Monthly Archives: March 2009

Unfunny for Money

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A woman tried to sell me a fireplace this morning. No she didn’t: she tried to give me a free fireplace. All I had to do was to have a new central heating system installed in my house. You’ve probably met her. She stands just a little way along from the 2 MENCAP chuggers, just before you get to the “Fitness First” leaflet girl and the Childline herberts. The streets are full of weird-looking people asking for your money.

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Would you give money to this man?

Remember when the walk to work was just a matter of negotiating the occasional RNLI flag-seller or the Salvation Army? No? Well you’re younger than me, then. The Sally Army started it all, and I guess they did have a kind of dignity about them. Back in the days of black-and-white an old girl from the Sally Army used to come into my grandad’s pub selling copies of The Warcry.
Brian would put down his darts and agree to buy one, on the condition she stood on a chair and sang a song, which she always did without argument (presumably Onward Christian Soldiers, or Bringing in the Sheaves).

She was then helped down off the chair, and left the pub bereft of one copy of her newspaper, but up to the tune of a couple of farthings. Certainly a better deal than she’d get nowadays. If she walked into my pub shouting “Warcry” she’d be greeted with a drunk chorus of “Geronimo !!!”. No sheaves would be brought, and certainly no rejoicing would have been had doing it.

So as I sit here in my bathtub full of Taka Dahl, resplendent in my Madonna T-shirt and Red Nose (yes, it’s that sodding time again) I want to make it clear to you all that I’m in no-way adverse to a bit of charity work. I give to the causes I like, when and how I like. Not in mid-pint, mid-pee or mid-grouch on the way to work, just cos some spotty git waves a clipboard at me on London Bridge. WHY AREN’T YOU AT SCHOOL ANYWAY ????

Talking of charity cases, is there any hope for the England Rugby XV this year? Probably not. Martin Johnson is looking more and more like the deckchair attendant on the Titanic, as his charges dive cauliflower-ears first over the side and into the icy waters of the sin-bin. Refs are handing out cards like Japenese reps at a sales conference?
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An England fan displays both
his displeasure and his goolies.

To take our mind off the inevitable victory of a French XV over an England XI, let’s all join hands and pray for an Italian win. That’d make up for everything—even the cricket.
Oh well, that’s my weekend plan anyway: In front of the rugby on the telly with a crate of beer, on a warm sofa and the fire at full blast (cos, you see, I already own one.)

Boo Joggers!

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Billy’s Desiderata by Billy Connolly

Tread gently on anyone who looks at you sideways.
Have lots of long lie-ins.
Wear sturdy socks, learn to grow out of medium underwear
and if you must lie about your age do it in the other direction:
tell people you’re 97 and they’ll think you look fucking great.

Try to catch a trout and experience the glorious feeling of letting it go
and seeing it swimming away.
Never eat food that comes in a bucket.
If you don’t know how to meditate at least try to spend some time every day just sitting.

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Boo joggers. Don’t work out, work in. Play the banjo.
Sleep with somebody you like. Eat plenty of liquorice allsorts.
Try to live in a place you like. Marry somebody you like.
Try to do a job you like.
Never turn down an opportunity to shout ‘fuck them all!’ at the top of your voice.

Avoid bigots of all descriptions.
Let your bed become to you what the Pole Star was to sailors of old… look forward to it.
Don’t wear tight underwear on aeroplanes.
Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares?
He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes.

Clean your teeth and keep the company of people who will tell you when there’s spinach on them.
Avoid people who know the answer.
Keep the company of people who are trying to understand the question.
Don’t pat animals with sneaky eyes.
If you haven’t heard a good rumour by 11am, start one.

Learn to feel sorry for music because,
although it is the international language, it has no swearwords;
if you don’t count Wagner which in my opinion is one long one and should be avoided at all cost.
If you write a book, be sure it has exactly 74 ‘fucks’ in it.
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Send Hieronymous Bosch prints to elderly relatives for Christmas.
Avoid giving LSD to guide dogs.
Don’t be talked into wearing a uniform. Salute nobody.
Campaign against blue smarties.

Above all, go to Glasgow at least once in your life
and have a roll and square sliced sausage and a cup of tea.
When you feel the tea coursing over your spice singed tongue,
you’ll know what I mean when I say ‘It’s good to be alive!’

