Tea Time?

Either it's a totally half-arsed idea which just won't sell or it's a truly sad indication of the depths to which society has sunk - I fear it's the latter.
I'm talking about the latest, ephemeral piece of wired-up plastic being flogged by the telly-selly merchants which is destined, as all of its predecessors have, to end up terminally fucked and on that "maybe-one-day-I'll-be-able-to-fix-it-but-then-again-who-am-I-kidding" pile of consumerism-gone-crazy, impulse-buy junk in the attic or garage.
This latest, supposedly must-have gadget is the Tefal Quick Cup. It's unique selling point? It can ejaculate boiling hot water all over your cup containing either a teabag or freeze-dried, instant coffee.........in just three seconds!! Well, whoop deeay!! Well done. What a fucking great idea!
I realise we have come a long way from having to pile up brushwood in the office and rub two sticks together to create man's red fire in order to boil water for a hot drink but give me a sodding break!! How long does it take to boil a fucking kettle!!! A minute? Two minutes at most? Is that such a waste of time? Is life lived at such a frenetic pace these days that we have to shave 117 or 177 seconds off our tea-making time in order to function efficiently?
I'm sure the bosses are in favour of the Quick Cup. After all, it was those self same bastards who stamped on the concept of "lunch hour" at work - remember those? First they banished all reference to the "hour" word, then they even stamped on the concept of "lunch". They substituted both with a word which could mean anything to them they wanted it to mean...........the new word was "break"!!! "I'm going for my break now, boss". "I'm having my break at 1pm, boss, but I promise I'll be back by 1.20pm." "I'm shaking it, boss, I'm shaking it!" (Cool Hand Luke reference). Go fuck yourself!!!
"Break" was something we used to have at school - a half-hour slot round about 11am when, as little ones, we used to have one of those half-pint bottles of milk with a drinking straw in it and a biscuit with the imprint of a little cow on the top. Lunch was, both at school and at work, an hour-long escape from the tedious shite of the day. A time to play football in the playground or, in later years, go down to the pub and moan to the landlady about what a shit day you were having. No, that had to go, didn't it? We couldn't have work drones being away from their sectors for a whole hour!! What would happen to productivity? We don't want to go back down that road, do we? I mean, what next? We'd soon be referring to the workforce as "personnel" again, i.e. appertaining to people. That is just plain inaccuracy when staff are merely organic units, there to be used up, burnt out and discarded, i.e. "human resources".
Sorry, went off on one again there - the plate must have shifted. Where was I? Oh, yes. Tefal and its miracle Quick Cup. So, we can get tea-making down to just three seconds, can we? Well, how about we rifle through NASA's research drawers and produce entire meals in toothpaste tubes? You know, blue ones for roast beef and all the trimmings, red ones for lamb cutlets in a redcurrant sauce, green ones for a vegetarian option? We could suck our food out of the tube in about a minute and so save about 29 minutes on the current time allotted to take on sustenance and keep us alive so that we can return to our allotted work station. Better still, we could suck on the tube while still at our desks! You could still answer the phone or type one-handed.
Maybe we could have the Tefal Quick Sleep tablet? Pop one of these babies and you don't need to sleep, thereby freeing up eight hours-a-day of wasted time, time in which you could be in the office and working. I think these tablets already exist but due to some kind of bureaucratic bungle are classed as illegal. That will have to change.
No, you may have gathered that I'm not altogether a big fan of the Quick Cup. I mean, how are you supposed to adequately slag off that git from Accounts during three seconds in the kitchen? Three seconds just isn't long enough to cop an eyeful of the tits on Big Betty from Postal while pretending to be interested in her chat about her haemorrhoid's. You don't seriously expect me to present a full and incisive critique of last night's match to Spotty Roger from Distribution in just three seconds, do you?
Sorry, the Tefal Quick Cup can go to Grantham.

Wigan Revisited

I've just come back from the 40th birthday party of a big pal of mine and Mrs Pither's. A good time was had by all and much was the delight, curry and live band music indulged in by all.
Pither, being Pither, however, had to come away from the thrash with at least one blot on his otherwise pristine memory card. A large smudge on that particular piece of data was indelibly laid down when he met "Sarah" for the first time since she ceased to be "John".
John, as I last knew him, is/was a top hole chap. A really nice guy, with a brain the size of a planet and a sense of humour to match. He has, however, had "issues" over the last few years and, after a spell dipping into the world of homosexuality and not finding it to his taste, he decided he was, and should always have been, a woman.
John is one of those poor, male transsexuals to whom the slide onto the "other bus" has not and will never come easy. You see, John, or Sarah as he now is, is about 6ft 2ins tall. As I saw him tonight, in a figure-hugging, tight, knee-length red dress, he stood out like a spare prick at a virgin's wedding.
Sarah is, as I subsequently discovered, happy with the way she is for the first time in many, many years and, thanks to the help and support of some great friends, is enjoying life. That is ALL that matters and for that, I am thankful and happy for her.
The trouble is, during her journey from man to woman she has to meet idiots like Pither along the way. I had been plucking up courage to greet the new Sarah all night and eventually went over as she was not at all sure how I would react and so found it awkward to approach me. Put yourself in my position. You had last seen "Sarah" as a hairy-arsed bloke called "John". What are your first words? I chose the spectacular....................................."So, what have you been up to lately?"!!!!!!!!!!!
She looked down at her prosthetic tits, the long red dress and her high heels and said, not surprisingly, "You mean apart from this!!!!"
I am a female genital part, I admit it. What a stupid thing to bloody say.
As I have mentioned on this blog before, Douglas Adams termed the phenomena a Wiganism - an entirely inappropriate word or phrase you are subconsciously forced to utter to moment you meet someone who displays something different from the norm (e.g. You will inevitably say to a one-legged man "He hadn't got a leg to stand on." etc.) I challenge anyone to come up with anything other than what I said to Sarah. Suggestions are welcome..............anything which can stop me sending myself to Grantham!!!

