Mirth and Woe: Desperate Times

Mirth and Woe: Desperate Times

You may, after nearly six years of this rubbish, think that I might be running short of stocks of mirth and woe for these pages.

How wrong you are, for mirth, woe and projectile vomiting has a habit of seeking me out, no matter where I may be. I might - for example - be enjoying a leisurely sit down hoping for a few minutes' peace and quiet, and before I know it, I am shopping for new footwear in Weymouth's cut-price shoe stores.

This happens far more often that you realise, due to the ultimately corrosive nature of bottom emissions, and the Final Destination-like habit of bad karma catching up with me really, really quickly.

Last week, for example:

There I was, sitting in the third cubicle along in facilities provided by a well-known exhibition centre in our nation's fine capital, quietly going about my business, a copy of a popular TV listings magazine by my side that I might harrumph at the letters page before having a go at Clive Doig's Trackword puzzle.

Suddenly, I was dragged from my mid-afternoon reverie by the sound of a door slamming against the wall, the sound of the crowd coming from the conference rabble outside the cocoon of the gentlemens' wash room, and the running of feet.

By the time the door of the cubicle next to me crashed shut and the bolt thrown across, I was wide awake, cursing the manners of the new arrival. Poor show, to be honest, for I am not the only person trying to get some sleep around here, as the rustle of The Guardian's sports pages from several stalls down testifies.

Then there was silence.

No. Not quite silence.

There was the scrabbling of hands on clothing. The kind of grasping and fumbling of a man in a panic. A man who knows what he has to do, yet with the adrenaline flowing, is unable to control his very hands and fingers in an act he has done hundreds, thousands of times before in his lifetime.

The scrabbling becomes more and more frantic as - and of this I am certain - the turtle's head fully emerged from its shell. For as trousers finally hit the floor, it is abundantly clear that the poor, poor cur has left it far too late.

There was a pained cry of "Oh, God, NO!" before a hideous, foul-smelling explosion of nutty slack, most of which seemed to be heading under the partition in my direction on a tsunami of filth.

Quite a lot of nutty slack, as a matter of fact, and in the few seconds before my lucidity gave way to blind panic, I felt no little sympathy for the poor chap as he faced this calamitous anal eruption. This was, of course, before I realised that the real target of his bottom apocalypse was your humble narrator.

Having completely missed the target area, the air was rent with the smell of faeces, and I looked down with a great deal of dismay to see a quantity had settled on my genuine antique Ben Sherman boots, with a further tide heading my way.

I dread to think about what might happen next, for further explosions left me with no alternative but to flee for my life. And as I fled, like the legendary Orpheus from Hades, I found myself looking over my shoulder to see what dread creature followed.

And there, under the gap in the door were a pair of shoes, crumpled clothing and - well - use your imagination. If you dare.

And it spoke:

"I... I... oh... God...don't have the buffet."

And:

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarch!"

Time, dear readers, to take my leave and give the finger buffet the widest of berths.

The following day:

"Do you do these boots in a size nine? Excellent."

On unwanted phone calls

On unwanted phone calls

And so the phone rings.

It being about half-past six, I am honing my hunter-gatherer instincts, flailing about up to my elbows in 600g of Asda chicken fillets and a short-dated stir-in chicken korma mix to provide for my ravenous family who are but one meal away from going wild.

You can guarantee -when the phone rings at that hour - that buggery is afoot.

And so it appears to be:

Phone Centre Drone: Good evening Mr Duck, I'm conducting a market research survey for Wanker Industries.

Me: Oh, Arse!

Phone Centre Drone: I wonder if you could... I beg your pardon?

Me: Oh, nothing. Nothing. Do go on.

Phone Centre Drone: I wonder if you could spare a few minutes to answer some questions?

Me: I'd be delighted

Phone Centre Drone: (suspiciously) You would?

Me: Yes. Yes I would. But only after you've helped with my survey.

Phone Centre Drone: (now utterly confused at being dragged away from her script) Bu... bu... what?

Me: I'm trying to find out how long any given call centre operator takes to disconnect the line after I say three carefully selected words

Phone Centre Drone: Um... Are you sure?

Me: Sure I'm sure. This won't take a second

Phone Centre Drone: OK... try me

Me: Telephone. Preference. Service.

Phone Centre Drone: Mwaaaaaargh.....*click*

0.00003 seconds. A new record.

On thinking out of the box

On thinking out of the box

Last night I invented faster-than-light space travel. The Warp Drive, if you please. You can thank me for it later.

Achieving warp speed, it turns out, is a spectacularly simple idea. With a limitless budget, the best minds of our generation (if we can tear them away from their current design work for McDonalds Happy Meal toys) and power sourced from several nearby stars, we'd be flying rings around Uranus and speeding off to wreck other people's planets in no time at all.

And the brilliance of my plan is this: We do not need all that warp coil bollocks and dilithium crystals much loved by Star Trek fans that may or may not bring about the end of the universe if you go above Warp 9. No!

All we need is a small cardboard box.

Then, all we need inside the box is a small atomic particle.

And that's where it gets a bit difficult, mainly because I don't appear to have a magnifying glass powerful enough to find it. I had the tiny bugger a minute ago, and I went and left it on the sofa...

The entire scheme swings on the recent research by men of SCIENCE, who have discovered a way to make a single atomic particle exist in two places at the same time. You know - move stuff from one place to another instantaneously.

Now, all they've got to do is find this particle, put it in a cardboard box, and force the cardboard box and the hulking space craft in which it resides to exist in two places at once, and we have invented faster-than-light travel. Or the teleport. Or both.

Suck on THAT Lt Cmdr Geordi LaForge.

This may sound like the Holly Hop Drive of Red Dwarf fame, and I suppose it is. But I have sat down and worked out - for the good of mankind, and the detriment of any alien race that comes into contact with our Space Chavs - how the thing actually works.

Just send a cardboard box, a force field and all your scientists and we might actually be onto something.

Nobel Prize, plz.

I am not mad.

My First Computer

My First Computer

My first computer came in a non-descript cardboard box, which opened up to reveal 32 kilo-bytes of good, British BBC Model B goodness.

Then, having filled the thing with swears, we almost immediately sent it away with a cheque for £100 to have a Disc drive added to it.

