Jeremy Clarkson Causes More Outrage

It was reported yesterday that TV personality and journalist Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of the BBC Programme Top Gear has once again caused outrage amongst certain members of the UK population.

A environmentalist, Naif Fairydustings, complained vociferously, saying:

It is an absolute outrage that Jeremy Clarkson has not said a single thing for several weeks that I can find deeply upsetting, and an insult to the environment and all of us who work tirelessly to find evidence that panders to our deeply-felt prejudices against the human race and its insidious effect on the planet. After all, it is a human race that this odious Clarkson is on record as being a member of, apparently without feeling even the slightest bit of guilt or liberal self-loathing. It is an utter outrage the way he blatantly disregards my right to be deeply offended by something he says or does, and I insist he issues an immediate apology for not being sufficiently offensive towards me and all I hold dear.

Several lorry drivers, left wing politicians, feminists and many others who were quietly confident that Jeremy Clarkson would say something they could find offensive also expressed their outrage that Mr Clarkson had not said anything to outrage their delicate sensibilities. ‘It’s just not fair,’ said one unnamed Labour Prime Minister. ‘The only time I ever get any good press is when someone like Clarkson makes mock of my disabilities. I wanted to time the next election for right after he said something inconsiderate about me, but so far he hasn’t sad anything I can pretend to be shocked by.’

A senior official at the BBC also expressed her concern:

It is a fundamental human right of those who take themselves far too seriously to find themselves often personally offended by the utterances of those in the public eye. Consequently, we set up a special Jeremy Clarkson compliance unit here at the BBC with twenty-seven senior managers all on some of our most generous managerial salaries (plus full expenses). They have been charged solely with examining every single utterance make by Mr Clarkson for any possible offence it could cause to anyone at all, whatever their sexuality, race, lorry driving orientation, political views or regional accent. This special compliance team are all ready – at a movement’s notice to work their hardest to distance the BBC from any involvement with Mr Clarkson, and denying the BBC has anything to do with whatever it was he said.

Meanwhile we have a special management team working overtime trying to discover what it is about a person with no liberal guilt, or no instinctive love of political correct self-censorship, or any desperate need to display his left-wing luvvy sensibilities to all and sundry, or who always seem to prefer honesty to posturing, that makes him so very popular with our viewers and listeners.

Mr Clarkson was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

Warning: Police Chiefs May Quit

The head of TCPODNM (The Chief Police Officers who are Definitely Not Masons) warned last night that Tory plans to force the police to do what they are supposed to do, and actually catch criminals, may force some senior officers to resign (if only for gross incompetence).

[Mind How You Go]

Sir Hugh G. Odour said:

We’ve spent several years and a huge amount of money turning the police into the paramilitary wing of the social services. Frankly, we have far too many diversity awareness courses to attend to spare the time to actually go out on the streets any more.

Nowadays, as well, we have an enormous amount of forms to fill in and a great many pretty coloured graphs to send out in press releases which keep us at our desks in the stations all day. Frankly we haven’t time to go out catching criminals, especially when it is easier to wait for them to come to us.

Modern policing has very little to do with merely catching the criminals anyway. We have to make sure that no member of the public has – in anyway – infringed the human rights of the alleged ‘criminal’, which is – in itself - the sort of outdated concept these Tory plans would have us return to, as if it were still the Dark Ages. Then there all the diversity guidelines we need to check up on, such as could giving chase to someone suspected of an offence be construed as racist, or sexist, or cause the outbreak of undue unsightly sweat patches on our officer’s uniforms. Then there all are the necessary guidelines that all serving police officers must consult before even thinking of filling in a handcuff usage from (in triplicate).

Quite simply, all these considerations are far too complex for mere civilian to understand and deal with, especially when they don’t have a nice uniform like mine.

A spokesman for the Conservative party said:

This country desperately needs the police forces of this country to be put under the control of some political-appointed placeman that the public can be conned into voting for. Otherwise, how else are we going to be able to prevent the police from investigating the possibility of MPs breaking the law - possibly over their expenses, for example - in the future?