Go on Yerself, Big Man

spitfire112

On Your Marks

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Budding London Olympians will get an early the chance to improve their speed out of the blocks thanks to Mayor Boris. He’s decided to cut up to 6 seconds off the time the “green man” phase of the capital’s pedestrian crossings.This brilliant scheme will, apparently, help get the traffic moving in the metropolis. And sod those on foot. According to the Evening Standard this could leave pedestrians up to 6 metres short of the kerb when the time comes for the cars to move off again. Perfect training for our sprinters as they’re gonna be at least that behind the rest of the field come 2010.

The gentle ‘ping’ signalling it’s safe to cross will be replaced by a male voice (rumoured to be that of completely-innocent TV favourite Michael Barrymore) shouting “GET A FUCKING MOVE ON”. Roller skates will be provided for the elderly or infirm. Wheelchair users will be encouraged to give lifts to others. If you’re blind, you’ll have to trade your labrador for a whippet.

I may be making some of this up, but the thing about the 6 seconds is true.

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Having Trouble Crossing That Road?
So it’s open season for those of us on foot. But what of our beloved cyclists? You know the ones— that lot who are apparently saving the planet. The smug bastard that stands, sweating, next to you in the office lift every morning. Wearing lycra. Pointing that thing at you. AT HIS AGE???? But even that wouldn’t matter if you hadn’t just nearly been run over on the way in by one of his kind who doesn’t think red traffic lights apply to cyclists. So why doesn’t Boris (yes, another cyclist) sort that lot out before this Tweets version of crossing the road comes in? I’m a mild mannered man but sometimes I’m actually driven to abusive language (most mornings outside London Bridge Station, around 8:50) as these helmets in helmets (usually couriers) plough through a crossing, narrowly missing me. They get very narky if you give em a quick nudge, you know?

The concept of cycling is, I suppose, a reasonable. It’s a clean, quiet and cheap way to get around. Nothing wrong there. But who among us hasn’t sat in a meeting room/pub/cell listening to one of them prattle on and on about thefumesandthe-fuckinignorantbusdriversandtheresnowheretostoreyourbikeonceyougetthereand-thetraindriverswontletabikeonduringrushhourandIrememberwhenyoucouldputthem-intheguardsvanandtaxidriversincyclelanesandihadapuncturecomingintoworkandhad-topushitallthewaytoevansonthecutand…… SHUT UP YOU DULL, DULL BASTARD. I DON’T CARE !!! Tell you what, mate, sell your bike, your “lid” (don’t get me started), your fingerless mittens, your little water-bottle and your “smog mask” (stop it). Use the money raised to by an Oyster Card and get a life.
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On second thoughts don’t. Run me over. Put me out of my misery.

This is Your Enemy

Mmmmmmmmmm….

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I love a cup of tea, don’t you? Strong and dark (like my men), it’s often the best drink of the day. The Empire was founded on it, fortunes were made out of it, and millions of loyal subjects all over the world, climb mountains and pick the leaves til their fingers bleed so I can enjoy my cuppa.

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I like ice tea too!

Working in an office full of Americans for so long, I was eyed by many with some suspicion. No half-caff, skinny latte for me. Assam, dash of milk. Shove your coffee. I also make noises when I take a long swig of it. “Ahhhhhhhhhh…” I go (as opposed to the “hunh” sound I’ve started to make when I get out of an armchair).

So just imagine my delight when I read of Tracy Davies of Jesmond, Newcastle. As her boyfriend, Mark Coghill explained in court:
“She let out a satisfaction sound, like if you have a cup of tea when you haven’t had one for a few days.
“A ‘mmmm’ sound.”
But was it a cup of tea that had led Ms Davies to let out such an exclamation of pleasure? Nope. She’d bitten off her boyfriend’s tongue while they were kissing. Apparently she had said to him “you never give me smoochy kisses any more”  (I wonder why). As the BBC reports: “They kissed and she bit down hard on his tongue, causing him to scream, and he tapped her on the head, hoping she would let go.”

spitfire122TAPPED HER ON THE HEAD!!!!! Yeah, I think the incumbent Mrs B. might get a little tap on the head if she did that to me. Only the slightest of taps, of course (though by the look of Ms Davies, she’s a bit bigger than I am).

So what was it, you may well ask, that drove this loving woman (subs please check) to such a violent act, and for her lover to make such a feeble defence of his organ? Before the clinch, they’d polished of a bottle off vodka. Each.

