Celebrity Knitwear Disparagement

Henceforth Dynoblaster is undoubtedly the UK’s leading exponent of celebrity knitwear disparagement. It is quite usual for most of us to engage in informal knitwear disparagement of those we see out and about, usually in our out of town shopping centres, especially during the post Christmas period when the knitwear given as Christmas presents by close relatives is often on display, sometimes for the first – and last – time.

Socio-biologists have – almost inevitably – compared the usually gaudy post-Christmas knitwear to the mating plumage of birds, especially considering that it is the male of the species who is usually decked out in the most eye-watering knitwear during this post-Christmas period. However, many have criticised this theory, pointing out that most human mating takes place before – not after – Christmas and then is usually confined to the relative darkness of the stationery cupboard during the office Christmas party.

However, Dynoblaster’s forte is pointed and acerbic criticism of the knitwear choices of celebrities, especially when they commit that most heinous of celeb-crimes by not conforming to what has been declared fashionable for that particular time of the year. Obviously her TV programme is hugely successful as - it seems – the general populace like nothing better than to revel in petty vindictive criticism of those they see as getting above themselves*, allied to the chance to air their own vindictiveness from the safety and anonymity of the mass phone poll that closes each episode of Dynoblaster’s Celebrity Knitwear Exposed!, that results in one celebrity being voted off the programme each week, until at the end of the series, and with a final very lucrative ‘Extra-special You Must Vote Now!’ phone poll to decide which celebrity – according to those that watch this programme, anyway – has the finest (and – of course – most expensively fashionable) collection of knitwear – at least until the next series of Celebrity Knitwear Exposed!

 

*Ironically, this is probably the best description of a vacuous talent-less celebrity there is, as they are by definition in the social pecking order far above where normally their dubious, if not non-existent ‘talents’ would place them.

Friday Poem: Shadow

Shadow

I shall grow out of the ground at your feet
Like a shadow at sunrise.
I shall protect your young growing grass
From the searing of the scorching sun.
I shall keep your children cool in my shade
And I will grow only outwards from you.

Without you I will fade into dull greyness
Grow hazy, indistinct at my edges, lost,
Invisible when your clouds cover up the sun.
Without you and the sunlight, I am nothing
I disappear when you walk into the shade.

Philanthropic Endeavours

Teatree Undergardener was very much a woman of her time, being more than a little concerned about the plight of the poor on her husband Lord Trellising Undergardner’s massive Gloucester estate. The Undergardener family have been very much at the top of England’s aristocracy from the period of the Norman Conquest onward when Persimmon D’Un De Garde had the honour of holding William the Bastar… Conqueror’s armour for the new king, while he had his first piss on his new kingdom, just minutes after the battle of Hastings. For performing that noble service D’Un De Garde was granted several hundred acres of what was to become mostly the Gloucestershire County we know today.

Therefore, there were a good many of the poor of her husband’s estate for Lady Undergardener to take an interest in. What seemed to especially concern hr most was the lifestyle of the younger single men on the estate, who often had to do a lot of very physical hard work. In fact, it was whilst she was out riding one day whilst her husband was in London attending the House of Lords, that Lady Undergardener first came across one of her husband’s foresters chopping down a tree. Her ladyship noticed immediately that despite it being a quite chilly day, the labourer was already stripped to the waist, with sweat coating every inch of his firm muscular upper body. As she noted later in her diary, Lady Undergardener suddenly found herself very moved at his plight, and immediately dismounted from her horse and hurried across to the young man, eager to offer him what comfort she could.

Then, from that day onward, her life was never to be the same again. Wherever there were fit, young men, usually in a state of semi-undress undergoing hard physical labour that left their muscular torsos sheened with sweat, Lady Undergardener would be there to offer them succour. From manual workers on her husband’s estate to the coal workers in his coal mine and, later further afield whenever the British soldiery sweated under hot foreign suns, it was Lady Undergardener and her now ever-expanding coterie of young to middle-aged women of the aristocracy who would be there to take them in hand and offer them whatever relief they could.

It is for such sterling charity work that Lady Teatree Under Gardener is still rightly celebrated to this day.

Some Assembly Required

Those were the days, of course, these days are rubbish in comparison. Everyone knows that. Back then the world seemed a much more straightforward place, and for the less-straightforward the instructions were printed in English, not English machine-translated from the original into a form of pigeon Latvian, then farmed out to someone who learnt English from badly-subtitled reruns of The Teletubbies on his local TV station, to then be converted into a near approximation of a language almost totally unrelated to the language we know, love and sometimes spell correctly.

As for the illustrations that accompany the text, these too seem adapted from an original instruction manual that showed step-by-step instructions on how to apply marmite to the stomach of a rather recalcitrant hippopotamus whilst simultaneously practicing some of the more arcane movements from an earlier more primitive form of Morris dancing that involved a great deal of undue personal intimacy with a leek.

Then there are the screws and other fittings, the most vital of which, of course can only be told apart by minute and painstaking forensic investigation using a strong magnifying glass under sharply-focused floodlights from a Premiership football ground. These screws must be used to fit together the wood-effect pre-masticated cardboard-like panels which although they look, sound and smell identical, are all subtly different, up to and including the final piece that is from some other kit entirely, and – therefore - involves a return to the retail barn that sold you the item.

Upon arrival at the retail barn, after a three-day trek across a car park the size of several African states glued together, when you present the superfluous item to the help desk, there is much general bewilderment as every single employee there is invited along to gawp at the extraneous item for what seems to be close to a decade each, before the most junior minion is sent to scurry down to the very bowels of the emporium, there to filch a necessary replacement from some other appropriate kit, that will undoubtedly be sold to some other unfortunate in the near future.

Then when you are safely back home and the item is supposedly finished, but looking nothing like the item you saw illustrated in the catalogue. Instead of the pristine item of furniture you had hoped to now possess, your unit looks as though it has been through a savage earthquake, a flood and – quite possibly - a raging inferno, and seems to teeter between the states of being an item of furniture, or being a pile of miscellaneous pieces of wood-substitute, without ever quite becoming either.

Consequently, you solemnly vow, resting your bloodied hand on a stack of instruction leaflets, never ever to visits the hellish place ever again.

That is until six months later, when the new catalogue falls through the door and you hear the wife utter those dread words:

‘Oooh, now that looks nice!’

Thursday Poem: We Had Times

We Had Times

We had times for dancing under starry skies,
But I never wanted to dance.
We had times for moonlit sea swimming,
But I cannot swim too well.
We had all the young days,
But I wasted them
Searching for that one true song
I never found.

Wasted so much time on fashionable poses
And knowing what was cool,
Right down to a tenth of a degree.

Then one morning, alone by the sea,
I saw how little it all seemed
Against the horizon.
I had been there, sorting through grey pebbles
Ignoring the sand, rock pools
And the sea.

Waves come and waves go,
Sandcastles fall into heaps
As our footprints are washed away
While the gulls fight over the scraps
We leave behind.

