Reader’s Indigestion

Posted on September 7, 2010 by The Ed

According to Pink Floyd it’s the route of all evil today. Liza Minnelli said it made the world go round. Apparently it can’t buy you love, but the Pet Shop Boys wanted to make lots of it. I suppose it must by funny in a rich man’s world, but I’m unlikely experience that. I’m skint and I need a cunning plan. And I ain’t really got one.

I was thinking of writing my memoirs: A no-hold bars account of my life so far, explaining my angst over all the bad things I’ve done in my life and the lies I’ve told, justifying some, defending others, but apologizing for none. I could include a chapter explicitly detailing the sex life with my wife, and throughout the book I could pepper it with references to my closest colleague who took over from me after I left the job. I could then reveal to the world that I always thought he was an idiot, unsuitable for the job, unstable and with a violent temper. I could distance myself from all the cock-ups he made and the disasters that befell the office after I’d stood down from my post. They were, after all, nothing to do with me.

The book would be a best-seller, I’d make millions (I’d ensure it was immediately marked down as half-price in Waterstones and on Amazon, just so even more would be tempted to buy it), and I could travel the country, nay the world giving interviews to the BBC, selling extracts to TIME Magazine and the like. I might even give book-signing sessions in popular stores in big cities.

But what if some of the unenlightened electorate, a section of the great unwashed take umbrage over what I’ve done and start heckling me, or worse start throwing shoes and shit at me. I wouldn’t like that. I want to be loved. I’d have to run and hide, and that wouldn’t look very good, would it? No, perhaps I need to come up with a better plan to make my fortune.

Or perhaps I don’t need to make millions? After all, work is bound to come my way sooner or later, right? Perhaps I just need a cash-injection ? I keep seeing those loan companies advertising on the tv. They offer short-term loans for a modest interest rate. One of the adverts says they offer “typical APR 2689%”. Not sure what’s typical about 2689%, but then again I’m not very good at money. I reckon £20,000 might tie me over til I get myself square. Hopefully that wouldn’t take too long, say a year. If I borrowed it at the typical rate I need only repay £79,565.39. Hmmm…

I’m 46 next month and creeping ever-nearer to the age when I can apply for one of those “Over 50 plans” which Michael Parkinson is always flogging on telly. But life insurance is no good to me, is it? Unless I can get third party.

My complete and utter confidence in my winning the lottery is beginning to wane a little. I haven’t had a sniff of even a tenner for weeks. I dunno what’s going wrong. In the first draft of my autobiography I have blamed The Incumbent for buying the wrong tickets. It definitely isn’t my fault, and I’ll make sue the world knows it. Unless we win tomorrow night then I shall amend the draft to ensure my genius is well documented.

I sought out a dodgy bookie to see if we might work out some way of spot fixing during my next cricket match. He came along to watch the game I was playing in at the weekend. He suggested, having seen me play before, that we might run a book on which part of my body would drop off or explode at any given time during the match. We agreed that on the third ball of the fifth over my right ankle would collapse from under me, leaving me to hobble around in agony. During the 7th over I would make a disastrous attempt of fielding the ball, allowing it to run under my body to the boundary and thus giving the opposition four runs. Finally, before the 2nd ball of the 20th over I would collapse in a heap in the outfield, having gone temporarily blind, and in need of re-hydration. For this I would be handsomely rewarded.

I would have made a fortune if I’d have remembered it was my right ankle that was to give way.Everything else went to plan. Inspector Smellie of the Yard wants to see me, once I have recovered.

But there is a chink of light, a glimmer of hope. There’s a knight in shining armour on the horizon. The 7th Cavalry have arrived and they’ve brought shedloads of cash with ’em. There’s a letter on my dining table which says that Reader’s Digest are going to give me, give me £100,000. All I have to do is wait for a big orange envelope to pop through my letterbox and post back my lucky prize winning numbers. I dunno what I’ve been worried about all along. No bookies needed, no publisher required. Just good, honest, old fashioned, non-intrusive Reader’s Digest. The Milky Bars are on me. Break out the purple quilted smoking jacket and johdpurs.

How many lottery tickets can you buy with £100,000?

There’s a Tray of Bread Pudding in the Post

Posted on May 23, 2010 by The Ed

Remember getting letters through your door? I don’t mean fliers from double glazing companies, or threatening letters from the bank, or even new curry house menus (though they can be very exciting indeed), but letters. Real, genuine, hand-written letters. Someone three weeks previously had sat down in Kuala Lumpur or Ulaanbaatar and scribbled a off a note saying how much they missed you, how the weather had been and could you send them some money? Remember that warm glow you felt that someone, who may well have died in the 6 weeks the letter took to reach you, had taken time out from their gap year, or their 6 months on the run from the Rozzers to actually write, in their own hand, to you, on paper that they could have quite easily used for loo roll.

