Breakfast At Tiffany's

"So, Professor Enklund, I'd like to thank you and your team for taking a break from developing of a cure for cancer. Did you watch EastEnders last night?"

Hurrah! I am not a cultural Robinson Crusoe! There are others out there who think as I do - and they are prepared to let the brainwashers know that we are still here, and fighting!
I have just watched some limp-wristed, seven stone, beauty-spotted, oops-chase-me type defend the recent output of BBC Breakfast.
This glycogenic pile of Judy Garland records was editor of the aforementioned and had been hauled out of his Laura Ashley-decorated gantry to hear viewers' complaints that Breakfast was no longer a news programme but was, instead, now packed with trite, consumerist rubbish and plugs for mindless BBC programmes.
To illustrate their points, some "highlights" from the programme were shown which included a feature on "How to hang out your washing" (seriously!) and "How to make a cup of tea" (I couldn't have made that up). These were followed by a string of clips of the presenters saying things like "Did you see EastEnders last night?" and "Did you see The Apprentice last night?"
Just on a point of clarification, "How to make a cup of tea" is NOT news. It is a public service announcement for the brain damaged. As for asking me what I watched on the box the night before, my response is: "Mind your own business, you nosey twat! If I had wanted to watch 'How Clean Are Your Pants' or 'Prison Cell Makeover' I would have fucking watched them (oops! I'm supposed to have packed in swearing). The fact that I didn't surely indicates that I have a brain and walk upright.
If I was, on the other hand, one of those types who cancelled his child's chemotherapy treatment to get back to watch 'Sing Or We Shoot' then I would know about it already. Either way, your question is bleedin' redundant!"
So, what did Mr Mincealot say in response to this criticism? He said that viewing figures had been growing steadily and people didn't want to wake up to something depressing or bleak. Oh really? Well, get married, Ponce, and see how you feel when you roll your head across the pillow to see the curlered and face-packed troll lying beside you each morning!
As a seasoned hack, there is nothing more guaranteed to get me reaching for a rifle than these "good news fairies". This may come as a bit of a shock, Quentin, but the world can be a cruel, nasty and violent place. Polyanna programming is just plain lying. It is for people who can't face reality and so
immerse themselves in soap operas or are addicted to so-called reality TV where other people can live their lives for them. If there is an armed and Aids-riddled psychopath on the loose outside my home I would kinda like to know about it instead of skipping out of Pither Towers tra-la-la'ing, having just watched an item on "How Cuddly Are Kittens?", only to be hacked to death and infected on my drive!
We're back to Thatcher's Britain again, I'm afraid. The reason all this shite is on the box is, over the last 10 years, newspapers and broadcasters have recruited armies of brain dead but mega-cheap, daddy's-got-a-Bentley fluffies who pose as journalists.
They have no idea what constitutes news and, more disturbingly, care even less but are prepared to work for virtually fuck all (oops, there I go again) in the hope that they will eventually get their fizzogs on the telly and eventually go on to front Blue Peter or be asked to open a supermarket. There is no such thing as "public service broadcasting" anymore. "The Market" is, as elsewhere, all powerful.
"Justify your slice of the licence fee by getting ratings to match those of "How Heavy Are My Bollocks".
"But Sir, we're a news programme which isn't supposed to have testicular weight features on its schedule."
"Well, call it a 'news magazine' programme, then. That way you can get away with having some birds on who get their tits out and a few features on the etiquette of throwing up outside nightclubs."
News dies a death as these talentless, vacuous, fashion-obsessed farts graduate to production and editing and relentlessly chase viewing figures, so sending programming on an ever-accelerating dive down the proverbial TV toilet.
Editors are supposed to lead and set the agenda, not follow the lazy, uneducated, ephemeral and trite wants of the Spice Girl generation.
I feel better for that. Just one more day and I can have a drink - hurrah! In the meantime, "good news fairies" can go to Grantham.

Sleepless And Seattle

Artists' impressions of D. B. Cooper and Pither (aka Terry Fuckwit)

It's gone 2am and I can't sleep - even if I wanted to!
I made the mistake of nodding off on the settee after dinner - a common Friday night occurrence - and woke at around midnight. Dragging myself upstairs to bed I found that the Comfydown Feathersleep 675 had been entirely taken over by three of my four dogs and attempts to lift the quilt and squeeze in were greeted by muffled growls and bared teeth.
I stumbled back downstairs, just as the soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither was coming through the front door after HER traditional way of spending Friday nights. Today (sorry, yesterday) was the birthday of one of my godson's as well as the 60th birthday of a very good friend of ours and Mrs P had been to wish both well. Quite what a six-year-old or a pensioner were doing celebrating until the small hours was not explained but STB EW seemed to have had fun and promptly retired to bed.
I was left in the lounge with a cup of tea and the telly, as well as with "the rickety armchair" as, during my brief absence, my alsatian had taken over the settee and greeted my attempts to get back on it with muffled growls and bared teeth.
As I sat there, wondering who the Hell it was who actually paid the mortgage, a documentary came on about Dan (aka D. B.) Cooper. Never heard of him? Well, he was an ingenious cove who made off with $200,000 from a North West Airlines 727 in 1971 after telling the cabin crew in flight that he was carrying a bomb in his briefcase. He demanded four parachutes and the cash when the plane touched down in Seattle and then ordered the pilot to fly to Mexico (haven't you always wanted to do that? Like telling a taxi driver to "follow that car"). The plane duly headed off again for the sunny south with the cash and parachutes on board - he had asked for four, saying the others were for crew members, so that he was guaranteed to get a serviceable one and not one which when you pulled the ripcord you looked upwards to see someone's laundry and a packed lunch flying out.
Somewhere over the Pacific North West, no-one knows where, he leapt out of the plane through the back stairway and was never seen again.
Now, I'm not normally a big supporter of armed robbery, hijacking, demanding money with menaces or crime in general but I say............"Way t'go Dan, way t'go!" What a wizard wheeze! Why didn't I think of that? No-one was hurt, the only people to lose out were the fat cat airline bosses and he instantly created a ripping yarn which has deservedly been passed on and on ever since.
I then sat and seriously considered trying to pull a similar stunt myself the next time I fly abroad. The trouble is, not only do I NOT have that touch of derring do essential for such a heist, bad luck follows me like flies around a cow's arse!
I mean, what could go wrong? Well, for a start, trying to find spare batteries and an alarm clock which work here at Pither Towers, let alone explosives, would be impossible. Then, the briefcase I use for work has a dodgy clasp and so my "bomb" would have fallen out on the 501 bus before I'd even got to the airport. Even if that didn't happen then there would doubtless be some strike by air traffic controllers in Paris which would leave me sitting around the departure lounge for 12 hours with a load of sweaty, drunken, Corfu-bound chavs - and a slowly ticking explosive device!
Say I managed to get on the right plane at the right time, instead of taking off for Washington state we would obviously be diverted to Luton because of a baggage handlers dispute somewhere.
Even if we actually managed to start crossing the Atlantic, I don't have that air of menace and authority needed to get this masterplan off the ground. No? Picture this scenario:

Pither: "Stewardess! I have a bomb in this case - yes, the case which has just come open again - and I want £345 and a parachute."
Stewardess: "The Duty Free trolley will be coming round in about an hour."
Pither: "You don't understand. This is a.......no thanks, I don't want a pillow......or another individual fruit salad.......hold up."
Stewardess: "I know. I'm sorry about that. It was those baggage handlers at Luton."
Pither: "Look, will you just take this sodding note to the pilot?"
Stewardess: "He's very busy just now. Can't it wait until we land?"
Pither: " That wouldn't be ideal for me."
Stewardess: "Shall I get my colleague Rupert to help you? Rupert! Oh Rupert...!"
Pither: "Oh, what's the bloody point! Look, just give me a pillow and another fruit salad and we'll call it quits."
Stewardess: "Happy to help."

As for the trickier parts of D. B.'s stunt, they don't even bare thinking about. Knowing me I'd parachute down into a police station, if the parachute opened at all, or I'd get blown back to Luton by strong cross winds.
No, on second thoughts, I think skyjacking is not for me. Bed, however, is. Dreams of derring do can go to Grantham.

Bye, Bye - And Thanks For All The Fish (Again!)

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? We must do it again sometime.
"Bye, Tone! Take care. Oh, and good luck with the old Middle East thingy - just don't mention the war. You'll be fine, honest. The Arabs love you."
Yeah, right! Well, he's finally gone. Hey everyone, we can now start talking about him.
So, what DID he achieve in his 10 years exactly? Well, if you listen to him and his dinner party set, we are all now living in some sort of Nirvana, a near-Utopian Britain where there is freedom and equality for all, where we have an education system second to none, a health service restored to it glory days, crime has been slashed, the gap between rich and poor narrowed to the width of a credit card, our youth is the envy of the world, marching ever onward with respect, hope and dignity, and we are looked up to around the globe as the guardians of morality, freedom, fairness and justice.
Those of us not in NW1, however, unfortunately have windows - and we sometimes open them. Looking outside into the reality which is Britain quickly disabuses us of the notion that life has improved immeasurably under Blair. In truth, the gap between the haves and the have nots has widened considerably, crime is rampant, we have a youth and gang culture to terrify the Colombians, the NHS is in debt up to its proverbial testicles while doctors get paid more for doing less, there are still three accountants and managers for every nurse and more and more services and drugs have to be paid for or are unavailable.
Universities are now the preserve of the rich, as they were in my father's day, and the banks own all the graduates anyway. We have kids who can't spell, punctuate, add up or hold a conversation, let alone open a door for someone, and yet they are all getting A* A-Levels and the police and security services are being given carte blanche powers to arrest or just hold us without trial because of the constant threat of terrorism brought on by an illegal war which virtually everyone in this country knew was wrong before it even started!
Oh, I could go on, but I am boring myself, let alone you. Blair's Britain is just a continuation of Thatcher's, only it has disappeared even further down the U-bend of right and ultra-right-wing politics.
At least in Thatcher's day - God forbid I should give any credit to that harpie - there were alternatives. There was a LABOUR Party, with left-wing ideals, and there were the Liberals and Liberal Democrats taking the centre ground. All we have now, with the possible exception of the Lib Dems who are still trying to make a fist of things, is right-wing A or right-wing B, which is exactly the way the banks (who are now almost completely out of control), the City, the corporate giants, the fat cats, Murdoch and whoever is in charge in the U.S.A want it.
It will all change under Brown, however, won't it? Yeah, not many Benny. The unification of politics in this country under one right-wing, capitalist umbrella was proved when he set about choosing his dream team. First of all he welcomed into the fold, like a long lost brother, a raving Tory in the guise of Quentin Davies, a man of absolutely no political principals who just saw which way the wind was blowing and so wanted to save his own skin. Worse was to follow.
Guess who's Northern Ireland Secretary? It's only Shaun bloody Woodward, another Tory defector and well known millionaire whose treachery to his constituents and the democratic process has been rewarded.
The rest of the new dream team is just as sickening. I mean, David Miliband becomes Foreign Secretary!!
Jesus! I didn't think he was old enough to get a passport! If you think that's bizarre,
Miliband The Younger, aka Ed Miliband, has been named Cabinet Office Minister - and he's only seven!!! (seemingly)
Another of my favourites is Jacqui Smith. When Blair first got in she was a teacher in a provincial school. Six years later she started shinning up the greasy pole and was named deputy minster for women (impressive, huh?).
Two years after that she found herself as Minister for Schools (only because the old incumbent had lost his seat) and now.............she's bloody Home Secretary!!! You gotta admit, the girl done good!!
My old pal Harriet Harman got what was coming to her, however. No sooner had she triumphed in the farcical race for the deputy leadership of Labour than Brown announced he was scrapping the post anyway!!
At least she was a winner for once in her career - if only for 1.3 minutes. Her appointment as Commons Leader is the political equivalent of saying "Just sit over there and try not to make any noise".
One other worthy of mention is Peter Hain.
Sorry Wales, but you've got him - oh, and the work and pensions department as well. Our Pete was convicted of criminal conspiracy in 1972 and in later years was cleared of armed robbery. I say no more.
No, it's not looking good, is it? Those sunlit uplands we were all promised all those years ago are further away then ever. I don't know what to send to Grantham. It's getting that there would be preferable to here and so I might just send myself.....I said MIGHT.

Dinner Crime

Ah, those were the days. Dinnertime was so much simpler - and more enjoyable.