This addition was 100 per cent vital. With the disc interface, I could play Samantha Fox Strip Poker without losing vital wood as the images loaded from cassette tape.

At that stage in my teenage years, the maintenance of wood paramount, and it took five-and-a-quarter inch floppies, combined with a startlingly well-indexed collection of Fiesta magazines to achieve this goal.

In fact, my computerised cross-referencing system was later adapted into a college computing project which scored particularly high marks. If only Mr Rose knew of it's original use.

It was a good, solid computer that served me well in my quest for low-quality smut until I sold it to a man with only one leg for an outrageous sum of money which paid for my cutting-edge desktop PC. 25MHz - just feel the quality. Ashamed that I'd spend the best part of a grand on it, I told everybody it was 33MHz.

The Beeb was as nothing compared to the machine I learned the BASIC programmer's art.

10 PRINT "YOU ARE A GAYLORD"
20 GOTO 10

It was a Research Machines 380Z, a large, black box that was sold to schools up and down the country, which contained a pile of nuts and bolts held together with string, with the whole affair giving about 30 miles per gallon.

The power of the beast was something to behold: a full 4kB of RAM memory, with the operating system loaded in from cassette tape every time your switched the thing on with its mighty ignition key.

One day, somebody - who shall remain nameless - pressed "Record" instead of "Play".


Mr Dupre had neglected to make a back-up copy.

Naughty, naughty Mr Dupre.

I can hear him now: "This tape's taking a long time to load, isn't it?"

And that was the end of School Computer Club.

On traumatizing your children

On traumatizing your children

The recent revelation that I am now officially old, coupled with the discovery of a book entitled "Let the Snogfest Begin" in the bedroom of my previously sweet and innocent 13-year-old daughter Scaryduckling leads me to believe that the next episode in our family life cannot be far off. That being The First Boyfriend.

I, for one, cannot wait for the day that the first victim ...err... charming young man crosses the threshold, into our humble abode, for I shall be ready for him.

Ready for him with beer, the wrestling channel and the shameless scratching of bodily parts.

And in my best Grunt Mitchell out of EastEnders voice, made all the more threatening through the daily gargling of a handful of gravel:

"You hurt my pwincess, I'll bweak your fackin' legs."

"Meep!"

"Shat it you shlaaaag!"

I can almost hear Scaryduckling now: "I hate you, dad."

Crappy joke of the day

Crappy joke of the day

From the Sir Arthur Donan Doyle classic 'Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Corn-Laden Turd':

"It appears," said Holmes, stroking his chin with a ferocity that suggested that he was long overdue for his opium fix, "Professor LeFevre was stoned to death."

"Stoned?" asked Watson, loathe to mention the obvious, "as in drugs?"

"Not at all," the great detective replied, wondering if ground-up aspirin and snuff tobacco might suffice given the latest shortage of opiates, "Stoned. With stones. Sandstone, if I am not mistaken."

"But... but... How can you tell?"

Holmes raised one eyebrow, and with the sort of smile that led his companion to believe he would finish the day naked and smeared with honey - again - he uttered those immortal words:

"Sedimentary, my dear Watson."

/I'll get me coat

Mirth and Woe: Up the Arse

Mirth and Woe: Up the Arse

People who leave football matches early are scum. Evil, early-leaving scum.

I mean, would you leave a theatre early, having spent the best part of fifty quid on a ticket?

No. You would not.

"Come on son - tube to catch - beat the queues - we know how it ends anyway."

So, why leave a football match early? It's not as if you've bought an eighty minute ticket, or something.

If you leave early, you've got to have a spunker of an excuse. A proper one. You've got to be dying at the very least, and dragged out on a stretcher.

So. I confess.

I left a match early. A match for which I had paid genuine cash money for a hundred per cent valid ninety-minute ticket.

I had a brilliant excuse: I needed to be sick inna hedge. Watching the Arsenal. A kick in the fork for the first person to say "totally understandable".

So, off I went to an Arsenal home game against the might of Oxford United (a team so bad they fell off the pools coupon), suffering from a dreadful bout of the flu. Not feeling well enough to stand on the North Bank for a couple of hours, I excused myself from my mates, and bought a ticket in the East Upper stand to watch the match from the luxury of the seats.

What a mistake.

In the terraces I might have been warmed by the press of human bodies, but up in the top tier amongst the stiffs, all I got was a cold, cold wind right up the swonnicles, as an unimaginative Arsenal team played out a dull 0-0 draw against equally uninspired opposition.

Most of the second half are a complete blank to me, and I was nudged awake by the old chap in the seat next to me, who informed me - to much mirth - that the match was so dull I had actually spent the last thirty minutes snoring loudly.

At 85 minutes, shivering and feeling not long for this Earth, I staggered from my seat and began the descent down to street level and the furnace-like heat of my Austin Allegro's air conditioning.

I made it down to Highbury Hill, and not a moment too soon. The shivering got worse, and barely conscious, I puked rich, brown vomit into a hedge, the gutter and one or two other early leavers.

And just as I thought it was over, I puked even more.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCH!" I said, loudly.

The Plod, thinking I was a drunk getting his just desserts, came over to make his easiest nick of the day, only to stop in his tracks when he saw my shivering, pallid visage.

"Flu", I whispered before double over again for another bout of nuclear-powered chunder.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCH!" I said, in the general direction of his boots.

Then there was a roar.

The roar of a crowd who had just witnessed an 89th minute winning goal, flying into the onion bag from about thirty yards out.

"That'll teach ya" said the copper, with some satisfaction, as I dry-heaved some more.

I never saw that goal. Too ill to watch it on TV that night, and before the age of the internet, it was lost forever. All I had was the awed description from mates and a less-than-informative review in the Sunday papers.

That'll teach me.

On finding oneself rudderless

On finding oneself rudderless

Since the demise and splintering of the late-lamented Board of Biffo, I am without a regular discussion forum to waste my hours.

I have tried several, including the British Comedy forum Cook'd & Bomb'd and the Internet Treehouse, but while they are full of excellent people, they really don't *quite* float my boat, and I find days and evenings stretching ahead of me in a futile quest for the posting of wanky bollocks to a clique of like-minded layabouts.

