Category Archives: London

Who Do You think You’re Kidding?

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Things are definitely changing around here, and some of them not for the best.

I took off this morning on another one of what my doctor, Mr Lansley, calls “life-extending promenades” this morning. I know he means well but I’m not sure Dr Lansley understands just how far “a half hour’s walk” is. Or, come to that, if he understands anything at all about my health. Anyway, the novelty of the yomp to the post office is wearing off already so today I decide to turn the other way into the village itself. This way is a little more interesting as I pass by or through all the hustle and bustle which country life can offer.

I therefore reach the top of the lane and turn left this time, past the school with its newly installed metal detector and courtesy black maria which the children seem to find very interesting indeed. I stand to watch several of them playing a game of Hopscotch (or HopCaledonian as they are told to call it nowadays) through and around the metal detector. I started to reminisce about my time at the school and all the lovely knife-free years I enjoyed there, before I am awakened from my daydream and shooed away by a man pointing a Taser and wearing a flak jacket in school colours. I am a mixture of embarrassed and annoyed, but in any case shuffle off in the direction of the newsagent’s and the football fields beyond.

I no longer use this newsagent. I spent years gleaning from it all the info about the outside world I could. It was a lovely sight. A lovely big sign outside reading “The Village News” above the window was flanked by smaller ones of a bygone day: The News Of the World, News Shopper and even Horse&Hound were all represented in enamel signs down the sides of the shop. Proudly and efficiently run by old Mr Turnbull and his younger wife Susanna, it was a constant source of news, gossip and entertainment.

Sadly, as in everything nowadays, the shop has had a makeover, renamed itself “T’News of T’Village” and is daubed with posters for the Yorkshire Post, Salford Sentinel, and Whippet Magazine. The shop window has been widened, the counter brought closer to the door, and there’s even a space in the background for customers to enjoy a cappuccino or a flat white, run by the serial liar Mrs Kirkwood. (Amazing they haven’t pensioned her off yet.) The company has brought in a whole new staff to help out old Bill. I went in there one Sunday afternoon and found Jack Duckworth and Seth Armstrong serving. I had not a clue what they were on about and left sharply, never to return.

Mr Turnbull takes to the streets to sell the riveting Tameside Express

For your information I now pop along to Mr Humphrys who runs the paper stand on the corner. He doesn’t carry any of the tabloids or the magazines, and is only interested in the broadsheets, but at least I can understand what he’s talking about. And he and his friend Mr Naughtie (“Naughty Naughtie”, my mum calls him) do have a laugh when one of them accidentally mispronounces Mr Jeremy Hunt‘s name.  The only alternative place to get my news from is Holmes’– the convenience store in the high street. But I fear that if the manager, Eamonn, doesn’t stop tucking into the pasties (“well, no-one else is buying them any more”) they’ll be no room for anyone to get into the shop to buy anything. Fat eejit, so ye are.

As I passed them, Old Bill had young Charlie helping him pile up sandbags outside the door of the shop. They looked very sad. Mrs Kirkwood had her sunglasses on, so I knew it was about to rain. I put up my brolly, upped the pace to a stroll and continued up the path.

The school football pitches lay silent, save for the rustling of Ginsters Dwarf packets being blown about in the goal netting, and old Mr Fry, the omnipresent caretaker re-marking out the lines with his trusty, squeaky wheely machine. I’m sure that’s not what it’s called and that Mr Fry would take the time to tell me, at length, what its real name is, but I intentionally don’t catch his eye. I’m getting bored of him telling me everything about everything. It seems like he’s everywhere I go. And he keeps asking me to follow him. It’s creepy, I reckon. Why he doesn’t find himself a nice wife I’ll never know.

A small boy is told that Mr Moon is unable to play at the village concert.

Much excitement was to be had, apparently, up at these pitches at the weekend as two of the immigrant boys did frightfully well in their respective soccer matches. Young Fernando scored three goals. IN ONE MATCH. Putting to bed the fear had by his new PE master, Signor Baldio, that the boy needed to be fitted with calipers to sort his legs and feet out.

