

Ten minutes earlier...

...an excitable, bearded figure is seen talking to camera in the car park.

"Earlier today, we replaced all the fire alarms in the headquarters of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs with a Brown Noise Generator. When it goes off, it will ensure that each and every living soul in that accursed building will involunarily soil their undergarments.

"Now, with the flip of a switch, let's see if they're GAME FOR A LAUGH!"

They were not Game for a Laugh.

On the Scaryduckworth-Lewis method for rating things for excellence - 2011 Edition

On the Scaryduckworth-Lewis method for rating things for excellence - 2011 Edition

It has come to my attention that I have not updated the Scaryduckworth-Lewis Method of Rating Things for Excellence list (the internet's number one at-a-glance table for rating things for excellence) for a good 18 months. In that time, the world has changed, and the list is looking decidedly out-of-date.

And with the new year, the list has been comprehensively re-written to discard the dead wood that is Sharon Osborne, Tess Jowell and the Beeny-Allsopp axis. In comes entirely new sacrificial blood that is the very measure of our society as we begin the second decade of the 21st Century.

The Scaryduckworth-Lewis method for rating things for excellence - 2011 Edition

0. Ann Widdecombe dancing the paso doble. On Gillian McKeith's poo-spattered face
1. Margaret Thatcher fixing you in the eye in the lobby of the Conservative Party Conference, demanding "Lick me, Dennis"
2. The Duchess of Cornwall, feasting on barely-dead roadkill, giving you the eye as blood, blood, BLOOD streams over her naked torso

3. Susan Boyle inviting you back to her place to stroke her pussy, only to find that her cat went solo over artistic differences
4. Waking up from a night of barely-remembered ecstasy for Force's Sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn to roll over and whisper "We'll meet again"
5. Home Secretary Theresa May using police 'kettling' techniques for her own sickening pleasure

6. Katie Price and her evil twin Jordan fighting over the riding crop and bicycle pump
7. Sarah Palin frotting herself against a grizzly bear
8. Kerry Katona refusing to go to Iceland until she's coughed up the last of yesterday's Babycham

9. Your proud protruberance disappearing to the size of an airbed nozzle as Madonna offers you a happy finish with her granny claw hands
10. Fern Britton, smeared with Ryvita and cottage cheese, pointing hungrily at your sausage platter
11. Maggie Philbin. The perfectly-formed yardstick from which all female beauty and character should be measured

12. Cheryl Cole and the ginger one out of Girls Aloud having a "reet canny time, like" in a tin bath brimming with cold chicken korma
13. Michelle Obama posing for "White House"
14. Carla Bruni, quaking with breathless excitement at a private screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

15. Amy Pond travelling back in time to last night to create the best time paradox ever. In your face, Asimov!
16. Two Minogues, One Cup
17. Konnie Huq. Sticky-back plastic. Home-made, battery-powered Olympic torch.

18. Nigella Lawson, on her knees, begging to taste your gravy
19. Countdown's Rachel Riley looking up swears with a lightly-oiled Susie Dent in Dictionary Corner
20. Kate Middleton discovering the forbidden delights of Princess Beatrice and her "Royal Wee"

We have, in the past, been accused by some quarters of sexism over the all-female make-up of this system. And the booboys (not to mention boogirls) would be absolutely correct. So, to put things right, we present:

The Scaryduckworth-Lewis method for rating things for excellence - Girls' Edition

0. Chuckle Brothers spit-roast. "To me, to you"
11. Harry Hill in a roll-neck sweater
20. John Barrowman using it as a skipping rope

Yeah, it needs a bit of work.

Weekend Video

Weekend Video

Lemon Jelly - Space Walk



A tribute to poor, dead Bernard Matthews: "Bootiful. Bootiful. Just bootiful."

On the futility of fortune tellers

On the futility of fortune tellers

"Right," she says, "I'll be off, then."

"So," I ask, "What's this thing you're going to?"

"It's a psychic dinner."

"A WHAT?"

"A psychic dinner. We all have a chicken-inna-basket meal, and these palm readers an' that come and tell you your fortune."

I am incredulous.

"I am incredulous. And you've actually paid money for this?"

"Yes. Yes I have."

"And what time will you be back?"

"I don't know. They didn't tell me."

I facepalm.

On the approved use of soup

On the approved use of soup

A bowl is placed in front of me.

"What's that?"

"Soup," she says.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's Spring Vegetable and Herb."

"It looks like the result of a kidney infection if you ask me."

"Well - if you must know - it's organic, slimming and very nutricious."

And that, dear reader is yet another example of the BLASPHEMY that is rife in the kitchens and dining rooms of this once-proud nation. There exists a list of officially-approved, ponce-free soups that should be served, lest you be accused of being a ponce. Failure to comply is punishable by CRAB JUSTICE.

- Heinz Cream of Tomato (Note: Variations involving "A hint of parsley" are wrong and a shortcut to The Way of the Ponce. " A hint of the Devil's pubes", more like)

- Heinz Chicken Noodle

- Duck (starring the Marx Brothers)

Every Saturday since I was a lad, my lunch has consisted of a tin of tomato soup and half a loaf of buttered, fresh bread. No wonder I'm a bloater, but that is the price one pays. Once, my father attempted to jazz it up with extra tomatoes, herbs and other ingredients out of the Larder of Ponce. That is the kind of trauma that makes serial killers.

