Thursday, May 28, 2009

This Weeks Favourite Tory

Say what you like about David Cameron's Conservative Party, but them toffs certainly know how to flaunt their riches.

This week it's the turn of the absolutely LOADED MP for Bournemouth Lord John Butterfuck who has so much money he keeps SERVANTS!

Mind you, despite his vast fortune, he has seen fit to grab public money to house the indentured labour in a Servant's Wing at his palace.

AND HE ADMITS IT!

He's gone on record claiming:

"The mistake I made was that, in claiming interest [from the expenses allowance] on the home, I didn't separate from that the value of the servants' … er the staff … wing"

See, you know where you stand with the Tories, not like this New Labour hoi polloi.

Hoorah for Eton!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Mind The Gap: No Really!

In all my years in London, and for all the occasions I must have heard the ancient recording of "Mind The Gap" crackling it's way out of the tannoys of our underground trains, I have never witnessed anyone failing to notice the said gap, that "between the train and the platform".

That is until today.

I am unsure what the fall guy was playing at, but as he alighted from the rear carriage at Holborn, which is on a curve and therefore has probably the most noticable gap on the the network, he stopped looked back into the carriage whilst walking in the opposite direction.

Now normally when tourists look one way whilst walking the other—and I'm assuming that he was a tourist due to the stupidity factor displayed—they normally walk into other people and wonder why the obstacles didn't do more to avoid them.

This guy missed the people getting on the tube. In fact he missed everything. Before our eyes he did a vanishing act as he stepped into the void. Well not quite, his descent was arrested as his face slammed into the platform. He gripped the surface with his available arm, and we noticed that his other leg was now scaling the edge.

He walked away on comedy legs circa Buster Keaton, staggering like a music hall drunk.

It was quite a first.

Friday, May 22, 2009

My Favourite Tory

Oh what fun, just as Old Etonian Tory Leader David Cameron starts working overtime to show that he's in control of the party, and that it's not really a club for rich privileged snobs, and that the electorate should believe him, really, we're different, we're like you now; Conservative MP Anthony Steen gets caught claiming £87,729 of public money for a variety of services including the care of 500 trees at his Devon property!

When confronted for his abject greed accuses the public of jealousy because he has A VERY VERY LARGE HOUSE.

He also blames the Labour government for introducing the Freedom of Information act which enabled the great unwashed to find out what he was up to.

If you haven't heard it, check it out; it contains the priceless phrase:
"What right does the public have to interfere in my public life?"





Yes, the living embodiment of everything the Tories stand for.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Catholic Church Evades Responsibility

Just as parliament comes to terms with the fact that it can't live outside the law, just because that's always been the case until now, the Catholic Church sidesteps the moral imperative and undermines any pretence that it has any other purpose than to perpetuate misery upon it's community.

In Ireland, a commission report into abuse at schools run by the Church has basically reiterated the common knowledge that the Nuns and their psychotic Brethren have been brutal and sadistic without censure.

However, in this BBC bulletin, it is made clear that:

"The findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions - in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report."


That's right, in 2009 it's possible to be revealed to be a bunch of malicious child abusers and walk away with impunity.

I'm sorry that I don't believe there's a hell for these people.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

That's, Err, Lovely, Thanks?


My partner once employed a chef whose prime ambition was to escape the kitchen and to become a food photographer.

He enthused about just how difficult it was to photograph food well, and how much cheating went on to make a dish look succulent and delicious.

If you didn't cheat, then the food tended to look like shit, as the camera had a habit of lying.

This is a lesson awaiting the producer of Recipes for a working girl who, apart from the dubious nomenclature, really could try cheating at photography a little harder if she wants people to try the recipes.

The spinach dip (pictured) is all a little TOO redolent of the farmyard for my comfort.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Super Mario Finally Defeated

Velupillai Prabhakaran, the tormentor of Sri Lanka and unofficial representative of the beleaguered Tamils has perished.

Standing in front of that target could not have helped.

Downing Street HiFi Latest

There was a period of panic at No. 10 this morning, when current tenant Gordon Brown had a scare with his 1970s vintage Wharfedale W70s.

"I put on the Arctic Monkey's Favourite Worst Nightmare and heard a bad rattle in the mid-region. I actually thought I'd blown my 12" Woofer!" spoke a relieved Prime Minister.

"Fortunately, it only turned out to be the cone had worked itself loose!"

He continued to praise his vintage speakers;

"I've had them since college, and I've never had any trouble with them, Zeppelin, Black Flag, Leftfield, you name it!
However, I haven't really turned them up since Ed Balls and I had our Lee Perry all-nighter.
That was a great night; Mr Darling next door sent the police round. Well, I say SENT. He just came out in his pyjamas and told PC Plod on the doorstep to have words. Ballsy and me just pretended we weren't in; it was a right laugh! Anyway, it's always the skank stuff that does for the components, so I should have known better!"

It is understood that the sound system is now back in full working order, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling confirmed that he was unable to work this afternoon as his neighbour has obviously just borrowed Jack Straw's new N.W.A. box set.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Guardian: Unsung Hero

I've been carrying round a copy of the Guardian around with me for a few days, and have only just got round to reading about Heather Brooke who effectively did all the work on the Freedom of Information Act disclosures which confirmed that MPs are a bunch of venal liars.