Over on another pitch, little Adolf Suarez also scored three times, even though parents were assured at christmas that he was to be expelled for calling some of the other boys “Schwartzers”.  His coach, Mr Kenneth Gorbals (pronounced Goebbels), sadly now blind in both eyes, did offer something by way of excuse, but no-one understood him. And on Pitch 3 John the School Bully amazed everyone by staying on the pitch for the whole of the match, and without abusing or maiming anyone. He got rather excited when he scored a goal, but his dad rushed on to the field of play and administered some pills, which he’d secreted in a little baggie down his sock. After the match ‘Bully’ was seen talking to the nurse, Mrs Bridge who seemed to be backing in to him. A lot.

It’s sad to think that in a matter of weeks the pitches and the ancient trees that surround them will be dug up and tarmacked over for use as an Olympic car park. Oh well, we all have to do our bit, I suppose. What’s hundreds of years of history and a few old Oaks when compared to ensuring the success of a corporate carve-up sports tournament ?

The Terry family takes on the Suarezes in a friendly kick about on Sunday morning.

The school’s newly-appointed Temporary Chief Coach, Mr W.O.T. Wovers (Cantab) said that he was “wery happy with all the boys he’d seen in twaining” and that he was confident in their ability to do well in the tournament this summer “especially against fwance and the Ukwaine”.

On the far side of the football pitches I could see the SBS training in the village pond. Their activity was only hampered by having to steer their boats around the Astute-class nuclear submarine which the Royal Navy have parked, sorry moored in our pond, much to the annoyance of both the ducks and the local flasher.  Sadly, since the local ARP warden, Mr Johnson, announced that our village was a prime Al Qaeda target this summer, the whole place has been a hive of activity, with varying degrees of success and popularity.

The site for the gun emplacement – originally destined to be on top of the Conservative Club – has been moved (thank the Lord) and will stand proudly, perched on top of the ICU building at the local Hospital. Mr Johnson tells us that, not only will this deter the “Mad Raghead Mullahs” from bombing our NHS hospital, but it will ensure the general security and safety of all those waiting hours in corridors to be seen by the woefully short-handed staff”. I can certainly see that no right-minded burglar would want to break into the hospital now.

A crack team of nurses abandon their posts at the gun emplacement as they
remember they’ve left an elderly patient alone with young Dr Shipman

As I turned for home, I paused for a moment and removed my cap as a funeral cortege passed by. They were burying old Mrs Blears who died suddenly and horribly in a freak razor-wire accident. She was wrapping the aforementioned wire around her chimney in an effort to dissuade the Taliban from mounting an attack on her home, when she slipped and fell through the wire to the ground. Only the wire catching her across the neck and in her mop of lovely ginger hair saved her fall. Sadly she died from the injuries sustained. Had she been rescued in time she may have lived. Apparently she hung there for four weeks before anyone noticed she’d gone. One neighbour said “I’m so relieved she’s dead: I thought I’d gone deaf”. Another was quoted as saying “Let’s just remember what she did for us and for herself and enjoy the peace and silence now she’s gone”.

I buy my paper from Mr Humphry’s I see that they’ve decided to allow drug users to represent the village in the summer sports day. That’s good. It’ll give School Bully something to do in the closed season. I did see his dad and Mr Chambers having a good old chin-wag earlier (which is strange, given Mr Chambers’ colour), but I’m sure whatever was said could be easily taken out of context.

Ok, gotta go now. Have to buy one of Mr Coe’s lottery tickets for a place in the Air Raid shelter. S’funny, I always thought there’d be a place for all of us in the shelter when the time finally came, given all the taxes we’ve paid over the years and how long we’ve lived here. Not to mention that many of us had to move out of home to allow Mr Coe to build that big bunker of his. But apparently some seats have to be reserved for special friends of Mr Coe, and their friends and their families. Which is only right, I suppose.

Cry ‘God for Appy Arry, England, and Saint George!’