We had time for poetry,
But I did not know words could be used that way.
We had time for romance,
But I only had the arrogant
Ignorance of youth.

We had the summer warmth
I wasted being cool.
We had long winters lying together
While I stared off into the distance
Waiting for my life to begin.

Science And Maths Teaching Needs Improvement

An independent report by the Science and Learning Expert Group has suggested that the teaching of science and maths in the UK needs to be improved quite significantly.

However, a spokesman for the government’s rather tweely-named Department for Children, Schools and Families, said:

Regarding the teaching of maths, could I just point out that with – according to current government statistics - over a hundred and ninety-twelve per cent of pupils getting an A* in A Level maths, it is easy to see that this government’s education policy has been very successful in that regard.

However, as for science as you well know if we meddle too much in the mysteries of how the world works then the sky gods will get angry with us and rain fire down on us, and no-one in my government department wants to see that happen, especially as it may contravene several EU directives.

The departmental spokesmen then distributed copies of the Labour government’s current A level science syllabus which, in part, states that:

• Pupils reaching A level standard should be able to discuss confidently just which of the magic sky gods made us, and how they created the whole universe during their holy tea break, using actual quotations from the relevant Holy book.
• They should also be able to discuss, with the aid of diagrams, the complexities of the global weather system, how evil capitalism causes climate change. They should also be able to perform competently a rain dance to appease the angry gods.
• By the time they reach A level standard, secondary school pupils should have learnt that chemicals are just poisons made by evil multinational corporations to poison us and destroy the natural world.

As one secondary school pupil, from a leading faith school, said when asked about her science lessons:

Our science priest said that anybody who believes that our grandparents were monkeys - like that evil heretic Darwin, or the anti-Christ Dawkins, said - will burn in hell.

Finally, however, a leading scientist said:

Of course, the problem is that politicians don’t like people learning about science and maths, because not only does it help bring about the politician’s greatest fear – people thinking for themselves, science and maths can also – using genuine facts and figures - quite often prove that what politicians are saying about something is actually, and demonstrably, wrong.

Long Range Pastries

Fossilbed Granulation is these days best known for her use of the low diving board to recalibrate the mathematical tables first set up by Triangulation Membrane that tabulated the angle at which a cheese scone should be launched when used as an offensive weapon.

Membrane Tables, as they became known, have been used for many hundreds of years to launch cakes, pastries and other such items as enemies, usually quite successfully, especially when stale cakes were used in an offensive capacity such as the siege of Nuneaton in the English Cheese War.

However, as technology developed, and with the introduction of low-earth orbit intercontinental cake icing, it was found that Membrane Tables were no longer accurate enough for modern warfare.

Granulation’s work, therefore, was much concerned with the use of long range pastries and the guidance systems used in the cake-capable missiles used to deliver multi-cake warheads onto their targets, which entailed a detailed study of the aerodynamic properties of cakes and pastries.

Although, credited with the first successful attempt to put a Cornish pasty in low earth orbit, and – later - winning the Nobel prize for cake and pastry science with her theoretical work on the in-flight stresses experienced by fondant fancies in turbulence, it is Granulation’s subtle re-workings of what had become known as Membrane’s law that has made her the household name she is these days wherever intercontinental cake-based warfare is discussed.

The Latest Rock Sensation

Satsuma Megalith is not only the first person in recorded history to stand next to a fully kitted-out professional Stoat Distracter without giggling, she is also lead electric triangle player with contemporary rock music's most hippest band - Purple Entwined Braindribble.

Purple Entwined Braindribble (Known to their fans as 'The Dribbles') took the currently moribund and excessively tedious rock world by storm with their first single 'Solving Quadratic Equations', an up-to-the-minute eclectic mix of punk, goth, hip-hop, broadside ballad and medieval plainsong. There was a time, last summer, when the song's catchy chorus 'don't sellotape my water vole/ to your blackboard, Mister Helicobacter' seemed to be on everyone's lips.

Purple Entwined Braindribble seem to be everyone's favourite band, right from those too young to realise they are just another in a line of re-hashes of re-hashes of a moribund stagnant formula way past its sell-by-date, right up to those too old for such things, but unable or unwilling to face up to it. This latter group are still constantly - and vainly - searching for anything to use as proof that they have not become their own parents, or to avoid having to face the empty hollow promise that lies at the heart of the rock 'n' roll mythology.

Consequently, the Purple Entwined Braindribble's first album - Seismic Fortran Party Girls Eating Pies - sold in millions, making superstars of the band, especially the exceptionally photogenic and - more often than not - unsuitably underdressed Satsuma Megalith herself.

On The Choosing Of Headgear For Penguins

As you probably know the WWF has proclaimed that today is to be the first ever Worldwide Donate A Hat To A Penguin Day. With the ever-worsening (they say)threat from global cooli… global warmi… er… climate chang… climate doing something or other that may or may not be all that unusual or not we can’t be quite sure… er… then it has become absolutely vital that the world’s penguins are provided with hats, and – quite possibly - scarves (as illustrated).

The WWF all firmly believe that allowing each individual penguin within a species to have its own choice of headgear would be an administrative nightmare, and somewhat aesthetically displeasing as well as quite probably looking a bit silly. Therefore they are all agreed that each species should have its own style of headgear.

However, controversy has struck this otherwise entirely laudable endeavour with the WWF at loggerheads with the patron of this charity, the legendary Sir David Attenborough, over what are the most suitable kinds of headgear for each individual species of penguin.

Now, even Sir David Attenborough seems to be at one with the WWF when it comes down to the choice of a deerstalker for the King penguins, and he is prepared to concede that maybe for the emperor penguins a top hat should be more than regal enough. however, where the WWF and the esteemed naturalist do seem to be at loggerheads is over the choice of headgear for the rockhopper penguins, with Sir David opting for the bobble hat while the WWF feel that the flat cap seems more appropriate. Furthermore, the chinstrap penguins as you probably realise are a somewhat specialised matter when it is time to choose suitably headgear.

However, both Sir David and the WWF feel that this is only really a peripheral mater, and - no doubt - it will be resolved to the satisfaction of all in the fullness of time.

I will – no doubt – keep you informed if and when the matter has been successfully resolved and - most importantly – how to donate what I’m sure will be a substantial amount of money to this vital endeavour.

MPs To Hold Sex Education Debate

MPs in the House of Commons are set to have a debate on sex education in the very near future.

A spokeswoman for the leader of the House, Dirty Harry Harman, said:

While most MPs regard sex within a monogamous relationship as the ideal, the simple fact is the life of an MP does lead them into temptations that some of them may have difficulty coping with, especially when they insist on only employing sexy young ‘researchers’.

We must also educate MPs about the number of ‘massage’ parlours and other such places in close proximity to the Houses of Parliament, the ever-present danger of resentful spouses bent on revenge and the ubiquity of tabloid reporters with telephoto lenses and an innate suspicion of the motives of all politicians.