Life Explained

I am, once again, in the debt of BGT for rationalising something which has baffled me for years.

Next Week - How to Nail Jelly to the Ceiling.

So, the Charlie Cairoli of Dunfermline - aka our beloved leader Gord - has said that not only does he admire the Thatchbitch creature, he intends to govern by a cross between her "conviction" politics and the desire to create a free and just society. Could 'appen!!
Then, cue the Chingford Skinhead, aka old tortoise head himself, aka Uber-Sturm-Fuehrer Tebbit. As the proverbial last slice of cheese slid off Norm's cerebral cracker, he said he saw Brown as the heir to Thatcher!!!!
Beam me up, Scotty!! I cans't take na more! Mr Reality has left the building, I REPEAT, Mr R has skedaddled outta here! Will the last one out please turn out the lights.
Oh, I don't know - EVERYTHING can go to fucking Grantham!!!!!

Blue is the Colour, Bullshit is the Game

Mrs Betty Adenoid of 23a, The Laurels, Ipswich, proves her husband's assertion that she is "an old cow" by falling victim to the latest plague to hit the country.


Oh my God! We're doomed, I tell ya'!! We're all doomed!!!
IT has finally arrived in Britain. Run for your lives, head for the hills. Run, for God's sake, run like the wind!
What exactly is IT, I don't hear you ask? Is IT, per chance, the Satan Bug? Is IT the Andromeda Strain? Has the Black Death decided to put in another appearance? God no, it's far worse than that. IT is..................blue tongue!! (pause for Dragnet-style horn playing).
Police are out in force this morning in the Ipswich area, no doubt closing off the outskirts from the rest of the world, handing out information leaflets to passing cows, slapping on-the-spot fines on truanting heifers and breaking up gangs of three or more bullocks found hanging around on street corners. Ladies and gentlemen, we have shifted to Def Con 2 and the alarm bells are ringing all over this sceptred isle.
Why? Yes, it's that tricky three-letter word again. I ask it again...why?
Right, here's the boring bit. Bear with me, it will lighten up again later.
Let me offer you a couple of quotes. Let's start with Mr Peter Martens, the man who is leading investigations at the Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright into the alleged outbreak.

He said: "The door is open for repeated infections of the disease which can infect sheep, as well as cattle, goats and deer, and has no known cure." Pretty scary, eh?

Now here is what Wikipedia has to say: "Bluetongue disease (also called catarrhal fever) is a non-contagious, insect-borne viral disease of ruminants, mainly sheep and less frequently of cattle, goats, buffalo, deer, dromedaries and antelope. There are no reports of human transmission. It is caused by the Bluetongue virus." It goes on to say that, although non-contagious, it can be spread by midges and, while the recovery period from the bug is slow, it is rarely fatal. Not quite so alarming, you might think?

The symptoms, apparently, are fever, excessive salivation, swelling of the face and swelling and cyanosis of the tongue, something which gives it its blue appearance. In other words.......................it's just makes your bovine/ovine pets feel a bit off-colour (literally!) and, what with the swelling 'n' all, rules them out of the pub and party scene for a while. Let's face it, it's hardly the bloody ebola virus!!

It doesn't affect humans so what the bleedin' 'ell is the problem? If anything, it's a bonus for those of us who like tongue because we'll be getting more for our money! The cows, pigs and sheep invariably get better and if they do happen to be moaning that they're still not feeling themselves as they're led onto the truck bound for the abattoir, so what? It's the trip on that truck which is far more harmful, not only to their health but also to my sensitivities.
Does it really matter that the joint of beef, lamb or pork you will no doubt tuck into today came from a creature which, during it's last day on earth and before it was about to have a bullet fired into its head, was "a bit bunged up and not feeling 100 per cent"?
What next? With all this manic food labelling the government seems obsessed with of late, are we one day going to find a pack of lamb chops in the supermarket with a note attached saying "Warning - as this sheep went to slaughter she was a bit worried about how her youngest, Nigel, was starting to play up lately and had been really down because her other half, Brian, had started seeing another ewe"?
"Caution - this cow suffered from depression (Understandable, considering its chosen career? - Ed.) and was up late last night because the chickens were having a bit of an all-nighter and so she hardly had a wink of sleep!"?
Je ne pense pas!!! It's just another fucking scare put around by the government to keep us in line and make us think that, without them and their valiant efforts to ward off the nasties, we'd all be doomed.
I have another theory. Hu humm. This is my theory, what I have (for Python fans only). I think we're being too soft on our livestock these days. They have got weak. Let's face it, they're a bunch of bloody hypochondriacs! It wasn't like that in my day, oh dear me no. Our mobile Sunday dinners didn't start running around, panicking the moment they developed a sniffle. They didn't start moaning and calling in government veterinary experts just because their hoofs or trotters were starting to feel a bit sore. No, they just got on with things! They never moaned, they never had days off sick. They were REAL men/women/cows/sheep/ruminants/ungulates.
All this namby-pamby, whimpy-pimpy, hoity-toity treatment of the livestock of today has come back to haunt us, I say. Farmers - lay down the law a bit!! Get some discipline and respect back into your charges. Toughen them up! Bring in National Service for livestock!!!
In the meantime, mindless health scares, particularly in the farming industry, can go to Grantham.

