This Blog Has Moved

This blog has moved to:  http://www.davidhadleyauthor.co.uk/

Sorry, but this version of the blog has now closed. 

However, I have not given up blogging - you don't get rid of me that easily.

From Monday (16/06/2014) my blog will continue at my David Hadley- Author website more or less as it has done here. 

New site RSS feed.

I hope you will join me at the new place, but if you find a better way of wasting your time, thanks for stopping by.

Bye (for now).

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[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Britain's Greatest Living Olympian

Splurge Debunker is probably the UK’s most famous contemporary athlete. Especially since her stunning victory and gold medal in the Freestyle Ladies Radiator-Bleeding final in London 2012. A contest where she won gold against some very strong opposition, especially from the Norwegian Sopwith Fjordbasker.

It was, of course the controversial decision by the Spanish judge to award Debunker 17 (out of a possible 9) points for artistic interpretation, which enabled Debunker to get through the semi-final against the Russian Expectyouto Diebondski. After the match, the Russian team complained against the ruling. However, later analysis of the slow-motion replay of the Norwegian judge’s calculations, carefully examined by the Olympic Federation’s own mathematicians, showed there had been no foul play and there was nothing illegal in his use of the calculator.

Debunker survived a doping scandal early in her career, when it was discovered her ability to bleed up to seven radiators a session was fuelled by excessive amounts of strong black coffee and digestive biscuits. However, the use of coffee as well as her aerodynamically-designed ergonomic radiator-bleeding key was ruled not in contravention of the strict Olympic standards for competitive radiator-bleeding.

Debunker’s radiator key itself was designed by the Olympic team also responsible for designing the ears of Britain’s gold-medal wining cyclists and high divers. There, the problem of wind-resistance against such protuberances can seriously diminish the scores of such athletes by an astonishing 0.000001%. Enough – at this level of competition - to have an almost discernible effect on both the athlete’s performance and their results. Or at least to make a suitably-adjusted graph look impressive in Olympic funding-allocation meetings.

So, Debunker herself is bound to go down in British sporting history as one of the all-time greats of competitive radiator-bleeding. There are rumours that their will be some recognition of her great achievement in the next New-Year’s Honour list. A recognition that is both timely and more than well-deserved.

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Undercover Policing and its Drawbacks

Of course, those that first met PC Splank Horology off-duty, knew little of his secret life as an undercover policeman. The persona he adopted, of Hotwire Treehugger, was part of an attempt by the police to infiltrate one of the UK’s most notorious extremist environmentalist organisations. The first such operation since PC ‘Stan’ Nark had posed as a dandelion to gain entry to the nascent underground Free Festival scene back in the early 1970s.

As the police eventually realised, many extreme environmentalist movements are far from being the benign force for good that a naïve glance at what they claims to be true would suggest.

Therefore the decision was taken to insert an undercover police agent into one of the more extreme sects of this proto-religion. A group then known as the Eco-Taliban. An extremest sect that even refused to walk on the ground in case they traumatised an earthworm. Only making an exception – of course – for their compulsory treks to the dole office.

Many of the sect’s activists attempted to overcome the crisis of conscience caused by the walk to the dole office by attempting to master the art of levitation. Something that even their shaky grasp of science and/or reality should have told them was doomed. Especially when one of their leading lights, Daisy Birchkisser, failed to levitate off the White Cliffs of Dover. Thus becoming a substantial source of nourishment for those very imperilled earthworms she’d sought to save.

This irony was not entirely lost on her followers. Two of whom also lost their lives whilst trying to erect a sustainable shrine to her in the very spot - just a few feet from the cliffs - where she’d failed to levitate above. They and their shrine did the same as Birchkisser, also failing to levitate. All much to the delight of all the - now morbidly-obese - earthworms in the vicinity of the area they plummeted to.