The debate is scheduled to begin with a lecture, in one of the committee rooms of the Houses of Parliament, featuring detailed instructions and full-colour explicit illustrations on the fundamentals of call girls and rent boys and how to tell the difference between them, with a supplemental free-form open session on just how much to tip the madam.

The MPs will then return to the chamber to debate how to delete incriminating texts, pictures and videos from computers and mobile phones. They will also discuss why ‘Would you like to see the size of my majority?’ is not a good initial chat-up line.

The MPS also wish to discuss which are the best ‘fact-finding’ trips to get booked on, and how long they will have to waste glad-handing the local dignities and visiting what they are purportedly there to see, before they can head off to the local lap-dancing clubs, live sex shows and brothels.

There are also some supplementary motions put forward to be included in the debate on such matters as how a MP can trade confidential information from government departments, or influential back bench committees, though leaks to favoured journalists in return for that journalist’s newspaper not printing the story about the MP, his Swedish research assistants, the fashion designer, the wallaby and the ‘fact-finding’ trip to Welshpool.

Finally, a government spokeswoman insisted there will be a strong reminder to MPs to NOT to claim any of it on expenses, at all, ever – at least without first disguising it as essential office expenses connected solely to their work as a Member of Parliament.

Out Of Their Misery

Delphinium Brakepad was not the sort of person who could walk past an injured badger or a maimed song thrush without wanting to do something to help, usually in the way of putting the unfortunate creature out of its misery with a large stick or heavy stone.

So, one day, when on a brief visit to the city, she did not hesitate for a moment when she saw a banker terminally down to his last few million in bonuses, quickly putting her foot down in her Range Rover, she put him out of his misery, and his perceived relative penury, by spreading him across the pavement outside a branch of Boots the Chemist.

Brakepad also did the honourable thing when, back in her home village, the local MP was booked to give a public meeting. It was a meeting called by his constituency committee, where the MP was to explain to his constituents just why he found it necessary to use his MP’s expenses to pay for a cosmetic re-crenulation of his family castle, a bordello for his moor hens and a bevy of teenage Scandinavian ‘Research Assistants’.

Fortunately, as he rose from his seat, visibly nervous in front of an understandably hostile audience, it was Brakepad herself who relieved him of any need to attempt to justify his egregious actions with a blast from both barrels of her Purdey shotgun.

Nut Allergies Face Trial

Following news that Cambridge University researchers are to conduct a test of a potential treatment for peanut allergies, the UK civil service has announced that it too is about to undertake similar experiments to counter nut allergies.

A spokesman for the Civil Service said:

Following several reports from civil service staff, the head of the civil service has investigated several claims from civil servants that the politicians they have to work with are all completely nuts.

Of course, the head of the civil service is fully aware that any sensible person forced to be in the immediate vicinity of a politician will begin to feel unwell, and – in most cases – begin to doubt their own sanity, but civil servants do have many years of training in how to avoid too close a contact with politicians, and – consequently – we had hoped that the danger of these allergic reactions would have been minimised. Sadly this now seems to have not been the case.

In the early years of their careers, civil servants are only minimally exposed to politicians, and then only under strictly controlled laboratory conditions. If any sign of an allergic reaction is discovered, then that person is kept well away from politicians for the rest of their career. Gradually, over the years, it is hoped that a civil servant acquires a tolerance for being in the company of a politician, and that increasing exposure to the loopier notions and ideas of the politicians builds up a resistance to the politicians infecting the civil servant with any policies.

Of course, civil servants do a vital job in protecting this country and its people, from the worst lunacies of politicians. However, increasingly over the last few governments it seems that there has been little or no break from political lunacy, suggesting that maybe some top level civil servants have become infected with politics to such a degree that their natural human tolerance for political infection has broken down.

However, as one political allergy researcher pointed out:

Normally, human beings have a natural immunity to the lunacies of politicians, and know – almost instinctively – that they are all completely nuts. However, the current cabinet, especially Ed ‘Total’ Balls, Dirty Harry Harman and – of course – the PM, Gordon Brown, himself are utterly hatstand even when compared to other politicians. Consequently that immunity built up over the career of a civil servant would have been totally ineffective when faced with the idiocies this government, those three especially, produce on an almost daily basis.

Further EU Integration

There are now several Small Independent Donkey Hopscotch Unawareness Inspectorates now setting themselves up in readiness for the new EU ruling which will mandate compulsory hopscotch provision for donkeys throughout the EU.

Of course, it goes without saying that, unlike several other European countries, such as Belgium and… er… some of the other ones, the UK has no great tradition of donkey hopscotch, not even in Luton.

However, with UK governments of all political stripes, as well as the Liberal Democrats, seemingly so keen on continuing further integration with Europe, it seems soon we will have donkey hopscotch drop-in centres appearing throughout our town centres and the aforesaid Small Independent Donkey Hopscotch Unawareness Inspectorates arranging visits to our homes in order to see what arrangements we each have made for any donkeys in our vicinity who wish to play hopscotch on our premises.

Of course, those of us with young children, girls especially, may already have an informal hopscotch grid already marked out somewhere around our house, or quite possibly in the street outside. However, very few of us will have made any effort – as yet - to ensure that the grid is fully donkey-friendly.

For example, how any of us have a supply of fresh hay within easy reach of our hopscotch grids? Or, for that matter, a convenient hitching rail nearby? All of which need to be in place by the time of the London Olympics in 2012, as decreed by the EU.

Otherwise those of us found to be in contravention of the directive will be fined by the European Court of Human Rights (Donkey Annexe) anything up to 5 million Euros (nearly 35p at the current exchange rate) for each offence.

Meet The New Boss

 

In a classic ‘won’t someone please think of the children’ gambit the Conservative party leader, David Cameron, yesterday leapt on to the ‘Let’s ban everything’ bandwagon – the strongest signal yet that, should he become Prime Minister after the forthcoming election, he will continue with the current Labour government’s attempts to be populist by announcing ‘bans’ on anything new, shiny and ‘outrageous’ that catches the tabloid media’s eye, no matter how fleetingly.

In calling for an end to the "inappropriate sexualisation" of children by companies out to make a fast buck from selling tawdry tat to those children, and the parents dumb enough to let their children have such crap, the iDave suggested – to show he was groovy and with it - that a website be set up, presumably in order for those that feel an overwhelming need to be outraged by such things to publicly demonstrate how much they ‘care about the kiddies’.

Eager to be seen also caring earnestly about ‘our children’, Ed ‘Total’ Balls, the Government’s Child Catche Children’s Secretary, was quick to clamber aboard the same bandwagon before the media found something more interesting to point its cameras at, claiming that the Labour government – as usual – already had plans to ban everything it could think of, including selling cheap tatty junk to kids.

One parent, though, completely dismissed the idea, saying:

Politicians are already creepy enough as it is. The thought of  weirdos like them discussing and deciding on the suitability of underwear for children just makes me feel ill.

