Spitting Image versus Headcases

This a deeply annoying programme, full stop.

It's the New Labour Spitting Image

Bile diluted with champagne, canapés and poor repeated dance records.

Spitting Image is oft remembered as a lot better than it actually was, some of it was really good, in fact I would say most of it was. However, it was "of the time and of an age", the latter meaning my own age and the level of understanding and humour I had at that age. Therefore, a lot of would be not so great now, it's the "Drop the Dead Donkey" syndrome, it's not worth watching re-runs as they are excruciatingly poor, but at the time bearable and a necessary comedic "innovation" ('Donkey', in fact, would work much better these days).

As I watched Headcases' clean edges and sanitised insider 'wink at the camera' tosh I couldn't help thinking, "I could be looking at something else". I actually thought those words! I could have been just looking at something like a candlebra or a shoe, that is what I considered doing instead of watch this programme.

It is just the comedic equivalent of beige wallpaper bought at a snip from B&Q, bored of by the time you get it home and forgot about within seconds of hanging. The only time you become aware of it is when someone comes around and says, "'Orrible wallpaper mate."

So there you have it, Headcases: the comedic equivalent of cheap, bad wallpaper that even your friends dislike. Don't watch it, it only encourages them.

Tony Blair and John Prescott had a child

I can now reveal after literally minutes of research the startling revelation that Gordon Brown is literally a 'New' Labour experiment.

Prior to New Labour's victory in 1998, it was felt that Blair needed a foil to his centrist leanings that would appease the old Labour guard but still appear to be the natural successor of Leader Blair. None could be found, so Peter Mandelson and Alastair Stewart enlisted Nazi War Scientists to fuse the sperm of Blair and Prescott together to  inseminate an egg stolen from a frozen Margaret Thatcher clone found in a 10 Downing Street laboratory.

The resulting progeny was raised by Blair and Prescott as their own child in secret save Thatcher's henchman steal him away and use him for Thatcher's vile experiments on  the Scotch.

Although born a cyclops, he handled his disability with admirable verve and began to venture forth from his birth-cave under 11 Downing Street to the outside world.  Throughout the 1990's, Blair and Prescott both tried to raise him to their own ideals but he became confused, disorientated  and increasingly dour and sought solace from his Casio FX82 calculator as a surrogate comfort blanket. "Dougie" can still always be found on his person to this day.

Due to his fascination with numbers and his amusing party trick of making "Dougie" sing Flower of Scotland in Falsetto, Blair made him his Chancellor of the Exchequer and locked him in a bank vault with just "Dougie" and an intercom direct to Blair's and Prescott's desks. It was there he was left until Blair realised that Thatcher had caught the scent of Brown and fled to the Middle East, deciding he was safer there. Prescott drove himself mad with lust and gluttony and tried to burn Hull to the ground whilst he gorged on Condensed Milk and played "Spanish Flea" on a Wurlitzer Organ in just a Teddy Bear outfit.

This was Brown's moment, he was led, blinking and unsure, from his vault and given the Premiership of the UK. At first he was unsure but his reuniting with his now frail "Mother", Margaret Thatcher, greatly buoyed his confidence after he had struck her down in an epic Light Sabre duel.

However, the Old and New sides of Labour within him lead to great dithering over decisions, he seemed to be constantly looking into the crowd for Blair's soothing demonic grin or the listening for Prescott's familiar grunting as he dry-humped an unfortunate passer-by.

With this revelation now in the consciousness of the Nation, hopefully a great many more mysteries can now be revealed? Will Red Ken reveal his mollusc ancestors? Will Boris finally admit his blood was replaced with Gravy in a bid to cure his allergy to the poor?

Who knows? We live in strange, strange times.

Not too bad

The vagaries of language have always interested me, especially the conditioned social responses of casual social encounters. I enjoy watching and listening to people who meet by chance in the street, or in the office, or any place whereby by their passage is obviously beyond this encounter but not in any kind of rush that would disallow a bit of a chinwag.