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Ah! April 23rd, Shakespeare’s Birthday and the day when all us English are supposed to celebrate the mighty knight, Saint George, slaying that nasty old dragon. Over the past few years there’s been a push (mainly by beer companies) for the English to get off their apathetic arses and celebrate their national day in the same, irritating manner that the Irish do for theirs on Paddy’s Day, the Jocks get out their lucky fivers on St Andy’s Day and the Yanks do on July 4th. And Christ, don’t we all get to hear about it.

You can sense the gradual crescendo of a slow, dull rumbling of a bandwagon every year with this year being earmarked as a particular one for celebration, it being both Olympic Year and the year of the Royal Jubilee .

Woo Hoo, as I’m told they say.

As I glance through the stained glass window of the potting shed, I can see on the barn opposite, two flags of St George hanging limply in the breeze, placed on poles by the local squire’s wife in a vain effort to rouse the rabble into another verse or two of Land of Hope & Glory or even Jerusalem. You’ll have read previous posts such as The Official Weedkiller of the England Football Team and taken on board my thoughts regarding our flag, so you can imagine how many I have hung out over the shed this morning.

However, each to his own, and I don’t need to go intruding on anyone’s merriment and celebrations, just because I have no interest in them at all. Yes I think the country would be a better place without the monarchy, but not to the extent I want to start burning down The Reichstag…. sorry, I mean Buckingham Palace. If people want to celebrate them, let them do so. I have much more and bigger fish to fry before I start getting het up over all that.

You will have noticed that I’m not a particular fan of Seb Coe‘s and Boris Johnson’s corporate carve-up taking place in London this summer. Whoop de-Do. I love my sport, I just can’t stand how Seb and his cronies have made such a bollock-up of the whole thing, while making sure every single penny is squeezed out of yer average sports fan and, while they’re at it, London resident. Sure, go ahead, knock yourself out with excitement as the runners, the jumpers the cyclists and the drug-takers come to town. Just include me out. I always cheer for the English team, whatever the sport. And my support will still be with Team GB this time. I just won’t run my life by what or how Seb and his PR firm, the BBC, tell me to this summer.

The Occupy London mob want to “reclaim the streets” during the Olympic Games. Really? Why would you wanna do that, then ? By all means shout your protests in a democratic manner from the top of a building, plaster the walls with banners, wear particularly clever and high quality tee shirts designed to illustrate your displeasure at the disruption to your city this year (and available at a very competitive rate right here – while stocks last). But causing disruption to the events, staging sit down protests in the stadium is one way to lose all public support for any legitimate beef you might have (see that arsehole Trenton Oldfield at the Boat Race) as well as risking a javelin in the goolies.

So I might take a mate up to The Shovel in a minute and no-doubt, Hilda the landlady will have festooned the place with pics of the Royals, the St George’s Cross and Union Jacks. The resident UKIP Nazis who are permanent fixtures at the bar will be waxing lyrical about how the country would be better without the “muslims, wogs and Ken Livingstone.” (I’ve heard it all before.)

Enjoy your local pub tonight, it’ll be fun. Enjoy too the gits in red-and-white plastic bowler hats singing Rule Britannia to you outside the chipshop as you make your way home, and that girl in the Abercrombie & Fitch shirt, hitch up her miniskirt to take a leak in the charity shop doorway. It’ll make you proud to be English. In mine, the knuckle-draggers will be on to “how the fuck can Arry be England manager when Tottenham are a bag o shite ?” (another perennial.) And like the Royal Jubilee or London 2012, I shall ignore all that, sup gently on my pint and wait for it all to be over. Bring on the Ryder Cup.

Polls Apart

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Don’t you hate it when you’re told what to think ? Tune into the 6 o’clock or 10 o’clock news and get bombarded with stories stoking up the ‘excitement’ in anticipation of the Olympic Games and the patriotic revelry over HMQs 60th Jubilee. Everyone’s excited, everyone’s throwing a street party/volunteering to help/ buying a ticket/wearing a funny hat cos THE WHOLE OF THE COUNTRY LOVES IT !!!!!. Really ? Come down my street, mate and test the waters. You could cut the atmosphere with a block of  lard. But there is no doubt that all of us are behind both Brenda and Seb when it comes to this year’s celebrations – well, not according to the force-fed stories the Beeb are putting out. There’s nothing like objective journalism, and this is nothing like it.