I'm exhausted! Work - as in work-work - is not responsible, although it has been another busy one, to say the least. No, it's the daily "what shall we have for dinner?" game which has left me feeling like I've just starred in a performance of Python's cheese shop sketch.
I am invariably the cook round at The Towers and tonight was no different. The trouble is, I am far too obliging when it comes to trying to dish up something appealing to my soon-to-be ex-wife's delicate palate. Couple this with the somewhat, shall we just say, "unusual" workings of a woman's brain and the only recipe you end up with is one for disaster.
This evening's attempt to decide on what to slap in the Parkinson Cowan Mini-Crem 9000 prompted the following exchange:

Pither: "So, dearest soon-to-be ex-spitting cobra of my life, what would you like for dinner tonight?"
STB EW: "I don't know. You choose."
Pither: "Whoa, no!! Not that carousel again! YOU choose - we've got quite a bit in."
STB EW: "Like what?"
Pither: "Well, we've got a couple of nice sirloin steaks?"
STB EW: "I don't like steak."
Pither: "Since when!!!"
STB EW: "The way they kill cows is inhumane."
Pither: "You want a live one? It would never stay still long enough to get a fork in it."
STB EW: "Have we got any tuna?"
Pither: "Alive or dead? We really are full up, pets-wise."
STB EW: "Don't be silly."
Pither: "Does it matter if it was asphyxiated and then clubbed over the head by some sadistic Indian fisherman?"
STB EW: "Have we got any?"
Pither: "Alas, no. We have, however, got cod or trout."
STB EW: "I want tuna."
Pither: "We've covered this, and the major drawback involved. How about pasta?"
STB EW: "We had pasta last night."
Pither: "Italians have it most nights."
STB EW: "I want something different."
Pither: "Like what!?! DON'T, whatever you do, say tuna."
STB EW: "Could you do a cottage pie?"
Pither: "Yup. We've got mince and all the rest."
STB EW: "Nah. It would take too long. How about just an omelette? I love omelettes."
Pither: "Adventurous, complicated and exotic. If only you'd told me in the first place. Ok."
STB EW: "Second thoughts, I had an omelette for lunch. Oh, I don't know, you choose."
Pither: "Aaaargh!! How about a raw, dead cow, stuffed with cod and trout, wrapped in a cheese omelette and served on a bed of pasta?"
STB EW: "I know! How about that thing we had on my birthday?"
Pither: "Four bottles of wine and an argument?"
STB EW: "No, that chicken saag thing."
Pither: "A curry, you mean? I'm not good at curries, and besides the chicken is frozen, but we could order one?"
STB EW: "Nah. We can't afford it - and anyway, they're fattening and no good for your colon."
Pither: "Let's leave Colin out of this. Look, if you don't make up your ruddy mind soon it's going to be breakfast time and we'll have this nightmare all over again, only with eggs being the central theme."
STB EW: "Oh, I don't know. You decide."
Pither: "Ok. What have we got?"
STB EW: "I don't know. I fancy tuna."

This complete and utter waste of our existences only came to a halt when Mrs P spied French onion soup I had made on Tuesday and decided that was all she wanted.
So, soup it was - not exactly a meal to get Marco Pierre White tearing up all his menus and questioning the validity of his life, but it staved off the desire to gnaw at the skirting board.
The tedium of this dilemma is that it rears its head every single night so, to keep me sane and nourished, gastronomic indecision can go to Grantham.

Step Forward Mr Hank Uberpecker

Hey, tell you what, this globalisation thingy is a bit insidious, isn't it? But does physics dictate that it is our destiny?
I mean, THAT book tells us that in the beginning there was NOTHING. Then, in Stone Age times, we were all regarded as ONE - well, apart from the Welsh! The instinct of mankind, however, has always been to divide and the first easily identifiable act of mitosis followed The Enlightenment when the world supposedly split in TWO with the Renaissance nations peering down their cultural noses at the artistic also-rans who kinda thought finding something to eat was more important than marvelling at Michelangelo's use of colour. Later on we had THREE divisions, with the First and Second Worlds marching onwards and upwards because they had Sky TV and Cillit Bang while the Third World dragged its underdeveloped and starving carcass behind because it was still kinda obsessed with the "finding something to eat" thing.
Still the divisions continued and the next grande fromages on the scene were the FIVE permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the U.S.A, China, Russia, Britain and France. Since then power has been shared out a little bit and, until this week, the magic number was EIGHT because of the so-called G8 group of the world's most industrialised nations, which were top dogs.
A seismic shift was, however, signalled on Tuesday. I was listening to the wireless when I heard reference to a meeting of members of "The Quartet". This was a new one on me. The FOUR in question, it turned out, constituted the latest uber-powerful group and were the U.S.A (sur-bleeding-prise), Russia, Europe and A.N. Other - China, I think. This IS significant because, for the first time, the all-important number has fallen.
Let's face it, we can all see the day when we will have the Big THREE - the U.S.A, China and Eurasia (yes, Eric Arthur Blair will be proved right). That's just a hop, skip and a jump from the U.S.A being the nation running everything on earth - Christ knows, they're almost there already.
This, you see, is entropy. The expansion has happened and now the contraction is beginning. Eventually, we get back to where we started. Many physicists believe this is what will happen to the universe. Ok, it is still expanding and I think Einstein predicted it would continue to expand (what did he know!) but others think it will reach a maximum size and then start to contract until it returns to the infinitesimally tiny spec from which it burst forth in the first place.
Taking this model as a guide for the future of mankind, the U.S.A will eventually be known as the Big 50+1, which will shrink to the Big Four (New York, Washington D.C, Texas and California), which will become the Big One (California) which will become the Big 20 million, then the Big million, then.......down and down and down until Mr Hank Uberpecker of 231a, Garden Heights, Los Angeles is the ruler of the entire world!
Just wait and see if I'm not right.
I've got a headache now and I want a drink - BUT I CAN'T HAVE ONE!!!!!!

Hogfrog

My frog, Duncan, seems take to take after Pither when it comes to eating. The boy is not only a hogmaster frog, he is better than the telly (what isn't?), particularly as I can't touch alcohol until Sunday and so have to make my own entertainment.
Any smart ideas for a caption?