It's Tough at the Top......and Pretty Bloody Dodgy at the Bottom as Well!

Well, I think I've arrived at last....at the bottom, I mean.
It's taken 47 years to get here, 47 years which have been traumatic, painful and at times shocking, but I'm certain that this time, metaphorically speaking, I can feel sediment beneath my fingertips.
Allowing for a complete absence of memory about my first three years on the planet, I suppose it started to go wrong when I was four and James Bradwell slammed an open drain lid down on my hand (long story). I almost lost three fingers that day!
Then, when I was 11, the love of my life, Sian Fellows, told me that she didn't fancy me. I think I had the last laugh, however, as she went on to become a London-based shipping lawyer, earning £150,000-a-year, until she lost her job and was awarded £3 million by an industrial tribunal (Seriously! It made the front page of the Daily Nazi!) She had the chance to forgo all that and spend her life with me, my four dogs, my debts and my chronic bowel condition but she chose otherwise. I bet she's kicking herself now!
When I was 16 I wasn't picked to play for the First XI football team, when I was certain I was going to get on the teamsheet, and I felt like the ceiling of my life had caved in. I went on to spectacularly fail my A-Levels a year or so later and then life really kicked in - and did it kick!
Fast forwarding over the ensuing 30 years saw my hair fall out, I piled on the pounds, sport became merely something I watched on the telly, my marriage spiralled down the U-bend and then, just seven weeks ago, I snapped that tendon in my knee and was left a plastered near-cripple!
I was beginning to think that marked the seabed of my existence but then life had another googly to bowl.
I have been staying over in Small Town East again at Ed Straker and Lady Di's place so that I can get into the office near their home and, because of my temporary disability, I have to sleep on the settee in the lounge, not being able to climb their flights of near-vertical stairs.
So, at 7.30 yesterday morning, there I lay, slumbering away when I began to feel a fine mist descending on my face. I thought little of it until another cloud of moisture hit me. I was a little startled and for one moment thought that perhaps I had fallen asleep in a skip in the street the night before (Oh yes! It has happened in the past) and it was raining. Then another fine soaking came down and an almost overpowering whiff hit my nostrils. That's when I started to panic and so my eyes shot open and through a haze I looked up to see the Strakers' 10-year-old daughter Molly standing over me.................squirting me with Febreeze fabric conditioner!!
"What the 'eck are you doing, Molls?" I asked, not unreasonably.
"You stink!!!" came the reply.



So, there you have it. I have now reached a stage in life where, not only do women think my personal hygiene is not all that it could be, I need to be deloused every morning with fabric freshener by a small child!! This surely is the bottom?
I would send life to Grantham or the passage of time but then I wouldn't be able to write and no-one would be able to read this rubbish so I'll hold fire on it.....for the time being.

Tagging

There is a new game on the go. I'm not really one for games like this, it has to be said, but if I don't play I'm sure it will upset some chums who want me to play so here goes.
I quote from Fish's blog by way of an explanation:
"Players- you must list one fact, word or titbit which is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your first or middle name.
"When you are tagged you can write your own blog-post containing your name facts etc.
"At the end of your blog-post you can choose the amount of people that your name has to tag (i.e.- 6 letters, 6 people to tag). Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they have been tagged and to read your blog."

All I can say is......thank fuck my name is Reg and not Adrianopolous!
Right, here we are:
R - "R" stands for right-leg-dependent since my slight accident, risible (something I find everything) and right-royally-bollocksed (as in my marriage).
E - "E" stands for "Eee! What's going on in the world today? I don't feel part of it anymore."
and finally, G - "G" stands for "Gordon Bennett! What's going on in the world today?", "God, whatever happened to Socialism?" and "Great balls of fire! If Thatcher had never been born I suppose some other nutter would have ruined everything."
I now have to "tag" others and so my choices are:
I Like the View,
Malc,
and Doris.
Sorry.

Cast Off, Mr Pither!!!

Hours of endless fun can be had with homonyms, you know? Ok, maybe not.


Well, today was the day! Six weeks after I left hospital having undergone surgery on the bust tendon in my left knee I was back at the hospital.....and they took the bloody cast off at last!! Hurrah!!!!
Oh, hello again scratching, hello again sleeping in my bed (as opposed to on top of it with my leg raised on a beanbag) and, most fantastically of all, hello again bathing! Showers are fair enough but nothing beats a long soak, as the tall alcoholic once boasted.
Sadly, I can't bend my knee at all and am still wobbly on my feet so I still have to use crutches. Also, the real pain begins now with endless physiotherapy.....but I'm bipedal again!

True Shit

Get off your horse and.....and.....well......just fuck off, will you!