It was at this point that Hotwire Treehugger appeared on the scene. Arriving just as the Eco-Taliban were about to stage their most spectacular protest. They wanted to attempt to stop several local gardeners from mulching their allotments and thus – they believed - upset the karma of the local earthworms.

Treehugger warned against this action, knowing, though his experience as a local bobby, how handy several of the allotment-holders could be with a well-aimed dibber.

However, Treehugger’s reluctance was put down to cowardice and he was sent for re-education with one of the group’s wise philosophers and activists, Geoff Monobrow. Monobrow explained to Treehugger just why bunnies were so fluffy. Also explaining how everything would be eternal summer and wonderfulness as soon as the group assassinated every Briton with a car. Then they would turn the motorways back into ley-lines. Every motorway services would then become a place of sanctuary for local wildlife. A place where the birds and earthworms, the foxes and the newly-liberated domestic fowl could all live together in universal peace and harmony.

As this vision of bucolic nature living in harmony unfolded before him Treehugger broke down. He confessed that he was really PC Splank Horology and he would be resigning from the force the very next day to become a member of the Eco-Taliban as soon as possible. Thus enabling the worldwide eco-revolution to take the western capitalist world back to its rightful place in the Middle-Ages.

Later, in a press conference, the Metropolitan Police denied all knowledge of either PC Splank Horology, or his alleged undercover pseudonym of Hotwire Treehugger. The fact that several lorryloads of documents had been shredded as soon as the news broke was, as the chief constable said, ‘Just one of those things.’

Meanwhile, it can now be exclusively revealed that Hotwire Treehugger is now living with a female rabbit and their kits in a hole just off the ley-line formerly known as the M6.

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More or Less

I don’t know.

There was a time back long ago when I thought I did know. I looked out on the world, out there, and I thought I understood it. I thought it made sense to me. I knew – at least, enough to get by – how the world worked. I understood, as much as anyone can, why people did what they did.

More or less… of course.

None of us really knows enough about the world, or about other people. But – somehow – we get by. That’s what I knew: enough to get by and that’s what I did – I just got by.

I had no great theory of the world, or the people in it. I just thought it more or less made sense, and the people – more or less – did sensible things. Although, any glance at the Evening News programme will bring some doubt about the latter.

Mostly though, even those people on the News in faraway places – more or less – lived lives like mine. They got up, went to work, looked after who they needed to look after and tried to do the right thing. Most of them did, anyway. They seemed just as bewildered to be on the News because of some catastrophe or cock-up as I would if I were in their place.

Then, though, she – Jeanette - came into my life. Then everything changed and things no longer made sense. I wasn’t even sure if those people I saw each day were human, not any more.

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I Hold in My Hand a Piece of Paper

This is, of course, the question we all must ask of ourselves as we stand here on the cusp of the brink of the edge of a new world. Or, at least it would be, if we hadn't – temporarily – mislaid the piece of paper with that question written on it.

However, I do have a few other pieces of paper I've gathered over the last few... well, looking at some of them: many, many... er... years.

So, ladies and gentlemen of the world's press gathered here to bear witness to these momentous events on the world's stage. You will no doubt be aware of how hard all the world's leaders, politicians, statesmen and stateswomen gathered at this summit have worked to bring about this... this.... Well, whatever it is we have done at this moment of crisis in the world's history.

Ah!

So, if you are as hungry as I am, and don't quite trust the banquets put on by our generous hosts, I have here on this historic piece of paper in my hand the phone number of an excellent takeaway. They do deliver, but only in a five mile radius of central West Bromwich. So I think we can put that particular piece of paper to one side and move on to announce that....

Ah, if you are looking for a good time then Lusty Trudy of Glamorga... er, probably not. If my wife is watching this press conference, as I'm sure everyone in the world is, then can I make absolutely clear that piece of paper was not mine. It was, in fact, handed to me by a member of the Danish delegation.

Right, moving on.... Ladies and gentlemen of the press, do any of you need a taxi in Glasgow?