Fark is far too American, and you need to pay them genuine cash money to get the full benefit, while Metafilter is too American and too po-faced.

So: Save me from my pit of boredom. Recommend me a decent discussion forum before I go mad. Feel free to invite to me your little corner of the internet, entice me in with partially-clad nubiles, before burning me to death in a large Wicker effigy.

It must be:

a) funny
b) reasonably busy
c) relatively free of txt-spkng retrds
d) a depository for wanky bollocks
e) a depository for wanky bollocks that I can rip off as my own blog ideas

Err....

f) That's it

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi! You are my only hope!

And while you're at it, please choose tomorrow's Tale of Mirth and Woe from the following comprehensive list:

* Up the Arse

I thank you.

On letting the snogfest begin

On letting the snogfest begin

If there was an exact moment in my life where I realised that I am, in fact, old, I can put my finger on exactly 7.34pm last Sunday night.

For there I was, tidying a few things away in 13-year-old Scaryduckling's room, when I noticed a book, perched on top of her bookcase.

It was called - frighteningly - "Let the Snogfest Begin".

"Buh!" I said, my youth falling away like apoo from a goose with particularly bad food poisoning.

"Mmmmmng!" I continued, the bloke with the scythe and the big grin appearing just that little bit closer than he had been at 7.33pm-and-a-half.

"Christ alive!" I eventually expounded, "Whatever happened to the Famous Five?"

And: "Was there much snogging involved?"

"Yes. Yes there was", she replied, "Loads."

"Does Craig Charles from Robot Wars appear at any stage, shouting 'Let the Snogfest BEGIN!' before running off to take loads of drugs?"

"No. No, he does not."

"Oh. Right."

"And get out of my room."

This exchange now means that I have no officially crossed the line into OLD. Gone, gone are days of youth, frolic and fun. The day Enid Blyton wrote 'Five Go Dogging' without stopping to think of the sordid, alternative meaning now ancient history.

The more I think about it, however, the more I find Enid Blyton's got to answer for. Take a look at these titles from the 'Withdrawn from Stock' archive in the Dorset County Library:

* Five Go Happy Slapping
* Five Discover Snakebite

* Shari'ah Secret Seven
* Secret Seven Get Spit-Roasted

* Noddy Drops an 'E'
* Noddy Gets an ASBO

* Five Get Hold of Six Barrels of Baby Oil, A Ton of Chapatti Flour and Hydrogen Peroxide and a Crate of Vodka and Go Fucking Shit Crazy

I might have made one or two of these up.

However: My point still stands. It is your duty to scour the much-loved books of your childhood, and out them as the filth-mongers that they are.

Let the Snogfest BEGIN!

On Desperate Times

On Desperate Times

This is the B3TA Question of the Week. I am not ashamed in the slightest.

Stranded in a hotel in an African war zone with no internet access and no pay TV for the best part of two weeks, I was forced to resort to desperate measures of the kind that no sane man should stoop.

After a set of circumstances too bizarre to enter into on these pages, I found myself in a Brazzaville hotel with nobody but heavily-armed goons for company, and no planes anywhere until the following Friday.

Possessing only my passport and the clothes I stood up in; and the warning of my boss still ringing in my ears ("You can catch it shaking hands with a vicar out there") I had to draw my own porn in order to preserve my sanity.

Alas, it all came out looking like Coronation Street's Audrey Roberts, only with evil, gimlet eyes, breasts the size of cantaloupes and a nadger that looked like a small dog nestling in her lap. But - as they say - any port in a storm, and eye-bleach was in short supply.

Petrified that the hotel cleaners would discover my heavy-breasted sketches and hand me over to the local militia for a good, hard mocking, I would rip up each and every page on a daily basis and flush my work down the toilet.

I was in therapy for months after I came back. I never mentioned Audrey.

In which the author promises not to mention sheds or Kylie Minogue

In which the author promises not to mention sheds or Kylie Minogue

Dostoyevsky had his Raskolnikov.

Rowling had her Potter.

Tolkein had a veritable treasure trove of characters to amuse, excite and entertain.

They all, however, pale into insignificance with the glory that is McCarthy's Twat.

And that, my friends, is the number one reason you should buy this book.

This site has been at a state of war with MyBoyfriendIsATwatDotCom since February 16th 2005.

It is time, then, that temporary truce was called so that I might provide a review of the charming Ms Zoe McCarthy's book "My Boyfriend is a Twat". She's not the three-times-in-a-row Best Blog in Europe winner for nothing, you know, and her publication - which unlike some blog-to-book transfers we could mention hem hem - is an excellent adaptation of her tales of everyday woe in Belgium.

And yes: My Boyfriend is a Twat really is rather good, especially when you bear in mind the real-life smelly sock-and-snoring research that poor, poor Zoe had to undertake to get the thing written.

The poor girl - bless her - even had to go clothes shopping with him just so you might find yourself amused by The Twat's blokish manner in the face of perfectly reasonable shop staff. We have detailed this behaviour before on these pages as part of Coleman's Shopping Paradox, and Zoe and The Twat are living, breathing proof of its existence.

Zoe details every last fart, hideous head shaving accident and firework inspired disaster as a warning - and a guide - to any other reasonably intelligent woman who is thinking of taking a hapless single bloke under her wing. And poor The Twat, for he appears to possess absolutely no hap whatsoever, if 243 pages of hard-backed goodness are anything to go by.

However, one thing blights this truly beautiful relationship. The Twat seeks a shed.

Enshrined in the Magna Carta of 1215 is a man's right to his own outbuilding. Be it shed, coal hole or workshop, it is his right to tinker about, putting nails into jars, secretly brewing grain alcohol and observing the ways of the spider.

However, The Twat knows his limits. He would not misuse his shed rights to construct a ninety-foot tall statue of Kylie Minogue, standing astride house and garden wearing nothing but a mini-dress and a smile. He would not do that. For this would lead to the construction of an equally tall Dannii Minogue colossus, and he hasn't got the wood.

Not to mention the fact that Zoe would kill him. TO DEATH. I'm probably dead already even mentioning the shed controversy, when I should be extolling the virtues of BOOK. However, by selling a million copies of My Boyfriend is a Twat, The Twat probably deserves any out-building he so desires.

