Spreading the gospel according to Tunnocks of Uddingston,Scotland; creators of the finest confection/biscuit known to mankind.
Currently kebabless, rootless and temporarily boozeless.
Burglars should be met with extreme prejudice; we're not talking withheld offers of cups of tea here, we're talking electrocution in bath tubs after partial immersion. That'd learn them, and a good swallow of Radox bath salts after the event would be the least they deserve.
Mice have been troubling me recently, but not as much as the bastard presumptuous youthful piss off merchant Pine Marten who has taken up residence in my office. How the fucker is getting in has had me tapping walls like Basil Fawlty with an inadvertent erection.
This relative of the weasel has been crapping over my towels, nibbling the complimentary minuscule guest soaps, and having his way with the UHT milk cartons and demerera sugar sachets. If he was a Red Squirrel there is a chance that I could be dissuaded from divesting him of his nuts but in this instance I have no alternative but to send in the cat.
Having just devoured a large slice of chocolate cake topped with a goodly portion of butter icing my thoughts have inevitably turned to the Protestant Reformation. As I see it the problem with being Proddie these days is that there isn't much protesting going on. Back in the 'good old days' a bit of Catholic burning would have passed the time, but these days even Catholic baiting is frowned upon so that particular diversion is not an option.
These days the schism in Western Christendom is really only a question of the acceptability of contraception, or more particularly the use of latex prophylactics. Even this issue is a bit of a limp member as I don't think that many Priests are haranguing their parishioners about rubber Johnnies at Mass.
Had one enquired of a heavily tattooed Loyalist in a Shankill Road drinking den during the 1970's what his difficulty was with the Irish Catholic Church a lengthy monologue on Black Mambos, French ticklers, and strawberry flavoured condoms would have ensued. These a days a shrug would be the more likely response.
Secularism has killed off this important debate, and I for one think it's about time it was revived.
The Black Watch will shortly be off to Helmland Province in Afghanistan. It's probably appropriate that a regiment that was formed to prevent the Scottish Highland Clans from causing mayhem should be dispatched to wrestle with a bunch of tribal nutcases whose ingrained code of hospitality exists alongside a homicidal rage against the outsider. The code of the Pashtun has many resemblances to the code of conduct observed by the Highland Clans for centuries.
Before long we will hear the skirl of the pipes as a flag draped coffin is led up the gravel path to the doors of a Kirk. It won't be first time; it's a ritual that echoes down the centuries. War is shite, but it's what the Black Watch do.
I can't claim to be a hair shirt individual, but there are sufficient residual vestiges of Calvinism in my genes to ensure that I cannot splurge or waste without feeling annoying pangs of guilt. I cannot leave food uneaten on my plate (being instructed to think of the starving millions while at Primary School saw to that), I do not get drunk and dance jigs at the crossroads at midnight, and I do not have a sheaf of maxed out credit cards in my wallet.
Apparently we're all supposed to be spending our way out of recession, although how acquiring even more debt in order to dig ourselves out of our debt induced hole is supposed to do the trick escapes me. Still, who am I argue with the big brains at the Bank of England. I have decided to do my bit and shall be spending more on the following:
1) Big fuck off 21 day agedsirloin steaks. These are very tasty but very expensive. I'll be providing much needed relief for the beleaguered Scottish beef farmer and expect at least an OBE for my efforts.
2) Jaguars. My current gas gussler is starting to display the symptoms of old age in failed alternators and squeaky suspension bushings. The old dear will have to be put out to pasture and a newer and swisher temptress purchased.
3) Malt whisky. No more ghastly blends shall be imbibed. Only the fruit of the single malt, aged for at least ten years, shall be permitted to pass my lips.
I'm prepared to selflessly do my bit. I just hope that other people are prepared to make similar sacrifices and prevent a repeat of the 1930's.
Idling my afternoon away sitting in my car at a popular local beauty spot I was surprised to see two young ladies emerge from their vehicle and assemble their packed lunches on a picnic table. This would be an occurrence unworthy of note had not the temperature been -5C.
Al fresco lunches in sub zero temperatures have never appealed to me. The absence of annoying bastard wasps does not compensate for frost bitten fingers. Still, each to their own I suppose. If people want to indulge in bizarre Polar lunches in the depths of the Scottish winter that is their right and I would defend to the death their right to do so (well, up to a point).
The ladies were obviously lesbians as they both had close cropped hair (one brunette, the other peroxide) and an interesting variety of facial piercings. They also drove a bona fide lesbian car; a small nondescript hatchback of either French or Japanese origin.
These lesbians are tough cookies. In fact, they may be at the apex of human evolution. Risking hypothermia by scorning hats and not being pansy enough to wear gloves just goes to prove they are a superior example of Homo Sapien and are destined to rule the earth.