No?

Right.

Can I just say that the government of Great Britain will stand resolute and firm in its commitments. I pledge to you all here and now, that we will – in the fullness of time get half a pound of carrots, a small wholemeal loaf, a box of tea bags and a tin of chicken or fish flavoured cat food. At least, as soon as time and resources allow.

Ladies and gentlemen of the world's press, I thank you for your time.

There will be no questions.

Thank you and good night.

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

Monsters of the UK

As monsters go, it was not that impressive. However, it could give you a nasty nip on the ankle. Unless, of course, you wore rather thick socks, which was something that the residents of the area did with increasing regularity as the word of the monster spread.

It was not long, though, before the national media heard about the phenomenon. However, they decided that it was not quite enough for them to leave the London Metropolitan area for, despite the possibility of travel expenses and a chance to see what the rest of the country looked like.

The media decided to wait until the Annoying Little Bugger of Cleethorpes actually killed someone, or – what could be worse – one of their rivals attempted to get an exclusive deal with a suitably traumatised victim of the Annoying Little Bugger.

Exobologists were more than keen to get a glimpse of the fabled creature, even though it wasn’t as fearsome as some wished. ‘Still,’ as one camera-festooned amateur exobologist said, ‘…a nip on the ankle can be quite sore, sometimes.’

Eventually, when a victim managed to get a camera-worthy wound as well as some shaky out-of-focus smartphone footage of an actual attack, the popular press grabbed their chequebooks and rushed off to investigate.

However, several years of staff cutbacks and time spent mostly in the office recycling press releases meant there were few reporters with the necessary skills to investigate such an elusive phenomenon.

The police too were hampered by health and safety legislation and Police Federation rules that forbid any police officer to do anything more dangerous than fill in a diversity-awareness form without specially-trained backup. As there were no officers trained in dealing with irritating miniature monsters, there was nothing they could do.

And so the attacks carry on, despite a local philanthropist offering a reward of nearly five whole pounds for the capture of the beast.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

The Old Order Changeth

HullKingston Pysse-Basetard who died last week at the age of 103 was the last of the once-noble Pysse-Basetard family who came across from Normandy with William the Bastard in 1066. Motorcade Pysse-Basetard was Duke William’s most trusted courtier. He was usually charged with carrying the Duke’s shopping list. He also had the honour of being one of the two loyal noblemen charged with standing either side of their Duke whenever he used a public urinal.

The Duke of Normandy commended Motorcade Pysse-Basetard for his loyal and brave service at the battle of Hastings. The Duke also praised him for not running away or soiling his chain mail at first sight of the Anglo-Saxon beards facing them on Senlac Hill. Consequently, William the Conqueror awarded the Pysse-Basetard family, in perpetuity, a wide swathe of what is now Shropshire.

However, it is his conflicts with English rebels, resisting the Norman invasion that Pysse-Basetard is best remembered, especially the now infamous Battle of Tesco car park, just outside the now-historic town of Ludlow. It was there that Pysse-Basetard ended any hope of the English removing the Norman conquerors. The battle is still commemorated each year by a local re-enactment society. They stage a recreation of the famous last stand at the checkouts by Edward Hugebeard and his followers as they fought to the last man against overwhelming Norman odds. Heavily outnumbered, the Normans forced the English to forgo several two for the price of one offers as the English warriors were unable reach the special offer shelves through the massed ranks of Norman men-at-arms.

Therefore they had no choice but to flee the aisle leaving behind their battle shopping trolleys. Some of which contained the vital supplies of ale that fuelled the Saxon fighter, without this essential beer the English army had no choice but to give up and flee the battlefield.

Although, they lost many men that day a few survivors did manage to return home, some in time for Match of the Day. Thus, the survivors turned what could have been a massive disaster into a tale that could be told to the credulous for many a year to come, or at least until the next war with the Scottish was due.