Recently, I saw two people quite literally bump into each other in a work environment and it was obvious from their mild shock and recognition that the hadn’t seen each other in a while. The immediate conversation went:

“Oh wow, hi! I haven’t seen you for a while. How the devil are you?”

“Oh you know, not TOO bad. How are things with you?”

“Mustn’t grumble. How’s work?”

“Oh, really busy at the moment, REALLY busy. How about you? What are you up to?”

“Yep same, BUSY just isn’t the word.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.”

I stopped listening at this point as they obviously were not going to say anything vaguely interesting to each other as they were in a transitory state and wanted to chat and ‘catch-up’ but were both on their way somewhere else. Which is fine, they seemed like nice people, they didn’t join forces right there in the thoroughfare and demand coinage from all passing colleagues in a de facto toll booth made from two cunningly fashioned cardboard boxes that formerly held laser printers. Call me old fashioned but that made them alright in my book. It’s the language of transience that irritates me. Let’s take each statement and analyse it for it’s true meaning and reconstruct it. So:

“Oh wow, hi! I haven’t seen you for a while. How the devil are you?”

Firstly, why would you say “Oh Wow”, at this point? You have just met someone in a hall, this is a perfectly acceptable place to bump into a colleague that you work (or worked) with as you are both based in the same building and work for the same company. The phrase is an exclamation, and you should save your exclamations for situations that truly require you to exclaim. For example, you could safely and rightly exclaim if your colleague descended from the ceiling on an impossibly thin yet immensely strong wire, grabbed you, winched himself back up into the ceiling cavity, clasped his hand across your mouth and made the internationally recognised signal for shush (raised index finger in front of pursed lips) and said, “I have been posing as a feckless Project Manager for some time but I am really a covert agent from a secret society investigating this companies shocking toner cartridge recycling record. Say nothing, I am watching you.” An inward, or inaudible, “Oh Wow” would be a perfectly adequate and acceptable response.

Also, why ask Satan how the person is doing, I can’t imagine he would anything good to say about him (unless, I suppose, he was a follower of Satan). So sympathetic Satanic leanings aside, Beelzebub would only say something like, “Yeah Bob still wets the bed, fancies Miss Piggy and drinks milk from the carton in the office fridge whilst he has a cold sore.” The Devil would not be sympathetic to a chance meeting.

“Oh you know, not TOO bad. How are things with you?”

Firstly, NO, I do not know, hence my question. Secondly, ‘Not TOO bad’…what does that mean? Not TOO bad? Does that mean you feel slightly bad, but your badness at present can be coped with. It always fills me with fear a little when people say this as I think, “Well, they are a bit bad. Should I be worried? Are on the brink of becoming fully bad? Ultimately BAD? BAD through and through. BAD to the bone!” Usually by this time my conversational partner had wandered off in a slightly disturbed state as I have been staring at them silently wide-eyed transfixed for 30 seconds in case they become BAD before my very eyes. Like the Hulk, I suppose.

“Mustn’t grumble. How’s work?”

I love this phrase; it’s such a working class sentiment. It is literally saying, “I must not grumble”. Why not? Who says? The MAN? The LANDOWNER? The owner of the means of production? And when I answer with that statement, if they haven’t already wandered off, they’ll usually make their excuses and leave as I offer to take part in a posse to find the person who is instructing them not to ‘grumble’.

“Oh, really busy at the moment, REALLY busy. How about you? What are you up to?”

Busy is the new status symbol in the corporate world. If you are not busy, you are not productive. And if you are not productive, you are not fit to be associated with in a business sense. You cannot answer, ‘work is good, easily manageable but ultimately I'm highly effective’ as you haven’t intimated that you are rushed off your feet. And if you’re not that, you are not looking like the other worker bees. This annoys me and I wish I had the guts to be able to say something like, “You know, work is pretty easy, I am super smart and everything that is piled on me I can easily sort out within a matter of minutes so whereas I look busy, really I am coasting to a promotion and pay rise”, then I wink and tap my nose conspiratorially and say, “say nothing though mate.”

“Yep same, BUSY just isn’t the word.”