While waiting to get the barbecue going, I'm sitting in the garden with my laptop, trying to get on the inside of a nice bottle of vino blanc and pondering one of my pet hates.
I've come outside not only to enjoy the glorious weather but also to escape the Devil's Lantern because it's Saturday afternoon and Saturday afternoons mean only two things..........sport and westerns!

Now sport I like. There is nothing wrong with sport on the box, particularly at the moment, what with the rugby world cup in full swing. I love sport of most kinds and listening to it on the wireless outside is, anyway, more exciting. No, what really gets up my goat, almost as much as fucking musicals, is westerns! I bloody hate them!

This, of course, is further evidence than I am not a real man but some kind of woman trapped in the body of Qausimodo's uglier, older brother. As I've mentioned before, I'm crap at DIY, I'm useless with and have absolutely no interest whatsoever in cars and I find talking about football in the pub incredibly boring (even though I like football). On the other hand, I love cooking, I occasionally blub at sad films, I like flowers and I have a respectable pair of tits!

Like most girlies as well, I just find little or no entertainment in bloody westerns. They're all the same. Take the characters. There's always a guy in a black hat and his gang of nasties, a guy in a white hat who stands alone against the world and either a feisty, bosomatic woman bar owner or a shy, Laura Ashley print-frocked, wallflower-type girl. Bit parts invariably include a town drunk, a crooked railroad boss and the odd cute kid desperately looking for a new daddy. Everyone apparently has 24-hour access to Sketchley's and Nicky Clarke, there's always a saloon with little swing doors, drinks have to be slid along the bar and some git is always playing a honky tonk number on the piano but he has orders to stop abruptly when one of the baddies moseys in.
Then we come to the plots. Boiled down, they basically involve the guy in the white hat triumphing over the guy in the black hat, getting the girl and then riding off into the sunset, leaving a trail of dead nasties in his wake, townsfolk who are once again happy and safe and enough spent bullets to melt down and make a lifesize model of the Empire State Building.
The heroes never, ever have any bad points while the baddies never, ever have and good points. Men are men and the horses are scared.

I think my hatred for the genre is exemplified by that neo-Nazi twat who was John Wayne. What a git! A draft-dodging, shambling pile of glycogen who was able to play fewer characters than either Sean Connery or Champion the Wonder Horse.
Nope, it's the garden for me on Saturday afternoons, or the pub if it's raining. Westerns can definitely go to Grantham.

Man Make Fire Make Food!

"Stand aside, please, stand aside. Nothing to see here."


Were you thinking of going out today? I wouldn't if I were you. Stay indoors - it'll be safer.
You see, the sun is shining, the sky is clear over Small Town and so Pither is going to go for it................yes, it's barbecue time!!!

I've taken the dust sheet off the Flamimax 9000 and I'm going to pump that baby up later and toss on an assortment of animal carcasses. Now I know that, in addition to being a bit twee and suburban, having a barby is not exactly a big deal to the average person but, well, I'm not the average person. Me and barbecues have a bit of a history.
I identified the problem some years ago. It's all down to libations, you see. A few glasses of wine complement al fresco dining perfectly - all the manuals tell you so. What the manuals don't tell you, however, is that it is not particularly big or clever to hit the sauce about three hours beforehand and work your way through several bottles of Chateau Sheepdip before messing around with man's red fire!
The tug of the tincture has always been my failing when it comes to barbecuing, to such an extent that Large County's fire brigade and I came to an agreement some while ago.......If I gave up on barbecues they'd drop some of the outstanding prosecutions against me.
My big chum The Farmer is the barbecue king. He can rustle one up in minutes, dish out lashings of perfectly cooked goodies and have the flames out and everything packed away before you can say "Stamp on that fence someone, it's really starting to catch!"
I, on the other hand, can neither light a barby nor cook anything on it which does not result in a minibus to casualty for all my guests.
With that in mind, I have not had a barbecue for ages, certainly not this year. Also, I decided to never again pile up old furniture, faded copies of Razzle and sections of the lounge flooring to make my pyre. Instead, I invested in the unadventurous Flamimax to cut out the dangers should I ever feel the need to eat burnt sausages in the company of flies ever again.
Well, that time has come because, after a while, you get to miss eating food which
is incinerated on the outside but raw on the inside while sitting amid a cloud of insects and looking out on piles of dogshit on the lawn.
The Flamimax, as I said, has been unsheathed and the very-soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither has been down to the butcher's to stock up on dead animals. Importantly, however, not a drop has passed my lips so far today and there are just four hours to go until firefood time - I'm sure I will last out.
Anticipation is in the air. The dogs have already taken themselves upstairs to crawl under my bed, the neighbours have locked all their windows and Mrs Pither has given me the customary lecture:

"It's not too near the fence, is it?"

"No, my soon-to-be-blackened one."

"You will make sure everything's cooked properly this time, won't you?"

"Aw! That takes all the fun out of it!"

"Be serious. I don't want a repeat of the last one. Dave and Jenny still aren't speaking to us, you know?"

"They'll come round. Anyway, I still say it wasn't my fault. There are loads of places you can pick up cholera."

"...and you won't drink too much, will you?"

"I shall be as one of the Temperance League."

"...and you won't have the sherry when the beer's gone?"

"The thought never even entered."

"You do know how to connect the gas bottle up properly, don't you?"

"Hell, I'll wing it! How many ways can there be for it to connect?"

"Oh God! Shall I ask Steve next door to come and connect it for you?"