However, as one critic pointed out:

It is not the ‘sexualisation of the children’ that is the problem here, but the way governments, including this one and the potential Conservative one, continue with the increasing infantalisation of adults. A process which seemingly means that the people must have someone ‘in authority’ manage what is ‘appropriate’ for them in all aspects of their lives.

People shouldn’t need anyone to tell them that cheap tawdry tat is not the right thing for their kids, no matter how bright and shiny the adverts are, or what some brain-dead celebrity tells them is essential for them to have to be fashionable. It shouldn’t need anyone from the government or one of its pet quangos to come along and tell people that this is unsuitable garbage that they are wasting their money on. It should be obvious.

Companies that produce this tat should go out of business because everybody sees it for what it is and simply doesn’t buy it, or buy into the fantasy it purports to bring along with it.

That is unless everyone in this country is a completely empty-headed gawp who will buy any old tat just because the advert is bright and shiny and has a nice tune, or because someone marginally famous tells them to, and… oh, hang on….

Observing Creatures In The Wild

Now, as we approach the hides I want you to be as quiet and discreet as possible. This means if you have mobile, phones or pagers please turn them off, and any intimate massaging devices you may have about your person, please switch those off too, as these creatures can sniff out an immanent orgasm at over 100 yards.

Now as we live in somewhat more enlightened times, some of you may never have seen the Greater Enraged Interfering Busybody in its natural habitat before. So, all of you be as discreet as possible as we make our way down into the Nature Reserve.

Here in this corner of the nature reserve, our naturalists have attempted to recreate a normal suburban street from the latter half of the 20^th century, a place where the Enraged Busybody feels most at home. If you are very quiet, you will see the busybodies – once dusk begins to fall – slowly appear from behind the curtains where they spend most of the daylight hours ensconced, making careful but copious notes on the vagaries of their immediate neighbours.

However, once dusk settles they will emerge from their lairs and set out – armed with a torch and a stout walking stick – in search of their prey, who – in a more innocent age – were once called ‘courting couples’. Those of you who have been the victim of the busybody will need no explanation for just how off-putting bright torchlight in the face and the swift application of a stout walking stick to the more delicate regions can be. For the rest of you, your information pack provides illustrative diagrams.

Anyway, our naturalist are very keen to discover the greatest mystery of the Greater Enraged Interfering Busybody, which is ‘precisely how do they breed?’ This is especially puzzling, as busybodies seem to emerge out of nowhere already middle-aged without any trace of ever being young, a teenager, or even a child. Once this mystery has been solved, then maybe we can find someway to keep this – albeit fascinating – pest under better control and stop them interfering in the doings of the rest of us.

Labour MP Expresses Regrets

Labour MP Austin Allegro yesterday said he now regrets taking part in a political system that ‘treats the voters of this country with contempt.’

After spending time in the reality show ‘Houses of Parliament’, which is shown on its own ‘specialised’ TV channel, where over 650 alleged MPs pretend to know what they are doing, Allegro dismissed the whole system as a farce:

I joined the Labour party because I had Left-wing ideals – hopelessly naïve and out of touch with reality, I know – but I was young then. I thought a Labour government would really make a difference.

Well, I suppose it has made a difference… in its own way.

It has managed to not only completely bugger up the economy, despite claiming it had learnt all the lessons from the last time it buggered it up, it has also increased inequality, made the whole notion of human rights a laughing stock, turned multicultural diversity into a form of apartheid, made ordinary working people worse off and helped perpetuate a whole new underclass that live their entire lives on benefits.

In fact, everything I naively joined the part to change for the better, this government has made much, much worse.

Allegro also went on to claim that the participants in this political show were completely out of touch with the world outside, having no idea of how their antics were seen as utterly contemptible by the viewing audience, especially the way they grabbed wheelbarrowfuls of ‘free’ money that had been left lying around the House ‘for expenses’.

However, a spokeswoman for the Labour government said:

Quite honestly, we can’t see what dear Austin is complaining about. Oh, yes, it’s perfectly alright – if a little politically geeky – to have principles and ideals and so on when in opposition, but when we do manage to get elected then – obviously - all of that flies out of the window.

We have to do whatever keeps us in power, or rather, the other lot out of power. If it suits our electoral purposes to completely bugger the country about, then bugger it about we will.

Frankly, if Mr Allegro thinks any different, then why on Earth is he in a political party?

A fan of the political reality explained its attraction:

The whole point of being in politics is to take a society that has evolved over the centuries to rub along treasonably well, and then - through as much cack-handed legislation as possible - completely bugger it up beyond all hope of repair, get voted out of office, then sit back and laugh like a drain as the opposition have a go at sorting it out and fail dismally. Now, that’s what I call entertainment.

As Seen On TV

Partyhat Toastrevelation is often credited as the first TV personality to get on absolutely everyone’s tits. Throughout the history of TV there have been TV personalities that irritate or annoy certain members of the viewing audience at one time or another, enough to make none of these people want to watch any TV programme which features these people.

Up until Toastrevelation’s entry on to our TV screens, however, there was no-one not even the most annoying people on the TV that could make every single person in the country to not merely change channels, but to actually turn their TV’s off in a feeling of disgust at the whole medium.

The oleaginous have, of course, always gravitated towards such career options as TV personality, estate agent, politician, or found other such ways of insinuating themselves into the consciousnesses of as many people as possible, almost as if getting on people’s tits is a form of drug that those, who once addicted to it, need to get more and more of.

It is a theory which would certainly explain why, for example, even though deep down they must know they are loathed and detested by the vast majority of people, politicians, for one, keep coming back for more public attention, even though it invariably results in more opprobrium being heaped upon them.

It also goes a long way towards explaining the pop music charts.

Labour Woo Low-Income Voters

Yesterday, a election strategist for the Labour party admitted candidly that:

In the up-coming election unless we can count on plenty of votes from dole scroun… the idle and feckle… out of wor… er… low-income families, then we are completely fucked.

Consequently, we have decided to promise them anything, up to and including free pies for life, if only they just get up off their fat arses, waddle all the way to the polling station and vote Labour at the forthcoming election.

As a Labour spokesman said in a recent speech aimed at ‘low-income families’:

Look, we’ve given you… er… your children free laptops, so you can use it to pull someone on Facebo… help your kids catch up with their homework. We have also promised to install free broadband so you’ll be able to download all the dirtiest filthiest porn you’ve ever wante… educational materials to help your kids keep up at school. All we ask you do in return is vote for us.

Oh… and if there is anything else you’d like us to give you for free, just say and we’ll fix it for you. After all, those still in work have still got about half their wages left that we haven’t taken in tax yet, so whatever you want we’ll get it for you.

You want the moon on a stick?

It’s yours… honest.

Just – as a favour - vote for us… PLEASE!

However, a Conservative spokesman responded by saying:

Are they mad, giving these oiks free stuff like that? Don’t they realise that as soon as they get their lardy unwashed hands on these ‘free’ laptops they will be flogging them down their local pub and spending their ill-gotten gains on extra-strength lager and those awful pasty-things they eat.