No further questions, your witness.

Are there any Women here today…?

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More proof, if any were needed, that Darwin was on to something. All hail Santino the chimp! A prime (or primate) example of a miserable old bastard. For our hero (pictured) sits in his enclosure at a zoo in Sweden and hurls stones at any visitors he takes a dislike to.(even if they DIDN’T say Jehovah). 175_0310_angry_chimp

What’s more, Santino (31yrs) wanders around collecting stones and stock-piling them to throw at future targets. He even shapes pieces of concrete into disc-shaped missiles. (I’ll have two flat ones and a packet of gravel).

Wouldn’t you just LOVE to sit in your front garden, preferably on an old set of steps, and luzz stones at passers by who didn’t come up-to-scratch? I’d be spoilt for choice for victims. That nosey cow around the corner, for one; Anyone over the age of 14 on a skateboard; The Betterware bloke. The Sunday morning Happy Clappers…oh this could go on for ever.

My only concern is that we may have Santino’s sex wrong. Stockpiling infers forward planning, and whoever heard of a bloke planning ahead past his next pint?

Want more Chimps? This is hilarious.

There’s a Rat in Mi Kitchen Cabinet

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There is now five times more litter in this country than in 1963. There are now more rats in the UK than people (Dwain Chambers, Peter Hain and Fred Goodwin count in each column). We’re also told that Britain now has a quarter of the world’s CCTV cameras—presumably to film the rats.

Those of us who don’t feel threatened by the cameras, nevertheless question their worth. Admittedly, they once successfully managed to follow a Brazilian backpacker from his flat to a tube station, but a fat lot of good that did him, poor sod. BUT, you can guarantee that the next time you’re in dire need of a lamp post on the way home, your urinary diversion will be captured on super-8 and be submitted as evidence against you when you’re hauled up in front of the Beak.

Surely if we spent a little less on cameras, and a little more on refuse collectors, we might create a less-threatening, Big Brother environment, get more people in work (I know, it’ll never catch on) and deprive ratty of a ready-meal.

Simples!

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I can’t help thinking that those who jump on the Green Lobby’s household waste-recycling bandwagon are unwittingly contributing to the problem: Most councils are reducing rubbish collection, especially from the green bins, to fortnightly collections, which gives our furry friends more time to sample the delights of last’s night’s chicken korma, or even last week’s nut roast.

Until Big Business stops pumping crap into the ozone, and producing mountains of waste the size of Wales (why is it always Wales?) we shouldn’t be guilt-tripped into helping save the planet. Lord Beaverbook did the same during the war: persuading the women of Britain to give up their pots n pans, their husbands to donate their car-tyres, and schools to dismantle their railings, all to make Spitfires and Lancasters to fight the Germans. The result? Absolutely bugger all. Not a single plane was made and no Germans slaughtered as a result (not even Edmund Blackadder’s famous “daschund with a slight limp”) But it felt like the little people were “doing their bit” for the war effort. Cobblers.

So here’s the thing: start off by forcing Fred The Shred to empty bins 3 times-a-week. No, scratch that. Dwain would do it much faster. Fred can drive the truck. I fear Peter Hain would be harder to catch. He’ll be off looking for another ship to desert with the rest of his rodenty rabble-rousers.

Now you see him…

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News reaches me of the death of Ali Bongo, aged 79. Bongo (real name William Wallace, strangely enough) will be remembered by Brits of a certain age as a magician who appeared regularly on kids TV during the ’70’s. I’m sure he was a genius, and an all-round good egg, but I can’t help remembering the sense of unease I felt when I saw him on the box.

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From a young age I quickly decided I didn’t like him. He certainly wasn’t very funny (whatever the quality of his tricks), but he certainly was very very creepy. Just looked like a dodgy uncle to me. Very unsettling. You know the type, faces that need a good slapping: Ross and Norris McWhirter; Robert Mugabe; Hazel Blears; The Chuckle Brothers etc.

Cricketer Geoff Boycott once asked a teammate “why does everyone take an instant dislike to me?”
“cos It saves time, Geoffrey” came the reply.
I thought once the IRA had done for Norris McWhirter that my discomfort would be halved at only watching one twin. Not a bit of it. There’s something even wierder about one twin, especially one identical twin. What’s he identical to, then? You keep trying to look behind him to see the other one. I married one once (a twin, that is, NOT a McWhirter). For legal reasons I can say there was nothing weird about her. NOR her enormous, rugby-playing brother. He was a particularly good bloke.
Sadly, like one of Ali Bongo’s magic acts, the marriage lasted about five minutes, went up in a puff of smoke, and it wasn’t very funny either.