"He's still not speaking to us either, remember?"









"Oh yes. Damn! That reminds me, Jane hasn't got her washing out, has she?"

"Not anymore!"

"Does it matter that the Flamimax is so near to the fish pond?"

"That's just one of the new safety features I've built in this time should there be, let's say, a problem."

"Can't we just go out for a curry? Please?"

Well, it's now just three hours and 50 minutes until firefood time and my resolve has started to crack. I think I'll just have a livener. After all, it will relax me and get me in the mood. Mrs P has moved all the wine but, unbeknown to her, I know where she's put it - it's at the end of the garage, under some tarpaulin.
Cheers to one and all and remember, don't open those windows or come outside until you hear the all-clear!

Supping With The Devil

Right, have you got a dictionary to hand? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
So, Uncle Gordon has set out on the path to Hades already trodden by the self-styled Messiah Blair by inviting the crumbling, urine-soaked bitch Thatcher round to his gaff for tea and a chat.
The dribbling, rotund Scots calculating machine then, as Blair had done, praised the T creature to the waiting press.
While no doubt masturbating over a copy of Female Geriatric Psycho Bitches Monthly, he said he admired her because she was a "conviction" politician.
Cue dictionary: "Conviction" - unshakable belief in something without need for proof or evidence.
Turn back a few pages and you find: "Bigot" - person extremely intolerant of others and irrespective of reasoning.
I don't know about you, but I find the phrases "without need for proof or evidence" and "irrespective of reasoning" in the contexts in which they are used a tad similar.
Forward again to where you were: "Conviction" - alt. final judgment of guilty in a criminal case and the punishment that is imposed.
Now I always thought Archer and Aitkin were this country's leading conviction politicians? Maybe there's something we don't know? Has the old, doddering, blue-rinsed excuse for a Fascist ex-dictator got a criminal record (other than anything by Cliff)? Biting the heads off babies in a built up area, perhaps? Lighting a fire with unemployed miners in a national park, maybe? God knows she SHOULD have been collared by the filth fucking years ago. Living off fucking immoral earnings would have been the first rap I'd have pinned on her.
Sorry, got carried away there. Where was I? Oh, yes. So, do you think Brown was, just like Blair, fawning over a piece of human excrement because, deep down, he's bluer than a blue thing, politically speaking, or was he perhaps being very clever with his choice of words?
Did he mean to say the Grantham Gitess was a strong leader who trusted her instincts or that she was a bigoted jailbird? Makes you think, doesn't it? No? Ok, fair enough.
I still can't make up my mind about Brown, really, but I do fear the worst. Just wait and see. He's done the Thatch bit so now, like Blurr, he'll be jetting off next to worship at the feet of the man who taught the Devil and Jim Davidson everything they know - Murdoch.
Nothing for Grantham................yet.

You Say Tomato and I say....Urrm....Redcurrant?

My tomato crop appears rather respectable, does it not?
Ok, it's blurred but, believe me, that's not down to any lack of loving kindness and green-fingered tenderness on my part. No, that fuzziness, more commonly associated with the hated gooseberry (yuk!!), has resulted from something entirely different, something which will shortly become apparent.
So, Pither is going to have a bit of a tomato Mardis Gras - or at the very least a Vendredi Gras - you are thinking? He may not be painting the town red but his plate will certainly take on that tinge for the next few weeks, eh? Well, how can I put it?...............urrm............no!!
Give me ten pence and I'll explain. Ok, you tight fisted type, I'll provide the ten pence and IT will explain.


See? Not everything is as it first appears. Now you know where the fuzz comes from. Not being equipped with an electron microscope, it comes from having to hold a camera about an inch away from the subject in order to get it to at least fill half of the frame.
My tomatoes are actually the size of the average male gerbil's testicles - and there's worse news to come. These two rodentally genital-sized babies are THE ONLY tomatoes to spring from my plants this year.
My horticultural results this year can, at best, be described as "disappointing".
There are other descriptions which spring to mind but I've decided not to swear tonight. Still, ever the optimist (ha, ha, ha, ha!) I am determined to make use of my crop and so I am inviting suggestions for an appetising meal in which Brian and Frank (as I have named the boys) star as the principal ingredients.

While you've got your thinking cap on, maybe you could come up with a delicious pudding incorporating my crop of strawberries this year?


Good luck!! In the meantime, I think my market gardening skills should be shared with the good people of Grantham - hope they're not hungry.

'Ave A Banana!

I don't know about you but I think that nice Mr Brown and his government have come up with an absolutely ripping idea to help ensure that our kiddies grow up big and strong and never have nasty diseases or things like that anymore.
You see, some silly people are fretting that we have spawned - and I quote from a recent speech by Archbishop Rowan Williams - a generation of "fucking lard-arsed, bone idle, desensitised, brain dead, uncaring, disrespectful, greedy, self-obsessed, talentless, morally and idealistically bankrupt little Satan-worshipping bastards"................lord knows I'm not one of them.
I do, however, think that we should do something to cut down on the future number of wobble bottoms and thereby say "yah boo sucks with no returns" to the moaning minnies at the same time. That's why I was jolly pleased when I heard about the latest wizard wheeze to help our tiny ones.
The government wants to give ladies with babies in their tummies £200 to buy fruit and vegetables to keep them healthy and so make their tots healthy. Now, some Sidney Cynics say this top hole plan might possibly be open to abuse but I say they should jolly well trust the government a bit more. I am sure that the money will be accompanied by a jolly stiff letter advising that it would be awfully naughty to by-pass the greengrocer's and spend it instead on things like bingo, fags, Tenants Extra, shellsuits, tattoos, dope, crack cocaine, heroin or, worse, copies of Grazia magazine. Hurrah for the government, I say! Three cheers!!