 

Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

An Issue of Great Social Import

Obviously, she blamed modern society in general and the media in particular for the crisis she discovered, if not invented, and put herself forward as the person able to rectify this problem no-one else had noticed or concerned themselves with.

What she did not acknowledge, lest it damage her chances of gaining substantial amounts of research funding as well as the academically crucial publications and conference invites, is that the media follows its audience, it does not lead them.

So her claim that there is a substantial existential crisis about the nature of British Cheese was more or less ignored. Although her thesis was later greeted with incredulous headlines in that selfsame media she condemned as creating the crisis one slow news day sometimes later. However, once that particular news cycle ended, so did her moment in the limelight without anyone else really noticing.

Surprised at the sudden loss of media attention she rationalised it as a conspiracy by the media barons to cover up their personal involvement in what she saw as the great cheese scandal. After all, Rupert Murdoch himself was once photographed eating some cheese at a reception he hosted for the government of the day. Obviously, she claimed, it must be a conspiracy – why else would the media baron hold the party and why else would politicians attend an event offering free food and drink and a chance to get closer to the media?

Consequently, it was not long before a bunch of ‘activists’ were at somewhat of a loose end since capitalism had – yet again - failed to collapse when they said it would. They decided that here was a cause equal to their campaigning talents, once she had explained the great conspiracy to them in simplistic enough language for them to fit on a placard.

And so the great campaigning organisation UnCrackered was born. This mass movement took to the streets with demonstrations of up to nearly two demonstrators at a time. The organisation bore witness to some of the most egregious forms of capitalistic exploitation of cheese and other dairy-based produce wherever and whenever they could (excluding signing-on days, of course). For these activists know that it is only through direct action in the face of the general population’s apathy that great social change comes about.

We others, who only stand and stare, must also be prepared to put ourselves on the line to support these activists whenever we can. We must bravely step forward to both Like their F-Arsebook posts and to ReTwat their Twatisms no matter what the personal cost to use, lest we one day wake up to life without cheese.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US)]

Something for the Weekend - Free Kindle Humour: Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

Yet more outpourings and ejaculations from Norbert Trouser-Quandary's notably upstanding organ, featuring more tales of the doings and goings-on in that most delightfully perverted of England’s rural villages: Little Frigging in the Wold.

This volume of tales from Little Frigging features the adventures of Grand Uncle Stagnant back in the summer of love where he hears about the concept of free love and – almost immediately – stops issuing invoices.

Other tales in this volume detail the history of the Hot Strumpets on Wheels service, the uses of high visibility fetish gear, Little Frigging in the Wold – the computer game, the appendage of a hands-free pole-vaulter, pancakes and perversions and the Great Fire of Little Frigging.

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love also contains many other intriguing events and happenings from the village and its environs, including the erotic use of the toolshed as well as pointers on the tactical subtleties of the Inter-Village Orgy match and much, much more.

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

Further collections of tales from Little Frigging in the Wold can be found in: Little Frigging in the Wold and Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape.

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

Some comments on David Hadley's writing:
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“funny stuff!”
“that was brilliant!”
“on the one hand I’m so glad I decided to read the rest of this collection (funniest thing I’ve read in a LONG time) but on the other hand I wish I hadn’t done it during dinner as I just sprayed barely masticated tomato all over my keyboard from laughing too hard”

Grand Uncle Stagnant and the Summer of Love

Available now here (UK) or here (US)

Government and Secret Service Conspiracy

Conspiracy theorists claim that new evidence is emerging that the British government and its secret services: MI5, MI6 and GCHQ all colluded together in a Top Secret operation back at the end of last year.

Various departments across the UK government had to appear to make substantial cuts in their budgets. It became apparent to those charged with oversight of the secret services that things could not go on as before in those services. As – almost – everyone knows the James Bond-esque myth of high living and dinner-jacketed casino trips with multibillionaire supervillains does not - at all – bear any resemblance the way the secret services actually operate. Their day-to-day business is more akin to endless surveillance from the disused flat above a rancid takeaway on a run down High Street. Still many politicians looking for media exposure on a select committee believed the secret services could make some substantial savings in their massive – but secret – budgets.