They didn't even throw their crusts to the seagulls, which proves that they have the mental toughness to take the ruthless decisions necessary to get our economy back on an even keel. Were I in power I would appoint them to run the banks. They mightn't be very keen to grant overdrafts, but at least they wouldn't run up huge taxpayer funded lunch expenses when a ham roll and a can of Sprite in the car park would do.
A strange woman came up to me today and asked (rather aggressively) "what does the W H in W H Smith stand for?". I was somewhat nonplussed by this and could only think to reply "dunno, but it used to be called John Menzies".
Odd people are constantly apprehending me in the street for no reason whatsoever. I seem to attract oddballs and borderline pychopaths like flypaper. I'd like to put this down to my magnetic personality, but I suspect that it may be because I look like a soft touch who will willingly listen to monologues about psychiatric wards, methadone, and multiple suicide attempts.
Unfortunately I don't hold the same allure for drop dead gorgeous women. I regard this as grossly unfair, and have decided to start looking mean and shifty. Gorgeous women always go for bastards and it should dissuade the mentally ill from tugging at my coat tails.
If anybody can suggest other surefire methods of keeping the mentalists at bay I'm all ears. They won't leave me alone.
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.
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.
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'.
Complete gobshite, drug muppet, and talentless bass guitar plucker Sid Vicious is apparentlyinnocent 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.
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.
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 ofsnack 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.
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.
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.
I always find the desultory interregnum between Christmas and New year a useful time to contemplate why I hate most green vegetables with a passion greater than Morrisey's penchant for gladioli, or Pamela Anderson's passion for proving that short arse Canuck birds like stuffing spacehoppers up their jumpers.
Asparagus would do, if it wasn't mostly twig. A string bean would be tolerable, if it didn't leave a stray string rotting between my top left molars. I wouldn't say no to a broad bean if it got a bit Mexican and started quaffing tequila and getting a bit stroppy.
No, broad beans aren't for me.
Nor are carrots, which may be orange but are the most pointless vegetable known to humanity.
Anyhoo, here's the Undertones, proving that Derryboys who love their spuds are vastly superior to short arse Dublin pontifcaters like Bono.
....and garfer is half cut. Feeling slightly less misanthropic than usual I wish all my deluded nincompoops a very happy Christmas. I hope nobody gets food poisoning from a dodgy prawn.
May the plums in your pudding prosper. In fact, if you're a male nincompoop, may your plums prosper full stop.
* There's always one sweet in the box with a precariously balanced almond on top. One bite and half the almond falls off and rolls under the sofa.
* Everybody hates mince pies, yet everybody feels an inexplicable urge to force them on everybody else.
* People eat After Eight mints and put the empty wrappers back in the box. These people need shooting.
* Big Issue sellers make you feel mildly guilty.
* The Queen.
* Untangling Christmas tree lights. This activity invariably involves high volume cursing and swearing. Personally I'd rather wrestle an octopus.
* Indigestion.
* Squidgy presents. These are usually provided by skinflint relatives who think that a hand knitted jumper with baggy sleeves or a pair of socks are a fair swap for being providing with copious amounts of free food and booze.
* People who think a game of 'Twister' is the perfect way to occupy Christmas Day afternoon.
* Party hats. I have no desire to look a complete twat, whatever the occasion.
I am hotelling it at the moment, the expense of which I am defraying by Christmas shopping for items of an inconsequential and paltry nature for my nearest and dearest.
I like the anonymity provided by chain hotels, the sense of living in an enclosed bubble oblivious to workaday concerns. I am firmly convinced that should anything apocalyptic happen I will still be able to phone reception and demand that fresh towels and an extra pillow are dispatched to my room instantly.
It's not quite as good as the Manhattan hotel room where the charming Latino house maid was sensitive to my every need (and then some), but it's still acceptable.
Time is seeping through my pores, and regular meal times and the guilt of sleeping in are a distant memory.
My animus has been thwarted yet again. Admittedly I'm not on the verge of destitution, or even fearful of the unlikely prospect of mild deprivation, but I am irked, annoyed, and of a mind to detach a leg from one of my occasional tables and insert it forcefully up the nearest bankers rectum.
Assets apparently have no value, and consequently cannot be lent against. This is a worry, as if nothing is worth fuck all we are all comprehensively fucked.
Fucking fuckity muppets the lot of them, the shower of useless bastards.
For some reason blind people keep bumping into me and poking me with their sticks. Rude isn't the word.
Snow
Constantly forecasted and all we get is freezing rain.
Small Towns
There's always some knob head student claiming that it's great to be back and moaning about seeing the same old faces.
Asparagus
Over rated and stringy.
Jaguars
Used to be cool as fuck but got bloated and sold out to the Injuns.
Banks
Employ the mindless morons that narrowly avoided getting a kicking at school. I'm planning to go blind just so that I can poke mine with a pointy stick (or a taser).