Meanwhile, back on planet fucking Earth, my alter ego asks the question "CAN YOU GET YOUR FUCKING MIND ROUND THIS LOAD OF BOLLOCKS?"
Point number 1: All the expectant mothers who would use the cash to ensure that they ate healthily would do so anyway, regardless of the handout.
Point number 2: All the expectant mothers who should be made to eat healthily so as to at least give the little ones unfortunate enough to be growing inside them a chance of survival already spend the Family Allowance (or whatever it's called these days) down at the bookies and would be off to Ibiza for the week once the windfall came through faster than you could say "You say tomato, I say bollocks!".
Point number 3. Why does New fucking Labour insist on poking its nose into people's fucking lives and keep telling everyone how they should be living and what they should be doing? FUCK OFF!
Before the cries of "Nazi, Nazi!" start, (I am slightly left of Castro and, although childless, am happy to and do pay tax to help those with kids etc) I am aware that some expectant mums, both employed and at home already raising a family full-time, are struggling desperately to make ends meet and consequently put their own health second when a baby is on the way. These women should be told about the Benefits that are available to them and educated about the need to eat healthily for their babies' sakes. That's a world away from sending out a bonus 200 smackers to everyone who gets up the duff!
What next, eh? Sending out £50 postal orders to young parents in exchange for them agreeing not to lie in the fast lane of the M6? A cheque for £100 to pregnant women if they all agree to move into bungalows and hand in any teatrays and bottles of vodka they might have, perhaps? I know, how about £150 to fathers-to-be if they get through the whole pregnancy without punching their partners in the stomach during alcohol-fuelled, wife-beating sessions, with another £50 on top if they don't leave any bruises during the attack?
If there was any justice in the world it would be the likes of me - people who don't have kids, albeit not through choice - who got bungs from the government. Christ knows, in a civilised society their should be some recompense for people who haven't had their end away since Valerie Singleton was presenting Blue Peter!
..........Still, nice again today, wasn't it? (Right-on, PC government policies for Grantham, by the way.)

Wa, wa, waaaaaaaa!!!!

It's important to be positive (Val Barlow's last words?), apparently, so let me sum up the highlights of Pither's day:

1. It didn't rain.

2. Work informed me that my contract is to be cancelled because of "financial restraints".



.......still, good news about the weather, eh?

It Was 47 Years Ago Today.......

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 1960; As Mr and Mrs Grant became the first people in the world to learn to loathe Hugh, Mr and Mrs Pither welcomed baby Reg into the world in a stable 140 miles away.

Well, it's happy birthday today to Napoleon, Leo Tolstoy, Hugh John Mungo Grant...............and ME!!!
Yes, the introduction of the contraceptive pill to Britain in 1960 came just too late to stop Reginald Pither bursting onto the scene.
Bony and Leo are not answering their phones but as Hugh was born not only on this day but in the same year we have a special bond and so I'm hoping we'll meet up at the Moulting Ferret later on this special day to enjoy a couple of schooners of dry sherry.
Hurrah!!!

......In Fact It's A Gas (Bill), Man!