Therefore as a sop to the politicians and to discourage the media from finding out what they really spend the overtime budget on, the heads of the three services got to gather. They decided to see if they could give the illusion of making some economies.

In the end, there was only area they could see where they could make substantial savings. If the three secret services got together and organised – rather than three separate ones - a joint staff Christmas party. Even then, at that initial planning stage several voices were raised in opposition to the idea. Especially if any bad publicity resulted in the almost inevitable punch up in the car park between the field agents of MI5 and MI6, with the GCHQ operatives standing on the sidelines screaming at both sides to leave it.

However, as the planning became more involved, it became clear that because of the numbers involved, the only suitable place to hold the event would be on an actual brewery’s premises.

It was at this point the politicians involved themselves in organising the event. They set up several committees to oversee the arrangements, a white paper and a budget oversight committee and a substantial allocation of funds.

Inevitably, the result was utter chaos with the event going massively over budget and – in the end – costing twelve times as much as the original separate Christmas parties would have done.

After the failed cover-up which resulted in the media feeding-frenzy that followed the discovery of this colossal waste of public money, there was no alternative but to order a public inquiry.

Eventually, the public inquiry into the whole fiasco came to the only possible conclusion. That is that the UK government is incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery - a result that came as no real surprise to anyone.

Something for the Weekend - Free Kindle Humour: Choosing Headgear for Penguins

Choosing Headgear for Penguins

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

No doubt you have been wondering over the years about what is the most suitable hat for the various breeds of penguin: such as a deerstalker for the King penguins, or whether emperor penguins should wear a top hat.

Perhaps you have also wondered if Napoleon wore a basque under his uniform at the battle of Waterloo and the role that lingerie played in history.
Maybe you have long puzzled over the role of the Stilton cavalry in the English Cheese war.

Possibly you may have pondered who was The Greatest Prime Minister Great Britain Never Had, or who was The Fastest Jelly Baby Diversity Co-Ordinator In The West.

You could have even puzzled over The Fabled Lost Source of the Pork Scratching.
Choosing Headgear for Penguins is the book that answers all of these and many other questions you’ve never thought of asking as well as much, much more about such diverse topics as: Celebrity Extreme Gardening, Eroticism and the Intellectuals, People Staring At Walls, Raiders Of The Lost Car Park, The Latest Celebrity Sex Scandal, The UK’s Leading Adult Film Male Superstar and Weasel Defusing.

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

Some comments on David Hadley's humour pieces:

"Bloody Hilarious!"
"The hamsters of doom. Dammit, that's poetry. Well done"
"oh my god....I just about died laughing reading this...it's genius! Pure genius! Especially the bit about the fluffy particle...too funny."
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"I think I just broke all my vital organs laughing"

Available FREE for the next 5 days: here (UK) or here (US)

A Significant Modern Artist

It is not all that often we get to see the full glory of Pointillist Etching’s full oeuvre in a major UK exhibition. This exhibition is a rare opportunity to encounter his most famous work Sardines – an opened tin of sardines placed at a precise 32 degrees from true north on a plain white dinner plate. As one critic said at its first public display, ‘this work is so profound in its unashamed exploration and condemnation of the lies of the Western military-industrial complex and their shabby moral vacuity’. This piece has not been on public view since its sale to a private collector for $456 million, three years ago.

However, the work displays the obvious technical skill of an artist of Etching’s calibre, whose 12 assistants worked tirelessly through the night to create this work. His team used a protractor and a laser – to make sure the sardine tin was at precisely the right angle to make his political point. The power of the political argument expressed through the work becomes so obvious to the discerning viewer, making the tickets to the exhibition a real bargain at only £1500 each.