I loathe spending money on other people, preferring (quite sensibly) to fortify my self worth with utilitarian purchases of a wholly justifiable nature that benefit me. I scoff at the crass materialism and wasteful consumerism that has so benighted our shallow and valueless Western cultures.
I laugh at the pallor and anxiety of recession etched faces as they stare at the 50 inch plasma TV's that should rightfully be theirs but have been capriciously snatched from them by the harsh Gods of plastic. I sneer at the wee wifeys loading up on economy concentration camp turkeys at Asda.
If only more people had been sensible about spending money they didn't have this country wouldn't be evaporating like the bubbles in my jacuzzi.
Actually, speaking of jacuzzis, I've decided to launch a special Christmas appeal in aid of myself. I want the new model with complimentary Thai bathing belles and streaming cocktails. It's not too much to ask, and I expect everybody to contribute generously.
My French teacher was fresh out of Teacher Training College and exemplified the curvaceous big bosomed come-hitherness that is every 15 year old boys ideal of feminine perfection. It was no bloody wonder none of us could manage French pronunciation, being incapable of saying anything other than a mumbled "dunno Miss" in her pneumatic presence.
I speak very, very poor French as a result of this educational handicap. This doesn't bother me unduly as I can't see much point in being able to speak fluent Froggy. It's not as though they still rule Indochina. If they did I could swan around Hanoi in a crumpled cream linen suit and seduce oriental beauties with my Baudelaire recitations. These days the Viet birds are more likely to invite me to partake in some 'boom boom' in one of their brothels, which isn't very glamorous at all and indicative of the verbal felicity which the Americans left in their bomb strewn wake.
I'm quite satisfied not to be able to speak French as the French clearly have no intention of learning to speak English. Each to their own I say.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a German Harley Davidson riding dentist called Dietmar. Dietmar is efficient, in a brusquely Prussian manner, and does not interrupt his drilling and filling with pointless small talk.
Unfortunately Dietmar is rather out of sorts at the moment as he has acquired a drink driving conviction and is unable to live out his Easy Rider fantasies on his Harley. I have commiserated with him, and berated the idiocies of the British drink driving laws which prevent harmless Germans trundling around on their motorcycles. As such, I am one of Dietmar's favourite patients.
I recently had a prehistoric filling fall out, and having been somewhat tardy in having the matter attended to was unsure of the tooth's future. I asked Dietmar if the tooth could be saved. He replied that "I cannot save ze tooth permanently, but I can apply a temporary filling". Apparently this temporary filling should be good for five years or so, after which it will fall out and can be replaced with another temporary filling. "So it's not really temporary then?", I asked. "No", he said, "it is not temporary, but neither is it permanent".
Being firmly convinced that decent drains and proper toilets are the hallmark of all civilized societies I tend more towards armchair travel than the real variety. Other cultures and cuisines are all very well and good, but there is little alluring about fly encircled toilet rims.
Having said that, I do like to dream about exotic destinations and the attractions they offer. I was reading up on Shanghai the other day and was pleased to note that one hotel claimed that all guests were sure to have a 'drastically good time'. I haven't had many drastically good times, so I'm sure it would prove to be an invigorating holiday.
The British economy is definitely going round the U bend, so I think we should all go out and have a drastically good time.
"I dont need a a toilet roll, I wait until I get to work and have a dump there"
That's when I knew I had to sort myself out. I was 27 years old and still renting rooms in manky houses with malignant failed but still aspirant male careerists. It wasn't that bad a house really; the ever so posh landlady and her husband were just across the street and were clearly early adopters on the road to 'buy-to let' Nirvana.
I think it was because the rest of the residents were accountants and solicitors, Next suited Friday night kebab scoffers who had planned out their lives in accordance with the two thirds final salary scheme that would be theirs by right if they ticked all the right boxes and licked the appropriate arses.
No food other than condiments and dried pulses and pasta were kept in the kitchen. Any fool who left anything instantly edible would find it gone the next morning. It was the antithesis of communal living, where anything left unattended would be instantly snaffled and crowed over.
It was really the toilet rolls that got to me. You had to carry yours to the crapper, and make sure you left with it. I'm not sure if it was Thatcherism or Maoism, but it scarred me for life.
Cor Blimey am I glad to be shot of that mentalist Yankee bint Madge. The loony cow wouldn't let me have me bangers 'n' mash wiv mushy peas coz she said they wozn't marcobotic or somefink. Couldn't even get a shag coz she spent most of 'er time in an oxygen tent or was off giving it the charitable thing in some stinkin' 'ole in Africar.
Ectually, I'm rather pleased that my ill advised marriage to that lower class gel from Michigan is over. Mater and Pater weren't happy with the union at the time, claiming (quite correctly) that blue blood shouldn't mingle with lower class Eyetie blood. She didn't even know what a fish knife was for!