It took thought and kindness. It meant someone had put aside their own time to sit down and compose a note, when they could have quite easily been putting another shrimp on the barbie, then seeking out an envelope, a stamp and a post office , then walking unaided down to post it. Takes some commitment, that.

I remember the first parcel I ever received. Now that was exciting. It was 1974 and I’d been saving up for weeks (ok, who am I kidding? my mum gave me the money) to send off for my first calculator. We’d been given permission to use in class this revolution in arithmetic science, and my parents weren’t gonna let their little lad be the only one in school without one.

The wait seemed like an age. I think it took three weeks to arrive (though it could have been three days, ten year old boys finding the space-time-continuum concept something of a bugger to grasp), but when the postman finally arrived with it BOY what a feeling! I opened the parcel on the dining table and pulled out this brown and cream monument to modern technology: The Rockwell LED Calculator, 18R. If the 18R stood for ’18th attempt’, or probably ’18th Rockwell’ (WD40 standing for ‘Water Displacement, 40th attempt’), then Christ knows how basic the other 17 must have been.

But to me it was the most exciting and exotic thing I’d ever seen. Weighing no more than a couple of pounds, it would fit into any schoolboy’s large satchel or GOLA bag. It had all of the number ‘1’-‘9’, with ‘0’ thrown in for free. Not only did it have buttons for ‘plus’, ‘minus’, ‘multiply’ (‘times’ in our house), ‘divide’ and ‘equals’, it ALSO had a ‘percentage’ button. WOW ! There were a couple of other buttons I never got to grips with, something about storage, but I didn’t care: 18 buttons were plenty for me to be getting on with. They all made a hi-tech ‘click when you pressed them and ,when dad wasn’t looking, you could turn the box upside down and write rude words with the number. You can see it left it’s mark on me.

35 year later and where are we? No one writes letters any more since we have the wonder of email (which still impresses me.) Friends write daily from New Zealand or San Diego and we pick up their missives instantly. I’m not saying a note from afar means less than one did all those years ago, it’s just that we get so many more of them they somehow don’t arrive with the same fanfare they once did. It doesn’t now have to be a fully composed letter either. Twitter has brought us the age of the 140 character letter. 140 characters ? I couldn’t write the alphabet in 140 characters ( you may have noticed), let alone ask how the weather was.

Parcels are two-a-penny. Amazon, Ebay and their like are emptying the shops and filling the bandwidths of the Web. Even this old luddite has for the last two Christmas seasons refused the pleasures of the high street or shopping mall and bought each and every present online. During November and December there’s a seemingly never-ending stream of parcels large and small arriving at my door. I’m never there, of course, but at least the thought is there. Twice a week I make my way to the local Post Office to claim my packets. Maybe this year will be different ? If I’m still in-between employers I may be at home to catch the postie as he arrives at the crack of 4pm to deliver my goods. On the other hand, if I’m still not picking up work by then, my pressie-buying activities will be severely curtailed.

Yesterday I made my way up to the village to collect a mystery parcel. I hadn’t ordered any books or movies online recently, and doubted that it would be that set of golf clubs I’d asked for as a leaving gift from The Times, but nevertheless the postman had left a card saying he’d tried to deliver a package to me on Thursday which was too big to fit thought the letter-box. As court summonses tend not to be that size, and hoping the National Lottery actually do pay-up in wads of cash, I took my little legs off to collect my prize from the good folk at the GPO.

Although I was disappointed not to be handed a suitcase with crisp oncers from Camelot, I was very happy and intrigued to take possession of a thick white jiffy bag addressed to:

Mr M.P.BEALING, DSO + BAR
Railway Cuttings
…
BLACKHEATH
ANGLETERRE

‘Angleterre‘! Written in ink! (or at least biro) How exciting! It really took me back. It was an unsolicited Red Cross parcel from ‘Plastered of Paris’, a good friend of these pages and one who appears regularly every time I feel the need to verbally attack drunk Welshman. Realising that I may be about to have some time on my hands, this giant of a man (no, he really is) took the trouble to bundle me up some comedy reading, Bill Bryson in fact, to help me while away those hours on the loo when I can’t get to my PS3 or watch the World Cup. What a very thoughtful gift ? Thanks Terv. Bill Bryson, a very talented journalist who took to writing about the places he’d lived, the countries he’d visited and the occasional mishap along the way with hilarious results. Bryson and I differ in just two key respects.

