The Gospel According To Pither

The Tree of Pither


Well, at last I know. The circle WILL be completed. I have amounted to nothing, of that I am sure. That I shall die a nothing seems inevitable. Now, thanks to my brother, I know that I came from nothing.....

"And the second son did sayeth unto his father: 'Yea, verily, you gaveth unto me ten talents and look, I have given you back ten talents.'"

I like that Biblical theme so I shall continue with it in an effort to explain. "And it came to pass that Pither's older sibling - he that standeth one full span and a small, tinned loaf, he that has lived more than two score and ten and whose hair hath been smiteth from his head - was much taken by the Devil's Lantern and parables of ancestry researched. Knowing, as he did, that the father who begat his father had been of much import in the place that is Mansfield, in the land called Notts, going by the title of "mayor" in that kingdom, Pither the elder did delve into his antecedents and toil into the midnight hour to reveal unto all the family tree.
"Now there lay great cunning and deviousness behind older Pither's trials for, verily, no shiteth could he in truth have given to learn the names of those unto the tenth generation of his tribe. No, being an avaricious man, the elder had reasoned that if one of his number had risen to become leader of the Mansfield temple then, forsooth, a pot of gold must surely somewhere lay buried.
"And so The Elder did delve, and he did labour and he did visit those places where many books are held until, after much digging, he did bring forth unto the tribe of Pither the fruits of his toil. Now The Elder was much troubled by that which was revealed unto him by his labours but Pither, being as alike The Elder as a pomegranate is to Caesar's arse, found much mirth in the results - in truth, the plums of his groin did falleth to the ground like the leaves of autumn, such was the laughter enjoyed.
"For it came to pass that the father who begat their father had indeed been much revered in that place which is Mansfield but he had risen by scurrilous means and had gone to sit with the Lord God Almighty without so much as a pot in which to piss.
"This revelation, like St Paul's encounter on the road to Damascus, had great impact on The Elder but the path ahead became even more strewn with stones as the roll of ancestors was unfurled. Verily, I say unto you that the lineage which spouted from the loins of he that was mayor ran thus:

Nobby Pither (Mayor of Mansfield)
..begat by Kevin (railway navvy)
..begat by Colin (railway navvy)
..begat by Dirk (railway navvy)
..begat by Lionel (interior designer)
..begat by Bert (railway navvy)
..begat by Peeper (felon)
..begat by Butch (navvy)
..begat by The Duchess of Bedford (female impersonator)
..begat by Charlie (navvy)
..begat by Puncher (navvy)
..begat by Rolf (painter)
..begat by Whoyoulookinat (navvy)
..begat by Ghengis (tourism rep)




Lionel, Butch and Ghengis Pither.

"And there were those who did mock Pither's telling of the tale and did accuse him of being full of the shit which doth fall from the bottom of the bull but Pither did counter this. He did hold up his hands unto The Lord and cry in his anguish "Ok, I made up bits of it but the stuff about all the fucking navvies is all true!".
"And so to all let this be known. The seed of Pither doth grow in infertile ground and as the plant doth currently wither and fade it shall return unto that barren place without anyone being any the fucking wiser!
"Pither doth, however, toil on in the safe and certain knowledge that all flesh is grass and his span on this earth shall soon pass. Until that day when all shall become as one, that place where there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth, that kingdom of Grantham, shall not have him.

"Here endeth the lesson."

It's All A Bit....Well.....Well.....A Bit.....I Mean....Wanky, Isn't it?

All this at the best pub in the world, as well! Is nothing sacred (pardon the oxymoron).
I do find it scary - just not quite in the way I'm supposed to.

The Lay-by and the Tramp

I am about to be forced from cover. I don't really see that I have much choice. I suppose I could stay schtum and thereby retain complete anonymity but my journalistic instincts, notably my love of a good story and the overpowering urge to share it, are too strong. I have to blab!
I have, like most Bloggers, always kept my exact location a secret to all but a few but a story has broken nationally to which I feel compelled to add my four penneth. This tale, unfortunately, is set in Pither's Small Town home, something which is about to become blindingly obvious to all but the most dimwitted, and so I shall be flushed out into the open - but hey, ho. Let's go.

The story concerns one Josef "Fred" Stawinoga. Have you read or heard about him? Well, for the uninitiated, Joe was a tramp who lived for 30 years in a tent on a grassy central reservation on the ring-road in Wolverhampton (ooh, what a give away!). He was such a unique character (Ed. Oi! You can't have degress of uniqueness!) that a few years ago some wag put him on facebook under the imaginatively entitled "We love you, Wolverhampton ring-road tramp" and he soon became an unwitting and extremely reluctant worldwide celebrity.
Joe became the subject of newspaper articles and television and radio features and then he hit the headlines again yesterday when, not content with having lived in a tent for a third of his life alongside one of the busiest and noisiest stretches of road in northern Europe, he went and did something REALLY silly - he died!
It is perhaps most remarkable that this Tolkienesque character, who had withstood downpours, gales and almost Arctic conditions through 30 winters with just sheets of canvas between him and the elements, was 87 when he finally checked out! Fuck me! I have been on camping holidays in which I almost died after just two days!!
Contrary to all the blathering in the press and media, little is really known about the late Josef. What IS on record is that he was a Pole who came to England after the Second World War. One surely has to question the state of mind of someone who decided to swap post-war Poland for Wolverhampton. Hitler didn't bomb Wolverhampton - he didn't need to - but Christ knows somebody should!
This seemingly bizarre relocation became somewhat more rational when it was revealed that during good old W. W. I. I. he had not, in fact, fought alongside his persecuted Polish brethren but had taken a long, hard look at his bread, noticed on which side the butter had been spread, and sided with the Germans. Not content with becoming an honorary squarehead for the duration, he went one better and joined the SS!! You would have thought that would have been enough for any budding traitor and all round arsehole but then yesterday one of the few people he ever spoke to, a fellow Pole living in Wolverhampton, described him as "Not one of the nicer members of the SS!" Admit it, you gotta go it some to be labelled the unacceptable face of the SS?!!
Well Joe, not surprisingly you might think, kept his SS background a secret when he moved to Wolverhampton but he needn't have bothered. Any city which is home to such a Nietzscheresque organisation as MENSA (yes, I kid you not!) would doubtless not only have welcomed such a bastard but also made him mayor!!
Life in Blighty seemed to go fairly well for Joe for the next thirty years and there are photos of him, suited, booted and with a dapper haircut, seemingly enjoying life in the Black Country. The arrival in the city (then a town) from across the country of Pither in 1965 did not seem to bother Joe unduly, nor did the commencement of work a few years later on something which was to play a central role in his pensionable years - that bloody ring-road!
By way of a brief digression, the ring-road is one of Wolverhampton's claims to fame. The city, which also boasts a signatory of the American declaration of independence (the fantastically named Button Gwynett), the home of the first set of experimental traffic lights outside London and the only latterly appreciated Slade, has a ring-road which not only took almost thirty years to complete (seriously!) but goes through the middle of the city!!
Anyway, back to Joe. It seems that Pither's increasing presence on the streets in everything from flares or Oxford bags to penny-round collars or polo-neck sweaters did not upset the balance of Joe's mind. The rise of Thatcher through the Tory ranks also failed to disturb him (not surprising, considering his soldiering days!) and he seemed positively unfazed when Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep spent 234 weeks at the top of the charts. No, what apparently tipped old Joe over the edge was when his wife fucked off!