As for the free broadband, all I can say is look out for many more spotty nicotine-stained chavs selling illegally-downloaded porn on DVDs around the back of the market… you know… near that place where the rent boys hang ou… er…. Well you know what I mean, don’t you?

Nature Watch

We sit, here - as still as possible - in a hide cunningly disguised as an ordinary car, parked here on the edge of a normal suburban supermarket car park. Ensconced here we can watch the majestic herds of shopping trolleys as they live out their lives free – at last – from human interference.

This is the UK’s very first Car Park Nature Reserve, cunningly recreated around what used to be an ordinary out of town supermarket, but now the car park – and, indeed, the supermarket - have both been allowed to revert to their natural state where the herds of wild shopping trolleys can roam free down the aisles of the supermarket, bringing back food for their young – the heap of shopping baskets in their nest near the door.

The life-cycle of the shopping trolley has been studied in detail elsewhere, and these fascinating creatures are always a joy to watch as they move in their strange sideways amble, always in the opposite direction to what everyone is expecting, a way of evading their predators that has evolved over the generations.

These mainly peaceable creatures have no real predators apart from roaming drunks and occasional prides of students who will hunt down a trolley and capture it, taking it away from its home trolley park and performing savage rituals involving the poor defenceless trolley before finally brutally sacrificing it to the gods of the canal.

Labour Critic Calls For Return To Golden Age

‘Labour are on course to win the next election,’ said a former Cabinet Minister and one-time lead vocalist with Mud, ‘as politics has reverted back to the 1970s.’

 

 

He went on to say that the Left’s ‘Regressive agenda’ was the only way to return Britain to the 1970s, and that the popularity of TV programmes like ‘Life On Mars’ showed that the British people were desperate to return to the days of beige tank tops, flock wallpaper and three-day weeks, and the Labour party was the only political party capable of turning back the clocks to that golden age.

He added:

The centre of gravity of British politics has shifted back to the 1970s, just like me. The Conservatives pretend to be regressive, harking back to the days of Thatcher, but it is only the Labour party that can turn back the clock to those true days of the 1970s.

For it was back in the 1970s that someone could describe the Left as ‘progressive’ without people falling about laughing like a drain. Most people, even some on the Left, have now realised that Left-wing ideology is not ‘progressive’ at all, but actually regressive, holding people back, holding people down, forcing them to behave in ways dictated from the centre in ways which a medieval absolute monarch would regard as a bit over the top, censoring their every thought and censuring their every act, rather than setting them free in an equal and fair society as Left-wing ideology once so blithely promised.

So, we need to go back to the 1970s, back to when the Left seemed – to some – credible. Back to those days when people thought that socialism was a good idea, times when Left-wing ideology was not regarded as morally bankrupt, an intellectually barren dead-end and a complete and utter failure at everything it has ever attempted to achieve.

We must always remember it is only the Left that can use identity politics to fix people into groupings competing against each other for greater victim status and therefore special treatment to make them more equal than every other officially recognised and sanctioned ‘minority’ grouping.

It is only the Left that can construct a massively intrusive, overwhelming – but at the same time, hopelessly incompetent – giant state bureaucracy that intrudes into the minutia of everyone’s ordinary daily life.

Most of all though, it is only Labour who can completely fuck up the UK economy to an extent not seen since those golden days of the 1970s, and it is only a Labour government that can pass the necessary legislation to make flowery-patterned shirts with enormous collars fashionable once again.

An Episode From The History Of British Pop Music

Elderberry Mudguard first hit the UK singles chart with her song: Reconcile My Cashbook Baby now regarded as the first song in British pop music’s Accountancy boom. Like the earlier blues boom of the early 1960s, the Accountancy boom began with British teenagers gaining access to something almost secret and unknown: the accounting songs, auditing hollers, taxation spirituals and reconciliation shouts of the accountancy workers.

Britain’s first late night accountancy clubs began in the cellars and backstreets of some of Britain’s trendiest happening cities and towns like Hull, Carlisle, Leominster, and – of course – Walsall where the legendary Expenses Claimed club opened with its infamous house band The Strolling Auditors, featuring their legendary lead guitar auditor, Stroppy ‘calculator’ Penisenvy. Their act became famous for its deep, almost reverential, love and respect for some of the most arcane auditing and accounting songs of the deep south east, those songs first sung by those who slaved in the financial services industry for banks, the large accountancy firms and - even - the government’s own Auditing Commission.

Elderberry Mudguard started out as lead singer, of course, with The Strolling Auditors, for a while she was even Penisenvy’s girlfriend, but they fell out over some mislaid receipts and the band was never the same again, especially when Penisenvy’s increasingly heavy use of tea and biscuits resulted in some tax miscalculations that led to the band being liable for the full cost of their office supplies for the entire financial year.

Penisenvy split from the band, and The Strolling Auditors broke up. Penisenvy slipped slowly into some heavy spreadsheet use until – almost inevitably – he was found one day drowned under a pile of his own tax returns.

Mudguard soon gave up accountancy and made herself respectable by moving into the then nascent hardcore pornography scene, staring in the now infamous Behind the Tax Returns, before dropping out of public life and becoming a recluse, living out her final years far from civilisation in Wolverhampton.

The British Accountancy Boom, like all such pop music fads and fashions soon burnt itself out all too soon though, as the fickle pop music scene changed again. Only months after The Strolling Auditors disbanded it seemed everyone was into the new sound of the new Californian Human Resources wave, jangly, guitar-driven happy songs abut boys and girls getting into how organisations manage their workers and the Fun, Fun, Fun of life in the Personnel Departments of major industrial conglomerates.

Somewhat Over-Zealous Law-Making

Samosa Template was the first person in the United Kingdom convicted of the crime of attempting to use a spanner in a manner likely to cause a breach of the peace whilst endangering the life of a parakeet with undue use of a roll of sellotape.

Now there are some that say that the post-1997 Labour government is somewhat over-zealous in the amount of new laws it puts on the statute book, usually several a week, most of which are never used. However, the case of Samosa Template demonstrates that if you make enough laws then – sooner or later – one of them is quite likely to be broken eventually.

‘This goes to show…’ says the one remaining supporter of this government not yet sectioned under the mental health act:

…that there is a whole new potential criminal class, far beyond the traditional low-end traditional criminal classes that previous governments have ignored by not making enough things illegal.

She goes on to say:

What is more these people formerly un-criminalised usually have jobs, houses and so forth which makes them worth the bother of fining, because in most cases they can actually pay the fines without having to commit even more crimes in order to pay that fine.

She also points out, while foaming slightly at the mouth:

What is more, the amount of laws introduced by this government means that there have had to be several thousand more employees added to the payrolls of national and local government to enforce these laws, administer them and collect the fines, thus massively increasing the number of potential Labour voters.

For, as the New Labour philosophy has it, society is to blame for its own malaises, and, therefore, if everyone is a member of society, then everyone is guilty. It only then becomes a matter of finding something they are guilty of, making it illegal and then fining them accordingly.