What is it then? Demanding? Hard? Hectic? Overly industrious? Wearily empty? Too hard?

And there lies the rub. Is it actually ‘too hard’? Are they over-stretched? If they were, would they admit it? I doubt it as that would show a deviation from the shoal. The fact that the person said he was the same, not busier, not less busy but exactly the same. That value judgement took less than 15 seconds; I can’t wait to meet these corridor geniuses again soon!

Time Specific Acknowledgments of Parting

One morning last week, I was sitting at my desk, beavering away (building a small dam out of gnawed down pencils) when an obviously vitally important person, spewing forth into a very small mobile phone, nervously rushed to a place in the office guaranteed to allow me maximum aural and visual access to his side of a, slightly louder than it needed to be, conversation.

The conversation, as it is now itchily still scratched onto my piqued consciousness, went something like this:

“Yes, yes, you’re right, I AM a very important person…..mmm….mmm…yes…Can I just interject here for moment to say some words that are vaguely pertinent to what you have all just said. ‘Think Synergy’, ‘We NEED a Step Change’, ‘…on our game etc.’, ‘Let’s play to win on this one’ and whilst I was saying those important things I just want to point out that I was making the appropriate hand actions and affirmative, confident glances used to convey knowledge and control…….let me just stop you there to reaffirm my status in this conversation and to remind everyone I am here…..OK, let’s go with the things you have said dressed up as things I have said and we can all check progress on my success in saying these things again next week on small mobile phone calls. Yes? Yes. Good….OK then…..bye now.”

That’s what he seemed to say anyway.

I can look past all the posturing and self aggrandisement as it’s all a part of being very important. But why add a time dependent qualifier to the end of a cheerful acknowledgment of parting?

Bye now?

Surely the fact that you are saying “Bye” means that you are offering that sentiment immediately. Except, I suppose, when you’re dying to get out of a conversation but keep irritatingly being dragged back into it. The sort when the other person isn’t getting the idea from you constantly saying ‘bye then’ and inching toward the door and looking back over your shoulder, having to rejoin at a recently added, but just as irrelevant point. It’s like a conversational version of the titles at the end of ‘the Hulk’ TV series where he is hitchhiking along a country road away from another anger based brouhaha. I suppose you could say, ‘bye soon’, to indicate you’re going to exit the conversation, and indeed the area, at a not fixed amount of time but certainly at point less than, perhaps, a minute?

‘Bye now’ suggests immediacy to me, a flagrant disregard for all others in the conversation; it’s the verbal equivalent of hanging up. And also you can’t say, ‘bye earlier’ can you really? Unless, of course, you have forgotten to close off an earlier conversation and therefore feel you have slighted the other party and left them feeling they are still in a very long, silent conversation with you, waiting for the aural ‘stand down’ command.

I am for banning such a statement in the future, we should standardise on a conversation ending statement that leaves the other party or parties, in no quandary as whether to carry on talking. I suggest “Transmission Ends” or “Roger, out.” Surely this would make all our lives simpler?

James out.

Is America doomed through lack of choice?

Part One: John McCain

You can get anything in America it seems, it is, by all manner of definitions, the land of plenty. A bubbling, spitting, melting pot of every race, creed, sexuality, age and haircut. A shining, phallic beacon of Capitalism and democracy and surprisingly, and in no way significant, the largest population of Germans outside Germany. It is the undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world accounting for at least 50% of the world's military spending. It is the superpower and theoretically, the land of the free.

Then why, as a federal constitutional republic with one of the worlds largest populations and budgets, is it still operating under a two party system?

What choice do the American people face at the end of this year: John McCain, Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

John McCain seems to be obsessed with marketing himself to America as a conservatives conservative, constantly bleating about war, abortion, race and sexuality. Whereas he had historically shown tendencies towards a liberal attitude (he believes in Evolution), he now seems dangerously unstable, ill informed and is whoring away, attempting to forge links with anyone that may hand him power (for example voted against same-sex marriage in 1996 then weedily voted to leave it to the States in 2006), including the disgraceful behaviour of hugging the Monkey President.