Instead of throwing a party, he there and then took the decision to give up worldly ways and go back to nature - in a battered, tiny old tent aside the St John's stretch of the ring-road. Shaving and regular trips to the barber's became things of the past for him and he shunned all attempts to coax him back into society. Social services did everything they could to bring Joe round to their way of thinking but he was adamant - "I'm happy on the fucking ring-road so fucking leave me a-fucking-lone!!" (only with a Polish accent).
I know Joe used to return to his Anglo Saxon roots when speaking to anyone who stupidly chose to try to communicate with him because a big pal of mine once did a feature on him for the paper on which we both worked (the Express & Star, aka the Distress and Stir, aka the Express & Swastika). Bob, for it was he, was about the best fucking reporter I ever worked with. He was legendary in journalistic circles, as was his dad who was a notorious Fleet Street hack. It was Bob who dubbed the recalcitrant tramp "Fred" for the purposes of this article because he had been unable to extract his real name from him during one of the most entertaining interviews of his Wolverhampton life. The way Bob tells it, the interview ran along the following lines:
"Hello, may I have a quick word with you?"
"Fuck offski!"
"Ha, ha, ha. No, seriously, I just wanted to ask how you are and how you are coping out here?"
"Go shitski yourself, cuntski!"
"If it's not a daft question, why are you living in a tent on a ring-road?"
"Mind your own fuckski business, you wankoffski!"
"What is your name?"
"I shootski you, mother fuckski!"
And so it went on. Working on the basic assumption that "Man who live in tent on ring-road unlikely to have solicitor", Bob duly published a two-page article full of made-up quotes and referring all the time to the tramp as "Fred". Although his real name emerged in later years, he was forever known as Fred to the good folk of the city.

Social services eventually admitted defeat in their attempts to civilise Joe and some years back they took a pragmatic approach to his case and moved in to replace his battered, little tent with a large, brand new one. His reaction to such an unwarranted act of generosity and accommodation was typical of the man:
"Fuck offski, you bastards!! Leave me a-fucking-loneski!!!"
So there he stayed. He became as much a fixture of life in Wolverhampton as the raincoated bloke who used to stand at the top of Darlington Street hurling imaginary stones at passing cars or the loony who used to race round the Mander Centre dressed as a cowboy while clutching a ghetto blaster to his ear. The only contribution Joe was ever asked to make was to ensure that "his" stretch of ring-road reservation was kept clean and tidy and that he did. As you drove home from work you would see him shuffling around, rake or broom in hand, sweeping up the leaves and collecting the litter, litter not left by him, I hasten to add, but by the mindless shitheads who make up about fifty per cent of the population of this city. He had his tent, he had his patch of land and he survived on meals provided by soup kitchens and various charities. Most notable among his benefactors was the Sikh community which revered him greatly, seeing him as some sort of holy man for abandoning the wicked ways of the world to live a simple life.
Now he has gone. Things don't, and will never, seem quite the same anymore. They unceremoniously pulled down his tent soon after his death on Sunday and there is now no trace of where he once lived - but he lives on in my mind. I never thought I would wax lyrical about a former member of the Waffen SS but Joe's story is irresistible - very much a game of two halves, you might say.
Good on you Joe, you curmudgeonly old Nazi git! You did it. They said you shouldn't, that you couldn't, that you mustn't - but you did. Fuck 'em all. You got out of the rat race and you did it your way.
Raise a glass to Joe tonight - Grantham shall not have him.

Little Brain, You've Had A Busy Day.

Homer alone? Not quite!

The very small piece of brain lodged in the very-soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither's head is causing her trouble again.
I keep urging her to have it removed because, if nothing else, it's a fire hazard. I mean, it's only a matter of time before it short circuits and sets alight all the alcohol-soaked cotton wool, sawdust and pieces of shredded newspaper which pack out the rest of her skull. Mrs P has, however, grown attached to this sliver of tissue and does, in truth, rely on it for autonomic nervous system functions such as digestion and phoning people up for no fucking reason.
Against my better advice, VSTB EW decided to call on this tiny, cranial collection of cells when she did some work on my laptop yesterday morning. Mrs P, having the touch of a rapist, HAS to use a mouse instead of the touchpad and that prompted the following exchanges between lounge and study (I swear the following is true):
"How do you plug it in?" bellowed the bewildered spouse.
"It's wireless, doombrain!!" I shouted back.
"Aaah!! That's clever, isn't it?"
"It certainly never ceases to amaze me."
"It still doesn't work."
"Have you put the wireless plug in the computer?"
"I thought there wasn't a plug."
"THE WIRELESS PLUG!!!!"
"What's a wireless plug?"
"It's a little, oblong piece of plastic with an oblong piece of metal at the end."
"Aah!!............where's the wireless plug."
"On the bottom of the mouse."
"..............uurmm..........uurmm.........no it isn't."
I tramped upstairs to the study, turned the mouse upside down and revealed to the awestruck Mrs P the plug, in a little recess, stuck on a magnet.
"Wow!! That's clever, isn't it?"
I had got halfway back down the stairs when I heard the almost predictable "How on earth do you plug it in?"
Relax, focus, breathe and count to ten, I thought to myself. I trudged back upstairs to find...TRUST ME, THIS IS TRUE...Mrs P repeatedly sliding the mouse over the edge of the computer in a forelorn effort to get the plug underneath to somehow slot into it!!!!
"No, not quite, dear," I said. "The slight error you've made is not to take the plug off the mouse first. See?"
"Wow, that's clever, isn't it?"
"Yes dear. It is, indeed, almost mind boggling. Can I go back downstairs now?"
"Yes. Thanks. I'm ok now."
That'll be the bloody day, I thought. Sure enough, not 30 seconds later, she shouted down "Where do I plug it in?"
'In your fucking head' would be a start, I thought, beginning to get mildly annoyed. "Put it in one of the USB ports!!!!"
There was an ominous silence for a couple of minutes. Now, sometimes it is more comforting to hear VSTB EW wittering on than it is to experience the dreaded silence. You see, whenever there is silence I picture Mrs P, with her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth and her brow furrowed, concentrating on trying TO DO something - something she shouldn't be doing!!! I was right to worry. The silence was soon broken.
"TAP, KNOCK, KNOCK, BASH, BASH, CRACK, TAP, BASH!!!!!!"
I panicked. "JESUS...H...FUCKING...CHRIST!!! That don't sound right!!" I thought to myself. "What the fuck is going on?"
I raced upstairs and burst into the study to find.......wait for it.......Mrs P using the mouse in an attempt to HAMMER THE WIRELESS PLUG INTO A PHONE SOCKET on the laptop!!!!
"It doesn't fit," she wailed.
"And nor will anything else now! You've also cracked the bleedin' mouse!! Brilliant!!!"
Yes, the phone plug socket is now bent so much it is unusable and the mouse is currently being held together with Sellotape!
My very-soon-to-be unbetrothed's piece of brain sadly kicked in a couple of times more before yesterday was out, notably when she drove to pick me up from doing the shopping in the village. She duly pulled up outside the greengrocer's as arranged but, as the shop assistant and I staggered towards the car with about ten bags of shopping and I reached for the door handle, she promptly drove off, leaving me, said assistant and said groceries standing on the pavement in the rain - for half an hour!!! She finally returned and, when I asked "Why did you drive off, my dearest?" she replied "Oh, I'd just remembered that I needed to go to the Post Office."
As far as Mrs P is concerned, there is truth in that old line "If you had a brain you'd be dangerous". Grantham shall not have her, however.