Anyway, I can’t sit here all day talking to you. I have two books to read, a letter to write (to the council again, Lewisham Council only deal in letters) and then I’m gonna go up onto the heath where the hot weather never fails to bring out a marvellous array of young lovelies and their talents. Or in Rockwell 18R calculator-speak BOOBIES

Gord Luv A Duck, The Noo !

Posted on May 16, 2010 by The Ed

In another of an occasional series of time-saving tips, I’d like to let you in on a little secret : 44″ Chest is a dreadful movie. Shocking. Awful. Nasty. Possibly the most disappointing film I’ve seen for some time.

Being a huge Ray Winston and John Hurt fan I was really looking forward to it, only to be left open-mouthed at the pointlessness, nastiness and worthlessness of it all. What a real shame. Sexy Beast II it ain’t. I can’t remember what I paid for it, but if you hang on for a little while you’ll be able to buy a ‘nearly new’ version on Amazon for next to nothing. (I’ve already posted my customer review). It’s a shocker.

Sexy Beast gave us the great Don Logan, possibly the best British gangster ever portrayed on film, played by Sir Ben Kingsley. His performance never ceases to amaze and enthrall me, especially the perfection and precision with which Kinglsey manages to pull off a cockney accent, right from his opening, immortal line “I’ve gotta change my shirt, I’m sweating like a cahnt”. Bloody well done for a Yorkshireman. I’m afraid the great John Hurt, (again from Yorkshire), fails to hit the mockney-mark in this lame follow-up, and he’s not alone. The ususally brilliant Tom Wilkinson from, er, Yorkshire borders on a Meery Puppins cockney performance all the way through. Stephen Dillane sounds ok as a Londoner, but then again he was born there. No, don’t waste your money on this movie, it’s horrid through and through, and the accents don’t help either.

But why should we expect Yorkshiremen to be able mimic the accent of The Old Kent Road, or Whitechapel? Accents are bloody hard to pull off. Just ask Russell Crowe. Well actually don’t, cos the big Aussie doesn’t like talking about it. DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL, MATE. He got very pissy with a radio interviewer who thought he sounded Irish when playing Robin Hood, the eponymous hero in Ridley Scott’s new blockbuster. What a load of old tosh ! He sounds Scottish. Or Lancastrian. Or Yorkish (perhaps Tom Wilkinson was his speech coach?).

Now given that we have no idea which accent or dialect Robin of Loxley actually had, we cannot say for sure that he didn’t sound like Groundskeeper Willie or Geoffrey Boycott or Roy Walker, but it’s safe to say he probably didn’t change his accent four times-a-day, depending on who he was talking to (as cunning as he was). What does a Lincolnshire accent sound like anyway? Buggered if I know.

Dodgy dialects have long been a source of amusement. Dick Van Dyke, of course, is the main culprit to whom everyone refers, but he is by no means alone when it comes to comedy accents. For starters, Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula takes some beating for a crap Englishmen, James Coburn’s Australian in The Great Escape is one of my favourites (“what ye doin wiv me coat, mate?”), while Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of the Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s borders on the downright racist. The least said about Tom Cruise’s Oirishman in Far and Away, the better.

Why do they bother? Take a leaf out of Sean Connery’s book and just be yourself. Who can ever forget the Scottish/Russian submarine commander in The Hunt for Red October ? “Forty yearsh I’ve been at shea. A war at shea. A war with no battlesh, no monumensh… only casualtiesh.” Spoken like a native.
And how about his brilliant Portuguese-Jocko Warrior in Highlander ? (acting opposite a Frenchman playing a Scotsman) “With heart, faith and shteel. In the end there can be only one, Msh Moneypenny”. His Irish accent in “The Untouchables” is a thing of wonder and mystery. I defy any budding Henry Higgins to put a location to it, but I suspect it was born somewhere just outside Edinburgh.

I always thought Cary Elwes in the brilliant Princess Bride never got the credit he deserved, and as I’ve never seen (or unlikely ever to see) Bridget Jone’s Diary I can’t pass comment on Renee Zellweger’s version of the Queen’s Own. Is Hugh Laurie any good as an American in House? or did Domonic West sound authentic in The Wire? I can’t tell. Gotta be better than Bob Hoskins was in either Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? or The Cotton Club.

So in this world when there are rows about white men playing Othello, when the chinese community in Australia are up in arms over who’s portraying their War Hero, or uproar when Nick Cage is cast in a role which could have quite easily been given to a proper actor, why don’t we all agree to let anyone play anyone on stage or screen? Let’s just forget the blacking-up, or the crap makeup just as long as the role is a convincing one and acted well (and that’s Jude Law fucked on all counts.) And let’s rid ourselves of this obsession with the right accent for the right part. For example, I would like to play Rick Blaine in Casablanca with a South London lilt.