The People's Republic of Walsall

I used to work in a town called Walsall. No, not Warsaw, Walsall. It's a bit like the Polish capital only smaller and the food queues are longer.
Although drug dealing, street shootings and teenage prostitution have done much to raise the profile of Walsall after years of decline, the town is really famous for two things. Firstly, it has a world renowned leather goods and saddlery industry - hence the local football team is nicknamed The Saddlers. Secondly, it used to have, without doubt, the looniest council in Northern Europe.
Prescott and his henchmen eventually marched up to Walsall to sack half of its Labour councillors and to instigate a system which operates to this day whereby council officers and appointed businessmen run the authority.

I worked in Walsall for many years as a journo and, before it was privatised, had fantastic copy from and sport with the good councillors of the borough, whether they were Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or Independent Conservative, Liberal, UK Independence Party, Old Labour, New Labour or Socialist Alliance. Yes, those groups were all represented on the authority and it was invariably a hung council, with no-one in overall control, so that nothing ever got done or what was done was a complete and utter knob-up. The other attraction of the place to a hack was that both Labour and the Tories were riddled with divisions, so much so that they hated members of their own groups far more than then did councillors of a different party.
Among the greatest moments in the life of this council was when one venerable member complained that he had not been given the chance to air his views at a meeting. The words he uttered were: "Tha'r ay God fair. I ay spaked yet." Yes, he even managed to conjugate the verb "to spake" and identify the perfect tense.
Then there was the chairman of the libraries committee who, having listened to a long, boring and virtually incomprehensible debut speech by a young member, summarised the content by saying: "Well, that just goes to show that there's more than one way of killing a donkey than by stuffing it to death with strawberries."
There was the magical moment when the break-away Labour group became bored at a meeting of the full council and so began simultaneously pressing their microphone buttons so as to interfere with the hearing loop system in the chamber. This caused the stone deaf and aged mayor to spend most of the meeting shouting "Aye? What? Hello? Speak up!" much to the amusement of the socialists.
There was the time when Walsall donated its aged mayoral Daimler to its twin town in France and I went over there to interview the Gallic recipients and find out just how grateful they were. It turned out the car was a complete nail and, far from being a gift, the French had had to spend £12,000 just to get it into a serviceable condition so it could go on display somewhere. On my return to Blighty I told the leader of Walsall Council this, expecting him to be deeply embarrassed, but all he said was: "Why d'yow think we gid it 'em?"
Well, just last week, Walsall's superb local authority was at it again. A friend told me that on Thursday afternoon, while staff were marooned in their offices by the Town Hall as rain of Biblical proportions was pouring down outside, they looked down to see council workmen watering the hanging baskets in the street!
God bless Walsall Council. Grantham shall not have it.

Crossing The Floor - And The Electorate

"Hmmm. It's Tuesday so I must be........New Labour!!"


Beware the power of the blog - The Grantham New Town blog!!
This pathetic, ill-informed, badly written drivel has at last struck right at the heart of the Mother of Parliaments, a blow which must surely signal the start of the bloody revolution which will oust our capitalist overlords and bring a brave new era of hope and equality for all to these shores!
Yes, Quentin Davies, the Tory MP for Grantham, has decided that he was wrong all the time and everything I have ever said, ever, was right and so he has changed political horses and joined Labour's ranks.
Quentin - now there's a good, earthy, honest-to-goodness, working class name if ever there was one - was obviously converted by my reasoned and irrefutable political arguments but I fear that he may also have gone in search of the populist vote, bearing in mind that this blog is read by anything up to four people every week - well, some weeks. Good weeks, that is.
So, which particular hole did Mr Davies see in the Swiss cheese which is Conservative philosophy to make him realise the error of his ways? Was he, after all, not in favour of members of the Countryside Alliance being allowed to shoot poor people? Perhaps he disagreed with the Tory's plans to jail everyone outside Surrey? Could it have been that one day - just one - he read the Daily Mail and thought to himself "What a bigoted, small-minded, ill-informed, nasty, petty, sexist, racist, homphobic, disturbing and dangerous little rag this is"?
I'm afraid it was none of these things. It was, according to the great man himself, that he thought David Cameron was shallow, had no real principles and was obsessed with PR and courting media popularity. Well, it's obvious what you do if you feel like that, isn't it?.............you join New Labour! I mean, no-one can say Blair and his cohorts are obsessed with spin and what the papers say and that the only policies they have are the ones dictated to them by Murdoch, the Daily Mail and Wise Guys from America intent on cleaning up over here with grubby, crooked, mega-casinos.
It used to be said, in the days when I was alive, that what Mr Davies had done was to "cross the floor" or "cross the House". This euphemism for "being a hypocritical, unprincipled, self-serving bastard with the morals of crack whore who just wants to save their own skin, expense account and liberally-minded secretary by joining another mob thought to have more chance of election than the one for which they stood at the election" reflected the fact that MPs who switched from Tory to Labour or vice versa actually had to physically move from one side of the House of Commons, where followers of their previously adopted political doctrine sat, to the other side, where sat followers of the diametrically opposed doctrine they now chose to support. The trouble is, thanks to Blair, there is now virtually no difference whatsoever between the political doctrines of the Tories and New Labour (if, in fact, either of them has what could be called a doctrine) and so the phrase "crossing the floor" is redundant. It has been replaced by the more accurate term "shuffling along a little bit".
Well, Quentin - who, by the way, speaks like Leslie Phillips, just like all grass roots socialists - is obviously a man of great honour and principles. We need people like that in Grantham New Town so he can leave Grantham and......well.......just shuffle along a bit.

Eeeh Bad Gums!