I Wish I Was A Dog.

Getting out of bed in winter is difficult.
Central heating has made things so much easier.............but you still have to leave that beautiful, warm, cosy bed to delouse yourself and treat yourself to a dawn rectal scrape in the bathroom. Then you have to pull on the comedy rubber badger's costume you need for work. Then you have to take that massive step and open the front door, scrape the ice from the windscreen of the car and dive inside, awaiting the heater to kick in.
Yes, leaving the warmth of your home to face the rigours of the British winter is indeed a shock to the system. It is certainly not helped when you are about to leave the bedroom for the descent into the big freeze, you look back at that gorgeous bed you never wanted to leave......................and you see this.......................

"Explain again what a mortgage is - only later. I'm really tired."


"Yes, bye dear! Turn the light off again would you?"

Sunrise, Upset.

Even our industrial heartland can look beautiful at times - wasn't it a gorgeous sunrise this morning?
Only two things could have possibly spoiled it. One was the knowledge that all the lovely reds and oranges were the result of all the shite and pollutants in the air. The other was the fat, tattooed git in a white Transit van who drew up alongside me and belched: "Teken' a fookin' photy on yower phone while yum drivin'!! Yow want lockin' oop!"
God's speed and have a lovely day. Try not to crash and die horribly. Romance and artistry are, officially, dead!!!

Saint Or Sinner?

Well, that was fun! Lucky pants, lucky shoes and lucky shirt.....all to no avail. It was indeed a bridge too far - but still an exciting game and surely the best rugby World Cup tournament to date. Summat to be proud of at last.
I watched the game at the best pub in the world and a good time was had by all, regardless of the result. In true Birdwatcher fashion, however, I found myself double booked and so at 10pm had to decamp and make a beeline for another pub for a reunion of hacks from a paper I used to work on 13 years ago. There was a late bar in an upstairs room and so the levels were never in danger of dropping too dramatically.
Anyway, I had been there about five minutes and was still in full "Good God! I thought you were dead!!" greetings mode when an attractive woman sidled over to me to say hello. "Hi!" I said, effusively, "How's things?" "I'm fine," she said, "considering you stood me up."
"Yes, well, I'm glad to hear.........what??!?!!"
"You stood me up."
"I'm afraid I don't....I mean....I can't....I mean....what??!?"
"You arranged to meet me in town for a coffee but you never showed up."
"Lord! Sorry about that. Still, time's a great healer, isn't it?"
Jesus!! The smell of boiling rabbit was beginning to fill the air. Was she armed? I was praying the cutlery for the buffet was plastic. After all, I'd left the paper 13 bloody years ago! If that had been the only thing on her mind over the ensuing time then I had a Meryl Streep situation on my hands. It got worse....
"Sorry for asking. I mean, my memory's not what it was, but....well....when exactly was this?"
"1977."
OH FUCK!! OH HOLY JESUS!! SOMEBODY HELP ME, PLEASE!!! I was fucking 17 in 1977! What was going on? Then the mists started to clear. It turned out that she used to hang around with a crowd I did when I was a teenager. She was, as I remember, a quiet, pleasant, pretty little lass but I didn't recall ever trying to ruin her life with the "fancy a coffee some time" prelude to an assault on the north face of her pants.
"Why didn't you show up?" she persisted, alarmingly.
I panicked. I resorted to the old standby - make 'em laugh.
"I don't like coffee," I said.
Not the best gambit I could have chosen, it turned out.
"Then why did you ask me to go for one?"
And some fell on stony ground. Time for Plan B.
"Would you like a sausage roll?"
"No. I waited for two hours."
"Oh, I can get one much quicker than that. They're only over there."
"I forgave you, though."
Thank fuck for that!!
"Goodo. Can I get you a drink? Not a coffee, obviously."
We fell to chatting properly and it turned out that that she was living in Cyprus, had a little one but her significant other had buggered off......I was dying to say "did he nip out for a coffee and just not come back?" but managed to bite my lip in time.
A nice lass - as she always was - but not great on things to say when you haven't seen someone for 13 years.
"I'm stopping at a hotel in town," she said as the night neared its end. "Would you like a nightcap?"
Those two little men suddenly climbed onto my shoulders. You know?......
The little white one with the harp and wings saying "No, no! It's just mindless, meaningless sex without feeling or involvement. You are a beast. Don't even think about it. You are an awful man. You're taking advantage. Haven't you done enough to ruin this poor girl's life? Be a gentleman. Take her back in a taxi and just give her a peck on the cheek goodnight."
Then there was the little red one with the pointy tale and the horns saying "Go on! Fuck her brains out!! Of course it's mindless, meaningless sex without feeling or involvement. That's why you should dip your wick. She's lonely and awash with nostalgia. Her pants are hanging by a thread. You know you want to. Go on!!! Do it!!!!!"
I shall leave the story there. I am too much of either a) a gentleman or b) a sexual inadequate to say more.

Sir Swearalot

If, like me, you are not averse to using the odd piece of Anglo Saxon in your dialogue (especially when dealing with Lloyds Fucking Bank - oops, there I go again), you will know that sometimes you just run out of suitable expletives.
Well, never fear. With my heartfelt thanks to The Farmer for this, simply click in the magic box above and, hey presto!! Inspiration when words fail you. If you don't think the suggested naughty noun or explicit instruction accurately enough suits the target of your venom then simply click again...and again...and again. You're bound to find one to suit.
Alternatively, if you are just plain bored, why not click on it repeatedly and spend the day insulting yourself. Hours of fun for all the family!

Come On England!!!!!

A century ago it was a Boering draw! "They" have beaten "us" on the last four occasions the teams have met. This time? Well, it ain't gunna be 36-0 but we ARE underdogs. However..............................
"We" couldn't beat Australia......but "we" did.
"We" couldn't beat France.........but "we" did.
Is it going to be one game too many?