You may contribute to the Buy The Twat A Shed Fund by sending me all your money in used notes to the usual address (Behind the Hot Water pipes, Second Cubicle Along, Gents Toilets, Weymouth Station), or through the purchasing a copy of the rather excellent and funny My Boyfriend is a Twat book.

Errr... just buy the book. It might save a life. Mine.

My new favourite band(s)

My new favourite band(s)

God help me, I've discovered I have a liking for female-fronted electro-futurist music acts. Who knew? I am not certain if it's the music, the style, the attitude, or simply because of the very, very short skirts.


Marsheaux

Two girls from Greece who sound like they have grown up on a diet of 80s electro-pop and cheesy European disco. Their two albums - Ebay Queen and Peek-a-Boo can be made more interesting by ignoring the comedy lyrics and spotting the riffs they might have borrowed from everybody from the Pet Shop Boys to A Flock of Seagulls

I prefer the one with the big nose, for reasons that escape me.

* Pure - Lightning Seeds cover

* Dream of a Disco - Audio only, A thinly disguised rip-off from A Flock of Seagulls' 'Space Age Love Song'. Which is good.


Client

The girl from Frazier Chorus and the girl from Dubstar dress up in tight leather dresses and scare people by doing it much, much better than that Alison Goldfrapp. Can't decide between their stage names - Client A, Client B and that awful part-timer, Client H.

However, I am rather taken by their latest long-player Heartland, and not just because the cover artwork in rather heavy in the bottom department.

* Lights go Out - very, very strange video that makes my head hurt

* Zerox Machine - Adam and the Antz cover (and while you're at it, why not have a go on the original)


Ladytron

Even scarier and stranger than Client, not to mention louder. Did I mention scarier?

The Duck recommends: Witching Hour

* Destroy everything you touch - I ask you: What the bloody hell was that all about?

* Seventeen

Call me a sad, eighties-obsessed old perve if you like. You'd be right.

Mirth and Woe: Paintball

Mirth and Woe: Paintball

Paintball.

Work-place team-building exercise, or a bunch planks running around the woods shooting each other up the arse?

Alas, the management at Motorway Tyres and Accessories thought the former, but, thankfully, we the hard-working proles introduced them to their very good friend PAIN at an early stage.

What more did they expect? The company had paid a number of sharp-suited consultants to sit in a smoky room and send out for pizza, and after recommending dozens of low-level sackings they tried to mitigate the pain by suggesting the management send us on primitive team-building days.

Entering the consultants' smoke-filled office was like watching that low-brow ITV fly-on-the-wall programme about hedonistic holidays. You knew you were going to see tits, but you hated every second of it. The sharp bastards tried to have sex with every female staff member in the building, and then had them sacked.

Paintball, they said, and the bosses - fearful of an angry backlash of slackers and saboteurs coming from below stairs - agreed.

The day was, of course, entirely optional, but you had to go, or else.

We all met up on a Sunday morning in a muddy car park in the middle of nowhere, and in the name of team-building they immediately split us into teams and told to hate each others' guts.

Unfortunately, I found myself on the same side as Bob, the less-than-popular department head, whose previous idea of team-building was to get the department a company car "so we can visit all the branches", which only he ever got to use.

Marked for death, we were.

It was hell. Pure hell.

The rain came down, and we trudged through the woods loosing off yellow pot-shots at each other and generally missing.

The organisers made us try to take the opposition base and run around trying to steal flags for some reason, but we found it was simply more fun just to shoot consultants and their lackeys first and ask questions later.

There was, it must be said, very little team-building going on, and quite a lot of settling of grudges. The girls from the accounts department - already decimated in the Great Job Cull - were the worst, and anybody tainted with the management brush got painted up, down and side-to-side.

Three of the consultant bastards also turned up for a freebie, not entirely realising the strength of feeling in the company since they'd put the knife in. They were never seen again, and after a month, the Old Bill put "Police Aware" stickers on the windscreen of their cars.

And so, the morning's work came to an end, and we eventually made it back to the rendezvous point, tired, wet and slightly paint-splattered.

"If you gents don't mind," said Bob, "I'm busting for a pee."

He stepped behind a tree, whipped out the pork and let go with an unnecessarily loud stream of urine accompanied by sighs of relief.

The poor fool. With completely the wrong weapon in his hand, his guard was well and truly down.

THWOCK!

"JEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS!"

THWOCK!

"MWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Someone - and to this day no-one knows who it was - had *cough* accidentally let fly with a paintball. Twice. Straight at poor, urinating Bob.

In the cock.

THWOCKTHWOCKTHWOCKWOCKOCKWOCK! THWOCK

It seemed that everybody was experiencing problems with their weapons. At the same time. Whilst pointed at Bob. Who was, by now curled into a foetal position, clutching his groin and becoming more and more yellow by the second.

"STOP IT YOU TARTS!"

THWOCK! "Sorry."

THWOCK! "I'm not."

THWOCKTHWOCKTHWOCK! "That's for Debbie, you backstabbin' bastard."

We eventually peeled him up and propped him against the piss-sodden tree.

And what a sight to behold - head-to-toe with yellow paint, yellow cock hanging flaccid* from his yellow combat trousers, yellow face contorted with cock-bruising agony.

"I think..." he eventually said, "I think..... YAAAAAAAAAAARCH!"

THWOCK! "And one for luck."

We never went team-building ever again. At least, not while Ol' Yellowcock was our boss.

* God help us all if he had enjoyed it

On being 1337, and then not being 1337

On being 1337

"Look son!" I said, pointing to the on-screen clock on the electrical television device, "It's l33t o'clock!"

And lo, for it was 13:37, it was indeed l33t o'clock.

"LOL" said the boy.

And: "ROFL"

"And I", with just a small air of smug on my voice, "Am teh l33t-est."

"But..." said Mrs Duck, "But..."

There was a brief pause, as the wheels went round.

"But... don't you spell it L I T E?"

"LOL" said the boy.

And: "ROFL"

I shook my head in pity.

"You'll never be l33t like me."

"And I don't know why I married you."

PWN3D, and the boy LOLed again.


On not being 1337

Yesterday, whilst popping into the shops for a loaf of bread on the way to work, I fell flat on my face.