On international justice

On international justice

In the line of duty, I had a look at the website of the International Criminal Court, and to be perfectly honest, they don't seem to be that busy. And seeing as we're all paying for these people to sit around the Hague out of our taxes, we should be palming some work in their direction while they wait for the homocidal maniacs and ruthless dictators to hand themselves in.

To this end, I have - in the past - suggested a few causes they should be taking up, (for eg: mime, in-store muzak, those Halifax TV adverts) but there is plenty more that they can be getting on with.

A short list of things that I dislike that should be stamped out by the International Criminal Court, which I pay for out of my taxes:

- Phil Collins, People who like Phil Collins and the very idea of Phil Collins

- Ditto: Richard Littlejohn

- Anybody who has ever owned a copy of UB40 and Chrissie Hynde's "I Got You Babe"

- Anybody who has ever watched a Katie Price, Peter Andre, Kerry Katona or any other celebrity reality TV programme on ITV2 and put it on "Series Link" on their Sky box

- People who knock at your door while you're having dinner to ask if you're happy with your energy supplier. I'm not - they're a bunch of See You Next Tuesdays with unlimited access to my bank account, but I'm in the middle of my dinner you grinning bastard

- People who design and build mini-roundabouts

- The person who always asks questions at the end of a meeting when somebody asks "Any Questions?"

- People who phone TV votes after the lines have closed whose vote will not count but may still be charged for their phone call, please see itv.com for more details

- BLASPHEMERS who put milk in their cup AFTER pouring the tea

- Creationists

One hopes, after the briefest, most one-sided of trials, appropriately painful and fatal punishments can be meted out.

On cutting a deal with Alan Sugar

On cutting a deal with Alan Sugar

Lord Sugar's got a book out. You might have noticed him plugging it with little or no shame all over the press and the internet. Buggered if I'm paying twenty quid for it, not when my excellent work is less than half the price. I'll drop him a line.

Dear Lord of Sugar

Congratulations on your recent teabagging of that no good cur Piers Morgan in the World Teabagging Championships.

As a vaguely successful local businessman, I am intrigued by the release of your autobiography "What you see is what you get".

As a matter of fact, I am so intrigued that I have promised not to show my annoyance at your relentless plugging of your product on social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

It has come to such a pass, that people are beginning to refer to such endless self-promotion as 'Lordsugaring'. I followed your example and have Lordsugared my own book until close friends have told me to (and I quote) "Die in a Fire".

My question to you is this: As a vaguely successful local businessman, I wish to maximise my profits. So, when's your book going to be £2.99 in The Works? Buggered if I'm going to pay full price, when there's clearly a bit of slack built into the system. Cut us a deal, fella.

Your pal

Albert O'Balsam

I'm sure old fungus face will reward such upfront entrepreneurship.

On there being a claim where there art blame

On there being a claim where there art blame

Oh Lordy, here's another of them ancient adverts. Remember: "This servyce is verily no winne, no Danegeld"

Just goes to prove there's nothing original left in this world*.

* Mostly because I've stolen it.

Weekend Video

Weekend Video

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy



A thing of rare and great beauty. This song is nearly 20 years old.

On sexy driving

On sexy driving

The Fragrant Mrs Duck tells me that my driving's "sexy".

After years of "AAAAARGH! Mind that lamp post!" she's finally come round to my way of thinking and has realised that I'm not so much mounting the pavement but sticking to the racing line.

"Thank you," I say, "Thank you for saying that my driving is sexy."

"No. No I didn't."

"I distinctly heard you tell your dad that I'm an erotic driver."

"Erratic," she says, "Erratic."

Oh.

On incredible discoveries turning out to be something quite underwhelming

On incredible discoveries turning out to be something quite underwhelming

"Dad! Dad!" the boy says, "I've found out the most amazing thing!"

"What?" I ask, torn away from the brain-sapping excitement of the X Factor, "This had better be better than the brain-sapping excitement of the X Factor."

"If you dial 123, this guy at the other end of the phone tells you the time."

"..."

"That's just BRILLIANT!"

"That, my son, is called the Speaking Clock. And it's been going forever."

"Oh. Right."

"And I'm blogging this."

"You git."


And a bit of a hero-gram

Remember my recent biscuit-related woe at the hands of a packet of shoddy Co-op Rich Teas?

They reply!

Dear Mr Duck,

We're sorry to hear about your recent biscuit-related woe at the hands of a packet of shoddy Co-op Rich Teas.

Please accept our apologies, our pledge that all biscuits will be individually stress tested as per EU regulations, and some vouchers.

Your pals,

The Co-op.

I heart you The Co-op. I really heart you.