I don't need her money because I'm Guy Rich Richie. You just can't buy class.
The Grauniad has a very useful section in its Saturday magazine where metrosexual Londoners suggest that we all move to some provincial hell hole where the air is cleaner, a blow job behind the gas works costs a fiver, and there are several local state schools in which your offspring will learn how to do sums and write in short poorly punctuated sentences.
Last weeks Shangri La was Lancaster. I haven't been to Lancaster, and although I'm sure it's very nice I have absolutely no desire to visit the place let alone live there. One of the locals opined that: "Lancaster has a healthy arts scene, lesbian community, cycling fraternity and is a stronghold of the Green party. It's full of artists and musicians, with Freehold its Latin Quarter!
I suppose it would be mildly diverting watching sandal wearing lesbo cycling groups pedalling about telling people off for using plastic carrier bags, but the novelty would probably wear off pretty quickly. Whenever anyone tells you that a town has a thriving arts scene this invariably means that the rest of the place resembles a post apocalyptic wasteland and is patrolled by squads of inebriated morons in search of arty types to kick the shit out of.
Being a sensitive soul I'm sure that Lancaster isn't the place for me. Perhaps I should try somewhere safer like Moss Side, or Toxteth.
Walking around in the park Should feel better than work: The lake, the sunshine, The grass to lie on,
Blurred playground noises Beyond black-stockinged nurses - Not a bad place to be. Yet it doesn't suit me.
Being one of the men You meet of an afternoon: Palsied old step-takers, Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters,
Waxed-fleshed out-patients Still vague from accidents, And characters in long coats Deep in the litter-baskets -
All dodging the toad work By being stupid or weak. Think of being them! Hearing the hours chime,
Watching the bread delivered, The sun by clouds covered, The children going home; Think of being them,
Turning over their failures By some bed of lobelias, Nowhere to go but indoors, Nor friends but empty chairs -
No, give me my in-tray, My loaf-haired secretary, My shall-I-keep-the-call-in-Sir: What else can I answer,
When the lights come on at four At the end of another year? Give me your arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetery Road.
Work is a vastly overrated activity, an unpleasant obligation rendered necessary by the need to earn money. Some people make the fatal error of imbuing their chosen 'career' with life defining qualities before promptly dropping dead on a golf course when they retire. Capitalism, with its inevitable recessions, only makes matters worse by causing much existential angst when work evaporates. Not only is the sense of self worth punctured by the loss of a job, the ensuing financial agony means that you can't even afford to be miserable in comfort.
The only solution to this hideous con trick that I can see is either to make enough money never to have to rely on a salary again, or quit the whole sordid business and live on the range of benefits which so many of the terminally bone idle seem to get by on so happily.
Personally I would be quite content to be a jet setting flaneur with a healthy private income. I'm not so keen on the idea of existing on frozen Iceland pizzas and litre bottles of cheap potent cider, but even that beats the prospect of sitting in an office with people I hate for eight hours a day.
Perhaps I need counselling to reanimate the Protestant work ethic which was briefly mine for ten minutes in 1996. I really could do with some motivational tips as I'm seriously toying with the idea of squandering everything on having a very nice time for the next five years and letting the long term future go hang.
Barack bleedin' Obama. Every newspaper I open has a six page spread on the big eared wunderkind and his impossibly photogenic family. Apprently he's a Frankenstein liberal cobbled together from the best bits of every successful US president from Lincoln to JFK.
OK, so he's black; but not too black. Personally I'm more impressed that the Americans are astute enough to have elected a gangly dude with big sticky out ears. Lincoln's shell likes were quite striking, and Lyndon Johnson's aural appendages virtually swept along the carpet. One wrote the Gettysburg address and the other introduced the 'Great Society'.
Apparently we're all due to start sneezing blood and drowning in our own lung fluid any day now. I'm quite excited by this as I've always fancied strolling down the street ringing my bell and shouting 'bring out yer dead'.
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Given thatflu pandemics usually effect city dwellers I should be safe if I decide to live in a cave and subsist on tinned sardines and cider. I may have to use my tin opener to fend off any thieving vagrants attempting to steal my stash, but you have to be tough if you want to survive.
Perhaps It'll be like The Day of the Triffids and I'll be able to hole up in a nice old farm house with some other hardy survivors. We'll drink vintage claret and listen avidly to short wave radio. A shotgun or two will come in handy, and thankfully that's just the sort of thing you tend to find in old farm houses.
Surviving appeals as there would be no excuse for not eating all the tinned and processed foods that I could lay my hands on. Booze is particularly rich in nutrients, so all cellars and sideboards would have to be thoroughly searched.
It would all be more Marx Brothers than Mad Max, and it it would certainly be more fun than worrying about the size of my overdraft.