One minute I was walking along with a french stick under my arm, the next I was performing a cat-like forward roll in the gutter to prevent myself from being killed TO DEATH.

My french stick: mangled.

One woman stared at me with "Look at him - drunk at THIS HOUR" written all over her face, and there was not one offer of help to be had. I crawled back to my car pretending it didn't hurt in the slightest, waiting for the adreneline rush to wear off and the agony to begin.

"Ouchies", I said. Except it came out "CUUUUUUNT!"

What I have learned from this experience:

* This is what getting old feels like

* Public profanity does not generate sympathy from passers-by, no matter what your predicament

* I am not 1337 in the slightest. I am TEH D0RKUSS

On random acts of kindness

On random acts of kindness

"That's your good deed for the day," said a rather pleasant female colleague as I held a door for her.

And yes, in normal circumstances she would be right. However, I had a sudden attack of Wisdom, and told her so:

"It only counts if the other person doesn't know about it."

"Oooh," she said, taking in this stunning new concept, "I suppose you're right. You'd better start again."

So I slammed the door in her face.

Sitting back at my desk, fondling my tomato sauce bottle in the shape of a tomato, I realised I had committed myself to a serious case of 'Easier Said Than Done'. It's all oh-so-easy to hold doors for attractive ladies from other departments, but just try to carry out a random act of kindness in which the recipient is blissfully unaware - now that's difficult.

I have determined, then, that I should draw up a list. A list of random acts of kindness that I can perform, in which the beneficiary is ignorant of the wave of smugness that is coming over me.

THE LIST

I shall:

* Refrain from sending turds in DVD cases through the post as an act of revenge on thieving Royal Mail workers

* Drive a car with blacked out windows with a large monkey sitting at a fake steering wheel, so people cannot tell it is me letting them out at junctions

* Only spray-paint grammatically correct graffiti on the homes of suspected sex offenders in the dead of night

* Help the cleaning staff in Harrods by stretching cling film over all the seats in their luxuriously-appointed toilets

* Leave an envelope containing a series of clues at a spot where tramps are known to congregate. Inside the envelope is a series of clues, leading the tramps on a treasure hunt around town, with the promise of Tesco Value Cider at the end. The clues do indeed lead to cider, but at a point twenty miles away. The tramps get exercised, drunk and trapped in Didcot - everyone's a winner!

* Wear a gimp mask to the pub, so my anonymity is maintained when I buy a drink for the barman

In fact, I will start wearing a gimp mask everywhere, especially when I am holding doors for not unattractive female colleagues.

"That's your good deed for the …. MWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

I feel better already.

"A playground cock-punch is the worst kind of cock-punch"

"A playground cock-punch is the worst kind of cock-punch"


Last week's Baker and Kelly show faded in with some lounge lizard singing along to the Match of the Day theme. He is, you will be unsurpised to learn, not the first misguided fool to give this famous old piece of music some words, for we had an equally untalented vicar who got me on national television with his version of this most stirring of tunes.

My parents used to pack us all off to Sunday School for a good bit of churching up when we were kids. We were forced, at gunpoint, to a freezing cold hall where over-enthusiastic old ladies would attempt to halt my inevitable slide into Hell.

Toward the end of the day’s indoctrination, the local vicar would arrive, cheeks still bulging from communion wafers, and let us have both barrels of a kiddified version of the day’s sermon.

However, he didn’t just stop there. The good Reverend was a God-botherer of many talents. Taking his cue from the likes of Charles Wesley and John Newton, he wrote hymns. Wesley only managed such piffling works as “Hark the herald angels sing”, while Newton knocked out “Amazing Grace” on the back of an old envelope.

Reverend Fred, however, was influenced by Weird Al Yankovic and was under the impression that changing the words to established tunes was something “fun”. So, he took the theme tune to Match of the Day - surely the greatest piece of music ever written - and turned it holy. Spurred [geddit?] by this relative success, he added new words to a whole arsenal [eh? eh?] of football chants and made us, The Kids, sing them. Every bloody Sunday.

Rabid self-publicist that he was, he was granted a nutter-of-the-day spot on the BBC's Nationwide programme. Every edition of this programme seemed to have at least one mad old idiot and his useless talent (most famously the chap who claimed he could jump on eggs without breaking them), and now it was our turn.

Come Sunday morning, cameras turned up at the Church Hall and filmed us singing a badly rehearsed version of Match of the Day, trying to remember the words whilst waving football scarves over our heads in a manner that only exists in the minds of TV producers who have never been to a football match in their lives.

As one of the mad old bats hammered away on the piano, we sung from our hastily-prepared song-sheets while the vicar stood at the front looking smug:

"We are all the friends of Jesus
We're all the friends of God
He sends all his love to please us
He rules with his loving rod"

And several verses that I can, thankfully, no longer remember. However, the implication of rhyming "God" with "His loving rod" was entirely lost on the vicar, but not on the young teens in the choir, who sung it with gusto.

I felt a certain amount of celebrity over the whole getting-on-national-television business, and hoped to be feted like some sort of cherubic superstar once our moment of glory finally hit the small screen. And so it came to pass: my fellow Sunday School victims and I arrived at school the following morning fully expecting a hero’s welcome. Fat chance.

My reward was this: a playground cock-punch for being a "smarmy God-bothering swot" - and a playground cock-punch is the worst kind of cock-punch - followed by head-shaking pity from our porn-star biology teacher Miss Shagwell and her heaving bosom, which was fair enough to be honest.

Proof indeed that the Devil has all the best tunes.

Dr Scary's Problem Page

Dr Scary's Problem Page

Dear Dr Scary

I am a grown man in his early 40s. I'm happily married and enjoying the best that life has to offer.

However, I am disturbed by a dream I keep having, which has replaced my 'scoring the winning goal in the Cup Final before sharing the team bath with Nigella Lawson, Sarah Beeny and Kirstie Allsop' one every night for a week.

In my dream, I am at the auditions for the popular TV talent show 'The X Factor', held at our local swimming baths. Instead of singing, I have a large, red model of a racing car built out of Lego which I present to Simon Cowell, who is the only judge who has bothered to turn up.