“Louis, I fink this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Nah, put the kettle on, you cahnt”

Allo, Allo, Allo…? (Part II) or Sergeant Smellie Strikes Again

Posted on May 4, 2010 by The Ed

Yahoo News

Pitch invader gets Tasered

Tue May 04 04:52PM

An investigation is underway after a young baseball fan who invaded the pitch was shot by a police officer with a Taser gun.

The Philadelphia Phillies supporter’s invasion was brought to an abrupt end when he was hit by a bolt from the electroshock weapon during a Major League Baseball game against the St Louis Cardinals.

The 17-year-old, who has not been named because of his age, hurdled a fence before running rings around security guards who tried to catch him in vain.

But the police officer eventually caught up with him and felled him with a shot that brought him immediately to his knees.

The scene was witnessed by more than 44,000 fans, some of whom can be heard booing in video footage taken at the time.

Police spokesman Lt Frank Vanore told The Philadelphia Inquirer that an internal investigation would be held to determine whether the firing of the gun constituted “proper use of the equipment”.

Phillies spokeswoman Bonnie Clark said: “The Police Department is investigating this matter and the Phillies are discussing with them whether in future situations this is an appropriate use of force under these circumstances.”

The fan will be charged with criminal trespass and related offences, Clark said.

See the yahoo page plus video here

Allo, Allo, Allo…?

Posted on April 15, 2010 by The Ed

Nice to see Sgt Delroy Smellie’s guide to community policing has been taken up by the lads in blue across the pond. Of course, American being America, everything is bigger and more spectacular over and these guys really go about their work with gusto. Must take hours of training to be able to land several precise and brutal blows to the head of a prone victim..er suspect..er obvious terrorist. Home of the Brave? Well, yes, if you’ve got your nightstick, riot shield and half a dozen pals to help you.

SKY NEWS:

Footage of police beating an innocent basketball fan unconscious as he was celebrating a win by his college team has sent shockwaves through America.

University of Maryland student John McKenna was attacked after their victory over arch rivals Duke.
CCTV pictures show him skipping down the street waving his arms in joy.

He is then approached by police on horseback who stand over him before other cops in riot gear swoop and start hitting him with their batons.

Police initially claimed Mr McKenna had attacked their officers and horses, causing them “minor injuries”, as they responded to reports of trouble after the game.

But the footage clearly shows he never struck out – and even tried to back away when confronted.

The FBI is now investigating the incident which left the 21-year-old needing eight staples to repair a head wound.

He was also allegedly told by officers in Maryland not to make a fuss about his injuries because they would have to fill out more paperwork.

Mr McKenna was arrested and placed in the back of a police van before being taken to hospital.

Charges against him have since been dropped and police chief Roberto Hylton has suspended one officer.

He said: “I was outraged. I was very disappointed at the conduct that I saw on the part of my officers on the video tape.”

Mr McKenna’s family said in a statement: “Some of these characters ought to go to jail, some ought to be booted off the force.

“The remainder should be properly trained to discover that force is not always necessary, and brutality is always wrong.”

Americans are already drawing comparisons with the beating of a black man, Rodney King, in Los Angeles in 1991.

The officers accused of that incident were acquitted by a jury, sparking riots across the city which left 53 people dead.

Travel News

Posted on February 18, 2010 by The Ed

So what are we to make of Andy Powell? The Welsh rugby international was arrested last weekend, drunk in charge of a golf buggy, celebrating his team’s extraordinary victory over the Jocks in Cardiff. No one is suggesting he was actually trying to drive the golf cart onto the M4 Motorway, he was just heading in that general direction. Certainly it seems Powell was unlikely to know where he actually was, after such a long and heartfelt celebration which had tired him a little. Tired as Lord he was .

“Boys”, as they say, “will be prats”. Is this a hanging offence? Probably not. Will he be dropped from the team? Maybe, maybe not. Is there precident for this sort of behaviour? Oh yes indeedy!

Playing for Italy against England that very weekend was a chap called Craig Gower, who used to play in and for Australia, him being an..er..Australian. Here’s a taste of his Wikipedia entry:

Controversy
Gower has been involved in a number of alcohol-related off-field incidents.
In 1999, Gower exposed himself to a female Irish tourist in a Coogee bar, blaming his behaviour on alcohol intoxication. He was dumped from the Kangaroos Squad and fined $2,500 by the NRL and a further $500 in court after pleading guilty to indecent exposure.
Gower was fired as Panthers captain in December 2005, after incidents at a charity golf event where he argued with several guests, groped the teenage daughter of former league player Wayne Pearce, chased Pearce’s son with a bottle before vomiting on him, streaked around the resort, wrecked a golf cart, held a butter knife to the throat of a Sydney radio personality and threw the knife at resort guests before being kicked out of the function by security.