I an vamoosing, pissing off to greener pastures, dancing the light fandango as I prepare to step fearlessly into the wilds of untamed Cumbria. With little more than a knapsack, a gnarled walking stick, and a bar of Kendal mint cake I will subsist on the bounty provided by mother nature. I shall drink deep of her pendulous udder as I sleep 'neath the stars and a gentle breeze ruffles my tent.
The truth, I am afraid, is rather more prosaic.
A comfortable warm cottage and lots of eating and drinking are a more realistic and desirable prospect. I shall take a few short untiring strolls, as long as there aren't any steep slopes and it isn't raining (which it will be).
I'm hoping thatJulia Bradbury will be about, doing her hiking thing. Being ,as always, the perfect gentleman I shall offer to massage her weary limbs..
I get a bit fed up with the current obsession with wholesome organic foodstuffs. Personally I'm not prepared to pay more for a carrot that has been doused in rose water and gently massaged by an oriental lady before being gently eased from the earth. It won't taste any different from a normal carrot, and I'm sure it won't be any more good for me.
If you ask me our life expectancy has been vastly increased due to the range of chemically enhanced foodstuffs which were ingested during the 1970's and 1980's. Each of us should be grateful for the role that the likes of Vesta Beef Curry and Findus Crispy Pancakes played in boosting our juvenile immune systems.
Unfortunately, due to unfathomable corporate shenanigans, the recipe for the great Cremola Foam has gone AWOL. I used to like the stuff: not that I can remember much about it apart from the Liver Salts explosive fizz that used to erupt when it came in contact with water. All I do know is that it obviously didn't contain any natural ingredients whatsoever, and was consequently a very good thing indeed.
I think I last espied a tin lurking at the back of my grandmothers larder in 1977, or thereabouts. If I recall correctly it had a faded label and a fine encrustation around the lid.
I don't think Cremola Foam was universally popular, being more common in Scotland and Northern Ireland than England, but it certainly left an indelible mark on those who ingested it. If anyone is lucky enough to find a tin behind the jam jar of assorted screws in their garden shed they are respectfully requested to send it to HM Govt Biological and Chemical Warfare Dept, Porton Down, England.
Johnny Frenchman has been having a moan aboutAgincourt again. Apparently the dastardly Eeeengleeesh were no better than war criminals, executing the flower of French knighthood when they really should have offered them prunes and custard.
It's a tough old life being a Frenchie. Let's face it, it's hard when you're rubbish at war and elect big noses and stack heeled dwarves as President. I say saucisson to them.
I hate the British Labour Party with a passion. I hated the donkey jacket (middle class poseurs) clad university lefties who polluted 80's Student Unions, spouting bollocks while quaffing subsidised beer and demanding that the bar be renamed to honour Nelson Mandela. I hated the oleaginous Blair and his spurious Everyman posturings as he informed us that 'things can only get better'.
The one thing the Labour Party can be guaranteed to do is ensure that the working class remains working class. A combination of crap schools, debilitating welfare benefit culture, and a bloated public sector dependent on taxpayer largesse see to that.
Unfortunately no one likes to admit to voting Conservative, as this means you are irredeemably evil and a lick spittle for the vile capitalist overlords. If you live on the Celtic fringe you won't dare admit to voting Conservative, as this makes you a lover of the evil Thatcher (destroyer of clapped out loss making shipyards and steelworks) and could result in a severe kicking.
My real problem with the current crop of Labourites is that they haven't done an honest days work in their lives, progressing from Sociology Degrees to lecturing at glorified Polytechnics or managing Cultural Diversity Outreach Policy for local councils. Ask them what a balance sheet is and they'll think you're referring to trampolining.
Of course the Liberal Democrats (what a stupid name for a political party) are just as bad,if not worse, in this respect. As for the Tories, they appear to have been captured by a coterie of Eton and Oxbridge slimeballs who are of independent means and are clearly only interested in politics for the sake of power and self glorification.
I really think that I should be dictator. I wouldn't be a very good dictator as I don't much like telling people what to do, but at least I wouldn't make it compulsory for people to carry around a fucking card to prove who they are.
Some people have phobias; I'm cool with that, but some people are so foaming at the mouth phobic about inconsequentials that they really should be bound, gagged, and chucked in the nearest canal.
This is the time of year when Mr Mousey Mouse likes to come in and play. He is annoying, I'll grant you; what with his incontinence and penchant for chewing everything to shreds. They don't bother me much, mice; I just catch or poison the little buggers. As far as I'm concerned they're just an iritating fact of life like hangovers, or politicians.
Unfortunately I had another guest from hell last week who subjected me to a tirade of abuse because a mouse had got into her house. She seemed to think that it is a policy of mine to let vermin infested houses to Joe Public. How does she expect me to stop intrepid rodents from gaining ingress? Perhaps I should erect machine gun towers and lace the boundaries with anti personnel mines.