Simon is clearly impressed by my long, sleek racing car, and offers to take a closer look. Unfortunately, due to the crush of people who have turned up for the auditions, not to mention all the people who have simply come along to have a swim, it got damaged in the crush, and one of the wheels fell off.

Cowell looks me in the eye and says: "I'm sorry, I can't put you through to Boot Camp."

Then I wake up and my pillow is missing.

Help me Dr Scary - what can this mean?

Yours,

Name and Address Supplied


Dear Dave "Davey" Davies of 13, The Larches, Enfield,

In my many years of interpreting dreams, I have never come across one as complex and disturbing as yours.

The racing car is clearly phallic in nature, and you clearly your wanton desire to plunge your high-octane ribbed manhood into the teaming maelstrom that is the vaginal swimming pool.

Alas, the wheel coming off reveals that you are impotent, limp as a month-old stick of celery, and despite the cheerful introduction of this letter, you are clearly in despair because you are unable to get it up.

You are, Mr Floppy, also gay for Simon Cowell, and long for the day he spurts his salty man-jizz all over your rancid little face.

You disgust me.

Hope this helps.

Your pal,

Dr Scary

Condensed Films: Return of the Jedi

Condensed Films: Return of the Jedi

Here we go with another cinema classic, thrashed about with a stick and thrown into a tumble dryer full of rocks until it ends up beaten down to five hundred words for the attention-span challenged youth of today. And they said it couldn't be done.

Actually, they said: "Stop being such an enormous twat, sir. Please leave before we call the police." But I got their general gist.

Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi

H. Solo: MMmmmff mmmmf mmmm mmmmff MMMff mmmm! (Translation: Hello. I am H. Solo and I am excellent. As you can see, I am frozen in carbonite and the prisoner of J. TEH HUTT. Don't worry, pop pickers, as that wimp with the light sabre and the bird in the see-through dress are going to save me. I'm fucked, aren't I?

P. Leia: Don't worry H. Solo! I'll save you. Oh. I am caught.

J. TEH HUTT: A hub a hub hub a hub hub hub. Now for some red hot slug/princess action. LOLZ

L. Skywalker: Hello. I am L. Skywalker and I am excellent. I am here to save H. Solo and P. Leia. ONOZ! I too am captured. What a shitty day, eh people?

J. TEH HUTT: Now it is time to kill you all TO DETH by feeding you to GIANT SPACE MINGE. ROFL

H. Solo: You defrosted me for this? You really are a first order shitcake.

L. Skywalker: LOL. I have escaped and saved my friends from GIANT SPACE MINGE

J. TEH HUTT: ONOZ! I am TEH DED!

GIANT SPACE MINGE: Om nom nom nom burp

L. Skywalker: PWN3D, LOL!

P. Leia: Hooray! Plz to help me into an even more see-through dress so we can stop D. Vader building another DETH STAR, FFS

L. Skywalker: First I go back and finish my Jedi training

H. Solo: Hippy.

Y. Oda: Returned, you have

L. Skywalker: I thought you was the DED

Y. Oda: I am now.

L. Skywalker: ARSE. Now to cheat at my Jedi exams. LOL

P. Leia: Plz to help me destroy THE DETH STAR

H. Solo: Are you teh MAD? I'll get killed TO DETH!

P. Leia: I'll be wearing my most see-through see-through dress

H. Solo: A hub a hub a hub a hub hub. OK, then.

C. Bacca: WAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

H. Solo: Sorry, Chewy. Your turn for sloppy seconds. Oh, FFS EWOKS!

P. Leia: Oh, FFS. G. Lucas, you're such a TWAT

TEH EWOKS: Don't worry P. Leia and H. Solo. We are only here to act as comic relief in an otherwise action-packed motion picture, while we also become expendable - if cute - foot soldiers in the climactic battle scene, and offer the opportunity of marketing the franchise to a new generation of younger viewers through branded merchandising and a low quality spin-off movie

P. Leia: Oh

TEH EWOKS: However, G. Lucas is still an enormous no-necked twat

P. Leia: Before the climactic battle scene, how about a quick scuttling behind that tree? My minge might explode before the day is out, LOLZ

C. BACCA: WAAAAAAAAARGH!

P. Leia: Not you - him. FFS

H Solo: I cannot do THE SEX with you because you fancy L Skywalker

P Leia: He is my bruv, LOL

H Solo: WT and indeed F?

P Leia: Fancy a threesome?

H Solo: You sick bitch. OK then.

L. Skywalker: Hello. I am still L. Skywalker and I am still excellent. Through a set of circumstances too contrived to mention with a mere "LOL" and "FFS" I have given myself up to TEH EMPIRE

D. Vader: Hi son

L. Skywalker: Hi dad. How's it hangin?

D. Vader: Oh, this an' that. I has a new DETH STAR. LOLZ. J. Clarkson is test driving it on Top Gear next week

L. Skywalker: LOLOL @ TEH STIG

D. Vader: Plz to come to TEH DARK SIDE. It is this: EXCELLENT. There's free whores an' everything

L. Skywalker: No. TEH DARK SIDE - it is TEH GHEY

D. Vader: Suit yourself, hippy. Now 2 kill you to DETH

Teh Imperial Emperor: LOLOLOLZ! Kill him to DETH, D Vader!

D Vader: WTF?! No. I cannot kill L Skywalker, even if he has - disappointingly - turned out a big girls' blouse.

Teh Imperial Emperor: Oh, FFS, let me do it then. Oh. I am TEH DED

D Vader: Oh. So am I. Plz to pull my helmet off, so I can die with a smile on my face

L. Skywalker: You sick bastard, dad. OK then

H. Solo: And we have also succeeded in blowing up TEH DETH STAR. Not that you care, FFS.

Ghost of D Vader: Woooooo! Now I'm all young again. Hey! B. Kenobi!

Ghost of B. Kenobi: Fuck off, you killed me, you bastard

Ghost of D Vader: But... but... I'm a gd guy now.

Ghost of B. Kenobi: This is supposed to be the happy ending, you complete ARSE

Ghost of Y. Oda: Bad you think this one is. J. J. Binks the next one has.

TEH WHOLE UNIVERSE: ONOZ!

I AM SPARTACUS!