Come on England!!!

Of Things and Stuff

Here's three for the price of one:



1. Gordon Gekko's Granny

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh FUCKING WHY is there always some piss-stained, bent-double, overcoated, surgically shoed, geriatric, female Stock Market piranah already at the cashier's in the building society when I go in to get cash out in a hurry?
There was one of these wrinkly vipers there again today (ok, I realise you had probably guessed as much by now). She was typical of the breed - barely able to see over the counter because she had shrunk so much with age, clutching a wad of financial papers in one of her wizened, boney hands, holding a plaid, grannies' shopping bag in the other, and all the while craning forward and squinting in an effort to hear what was being said by Michelle, Fiona, Donna-Marie or whoever else the bloated fat tart was who was serving her. Quite how the fuck squinting improves your hearing Christ alone knows!
"Ah, bless", I hear you say. Bollocks, I say!! There's nothing sweet and heart-warming about these vicious old crones. They'd sell their grannies only they've been dead about 200 fucking years.
You can hear them screeching to the tarts at the tills things like "Well I want the £20,000 kept in the high-interest but my £50,000 is not working hard enough" or "The man in Zurich said my husband's pension should be going straight into Peruvian street children sales and not kept in capital bonds".
"Fuck off, granny!! Get out of my fucking way!!!" "I only want ten bastard quid - let's face it, there's only £21.50 in my fucking account anyway. Just close the fucking deal and fuck off back to your bungalow and the cats, will you?"
Do they go? Do they buggery! They just fucking stand there for hour after fucking hour after fucking hour, carrying out a complete financial fucking audit and opening new accounts faster than Ulrika Johnsson can open her legs. I was getting deep-vein thrombosis by the time the old bag finally sloped off. Death to all geriatric Gordon Gekkos, I say.

2. The Lighter Side of Married Life.



There are times when I feel like making the very-soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither an ex-living being! This afternoon was one of those times.
I got into The Wardrobe to run an errand and, as is my want, I reached for a fag. I was then trundling along when I reached for the car's cigarette lighter. There was just a hole where the lighter had been. I instantly did a sum in my head.......2 + 2 = Mrs Pither.
I rang her later and enquired: "You know you're always taking out the cigarette lighter in the car to plug in your hands-free set? Well, have you done it recently?"
"Yes," she belched.
"When?" I asked.
"Yesterday," came the reply.
"Did you put it back in?"
"Probably not," she said.
"Probably?"
"Ok, no."
"Well, I can't find it anywhere. Where did you put it?"
"Uuuuuuurrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."
"Yes?"
"No idea."
"So it's lost, is it?"
"It looks so. Oh dear," she said, stifling a yawn.
"But that means my car now doesn't have a cigarette lighter."
"Never mind."
Never mind! NEVER FUCKING MIND!! That is just typical of VSTB EW. I'm amazed I ever got my penis back on those far off occasions when we toasted our marriage in love juice!! Don't get me wrong, I am by no means a possessionist Nazi but I do try to take care of the "stuff" I/we have. "Stuff", on the other hand, drifts in and out of my darling wife's life on a daily basis, mainly through complete idiocy or total lack of thought. I wouldn't mind but the not inexhaustible Pither finances have to cover replacements and right now the S S Pither is sinking fast in the Sea of Debt.
Mrs P just loses things. That's what she does. It's her raison d'etre.
The utterance of "never mind" when something disappears into the ether is one of her stock phrases. Her others, for the less enlightened, centre around the A-Level she possesses in breaking things. Familiar refrains round at The Towers are "it just came off in my hand", "it was on fire before I used it", "it's always been broken" and "well, I have to hit it hard or it won't work!"
AAAaaaaaaarrrrgghhh!!!!! I need a fag. Anyone got a light?

3. Hair of the Dog.


Before...

After...(well worth £27!!)

I felt like a dad dropping his youngest off for his first day at school today - I took Padfoot to the barber's!
Pad, my alsatian, was in desperate need of a shampoo and trim because he was shedding so much hair that the house was beginning to resemble a pair of giant, furry dice.
I call it a "barber's" but it's more of an international-grooming-salon-to-the-stars and the lad has very mixed emotions about the place.
When I take him he is so nervous he inevitably wets himself but when I collect him and it is all over he is happier than a happy thing.
Today ran true to form. As I handed him over to the two women-in-comfortable-shoes who run the place he looked back at me with those "why are you doing this to me, daddy?" eyes. God, I almost blubbed as I walked out.
Once he was shampood, clipped and buffed up, however, he looked like a canine Clooney and I virtually had to scrape him off the ceiling when I got him home.
Hurrah for Pad!! Who's a pretty boy now then?
P.S. On a point of interest concerning the two lesbians who clip his hair, the butch one is always really chatty, smiley and friendly while the pretty, feminine one is a surly old trout. Times they are a changin'.

Talk Like an Egyptian

From today, I am Walter.

The future is bright, the future is orange...........and so incidentally is Mohammed Al Fayed, the subject of our story tonight, children.
Yes, the orange Egyptian transformed my life today and gave the future an oh so attractive hue. You see, I used to think that I was just plain, simple Reg Pither, a plain and simple man living a plain and simple life. How wrong I was.
The error of my ways became apparent when the Diana inquest jury was told how Little Mo could prove that his late son and the aforementioned neurotic clotheshorse were engaged to be married. Mo's reasoning goes like this:

There was CCTV footage of Dodi going into a jeweller's.
There was further footage of a minion from the shop coming out with a bag and taking it over to Dodi's hotel (well, his dad's hotel, actually) where it was locked in a strongroom.
There was documentary proof that Dodi had indeed bought a ring from the jeweller's.

Now we come to Little Mo's fantastic logic and the reason I have had to re-evaluate my life:

HE CLAIMED the ring was an engagement ring.
HE CLAIMED the couple were, therefore, engaged.

So, let's get this straight, shall we? Man dating Big Ears' ex-wife buys ring, yes? Ring is supposedly an engagement ring, yes? Man is therefore engaged to Big Ears' ex, yes?
Ok then. Today I went out an bought an engagement ring for Dolly Parton. Hey presto!! Pither is no longer a saddo on the verge of a divorce. He is, instead, a lucky man about to embark on a journey into marital bliss with an unfeasibly large breasted, 5ft-tall songbird with a mouth which suggests she could suck a golf ball up a vacuum cleaner hose!
Pither then had his hair cut in a silly way, got covered in tattoos and bought an L A Galaxy football strip. Low and behold, he is no longer an almost completely spherical, balding, 47-year-old, jobless, buffoon. No, he's now David Beckham!
Tomorrow I think I shall drive around town, waving gormlessly out of the window at people in the street, thereby becoming the Queen and so enjoying fabulous wealth and more crowns than I can eat. Then, at the weekend, I shall don a bedsheet and a pointy hat, carry a stick and so become Pope Gregory XIII to take advantage of all the booze, drugs and loose women on offer in the wider Catholic world.
I'm not sure if I've already sent Al Fayed to Grantham. You lose track when you're having such fun. Still, I'll send him there again, just to be on the safe side.