Gower was handed a “final warning” by the National Rugby League and fined $100,000, with $90,000 to be paid to an NRL programme encouraging the responsible use of alcohol by league players and $10,000 to replace the destroyed golf cart.[9] Gower was “deeply unhappy” that the Penrith Panthers club did not defend his reputation, and at one stage threatened to “walk” from the club.[10]
Allegedly inebriated with alcohol in a bar at Kings Cross on 11 February 2007, Gower allegedly tried to kiss one man before biting him on the neck and sparking a brawl, and is accused of assaulting another man.[11][12] The Panthers club controversially reappointed Gower as captain in 2007, claiming the Peppermint Lounge incident was just a media “beat-up”.[13]

So, who knows, there may well be a happy outcome for Andy Powell ? His little spin in a buggy seems rather tame up against proper piss-heads such as Mr Gower. On that evidence he should be made Prince of Wales. No-one was hurt and all he did (allegedly) was to remove his trousers before driving off into the night. Who amongst us hasn’t done that? Leave the boy alone, I say.

I mean to say, it’s not even as if he went out one evening this week, got ridiculously pissed and fell down the stairs of the Paris Metro, cracking his head open and busting a couple of ribs. He’d have to be a proper sad old Welsh wino to do that.

Catching 40 Winks in the Rye

Posted on February 10, 2010 by The Ed

I wasn’t going to write about the death of J.D.Salinger. Surely enough has been written? (and he never bothered to leave a comment on these pages). But then I thought I could perform a great service for anyone tempted to read him for the first time following the acres of copy written after his demise. Mr Salinger was a renowned American author, though for many of us, perhaps moreso on this side of the pond, I suspect his name first came into our consciousness via the reported antics of juvenile assassins and teenage mass-murderers.

When I was but a surly youth it seemed that you couldn’t turn on the evening news without someone having been shot down by the NYPD or similar for killing some celebrity such as Lennon or McCartney (well,you can dream) or instigating the massacre of a whole commune of cultish (spellcheck please) and religious nutcases somewhere in the Great American Midwest. Time and time again it seemed that the doers of these dreadful deeds appeared to have read Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye before they decided to pull the trigger.

A conveyor belt of judges and jurors were subjected to the flimsy defence of surviving adolescent would-be murderers, blaming Rye for tipping them over the edge, such was it’s subject matter. It’s touted as a book with “themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation and rebellion”.Read this book, so the theory went, and you’d immediately develop a hatred of tutors, teachers and authority figures everywhere.

“That sounds the very thing for me!” thought a young me, who had already started grooming his black puppy. So I bought myself a copy of the book, fully expecting to turn into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac. There were a few teachers at school who deserved to be vapourised, and this sounded like the very accelerant I needed.

My targets, however, were saved by one small yet important fact : The Catcher in the Rye is a bag of old shite. It is THE dullest collection of self-important ramblings ever written (and I’ve read The Daily Mail). It IS , honest. There I was, aching for an excuse to end it all, and as far as I’m concerned it’s a cure from insomnia. The only people I wanted to kill after reading it were Salinger, his agent and his publisher. I may be wrong about this, but I doubt it. Feel free to tell me otherwise.

If you really want to get angry or depressed, or dabble in a spot of murder why not ingest a tome by Elizabeth Gilbert? Her brand of sickly shit chick-lit has already landed her a movie contract for the dramatisation of her first great work Eat Love Pray, a piece of celluloid sewage soon to be at a movie theatre far away from me, and starring Julia Roberts (shame on you). It’s another example of the creeping crud that is blighting all our lives. Let’s strangle this bollocks at birth.

If on the other hand you don’t live your life through Desperate Housewives or Bridget Jones, and would like to rebel against this post-feminist, Spice Girl/Anna Wintour/Alpha Female fuckfest which is infesting our arts and media (and would enjoy having a wee titter along the way) can I suggest you look no further than the magnificent drinkcursehate.wordpress.com. It’s a website written by three blokes who want to live as blokes in the world they thought they were growing up into during the 70’s, not as the cowering, emasculated sheep which a diet of Sex in the City, Strictly Come Shopping or Eat Love Pray would have them be. It hopes to be the antidote to Marie Claire and the Mail on Sunday. You might like it. Especially if you happen to be a fella.

Finally, a little self-congrats: Happy 1st Anniversary, The Sharp Single. Who said it’d never last? Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell anyone with money who might want to pay me money to write this kind of rubbish.

It Is Written

Posted on December 30, 2009 by The Ed

Predictions.