She reported me to the Environmental Health, who laughed and marked her complaint down as 'unsubstantiated'.
I'm not sure if I prefer Schopenhauer or the great E L Wisty. It's a toss up between Wisty's ruminations on the evils of macism and old Schopes musings onromanticlove. I'd quite like to have them both round to dinner as it would be a great privilege to witness the dialectical sparks fly as these two great minds tussled over the nature of philosophical truth.
I don't know a great deal about philosophy, but I would have made a good Epicurean as I'm fond of my grub.
I'm staring at my shelves of CDs and thinking: shall I copy this cornucopia of musical wonderfulness to my hard drive? No, I won't, because I never listen to 99% of it and I probably never will. I could put it on shuffle on my iPod I suppose, but that would be random just for the sake of it pointlessness.
I'm sure that there's lots of exciting music about, there always is. It's just that I'm increasingly of the opinion that it happens in clubs with audiences of less than one hundred people. The air will be humid with sweat, the wooden floor will resonate the bass up your spinal column, you will leave uplifted and profoundly deaf. It won't sound the same recorded. It'll sound even worse when you're standing in a large field waving a flag with 50,000 other mongs.
I've decided not to listen to any more contemporary music. From now on it's the collected works of the really rather lovelyBilly Chldish for me. It should take until at least 2020 to get through them all.
My paternal grand parents were farmers. I'm quite proud about this as it gives me roots in a bucolic world where TB riddled milk was sold to shoeless urchins in industrial conurbations. They didn't stick to milk, the auld folks; they were mixed farmers which meant there were honking pigs, gormless sheep, and irritating chickens pecking about industriously and completely pointlessly. They also had lots of cats, which were good for kicking if you were at a loose end.
My father had a head fit in his early forties and decided that he would inhale the family vapours and forgo his progress in academe for the delights of shovelling out vast steaming mires of cow shit in the depths of winter. Back to the simple life: lugging about bales of hay to pleasure bovine morons, acquiring an unhealthy obsession with the weather forecast, becoming decidedly masturbatory when presented with a Massey Ferguson tractor.
Happy days. Well, he lasted a year before reverting to type.
Farming is only tolerable if you are Hugh Fearnley Whittginstall (Huge Fairly Windscreen Wiper) and are an Eton and Oxbridge educated toff with a large trust fund, contacts in the meedja, and difficult hair.
I once almost missed school dinner at Primary School; an older ruffian relieving of me my last ball-bearing during a crunch game of marbles and grinning as I was left bereft and inconsolable.
Thankfully a couple of older kids recognised my distress and led me to the dinner hall. I'd lost my ticket, but the dinner ladies still let me in. Everyone else had eaten and left so that was my first solo dining experience. The service was a bit amateurish, but I got the full three courses and cheered up immediately.
Who needs ball-bearings anyway? It's not as though we're all cut out to be Andrew Carnegie.
Some chairs are made for looking at, some are made for sitting in. I hate to paraphrase the late John Lennon, that arrogant deeply damaged individual, but he was right.
Narrowness: a simple seam of pure gold that has been mined and remined in search of the last elusive nugget. Seasick Steve is odd, it's almost as though he's been invented for some X Factor demographic of males who exist in permanent obeisance to Robert Johnson. It's almost too simple, too rudimentary to be valid.
But it works.
The girl in the mauve top isn't so sure. In fact, she looks positively censorious.
Why do people put prawns in fish pie? They go all rubbery and 'orrible.
Why do bankers assume they know more about people's business's than the owners do when they don't even know sweet FA about their own?
What is the point of Canada?
Why are MTV Europe proposing to honour Rick 'Ghastly' Astley? Surely it can't have anything to do with his dancing? He always looked like he was stumbling around in callipers to me.
Why do people like Bruce Springsteen? He's a calliper dancer as well, and you can't be a blue collar man of the people when you're loaded.
Why has Madonna started wearing big pants? Dead frightening.
I have just purchased a notebook computer from one of the undead. I don't make a habit of buying stuff from pasty faced vampires, but after a good 30 minutes spent flailing my arms and pleading for assistance from various acned bum fluff upper lipped 'sales' assistants I couldn't be choosy about who to grace with my plastic.
Computer salesmen aren't really up on the finer points of the customer/provider nexus, probably because they spent their formative years masturbating over grainy images of Pamela Anderson on low res monitors. Either that or they were too engrossed in endless online role play gaming sessions to master the intricacies of real world interaction with flesh and blood people.
Mr Moonface the Vampire obviously hadn't had a sniff of vitamin D in the last decade or so. To look unhealthier he would have to have been brought up in a cellar and fed on pork scratchings and Irn Bru. I suspect that he must have been, judging from the wide range of facial and bodily tics that he displayed.
I'm beginning to think that PC World must recruit their staff from the pool of ex mortuary attendants who have been dismissed for displaying necrophiliac tendencies. Perhaps next time I visit I'll dole out some fake tanning cream, just to drop a subtle hint.
