How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down?

Posted on April 1, 2009 by The Ed

You need militants on a demonstration. You need passion and commitment and a sense of purpose. If you’re undecided or wishy-washy your march is never gonna get off the ground. Can you imagine the leader of the Liberal Party (Simon Pegg, I think his name is) organising a demo? It’d be as effective as a solar panel in Salford. “What do we want?: DON’T KNOW; When do we want it?: SOME TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE, IF IT’S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE” is not gonna get anyone excited.

So you need heart. You need drive. Often, some of this passion boils over into violence which is why we see thousands of Plod on the streets of London this morning, having had Knacker cancel all leave. Shame. But we are (up to a point, Lord Copper) exercising our right to demonstrate, and a march without passion or a smidge of violence becomes a ramble— and the Church organises those, complete with kagools and sponsorship forms. No thanks.

I was 13 when my brother took me on my first demo— The Rock Against Racism/Anti Nazi League march from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park in East London (30th April 1978, for anyone taking notes). Fucking miles! But it was fantastic. Hundreds of thousands (Police estimate:143) of like-minded people marching for a common cause: crush racism in the UK. It was 1978 and the National Front were becoming a little strong for our liking, so we marched in protest. And we sang. “The National Front is a Nazi Front, SMASH THE NATIONAL FRONT“ We sang it all day. For mile after mile. We ALL sang it. It was bleedin tedious.

Google Maps tells me the direct route between Trafalgar Square and the park is 5.9 miles. Well we didn’t go the straight route (Plod diverted us away from the posh bits in the City) and my brilliant 13 yr old mind told me we walked at LEAST 15 miles. 15 miles of singing the same song. It was like listening to a Morrisey Album all afternoon: torture. But it was a thrill for me at a tender age: collecting ANL and RAR badges. AND placards, and leaflets and flyers and pamphlets. Oh! Think of the Trees, Mike, all that wood n paper!!! well this was BGB (Before Geldof and Bono) and no-one gave a monkeys about the planet or the rainforest. A witty cardboard slogan nailed to a lovely bit of 4×2 was the weapon of choice for both pacifist and anarchist.

The Author (back row, third from left), prepares to leave Trafalgar Square. Note bad haircut

I was proud to have my photo taken by the Police snapper when it was my turn to carry the big banner (what DID they think I was gonna do?) waved at the spotters on the roofs, and ran away quickly when some of the bigger boys started lobbing stuff at the police. But on the whole it seemed to me to be a good-natured event, (I swear that copper was smiling as they wiped the blood from his head) and it ended with my first rock concert in the park and my first sight of Joe Strummer and the boys. I was in heaven.
So we had one message and one march. And one song.

Fast forward to today. Sit down, I have something to tell you: One of today’s marches goes from London Bridge to The Bank of England.That’s a distance of less than a mile. I have longer nostril hair than that !!

Come on guys, put a bit of effort in.

And the coalition of beefs these people have is mind-boggling: Anti Banks, Anti War, Anti Welsh, Save the Planet, Reclaim the Streets, Right to Work, Right to Left, Anarchists, Pacifists, Cyclists, Monarchists, Buggerists, Typists the list is endless. What are they gonna sing? Is there a running order? (mind you, by the time the London Bridge mob reach their destination they’d have hardly had time for a couple of lines of We Shall Overcome). As far as I’m aware they won’t be passing a McDonalds, a Shell garage, or a branch of Barclays: all classic targets for the mob (I still mourn the end of South Africa House demos). Perhaps they can get more miles under their belts by marching round and round in circles a la American pickets in episodes of The West Wing, Columbo etc. (Why DO they go round in circles??)

Say Cheese!

So let’s hope for a good clean fight today. We won’t throw lamp posts at you if you put away the CS gas and the horses. We promise not to lynch anyone, if you promise not to lie about the numbers attending. AND if you’re gonna single us out and snap potential “troublemakers” at least make the pics available to us, so that years from now I’ll have a copy of the photo for my blog.
Up the Revolution !!

Camera Obscura

Posted on March 31, 2009 by The Ed

An organization calling itself Privacy International have complained to the Information Commissioner (very 1984) that the new Google Street View infringes people’s privacy because some are identifiable in the photos therein. And? What’s the problem? Every day, all over the world people are innocent bystanders caught a photographer’sviewfinder. Shots of people walking to work, waiting on train stations, shopping in the high street or sitting on beaches are published online ,in newspapers and in magazines to illustrate stories from the state of the economy, the state of the weather.

Now if I could ask you all to sign this form....

It’s common practice and perfectly legal. Those people captured on film are merely part of the landscape of the image. If the good people at PI have their way photo editors would spend more time pixilating or masking-out the faces of those in the frame. The alternative, I guess, would be to have every man jack of them sign a model-release form, allowing their face to be published. Well that’s not gonna happen. It’s not an intrusion of privacy. No-one’s poking their noses into your little lives or keeping track of you. It’s a photo illustrating a scene. Don’t flatter yourself—you AIN’T the subject.

Same goes for the Google bods: they’ve come up with a gadget that let’s you, me and anyone else see almost every street in London, letting us while-away many a dull afternoon in the office, and it gives iPhone owners another chance to bore us rigid with what their new machine can do. And YES there ARE people in some of the images. Of course there are: IT”S THE CAPITAL OF ENGLAND!!!! But that’s not the point of it. And even if it was, WHO CARES???? If you happen to be seen exiting a massage parlour, sitting outside a wine bar, plying your secretary with chardonnay or spewing up on the pavement that’s just tough. Not Google’s problem. If you wanna play-away with Miss Jones or fall over elephants that’s your look-out.

You can almost see the veins in her neck

It’s perfectly acceptable and legal to take photos on a public street OF the public street and almost anything you damn well like. Ok, if you stand outside an army base, or an airport and start shnapping through the barbed wire at people or equipment, you’re liable (and probably deservedly) get your collar felt by Knacker of the Yard. For years Middle England have moaned about photographers and their long, intrusive lenses. Snappers for the redtops sit in bushes or in the back of blacked-out vans, training their lenses on some poor sod or celebrity who they deem to have been up to no good. Street View does nothing of the sort. Google used a 360 degree wide-angle. How much shorter do you want a lens to be????

My local. I must have been at the bar

So who are Privacy International and it’s supporters? It’s website states that they’re “a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations”. Surveillance? Google aren’t putting you under surveillance, they’re just photographing the street where you live, in the same manner tourists the world over photograph Pal Mall, Las Ramblas or that quaint little village near the resort you stayed in last year in Thailand. Does this mean Flickr will be shut down too? Is this the end of your neighbour’s boring holiday-snap evenings? Wait a minute: I’m sure a Japanese family took a photo of me outside The National Gallery the other day. I WANT THEIR NAMES, FILM AND SERIAL NUMBERS.

Five will get you ten that the people who subscribe to PI’s views are also Facebook addicts and Twitter junkies (“just had pony, can’t be arsed to wash hands and now walking around with knickers around ankles, talk later”).Something really odd is happening. One hand the world wants to tell me absolutely everything about themselves and what they’re doing IN REAL TIME, show me photos of their friends, what their dog looks like, who they’ve snogged and what they looked like the last seventeen times they went to a party or a club. But take a photo of them walking down Oxford Street, carrying a H&M bag and all hell breaks loose.

Smile, you're on t'internet

It’s not CCTV, it’s not stalking you (most of these snaps were last summer anyway) it’s a bit of fun which may be of some interest to a few, lonely people. Focus your protests on something else. There’s plenty to be scared of out there—it’s just that this isn’t it. So next time you’re out-and-about, make sure you’re not with someone you shouldn’t be, and PLEASE stop picking your nose.

Nanoo Nanoo

Posted on March 23, 2009 by The Ed

I have a confession to make: I have a second home, and I’ve never declared it. It’s 400 yards from my place of work and , according to Google Maps (I’ll show you the photos, if you’d like), is only 5.6 miles from my first home. I SAY I’ve never declared it though many people know it’s my second home— I just haven’t declared OFFICIALLY that it’s my second home. I’m worried I’m going to get in trouble.

No-one TOLD me I couldn’t have a second home when I signed up for this job, I’ve always had one wherever I’ve worked, so I naturally assumed… AND it’s got Toxic Assets (well, the Lager’s particularly rank most nights). I’ve gone all Tony McNulty about it: Indignant, apologetic, pig-headed and red-faced, all at the same time. It’s a good trick if you can do it. I’d like it on record, though, that I haven’t been in there since Friday evening. So that’s ok then, isn’t it? Unlike McNulty, who appears to make money out of his second house, all I seem to do is spend tons of cash in mine. 3 pound 20 for a pint of Guinness! How the hell can you make a profit on that? At least I use mine regularly, which is more than you can say for him.

I may (probably not) stop going in there altogether, once I take delivery of my new Nano. No, not an mp3 player, it’s the world’s cheapest car, launched today out of India. For around 1,400 of your English Pounds you can drive away your very own Nano, which bears a marked resemblance to a motorized bread-bin, and is about as quick (0-60 in 23 seconds). The manufacturer , Tata (which is what you can say to your street-cred once you get in one) says it’ll do 47 miles-per-gallon. WHO CARES???? I’d rather get on the back of one of those cycle-rickshaws driven by some git in a santa hat and who pedals in 1st gear all the way. At least I’d have some Vitamin G in me to numb me on my way home. TATAMOTORS/NANO

I’m off now to shout foul, racist abuse at ethnic minorities in front of a CCTV camera. Hopefully I’ll get a contract with Max Clifford, make a fitness video and, when I finally snuff-it, will be loved and mourned by millions the world over.

Tata.

Oh My God, They’ve Found Tom!

Posted on March 20, 2009 by The Ed

British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, wants EU countries to up their efforts in Afghanistan. There’s a feeling by the Brits (and the Yanks) that our continental partners could lend more men to the war effort. As Miliband puts it,”Some countries are doing significant amounts but other countries have got either significant caveats on the deployment of their troops or they’ve got their troops in parts of the country where there isn’t the same level of insurgency.”
In other words, European armies don’t want to get shot at. And fair enough: not being shot at is pretty high up on my to-do-list also.

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Ever since Carry on up the Khyber, Afghanistan has been a little sod to conquer. The British Empire failed to control the Mullahs, the Soviet Army got its arse kicked, and the Yanks are having a few probs with the Taliban too (who, it turns out, were supplied arms by Tom Hanks in the first place). So what are the chances that the 3rd Copenhagen Rifles or a battalion of the Luxembourg Light Horse will fare any better? It’s a scary place, the Hindu Kush, with a soldier’s life-expectancy only slightly higher than that of a diner at Heston Blumenthal’s Dead Duck.

No. Leave it to the professionals. The US did, after all, defeat Nazism single-handedly, having captured Enigma machine and deciphered Ultra, landed virtually alone on the Normandy beaches, forced Hitler to retreat from Moscow and all without a single bit of help from anyone else. Rock Hudson chewed on a huge stogey throughout the D-Day landings, Steve McQueen was the only man on either side not to have to wear a uniform, and only William Holden understood war’s cruelty and madness. In-between shagging nurses on beaches.
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The Brits were buffoons. If you were British and managed to grab a line you either sounded like Sam Kydd or Donald Sinden (right). While GI Joes were challenging strangers with the rather cool “Thunder” to get the friendly reply “Flash”, the silly Tommies used the rather more clipped “Leicester” and “Square” (pronounced “squar”). Brits were rescued from Stalags and Bulges by the the Marines or the Airborne, were always depicted holding a cuppa or downing a brown sludgy pint though buck-teeth, and sported some of the finest moustaches seen in modern warfare. And every Man Jack of them was a complete Berk. Edward Fox deserves particular credit for this one.

Alec Guinness built bridges for the Japanese, Dirk Bogarde sent Gene Hackman’s Polish Brigade to be slaughtered at Arnhem, Gordon Jackson said “thank you” when he meant “merci” and poor old Donald Pleasance couldn’t see a bloody thing. Only Richard Todd, who stormed the Pegasus Bridge ( “Up the Ox and Bucks, Up the Ox and Bucks”) gave any help at all to Ike and co. (In fairness, the actor actually WAS in the invading forces at D-Day). Richard Burton was Welsh and is therefore excluded from this conversation. But the rest? :Useless Limey wankers.

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No-one, for the whole war, ever stopped for a pee. .

So perhaps the British government’s initial reluctance to attend the 65th Anniversary of D-Day is completely understandable. Miliband is only about 12 so all the movies he would have seen on the subject would show him that the Brits were never there. (In Saving Private Ryan Ted Danson does mention Monty once, as the bloke who’s cocking up everything). I wouldn’t turn up either— if I didn’t even make the end credits.

So Mr Miliband, the next time Obama asks you or your EU pals to supply more troops for Operation Certain Death, tell him you want at least 2nd billing, more and better lines and a cut of the royalties. Dunno why they need us there in the first place. We’ll only bugger it up.

1982 And All That

Posted on March 18, 2009 by The Ed

I was in a pub in Portsmouth. It was 1982 and I was on my first Rugby Tour, with the school first XV. On this particular evening, I decided to pop over the road to the phone box to call the then incumbent Mrs B. When she picked up the phone she was crying. “What’s up with you?” I gently inquired. “We’ve declared war on Argentina” she wept. It transpired that she was terrified that I’d get called-up. After pointing out to her that the Argentine army were hardly up to beating Our Brave Boys (“They’re hardly the bleedin’ Israelis, are they ?” I recall saying) and I saw no way that the draft would come my way, she seemed a bit cheerier, so I returned to the pub to announce to my chums that we were indeed “at war with Argentina”, for which I received a dousing in lager from my mates for telling porkies.

It seems another world away: Phone boxes, The Falklands, School trips. Mobile phones were around, but they were the size of chest-freezers and there were about four of them in the country. In that year, Channel 4 was launched, De Lorean went out of business, as did Freddie Laker. Women were protesting outside Greenham Common and Princess Di knocked out her first chavvy, William. Unemployment reached 3 million and Thatcher was in her Pomp. Colin Welland told the Academy that “The British are coming” when Chariots of Fire swept up at the Oscars.
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In 1982 I looked like this

In 1982 Allan Simonsen, the 1977 European Footballer of the Year, signed for Charlton Athletic from Barcelona. We all thought that he must have made a mistake and thought he was signing for Bobby Charlton. He wouldn’t pass the ball to anyone else. They didn’t look good enough. They weren’t. Aston Villa won the European Cup (honest). Yuri Andropov led the Soviet Union, long before he became the subject of funny bar songs.

Michael Jackson, who was turning a funny colour, released Thriller and we all strutted around parties like Zombies. In 1982, if I was buying a computer, I’d buy the newly-released Commodore 64. The world mourned the death of John Belushi, Marty Feldman and Arthur Lowe. They were replaced by Jermain Defoe, LeAnn Rimes and Gavin Henson. Hardly a fair swap.The price of a pint was 62p and petrol was 159p-a-gallon. That year they completed the construction of the Thames Barrier.

In 1982 Sean Hodgson went to jail for a murder he didn’t commit. 27 years later (today, in fact) a High Court Judge quashed the conviction in the light of new DNA evidence unavailable at the time of the trial. But it also emerged that Mr Hodgson could have been released 11 years ago but for an admin cock-up. I watched open-mouthed on tv as a smiling Plod spokesman took to the steps of the High Court and said the Hampshire Police were pleased they were able to help in the legal process and secure Mr Hodgson’s release. They’re going to look into the case again.

In 1982 I didn’t trust the Old Bill or the system. They scared me. Wonder how Sean Hodgson feels ?
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Sean Hodgson

A Fish Without a Bike

Posted on March 16, 2009 by The Ed

I have a pair of blackbirds in my garden. One’s black with a bright orange beak (the male, remember that) and the other is a sort of brown, speckly colour (the female, very important). This weekend I spent many hours in the spring sunshine pottering in my garden being watched by the black one. He’s very inquisitive and stands on any one of several high vantage points watching me turn over the soil, paint a fence, down a beer etc etc. It’s nice, in a rather odd sort of way to have a relationship with him, and I’m not really sure whose garden he thinks I’m tending, mine or his. Maybe I like it cos, thus far, he’s the only bird I know who doesn’t moan at me (or maybe I just don’t understand Blackbirdese yet)

In the past I’ve been in the habit of greeting him with ” Good morning Mr Blackbird, how are you today”. Dunno why I do that. Something in the back of my mind tells me it’s good luck, or something. It follows that when I see his GLW hove into view I follow with similar: “Morning Mrs B, how are the kids? ”
Whatever the reason for this idle persiflage, I’m glad I don’t live in Brussels. Yes, you’ve guessed it: The European Parliament has banned the terms ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ in case they offend female MEPs. It’s all part of their “Gender-Neutral” campaign, according to The Telegraph. Now there are many things I say which offend women (see above, and below), often as part of my loveable-rogue persona. But I really do think anyone who gets offended by being called “Mrs” shouldn’t have got married in the first place. And “Miss” is used purely as an act of politeness. I suppose we could use “Madam”, or “Woman” or “Old Bag” but surely “Miss” is merely trying to be polite, and recognises that ancient practise by women of pretending to be younger than you really are? So don’t blame us, we’re not trying to pigeon-hole you, honest.
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Gender Neutral:
Don’t let it happen to you

For what it’s worth (and these really are beyond me) officials have also ordered that ‘sportsmen’ be called ‘athletes’, ‘statesmen’ be referred to as ‘political leaders’ and even that ‘synthetic’ or ‘artificial’ be used instead of ‘man-made’. Just pass me a bottle of scotch and a Service-issue revolver, I know what to do. (I blame Harriet Harperson)

In other news, the French really are having it bad: sales are down at the “Big Eropolis” in Paris, apparently the biggest erotic fair in Europe. The turnover is down 30% on last year, according to Reuters. If the French aren’t sticking it hard to their mate’s wife (sorry, significant-and-equal-other) cos of the economic crisis, you know we really ARE in trouble. It’s practically compulsory over there. Presumably the rubber-clad mistresses (or Whip-wielding-more-confident-and-sexually-demanding-females, as they’re now known) are feeling the pinch. I suggest some extra talcum-powder.

Back in Blighty, if you did catch your partner looking through the rubber section of the Littlewoods catalogue, or he returned from his weekend ‘business trip’ in Paris covered in crème fraîche and whip-marks, you could have attended Britain’s first Divorce Fair, at a hotel in Brighton.
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Coping with divorce can be upsetting

Now I enjoy a good divorce as much as the next man, but under the pretence of ‘helping people start over’ a whole collection of services were available to those who are finding a recent separation tough.

The list of help available, according to The Times tells you all you need to know about this con-fest: “There were lawyers and psychic healers, financial consultants and shoe retailers, chocolate makers and probate solicitors.” as well as four”colour psychologists” to advise you on changing the decor at home. Hmmmm….. NOW do you wanna join my gang????

Mr and Mrs (there, I said it!) Blackbird have no need for such a gathering. They’re too busy watching me dig up worms in my vegetable patch. She looks older than him. And fatter.
blackbird_female2
Phwoooaaarrrr!!!!!!!

On Your Marks

Posted on March 11, 2009 by The Ed

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.

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

There’s a Rat in Mi Kitchen Cabinet

Posted on March 9, 2009 by The Ed

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!

rat-control-san-diego
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.

That Special Relationship

Posted on March 6, 2009 by The Ed

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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Go Away From My Window…

Posted on March 5, 2009 by The Ed

…Leave at your own chosen speed… as Bob Dylan once wrote. Pretty much how I feel about the upcoming residency of Michael Jackson for a proposed “50 night” stint at the O2 Arena. Those of us who reside in SE London have had enough unpleasantness with seeing the shocking spectacle of Charlton Athletic commit sporting hari kari on the football field every weekend, whithout everyone’s favourite babysitter pitching his tent in, well, a tent!. Yes. The Millenium Bivouac, as was, has witnessed enough disasters over the years since it’s inception but one feels you ain’t seen nothin’ yet when the Jackson entourage (and, what’s worse, his sad fans) roll up into town. 50 nights! FIFTY!! I’m starting a book on how many he’ll actually do before reports of that “throat infection” start to appear and he’s replaced by Gareth Gates. Now remember: rules of the sweepstake mean that ALL of him has to complete the concert. Any limbs or organs that drop off mid-Billie Jean make that performance null and void. Should save a fortune on makeup for Thriller, anyway.
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If any of Mr Jackson’s party happen to read this, you could do worse than to book rooms at The Angerstein Hotel, a pub in Greenwich. It’s but a short limp to the O2, most of the locals need oxygen masks to keep going and the bar staff therin are gender-neutral. Rooms start at 27.50 (with sink) and a view of the Blackwall Tunnel Flyover. Advise keeping the window closed as the whiff from the molasses factory up the road get’s a bit rich. But then you don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.

The Sharp Single

All Done

Category Archives: Politics