I can imagine McCain poised, sweating, naked and drunk, a three quarters empty bottle of Bourbon trailing from his hand, nervously licking his lips and eyeing that big red button as enthusiastically as a dog sniffs another's dog's ass.

In a revealing article regarding him from Britain's "The Guardian", he is described as, "a volatile man with a hair-trigger temper, who shouted at Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor to "shut up", and called fellow Republican senators "shithead ... fucking jerk ... asshole". A few months ago, McCain suddenly rushed up to a friend of mine, a prominent Washington lawyer, at a social event, and threatened to beat him up because he represented a client McCain happened to dislike. Then, just as suddenly, profusely and tearfully, he apologised."

Another great example of craziness was this baffling attack on healthcare, "It's indisputable that autism is on the rise among children," he said while campaigning in Texas. "The question is, What's causing it? And we go back and forth, and there's strong evidence that indicates that it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines." What? That's a completely arbitrary link akin to saying that school and college killings are directly linked to the rise in coffee consumed when bought from Starbucks.

He voted yes on recommending a Constitutional ban on flag desecration and on limiting, yes limiting, death penalty appeals. McCain has never claimed to be moderate Republican, he's claimed to be a 'maverick Republican', these views result in him being disliked by most sides for various different reasons probably due to his wildly inconsistent views.

The only thing he's really for is MORE WAR which given his background as a POW is unsurprising, but then, Americans do love a nutter, so he should do well.

Queen of England to Fight in Iraq

In a move sure to shock a deeply cynical and sceptical Nation, Elizabeth II, The Queen of England, is to mobilise her long forgotten chariot and lead her troops to battle. Inspired by her mad-fer-action soldier Grandson, Prince Harry, The Queen told reporters that she had been in the the Royal Garage looking for an errant Corgi (later to be found cornering an simpering Equerry) when she pulled back the tarpaulin of a large object in a long forgotten corner. Under the cover was Queen Boudica's original chariot, an important cultural symbol of the enduring spirit of Britain and it's proud military history.

It has now been made aware to the press that throughout that night, the original Chariot went through a number of very technical and secret modifications thought to include a number of rocket launchers, an oil slick producer, a number of machine gun emplacements, a Gin and Tonic dispenser and a smokeless ashtray.

It is unsure at the present time when the Queen is likely to be deployed but the fear and confusion has already started to spread within the insurgents as they offered to return a number of political prisoners, such as Jim Davison who was thrown at an insurgent outpost when an inexperienced soldier he thought he was giant, mildly racist grenade.

This is surely to be a massive fillip to the troops as the US failed ploys of sending Bill Murray's fellow soliders from Stripes and subsequently the Ghostbusters, both were unfortunately massacred. The British Army has since shelved plans to send in Dad's Army and the "Devils in Skirts" from Carry on Up The Khyber.

"...but is Afghanistan ready for me!"

Prince Harry's militaristic dress-up fight fetish has reached bizarre new heights today as it emerged that he had hijacked a plane 10 weeks ago and flew to Afghanistan to, "solve this Taleban issue 'third in line to the British crown' style!"

On arriving in Afghanistan it has come to light that the soldier Prince commandeered a tank and rag-tag bunch of forgotten soldiers, thought to be doing various menial jobs such as cook, mechanic, helicopter pilot etc., who, it is reported, "get the job done, but aren't necessarily familiar with the rule book." Prince Harry, and his men, thought to be calling themselves 'Arry's Boys', are thought to be at present speeding his tank from cave to cave shouting, "Yeah, you bloody hide Osama, because when I find you I'm going to forget the Queensbury rules ever existed."

Staid and stuffy Commanding Officer, Major-General Basil Frightened-Giraffe of the Queens Own Gaylords blustered and fumed when he heard off the Prince's unorthodox methods but quietly postulated, "He's a bloody fool that boy. A bloody brave fool, but still a fool. Gawd bless 'im." He then gathered his men together to follow the Mad Prince into battle with a resigned, yet admiring, sigh and a wink to his second in command.