Loss Of Faith

Herbert Laffing-Stocke the almost famous Left-wing stand-up comedian last night spoke frankly for the first time about his loss of faith.

Speaking at Harpo’s, medialand’s favourite watering-hole, Laffing-Stocke said:

My career began, of course, back in the very early days of the alternative comedy scene. Of course, it was all so much easier, so straightforward, in those days. You just had to do five to ten minutes on Thatcher and the Evil Tories and you were almost guaranteed top billing.

Then once you got that top billing at the most fashionable London comedy clubs then it was only a matter of time before the BBC heard about you, and then you were in and made for life. Well, as long as you carried on with the Right is evil and the Left will – one day - be the saviour of all humanity shtick, of course.

Any deviation from that would, obviously, mean the end of your radio and TV career.

At this point Laffing-Stocke nodded towards a gap on the wall of Harpo’s where – it is rumoured to this day – a portrait photograph of Ben Elton in his Saturday Night Live ’Evil Thatch’ days once hung.

‘Happy days,’ he said. ‘Simpler times.’ Shaking his head, Laffing-Stocke was silent for a while as he built up the considerable courage he needed in order to say what he said next:

Of course, we were young, naïve, foolish even. We thought the Left had all the answers, all the correct –politically-correct, that is - answers. We should have seen the signs back then, of course, there was political correctness, militant feminism, diversity and all that back then of course, but we just thought it was a sort of natural over-reaction to be having to live under the brutal Evil Tory dictatorship and that once we had – through the power of comedy and rock music – overcome the evil ones, then paradise on earth would arise for everyone.

Then we had to go and spoil it all and actually elect a sodding Labour government. So, after Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Jack Straw, Dirty Harry Harman, Dick Dastardly of Foy and all the others, I just don’t see the point of being a Left wing comedian any more.

So….

Here Laffing-stocke drained his drink, sighed, took a deep breath and said:

Anyway….

My mother-in-law is so fat….

Friday Poem: Butterfly Fragile (Naga-Uta)

Butterfly Fragile

(Naga-Uta)

Dreams are this fragile,
insubstantial as a thought.
Drop all these moments
when they become almost real
and the dreams can tear
like tissues, to fall slowly
as paper snowflakes
across a dark green carpet.
These are all your dreams,
something rare, precious to hold
like a butterfly.
Or, some other living thing
under your fingers
like a thicker warm moment
with a tremulous heartbeat.

The Lone Finger

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Now, on the other hand we have… the same number of fingers as on the first hand. What are the chances of that, eh?

However, I don't like the way that the third finger on my left hand is looking at me.

Frankly, I've always had my doubts about that finger. It has a habit of not wanting to join in. It likes to go off on its own for long solitary walks in the countryside, while the other fingers - even those on the same hand - prefer always to do things together.

To me, it seems that it a part - a major part - of wanting to be a finger is to want to do things together as a hand, or even both hands. It seems that to desire to be a lone finger is in some ways a denial of finger-ness itself.

For what would fingers become if we allowed them to all do their own thing without reference to the rest of the hand? Mere anarchy would be loosed upon the world, and not only would the centre not hold, we wouldn't be able to hold anything either.

The Marmalade Of Our Mornings

There are times when the very kitchens of our souls are overflowing with the effluvia of our meandering stager through the days that fall down on us like the contents of a badly-stocked cupboard as we go about opening each one searching for that marmalade of our mornings that we are sure we bought home from the supermarket of all our dreams and desires.

Those strange kinds of herbs and spices, even those jars of Marmite that no-one ever admits to buying that rain down on our heads whenever we attempt to open those cupboards of promises, they all seem to be there just to prevent the discovery of that golden marmalade that makes the toast of our lives go beyond being merely cooked bread and into the realms of the numinous and transcendent.

It is all to easy to forget the power of toast when the sensuous beguilements of breakfast cereals and their promises of mornings of almost orgasmic ecstasy fill the commercial breaks of our most holy TV schedules. The promise of heath, happiness and almost supernatural levels of naughtiness from an equally cereal-enriched partner of all our fantasies seem merely a spoonful away, but, these days, we know how the promises that always seem so enticing are always the ones that turn out to be the hollowest.

All we do know, all we can ever know, about this world with any certainty is that toast has never lied to us.

Majority Favour Grammar Schools

A survey commissioned by the National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA) has discovered that 76% of adults questioned would like to see the return of Grammar schools and selective education to the UK.

An official from Ed ‘Total’ Balls’ Department for Children, Schools and Families (No, we don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either) responded to the results of the survey by saying:

Huh? Bloody typical, bunch of ungrateful sods. Just who the hell do these so-called voters think they are, eh? What makes them think we are going to start paying any attention to what they want after all these years?

We are the government and we decide what will happen. These bloody voters ought to remember their place, shut up, mind their own business and be grateful for all we’ve done for them.

Education in this country is the best in the world. For example, we’ve already decided that next year’s exam results will be even better than the last record-breaking year with every child in the country getting 7 A* A Levels each, including those just entering nursery school for the first time..

A Conservative Education spokesman said:

Normally we would say that everything uttered by the Labour party is wrong. However, here is a case where we must agree with them. It is simply not right for the ordinary voters to hold any opinions which are not supported by any political party.

Therefore, we feel it is only right for us to ignore the views of voters when they don’t agree with our policies, except of course when there is an election coming and we need their vo….

Oh, bugger!

Er… has anyone got a pen I could borrow…? I just need to make a few slight alterations to our education policy.

Asked about whether the result of the poll would have any effect on the Labour party’s election manifesto, Lord Dick Dastardly of Foy responded:

Election? What election? Do you really think we’d let voters with such old-fashioned views as this have an election, and risk spoiling all we’ve achieved over the last decade or so? My… my… my…. How hopelessly naïve you are.

Metropolitan Police ‘Still Institutionally Policeist’

The Metropolitan police were today branded as ‘without a doubt still institutionally policeist’ by the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Pleading Association.

The head of the Met’s Special Pleading Association said:

For some reason it seems there are still – albeit only a minority – some police officers who think it is the job of the police to go out and catch criminals. However, this is the 21^st century, and after over a decade of a Labour government you would have thought that they would have realised that the role of the modern police force lies solely in making sure that all possible diversity and equality targets are being met, both within the force itself and - out on the street - in wider society.

The Metropolitan police forc… service was first branded as ‘institutionally policeist’ many years ago when it was discovered that their publicity and recruitment posters did not meet ethnic and sexual diversity standards or help meet vital equality targets, and instead concentrated on claiming the police were there to help maintain law and order and other such – since discredited – concepts.

As a spokesman for the Home Office explained:

Under the wise and benevolent leadership of Saint Tony the Pure of Heart, and his glorious successor - the saviour of the world, Gordon Brown - this – the people’s Labour government – has successfully reduced crime to an almost record low. This means, of course, that those traditional forms of policing where the police would actually go outside their police stations and arrest criminals are long over.