I am not mad book reviews

On asking why you - YES, YOU - haven't bought my excellent book

The reviews for my EXCELLENT book are in from some of the world's leading special publications, and by-and-large, they're pretty positive. See what you think, and then BUY MY EXCELLENT BOOK:

- "Couldn't put this book down" - Superglue Enthusiast

- "Shat myself laughing" - Dysentery Victims Association Newsletter

- "This book saved my life" - People Who Make Armour Out of Books Weekly

- "We quite like I Am Not Mad. Just the right thickness" - Wonky Table Owner

- "The ideal toilet companion" - Toilet & Crapping Magazine

- "LOL" - Pyongyang's Rodung Sinmun (Official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea)

Of course, I'm not a complete Lord Sugar, only posting the reviews that praise me to they skies. There are people out there who would have me as an enemy, and their views (utterly crap and WRONG as they are) should be equally valid : These negative reviews are …err… like water off a duck's back:

- "Do not buy this book" - Anatadaephobe News

- "We are sickened - SICKENED - by the clear prejudice in this so-called book" - Quarterly Journal of the British Wasp Owner's Association

- "FINISH HIM" - Which Fatwa? Monthly

You too could be the owner of this magnificent heirloom piece. "The ideal gift for a rich, elderly relative with a dodgy heart" - Insurance Fraudster Today

On mime

On mime

Accosted by a mime whilst entertaining the lady wife in a restaurant, our all-too-valid criticism of the pasty-faced nuisance (To whit: "Learn the words, you pasty-faced nuisance") fell on deaf ears in the face the gale in which he was struggling.

So, we took the only course of action available to us - that being to trap him in an invisible box before clubbing him senseless with invisible baseball bats. A gaggle of invisible Candian seal-clubbers were fortunately on hand to finish the job.

And not before time, either. He retreated to the next table, where he started juggling with an invisible kitten and two invisible chainsaws. The bastard.

Dear The International Criminal Court,

Mime artists. Nail them as well.

Your pal, etc

In which INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE crushes a few skulls

In which INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE crushes a few skulls

The red light flashed on my red Bat-Phone and I sprung into action. Someone, somewhere needed my help. Someone, somewhere needed the benefit of my special powers. That's right. Someone's getting a letter.

Dear The International Criminal Court

Congratulations on yourr recent high-level arrests of some of the world's greatest bastards! Your capture of the gits behind those Halifax TV adverts leads me to believe that you're doing a fine job and I'd be willing to help out in any way, for eg: holding their arms while someone puts the boot in.

However, there is one area in which I fear you lack credibility, that being in the protection of the general population from the hideous crime that is in-store muzak, especially at this culturally-sensitive time of year.

Now, I like a good tune as much as the next man, but I shall never forget the sight of a very dear friend of mine, left in tears and rocking back and forth like Arthur Fowler out of EastEnders after he'd been caught stealing the Christmas Club money to pay for Michelle's wedding, simply because he had walked into Superdrug and found herself subjected to a dreadful plinky-plonk cover version of a much-loved song by The Cure.

And with Christmas being less than a month away, we've already had several weeks of Chrstmas Carols in our retail outlets, from jolly choral vintage awfulness to happy hardcore versions of Silent Night. Customers and shop staff alike are being pummelled and mentally tortured by these crimes against everything our society stands for. THIS MUST BE STOPPED.

This is where you chaps come in. Hunt down the curs behind this stream of filth and inanity like the dogs they are, and subject them to a little bit of a musical re-education. For eg, the sound their skulls make when subjected to the attention of a large group of Canadian seal clubbers. We know you're a little bit busy with some of the most awful people who ever walked the Earth, so this approach will negate the need for a costly trial and save you a lot of paperwork into the bargain.

Do let us know if we can go ahead with our excellent plan which can only be of benefit to our great civilisation (unless you are involved in the production and distribution of in-store muzak). Seal-clubbing season's just around the corner, and Jacques and the lads are getting a bit twitchy.

Be lucky.

Your pal

Albert O'Balsam

Weekend video II

Weekend video II

Jospeh Sepp Bellend Blatter Faceplant



Still pissed off about the World Cup vote? Here's the president of FIFA falling flat on his face. It's the video that keeps on giving, just like your mum's chlamydia.

Weekend Video

Weekend Video

Police Squad: End Credits



A tribute to poor, dead Leslie Nielsen, surely the king of deadpan. But don't call him Shirley.

Public Service Announcement

Public Service Announcement

Think once.

Think twice.

Think: Don't drink three cans of Red Bull half an hour before an important departmental meeting.

This action will prevent:

- Manic, wide-eyed staring

- Suggesting a game of British Bulldog to see who gets to take the minutes

- Replying to questions with the words "WhatWhatWhatWhatWHATWHAT?"

- Dancing the "Dead Ant" on the Boardroom table before lapsing into unconsciousness

- The disapproving glances of your peers who are so cross that they nearly said something.

Seriously. Don't do it.

On international piracy

On international piracy

It touched my heart to hear the the British couple taken hostage by Somali pirates have been freed following a huge ransom deal with the knaves that held them for over a year in the Horn of Africa.

Now that the Chandlers are free, they're in a bit of a mess. After all they had their entire worldly goods with them when they were taken in the Indian Ocean off the Seychelles. To whit: One modest yacht and everything on it.

While it is true to say - thanks to the assistance offered by world's orangest man Max Clifford - the couple are not exactly on their uppers, it would be nice if we could all pull together to help them rebuild their lives back in the damp and cold United Kingdom.

I rarely comment on the current news agenda on these pages, but there are times you've just got to stand up and be counted. To this end, I'm prepared to offer them a free pass to Weymouth's second best tourist attraction in the hope that they are able to learn to love holidays away from the gut-wrenching danger of the high seas.

So: We hope they enjoy their free round at the Weymouth Pirate Crazy Golf Course (7th hole: A year in a red hot cargo container) and they can look back on the last year and laugh and laugh.