Where to start? I've got so many tales to tell!
Right! I've been staying over in Big City East again with Ed Straker and Lady Di because, as I've explained before, they live near where I work and, what with my gammy leg 'n' all, they put me up and ferry me to and from the office each day. That's pals for you - if it wasn't for them I would be out of a job and sleeping under an embankment somewhere. To say I owe them one is a modest understatement.
Anyway, Eddy Baby and Di threw a bit of a soiree last night at their unlicensed creche and drop-in centre and, to quote Frankie Valli, "Oh what a night.....!" Now Ed is in a band - very big on the Help The Aged circuit, I understand - and the keyboard player set up in the garden to play through the night while we sang along and chair-boogied to everything from Frank Sinatra and Peter Sarstedt to the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. A great night and 14 cases of wine and beer really added to the atmosphere.
I fell to chatting to the keyboard player - to save his blushes let's just call him Micky (because that's his name) - and he turned out to be not only a A1 top bloke but also a mine of great stories from the music world. You see Micky used to be in a band which was huge in the '80s (I won't name them although think 'Royalty and burgers') and so he had tasted life as an international rock god with all the trimmings. "So, you must have made millions and be set for life?" Pither asked, hoping to tap him up for a fiver. Micky then told me a tale about an episode when his band was at the peak of its fame and not only does it explain what the rock world is really like to us outsiders, it is a salutary lesson for anyone who fancies themselves as the next big thing.
The story is of just one "day in the life" and, with apologies to Micky for embellishing it a bit (it's my job, maam) it goes like this:
Micky and the boys were currently riding at Number 2 in the charts and were wanted by the world and his wife - or in the case of the lead singer, the world and his husband. They were booked to play their latest smash on Top of the Pops and so they were ferried to the studios in a fleet of limos and duly did their spot. They were on a tight deadline though as they were due on the continent later that night to play a gig (Munich, I think?) so, no sooner had the editor shouted "that's a wrap, luvvies" than their entourage of security guards, record label executives and assorted hangers on was sped through the corridors of Broadcasting House to another fleet of limos to take them to the airport.
There is, of course, a supply of hot and cold running champagne and scantily clad rock chicks in the limos which deliver them to a waiting Lear Jet (seriously!!). The boys clamber aboard and Micky takes his seat. Off they roar, climbing almost vertically to cruising height and Micky pulls down the overhead compartment to find a goldfish bowl on a stem already filled with brandy, alongside stocks of other booze. There's rock music all the way, no doubt some of the other lads tuck into sugar bowls of Colombian Marching Powder thoughtfully laid out for them..........and this is where the fairytale fractures somewhat.
Micky considered his situation for a fleeting moment. "God alive!! I've arrived" he thought, not understandably. "This is THE life. Ferried around in limos, our own Lear Jet, en-route to a European gig after a live telly performance, booze, birds and the best the rock world has to offer. Wow!" At that very moment, our Micky reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper - it was his gas bill. Turned out there was still part of him which wasn't a God-like alien from the planet Rock 'n' Roll and Nazigas Inc. was into him just as it is into the rest of us. The bill was for £70 so Micky ferrets around in his belongings, searching for cash and, guess what? He hadn't got a fucking bean!! You see, even at the height of the band's fame, the most the members ever saw of the moolah was the £40-a-week they were each given as pocket money by their owners (seriously!!) He asked around the other members of the band and they had also spent their pocket moeny and were absolutely penniless as well. In the end, he had to borrow the cash off one of the record label bods so that he had the necessary to avoid being cut off on his return to Blighty.
There he was, living life in the fast lane, with luxury and decadence all around him, and he hadn't actually got any REAL fucking money at all in the world. Despite the mountains of money earned by their record sales and concert appearances, it turned out that the limos weren't complimentary, the booze and birds had been shelled out for in advance, the invoice for the Lear Jet was in the post and every member of the entourage, most notably the record label vultures, had all grabbed serious wedges for themselves!
Micky NEVER had any money at all at the time. The actual folding stuff all went somewhere else and the band hardly got to see any of it.
I found that a bit of an eye opener. I said to Micky: "Jesus, all that cash earned and you couldn't even pay a poxy gas bill! I bet you suddenly realised the whole bloody thing was just a con, a circus, and you wanted out of it?" I asked. Mickey looked down, pondering, and replied: "Urrrm......nah! It was fucking brilliant!!!"
Well, I liked that tale. Ok, maybe you didn't. Ok, well sod off then! Grantham shall not have Mickey, however.

I Think I'm Gunna Be Sad, I Think It's Todaaay, Yeah!

I'm on a bit of a downer today, it has to be said. Life can be shit and it's at its shittiest when it's being shitty to one of the five creatures I care about most.
Four of those objects of my devotion, each of which I am prepared to die for should the situation arise, are, as all my pals know, my dogs and my biggest boy, Padfoot, is in a sorry state. He has a congenital condition common to his breed and it is progressive.
When it was first diagnosed I just shrugged my shoulders, told the lad himself he'd be all right and put it to the back of my mind. Well, his condition has deteriorated dramatically in the last fortnight and Pad is getting close to being unable to walk unaided.


This bastard condition causes him to clench his back paws like fists and attempt to hobble on them. His haunches have sunk as well and he has taken to frequently dragging his back legs because the nerves are dying to such an extent that he no longer has much, if any, control over them. It is heartbreaking to watch. Worse than all of that is........you can see it in his face. He knows something is wrong and he looks mournfully at you.
He still, hopefully, has many years of fun with Pither ahead of him (NO!! We don't do lethal injections to combat inconvenience round here at The Towers) but it looks as though I am finally going to have to invest in one of those God-awful dog-trolleys so that he can get out for walkies.

I suppose indignity is not as bad as immobility. There is also the small matter of the cost - several thousand pounds, I'm led to believe - but I suppose if I'm willing to die for Pad I'm willing to risk jail and defraud Lloyds Bank a little more.
Life IS shit but it goes on, and on - a bit like Big Brother.

I'm One Of Them, You Know.

I've just been labelled an INTJ on someone else's Blog. I think it's some kind of psychoanalytical/psychometric term. Not being a big fan of head mechanics, I have absolutely no idea what it means. It could be a euphemism for "git" and then again it could mean that I am a shining example of man's evolution.
Should I throw off my cast, walk down the street tomorrow with my head held high and say to the first person I meet "I'm an INTJ, you know? What do you think of that?"
Alternatively, should I just stay indoors for the rest of my life, avoid any contact with members of the human race and curse the environmental and genetic influences which made me an INTJ?
Please help.

From The Sublime To The Worthy Of Ridicule

By way of a contrast to my previous post, this is Michael Ancram.


...............he's what's known as "an utter twat"!!!

I Will Wear My Heart Upon My Sleeve For Daws To Peck At.

Many thanks to BGT for once again coming to my rescue.
I think she's like a little Michelangelo soaked in Brut. She has almost everything, including a class 2 occlusion!! I just wonder if she also has unfeasibly large bosoms, a morally casual attitude, a Nottingham Forest season ticket and lives above an off-licence? One can but dream.

The Search For Cinderella - Take 75.