Weeble Minded

I have decided that I am a Weeble - well, at least today I am.
Remember Weebles? Yes? Well, in that case, you'll remember the slogan?

"Weebles wobble............but they don't fall down!"

It is true to say that I wobbled quite a lot yesterday - Black Tuesday as it shall henceforth be known. Being told "Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish" (or whatever it was those wankers at work told me) didn't do my self-confidence and sense of self-worth a lot of good. Then, falling victim to torrential rain and the aftermath of "a police incident" in Big City centre on the way home didn't help - it took me two hours and 40 minutes to reach sanctuary in Pither Towers when it normally takes just 90 minutes.
I collapsed into bed soon after getting in - exhausted, angry, sad, worried, dejected and a couple of other alternative dwarfs as well. Then, guess what? I awoke at 5.30 this morning, it had stopped raining, I was alive and the sun actually rose
soon afterwards. Hurrah! I walked out into the garden stark bollock naked, held my arms aloft, looked up to the heavens and shouted - a la Papillon - "I'm still here, damn you! I'm still here!!
I am still knackered, so much so that I have all but lost my voice. I look like Worzel Gummage afer he's been knocked down by a truck. My whole body aches - even my hair
aches (well, numbers 4 and 6 do, anyway)...................BUT I'M STILL FUCKING HERE!!!
I was working from home today so started at 7.30am (my contract doesn't actually end until October 31). I e-mailed a load of completed stuff across before 9am to make sure "they" had to work from the get-go. I then sent loads of other stuff over during the course of the day - just to let "them" know "I'm a professional and I'm still here, assholes!" I applied for a few jobs. I played with my dogs. I rang
around my contacts to see what work was available. I then cracked a bottle of wine and toasted myself!!
I am a Weeble and I can't be knocked down. Me and my fellow wobblies shall not go to Grantham.

I Lost My Fucking Job Today!

....not a lot else to say, really, apart from the fact that my beloved employer has spent the last month jerking me around.
A month ago "they" said my contract couldn't be renewed then, a few days later, they said they were having a re-think and wanted to take me on permanently.
With my contract due to end in two weeks I asked the boss today what the situation was. She said she would get back to me. She did - by fucking e-mail (nice touch). She said it wasn't being renewed after all and blamed cutbacks.
Funny, they apparently had decided this a week ago but waited until the end of a long-running campaign I had organised which culminated in an awards ceremony in London yesterday, a day when I put in 14 hours and worked myself into the ground seeing the job through to the end.
Fuck 'am! Fuck the bloody lot of 'em. Right now, I want to send people to fucking Grantham!!!

Pither The Posties' Pariah?

"Get back to work, you big-nosed bastard!!!"


I experienced the equivalent of seeing someone spit on my father's grave last night - I was called a capitalist, management lackey!!!
Pither! Pither The Red!! Nemesis of the Bosses!!! He whom destiny has charged with lighting the fire of revolution which will one day sweep through this land!!!!
Worse than that, this deepest of deep cuts was inflicted by none other than my big chum BGT (brain the size of a planet, capacity for alcohol to match).
To set the scene, and in fairness to my accuser, BGT had downed a few sherberts and was in the mood for an argument - if I'd said Hitler wasn't a particularly nice chap he would have protested vehemently, pointing out that he was good to his dog.
Anyway, we fell to talking about the Post Office dispute. The Farmer started it. During one of those lulls when you find yourself either staring into your pint or at the walls, he made the mistake of saying that he thought the postmen - sorry, postpeople - were not on the firmest of firm ground in their dispute with management. Why? Because they were being told that it was no longer acceptable to demand and be paid overtime for helping out with other work to take them up to the end of their shift if they had finished their round early. Understand?
"Fucking capitalist oppressors!!" belched BGT. "They just think they can run roughshod over the workers by suddenly changing their contracts and thinking no-one will or can object!!"
"It's not in their contracts that they can bugger off early or demand overtime if they finish their rounds before the end of their alloted shifts" The Farmer and I pointed out. "It's 'custom and practice', namely something which is just done because that's the way it has always been done.
That's when I made the mistake of going it alone. "I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone to work until the end of the shift for which they are being paid," I said. "Everyone else has to do it and, after all, it is equitable - a fair shift's pay for a fair shift's work, and all that. Much as I sympathise with anyone whose working practices are changed after years of status quo, I don't think the management is out of order. They are NOT changing contracts, merely asking the posties to stick to their side of the existing work/remittance deal."
"Capitalist, management lackey!!!" BGT roared. "You!! Pither!!! Of all people!!!"
"Socialism isn't founded on the underlying principle that EVERYTHING management does is wrong and EVERYTHING your union says is right, is it?" I asked, not unreasonably I thought.
The BGT then stumbled off to the bar, muttering and mouthing obscenities as he went, all the while shaking his head in disbelief. Ten minutes later Brighton Dave came in, having also been at the bar where I suspect he had bumped into the BGT. He walked over to our table and enquired: "Is this Tory Corner?" Bloody Hell!!More than a tad unfair, I would say.
Don't get me wrong. There is a sinister side to the Post Office management's actions which have given rise to this dispute. Firstly, they brought in that oilbag bullyboy and well-known payroll porker Adam Crozier to cause trouble. That man is an utter arsehole and I shall waste no more words on him here. Secondly, anyone who reads between the lines can see that management is just trying to hack the Post Office down to Karen Carpenter-fatted pieces so that it can be flogged off to the private sector - the German private sector at that. Now that IS something which needs to be fought, and fought hard.
Anyway, with that insult mentioned at the beginning of this post still ringing in my ears, I shall stop this attempt at self-justification. Are The Farmer and I alone in our views? I know Betty is likely to be against us. How about everyone else?

The Virgin and The Hipsters

THE LORD TAKETH AWAY.................
My computer system is just about knackered. I keep getting booted offline about as frequently as a hummingbird beats its wings and so it takes half an hour just to perform the simplest of tasks. This latest boil on the bottom of Pither's life began growing the moment Telewest, my previous internet provider, was taken over by Virgin World Domination (Media) Ltd.
Like his trains, Branson's media operation is about as much use as a fucking ashtray on a motorbike! If my posting dries up for a while you can, to paraprhase Michael Jackson, Blame It On the Bogey (Who is Branson).

BUT THE LORD ALSO GIVETH..............
That billionaire hippy-cum-Count of Monte Cristo look-alike (Richard Chamberlain version) mentioned above tried to abseil or bungee jump or something down the side of a building today for some purile publicity stunt......and it ended in tears. The beardy twat slammed into a wall on the way down and ripped the arse out of his trousers. Pity he didn't rip his bollocks off!!!
Dicky, when you've finished darning your dungarees, fuck off to Grantham, there's a good chap!

Come The Revolution........