Tess Durbeyfield was a cracking bird, make no mistake. Down in Dorset things got a bit depressing, what with bastard children, drunken yokel fathers, and pursed lipped church goers giving her the old heave ho.
Life's tough in RobertHardyland. I haven't been there, but the brochure looks nice.
They've done one of those'which is the stupidest accent in the British Isles' surveys again. They seem to have one every five minutes or so, and always conclude that people from Birmingham sound like gormless thickos. If I was from Birmingham I'd take umbrage. It's as though they hold the surveys on a regular basis to remind the Brummies that they sound like retarded morons, just so they don't start to get ideas above their station.
Personally I don't mind The Brummie accent, it's just an inoffensive droning monotone. A strong Belfast accent (once memorably described as 'like listening to a Glaswegian being strangled') is much harsher on the ear. As for Liverpudlians, they go in for a stream of conciousness gibberish which is comprehensible only to other Liverpudlians.
If you want to hear a really stupid accent you have to go to Devon, where centuries of inbreeding have not only produced a population of one eyed eunuchs but resulted in a sheep shagging yokel accent that definitively puts the hay in seed.
The Brummies should hold their heads high, they mightn't be popular as call centre recruits, but at least their speech is comprehensible. It's just a pity that they sound depressed all time. They really should hold a survey to find if suicides in Birmingham exceed the national average.
Perhaps I'll join the Samaritans and try to stop the Brummies from killing themselves. I should be able to talk them round, If I can stop myself guffawing at their accent.
Sat quietly minding my own business (contemplating impending bankruptcy, nekkid Uma Thurman - that kind of thing) in my favourite Chinese restaurant I was somewhat perturbed when a large party of baseball cap wearing Americans burst through the doors.
They were definitely from hicksville; possibly Iowa, or North Dakota, but more probably Boise Idaho. There was much settling of bubble perms and rearrangement of baseball caps as they sat down to contemplate the menu. One of them exclaimed: "Gee, I can't believe we're about to eat Chinese in Scaaatland!.
I dare say it was a culturally enriching experience for them. Seeing the Loch Ness monster won't even come close when it comes to funding their store of after dinner anecdotes back home in Boise.
I imagine that lots of people are having a quiet chortle at the vicissitudes currently being suffered by the masters of the universe as their financial fairyland dissolves. The word hubris springs to mind, and it's hard to muster much sympathy for the arrogant spendthrifts of Wall Street and the City of London.
Unfortunately it's the little people who will suffer most: the secretaries, the menial clerks, the man who sorts the post. It's worth sparing them a thought when observing the Merrill Lynch 'stampeding herd' careering into a brick wall as a consequence of greed and stupidity. The big brains have proved to be a useless bunch of shysters.
Putting your money under the mattress has never been a good idea, but in current circumstances it may be the only method of ensuring a good nights sleep.
Cash is definitely king. I'd sleep on mine, if I had any.
The elderly huddle outside, cradling cigarettes in their gnarled hands as the rain sweeps under the awning. Inside the atmosphere has been drained, the winking and trilling fruit machine a forlorn paean to conviviality. Instead of a tobacco fug the air is redolent with efflatus and neat cleaning fluid.
The perfect public house has never existed: Orwell'sThe Moon Under Water was fictional, and even if it had existed would only have appealed to reactionary old men wearing tweed jackets with leather elbow patches. Everyone probably has their own ideal; ranging from bright modernist 'spaces' where elaborate cocktails are shaken by antipodean barmen to troglodyte taverns with booths suited to louche conspiracies.
Each to their own.
Apparently pubs are closing in record numbers, caught in the pincer movement of the smoking ban and alcohol taxes. I'm convinced that the smoking ban is the principal cause, removing the pub smell that obliterated the malodorous vapours emanating from the regulars. My nostrils can achieve a similar workout standing in a bus shelter, so why pay huge sums of money for beer at a hostelry?
Stuff is bad for us, so the legislators must legislate against stuff. Sometimes I think they're trying to force us into a clean white prison where mortality is illegal. Drop some Prozac and do your aerobics dear; you'll be healthier, fitter, happier, and you may get to live a bit longer on your meagre pension.
In Scotland they are planning to ban the display of cigarettes in newsagents. Under the counter items are illicit, and hence desirable. This should see sales soar.
MyBosun Higgs has been rather fractious of late. He is convinced that if we do not change course soon we will either be capsized by sea monsters or fall off the edge of the earth.
He's always been a suspicious sort, dispensing home spun wisdom and old wives tales when in his cups. I am constantly amazed by his rum fuelled loquacity, though I have to say that I am less than happy with his unhealthy interest in my cabin boy, Master Bates.Seaman Staines has informed me that on more than one occasion he has had reason to suspect that Bosun Higgs is more fond of sodomy than rum and the lash.