Crime of the Century

It was one of those cases that baffle the police force and force them to hold informal discussions in front of the coffee machine. Not only that a maverick female officer – who some thought promoted beyond her abilities in the name of political correctness – had to confront a junior officer in the male toilets. She also had to act in direct contravention of her superior’s orders to make an arrest of what turned out to be the least-likely suspect.

Anyway, after one of the longest stake-outs in UK police history the squad were able to track down the perpetrator. As one police officer said, ‘We had to sit there for hours in front of Twitter, just waiting for someone to say something even slightly disparaging. Someone did call the leader of the Opposition a gormless twat at some point. But the CPS said we would never get a conviction on something as factually accurate as that.’

In the end, though, police formally charged a middle-aged woman from Manchester with calling someone from Huddersfield a ‘soft southern poof’ with malice aforethought in a Facebook encounter over the relative merits of Coronation Street versus Eastenders. The Manchester woman was sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison for the heinous offence of ‘Having an On-Line Strop’. An offence under legislation brought in by the current government in a frantic attempt to appear relevant and to address the grievances of the easily-offended.

However, this attempt to court popular opinion has made absolutely no difference to the government’s poll ratings. In fact, it caused a massive drop in the already negative approval rating of the government when the UK population discovered it is now illegal to call the government ‘a bunch of useless incompetent wankers.’

The Dating Game

Well, as you know, people do not often utilise these items in such a fashion. At least, they do not on a first date and not in a small room with the curtains drawn whilst a choir sings a medley of late 1970s disco hits.

At least, not around these parts.

However, use of the egg-whisk on first dates, if only as a conversation piece, is a growing phenomenon. One the traditional media, in their increasing desperate bid to stay relevant, has latched onto in the hope of creating a lucrative moral panic. Consequently, there have been many lurid ‘investigative’ stories in the tabloids about so-called ‘egg-whisk parties. Events where – the tabloids claim – several teenagers of both sexes gather in small becurtained rooms, after having a whip-round to hire the choir, of course, and frankly display their own egg-whisks, often to members of the opposite sex.

There have also been stories in some of the more easily excitable tabloids about the shock and horror of children as young as 11 engaging in these practices. The tabloids claim that sometimes youngsters send explicit egg-whisk wielding pictures to one another on their mobile phones and social network sites. Contacted by these tabloids, the social media websites such as ArseBook, Twatchat, kNeeTremblr and Uninterest have all claimed they remove any overly-explicit pictures of egg-whisks whenever they come across them.

Of course, this has enabled those politicians who like to get on the media as often as they can – in the forlorn home that the public will take any interest in them – to set up campaigns to ban these activities. The campaigners hope to make egg-whisks only available to consenting adults in strictly licensed ‘Kitchen Clubs’. They claim these strictly licensed clubs will ensure the whisks are only used in to prepare egg-based recipes and not for what one MP called ‘ulterior purposes.’

Most ordinary people though expect the whole thing to blow over in a few weeks. Something soon forgotten alongside all the other shock and horrors on the media’s growing list of moral panics that were long over before they ever really began.

Handbag Space

For a long time now physicists have been perturbed by the missing dark matter which is supposed to make up a large percentage of the matter in the universe. The main problem being that – up until now – no-one could find any trace of this matter anywhere in the universe.

However, thanks to a recent discovery this may all have now changed.

As physicist Perturbation Electronvolt explains:

As a colleague was about to perform an experiment, she realised she was a bit short of a couple of fundamental particles. I told her not to worry as I had a few quarks in my handbag – left over from a university physics department New Year party.

It was then, when I began to root about in the bottom of my handbag that I realised just where all the dark matter of the universe was.

Not only that, I found a bag of mint imperials I hadn’t seen for almost three years. Some of them were a bit fluffy, but they were still edible.