I have an apology to make. I misjudged our current crop of politicians.
I might have given the impression that I regard the whole lot of them as a bunch of steaming, odorous shits. Well, I forgot that a shit, however fresh and pungent, is biodegradable and so has a purpose, in that it is a vessel for returning nutrients into the ecosystem. I should, of course, have likened our elected members to broken, plastic coathangers - absolutely no fucking use to anybody whatsoever!

I ranted in a previous post, in metaphorical terms, that the brain-dead electorate had stampeded away from New Labour to ally itself with the Tories just because it had been told that David Cameron had started sporting a new tie. Pither predicted that Gordon Brown would respond by starting to part his hair differently in an effort to lure back the voters but not even I, the Mayor of Cynicsville, realised just how completely indistinguishable our two major parties had become and how devoid of ideas its leaders were. It turned out that it never even occurred to Brown to re-style his barnet. Instead, he just walked up to Cameron, in full view of everyone, and nicked his fucking tie!!
Far from being "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", New Labour's chief bean counter,
Captain "I'm either dying my hair or my eyebrows - you decide" Darling, actually announced the theft proudly to the House of Commons. The announcement was, however, caught on CCTV cameras and replayed on news bulletins later in the day so, while it came too late for Crimewatch, I am certain that arrests will follow.
Cut to today and it emerged that an e-mail is doing the rounds of Westminster concerning the manner in which our MPs should be treated by civil servants who encounter them in the Houses of Parliament. Bearing in mind the worth of our MPs hinted at above, you would be forgiven for having thought this e-mail stipulated that any elected member spotted in the confines of the hallowed halls was to be urinated upon. You might also have imagined it said that extra water dispensers had been situated around Westminster to keep everyone's tanks topped up for just such encounters. Did the e-mail, perchance, offer Queen's Pardons to officials who set fire to MPs, so long as the ensuing blaze posed no threat to the furniture or visitors? No!! I'll tell you what it said. It said that civil servants were to make way for MPs in the queues for lunch and dinner!!! Jesus H Christ!! Give me a fucking break!!
What next? Doffing your cap in a built-up area? Compulsory grovelling at baby-kissing photo opportunities? Offering up your first born for sacrifice at constituency surgeries? These fucking shits - sorry, broken fucking coathangers - are public servants, for God's sake! They're on the biggest fucking gravy train in the country and not only do they fucking want to laugh and point out of the windows at everyone else they want those self same bastards outside, the ones who bought them their tickets, to fucking bow down to them as they pass!
I would flout this latest instruction if I were there (the revolution will have to start in a more modest way than I had hoped) and, in fact, do the complete opposite. I would barge into the queue in front of the fucking lot of them and then order a plate of peas, stipulating to the kitchen staff that each pea was to be put on the plate individually and with the use of only two croquet mallets. Fuck 'em!
I can't send these wankers to Grantham because they're already fucking there. Damn!! They get you every time, you see.

Mr Ridiculous on the Virgin

Having just watched "The Cult of the Suicide Bomber" on the Devil's Lantern this evening I have at least learnt one thing.............suicide bombing is not for Pither.
The big selling point of blowing yourself up for Allah is, apparently, that you get to go to heaven with 17 virgins. Well, as one who is used to looking at the small print in contracts, I have noticed that no-one actually specifies what sex these virgins are going to be. I mean, speaking as a bloke, you're going to end up looking pretty silly if, when the smoke finally clears, you find yourself on a cloud somewhere surrounded by a bunch of pre-pubescent spotty Herberts, Ruperts and Nigels who just keep on asking "what's it like?"
Even if these virgins turn out to be members of the opposite sex, who in their right mind would want that? Picture the scene. You're up "There", you're feeling a bit frisky and so you put down your harp, slip into the rubber badger's costume and then turn to young Jacasta or whatever her name is only to discover that she's crying, shouting "pervert!" and on the phone to her mother assuring her that she's "saving it for Mr Right".
I've never got the lure of the virgin thing. I remember when I popped my cherry I was also deflowering my girlfriend - and it wasn't a pretty sight. It was messy, slightly painful and all a bit embarrassing, really.
Now, if Allah said to me: "Pither, if you disassemble yourself with explosives for the cause you will go on a bloody long holiday with 17 ropey, huge-breasted old broilers who've been round the block a few times and could trip you up and be underneath you before you hit the ground" then he might have a deal. Give me experience and a slightly casual moral attitude every time.
Anyway, I think the discussion is hypothetical anyway. I mean, if Allah can find one virgin round here, let alone 17 of the beggars, he is a better man than me, Gunga Din - and that's not sexist, rascist or hymenist, before the letters start coming in.
Nah, suicide bombing can go to Grantham.

I Can't Even Be Bothered To Be Apathetic

So, there's not going to be a snap General Election after all. Well smack my dangler!!
Why isn't the government going to go to the country? Because, in just a week, seemingly the entire fucking nation has changed what passes for its collective mind and decided that David Cameron is a good egg and Gordon Brown is a bad one.
Next week, Brown will no doubt part his hair differently and there'll be a mass stampede of would-be voters back over to New Labour. Then, in a fortnight, Cameron will announce that his wife has an interesting new recipe for quiche and everyone will say that they've changed their minds again and are going to vote Conservative.....and so it goes on.
That is the pathetic and deeply sad state of affairs we have in this country today. When I was alive there were three distinctly different, major political parties for you to choose from. They made up a spectrum of political choice ranging from a reddish tinge, to orangey-brown and on to deep blue. You were either in favour of the nationalisation of public utilities or you believed the private sector should run all businesses. You either believed money should be spent on public services and safeguarding the less fortunate so recognised that those benefits would have to be paid for by taxation or you insisted on tax cuts across the board and letting everyone fight for their own healthcare, social needs and housing. You either believed union membership was an essential control on the excesses of capitalism or you thought unions were all militant, Totskyite organisations intent on bringing down the country. You either thought spending billions on nuclear arsenals was an obscenity while people languished in poverty or you thought that being able to blow the world up 37 times over was better than being able to blow it up 20 times over.
I know, I know, I'm labouring the point a bit (pardon the pun) but you get my drift. If you couldn't make up your mind one way or the other and liked bits of one party but bits of the other as well you could always put your cross by the Liberal candidate. Then what happened? Yup, you guessed it..........the Thatchbitch creature emerged from under her Lincolnshire rock and it all started to collapse.
I have said before on here that when she first got in I was angry. When she got in a second time I was baffled but then when she got in for a third time a metaphorical lightbulb came on over my head and I realised that SHE wasn't the problem at all - it was the fucking electorate!! All she had done was to appeal to the basest of human instincts and in doing so tap into a rich vein of greed which had been lying just below the surface all along.
What happened then? We had the likes of fucking Neil fucking, bleedin' Kinnock come along and that Welsh placenta metaphorically spawned the likes of Blair and Mandelson. They hit on the idea that power was all that mattered and so if the public wanted greed and obsession with the self then they could have it - in spades! My pals at the time used to argue "Yes, but if you don't have power you can't change anything. You see, when New Labour get in they'll turn about and bring in decent Socialist policies." I said that if you had to abandon everything you believed in to seize power then you were morally bankrupt and anyway, if you told everyone you were going to do one thing and then did the opposite when you got in you were a liar and akin to a dictator.
What happened? Sure as eggs is eggs, Blair and the other lawyers, architects, fucking teachers and Scottish gays got in and started chasing the Tories into Ultra-Right-Wingland to attract votes. They won, of course, and soon took on the mantle of the Tories. This has stumped the Conservatives in recent years because all their policies have now been nicked. Cameron did try to take things the other way by veering over to the left with his "hug-a-hoody" ideas but that went down like a fart in a spacesuit and so now he's dreaming up more right-wing shite to appease readers of the Daily Mail.
The result is you have two parties which both espouse exactly the same things (I would have said "believe in" instead of "espouse" but none of their politicians believe in anything any longer, apart from themselves). Who do you vote for? Do you want right-wing policies from a fat, boring, maths-obsessed Jock or right-wing policies from a slimy, seemingly teenage, "mummy won the Derby and daddy was a wastepaper basket" streak of piss? Tough choice, eh?
Fuck 'em, I say. Fuck 'em all! The only time the real voice of this country has been heard over the last 10 years was when the good people of Hartlepool spurned the New Labour and Tory candidates to elect Angus the Monkey their mayor.
Politicians of today - those power-hungry, greedy, unprincipled, self-obsessed, stupid wankers we are forced to vote for - can all sod off to Grantham.