You never quite touch bottom, do you? I mean, you think things can't get any worse but then life surprises you and you discover that you have only actually been probing the sediment -and that goes down quite a way.
Now Pither has, for the last few years at least, been what can best be termed a "bottom dweller". My dive into the sediment, however, hit new depths this afternoon when I visited the dentist's.
My teeth, I am proud to say, are strong and I have never, in fact, had a filling in my 46 years on this and a couple of other planets - and I do visit the dentist regularly. The problem I have is with my gums - yes, it's that old Tommy Cooper gag: "My teeth are fine, it's just my gums have got to come out!"
Well, a week ago my gums started to feel a bit sore and by last night they were red raw and bled if touched (Uuurgh! I know). So, I made an emergency appointment to see my dentist, called in this afternoon and he had a quick firk around to try to find out the cause of my discomfort. I was expecting him to say something like "Ooh look! This little peggy's a bit loose" or "Mr ulcer has set up shop in Toothy Town". No such luck. I should have known it was bad news when he shot backward, stared at me in a "how the Hell are you still alive?" kind of way and then stammered somewhat disbelievingly......"You..you've....you've got Trench Mouth!"
TRENCH MOUTH!!!! Flipping TRENCH MOUTH!!!! I'm only 46!! I've never been to Flanders, let alone shot a German, let alone 70 years ago! How the Hell have I ended up with that?
It turns out that, unlike its fungal brother Trench Foot, Trench Mouth is a bacterial infection brought on by stress, lack of a satisfactory diet and sharing crockery and cutlery with people in the same unhealthy boat. As its name implies, it first gained notoriety during the First World War when cowering in a shit-filled trench with hundreds of others packed alongside and Bally Gerry shelling every minute provided all the basic ingredients for this particularly nasty form of gum rot!
Worse was to come when the dentist said: "We don't normally prescribe antibiotics for gum conditions but they are the only possible cure for Trench Mouth. I hope you don't drink alcohol because you have to take these," upon which he produced a flame red box of tablets from a dusty, top cupboard. "They contain similar chemicals to the ones they sewed into George Best's stomach lining to make him sick if he touched a drop of booze," he added, reassuringly.
Happy days. Not only have I managed to contract a disease thought to have been eradicated 70 years ago, I can't drink for a week!
Trench Mouth can most definitely go to Grantham.

P.S. While waiting for this startling diagnosis, it occurred to me what an awful place a dentist's waiting room is for an adult, childless male. I mean, look at the things designed to take your mind off the agonies to come which were laid out in my dentist's waiting room.





...And when you've finished playing with all that, HE just has to remind you how healthy HE is and so what a grovelling piece of pestulence-ridden filth YOU are.

Days of Living Dangerously.

And finally.............spare a little more than a brief thought for Dangerous. He is one of the Mutants who was given his nickname not because of his propensity for violence (he is a senior manager in social services and would rather listen to something untrendy than punch anyone) but for attracting disaster.
His latest brush with death happened on Friday night when he and his wife were watching the Glastonbury highlights on TV. Mrs Dangerous said she wanted to watch something on another channel just as The Killers, a popular music combo of which he is particularly fond, were about to appear. Being a reasonable sort, he switched the telly over and then ran out of his front door to grab his new Killers CD from his car with a view to listening to it on his headphones while his wife watched her programme.
So, there he was, running at full tilt down his front path when, in his own words, he "forgot" that three months ago he had had an iron front gate fitted. Bang!! He hit it at about 25mph and ended up winded and doubled over.
The belly bruise he proudly displayed to us yesterday was impressive, to say the least - about six inches in diameter and with a jet black centre surrounded by concentric rings of purple, burgundy, red and green. I was about to notch it up as a record breaker when I remembered that about three years ago he had been cooking a barbecue when he smelt the whiff of sizzling pork. At about the same time he remembered that he was not cooking anything porky, he leapt back in agony, having discovered that his voluminous belly was draped over the griddle, cooking away nicely. Now that WAS an injury to be proud of.
No, Dangerous is unique and so far too special to be a resident of Grantham. We shall keep him instead.

The Day They Knocked Down The Palais

Derek Dougan (Jan 20, 1938 - June 24, 2007).

Derek Dougan is dead!
Who is/was Derek Dougan? Well, for those with less than a passing interest in association football, Alexander Derek Dougan used to play for, among others, Aston Villa and, more famously, Wolverhampton Wanderers, was a former captain of Northern Ireland, a high-profile players' spokesman and latterly a TV pundit.
The Doog, as he was known to legions of fans in his heyday (the '70s), was a tall, lean, fearsome and in his early days skin-headed striker who formed a partnership "up front" at Wolves with a fellow striker by the name of John Richards. Together they scored copiously and The Doog in particular became a central part of Black Country culture in the '70s, along with Slade, Parker coats, "bovver" boots and Brew XI.
I knew The Doog. I spoke to him quite a lot when he started frequenting my then local in the 1980s and, come to think of it, I bumped into him in the village as recently as a week ago last Saturday when he was limping, using a walking stick and complaining that his foot was knackered.
As a cub reporter I once interviewed him at length about a disastrous take-over of Wolves of which he had been the figurehead and the financial clout had been provided by two brothers - the Bhatti brothers. I remember he answered none of the questions, being an expert at changing the subject and bluffing, and so I changed tack and started asking him what he did for a living now that his playing days were over. I still have a tape of that interview (I wasn't confident enough of my shorthand in those days) and I can be heard asking the same question about a dozen times over the course of an hour-long talk. I never got an answer to that seemingly simple question either. The responses were along the lines of "business", "all sorts of things", "a bit of this and a bit of that", "fingers in many pies" and "it's too difficult to explain."
Shortly after that interview he became a figurehead for another financial venture. He was the face of "The Duncan Edwards Appeal", an appeal aimed at building a sports therapy clinic in honour of that more legendary Black Country boy and Manchester United star Duncan Edwards, who died in the Munich air disaster of 1958. After a year or so of operation, the appeal fund's books were examined and it turned out that something like £1.50 had been raised for the new clinic, the remaining thousands which had come from a generous public having gone on "expenses".
In later years, it has to be said, he became a frequently inebriated, loud-mouthed and often aggressive bore who was a little too fond of using his fists, particularly, and headline hittingly, in matters of the heart.
I have never and would never support Wolves. My allegiances lie in the city of lace and Brian Clough. I have many friends, however, to whom The Doog was an idol. Although they are now happily married, middle class businessmen in their 50s, some still have their Parker coats from those heady days of his reign on the pitch, with a bullseye sewn on the back and the words "The Doog" displayed prominently above. While Dougan was no hero of mine, he was an important part of my childhood and has just become yet another large wedge of that particular iceberg to fall off and go crashing into the depths. I now know how one of my REAL heroes, Ray Davies, felt when he sang: "The day they knocked down the Palais, part of my childhood died, just died."
That's the trouble with heroes, you see. You should never meet them - it's always a big disappointment. I live by my journalistic motto on matters such as this, a motto allegedly first attributed to legendary Wild West gunfighter and Marshall Wyatt Earp. When asked, as he lay dying, to tell the truth about what really happened at the notorious Gunfight At The OK Corall he simply replied: "Hang the truth, tell the legend."
So, as The Doog is busy winging his way up or down at the moment and I try hard to concentrate on his legend, not his life, the let downs which come about by meeting your heroes can go to Grantham.