When crap journalists can think of nothing else to write about, and editors have nothing sexy with which to fill their pages, we are left with long and exhausting lists of predictions for the coming year. Here at The Sharp Single things are no different. So read this and you need not read another til, ooh, next week I should imagine.

2010 and all that.

In January David Tennant becomes Dir Gen of the BBC, narrowly edging out the twin-bid from Mathew Horne and James Corden. It’s believed that the board said they didn’t want too much hilarity during important meetings, and yet they still plump for Tennant. Peter Andre marries himself. Katie Price explodes. Her life has gone tits-up.

The recession ends in February. Then it starts again a week later for those of us under £150,000-a-year when the government raises income tax to pay for a Champagne and Crayfish bar at the 2012 Olympic Equestrian stadium.
Following another attempted rectum-launched terrorist attack on an airliner, all passengers are now asked to remove their underpants through customs. John Prescott and Amy Winehouse are exempt. In the third week of February, due to an administrative error there is no sale on at DFS. Early march sees Hazel Blears join the Tory Party, and Peter Mandelson join the Brownies. Boris will say nothing sensible or vaguely relevant all year.
I lose 20 lbs by the end of March, in preparation to put on 25 by late June. In an astonishing turn of events, Jude Law continues to receive offers of work. In April, a virulent strain of Gnu Flu sweeps through Fleet Street and Sky News studios. Some people are almost likely to very probably have a tickly throat. The epidemic is expected to last until a proper news story breaks.

A Briton wins the first seven races in the F1 Championship. Meanwhile, in sport, Chelsea win the Premiere League by one point from Arsenal when, in the Blues last game three late deflected off-side penalties are allowed by the ref, a Mr S.Wonder, apparently. (By the end of the year, each match will be officiated by 7 refs, 2 linesmen, a sheepdog and The Met Police.) Alex Ferguson is finally pickled and displayed in the Man Utd museum for all eternity. United appoint Victoria Beckham as their new coach.

Gordon Brown loses the election and takes his seat in the upper chamber as Lord Thankgoditsallover. Fox hunting is re-legalised by the new Tory Government, as is hanging, public masturbation and child chimney-sweeps. Charlton Athletic make the play-offs only to lose to Millwall, 3 fan deaths to 1 (Duckworth/Lewis method).
In late May, the newly-appointed Minister for War, Mr Liam Fox, announces the Government’s new big push in Afghanistan. Plans are made to enlist every first-born child from labour-voting households (that’ll teach ’em). June 16th, fifty-three women in Florida, California and St Andrews simultaneously give birth to babies of mixed-race and a smashing set of choppers. The women, all blonde, rather soiled-looking, hotel cloakroom attendants immediately sign contracts with The Mail on Sunday. Gillette sales plummet. Or soar. July 21st, a string bag full of lemons is seen being delivered to The Crown public house, Blackheath. But no ice.
By the beginning of August, after a summer of riots and general discontent, Police officers are allowed to carry machetes while on crowd-control duties. All fingerprints and DNA of police officers are removed from the system, to be replaced by those of mortgage-defaulters and lollipop ladies.
Brazil win the World Cup. By now, England have already been roasted by the West Germans, Capello is poached by Portugal and grilled by the press. Then he goes and gets smashed.
Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff is seen urinating up against the Grace Gates at Lords after a particularly convivial lunch during the One Day International vrs Australia. The press dub it ‘Gategate’.
In late September after a ‘leaked’ press release it is widely reported that this year’s must-have toy for Christmas will be Mattel’s Stoat Family Fortunes (David Tennant Edition). A week later all stocks are sold out. Individual members of the Stoat family change hands on eBay for up to £300, except the very popular ‘Piper Stoat’ which you can’t get for love nor money.

In October I turn 40 years old for the seventh time running. Later that month armed police from the crack ‘Arrest Innocent People Squad’ raid a flat believed to be the HQ of a sleeper cell of Al Qaeda, responsible for the alleged underpants plot earlier in the year. Yet again, their information is found to be shoddy: Having forced their way into the premises, all they find is a derelict, uninhabited shit-hole, of no use or interest to man nor beast. And that’s not this years’ only connection with Wales: After a particularly wet autumn at Celtic Manor Golf Club, play is suspended during the foursomes on the opening day of The Ryder Cup when US player Stewart Cink’s caddy is tragically drowned while replacing a divot. Organisers pledge never to attempt to hold the event in Wales again, at any time of the year.
November 2nd and the Google Street View van finally visits my street, when it catches me stealing my next door neighbour’s wheelie bin, to replace mine which was stolen the week before
Thursday Nov 25th, Brisbane: Australia finish the first day of the first Ashes test on 431-1 (Ponting 230no, Katich 125no. Swann 1-250). Ian Botham arrested pending inquiries into an alleged incident in the bar afterwards which leaves 6 members of the Aussie press corps needing treatment. Four (empty) cases of Shiraz and a cricket stump are bagged and sent to forenics.

December: Keith Harris and Orville win Strictly Come Dancing, beating Clare Balding in the final, watched by 48 million catatonic viewers. On a visit by my children, mid-month, I resume the mantle of ‘Best Dad in the World’ – the first time I’ve held the title in 12 months. Their Christmas lists are then handed to me.
On Dec 23rd, a new supply of Piper Stoats arrive on the docks in Liverpool. Massive queues form and14 people are crushed in the ensuing riot when it’s announced sales are limited to one buyer each. Dec 29th: Mattel recall all sets of Stoat Family Fortunes due to a massive, dangerous design fault. Hundreds have been maimed by Piper’s sharp protruding teeth. Richard Branson makes an aggressive takeover bid for the company. Awaiting details of the photocall.

Happy 2011 to both of you

Who’s Been Naughty, and Who’s Been Nice?

Posted on December 23, 2009 by The Ed

So, in the immortal words of my old Night News Editor, as we progress “out of one shitty year, into another shitty year”, what have we learned ?

Well, we know that a 3-iron is as good at getting you at out of the rough as it is at getting your old man out of his Mercedes. Being 106 years old doesn’t preclude you from competing in international sport- as Tom Watson, Ryan Giggs and Kevin Poole have taught us (look him up!). Google Street View hasn’t become the burglars favourite tool, and they STILL haven’t been down my road.

All MP’s are wankers. Most are theives and crooks. I will never make a 50 in a competitive game of cricket. Or an uncompetitive one for that matter. Newcastle Utd and Man City are still big clubs. Apparently. I don’t want to go to work any more. There is far too much conversation in men’s toilets. It’s nearly time for me to win the Lottery (I’ll see you alright, don’t worry). Fat unattractive women can sing rather well. Rage Against the Machine can’t.

Michael Jackson didn’t die a natural death. Remember to hold that front page. We still haven’t a clue where Bin Laden is, but they’ve found the rest of his family. In general, I don’t like people. Policemen don’t like being photographed when they’re hitting people, but they do like kettles.Obama has been a bit of a disappointment, to be honest, but my poster I bought of him on ebay is not coming down. Life is better with Malcolm Tucker and without Hazel Blears

. Jade Goody will soon be beatified. Clare Balding should be. I’m not as fit as I should be, but about as fit as I thought I was. Ricky Ponting can’t win the Ashes in England., but he’ll manage it in Australia. F1 is still an interesting sport all the way up to the start of the race. Renault drivers are naughty boys. Blackheath still doesn’t have a decent boozer, but I’d like to think I contributed to the recent glut of lemons. Gordon Brown is still the PM of Great Britain (I can always Tipex that out if something happens before I go to press).

I’ve had a cold for 8 weeks in the last 52, and no matter how many channels you have to watch, there’s never anything decent on between car insurance adverts. IPL will ruin cricket as we know it. Football is already a shambles. It’s not the Chinese or the Indians, the carbon footprints or the motor cars: It’s the bankers who have fucked up the world. We want our money back.

It doesn’t matter how loathesome the BNP are, how ridiculous Nick Griffen was made to look on TV, there will STILL be stupid and nasty people who will vote for him at the polls next year. Andy Murray is a miserable bastard, but one day he’s gonna win something big. Apparently. When entering a Nepalese restaurant, plump for the mismas.

And the war won’t be over by Christmas. Or even next Christmas. Turns out they lied to us. But we knew that already, didn’t we?

May all your Christmas’s be white, and all your doughnuts turn out like fannies.

Born to Run

Posted on September 28, 2009 by The Ed

So there’s this bloke.

I see him most mornings on my way to work. I alight from the train, walk out of the station, and within about 100 yards I see him, running in the opposite direction, presumably for the train. He’s about 35 years old, 5’6”, maybe 5’7”, wears a single-breasted charcoal grey suit, either a schoolboy-blue or light grey shirt, those spongy-souled, mock-hushpuppy shoes which should never be worn with a whistle, and has his iPod plugged into each ear.

He often sports the look of a worried man, and he is always running. Running, not in a jogging lycra-nazi, a fitness fanatic or a health-freak kinda way, but running in a fashion which would be familiar to Jerry Lewis fans everywhere, and of a man who is late for an appointment. I reckon I see him at least three or four times-a-week, depending on which train I catch, and he’s always somewhere between a fast jog and a slow sprint. Some evenings when I’m making the return journey, I see him running in the other direction. Presumably he’s late getting home too.