A Deserved Nod to Talent, Worth and Originality.

With thanks to The Farmer for this, isn't this a brilliant and truly original idea for a Blog? My congratulations to the author - I am humbled.

http://wwar1.blogspot.com/

(Sorry, I can't do hyperlinks yet on normal posts so it's a cut and paste job, I'm afraid.)

THE Beautiful Game

God, I LOVE rugby!!
There is nothing like it (well, almost nothing). What a weekend this is! England won yesterday when they shouldn't have, surely couldn't have.....but did.
Then, in the evening, as the floodlights came on and all bets were off, France won! Not only were they not supposed to win, there were some who thought they should have been chastised for even having the nerve to turn up against the all-conquering, supposedly invincible All Blacks.
What a day! What a night! Now we're off again. Tiny Fiji is, as I write, taking on the might, brutality and raw power of South Africa while this evening Scotland, the whipping boys of the Six Nations in recent years, are resurgent and face the fast, free-flowing rugby of the Argentinians. Once again, the outcome of both games is supposedly already written in the stars. The Boks can's lose and the Scots can't win.
Sadly, I fear upsets are not are the cards this time but there's always that glimmer of hope (don't you just love underdogs?) Even if the games turn out to be predictable, there is fantastic rugby to look forward to.
I just love the fact that 30 blokes slinging an over-sized, leather egg around and scrapping and scraping, wrestling and running all the while can take you right out of the tedium and monochrome of your everyday life.
I spent yesterday afternoon in my favourite pub, drinking sublime beer, soaking up the intake with Europe's best ham cobs and basking in the spectacle of the England game with like-minded people who just revel in this great sport, regardless of which two teams are on the field.
I broke off at teatime to return home, feed the dogs, tidy round, have a wash and brush up and eat properly before returning to the pub in time for the France game. Mrs Pither was away for the night and so it was pure self indulgence. Another fantastic game, a great time spent with good people. Looked at in terms of what Einstein used to do with his days off or what Marie Curie did when she had moments to herself, it could be seen as a waste of time, time in which I could have contributed to society or the well-being of mankind in general. Looked at in purely Pitheresque terms, Pither being someone with no other-half with whom to share the finer things, it was the best way to spend a day imaginable!
Today I am watching the first half of the footballing feast at home, surrounded by my beloved dogs, glancing up all the time at the screen while also preparing a Sunday dinner to die for. When 7pm comes around I shall return to my local for a couple of beers at twilight to watch the last of the quarter-finals. Then it will be home, dinner, bath, bed. To this man with increasingly simple tastes, with no woman to share other fun activities with, that will do for me!
Yesterday and today I don't have a mortgage, my knee doesn't hurt, I'm not getting divorced, I'm not overdrawn at the bank and I don't have that question on my mind all the time - "What's it all about?" I just have rugby!!
God bless young Webb-Ellis. Grantham shall not have the results of his moment of inspiration and individuality.

We Won!!!

We bloody well won!!!! Hurrah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Consider the Anteater.

Pity the anteater, that's what I say.
I've just watched a documentary about anteaters (the Samaritans were engaged again) and I can definitely empathise with them.
First of all, they're not exactly the best looking animals on the planet. All right, I know, "Go on Reg, define a good looking animal?" For those of us not into bestiality, it is obviously very much a matter of taste. Me, I think you have puppies, kittens, koala bears, gorillas and pandas at one end of the scale and proboscis monkeys, sloths, camels and Ann Widdecombe at the other.






Anteaters tend towards Ms Widdecombe's unique yet challenging looks, I think. They are shaped very much like those awful TR7 cars used to be - very thin at one end, getting progressively wider until they end up as an ugly, obvious and boring wedge shape. Then there is that nose! It's not so much as a nose stuck on the front of an animal as an animal stuck on the base of a nose.
Secondly, what does life hold for an ambitious, young anteater? Well, shagging, shitting and eating ants seems to be very much the pre-mapped career course. The first two we all do so they're hardly unique - well, Pither hasn't taken a trip to the land of fluid exchange for a while but he is certainly no stranger to the porcelain palace. That leaves the third selling point. Eating ants all fucking day can't be a big laugh. "What did you do today, Nigel?" "Well, I ate some ants, then had a wander, then ate some more ants, then had a break, then ate some more ants and then I went to bed." How boring is that? No wonder you don't find any Blogs done by anteaters!!
Thirdly, and this negates everything said in the paragraph above, it turns out that anteaters don't actually eat ants!!! They eat termites. Just picture the scene - there you are, a boring, pointy, hairy git with a massive conk and just one hobby in life and along comes some fucking idiot taxonomist and gets your name wrong!!! The ONLY thing you can do well and it's ignored by the outside world. It's akin to calling a coathanger a trouser press or a sock a shoe.
I don't know why the plight of the anteater has touched me so deeply. As I said, I think I can see parallels in the Life of Pither. I want an anteater - sorry, a termiteeater (hey, maybe that's why the called it an anteater? Those two "e"s just don't look right!) - and I want to broaden its horizons.
It could sit with me, watch Saturday Kitchen and learn to experiment. I could persuade it to shave its tail and walk backwards so that it looked more like other mammals. It could start a Blog. It could walk proudly into the street and tell passers-by "I'm a termiteeater, I am, and I'm not ashamed. So what that I have two "e"? Suffer, baby. I am pointy and proud."