The police of this country have to be made aware that we in public life are all riding the same gravy train and the police chiefs must be made to realise they mustn’t do anything to upset it, even if that does mean that in the future one or two of them may have to go outside and catch a criminal every now and then.

The Conservative party spokesman then went on to say that a delegation from the party would be meeting with all the UK’s senior police officers soon, in order to demonstrate that they do indeed know the secret handshake, and that – consequently – the senior officers will have nothing to fear in the new regime.

Wildlife On The High Street

As the old Music Hall song has it, ‘Don’t put your okapi in the chemist shop, Mrs Cheesewire’, splendid advice, I’m sure we would all agree. For, if there is one place where such creatures of the wild should – ideally – not be, that is in any high street emporium selling items of a sometimes discreet nature, no matter what the reputation for quality of goods and services of the shop in question.

However, having said that, I’m sure that you would also agree upon the relative merits of the suitably-trained shopping tiger, as well as the use of a well-qualified parking leopard to assist in the acquisition of any disputed parking space, and/or subsequent negotiations with any traffic warden or car park employee.

Now, as for utilising a herd of Thompson’s Gazelles to walk your children to school, expert opinion is divided on the subject. Some say that the natural herding instinct of the school-age child makes such an arrangement ideal. However, others insist that children should not be encouraged to herd together as this leads to the unfortunate tendency during the teenage years of the child risking infection from fashion and other unfortunate herd-like manifestations of the teenage years.

As for the use of migratory wildebeests in the purchase of new shoes, you should always be aware that the necessity of displaying the varieties of stock available mean that quite often shoe shops can be quite cramped inside. Therefore one should always make sure that one’s herd of wildebeests is quite adept at manoeuvring in such confined spaces if one is to avoid cause a nuisance to other shoppers, especially if they have migratory herds of their own.

Government Defends Expenses Omission

The UK government last night defended its decision to omit legislation on reform of MPs expenses from yesterday’s Queen’s Speech.

A government spokesman said:

Well, we were hoping that if we kept quiet about it, everyone would have forgotten all about it and we could carry on as before. Frankly, some of our moats are in a right state now, and there has been talk of setting up a backbench committee to investigate the plight of homeless ducks. It is getting so bad that some MPs have had to resort to spending their own money on essential groceries in order to feed their mistre... Research Assistants.

Political commentators all agree that the government made a strategic mistake when they set up an inquiry into MPs expenses. Usually a government inquiry can carry on arsing about pretending to investigate its brief until everyone forgets all about it. Then when it issues its report no-one can remember what problem the report was supposed to resolve, or – in most cases – even why it was felt necessary to even set up an inquiry in the first place.

However, reform of MPs expenses will be a difficult problem for the government as it has been a long and honoured tradition amongst MPs to never pay for anything themselves, from classing their foreign holidays as ‘fact-finding missions, through employing members of their family as supposed office staff, despite those relatives not even knowing how to work a paper clip, through to sports, opera and theatre tickets received from ‘lobbyists’, it is a rare MP who has to put his hand in his own pocket, or even take it out of his ‘research assistant’s’ knickers, to pay for anything.

Speaking about the whole MPs expenses scandal, sources very, very close to The Dark Lord of Foy said (off the record):

Actually, sweetheart, we thought the public would have forgotten all about it by now. After all there has been a lot of Strictly Come Dancing on the telly since the whole expenses story started, now there is The X Factor too, and… well… with Christmas coming up and all that.

Usually the general public has the attention span of a lobotomised goldfish with learning difficulties. Therefore, we confidently expected the only ones to notice we’d ‘forgotten’ about MPs expenses reforms to be those political nerds everyone else finds it far too dull to listen to for more than a few seconds at a time.

So, if it wasn’t for those pesky kids in the opposition stirring it all up again, we would have got away with it. Drat, drat and double drat. And you can stop that sniggering, Milliband.