Prince William is very displeased with brother but it is reported that on hearing the news of his brother, he removed his crown, put on his pilot's helmut and growled, "EQUERRY, GET ME MY FLIGHT SUIT. Someone's going to have to get his arse out of this."

Although Prince Harry's methods have raised eyebrows amongst the Army's ruling class, they are satisfied his plan might be just crazy enough to work and that he is getting results, his way, so they are leaving him alone, for now. They have publicly stated, however, that if he steps too far out of line he will wish he had the option to go live in a cave. It is unknown at the present time whether the Queen Mother appeared to him in a vision to tell him to go to Afghanistan, but it is almost certainly fact.

God speed, Mad Prince, God speed.

A Very British Earthquake

The biggest earthquake in Britain for nearly 25 years has shaken homes across large parts of Middle England. Whilst people in Newcastle, London and Manchester shrugged off the event with world-weary cogniscensce, smaller middle class communities as far and wide as Norwich, Beaconsfield, Chester and Cheltenham are still reeling fearing that the repercussions, and indeed the pointless remonstrating, could go on for months.

A villager in Yorkshire, who chose not to be named, began her clear up today, consisting of closing cupboard doors that had swung open at 0100 and picking up a child's bike that had fallen from the patio onto the the lawn. She angrily, lamented:

"What if Sienna was on that bike? Eh? What if she had been on our lawn trampoline and a giant chasm in the ground had opened up? Who is answering these questions? Why are the authorities so silent all of a sudden? Everybody knows that London has giant inbuilt springs to withstand this awesome force but what about us up here, have they forgot about us?"

The concern was evident as she sped off in her BMW 4x4 to the local delicatessen to replace some Prosciutto that, during the shaky terror, had fallen out of the fridge and into the dog's bed, never to be seen again.

As the dust settles in the aftermath of "The Market Rasen Quake", a future that was so rosy is now being questioned by people such as Steve MacGyver, 42, of St Alban's, Hertfordshire.

"Can anything be the same again? I mean, I heard that a Policeman's hat was knocked off in Hereford, A POLICEMAN'S HAT! Personally, I think this must have something to do with our failed immigration policy, this country simply cannot take the amount of people that is on it at the moment. I mean, we didn't have earthquakes in St Alban's until that Polish builder put in my underfloor heating in my garage. Think about it, UNDER FLOOR heating....need I say more?"

Although there were no school closures, Patricia Cupboard, 39, of Cirencester, Gloucestershire withheld her daughter from school. She furtively, whispered through a crack in the door:

"My next door neighbour told me that the Sex Offenders register had been wiped and lost forever from a computer in London after the quake hit. This obviously means that rapists and paediatricians are free to roam the streets searching for victims. Until they find them all again, we're not coming out until the Daily Mail gets us the truth!"

With that she slammed the door in my face and called me a pervert.

Dark times ahead for Middle England, we can only hope the resolve that has resisted change and societal progression for so long will at last win out over even a wrathful Mother Nature.

Hunter S. Thompson, an appreciation I suppose...

Ever since 1993, when a kindly yet deeply warped soul gave me his battered copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to read, I have been enthralled and enlivened by the good doctor's writing, presence, soul and spirit.

From the moment I finished the book, barely a day has gone past when I haven't thought about writing. Of creating some gigantic footprint on a cultural world. I have consumed his work in various media since then and have absorbed the belief, the inspiration to be my own writer and follow his and Orwell's fine doctrine to find my own voice.

I have had what I believe to be not a unique experience but one that has probably been similar to many. I don't feel moved to buy a t-shirt, get a Gonzo tattoo, add a quote to the bottom of my emails or start shooting typewriters with highly powered firearms. I don't feel inclined to emulate his remarkable and sometimes harrowingly substance dependent life and experience. However, he is a true original, an exceptional and outstanding human being and a truth-loving, 100 feet tall, intellectual, trailblazing Gila monster. What I do feel, however, that beyond the words in the books is that I have I have learnt good lessons in regards to the ideals he found important to existence. Those ideals did not prescribe a way of life or advocate a single lifestyle choice, but they did push forward, unlike any other author I have read, an untameable, wild, savage thirst for clarity and truth, in whatever fine way you want to express it. If you can attempt to live by this ideal, your path will always cross with the like-minded and that, to a great extent, will in some way factor greatly in the choices you make, the things you hold dear, the kinks, craziness, foibles you celebrate and ultimately the life by which you judge yourself and therefore will be judged.