The bounder may well find himself at the sharp end of my cat o' nine tails, or peering at a sharks grin from the end of the plank. Standards at sea must be maintained, and I will have no hesitation in making an example of one errant crewman in order to ensure the maintenance of a happy ship.
This really should be digitally encoded, strapped to a satellite, and blasted off to the farthest corners of the universe. There it will be swallowed by a black hole and disgorged for the enjoyment of bemusedCadbury's Smash eating aliens.
I was most gratified to learn that after over 300 years of inexplicable obduracy the North American Colonials have finally had the good sense to choose a polite, well spoken, and erudite Englishman as a candidate for high political office.
I'm not sure about that John McCain. I've always been suspicious of men with square heads, and there's definitely a hint of the oblong about McCain's cranium. He looks like a suitable candidate fortrepanning to me.
Michael Palin will make a perfect VP, restraining McCain's bellicose instincts with his self deprecating wit and debonair gentleman's distaste for ostentatious displays of military vulgarity.
Michael's influence will ensure that tea drinking is declared compulsory. He will also make daily 'God Save the Queen' sing-a-longs obligatory, and insist that any American who fails to realise that the word 'jaguar' has three syllables is encased in a straitjacket and confined to a mental institution for life.
Some semblance of sanity appears to returning in America. I just hope it lasts.
* This post is a bit wordy forMJ, so I suggest that instead of struggling to read it she feast her gaze on the penis/log displayed below. I know that she likes this sort of thing.
Apparently Canucks like to pig out on macaroni cheese. This is a strong point in their favour, but one completely counter weighed by their inexplicable liking for the ghastlypoutine.
I can't bring myself to post a photo of this foul foodstuff, and I definitely won't be emigrating any time soon.
My Great Aunt Maggie almost married a man who was "deciding how to spend my money!": but she didn't. This was a sensible decision, a fine display of rationality that had unfortunate repercussions for both herself and my uncles.
It wasn't that big a house, but it was Georgian: nicely proportioned; with a brook, and bells for the servants. Time had settled there, and the accretions of generations expanding their demesne had leant the place a reassuring solidity: clocks ticked, cornices crumbled, the anti antimacassars had less and less call for laundering.
Maggie ended up in an annex, what one would today call a granny flat. She didn't yell and flail, she carried herself magnificently even when stooped.
It was after theGreat War, and most women couldn't afford to be choosy. Maggie was, and I salute her for it. She had a look about her, which my childish self saw as malevolent witchcraft.
Pigs are intelligent creatures, I've always felt guilty about eating them. Dogs are retards in comparison; you won't find your average porker licking it's balls, or chasing the postman's van in a gormless fashion. We don't eat Fido, although by rights we should.
I wish I could desist from eating pork. Very tasty it is, but I can't help but feel a bit of a cannibal as I tuck into a nice juicy chop. I have no doubt that were I to detach an infants limb with a chainsaw and roast it with some shallots the resultant meal would be as redolent with porcine unctuousness as Mr Piggy.
It's no surprise that Pacific island cannibals used to refer to Johnny sailorman as'longpig' as they simmered him with some fragrant herbs in a big pot. Being a white fellah they probably thought he was an exotic variety of pig anyway, so you can't really blame them.
Perhaps the war on obesity could be won by forcibly detaching beer bellies and roasting them slowly with honey and star anise. Fat tasty grub would be guaranteed for all and there would be fewer wobbly folk ambling about.
I was interested to learn that Russian tycoon Roman Abramovitch recently spent $86.3 million on aFrancis Bacon triptych. Of course that sum of money is a measly amount to Roman, who accumulates football clubs, trophy wives, and super yachts as mere baubles to display on the mantelpiece of his inflated ego.
I wonder what it is about Bacon that attracted Roman. Was it the nihilism? Was it the anguished depictions of the human form as little more than hunks of convoluted meat? Was it the despair at the futility of the human condition? Personally I doubt that it was any of these. When it comes to art I imagine that Roman would much prefer a tableaux of swaddled babushkas cavorting in the Russian snows executed in lurid acrylics.
I doubt that it was even seen as an investment; why invest in genius when commodities dug from the earth might provide a better return? Abramovitch is typical of the new rich: an uneducated, uncultured money grubber with about as much aesthetic vision as a myopic moose. Roman buys a Bacon because he can afford to. He hangs it as he imagines that he can bask in the glow of genius, a man of substance disporting his good taste.
I wouldn't want a Bacon; it's not just that there was more than a whiff of the devil about the man, it's also the horror that he depicts. His vision may have been an appropriate response to the violence and brutality of the twentieth century, but as much as I admire his visceral and startling images I certainly wouldn't want one hanging on my wall.
Call me an ignoramus if you like, but I'd much prefer this:
