If the British Government wish to stop al these boats crossing the English Channel, filled with would-be migrants, why don’t they give the job to The Minister for Rail & Air Chaos Chris Grayling? He seems to have the knack of bringing all means of transport to a standstill.
pic by Author
Last Autumn Dartford Council spent weeks informing the residents that the workmen were due soon to re-surface our road (Swaisland Road, DA1 – if anyone down there’s taking notes). We were all very excited— If you live in Dartford there’s very little to get excited about. So when a gang of diminutive, old suit-wearing Boys from the Black Stuff arrived we were indeed thankful for small murphys.
NOT the men from Dartford Council.
I wish now that I’d taken a photo to prove to my neighbours that the men actually came, because few believe me that anything happened at all. The road is roughly (and getting rougher by the minute) 400 yards long yet my tichy tarmac-toiling troops curtailed their asphalt-laying activities immediately outside my house — having completed a whopping great 47.32 yards. The remaining 352.68 yards of potholes, dog turds and more potholes were left to fend for themselves.
Cool Hand Luke it ain’t. It isn’t even Yosser Hughes.
So todays quiz is simply this: In this snap taken by my own hand this very afternoon, see if you can spot where the new surface stops, and where the old one begins. A Greggs Iced Finger to the clever reader who spots the council’s deliberate mistake, Mike’s two fingers to Dartford Council.
Those of you who haven’t paid their Council Tax please move to the right please.
The Royal Navy reaches the Somerset Levels.
It was only one flight. A routine, scheduled flight out of Transylvania (via Bulgaria to take on board fuel and terrorists) into London’s prestigious 8th Airport (Eric Morecambe International), but one which sent shock waves throughout the land.
The numbers were far worse than any of us could have ever feared. Many had predicted a rush, but no-one came close to this: 147. One Hundred and Forty Seven People. And this is JUST THE FIRST FLIGHT !!!.
We Won’t Romania for Very LongYes, an estimated 147 journalists, photographers, and sound technicians (some having traveled from as far as Salford) poured into Bedfordshire’s third favourite Airport to interview the same man. Several times. Mr Nico Wotiwonttonic stepped off the flight from Romania, the Bood-sucking Capital of the World, with the sole intent of raping babies, murdering grandmothers, molesting sub-postmistresses, dragging down house prices, and receiving £17,000 of free Anusol from our beloved NHS. Bastard.
He was accompanied by an estimated 1 man, a Mr Vlad Tomeetu of Sofia who had, it turned out, boarded the wrong flight in the first place. Mr Tomeetu was keen, however, to point out that he was very keen to leave squalor and deprivation for a new life as soon as he could and, therefore, hoped that someone could show him the quickest way out of Luton. 19 Daily Mail Journalists offered assistance.
Also glimpsed at the Airport was reluctant celebrity and part-time MP, his Eminence Keith Vaz who cleverly kept himself in the background, away from the public gaze by secretly giving 16 interviews to journalists (many against their will), filing his copy for the Huffington Post, and posing for photographs with Mr Wotiwonttonic for no more than an hour, before he was removed by Police.
When asked what would become of Lord Viz, a police spokesperson said “He’ll get a blanket, a cup of coffee and a free bus ride home to Leicester. It’s all we can do, unfortunately. He’ll be back next week, just as soon as he smells the whiff of a dictaphone, or hears the whirr of a TV camera. It’s a never-ending cycle, but that’s Europe for you. Until parliament stamps down on these parasites, there’s little more we can do”.
Having interviewed thoroughly all one of the one new arrival, the press retired to the bar to swap negs. (Something for our older reader, there).
Diane Abbot was unavailable for comment. No, really.
“But Grandfather, you have read the London Times. How bad do they say it was?”
“So bad, my boy, that they are even considering recalling Ravi Bopara !”
The Barmy Army watch patiently at an England net session at The Paul Hogan Academy Ground, Perth
After a couple of overs knock-about at the WACA, and having let Mike Atherton study the ball for a while, hopes are high of reverse swing for the English.
Other former MCC captains are drafted in to help improve the morals of the team, but not all seem to be concentrating on cricket.
The Tourists seek clarification of the LBW, using local knowledge
Meanwhile back in the nets, Joe Root tries to unravel the mystery of the Australian non-spinning off break bowling which has winkled out so many. (“WINKLED !!! fnarrr fnarrrr,” squeals young Joe) …
…Stuart Broad strives to perfect his now legendary “Stick the ball down the throat of the only fielder on the boundary” shot. (Apologies for no live footage from Channel 9. So here’s a filer of Stuart developing the shot back at Hogwarts during the 1990s)…
…while Ian Bell treats himself to a haircut before the next battle. Spiffing.
Completely coincidentally, Dr Who (50th Birthday Box set Edition now available from BBC Online) sends a message of support to the traveling Englishmen (other bandwagons are available)…
…and possibly the last man to be transported from the mother country arrives in Oz, and is immediately asked if he fancies opening. He doesn’t. (NB: Fawad Ahmed fielding at 2nd slip, having had his application for English Citizenship accepted).
Root and Tim Bresnan accept a cigarette but, bravely, decline a blindfold, before the last rites are administered on the English batting line-up
Lord Justice Leveson was this afternoon yet again made to look a bumbling buffoon as photographs emerged in certain sections of the press clearly showing the Coalition Cabinet clearly enjoying each other’s company during their group knees-up and beano in Reculver, a beautiful and exclusive resort on the Kentish Riviera.
These photographs are so disgraceful, we thought it our duty to bring at least one of them to our reader’s [correct] attention.
Keith Vaz is 63.
Another record of sporting History from the vaults of the Sharp Single. Those who witnessed it say it was probably the greatest match ever played in Dartford Park, and that had the park keeper not told them all to “bugger off home” at 6 o’clock, it would have gone down in history as the best game never played. (click to enlarge)
The English Defence League launches a new line in domestic appliances.
Coming soon:
The Goebbels Teasmade
The Dishwaffen
Night of the Long Knives Block
Kristallnacht Decanter and Glasses
It’s sad to hear of the death of Jack Duckworth. Bill Tarmy, the actor who played Jack in the soap opera Coronation Street, was 71 when he was found dead at his holiday home in Tenerife. I haven’t watched the program since Eddie Yeats shared a bed with Stan Ogden. But I do remember the character of Jack – an oafish bore of a man, who had a love of odd turns of phrase and often an abstract use of the English language, who inexplicably thought he was a hit with the ladies, but who often found out he was nothing of the sort.
The Two Jacks: Duckworth and Prescott
And for some strange reason, I always used to get him confused with the former Deputy leader of New Labour, John (now Baron, or is it Barren ?) Prescott. Apart from the obvious physical similarities, here too is a Nellie Pledge of a character who brought all the wit and charm of a Panzer Division to the corridors of Westminster, not to mention the odd malapropism or 8. There’s nothing wrong with being unable to speak (or indeed write!) in pure, plain English, but when you’re standing-in for the Prime Minister of GB and NI it helps to be able to construct a coherent ….erm….
So imagine my confusion when I learn on the same day that one of them has passed on, and the other is standing for election as Police and Crime Commissioner in his local constituency of Humberingside, as he may have put it. The man once known as “Two Jags” for his penchant for destroying the ozonery layer, will presumably be putting in for an extra set of bicyclation clips to join the Northern Constabularianry on the beat as old Punchy Prescott becomes crime fighter.
And just in case you don’t think his heart is really in it, and that this may just be a knee-jerk reaction after his triumphantful appearance at the Levesonian Inquisisation, guess who he roped in to back his campaign ? Yep, the old War Criminal himself (not to mention Jack’s, sorry John’s ex-boss and croquet partner) Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, formerly of this parish. Prescott could have slashed the UK there and then if he’d made an arrest and delivered the ex PM to the Hague, it’s only just across the water, after all. And as ,before he started distributing semen to and into friendly women, John used to be a Seaman could have steered the prison ship himself.
“I Arrestigate You in the Name of the Legals”
I’m sure you are, as indeed I am, thrilled to hear that Robbie Williams is back, where he belongs at Number One in what Jimmy and Fluff used to call the Hit Parade with his Noel Coward-esque ditty ‘Candy‘. If you haven’t heard it, you’re missing a treat. The lyrics are mind blowing:
Ring a ring of roses
Whoever gets the closest
She comes and she goes
As the war of the roses
Mother was a victim
Father beat the system
By moving bricks to Brixton
And learning how to fix them
You will notice how he brilliantly rhymes ‘Brixton’ with ‘fix them’, not to mention ‘roses’ with..er…’roses’. Apparently if you play the song backwards something amazing happens: It sounds exactly the same, or even makes a little more sense. You could plug John Lennon’s body into the national grid and with the revolutions he must be doing you could illuminate a small village on the Wirral for a fortnight.
It’s nothing new, of course, for someone like me, just out of his twenties, to attack the pop songs of the day. I remember when I was a kid defending Althea and Donna’s quite brilliant “Uptown Top Ranking” to howls of laughter and derision from my father. It seemed to me at the time (and my argument has not changed one jot) that “Love is all I bring inna me khaki suit and ting” was clearly a deep social comment on the dresses worn by young Jamaican women of the day, and it wasn’t my fault that my dad (from Slade Green, so he no excuse) couldn’t speak Patois. With the benefit of the Tardis I may have argued that if Robbie’s “Candy” had been written and sung in a foreign dialect it might have sounded better.
No, it’s not just that Robbie’s latest effort is as bad as his last one, it’s that I had subconsciously settled with myself that I’d never need to hear the dulcet tones of the Stoke-on-Trent warbler ever again. Like Mitt Romney, SmallPox and Rickets, I assumed he was part of my past, never likely to darken my door again, save Gaumont News Reels and editions of Top of the Pops 2. How wrong can you be? Not only has the tattooed twat taken his song to the top of the charts, but it looks like Mitt Romney may not be the Republican’s Michael Dukakis the whole world outside the US was hoping he was. (And I think I have Rickets. Or maybe it’s wind.)
Those who predicted that Good Ol’ Mitt the Multi Millionaire would crash and burn would have been the same ones who advised me not to bet on Sebastian Vettel making the podium in Abu Dhabi, having started the F1 Grand Prix from the back of the field. Or those who put their house on this Year’s US Ryder Cup Team, or Devon Locke. I was content in the fact that Robbie was gone from my life, and I would smile to myself about it often, as I put the finishing touches to my Lance Armstrong shrine in the study.
So the lesson for today, children, is never bet on a good thing, and never write off anyone. Just when you think you’ve heard the last of some useless cvnt he goes and gets himself a no1 single, or becomes President or something equally unlikely. And just because you’re riding high in those very same charts or on Le Tour de France, don’t think you’re there forever. You are just one shite performance on TV, or one raid by the USADA from being thrown out of your arse.
Althea and Donna became the victims of a rather unfortunate debut appearance on Top of the Pops. Having had the country bouncing and swaying to their wonderful sound, they chose to a) appear and; b) sing live on national tv. Bad move girls. It was very rare for a first showing on the pop show to actually do damage to an act’s chart position. Sadly, the girls gave a performance akin to an early Chuckle Brothers act. They were out of tune, out of rhythm and out of time with each other so spectacularly badly, you can see where The Smiths got their influences from. Still a great song though. And Ting.
The Sharp Single 