With these fine examples burning bright in my conciousness I will try and fight good fights; write straight, good and true; smile when the times right and strive to be happy.

Hunter S. Thompson died on February 20th 2005.

It's The Sun wot will win it

Like it or not The Sun is an extremely influential newspaper in the UK. It is the virtual mouthpiece of the Murdoch Empire cajoling the readership into watching Football (on Sky Sports), the Simpsons (On Sky One) and 24 and Lost (also on Sky One). All the time appearing as innocent as a fireside chat with your slightly racist Grandfather.

Not that I'm not saying that the Sun is a racist newspaper, far from it, but, just like my old Grandfather it says things that you cringe at but know in it's heart of hearts, it doesn't mean it. Only, unlike my Grandfather, The Sun knows exactly what it's doing. Or not, as the case may (legally) be.

The Sun's political Murdoch mouthpiece, Trevor Kavanagh, published this article today, a damning critique of 'New' Labour's fiscal and ideological performance since the take over of Gordon Brown. They obviously don't like him as they are try to portray him as a 'Loony Leftie' and appealing to the readership's inner Thatcher to reject him.

And reject him they will.

The editorial has a distinctive Thatcher \ Tebbit tone to it and underpins the major tenets of Labour's failure as that lots of people are fiddling incapacity benefits. Kavanagh stops just short of ranting about, "Getting on your wheelchair to go find work, just like my father" a la 80's Tebbit. The article, in The Sun terms, is quite powerful in terms of the use of it's rhetoric language. It is driving a differentiating factor that the public has been missing for some time. The Sun doesn't want Labour and Conservative to be practically the same anymore, they want the loony lefties back, they are blaming the insidious rise of Socialism in Labour policy making on all societie's ills? They want people taking sides again, us against them, right against wrong. and it's The Sun who is going to tell you who is on the Right side and at the moment, Cameron seems to be in the right place at the right time.

Lucky old Etonian.

A fair question at this juncture is "Did you ever think Brown was going to make a good go of it?"

Cameron is a gifted Parliamentarian and sometimes above average Debater, Brown is a average Economist and above average Politician \ Diplomat. Both have no discernible, biteable and chewable policies. Therefore, personality always wins out. If this case that Cameron has one, however odious, and Brown doesn't.

Blair is a very intelligent man. he realised that he was Socialism's last hope so he made out he wasn't anything but a personality as a credible alternative to a Conservative Government that has effectively gifted him the election but making every conceivable mistake as well as having a bad, bad leader.

For many on the left, Brown was their last hope of Labour returning to socialism. Which is why Blair is unavailable for comment in the Middle East.

Any mention of -isms never go down well with the voting public. Socialism means strikes and handouts to foreigners; Conservativism means making the richer, richer; Nationalism is racism; Liberalism means indecision etc. Popular policies are the key thing now here. The working class wants jobs, health and opportunity; the middle class want their house prices to go up and their kids educated well; and the upper classes want their lifestyles and their money left alone as much as possible.

Every class has it's ideal form of government whilst needing to be being manifestly shielded from the rest. Is there any reason why we can't have separate Bourgeoisie and Proletariat governments? One seemingly radically socialist with empowered workers, one neoliberal puffing away nervously on their pipes? Is there room for collective education with grammar schools then just out of sight hidden in the rolling hills next to Tennis Clubs filled with 4x4s. The upper classes can be pensioned into some quasi-hereditary, divine-right-of-kings baronies somewhere in the Cotswold's that you can visit on Sunday as a tourist attraction.

Convert that into policy and congratulations Prime Minister, you have 6 years until your memoirs deal.