Nowadays, it is much more important for the police – once the necessary paperwork has been completed - to make sure that ordinary so-called law-abiding citizens are constantly reminded of their place in society and who is in charge, and that they are fulfilling all their required and mandatory Good Citizen Duties correctly and paying their taxes and fines on time, so that our great work can continue.

Another Product Recall Announcement

Following the news that Toyota is to recall several of its car models in order to fix their faults, the British electorate has today announced a recall for all 650 or so Members of Parliament, saying that over the years many of them have developed faults, some so serious that the MP should never be allowed to stand again. The electorate says that in some cases the MP should be scrapped altogether and sent to prison.

Over the last few months there have been many reports of MPs failing to put a brake on their expense claims, resulting in a massive pile up of excessive amounts of taxpayer’s money in those MP’s bank accounts.

There have also been reports of Labour MPs driving badly-though out and often unnecessary legislation through the Houses of Parliament causing massive damage to British society.

Other problems that have been reported include the way the Government has been steering Britain, causing it to crash into a recession and being unable to accelerate out of it due to the heavy weight of government debt, a punitive tax system and excessive legislation cutting out any attempt at growth through enterprise and innovation.

All the political parties involved in the recall have promised that the faulty MPs will be fixed in time for the election, with those unable to mend their ways replaced with new models that the parties promise will be totally reliable and serve the electorate much better than the older batch, most of which seem destined for the scrapheap.

However, one sceptical potential voter said:

I just hope we don’t get a botch-up job, the same old MP, dressed up a new suit and buffed-up grin, with some form of off-the-shelf sense of ethics bolted onto him at party headquarters that all falls apart at the sight of a open expense account, lobbyist’s brown envelope, or offer of a cabinet post.

The Labour party in particular is still churning out the same model of MP - built British Leyland-style - that falls apart almost as soon as they roll it out of the constituency office. That is simply not good enough in this day and age.

Ethical Headgear

There are times it seems when the world geo-political situation means that one has simply no other choice, but to wear a hat. Of course, such a decision is not to be taken lightly, especially if one likes to count oneself amongst that dwindling band of the Right-On Politically-Correct Left, where choice of headgear will be dictated more by political fashion-following masquerading as ethics than by such things as practicality, usefulness and fitness for the prevailing weather conditions.

For those on the Left, some hat choices are indeed quite straightforward, obviously with its association with the evil empire of America the cowboy hat is a complete no-no, especially as it is associated with the more right-leaning American states such as Texas. This association with America will also, of course, completely rule out the baseball cap too, which is itself further tainted by being the headgear of choice for the chav. Now, whilst the Left-leaning person does like to pretend to like the lower orders of society, on no account do any of them want to be caught by anyone who they know, and consequently need to impress with their up-to-date right-onness, wearing anything which those lower orders would themselves consider fashionable or stylish.

The bowler hat too can be discounted by the Left as its associations with capitalism move it completely beyond the pale. As, of course, can the top hat.

However, for those on the Left the choice is not then quite so simple for other hats. Take for example, the flat cap, this is an almost traditional working class hat, so in most cases one could be on safe ground with it, however, it is also favoured by the landed gentry, especially those in the hunting and shooting fraternity, which - of course - taints it almost beyond redemption for some on the Left. This does make the flat cap quite problematical as the Left these days is populated mostly by the right-on middle classes, most of whom have never seen a traditional working class person, let alone one wearing a flat cap, and so in their eyes the flat cap wearers in their social circle will be almost certainly belong to the aforementioned hunting and shooting set, consequently making the flat cap a no-no for any Left-winger wanting to maintain some shred of ideological purity.

One could – obviously – sport a beret and should one’s ideological alignment to that icon of the Left, Che Guevara, but the fact remains that the beret makes you look – and this applies even to the ‘great’ Che himself – like a complete dick and is therefore best avoided.

This does leave – apart from the WWII leather pilot’s hat which is, of course, a special case - the woollen hat, but this itself has a certain militaristic connotation which – at best – can make it somewhat ethically problematical.

Finally, there is the right –on choice of ethnic headgear, that is, apart from the fact that the more competitively right-on amongst one’s circle of Left-wing acquaintances are bound to have a blisteringly accurate and up-to-date knowledge of the world’s repressive regimes, and are therefore – somewhat gleefully – bound to point out that one’s choice of ethical ethnic headgear marks one down as a fervent supporter of one of the most evil right-wing fascistic regimes on the planet.

So, just perhaps, maybe that hat isn’t such a good idea anyway. After all, what price cold ears when compared to ideological purity?

Become Solid Once More

Here we become something. We take a shape that grows out of the darkness of the winter morning as we float from the world of dreams and become solid once more. The dreams fade away into the pillow as our bodies become heavy once more, feeling the warm reality of each other where we touch under heavy blankets that no longer fall away as we fly into dream lands.

There are moments of possibility that lie at the edge of memory like mists. Hints that tantalise as they fade away into forgetfulness of the way back into that dreamland that the alarm tore us from. The fingers of our minds reach out try to grasp, take hold, of those insubstantial wisps, but the very act of reaching dissipates them. We are left holding nothing but the vague memory of a place where there were always beaches to walk along on fine summer mornings and the unspoken promise of how easy it would be to shrug off our day-to-day lives along with our clothes as we find that welcoming soft grass on some headland that looks out over an endless sea of the possible.

That dream world is gone now though as the day drags us out to face it. We glance back though at that dim outline of the pillow as we leave the bedroom, hoping to see our dreams there waiting for when we return.

Older Women Unplanned Pregnancy Warning

Some experts yesterday issued a warning to women over 35 who are ditching contraception in the mistaken belief that they are unlikely to get pregnant.

A spokeswoman for the Family Planning Association said:

A lot of women in the 35-plus age-range glance across to the flatulent fat slob snoring away in front of the TV across the other side of the room and decide that it is so long since he managed to get it up, that continuing with contraception is far more trouble than it is worth.

We would, however, like to remind women in this age group that this summer will see England playing in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and if – unlikely, we know – England do manage to squeeze their way out beyond the group stages, then there is a possibility that their partner may feel the urge to celebrate in the usual way.

The same also – to a certain extent – applies to the rugby Six Nations. However, should the England team do well in this, it is more likely that the traditional rugby celebration - of drinking enough beer to totally submerge a small market town and then mooning everyone in a six-mile radius before collapsing in a vomit-stained heap - will take place instead.

Other experts in the field have also pointed out that women in this age-group should also be aware that there is the chance that just occasionally their husband or partner may suddenly experience a total loss of internet connection. They do stress that this is nothing to be overly concerned about as internet connections can usually be re-established quite easily. A sudden loss of internet connection may however, these experts claim, lead to the man being suddenly deprived of his access to hard-core pornography, which – in some cases – may lead to him re-acquiring some interest in doing it with a real, live woman, quite possibly for the first time in several months, or – perhaps - even years.