See Ali in all his glory

Saturday Titfers

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Unknown Football ground photographed somewhere or other, circa dunno. Probably not the Valley.

Unknown Football ground photographed somewhere or other, circa dunno. Probably not the Valley.

In a quiet side street of the charming hamlet of Charlton, (as in ‘Charlton Athletic Nil’), South East London once stood a little pub called The Valley, named after the local football team’s home ground. A pretty unremarkable little boozer, which my brother and I used to go in for “just the one” at lunchtime on match days (we were supporters, you understand, not players. The players were in the boozer across the road).  It was suitably scruffy, unknown to traveling opposition supporters, and mercifully free of the formica and stainless steel decor favoured by the Slug and Pianos, the All Bar Funs and the Trout n Tillbox pub chains so popular with the roof of today.

But the feature of this pub which will stay with me forever was an old photograph on the wall. Or to be precise, a photo so large it stretched across two walls, floor-to-ceiling, in the main bar. It showed life as it was 60 years ago, a life sadly no longer with us. The photo at the top of this page , similar to the one in the pub,  will give you an idea of what I mean.

Pictured was the old, massive, main terrace at Charlton’s ground, presumably photographed just post-war. Several things struck you when you looked at the picture: That they used to sell-out home games; Some of the supporters were smiling; No-one was kicking seven shades out of anyone else; and everyone in the photo was male. But there was something else: of the nigh-on 20,000 people in the photo everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was wearing a hat. Be it a trilby, a flat cap, or whatever, EVERYONE wore a hat. Question: when the time came to throw your hat in the air in celebration of Charlton scoring a goal (quiet at the back!) how did you get your own hat back? It must have been carnage.

Charlton beating Liverpool 3-0 (yes, honestly). Not a dry hat in the house.

Charlton beating Liverpool 3-0 (yes, honestly) December 1959. The home goalie, Willie Duff, dives to clear some smudges from the photograph. Not a dry hat in the house.

I have a particularly big swede and I suspect I would have often walked home with someone else’s cap, 3 sizes too small perched, at a jaunty angle, on the top of my head, while some other poor little sod wore my one, having to walk four yards before the hat moved.

In 1953 Charlton beat Middlesbrough 8-1 which presumably meant that some of those present changed hats 8 times during the match. I wonder if after twenty minutes you ended up with a real corker of a titfer you just buggered off home and sod the result? Were you refused entry to the ground if you were hatless? What if your chapeau was a birthday present but the bloke standing 7 yards away caught it during the melee after a late equalizer? My mum would have gone Garrity if I returned home without it.

Sad I know, but it’s something that’s always bothered me.
The pub’s not there now. Demolished for yuppie flats, A Costa Coffee bar or somesuch. Gone the same way as epidemic hat-wearing, a thousand proper boozers around the country, and home goals at The Valley.

 

That Special Relationship

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Gordon Brown (texture like sun) will have plenty to watch when he finally gets the push, thanks to his trip to visit his new mate, President Obama. GB gives BO an ornamental pen holder and a First Edition, BO returns the favour with a DVD box-set of “Classic” American movies. Wowee!! Ever turned up to a party with a pallet of Stella and a case of poo, then the host shoves them under the stairs and hands you a warm can of Kestrel? Seems like the Special Relationship is going through a bad patch. That’ll teach Gordon to back Hillary for the Presidency. It was a fair call at the time. Downing Street hadn’t expected her to Devon Lock up the home straight. Oh well, let’s hope Brown enjoys X-Men. Cos I suspect he’s about to become one.
It just goes to show you how important relationships are. Brown obviously thinks so. My buttocks have yet to unclench themselves after having watched Gordon whore himself in front of the Senate this week.
Perhaps Gordon will have to chummy up to Europe instead. It shouldn’t be so hard. He and Angela Merkel seem to share the same blind tailor, and he and Sarkozy are both nervous, twitchy types. Gordon gets over it by biting his nails down to his elbows, Sarko by drinking his own body-weight in alcohol. There’s something quite appealing about the blossoming relationship between a fat, bumbling, British oaf and a rather classy, attractive, French pissoir-artiste.

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