Happiness Is A Sheet of Iced Toilet Paper - For Some.

Spare a thought this morning for the Mutants. They are the assorted collection of misfits, dipsomaniacs, tale-tellers, round people, loonies and humorists I call my close friends.

Yesterday was my soon-to-be ex-wife's birthday and there was a three-line whip on attendance. My local pub was the start and finish point but, in between, two minibus taxis took us to a little boozer near to where I used to live in Small Town. The pub itself is a dreary little place and the beer is not good, for people like me who can't abide lager or cider. Why go there then, you may ask? Well, this pub, run by an Indian guy, does amazing food. To say it's good value is like saying Pythagoras was quite good at sums. Now Pither is not one to ignore good food or a bargain but when it comes to eating I am very much like a rock python. I eat seldom but when I do it is a meal approaching my own bodyweight in size, after which I have to crawl away and sleep it off under a rock for about a week. I also have a colon - Colin, I call him - who has a tendency to go spasticised the moment he is confronted with anything spicy or rich and so, with those facts in mind and wanting neither to go home early nor spend the following few days laid up, I opted out of having any food. Instead, I stood by and watched as the Mutants re-enacted a scene from a wildlife programme and tore into the grub dished up.
The pub's speciality is an Asian mixed grill. It is what you might call "substantial"!
Two thirds of the assembled mob opted for one of these grills which come in two sizes - "very big" and "plain ridiculous". Just one look at the smaller of the two (pictured) will leave you in no doubt as to why I ask you to spare a thought this morning for the gang - they must all have anal sphincters akin to dragons' nostrils! Copious amounts of ale and wine on top will not have helped their digestion.

The soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither performed typically by ordering a large bowl of green mush (saag?) and then eating none of it, insisting instead that it be packaged up and handed to me to take home for the dogs! My dogs have the ability to Tarmac a carpet each morning on a healthy diet so the chances of me giving them that radioactive gloop are minimal.
The feeding frenzy was followed by more minibuses, this time back to my local, and then the rest of the evening was spent singing uproariously to a live "band" comprising one crusty hippy and a sidekick who looked like Dennis Neilson. I never realised before that I knew the words to so many Rod Stewart songs! - "I wish...that...I knew what I know now...when I was younger!!!" Ain't that the truth!
Pither bailed out at midnight and took a cab home and the remnants of STB EW followed later - much later! I have no idea what time she got in but I know it was after 2am. The sounds of a warthog in labour are drifting down from upstairs as I write and I have a feeling I will not be seeing her for a goodly while yet.
Oh, well. A good night was had - the first time I have ever come out ahead on one of Mrs P's birthdays. On account of that, and dwelling as I am in my newly-found "happy place", I have nothing for Grantham.

P.S. and apropo nothing, this was among Mrs P's collection of birthday cards. As twopenny gags go, I quite like it.


P.P.S. Put-down line of the night - "I was in Tesco's the other day and I thought they had named a loaf after you. Then I looked closer and found that it actuall said 'thick CUT.'"

Carry On Britain

Hurrah!! We're safe! Our Brave Tone has, once again, beaten off the continental hordes and saved this sceptred isle from the horrors Johnny foreigner had in store for us.
Yes, Tone may have crayoned in his name on the new European Union treaty but, like John Major before him, he has stood firm and got an opt out on some pinko, Commie, lefty, namby-pamby, hoity-toity clauses those tree-hugging, reds-under-the-bed in Europe wanted us to sanction. Phew! Thank God for that! I mean, a human and social rights charter? Can you believe that? It only wanted to "outlaw torture, protect national minorities, combat racism, ensure equality between men and women and protect media freedoms", didn't it! It's just political correctness gone mad! What next? They'll be expecting the stinking electorate over here to actually have a vote themselves as to whether this kind of liberal rubbish should be adopted. Thankfully, politics in Britain has come a long way since the days when people actually had a say in what went on.
I mean, history has proved that if you give an inch to the Trotskyite scum which passes for the majority of the electorate in this country then they'll take a mile. Good God, they'll be saying next that the Government shouldn't try to stop them smoking in their own homes, drinking if they're pregnant or eating an egg for breakfast!!
We faced just as big a potential crisis in 1991 when we were being asked to sign up to a Charter of Workers' Rights, would you believe, as part of the Maastricht Treaty. Even though we had a less right wing Government at the time, John Major managed to stand up to the Eurocrats and say "NO!!!" Workers' rights!! Jesus Christ! RIGHTS FOR WORKERS!!!!!Robert Maxwell would turn in his watery grave (if he were dead......but that's for another time). We haven't spent the last 30 years eroding the rights of union members while at the same time giving employers carte blanche to bully and flog employees into the ground and then lay off thousands at a time when profits dip from £89 billion-a-year to £79,999,999,999,999 just for some wet frogs or hippy sausage-eaters to try to undo all that good work.
Workers/social rights, eh? You wouldn't catch your breath. In the 21st Century!!??!!No, thank God for Tone and thank God for New Labour. I'm just worried that things might still go sour if those ultra-left-wing Tories get in at the next election. Then again, nah! S'never gunna 'appen. Tomorrow belongs to New Labour!

Frauds Of The Rings

Well, it's a kind of religion?