However, one woman in her late… er… early forti… late thirties(ish) said:

I have given up totally on that useless lump. I mean, even in his prime it was usually a case of falling out of the pub at chucking-out time, a vindaloo and then three minutes of fumbling under the duvet before farting, rolling over and falling asleep, but at least in those days he did make an effort, even if I did have to buy my own birthday, anniversary and Valentines presents and pretend they were from him.

Lately, though, I’ve been carrying on with the contraception, and hanging on in hope, just in case those adverts do come true, and there is some hot bloke out there - with a dirty smile and the body of a sex god - desperate to give me one as soon as he’s finished his can of Coke, but now I’m beginning to doubt it.

In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that I might just as well flush my pills away and get a cat instead.

The Heyday Of The Victorian Music Halls

Faucet Firesprinkler was probably the most famous musical cheese-grater (a song, a dance, a small pile of grated cheddar) during the late Victorian heyday of the music halls, and probably one of the most famous celebrities of that time.

Everywhere Firesprinkler went he was followed by mobs urging him to do his – by then – world-famous song, dance and cheese-grating act. Even in America and Australia, as his fame spread he made personal appearances in some of the larger cities of those still relatively young countries, Firesprinkler was famous enough to gather huge crowds and – on one notorious occasion in Melbourne – start a riot when, after suffering slight damage to his grating hand the previous evening at a sell-out concert – Firesprinkler refused to do any cheese-grating demonstrations for the huge crowds that had gathered there.

In Britain, it became almost impossible for Firesprinkler to go out into the streets on his own without a phalanx of minders, unless he went in disguise. This, of course, led to the scandal and later trial that bought him down.

One late October morning in 1895, Firesprinkler was found hanging around the lady’s Undergarment section of one of the new department stores, dressed as a lady. He probably would have managed to get away with it, even with his – typical for the era - luxurious beard and side-whiskers, were it not for the fact that he never went anywhere without his favourite cheese grater. Ladies of quality, of course, were not meant to know about such practices as cheese grating, let alone witness such an event in public.

The ensuing scandal of a lady seen out in public carrying, what was then regarded as, a rather risqué item of kitchen paraphernalia, caused outrage enough. However, when that apparent lady, albeit a heavily be-whiskered one, later turned out to be a man, who later turned out to be a music hall entertainer, who later turned out to be a world famous music hall entertainer, it was more than the high society of the time could bear.

All that is known of Faucet Firesprinkler these days – ironically enough – is that he was a cellmate of Oscar Wilde in Reading Gaol for 3 years after the respective scandals which laid them both so low. Like Wilde, Firesprinkler was never the same again, going to live out the few remaining years of his life, after prison had left him a mental and physical wreck, in exile near Burnley where – it is rumoured – he never again could bear to be in the same room as even a modest pile of grated cheese.

He died a scant five years after leaving prison and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave, oddly enough underneath what has now become the cheese counter at a branch of Tesco in Burnley.

Monday Poem: Old Monsters

Old Monsters

There were stars out there once for us.
Standing on these cold hillsides,
We could see only the covering sky.
Not satisfied with the limits of ordinary sight
We desired to know what lay beyond the dark.
But gravity always drags us down
To crawl through these ravaged lands
To hunt and to prey on each other.
It is far easier to fall than to fly.

There could be a chance of stepping outside,
Of taking a step beyond these confines,
If only we could remember the art
Of how to dare, how to desire flight.
If we were not trapped here,
Lost down amongst these ruins,
In a land haunted by the ghost
Of a language separated from thought,
Wandering though these wrecked lands
Without the ability to speak
Of pain, loneliness and distance.

These bare hillsides are deserted and dark
As the valleys begin to light up the night
With glowing orange ribbons of brightness
Connecting the pools of white light
And the somnolent ancient monsters stir
Out of the old darkness and shadows
To slowly begin their crawl through the night.

We had almost forgotten these ancient fears
Before they came lurching from the dark,
Back to disfigure our idle dreams.

Published in Interpoetry issue 15

[Website no longer available]

Endangered Species Conservation Plans

Following confirmation that a scheme has been set up in Wales to attempt to preserve red squirrels, a similar scheme has been announced in an attempt to preserve what will remain of the UK Labour party after the forthcoming election. Plans have been put forward to set out a special Labour Party sanctuary somewhere deep in Mid-Wales where whatever remains of the Labour party after the election can be kept safe, especially from their most fearsome predator the mobs of angry and disillusioned voters.

A spokeswoman for the scheme said:

The UK Labour party has a long and distinguis… a… er… long… history…. Well, let’s just say that it has been around for quite a while and there are many… some… well, a few people who would like to make sure that the Labour party doesn’t go completely extinct, if we can avoid it.

Political conservationists point out that Wales is an almost ideal habitat for an endangered species like the Labour Party, pointing to the fact that the principality has had a breeding pair of Kinnocks living there for several decades.

Supporters of the scheme also point out that having a special reserve for the Labour Party means that it will unable to do anywhere near as much damage to the rest of the UK - when allowed to run wild and unchecked - as it has in the last decade or so. Conservationists also point out that in a Labour sanctuary, the party will be able to tax each other into penury and pass as much spurious ‘Equality’ legislation as they like without causing undue damage to a the rest of the British Isles.

However, some critics have expressed concern about what would happen to the surrounding countryside if, say, a Harman was allowed to escape from the sanctuary. As one local resident pointed out:

I’ve seen Jurassic Park; I know what can happen if these creatures get out of control. I have young children, what if Ed Balls escapes and tries to interfere in their education?

However, one political naturalist countered:

Political parties should be allowed to go extinct; it serves no real purpose keeping them alive beyond their natural life span in these artificial reserves. The Labour party, in fact, socialism as a whole, we now see was a complete evolutionary dead-end. So, keeping the party alive is just cruel; especially as their natural habitat – the old polytechnic social science departments – no longer exist, at least not in the form that would encourage any new growth of Left-wing ideology.

Non-Consensual Intimate Contact With A Small Hovercraft

Look out!

There is a serious danger of individual hovercraft infesting your vestibule sometime over the next few days. It is – as we know- unusual for such an occurrence this early in the New Year. Some have blamed the world economic downturn and others have blamed climate change, whilst the more perspicacious amongst us have pointed to the return of Wolves to the Premier League and nodded knowingly.

Now, far be it from me – about 17 miles as the crow flies, or 35 miles if that same crow takes public transport – to cast doubt on these varied explanations of what can be a very traumatic experience, as anyone who’s person has been in non-consensual intimate contact with a small hovercraft, especially when it takes place in a vestibule, it is not a very pleasant experience for you, or – indeed – your person.

However, as the Old Wives’ Tale has it, a small dab of Vaseline to the back of the left ear, does seem to keep the hovercraft out of the vestibule, at least until the official hovercraft catchers from the Errant Vehicle Restraint Squad arrive to trap it and take the hovercraft away to a nearby local hovercraft sanctuary, where it can live out the rest of its natural lifespan eating tinned mangoes in syrup and watching re-runs of The Morecambe And Wise Show on cable TV.