If you’ve been watching the BBC’s coverage of the London Mayoral election, you could be forgiven for thinking there were only two candidates – Bonkers Boris Johnson and Honest Ken Livingstone (and by the way, Manchester, Brimingham, Glasgow et all, you ARE interested in all this:cos the BBC TELLS you that you are, that’s why). Admittedly, between them they do make a riveting contest, albeit in the way that watching two grandmothers argue over who’s gonna look after the grandkids is riveting. Mind you, I’ve yet to hear any nan in my family call the other a “fucking liar” as Boris did to Ken after their LBC bust up this week.

With a month or so still to go, I’m sure someone will dig something up on the other one which will tip the balance at the polls, but my bet is both will distance themselves from their party leaders over in Westminster – two of the most loathed men in the kingdom. Ken and Boris are bright enough to employ that bargepole when Dave and Milibean come to town, and who can blame them ?

But there are others involved in this contest. The other coalition candidate is Pc McGarry Number 452. Brian Paddick is gay, a former policeman and Liberal Democrat. (yes I know, Monty Python’s sketch when a quiz contestants hobbies are “golf, masturbation and strangling animals” springs to mind). Paddick came out and admitted his sexuality as a way to divert attention that he was a Liberal Democrat.

As a copper, Brian was and is one of the very few not to currently be under investigation for racial abuse, or arrested for his dealings with News International. So a Copper and a LibDem. The rush of the electorate scrambling to vote for him will be deafening. Nice bum, though.

The BNP triumphantly announced that their candidate was to be  their press officer Carlos Cortiglia. The more alert of you will notice a less than British ring to his name. Carlos was born in Uruguay to parents of Italian and Spanish ancestry then moved to England in 1989, presumably on his never-ending quest to find a someone who doesn’t feel the urge to slap that face. The Nazis see his appointment as proof that the BNP are no racists. As their website puts it “So much for ‘xenophobic’!” British National Party chooses Italian for London mayor“. It certainly has already proved to be a little taxing for the knuckle-draggers in my local pub l as the regulars debate on the merits of choosing between “a bender, a wop and a commie” (I am unsure which one of these descriptions was aimed at Boris ).

UKIP seem like they’ve finally decided to call it a day and not put up a candidate for the post. At least it looks like that when you see the list of candidates. But on further investigation into Lawrence Webb reveals that, although he is standing on the ticket of “Fresh Choice for London”, he is in fact he UKIP candidate. Perhaps they thought having UKIP, BNP and LibDem on the polling card would split the Complete Cvnt vote ? (there’s also a bit of a visual clue to who he represents in some of the photos of him they’re touting about.

Then there’s the token genuinely independent candidate, Siobhan Benita, who is the daughter of an Anglo-Indian mum and Cornish dad (more issues which I’m sure Carlos and Lawrence would dearly love to chat to her about as she’s deported).

Benita has several obvious advantages over her rivals: 1) she’s a woman; 2) she’s not Ken; 3) or Boris; 4) she doesn’t look like a complete bonkeroonee crook (note I said she doesn’t look like one – I stand to be corrected) . She has been accused of playing the ‘babe’ card, but let’s be honest if you look like she does and stand next to any of the above, how can the fact that you don’t make people feel physically ill not be worth promoting.

Which brings me nicely to our final contestant, Jenny Jones, representing the Hosepipe Ban party. Somewhere in East Sussex, there’s a room full of hessian-wearing 70s throwbacks who thought picking a bona fide loony would be a good idea. Jenny wants us all to return to wearing Wode and get our water from droplets left on rose petals. It’s difficult to vote for a political party who’s policies to bring us out of recession start and end at forcing the army to wear British-made organically-grown wicker helmets. She also looks like an explosion in a Scary Spice factory, but that would be too cruel to point out.