Each time he passes me I try to catch his eye with a nod, or a polite grin but he’s too immersed in himself and his troubles to take any notice. His eyes are firmly fixed on the pavement about 4 ft in front of him, presumably for fear of falling or tripping. In a flash of flailing elbows and ankles he’s gone, off to catch whatever it is he’s late for. He must humm a bit when he gets to work every morning. I hope they have showers at his office.

Roman Polanski has done his fair bit of running over the years, from the Nazis and from the Law, mainly, but now it seems he’s jogging days may be over. There’s been a lot of hurrumphing over his apprehension by Knacker auf Der Garten in Switzerland over the weekend, and I feel I may have missed a bit of the story somewhere. As I understand it, 30-odd years ago he was in a hot-tub in Jack Nicholson’s house with a 13 yr-old girl during a booze and drugs-fuelled party. Somehow, Roman has sex with the girl, it goes to court and he denies rape. Eventually he admits to consensual sex with a minor and is charged. Before he’s sentenced he does a runner to Europe, where he’s been ever since. Now Pc Trott has slapped the cuffs on him and our diminutive director may have to return to the States to face the music.

“Shame, Shame!” I hear you cry. “The poor man’s been through a lot. Mother killed by the Nazis, father in Aushwitz, girlfriend murdered by Charles Manson– hasn’t he gone through enough??” Well no-one would say that was the stuff of an Enid Blyton book, but he did have sex with a 13 year old, albeit 35 years ago, and doesn’t that merit some sort of punishment? “But wait! He’s a genius. He directed Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, to name but two. His contribution to the Arts must count for something ?” Nope. Not round here, mate.

Mr Paul Gadd has had his request to go on holiday to France refused by the authorities. Paul is a well-known kiddie-fiddler and the powers-at-be are concerned that once in France, he’ll hop over the border the Spain, where I’m told the age of consent is, coincidentally, 13. When Paul had a pop career and went by the name of Gary Glitter, he gave literally some people enormous pleasure with his glam rock numbers. Several no.1s and a great line in Christmas retro concerts endeared him to many, right up until the time that he was exposed as having a serious interest in child porn. Gadd fled the tabloid press (and presumably hopefully, UK sex laws) to South East Asia. Sadly for him, a few years later a court in Vietnam charged him and convicted him with a number of obscene acts with minors. Should this bloke go free because of I love You Love Me Love or The Leader of Gang? I’m sure that there are many who had his picture on the wall of their bedroom throughout the 70’s, and think of the pleasure he brought to so many of the years. Tough.

You can’t blame him for trying to slip through the net from France to Spain though. It’s not the worst getaway plan I’ve heard of this week. Take the two brothers, Wayne and James Snell, who meticulously planned a bank robbery to such fine detail that all went swimmingly well. Sadly for the Brothers Dimm, they used James own BMW as a getaway car. The number plate? J4 MES. Only 78 passers-by remembered the car with the personalised plate parked outside the bank that day, which quickly led Knacker to the brothers’ flat where they were pinched, sitting beside a pile of readdies. Not quite the perfect crime.

Running, clearly, isn’t as easy as we’d like to think. Take poor old Graeme Smith, captain of the South African cricket team. Last night, his team were engaged in a rather entertaining little match against the Bastard English when, 3/4s of the way though the match, Mr Smith went down in cramp spasms. He does this a lot, his career has been dogged by cramp. He’s a big old lump, and probably not what other sportsmen might deem an athlete. Some might say he doesn’t take very good care of his body, given that a lot of cricket is played in sweltering conditions, inducing players to sweat gallons. Clearly incapacitated by cramps in his legs, Smith asked the England Captain, Andrew Strauss for a “runner”. Under the laws of the game, an opposition captain can grant a batsman a “runner” if that player has injured himself during the match, and so is unable to run between the wickets. It’s the sort of sporting behaviour which cricket in general, and us English in particular, are known for. Strauss refused (he was born in South Africa), Smith fumed, then hobbled up-and-down a bit and lost his wicket. England won, which is much more important than playing fair.

It reminded me of a match a long time ago between Sri Lanka and Australia. The Sri Lankan skipper, Arjuna Ranatunga was fat. Fat and sweaty. A man who wasn’t built for running, especially in hot weather. He was built for eating, however he was still a rather good batsmen. During this particular match, Ranatnga had been batting for a long time, but was tiring visibly, and sweating audibly. So he decided to try a ploy that had worked for him before. He announced to the umpire that he had “sprained something” and requested a runner. The umpire turned to the Australia captain, Ian Healy, to ask if that was ok by him. “No it ain’t! ” exlcaimed the Aussie. “You don’t get a runner for being a fat c*nt”.

The prosecution rests.

The Sharp Single

All Done

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