I've decided, I'm gunna get in on this human rights things. There's gotta be some mileage in it for old Pither somewhere.
I mean, there's this 16-year-old lass down in Sussex who belongs to some crackpot evangelical movement - started guess where? Yes, America - whose members have vowed not to have sex until they're married. Hell's teeth! I do hope she realises that, if my marriage is anything to go by, she's going to die an old woman without EVER having played Harry Hides His Helmet if she sticks to that principle!!
Anyway, this lass, who is probably only hiding under this "my-hymen's-for-hubby" cloak to cover her embarrassment at being so pig ugly no-one would want to pork her at ANY time, has taken her school to court. She claims the school has infringed her human rights by barring her from wearing a ring which signifies she is a member of this sexless singletons club. The ring is banned because the school has a "no-jewellery" rule but Little Miss Hands-Off-Til-The-Honeymoon says that moslem girls are exempted and allowed to wear a veil, Sikh girls are likewise excused and permitted to have religious bracelets and so she should be ok to walk around, proudly displaying her digital decor which proclaims her unwillingness to drop her drawers until after the speeches and the cutting of the cake.
If I've got this right, you just have to claim you're doing something because it's your religious belief and then no-one can touch you? The moment the Feds or your boss or whoever takes issue you can just shout: "Back off, Fascist, don't oppress me. You're trashing my religion, man. I've got court papers here, and I'm prepared to use them."
The possibilities are endless. I'm not sure what constitutes a quorum in religious circles. It can't be much, can it? Maybe someone out there could advise? However many are needed, we need to start a new religion? It would have to be something different, something easily distinguishable from the cliched "walking around, doing good and praising a lot" kind of thing which is all too prevalent these days. Something like a religion where some of the key tenets are that you have to walk around in just your socks, paint your nadgers bright blue and say "blibble, blibble, ningo, ningo, naaaar!" to anyone who walks past?
All suggestions will be considered.

Down With That Sort Of Thing

I am gearing up to pack in smoking (again!) in the coming weeks! To prepare myself for the pains of deprivation which I will suffer I am, beforehand, going to give up two things slightly less addictive - anger and swearing.
It has been pointed out on more than one occasion that I swear too much for one lucky enough to have a decent grasp of English and I spend too much of my life getting angry about things.
I am not, by nature, a swearer in company. I seem to save foul language for this blog and this blog only. Likewise, I do not stalk the streets with a loaded rifle, cussing and screaming at people like "the woman at the post office" or institutions like "Lloyds Bank". No, I think the Army should be doing that.
So, it's new leaf time. Henceforth I shall not use anything stronger than "bloody" (it's Biblical, after all) and I shall, as they say, always look on the bright side of life.
Grantham will still be populated - it has to be - but I shall send immigrants off with a cheery wave, and even drive them to the bus station.
..................It's been one minute since I wrote that and I'm still holding out!!

Crappy Birthday For Me, Crappy Birthday For Me.....

It's my soon-to-be ex-wife's birthday on Saturday - and the mind games have started already.
We have the same exchanges each year and each year I end up in the doghouse. The chat in the run-up to B Day always goes something like this.
Pither: "What would you like for your birthday?"
STBEW: "Nothing, thanks."
Pither: "No, seriously, come on, is there anything you'd really like - I've got £5 and I'm prepared to spend the lot."
STBEW: "Honestly, I don't want anything. We've got enough trinkets and rubbish to fill two houses. It would just be a waste of money."
Pither: "It's not the money. It's the sentiment and the care behind the gift which counts.
STBEW: "Bollocks!!"
Pither: "I know. I read it in Woman's Own once. Still, are you sure you don't want anything?"
STBEW: "Absolutely positive. We can't afford presents, anyway."

The great day arrives and, depending on what I interpreted the current Mrs Pither's words to mean, one of two things happens.
SCENARIO 1 (following Pither's rash decision to interpret STBEW's words according to the Oxford English Dictionary):
STBEW's Poisonous Girlfriend: "So, what did Reg get you for your birthday?"
STBEW (pulling her "..and he's a wife-beater as well, you know" face): "Nothing."
Poisonous Girlfriend: "Nothing!!! I don't believe it. Nothing at all? Good God, that's awful."
STBEW: "I know. I'm used to it though. Still, my mum bought me some new Marigolds so I'm not too badly off."
Poisonous Girlfriend: "Aw, you poor lamb. Come here, honey, let me give you a hug. He's an awful man. He doesn't deserve you."
STBEW: "I know (sniff). I just carry on and take each day as it comes (sniff). Don't worry about me (sniff). I'll be all right (sniff). Honestly, I don't really feel like killing myself. I just haven't got the energy."

SCENARIO 2 (following Pither's decision to adopt The Double Mexican ruse and take the word "nothing" to mean, in Womanspeak, "something, or else!":
Pither (clutching beautifully wrapped present): "Happy birthday, honey. I hope you like it."
STBEW: "What's that?"
Pither: "It's your birthday present."
STBEW: "What!!!! I don't believe it!!"
Pither: "What's the matter?"
STBEW: "Do you ever, EVER listen to a blind word I say?"
Pither: "Yes dear, but......"
STBEW: "This is just typical of you. We can't afford to waste money on silly trinkets."
Pither: "But..........."
STBEW: "I might as well talk to the wall. I distinctly remember telling you I didn't want anything and what do you do? Are you deaf, or stupid or both?"
Pither: "But..........."
STBEW: "Well, you can just take it right back to wherever you got it from! Go on."
THEN, (having reached for her mobile to call Poisonous Friend): "You'll never guess what he's gone and done now?"
Poisonous Friend: "Go on, surprise me. You should leave him, you know."

This year, having been given the "nothing" answer, I decided to hedge my bets and I came up with a cunning plan. I didn't buy a present but, instead, I secretly rang round all our friends and invited them over to Pither Towers on Saturday to celebrate the birthday. I told them to bring a bottle and I thought I could run to a few packets of Twiglets and a sausage roll without bringing on the Wrath of Khan! Sadly, STBEW got wind of the supposedly secret party and told me she wasn't interested. "We can't afford the Twiglets and I'll only have loads of cleaning up to do the following day," she said - despite the fact that STBEW last cleaned up about four years ago and it is Pither who has that obsessive cleanliness disorder thingy.
So, the party is off and at the moment I'm working on Plan B. All I can think of is to ask everyone down to the local pub to raise a glass to Mrs P. It will involve no extra expense, there will be no cleaning up after, there will be no outlay from the Pither coffers on a present but some of our chums will doubtless buy her something and so her materialism will be satiated. I've got to win this time. Please.
Birthday dramas can, in the meantime, go to Grantham.

Go To Work On Granny's Knitting?

Q. What's the difference between a mirror in a blind man's home and The Advertising Standards Authority?

A. One is a complete and utter waste of fucking space and the other is a mirror in a blind man's home!

I almost crashed my car this morning (yes, I sponged petrol money off a chum) when I heard on the radio news that attempts to resurrect the famous old "Go To Work On An Egg" advertising slogan had been scuppered by the ASA.