I AM SPARTACUS!

Let us consider the current Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Let us consider his snowy white hair and his freakishly black eyebrows.

Let us consider the fact the now Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, somebody must be doing his old job and ...oh... is that him?

Let us consider his name.

Alistair Darling.

Alistair. Darling.

And therein lies my confusion.

For my grandmother used to call me by that name - a sobriquet which is very dear to my heart - and I have years worth of birthday and Christmas cards with the greeting "Alistair Darling" to prove it.

There can be only one Alistair Darling, and I'm prepared to fight old caterpillar-brows for the honour.

So piss off Darling, I was using it first. Change your name to "Lance", or something.


On a Thursday vote-o

Whilst this site remains on a war footing, it is my patriotic duty to strictly ration this week's Thursday Vote-o whilst those Belgian curs continue to threaten our very way of life.

There's a certain cinematic masterpiece on the electric telly this weekend, so, not wanting to prod you in any particular direction at all, the vote is as follows:

* A Tale of Mirth and Woe of my choice, which will contain neither sick nor poo, but will instead feature an intimately photographed record of Ann Noreen Widdecombe's first Brazilian wax

* Condensed Movies: The Return of the Jedi with added sex, lust and a lightly-oiled Kate Humble in a pork sabre battle with Nigella Lawson

Just follow your heart, dear reader. Nations will rise and fall on your decision.

On famous people visiting your house

On famous people visiting your house

I arrived home one afternoon to find my parents' house full of snooker stars.

This was at the height of the game's popularity as a TV-driven spectacle, and there they were - Eddie Charlton, Ray Reardon, Terry Griffiths, 'Interesting' Davis - all standing around the living room, whilst snooker played on the TV in the background.

My folks had never shown any inclination toward the green baize at any stage in my life, but it turned out that a friend of theirs had emigrated to Australia and had become a snooker professional. And now he was back in town playing in a tournament, currently televised live to an audience of millions from the Hexagon in Reading, where he was knocked out in the first round.

He had - as you do - decided to drop on his old pals, and brought a few of his friends along with him. Sick to death of the delights of the Reading Ramada Hotel, they had jumped at the chance where they took turns to deflect the right-leg attentions of our sexually confused dog.

All of a sudden, Charlton looks at his watch, says "Time to go", and the snooker players cram into a car and head back to the theatre. Within an hour, he was on TV, knocking coloured balls around the table. Apart from free tickets to the value of £2.50 sitting on our dining room table, it was like they were never there at all.

Nobody believed me then, and they still don't.

Ever had anybody interesting in your abode? Tell me. I won't believe a word of it.

On headaches

On headaches

I went to the doctor recently, complaining of a series of raging headaches. Awful, awful headaches that twanged up the back of my head, round the inside of my skull and out the sides like I was trying to grow an extra set of eyes.

The doc asked me a few questions, tilted my head this way and that, and rounded off his examination by poking me in the ear with a knitting needle.

"Well, Mr Duck," he said at length ("Weeeeelllll Miiiiissssterrrr Duuuucccck"), "I think I know what your problem is."

I was - knitting needle notwithstanding - all ears.

"You have what is known in the medical profession as a 'headache'."

Ten years at medical school making bowling balls out of the finest fresh cadavers for THAT.

"All is not lost," he said, writing down a prescription, "this will give you what you need. Come back and see me if you encounter any problems."

I looked down at the piece of paper he had prodded in my direction. A piece of paper that would cost me £6.85 at Asda Pharmacy for a packet of paracetamol. It read, in the spider handwriting that all GPs spend many years perfecting:

"Bosoms. 1000mg. Take FOUR two times daily."

My trip to the surgery would not be a complete waste after all.

Two days later:

"Well, Doctor. It's this prescription you gave me."

"What about it?"

"I appear to have developed an allergic reaction."

"Oh. I see. Red marks all over your cheeks. That is unfortunate. Can I see the prescription again?"

I showed him.

"Bosoms. 1000mg. Take FOUR two times daily."

"Ah," he said at length ("Aaaaaaaaaahhhh"), "there appears to have been a bit of a mix-up."

He handed the scrap of paper back to me, to find it hurriedly amended to read:

"Bosoms. 1000mg. Take TWO four times daily."

Well, that explains the red face. You try walking into Boots the Chemist and ask the not unattractive Polish pharmacist if she's got a sister, and see how far you get.

The Doc looked me in the eye.

"You won't tell the General Medical Council, will you? Not after what happened last time..."

He left the sentence hanging, like the remnants of his career.

"I... err..."

"Take my receptionist. Miss Nipples. She's got a cracking pair. Please."

"I... err..."

"No charge, no questions asked. We can put this on my BUPA."

Feeling some semblance of pity, and latterly a cracking pair, I agreed.

Five days later, and I've still got the headaches. But who cares?


On any other business

I appear to be in a state of war with Zoe at My Boyfriend Is A Twat. Again.

It appears that our manly Shed-tastic Facebook group has rather more members that Madame Zed's own girly group, and I am to blame.

Feh, I say, rising above the unpleasantness - FEH! Let it go on record that I still possess a picture of the author's bottom. In fact: this one.

On shooting your load into a hat

On shooting your load into a hat

Wanking into hats: a historical exploration

Originally a show of affection in the years following the Reformation where being seen around town in a wig decorated with the spaff of your nearest and dearest was the height of fashion, the activity was revived and popularised by the dandy Beau Nash, who declared: "Sowing one's seed into your beloved's hat should be made compulsory for all citizens of the fair City of Bath."

Whether this pronouncement was the result of a genuine giant step in millinery fashion, or merely the quick thinking of a man caught shooting his load into Capability Brown's finest headgear is lost in the mists of time. However, the fashion caught on quickly, and no visit to a Bath pump room would be complete without the fine trickle of salty goo running down the back of one's ear.

This practice became known as "The Beau's Special Sauce", and Nash himself credited his extraordinary longetivity to his extreme skills in front of the chapeau.

However, the Millinery Onanists movement soon lost ground to a now almost forgotten trend for the bottling of fanny batter. It wasn't until the late twentieth century when entertainer Paul Daniels would end his TV magic show with an enormous spaff into the lovely Debbie McGee's hat and screw it - still dripping with his warm man gravy - onto her uncomplaining head with his cheeky catchphrase "Now that's magic!" that the activity became fashionable once again.