Too soon?

CHRISTMAS ROUND ROBIN LETTER 2010

It's THAT time of year again, when the smug bastards of the world switch their computers to Comic Sans (the official typeface of the Third Reich) and tell people they haven't met in twenty years how brilliant their lives are. Yep, the Round Robin letter, coming to a lavish charity Christmas card near you.

And there's only one way to fight back: A complete pack of lies:

Dear INSERT NAME HERE

Phew! What an out-of-this-world year it's been for the Duck family!! We mean that quite literally after those lovely, lovely people at NASA paid us a small fortune to remake the science fiction movie 2010, this time as a documentary. And what a roller-coaster trip that was - all the way to to the far reaches of the Solar System and back - although it meant having to cancel our regular trip to the Maldives! Jupiter's nice, and we've bought a villa, but we wouldn’t want to live there!!!

You might have seen me on the television earlier this year, setting up the winning goal for Spain in this year's World Cup final. Yes, we all know I'm not Spanish (I'm now well into my second year as King of Tonga!!), but I got the nod thanks to FIFA's new 'holiday' rules. It turns out that my holiday kickabout in Mallorca's All-Kings Football Tournament last year ago was enough to tip the scales. I say "kickabout", but King Juan Carlos is the worst goalkeeper I've ever seen!!! Even worse than ex-West Ham footballer Carl Gustav XVI of Sweden!!!!

Once again Mrs Duck has been at the sharp end of global diplomacy. Her much-publicised trip to Pyongyang where she administered a cock-punch to leader Kim Jong-Il has gone a long way to reducing tensions in the Korean Peninsula, but she regrets the lack of cameras when she gave heir apparent Kim Jong-Un "the mother of all wedgies", praised by visiting UN Officials as "the laugh-out-loud moment of the decade". Once again she turned down the Nobel Peace prize - the shelf in the downstairs toilet's got six as it is!!!

Meanwhile, the lad Adam is back from his secret mission to Waziristan after being picked up by the SAS who have been keeping an eye on his Call of Duty prowess for some time. He's not allowed to talk about what he got up to in Pakistan's remote mountain region, except to say "Osama's going to be singing soprano in the Al-Qaeda choir from now on." Our HERO!!!

And what to say about our wonderful daughter? As you might have heard by now, she was the brains behind the year's most fantastic hoax - constructing a robot out of spare body parts and a few bits and pieces that fell through the space/time portal in our garden that got within a couple of weeks of reaching the final of The X Factor. If you've got any ideas about what to do with our spare Wagnerbot, don't tell us - we don't care what you think!!!

No Christmas letter would be complete without mention of our wonderful little dog Lucy Minogue. Puppy's hung up her lead after winning Cruft's three years in a row, and is now working hard for charitable causes. Despite hobnobbing with the likes of the Pope, Bono and Rick Astley, she's not lost touch with the common people - she savaged a tramp to death only last week!!!

We would - at this point - wish you all a very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. But - to be perfectly honest, we wouldn't care a fig if you won Britain's Got Talent juggling your own shit while Ann Widdecombe plays a solo on her bongos.

With love!

The Duck Family (Scary)

Cut, paste, change the details, print. Go on. You know you want to.

A lavishly-illustrated open letter to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

A lavishly-illustrated open letter to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

Dear Vladimir Putin

Congratulations on having the hardest official police militia in the world. You certainly know how to deal with pesky human rights campaigners and tree-hugging lefties that keep turning up on the mean streets of Moscow dressed as wheelie bins.

We all know you're hard as nails, and happily project this tough guy image through your OMON Black Berets. And damn, as fans of needless violence, we're impressed.

We've seen the photos of you riding bare-chested and lightly-oiled through the Russian Steppe, wrestling with Siberian Tigers, sweeping the enemies of the Motherland before you and revelling in the lamentation of their womenfolk. You don't get that from David Cameron, who is, frankly, a bit of a wet and a weed who'd soil his pants if faced with a rampaging bear driven to the point of insanity by the taste of human flesh.

But while the bravery and blood-curdling merciless violence of your OMON (Cyrillic: OMOH) troops in the name of law, order and top LULZ, is beyond question, I might draw your attention to the following:

Example One: DEAD HARD

Example Two, the same image with the simple introduction of Photoshop's 'Flip 180°' tool: NICE BOYS*

I expect you're horrified to see what we in the West would call a welcome touch diversity in your armed forces.

May I suggest - if you've got a problem with this - renaming your lads the "Federal United Constabulary Kicking Out Foreign Fighters"? I think you'll agree that it has a nice ring, and tells these Western European soft boys where to get off without compromising your rock-hard manliness.

Be lucky.

Your pal,

Albert O'Balsam

* As I've already had one humourless complaint over the use of this obsolete 70s term: Ever heard of satire?

WASPS = EVIL

WASPS = EVIL

"Wasps are the elementary particles of evil," I was told recently, "They don't exist in any particular place, until you decide where to have a picnic."

Wise words indeed.

However, I can tell you one place where wasps DO exist and it is here: The secret nuclear laboratory 50 km north-east of P'yongyang where Kim Jong-Il is splicing together the genes of a wasp, with those of poor, dead Jade Goody and an angry swan. An angry swan made all the more angry by telling it that its wife has been messing about with a touring busload of geese.

Worryingly, UN inspectors believe that Kim is coming frighteningly close to his goal of a six-foot rampaging wasp hybrid, driving around the Home Countries of England, buzzing "shut it, you slag" at passers-by, dropping McDonalds wrappers out of the window of its massive Mitsubishi L200 battle tank, before breaking your arm with a single flap of its wing.

Mega-Goody-Wasp-Swan won't even bother to wait for you to lay out your picnic rug before snaffling your jam sandwiches and heading off to its secret base in East Angular.

And when that day comes, we will have only one thing to say to the procrastinating do-gooders at the United Nations and their catastrophic appeasement policies: "We told you so."

On Bob Servant, again

On Bob Servant, again

I've written about the marvellous Bob Servant before, and his official spokesman Neil Forsyth has been in touch to ask if I would care to mention his latest book.

Bob is the hero of Dundee's Broughty Ferry who spends his spare time replying to spam emails with ridiculous requests until the culprits beg for mercy. And, happily, Delete this at your Peril is now available in an expanded edition. I LOLed last time, and I LOLed some more. In fact, I LOLOLOLed.

Now, he's back with his autobiography, Hero of Dundee, telling how he nearly joined the Merchant Navy, became a window cleaning magnate, before taking a key role in Dundee's Cheeseburger Wars ("the closest any major city has ever come to anarchy"), before describing his relentless pursuit of "skirt".

It is, of course, very funny indeed, and even a jaded old hack as myself found myself genuinely laughing out loud.

Bob's even on the radio these days, and you can catch his programme on Radio Scotland and BBC iPlayer.

PLUG: GET IT HERE

Weekend Video

Weekend Video

Thomas Dolby - Toadlickers



Featuring a special appearance from HRH Prince Charles and one Dr Magnus Cock.

As with anything taken from the "weird" drawer, your mileage may vary.

On wildlife conservation

On wildlife conservation

We here at Scaryduck Labs were upset to hear of the death of Hamley, the world's number one giraffe actor, killed by a bolt of lightning on the set of ITV's Wild At Heart drama.

Determined as we are to prevent a further tragedy on the channel's favourite drama that isn't Heartbeat, we have worked for a full ten minutes on a system that will save the lives of our long-necked friends everywhere:

Lightning rods for giraffes

Let's face it, when you're the tallest thing on the Serengeti, the last thing you want to see are the rolling black clouds that bring a storm and CERTAIN DEATH. Giraffes can't talk, but if they did, we would imagine they'd be saying "Awww, crap - I wish someone would hurry up and invent some sort of lighning conductor for very tall mammals."

And now we have.

As the life-giving rains pour down, and the death-bringing lightning forks around the Great Rift Valley, our lanky friends can go safe in the knowledge that any potentially fatal electrical charge will go safely to Earth, thanks to the ScaryDuck Labs Giraffe-Safe Lightning Rod. They also come with a handy red light, to guard against low-flying aircraft.

Or, through the next tallest thing on the Serengeti: Scaryduck Labs Double Decker Buses Full of Heavily-Armed American Tourists.

This time next year, Rodders....

On channelling the spirit of poor, dead Bernard Cribbins

On channelling the spirit of poor, dead Bernard Cribbins*

I find myself in a traffic jam.

My progress home via a carefully-crafted series of back roads and short cuts has ground to a halt somewhere in a residential suburb of Reading, where a queue of cars in front of me disappears around the corner.

Minutes seem to turn into hours, and my car boxed into the mess of vehicles, I get out to see what the problem might be.

Rounding the corner, I am greeted by the sight of a large van, completely and utterly wedged between parked cars as it tried to perform a U-turn in the road.

The side of the pantechnicon reads: "BERKSHIRE PIANO REMOVALS - Fast! Efficient! Mostly in tune!!!"

Well - oh-ho! - they've hit a bum note today, and I venture forth to offer the driver the benefit of my advice as he wandered around scratching his head.

"May I be of assistance, my good man?" I ask.

"Why, yes," the scruff replied, "are you able to offer a solution to my current predicament vis-a-vis my goods vehicle loaded to its capacity with a grand piano, which appears to have become immobilised in this public thoroughfare?"

"Have you," I ventured, "Tried taking off the handles?

"And the things that hold the candles?"

So. He had a cup of tea. And told me to bugger off.

No wonder this country's going to ruin.

* I am assured that the wonderful Mr Cribbins is not dead, but you can't be too sure in the present zombie scare

FIND A JOB FOR AN UNEMPLOYED SCUD WRITER

FIND A JOB FOR AN UNEMPLOYED SCUD WRITER

The recession and government cuts are biting hard.

But no profession has been harder hit than that of Blurb Writer for the adult magazine trade.

Face it, now that there are unlimited supplies of free scud lying around on the internets (although I only have the vaguest notion as to where it is located), nobody buys printed gentlemen's leisure pamphlets any more. This means the finely-crafted six-page magazine layout with "come hither" blurb written by hard-working, experienced magazine sub-editors a dying art.

"Recently divorced Stephanie likes Indian takeaways, shopping for shoes, pole-dancing and threesomes. WITH YOU"

And

"Sultry Janie wonders how long it might take for you to get to her house. She also likes dogs and threesomes."

Big Society or no, the way things are going, these skills will be lost to our economy forever.

Where, then, can these highly skilled wordsmiths find gainful employ? Blurb is seriously out-of-bounds in this modern world of internet jazz, so these poor wretches have to be given work somewhere.

I'm suggesting roadsign writing. We'll always need roadsigns, and we'll always need people to write succint, eyecatching telling copy.

"Warning: Double bends, threesomes for 3/4 mile"

"Sexy MILF, low bridge, threesomes ahead"

"Thames Water wishes to apologise to the disruption to your journey caused by these essential rimjobs"

A win-win, I think you'll agree.

WM MORRISONS: GATEWAY TO HELL

WM MORRISONS: GATEWAY TO HELL

Things could be worse.

I've written in the past that no matter how bad things are, there's always something much worse that could be happening to you.

For example: A colleague told me "There's nothing worse than ringing your bank's call centre and being forced to listen to selections from James Blunt's Back to Bedlam album whilst waiting to be served."

On the contrary, I reply. James Blunt, coming round your house to tell you that you're overdrawn at the bank, before singing selections from his Back to Bedlam album whilst trying to force an angry goose up your rectum.

That is, I think you'll agree, much worse.

However, I have found the thing that cannot be worse. And it is this: Going to the toilet in a Morrisons supermarket.

And by "going to the toilet", we mean number twos and not number ones.

Number ones are fine. You walk in, do your business whilst obeying the rules of urinal etiquette, wash your hands, leave.

Number twos are a different matter altogether.

For the cubicles are in a grim corner of the facility, lit only by an oppressive blue light, designed solely to say "Right, have a shit if you must, then LEAVE".

And once you find yourself in the cubicle, you are completely engulfed in the claustrophobic blue; the sound of the outside world completely swallowed up by the drowning void; gagging at the detestable ichor of over-used cleaning products and the mouldering deposits of other unfortunates; quite unable to do anything except number twos; panic rising inside, the dread thought that someone, somewhere is watching you with squamous eyes; breaking, crushing, obliterating the desire to get up to anything anti-social or illegal, such as look under the gap of your necrophagous prison to see how the adjacent victim is coping; fear, fear, fear, never-ending piteous FEAR; your only thought being to escape this evil, inhuman womb and burst forth like the squirming young of some dread, otherworldly creature.

There is nothing - NOTHING - worse in the whole world.

Then they make you wipe your bum on an angry goose.

BUY MY BOOK - I AM NOT MAD

BUY MY BOOK - I AM NOT MAD

Why not be different this Christmas? Why not buy your friends a lump of cold sick the latest book by the genius author behind this website?

Now available in old-fashioned paper and ink, or in new-fangled digital download is my second collection based on the Scaryduck blog with nearly all of the spelling mistakes corrected and exactly 127% new funnies added.

With a genuine* foreword by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

BOOK? GET IT HERE

Not in the UK? Try HERE.

Guaranteed excellent or your money back**.

*May contain traces of lie
** Offer open only to citizens of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, closes 19th October 1968

Weekend Video

Weekend Video

UB40 - Food For Thought



One from the days when they were rather good - well before they became enormous ponces with that "I've Got You Babe" and "Labour of Love Volume 27" garbage.

BISCUIT WOE

BISCUIT WOE


Stone the crows, how bad can things get in a man's life? So bad I had to write a letter to a well-known supermarket chain, complete with random CAPITALS and BOLD TEXT:

Dear the Co-op

I am writing to inform you of the unpleasant - yes UNpleasant experience I have suffered following the purchase of a 300g packet of Co-operative Rich Tea Biscuits. You know: The red packet with the comedy 'serving suggestion' picture of several so-called 'Rich Tea' biscuits sitting wanly on a plate in the middle distance.

Rich Tea? VERY POOR TEA, more like.

Within two days of purchasing your product, I should inform you that I have suffered the indignity of soggy Rich Tea biscuits snapping in half and falling into my otherwise excellent beverage with only the briefest of dunkings - thus completely wrecking my tea break - on no less than three occasions.

You have no idea how angry this makes me, but I'll tell you: A LOT. No man should be forced to live with the affront and humiliation of soggy biscuit defeat through the complete tectonic failure of what I wrongly thought were an acceptable Rich Tea purchase. On THREE occasions. I'm so cross I can't even go to the toilet properly.

Subsequent cuppas were made of tea, water, milk, HATE and FURY, and tasted much as you'd expect. For eg: TERRIBLE.

In order to get any pleasure from dunking my Rich Teas, each biscuit has to be individually wrapped in cling film first to ensure structural integrity before they are inserted into the tea. Hardly adding to the biscuit experience, I can tell you for nothing.

We have also experimented with dunking two biscuits at once, but we find the staples and glue get stuck in the poor, dead biscuit taster's throat and we're left with the all-too-common 'Dump another body round the back of the industrial estate' problem that has plagued serious biscuit testing down the years.

Clearly, there is a design fault which your highly-paid snack food boffins should address with all due urgency. May I suggest the EU Standard Baked Biscuits, Confectionery and Cake Stress Procedure (2003), which your product has quite clearly failed?

Sort it out, and make it (oh-ho!) snappy. And if you're planning on sending me free biscuits, make sure they're good ones, and not wafer-thin Rich Teas made out of structurally suspect biscuit stuff and the tormented souls of the dead.