I'm not shocked by the revelations, as I always assumed this to be the case.

This was confirmed by parliament's willingness to introduce the Freedom of Information Act, but adamantly strove to keep themselves exempt from it.

That they eventually failed to do so at least gives us hope in the democratic project.

The article linked is worth reading, and it's disappointing that Brooke's good work was scooped by a leak to the Daily Telegraph which denied her the credit for five years' hard work. It's also worth running with the speculation that parliament itself, or it's loyal civil service, leaked the data in order to deny Brooke the reward.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Captain James W Kirk?

Just seen Star Trek, you know, the post- 911 one where Kirk appears to be modeled on America's previous President.

You know; the stupid one.

I think I preferred the Star Fleet commander when he was a JFK manqué.

However, it's good rip-roaring fun anyway, although the allegory of America as a bunch of inexperienced amateurs muddling through with nothing other than self - belief is a little troubling, if that's how they now see themselves.

Anyway, I don't care if she IS a shoplifter; I'd still shag Spock's mum!

There, that's what passes for a film review in the blogosphere, if that still exists in the Twitter era.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Event Planners Do The Stupidest Things

Yes, this was a "conference" about sustainability in the supply chain.

Everyone got a vinyl souvenir party bag, full of unread landfill printed on coated gloss to ensure it's unrecyclability.

What is it about the environment that the Tory young don't get?

Actually, the conference was an interesting contrast of styles, between those that came into the field because of their personal commitment to the cause (fluid, confident and enthused), and those representing the corporations in the interests of commercial acceptance of the new eco-marketing directives; the individuals who had drawn the short straw and had to recite the company line from memory (hesitant, monotonous and unconvincing).

Beware those that reiterate that "these days, we all have to care about the environment!", like it's news.

They're the ones with the 4x4 parked on the paved-over garden who have recently written to the president of their golf club complaining about the lack of water on the greens.

Yes, we can tell.

Monday, May 11, 2009

At Last; The End.

In 1988, when I began working in Holborn, this premises was a gentlemen's outfitters which was having a closing down sale.


That closing down sale continued for over twenty years. I have no idea how long the closing down sale had been there before I arrived, but I suspect that it was the longest closing down sale in history.



It became a landmark. You'd say "walk past the closing sale store and take a left", confident that it rivaled the British Museum in it's steadfastness.

Prime Ministers came and went, political systems changed, Iraq got invaded twice in that time. There was no internet when the sale began.

Yet finally, I missed it's passing. I missed the point at which the closing down sale became a real closing down sale, and the day when someone wrote "Last Day Today" on the window (enlarge to view).

Was it written on the last day? I can't imagine that they could resist scribbling it well before the shutters came down for good, just for old time's sake.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Oh, Mr Brown; Really!

I'm listening to James Brown's "Down & Out in New York City", where the Godfather of Soul sings:

"Earn your dime boy, give me a shine boy"

What could it possibly mean?

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Tilting At Windmills in Mill Hill

I was the hapless recipient of a bizarre road rage incident earlier today.

On leaving the plumbers' merchant, I found my car hemmed in by another outside the newsagent. Aware that the other driver was probably only collecting the daily paper, I climbed in my car and sorted myself out, prepared to wait a minute for the other to move.

However, the passenger of the other car decided that it was probably best to begin signalling to the driver by sounding the horn.

The passenger sounded the horn rather a lot, so that when the driver, and aging jew with ridiculous classes, emerged from the newsagent, he assumed that I had done the honking. He stood before my car doing the cupped ear "did I hear something" gesture before shouting at me a waving his arms around. I pointed at his passenger, but this only exacerbated his rage which was epic.

He then felt compelled to act out the pantomime of taking an age to leave; slowly climbing into the car, sitting there a while, starting the car, sitting there a while, pulling forward a little bit, but not enough to allow me to leave, just to make the point. Then, before leaving, he pulled alongside, winding down his window and giving me a foul-mouthed tirade before driving off, bizarrely satisfied that he had won our row, no doubt in a heart-palpitating rage.

Pointless, and a lesson to us all of how not to live our lives.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

The Streets - He's behind you, he's got swine flu

Mike Skinner's timely ditty.

News Latest: 2 for 1

I'm unsure how Greggs the bakers feel about the juxtaposition of their fantastic offer with the arrival of an apparently malign medic.

Unless they're actually in on the act?

I'd give the fresh cream apple turnovers a wide berth, just in case.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

No Spitting on the Bus

I was sat in the quiet carriage on the train today, and on observing the signs and the little pictograms representing no mobiles; no music; no smoking, began to ponder when, in our continually cigarette-free world how much longer we will be posting "no smoking" signs, as our society seems to have grasped the notion of the public ban comprehensively.

I say this as someone who has lived long enough to recall my childhood travels upon the local buses which carried the warning "spitting prohibited - fine £5".

In fact, I believe that some buses carried this notice up until the mid - seventies, within gobbing distance of the phlegm strewn punk years.