Almost immediately, so-called 'Spoodge Bonnets' became the headwear of choice on the catwalks, and London Fashion Week of 1992 was dominated by talk of Jeff Banks's astounding creation with an enormous ten-gallon capacity, which sadly, resulted in the drowning of one noted supermodel and of three others who went to her rescue from the dread mass of jism.

The scandal drove the practice underground almost immediately, and Banks to the brink of ruin. He had foolishly invested all his money in hat futures and had just signed a deal to secure the EU semen lake, when the spunk bubble burst, leaving him a hairy-palmed wreck of a man.

These days, hat wanking is only practiced by a small hard core of enthusiasts. Modern health and safety regulations driven by the traditional tosser's warning of "You could put somebody's eye out with that" have ensured that the only public devotee is eccentric chanteuse Amy Winehouse.

And she doesn't even bother with the headwear.

I am not mad.


On any other business

Misty is a rather excellent photographer.

In fact, her l33t photographic sk1llz make me seeth with jealousy.

However, Misty is as poor as a particularly impoverished church mouse.

Why not, then, tootle over to her website, inspect the goods, and spend cold, hard cash on limited edition prints of her best work? Go on, you know you want to.

Click: HERE

On trying out Blinkbox

On trying out Blinkbox

A nice lady from the newly-launched Blinkbox website emailed me and asked if I fancied a go on their new sending-video-clips-to-everybody-you-know service.

So I did, and done this:


www.blinkBox.com
The Duck verdict: It's not bad. Not bad at all, and dare I say it, "FUN".

It'll live or die on the content, naturally; and whether the paying punters will remain after the novelty factor's worn off. The free one quid credit for sending clips to mobile phones is nothing to be sniffed at.

A pound! That's how easily I can be bought.

Another? Oh, go on then.


www.blinkBox.com
Blinkbox = YES.

Now, I am off to paint my shed.

Mirth and Woe: Sports Day

Mirth and Woe: Sports Day

Once every summer, as a breeder, you are dragged by the scruff of your neck to the very gates of Hell. The School Sports Day. Woe, woe, and thrice woe.

Many, now, are the July afternoons I have sat in baking hot school fields watching other people's darlings running up and down with china eggs balanced on spoons, cheating horribly in the sack race, or simply getting confused by an over-elaborate obstacle course. I've seen it all.

I have - to my eternal shame - even gone "Aaaaah" at the poor little sweetums who got his shoe stuck under the obstacle race's crawl net and trailing in miles behind the rest of the class. This was seconds before realising that sweetums was the boy Scaryduck Junior, and giving him what for on account of the parental embarrassment.

I have even flouted the ban on parental cameras at these events. Not because I am some dreadful pervert, peddling my wares on the padeo version of Flickr (called - I am led to believe - GaryGlittr), but because I refuse to shell out two quid for an out-of-focus picture taken by the deputy head that features one of my offspring as a pin-prick in the background.

However, for some parents, watching is just not enough. There are still grown-ups who seem to have forgotten they left school a couple of decades ago, and line up for the Mums' Race.

The first thing you notice about the Mums' Race is the number of parents who are taking it all too seriously. Sure, there are a number of Yummy Mummies, but the lovely Mrs Duck is yummier that the lot of them, which makes me a happy, happy man. You spot, however, a number of these specimens sporting well-worn trainers, doing stretching exercises and jogging up and down to limber up.

All for a fifty yard dash down the field and a free 2p lolly.

The whistle blows, and in a high-pitched cacophony of encouraging shouts, the dozen-or-so mums bowl down the course in a frenzy of bouncing buzooms which, I swear, I was not videoing for future reference. I swear it just started filming by itself, but the result is now used in Dorset County Hospital as a means of raising the dead.

Alas, all is not well, as two of the more competitive runners come together ten yards from the finishing line, like Zola Budd and that American bird in the LA Olympics. Only with more buzooms and tattoos.

The result of this collision allowed the third place runner - a bleached, leggy specimen throwing caution to the wind by running in heels, who had previously given up hope of Mums' Race glory - to make a dive for the line and certain victory.

OK, less of a dive, and more of a plummet, to be honest.

She fell - to a mixture of horror and amusement from the gallery - off those heels, and landed face-first on the rock-hard school field in an explosion of blood and snot.

Meanwhile, Zola Budd and her arch-nemesis screamed and flailed at each other with claws out, while another less athletic type eventually sauntered over the finish line to claim victory, and promptly lit up a cigarette. A lesson to us all, I think.

They eventually scraped the poor, fallen woman* from the field, one tit hanging out and a face like Amy Winehouse as she bowked rich, brown vomit all over the St Johns Ambulance lady, and carted her off to hospital, never to be seen again.

This year, there was no Mums' Race. Can't think why not.

* Not fallen in that sense, but you can never tell in these days of a cash-rich service industry dominated society, can you?

On embarking on a reign of terror

On embarking on a reign of terror

My brother and I both thought we could bring down society through the medium of writing graffiti on the walls of the near-derelict toilets in our local park.

So serious were we in our mission, that we exchanged felt-tip pens and boxes of chalk that Christmas with knowing winks over the wrapping paper. Aside from the fact that we would be spending much of our free time hanging around public toilets, our plan would be utterly fool-proof.

Then, with the coast well-and-truly clear, we set about the fetid walls of the gents shithouse in Twyford Rec with words that would bring the very fabric of society to its knees.

"Your all gay benders."

And "R. Searle is a cunt-eyed homo."

That certainly told them, and we were all set to take our campaign further - the walls of the cricket pavilion, and the one small part of the Youth Club that hadn't been coated in anti-graffiti paint. That was us: hitting The Man right where it hurt.

Alas, our reign of terror as middle-class teenage anarchists was to be short-lived. This probably - and don't quote me on this - had something to do with the fact that we both signed our work. With our own names.

"The Police are all poofs, signed S. Duck" = Wrong.

PC Poofter came to our door and told us to stop. So we did.

Thanks to the bravery of the Boys in Blue, the small Berkshire village of Twyford was safe once again. But for how long?