Your pal


Albert O'Balsam

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING MONSTER MUNCH

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE MISSING MONSTER MUNCH

WARNING: May contain traces of fiction

"Right, you terrible gits," I say of my shamefaced colleagues, "Which one of you took my last packet of Pickled Onion Monster Munch?"

I look up and down the line of desks, each face a picture of guilt, but there is no trace of my pickled onion flavour corn-based snack featuring tasty, tasty disodium 5 ribonucleotide.

Remembering Conan Doyle's classic work Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Corn-Laden Turd, in which the master of deduction solves the most vexing of mysteries by examining the stool samples of a cross-section of London society, I resolve to sort this out by using a similar tactic.

Under threat of death, each is forced to stand and allow their benevolent boss to smell their breath. Any trace of picked onion and tasty, tasty disodium 5 ribonucleotide resulting in instant transfer to our office in the back room of a butcher shop in Smolensk, via the matter transporter which we haven't quite got working properly.

"So. Frank. Your breath smells of anchovies. Again. How many times have I warned you about eating seafood in the office."

"And Brenda. Wipe that smile from your face. Along with that dried yoghurt. The loss of my pickled onion flavour corn-based snack featuring tasty, tasty disodium 5 ribonucleotide is no laughing matter."

Having failed to nail the culprit, I resort to plan B: the Jeremy Kyle-bran DNA Testing Kit and the big net in the sewage outflow pipe.

That - my friends - is what temporary staff is for.

DORSET'S WESSEX FM

DORSET'S WESSEX FM

The fools. They've let me near the telephone again.

"Hello, Dorset's Wessex FM!"

"Yeah - I'd like to take a guess at your Secret Sound."

The DJ plays a well-worn sound effect of a distant clanking and knocking.

"Off you go then - for £300, what d'you reckon it is?"

"Have you got a naked Dannii Minogue tied up under your stairs and she's trying to tap out an SOS on the central heating pipes?"

"You disgust me."

"Cheryl Cole, then?"

*click*

Later....

"Hello, Dorset's Wessex FM!"

"Yeah - it's about your Harry Potter phone-in."

"Off you go then - what would you do if you had an invisibility cloak for the day?"

"For starters, I'd crack one out in the changing rooms in New Look."

"You disgust me."

"In fact, I'd crack one out in the changing rooms at Monsoon an' all. You can't beat a good bit of yummy mummy."

"You disgust me."

"And then - sod the ASBO - I'd have a guilty one in Evans..."

*click*

"Hello? Could you play something by Phil Collins? Hello?"

No wonder commercial radio's on its arse.

FIELD OF DREAMS

FIELD OF DREAMS

I had a dream last night.

I had a dream that I was visited by a load of dead slatterns, who told me I had to go out into the field outside my house and build a brothel.

And I went out into the field outside my house, and with the help of all the gohst slatterns, we built the biggest and best brothel in the world.

"But why," I asked of the head slattern, "But why am I building the world's biggest knocking shop out here in the middle of a corn field?"

She fetched me a telling look and told me:

"If you build it, they will come."

And then I woke up and my pillow was gone.

Tim Burton's Winnie the Pooh

Tim Burton's Winnie the Pooh

Starring Johnny Depp as Christopher Robin
Helena Bonham Carter's hairy armpits as Winnie the Pooh
And some more of Tim Burton's mates as everybody else

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, Christopher Robin came to play.

And he ran

and jumped

and hid

and ran

until it was very, very dark indeed.

"Oh dear," said Christopher Robin feeling very lonely, "however shall I find my way home?"

And he climbed a tree to see if he could see the edge of the world, but all he found was a hive full of bees and delicious handfuls of honey.

"Hunny?" growled a voice from below.

"Hunny?" it said again, adding a few "tiddly poms" for good measure.

"Hunny?" cried Christopher Robin to the voice below, "are you sure you don't mean 'honey'?"

"Hunny? Honey? It doesn't matter," said the bear, "It's a tea party!"

"A tea party in the Hundred Acre Wood!" Christopher Robin shouted, jumping from his branch into a bank of moss, "We shall have a tiddly-pom tea party!"

And the animals came. A pig. An owl. Two kangaroos. A sad-looking donkey, quoting the darkest of poetry, and, jumping along happily in the rear, the happiest tiger Christopher Robin had ever seen.

"And the wonderful thing about Tiggers," it sang as Christopher Robin danced and clapped, "Is that I'm the only one!"

"Do you know why I'm the only Tigger, boy?" said the tiger, hot, fetid breath in his face.

"Why," said Christopher Robin, "I don't know! Why are you the only one?"

"Because I ate the others. I was hungry. I'm still hungry."

Christopher Robin soiled himself and found, at that moment, that poo sticks.

Weekend Video

Weekend Video

Smith and Jones: Stanley Rogers - The Road Back



"You've got to have your Apocalypse Now"

DUCK CANNON

DUCK CANNON

I'm getting worried about the RSPB.

Yes, they are rightly praised for their work to preserve endangered birds, but the lengths they are going to raise funds leaves much to be desired, as a recent visit to their local bunker illustrates:

"A go on the cannon, sir?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The duck cannon. Skim the little buggers across the pond. Watch 'em go. Five quid a shot."

"I BEG your pardon?"