As other physicists around the world repeated her experiment it became clear that Electronvolt had indeed stumbled on the solution to the mystery of dark matter and where it all is, as well as helping reconcile Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity with the nature of mint imperials. This of course, has many ramifications for physics and reformulates our understanding of reality. As everyone knows, handbag space is more or less infinite, with every handbag capable of holding many times what its volume would lead us to believe. This is mainly due to the fact that each handbag is a portal to the many other dimensions – posited by string–theory – which make up our physical universe. We are not normally aware of these other dimensions, except when asked to retrieve an item from a woman’s handbag, where we discover the bag will contain almost everything, usually on top of the item we need.

Some physicists believe that once handbag space is better understood, it may be possible to explore the area further, and – finally - solve the riddle of dark matter once and for all.

That is if they can find a physicist brave enough to enter this strange new dimension.

Slight-Incline Theory

These days Toblerone Stoatrevolver is widely regarded as the instigator of what later become known as Slight-Incline Theory. Initially, it was a theory which went some way towards explaining almost nothing of any great interest. Yet it could be called upon by any journalist in desperate need of an article to fill the spaces between the adverts. The journalist could use it to pad out an article on anything from the mating habits of small woodland mammals right up to the mating habits of Hollywood celebrities. Not that – as was later discovered – there was all that much difference between the mating habits of both sets of creatures, as was originally assumed. Especially so when the Hollywood celebrities had a habit of creeping off into the undergrowth with each other at various inopportune times – much to the squirrels’ consternation.

Stoatrevolver's Slight-Incline Theory, like many other briefly fashionable pseudo-mathematical theories, was – in fact – not so much a theory more a way of getting media attention for a rather neglected university academic in an unfashionable area of study. Much as with other such theories which grab the attention of the media, Slight-Incline Theory was not so much famous for what it did explain, which was almost nothing. Its worth lay in what other newsworthy articles a journalist could shoe-horned it into. Mainly to give those aforesaid media pieces a thin veneer of academic respectability, even if – on further perusal that academic rigour was almost – or completely – non-existent. It is for this reason alone that Toblerone Stoatrevolver and his Slight-Incline Theory will be remembered, but only for a short while.

Social Media and Society

Yesterday, social media darling Cleverly Pointless called for a 24–hour boycott of the social media site TwatFace, claiming that some of the users of the site are not as totally in awe of her genius, good looks and amazing sexual technique as she thinks they should be. Pointless called for the boycott as she claims the people who follow (known as ArseKissers) her messages (known as Ramblings because each one must be a minimum of 2000 words long) on the site have not been as obsequiously fawning over her as much as she feels is her right.

As Pointless Rambled:

[…]Some people just don’t seem to realise just what a modern media genius I am. After all, I have already published several books about me and my wonderful lifestyle and amazing sexual technique, which absolutely everyone should be completely jealous of. Yet, only 2000 of my regular ArseKissers have Repoked my recent Ramblings. I’m beginning to think that none of them deserve to be on the same Internet as me. Therefore, I have no choice but to stop Rambling for 24 hours to make them see the error of their ways.[….]

Asked to comment the creator of TwatFace, Scratch Buggerberk said:

These people just don’t seem to understand that I created TwatFace just to enable us all to fling abuse at random strangers. I first came up with the idea for TwatFace when driving my car and I was cut-up by a knob-end at a roundabout. After all, we all stand at the supermarket checkout or in the Post Office queue muttering under our breath at the idiocies of other customers and the uselessness of the staff. And we all make comments to our friends and families about the dress-sense of random strangers on the street. Also, we all love to shout at the twats on the telly, don’t we? So I created TwatFace to enable people to fling those insults out at the world in general, and all those self-important attention-whores in particular.