The agency, apparently, had ruled that an egg-a-day at breakfast time was not healthy because it did not consitute a balanced diet. Fucking Hell!!!!! Give me a break, please. These twats have obviously been got at by those heroes of mine, the health Nazis.
I recall the advert from my flukey youth and I don't remember the slogan - dreamt up, some claim, by one of Fay Weldon's former underlings - being "Go To Work On An Egg.....But Don't, Whatever You Do, Have Anything Else, Like Some Cereal, Or A Cup Of Tea, Or Bacon, Or Some Orange Juice Because That Will Really Fuck Things Up And You'll Never Get To Work Because You'll Die From Malnutrition". Wouldn't have had the same ring to it, somehow. No, I don't think anyone ever fucking suggested that eating nothing but eggs for the rest of your life was the way forward. I think the point was that fresh eggs, when they're not battery-produced timebombs dripping with salmonella, are kinda good for you. They contain lots of protein and you need that - especially the veggies of this world.
I had scarcely stopped chewing my foot over this lunacy 12 hours later when I was watching the Devil's Lantern and on came an advert for the breakfast cereal Shreddies.
These I also remember from my childhood and I have to say I quite liked them. The trouble is they are packed with sugar and salt and all sorts of other bits of shite but does the ASA step in to say they can't be advertised? Does it testicles! Does it say they can only be eaten as part of a balanced diet? No!
Worse than that, this advert claimed that Shreddies were not actually mass-produced in some fucking mouse and rat-infested factory griefhole by BO-ridden, nose-picking Aids victims with bloody and gaping wounds but by...............wait for this................a handful of grannies who KNIT them in some chintzy front parlour somewhere!!! Where were the boys and girls at the bastard Advertising Standards Authority when that baby was first aired?
So, to recap, in the world of this country's advertising regulators, suggesting that people would do well to have an egg in the morning is inaccurate and potentially harmful but urging them to wolf down sugar and additive-saturated squares of mass-produced shite could not prove harmful in any way and, furthermore, telling them that they are "knitted by nanas" in their homes is not inaccurate.
I think I'm getting one of my headaches again. Sorry, the organisational afterbirth which is The Advertising Standards Authority can go to Grantham.

The Polishing Polish Pianist

Am I alone in thinking that Aleksander Kudajczyk is not a genius but is, in fact, two Polish people short of a food queue?
Not heard of him? Well, he was all over the news today. Aleks, a Polish immigrant who arrived in Britain from Katowice six months ago, is a janitor at Glasgow University and is supposed to spend his days mopping the floors. Well, one day he asked if he could play the grand piano in the university chapel and chaplaincy secretary Joan Keenan reluctantly gave her permission. She was a bit nervous about what he was up to, however, and so spied on him through a webcam and learnt, to her astonishment, that Aleks was a brilliant pianist. News of his genius soon spread and other university staff queued up to watch him, via the webcam, perform concert pieces flawlessly. The popular Pole has now been given permission to practice for up to six hours-a-day at the university and he has been booked to play a concert of Chopin pieces during Glasgow's West End Festival.
We are supposed to be cheered by this quirky story of genius uncovered but I think people are missing a glaring stain on this man's intelligence. So, old Aleks arrives in this country just six months ago and for some reason he ends up in Glasgow. Leaving aside for one moment that the only non-residents or non-businesspeople who end up in Glasgow are those who got on at Euston having had such a shedful that they fell asleep, what does this guy do?
Being a proud sort who does not wish to sponge off the fine British welfare state, he goes down to the nearest Jobcentre in search of work. What I want to know is what did this accomplished, "genius", concert pianist tell the person who interviewed him? I mean, didn't it fucking occur to him to say "oh, by the way, I'm a genius concert pianist and would relish work in the Scottish Symphony Orchestra or something similar. Failing that, I will take a session musician's job." No! He obviously tells them that he can fucking clean floors. Talk about under-selling yourself.
I may, of course, be being slightly harsh on Aleks. It could all be down to the Jobcentre. Having had experience of these places in my youth, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Aleks tells them he is a "genius" concert pianist who has played with the Polish State Symphony Orchestra and some spotty geek with glasses behind the counter looks at him like an extra from Deliverance, fishes in a Rolodex, pulls out a card with "cleaner wanted" written on it and then shouts "Next!!"
Nothing for Grantham today.

Poor Old Pither

Well, I can't get any money until Wednesday (long story) which means that I have precisely £1.37p to last me around 28 hours.
There are a number of drawbacks to this situation:
1. There is hardly any petrol in the car and it is a 43-mile drive to work.
2. Unless the restaurant at work is overnight turned into a soup kitchen or the gastronomic equivalent of a Pound Shop I shall have to go hungry tomorrow.
3. The soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither must have been entertaining the reincarnations of Oliver Reid, Keith Moon and Lee Marvin over the weekend because there is not a drop of booze left in the house with which to dull my pain.
4. I can't be like sensible people and have a nice cuppa instead because there is no milk left and I can't drink tea without milk.
Ho hum. As a little boy, I remember I wanted to be a circus clown. That fell by the wayside when I decided, instead, that a life as a jungle explorer would better suit my talents. On being advised that vacancies for jungle explorers were few and far between I then set my heart on becoming a vet. A slight cock-up on the A-Levels front put paid to that and so I drifted into the Fourth Estate. Throughout those formative years of hopes and dreams, however, I always knew deep down that whatever I did it would not end with me becoming a millionaire who spent all his days lounging around on a beach, surrounded by nubile young women. I did, however, have aspirations that by the age of 46 I would have enough money to afford petrol, just enough moolah to be able to buy food and drink and the wherewith all to run to a bottle of gold top now and again.
How the flights of fancy of our youth are dashed! Poverty can go to Grantham.

Let's Hope St Peter is a Black Homosexual!

JOKE OF THE DAY: So, there's this greasy, big, fat, thick, white Manc, with Adolph Eichmann's sense of humour, who goes into a hospital............and doesn't come out! Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaa!
Rest in Piss, Bernard.

P.S. I once went to Manning's Embassy Club while a stupid student in Manchester who didn't know any better. There were five of us, I recall, and we never paid the same amount for the same drink twice. Prices just kept going up as the night went on - robbing, fat bastard!!