BBC Accused Of Making Dramas

BBC hospital dramas under attack:

A top NHS manager has hit out at what he sees as the unrealistic and unprofessional portrayal of NHS workers in BBC dramas Holby City and Casualty.

A BBC Spokesperson sighed, and then responded:

It is fiction – we make it up.

It is not real.

It needs action. It needs tension, it needs drama. Obviously, in programmes like Casualty and Holby City we try to make that drama as dull and predictable as possible, so that we do not accidentally wake any of our loyal viewers, or cause them to have any thoughts about why they bother watching such soporific mediocrity. However, it seems we need to make them a lot more soporific in future, so we can stupefy all these busybodies with too much time on their hands, who seem to only ever watch TV in order to be offended by something in one of the programmes.

Of course, the main purpose of these dramas, along with all the UK’s soap operas, is to take the majority of Britain’s TV actors out of the dole queues. After all, you never expected to see whatshisname…. you know him out of that film… with her who used to be married to the one out of that advert… y’know the one I mean… in a soap opera, did you?

A retired TV scriptwriter who last had a script accepted back in the days when TV drama was really worth watching, said:

These days everything has to be so politically correct I’m surprised there is any drama allowed at all. No-one is allowed to be a baddie these days in case they ‘negatively stereotype’ a whole section of society. I don’t know how we can make it any more obvious for people to understand it is all pretend. Just because a doctor, who makes mistakes, say, just happens to be – for dramatic purposes - Welsh, that doesn’t mean all Welsh people are incompetent, in-bred sheep-shaggers with a chip the size of Caernarvon castle on their shoulders, does it? Even though, in my experience, they all are.

A NHS nurse we managed to keep awake for long enough to comment, said:

In reality the NHS wants us all to be soulless mindless droids, automatons that have all human feelings and frailties programmed out of us during our training, which these days seems to consist little other than various politically-correct brainwashing courses we all have to pass in order to qualify to fill out the forms we have to complete, instead of actually giving medical care to patients. These TV programmes are so unrealistic, most of us are too busy going on diversity awareness courses and filing out forms to ever actually see a patient, as for ever getting off with a doctor you can forget that, because actually acknowledging anyone else in the hospital as a possible fellow human being is an immediate disciplinary case.

Queen’s Speech – Education Reforms

Despite the enormous emphasis put on education by the Labour government during its term of office, the government believes there are still some unresolved problems with the education system. As Ed ‘Total’ Balls the Education spokesmen said, outlining the education measures that will be in the Queen’s Speech:

Despite our best efforts over the last decade or so there are still too many children leaving school with enough a grasp of the English language to enable them to tell when we in the government are talking bollocks. This is not good enough, for unless we can get them to believe all the piffle we come out with; they are not going to reach our target of being compulsive and almost instinctive Labour voters.

There are even some – admittedly very few – who still have some vague knowledge of mathematics who often realise that the figures we use to justify our policies often don’t make any sense, and that – in many cases – they’ve been simply made up.

The Labour government has also announced its intention to emphasise what it likes to call ‘social skills’, instead of having children actually learn stuff, which it regards as ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘potentially elitist’. The government’s stated aim is to have all pupi ‘Educational Co-achievers’ all reach exactly the same level of total ignorance which will mean every child in Britain will get A* A-levels in every subject taken.