"Goodbye ants (well, termites really)......hello world!!!"

.....................Oh God! I've just re-read all of this. I'm not well, you know. I think there is something drastically wrong with me, deep inside. I'm just a step away from life in one of those fetching white jackets with the belts which fasten at the back.
Anyway, I'm off to watch the rugby this afternoon so that will make me feel better, I've no doubt. We can't lose. It's only Australia, after all, and we did beat the Brownies second XV to qualify for the quarters.
I am going to send myself to Grantham - there, that will put an end to all this rubbish!! Goodbye cruel world!!!!

Do You Want Bio-Calm With That Order?

I have been unwell today - digestively and cerebrally unwell. My body, as I am sure you are aware, was always a temple but I'm sorry to report that it has been sacked by bacterial bandits.
I was awoken at around 4am by those little Numbskull men with shovels (remember them?) shovelling feverishly and they spent the next five hours working flat out in an effort to clear out anything in my digestive tract through one of the two orifices available for emergency evacuations.
The bomb doors were flung open on a couple of other occasions after that but, by and large, the rest of the day was spent in a state of exhaustion, trying to persuade those other little Numbskull men, the ones with hammers, to stop carrying out percussive maintenance on the inside of my head.
This pathetic state of affairs was, as usual, all my own fault. You see, I cocked a snook at one of the four basic rules of life:

1. Never play cards with someone named after an American state, e.g. Texas.
2. Never start a land war in Asia.
3. Never box above your own weight.
4. Never, EVER, go drinking with the BGT!!!

The BGT is a big pal of mine and last night we decided to nip out together for a couple of late pints. Now that is almost unheard of for the pair of us. We never normally hit the sauce in the week but, having both endured long and stressful days at work, we decided that it could do no harm on this one occasion.
We got into the Lachrymose Loyalist shortly after 9pm - late enough for the evening not to turn silly, or so we thought - and spent a couple of hours putting the world to rights, puzzling over the inability of our young tennis players to break through at international level and bemoaning the demise of Wagon Wheels.
Like Skinner-conditioned rats, we duly drained the last of our pints when the bell rang and made our way outside in search of taxis to take us home - and that is where everything started to go wrong!
For reasons of taste, decency and the libel laws, I won't go into detail but it is suffice to say that we ended up in a Disco/Thrash/Boom-boom/Cattle Market in the centre of Small Town, swilling £3 pints and copious amounts of vodka cola. I have no idea when the Numbskull men in charge of sense and reasoning began shouting from within but at some stage we decided things had gone a bit silly and it was time to call time on ourselves.
We said our goodbyes, exchanged the customary post-blow-out pleasantry - namely "You're my best mate, you are - hic!" - and then, Red Arrows-like, went our separate ways. That's when I made the second big mistake of the evening.
Like a bear emerging from its winter hibernation, I was hungrier than a hungry thing and so went in search of emergency vitals. Now this may come as a surprise to the tea-total among you, but there are no Michelin-starred restaurants open at around the same time as milkmen up and down the country are loading up their vans. The result is you have to make do with............burger, kebab, pizza or chicken shacks.
In hindsight, I don't think it would have mattered which one I chose. As it happened, I went for the poultry option. I staggered into a grotty but insanely and intensely lit fast-food joint (called something like Squits, Chicken 'n' Chuck or The Flaming Arsehole) and then engaged a charming Armenian gentlemen in conversation while ordering what was billed as "Southern Fried Chicken".
Looking back, I realise that the description "Southern" referred to the fact that the pieces of chicken I ate had apparently been picked up off the floor before being warmed through over a candle. Either that or they had been involved in a bloody civil war and lost! I mean, do chickens really have four legs and a tail? The trouble is, at that hour of the morning (whatever it was), packed to the rafters with vodka and beer, you will eat fucking anything!...and so you do!!
Cut to the wee small hours of this morning and the beginning of my story. When will I ever learn? The BGT thoughtfully rang me at 8am to let me know he was still alive - he's caring like that - and to fill me in on episodes from the evening in which I was involved but of which I had no memory.
I'm not entirely sure what to send to Grantham. Middle-aged idiocy, perhaps? Good intentions? Mid-week drinking? I think fast-food and those God-awful late night suicide sustenance joints will have to go for a start.

The Light Keeps Going Off In My Fishtank.

The chaps, pictured in one of their fleetingly enlightened times.


I know the title of this post sounds like a country and western song but that's just a coincidence. The light really does keep going off in my fishtank - well, one of the tanks, anyway.
Not a big problem, you might think? It could be. I'm worried about the consequences. You see fishies are strange coves. They kinda live their lives around lightness and darkness - much more so than we do. To a fish, inky black means no more "Ooh, here's a glass wall! Ooh, fancy that, here's another glass wall!! Ooh, this glass wall wasn't here yesterday, I'd swear?" It also means it's piscine bobos time. Light, on the other hand, means it's time again to meet the other fish in the tank you are certain weren't there yesterday, to have a bit of a swim and then look forward to dinner. Muck around with these divisions and you're asking for a tropical storm.
The trouble with the light being on the blink - literally - is that it's confusing the chaps no end. No sooner have they stretched their fins to supposedly greet a new swimming day than "ping!" - it's time for bed again. Then, just when they've got their Jaws jimmy jams on, the photo alarm goes off and they've got to get up again. I'm not sure if it's possible for fish to have nervous breakdowns but I'm sure mine are heading that way.
I've bought no end of bulbs and transformery/switch thingies but I can't seem to solve the problem. I'm damned if I'm going to splash out more - my local fish doctor is already a millionaire thanks to me. So, I'm on the lookout for suggestions.
Anyway, I'm going out for a beer with my chums now but, in the meantime, all help will be gratefully received. Try not to worry too much about it, though.

Great Mysteries of the Universe Solved - No. 23,456.

"It's yer oil filter, luv." "Naah! It's the the camshaft catching." "Get away! Anyone can see it's a sparkplug problem."

"Was it an accident or was it something more sinister?" queried that ginger-haired little strike-breaking shit Nicholas Witchell on BBC Breakfast this morning......................................

Uuurmmm, uuurmmm, uuurmmm....................

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, NICKELARSE!!!

Now it's time for Spongebob Squarepants.

Understatement - The Art Of.

The Met announces controversial new plans to combat the menace of tourism.


From the parallel universe in which Hitler is described as having been "naughty", the Black Death is noted for having been "a bit unpleasant" and Heather Mills is said to be "not particularly good at football", I bring you the following:

October 1, 2007. Health and Safety Executive v Metropolitan Police.

Count 1. That on July 22, 2005, in the city of London, the said Metropolitan Police did FAIL TO ENSURE THE SAFETY of Jean Charles Menezes in that one of its officers held the said Mr Menezes down on the ground while another officer fired seven bullets into his head, contrary to the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

You watch, they'll get off as well!!

The scum-sucking gits who are The Met, for their services to the mining industry and tourism, can go to Grantham.