However, many social media celebrities such as Cleverly Pointless are taking part in the 24 hour boycott of TwatFace, demanding that there be special exemption from abuse rules for those who regard themselves as somehow above the mere proles. However, they also demand that they - the social media celebrities – must still be free to disparage the hoi-polloi as and when they see column-inches in jumping aboard the latest media-invented moral panic bandwagon.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Of course, there are times when it seems the whole world is arrayed against us. Such times when the very car park of possibility seems as o'er brimmed as a summer afternoon's rain gauge, but still we soldier on, mainly because there is bugger all else to do. The world is against us, we ought to know that because there is no way of winning, we will run out before time does and - even in the unlikely event that the world ends before we do, we'll still be buggered because we need the world more than it needs us.

Still, there is no need to be disheartened – well, there is, but we won't go into that – as this world is stuff full of so many splendid things, up to and including some rather wonderful cheeses and the possibility of getting our hands on a halfway decent pint. Add to that the slim chance that there may even – in the not too distant future – something almost worth watching on the telly, then the world begins to look not all that bad and life almost worth living – at least compared to the alternative.

Not only that, we should also bear in mind that there is a good chance that one day very soon a politician is going to do something so unbelievably stupid that it will be enough to keep the entire population amused for weeks into the future until that politician is - eventually – forced to resign. Then we can all wake up the next morning with the knowledge that – at least for now – there is one less of the bastards screwing it all up for the rest of us.

A Tabloid Exclusive

Hacknslash Paperclip was one of those rare tabloid journalists who became a familiar face and ever-popular by-line to his loyal readership. In his heyday there was – it seemed - not a single celebrity scandal that he was not involved in, in some way. The familiar Paperclip by-line, it seemed, was almost a part of every celebrity malfeasance expose as the obligatory awkward malefactor and family posed reconciliation and printed abject apology for that moment of weakness that would have continued for several more years if not for the intrepid journalistic skills of the great Hacknslash Paperclip.

Paperclip had no interest in the philosophy or theory of journalism and treated the academicisation of his trade as little more than a poor joke. By way of example: Not once, he once said in an interview, had he ever stopped to wonder why, in his heyday, his huge readership (massive even by tabloid standards) should be even in the slightest bit be interested in the shenanigans of the rich and famous, or even have any interest the rich or famous as a species. He just knew that every week his audience all wanted to read – or at least look at the pictures – of someone in the public eye falling from grace, the greater the fall or more spectacular the tumble the better.

Once asked how he managed to get so many exclusives, Paperclip said that he simply assumed that no-one could resist temptation (as his own seven marriages seemed to avow) and that everyone in the public eye, no matter how clean cut, straight-laced or simple and straightforward their public image, would one day succumb to temptation and on that day, he Hacknslash Paperclip would be the one lurking behind the rosebushes, or hidden in the wardrobe, to catch that fall from grace for the exclusive smug schadenfreude of his readers.

The Overwhelming Alien Horde

It came out of the sky... no, hang on. Actually, the Postman delivered it. But, most of us were at least reasonably sure that, if it had not been for the rather reasonable postal charges, then it would indeed have come out of the sky.

Of course, in the past, alien invasions have not quite been this straightforward, often becoming quite fraught as the overwhelming alien horde easily overcame all the massed armies that the Earth could put up against them.

However, since the recent economic downturn has resulted in a large decrease in both the Space Exploration and the Armed Services budgets of most Earth nations, this latest alien invasion was contracted out to the postal services of the Earth's leading nations, rather than going through all that fuss with the lasers and explosions. Not only that, as the aliens are interested in taking over the Earth as a going concern, in order to use it as a sort of planetary wildlife and amusement park. A place where alien species from every galaxy can come to gawp at the wonderfully primitive and authentically-backward human race as it attempts to understand even the most basic concepts of science and technology. Consequently, the alien invaders were rather keen not to engage in the usual wanton destruction of the Earth’s capital cities.

Although, in order to assuage the initial hostility of the world's populace, they have promised to execute – in several inventive and very painful ways – the majority of the Earth's leaders and politicians – so, at least, we have that to look forward to as we welcome our new alien overlords.