Don’t forget to register to vote.  Oooh! me minge.

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Shot Put Smuggling

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The Incumbent has taken to wearing our London 2012 Olympic T-shirts down the gym each morning. This morning nearly saw a coming together of her and the local Blue Rinse Brigade rep. The elderly lady was distracted elsewhere to avoid incident.

Lots of good comments about my girlfriend’s chest, though. (I hope it was just the design of the shirt the boys were looking at.)

The T-shirts are working ! (Not to mention the chest.)

(How you getting on with Seb Coe‘s  third ballot ticketing arrangement, then?)

Stephen Lawrence. Anyone Really Surprised?

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It’s very laudable, even easy to moan about the “Institutional Racism” in our Police Force. You don’t need to be a ranting left-wing loony to know just how differently the ethnic minorities are treated by the police compared to their white fellow citizens. The hilarious “Constable Savage” sketch of Not the Nine O’Clock News in the 1980s doesn’t seem dated, even though it’s more than 30 years later. Racism in the Met didn’t end with the disbandment of the SPG. Far from it. Savage holding someone for “possession of thick lips and curly black hair” would raise a giggle from many were it shown again tonight. (though the BBC wouldn’t now show it – far too un-pc for the sensitive audiences of today.)

Not that Atkinson or Rhys-Jones wrote it as a racist sketch, but as an attack on the (then) horribly racist Old Bill. Everybody laughed though (well we all did anyway), whether at the Police or the racist charges which the characters discuss within the show. But for many in the black community the skit was merely a reminder of the sort of shite they were putting up with every day on the streets of our cities. But the rest of ‘polite society’ laughed. Well it was farhking funny, wonnit ? Like Alf Garnet or Archie Bunker, their humour was often enjoyed by the very racists it was attacking. But that was years ago. Last century. A long forgotten time.

Really ? What about the poor Indian student Anuj Bidve shot in the head in Salford last week by someone with the self-anointed monicker “Psycho”. How about the overwhelming attitude and apathy of the white middle-classes to the news of anyone of colour shot by Her Majesty’s finest. Or John Terry‘s alleged racist abuse of a fellow professional sportsman. “SAVE OUR JOHN ! ” “But he’s England Captain !!!”” You can’t have a go at him !!”

At the other end of society I stood in a boozer a couple of months ago next to two men, ADULTS (and up to then assumed by me to be vaguely educated men) who used on three occasions the word coon in reference to a football player. And it’s not the only time I’ve heard the term recently. I know a bloke (I used to play rugby with him) who still uses the word, or derivatives of it. He finds it funny and has the cheek to presume I do too. He seems oblivious to the fact he is being offensive of the highest order. When you approach these people, protesting that you are offended by such language, they invariably roll their eyes, laugh at you and accuse you of taking it too seriously. (I can hear them doing it now, reading this).  I understand that the Chelsea skipper isn’t denying he used the language against Anton Ferdinand, but that we are in the wrong by taking it the wrong way. Oh I see: He called Anton a Black Cunt out of context. Silly me.

So who are we, the general public, to pin the badge of Institutional Racism on the Police? Granted, it is clear the original investigation was either bungled or was hindered by monumental racist-driven neglect. So the coppers were either criminals or morons. Probably both. But until we refuse to stand by and allow our mates, fellow commuters, drinkers and colleagues to systematically use foul and racist language; until we refuse to accept as a joke or irrelevant trivia the continual stereotyping and abuse of black people who the hell are we to point the finger at the Old Bill ?

The Met Police have a lot to apologise for (wouldn’t it have been nice for Acting Deputy Commissioner Cressida Dick to have taken the opportunity to say sorry to the Lawrence family outside the Old Bailey tonight ?) but they hardly stand alone as a predominately racist institution. They do, after all, take their new recruits from members of the public. It’d be nice to think if it happened again society wouldn’t protect, consciously or subconsciously, the killers as many have done (and are still doing) in this case.  It’d be nice to think, but by no means certain.