"Most skips today wins a swan. Plucked, gutted, giblets in a bag."

I eyed the shop volunteer, a little old lady turned into a canard-blasting monster by her devious employers, disgust rising in me like the previous night's curry.

"You..." I managed, "You, madam... you sicken me."

"Hit a goose, win a Ford Ka."

"Three shots, please"

On Dark Matter

On Dark Matter

There's a problem that's been puzzling physicists all over the world for some time now - where the bloody hell is everything? I think I've cracked it, and thought it best to write to the authority on the subject, toot sweet.

Dear Stephen Hawking

Congratulations on your recent world title in the X Games. You certainly kept your l33t Street Luge sk1llz totally under wraps, dude. I mean - who knew?

I note with some interest your theories on quantum physics, and offer you my expertise on the matter (geddit?).

I read recently that you and your esteemed colleagues in the field of theoretical physics have only managed to account for some 20 per cent of mass in the known universe, with the other 80 per cent comprising a theoretical - and, as yet, unobserved - substance known as "Dark Matter".

Steve - if I can call you that - I put it to you that you and your pals in the field of SCIENCE are looking in the wrong place.

I think you will find that all of this missing mass can be quite easily observed on the backside of any given punter coming out of a Lancashire pie shop.

For your proof, you can send that Professor Brian Cox along to check the second he comes back from his latest beano prancing about on glaciers. He's northern knows a thing or two about pie.

Incidentally, if we apply Einstein's relativity equations to this entirely new Pie Shop Theory of Universal Dynamics, it will also explain why Barnsley is still stuck in the 1970s.

Your pal,


Professor* Albert O'Balsam

* Doctor of Love-ology at the University of Luuuurve

That Nobel Prize is as good as in the bag.

On not being related to Thomas Dolby

On not being related to Thomas Dolby

"What's that? You're related to HIM?"

I cast my eye over The Fragrant Mrs Duck's family tree and see yet another familiar name.

She is already related to Strictly Come Dancing's Ian Waite, TV actor Joe Absolom and Whitley's most famous son Ricky Gervais. She also lays claim to war poet Wilfred Owen by way of a Brucie Bonus.

"What's that? You're related to HIM?" I say in surprise and alarm.

"Who?"

"Him," I say, pointing, "80s musical genius and geek's geek Thomas Dolby."

"That's Dollery. Thomas Dollery."

"Oh. Right."

"And don't fart."

"Sorry, I had to shoehorn a Windpower joke in somewhere."

SOMEBODY STOP THESE BASTARDS

SOMEBODY STOP THESE BASTARDS

I have control of the telephonic device.

"Hello, 3 Network. How can we help you?"

"Yes - can you tell your sales people to stop ringing my mobile twice a day? The phone rings and you always hang up before I get the chance to pick up."

"Ah-ha!" says the poor phone centre drone sensing early victory, "How do you know it's us?"

"Because your number's all over the internet, including a page called 'SOMEBODY STOP THESE BASTARDS'"

"Oh right. And why do you want us to stop? Do you actually know what these calls are about?"

I sigh. Now I am telling him his job.

"I'm on o2. You are not o2. You want me to buy a phone contract for your rubbish network."

"And do you want to buy a phone contract for our ...er... network?"

"I would much rather be violated by a Kenwood Chef. The one with the dough hook."

"Is that a 'yes', then?"

Democracy defined

Democracy defined

War.

We all know what war's good for. To whit: Absolutely nothing.

But what about it's polar opposite, democracy?

According to a newspaper run by the Burmese military junta (who know a thing or two about what deomcracy isn't), democracy is:

Democracy is like the flame in a lantern, and wisdom is like glass sides that surrounds the flame. Fire is useful to man because it gives light. However it turns dangerous if is used without glass sides. It is because a fire can cause death and destruction. In other words, democracy is like the water in a dam, and wisdom is like the embankment of the dam. Water is useful to man. However it turns dangerous if the dam is in flood while it is without an embankment. If so, it can cause casualties and destroy property

If you'd permit me a little bit of political editorialising: What a load of bollocks.

According to my pal and comrade in arms No Good Boyo: Democracy is like the honey-filled mouth of a Thai go-go dancer, wrapping itself around your manly protuberance. Pleasant, but only until your wife finds out. And your wife, Burma, is a brutal and sclerotic junta.

That's a bit more like it. Democracy, we have discovered down the years, is a number of things. And, to this end, I have compiled a short list:

Democracy is...

like a rabid, half-starved leap of leopards* set loose in a branch of TK Maxx on "Half price for Pensioners and the Immobile" day, fending off the flesh-rending vultures of indifference

like a buy-one-get-one-free offer on Garibaldi biscuits at your local supermarket, only to find one's joyful expectations crushed by the revelation that "squashed fly biscuits" means exactly that

like falling autumnal leaves, covering the rotting corpse of the electorate's hopes and dreams

like meeting some sexy nuns in a nightclub, chatting them up, plying them with various high qualityfortified wines, going back to their place for a bit of red hot communion and a kebab, only to find out that they're real nuns

like winning the British Grand Prix, only to find the Champagne bottle is filled with stale horse's urine, which you are forced to drink - DRINK - to the bottom

Democracy, people. Have at that, Plato, you rubbish dead Greek bloke.

* That's the actual collective noun, fans of pedantry and FACTs will note