The Pits and the Pendulous

Side partings have always been a bad idea; hair should be swept back, knotted into dreadlocks, left to its own devices to moulder slowly in its own oils before recovering to its natural state, or shaved to a mouse breath tonsure that would render your average Jesuit all a tremble.




I've always respected the Plymouth Brethren because the menfolk had sufficient sense to chastise their womenfolk for failing to conceal their crowning glories beneath old tea towels.




As far as I'm concerned Utopia will only exist when skinheads rule, Bryan Ferry's flick fringe is available to all aspirant males who dislike skins, and all females start wearing cloche hats.




Come on girls, you know it's the right thing to do. Be gamine for Garfer, there are teacakes to be had.

The Gnomes of Zurich

Ths Swiss are famous for having lots of money, most of it acquired by making extortionately priced watches which are less accurate than a cheapo Jap quartz, chocolate, and hiding the ill gotten gains of Third World kleptocrats in their bank vaults.

I went skiing there once, and have no recollections other than being astounded by the cost of veal scnitzel and the number of beardy Hassidic Jews wandering around Zurich airport looking prosperous.

The Great and the Good are encamped at Davos at the moment, no doubt gorging themselves on canapes and attempting to feel up the Heidi lookalike chambermaids. There aren't as many bankers there this year as they are no longer regarded as great and good. So low have they fallen that they are regarded in a similar light to this feller:


Davros has not been invited to Davos either.

I imagine that the cost of this hot air jamboree would be enough to provide clean drinking water for a few million Africans, but I suppose I can't be too churlish. There's always the slim possibility that a large meteorite may strike and rid us of the shower of egotistical freeloading bastards for good.

One can but hope.

Burnsed Out

This being the eve of maudlin half cut Robert Burns celebrations I am minded to celebrate the warmth of the man and applaud the common humanity that he celebrated. Having said that, I find it rather difficult to square his cuddly image with the drunken womaniser and Excise Man who briefly considered becoming an overseer on a Jamaican slave estate before deciding to follow his muse.

Oor Rabbie shagged about a bit, and his verbal felicity can still be detected in some of his Ayrshire descendants:



A man's a man for a' that

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by -
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that!
Our toils obscure, an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey an' a' that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that,
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord',
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that?
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that,
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that,
The man o' independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might -
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an' a' that,
The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an' a' that,
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man the world oe'r
Shall brithers be for a' that.

Robert Burns

Not exactly a Marxist analysis, but definitely pithy. To be honest I think he has more in common with Jerry Lee Lewis than Keats.



Burns would have whupped Keats in a fight, but he wouldn't have stood a chance against 'the Killer'.

Sidney Woz Innocent

Complete gobshite, drug muppet, and talentless bass guitar plucker Sid Vicious is apparently innocent of the murder of his repulsive peroxide blonde girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

Why there should still be speculation about this is beyond me. Given that they were both heroin addled numbskulls it is a matter of profound indifference to me whether Sid chibbed Nancy, Nancy stabbed herself, or a mystery man from the room upstairs performed the dirty deed.

As for any romance attached to the Chelsea Hotel, I think that died around about the time Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin checked out. A squalid overpriced freak and poseur magnet is unlikely to attract my custom.

As for Sid, the other Sex Pistols called him Vicious* because he wasn't strong enough to punch his way out of a paper bag. His legend lives on, if you're a complete numpty.


*Update

Some readers have suggested that he was named Vicious after John Lydon's pet hamster. Having researched the matter I am convinced that this was just one of Lydon's jolly japes and that my explanation is correct.

So there. Stuff that up yer jumpers etc.

Spot the Difference

Mandelson by name, meddlesome by nature.




Child Catcher.

The saintly haloed Blair must return from the Holy Land at once and save us from the machinations of the evil one.

Er....maybe he'd best stay there.

Evil Looking People

I don't want to meet ex Paratroop Regiment General Mike Jackson down a dark alley.




Definitely a hint of the Satanic about Fuld. Maybe not Old Nick, but definitely Old Dick.




Macca exploiter and all round bunny boiler mentalist Heather McCartney Mills. Mad as a brush and will beat you to death with her wooden leg.




Feck, girls, arse!


There's a lot of evil looking people about. So many that I'm beginning to wonder if it's safe to go outside at all. Maybe I'll just stay at home and polish my arsenal of illegally held hand guns and assault rifles.

And my gnome collection.

One just can't be too careful.

Pimp that snack!

I am pleased to report that the spirit of scientific endeavour lives. I'm not referring to superstring theory, the quest for nuclear fusion, or the glories revealed by the Hubblebubble telescope. Much more important research is being carried out in the field of snack pimping.

I feel that it's only a matter of time until a Nobel prize or three is awarded to these brave venturers at the outer reaches of experimental endeavour.



Worship the giant teacake puny earthlings!

Mudslides

Avalanches would be nice, if you had a tube of Deep Heat, a periscope, and a faithful St Bernard called Arnold hovering expectantly with a collar flask of Jamaican Rum.

That's a bit melodramatic.

I've been feeling old recently. Parts of my anatomy of which I have hitherto been unaware (and have no desire to know intimately) have startd to ache. I have no idea what they're yearning for; it's not as though I have strained them inadvertently by being athletic.

I beginning to think that cryogenic suspension is the only cure for my existential malaise.

Somebody wake me up when the Banks start lending again.

Spellchecker

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Or the obligatory You tube:



Guttered as the guterredest of guttersnipes, but still breathing.

Happy New Year.