As ‘Total’ Balls said in an exclusive interview with The Rope:

By emphasising Social Skills we want to reprogram the way these children’s minds work. By forcing them to take account of Diversity, Equality; and social aware respect for all officially-recognised victim group minorities in every subject area from Global Cooli… Global Warmi… Climate Change right up to their Anti-bullying A-Level, they will learn that certain things, such as officially-recognised hate crimes, become almost inconceivable. So, if anyone, say, by way of example, an Evil Tory, says something that contravenes any officially sanctioned thought processes they’ve been inculcated with, then these children will simply not be able to make any sense of it whatsoever. It will be literally unthinkable, as shocking to them as if the Evil Tory had threatened to plop their dangly bits into a fish tank full of piranhas…. Actually, hang on. I’ll just make a note of that…. Fish tank… dangly bits… piranhas. Yes, I think my Dark Lord of Foy will be amused by that.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh, yes:

In this way we believe – a bit like the Jesuits used to – that once we have got them ‘Thinking Labour’ at an early enough age they will continue to ‘Think Labour’ – and, of course, vote Labour, for the rest of their lives, no matter how much reality contradicts everything they see and do. I mean it worked for Christianity, and all those other equally nice and cuddly religions too of course, for a few thousand years or so. So it ought to work for us… unless Gordon cocks it up, of course.

Just before leaving the interview, Ed Balls, added as an aside:

By the way, do your readers know that David Cameron has a big fluffy white cat he strokes as he sits in his secret Evil Tory base, hidden under a volcano on an island? It’s true – honest.

The Birth Of The Prophet Nhigel (MHPDM)

Not surprisingly there are many similarities between the Uttabollux account of the birth of the Prophet Nhigel (May His Plums Dangle Mightily) and the birth of the god (or gods) of many other religions, especially those that were the Uttabollux religion’s immediate precursors. Whether this is down to a lack of imagination, some sense of theological economising, or merely a cynical attempt to procure existent rituals, ceremonies and calendar dates to enable the new religion to make a successful takeover bid is still a matter of some theological debate, especially when the bar is closed.

However, the story of how Stan the plumber and his heavily pregnant wife, the Virgin* Paula, rode into the city centre that midwinter night on a motor scooter is well known, as is their unsuccessful attempt to find a room for the night at any of the town’s many hotels and motels, as there was a European Cup (as it then was) semi-final fixture that very night at the City team’s home stadium.

The young couple were also refused entry to the city’s many late-night clubs as the doormen were suspicious of the pregnant Paula, believing that if she gave birth on the premises then the unborn child would have gained entry without paying, thus violating one of the doorkeeper’s most solemn oaths, to keep out those that do not pay, or commit the heinous heresy of not attiring themselves in the most Holy smart casual robes in readiness for the rites of ‘going on the pull’.

Eventually, though, Stan the plumber and the virgin Paula found a late night kebab shop that was still open, bathed in the orange glow of the only streetlight still working on the High Street.

When the staff of the kebab shop saw that Paula was about to give birth they cleared a space and – eventually – with much encouragement from Stan, the kebab shop staff and a few customers who hung around to film the event on their mobile phones, Nhigel was born on the counter of the kebab shop. This is why, theological scholars maintain, the late-night kebab has become the Holy ritual food of the Uttabolluxers, and is always consumed after a long night’s pilgrimage around the town’s pubs and clubs.

Not long after Nhigel was born some policemen, who had been shepherding the football fans away from City’s stadium, after the end of the European Cup match, were suddenly overcome with a mystic urge to visit the kebab shop, where they partook of the Holy kebabs before suddenly falling to their knees as one to praise the most Holy Nhigel (MHPDM).

A short while later the three wise men who made up the pub quiz team from the pub just up the road, followed the light from the one remaining working streetlight outside the kebab shop, bringing gifts for the newborn baby, one brought a pint of lager, another a bottle of vodka, but the other could only find a bottle of Baileys.

After thanking the three wise men for the gifts… and the Baileys, Nhigel’s Mother, Paula, feeling exhausted, wandered off to sleep in a cardboard box at the off to sleep in a discarded cardboard box at the back of the kebab shop. This is why many theological scholars now believe is the reason why Uttabollux women have to spend their whole lives in a cardboard box, in order to try to achieve a state of holiness as close as they can to the most Holy Prophet’s mother.

 

*Paula the Virgin. She was what was classed as a virgin in her home town because she was actually married to Stan when she gave birth to Nhigel (MHPDM).