I am in love yet again........and yet again I fear it is a love which is doomed from the start.
Like that lovely lass from the remake of The Mummy (who not only didn't write or phone, she got an injunction when I stood outside her house naked for a month!), the latest object of my affection is a screen goddess. This time, however, she is a small screen goddess.
She is the lass with the stunning smile in that nauseating bloody advert for the new Kia Cee'd car - you know, the one where some oily young bloke picks her up from home, supposedly on a first date, and by the time he's driven her back to his gaff he's proposed, said they need a dog and made it clear he wants to get her babbied up?
Surprisingly, she just smiles and says "ok" to what I consider to be some rather forward questions , particularly when you've only just met someone. Her rash reply, however, could indicate two character traits which I not only find attractive but which could work in my favour, namely that she's either brain dead or morally casual or both.
I can't find a photo of her anywhere but if anyone knows who she is or has her phone number I would appreciate it if the would they let me know.

A Word In Your Shell-Like.

I have been away from Pither Towers for most of this week. I am currently staying with pals just outside Big City East because that is where my work is at the moment and, being unable to commute as usual owing to my slight problem in the leg department, said friends are running me to and from the office while putting me up out of hours.
What a boring intro! Anyway, I felt the need to put fingertips to keyboard because, over the last few days, I have found myself calling a great deal on my favourite word in the English language and I wanted to put my love for it down in writing.
The word is very short but it is, or at least should be, the most important in our vocabulary. The word is......................"why?".
As a journalist, I was brought up on that sickly rhyme penned by well known Days-Of-The-Raj-Neo-Nazi-Hack-Novelist-Poet Rudyard Kipling, namely:
"I kept six honest serving men,
They taught me all I knew.
Their names were what and where and when
And how and why and who?"

A good ditty to remember if ever you need to check you've got all the important details for a story. The trouble is, one of those "serving men" is very seldom called into service, not just by reporters but by...............well............most people. Asking "why" has never been popular. I, on the other hand, have always bucked the trend and blurted the word out given the least encouragement.
It started in my childhood, as most things did:
"Reginald!! Come and kiss grandma!" - "Why? She's got a fucking moustache!"

"Reggie, you can't spend all day in bed." - "Why? Mother, you really haven't thought that one through. I think you seriously need to consider the accuracy of that statement."

"Reg, you've got to eat your greens." - "Why? If God had meant us to eat cabbage he wouldn't have invented Nesquik."

It continued at school:
"You must wear black shoes outdoors but brown shoes indoors." - "Why? I vaguely recall the not coveting your neighbour's oxen bit but nothing about shoes."

"You must wear a white shirt for parents' evenings." "Ooh, ooh, ooh, Mr Blenkinsop, Mr Blenkinsop, Mr Blenkinsop, pick me, pick me, pick me"
"Yes, Pither."
"Urrm.............why?"

"Your hair must be cut so that it does not reach down to your collar and is off your ears." - "Why? Einstein looked like a geriatric Ken Dodd and he didn't do so fucking bad!"

On to college and the chance to give people you really didn't have a lot of time for a nervous breakdown:
"So, as you can see, the development of the basic lever was a massive step forward for mankind."
"Why?"
"Well, Archimedes said that if he had a place on which to stand, by use of a lever he could move the earth."
"Why would he want to do that?"
"I'm not saying he wanted to just......well.....just.....just that he could."
"Just because he came out with some ludicrous claim about an entirely hypothetical scenario he can hardly be judged to have provided evidence of some massive leap forward for mankind."
"Yes he can."
"Why?"
"Because.....because.......well......because it showed the enormous potential of the lever."
"Why? Saying that you could shove over the earth if you had a 260,000-mile long piece of indestructa-wood which rested on a 175 billion-ton fulcrum which hovered in mid-space and was immovable is not exactly a reliable claim. I mean, you don't hear me going around saying that if my mother had been the Duke of Bedford and I had been born in the year 3 BC and I had been endowed with superpowers by a highly intelligent life force from a distant galaxy I could have been president of the board of trade!"
"Shut up Pither and put some clothes on!"

Now I am almost a grown up I find myself saying "why?" more and more. Why, for instance, do I have to wear a seatbelt while driving my car? Why the fuck would I want "a milkshake with that order" if I hadn't fucking asked for one? Why, in the name of all that is holy, would I even begin to think that my call was important to anyone, let alone to "them"? Why do I have to put my wheelie bin out with the handles facing the road? Why would I want to start my own pottery business, thereby forcing me to approach Lloyds fucking bastard Bank for a loan? Why would I want an electronically operated sun awning whose major selling point is that it can be worked by a golden retriever? Why do the gas and electricity meter readers call round during the day when you are out at work earning money to pay the gas and electricty bills and then post an accusatory note through your door which positively shouts "We called round to read your meter but you were out!!!" Why do you only notice there is no toilet paper in the loo 3.4 picoseconds AFTER you have just evacuated your bowels? Why do I keep getting these blinding headaches which cause me to black out and when I recover consciousness I find myself gripping a blood-stained knife and standing over the lifeless body of an innocent woman who moments earlier had stopped me in the town centre to ask if I was happy with my gas supplier? Why would some git think he had even the remotest fucking chance of selling me something by cold-calling and beginning a phone conversation with the words "Hellooo Mr Pathery, how are you today?" I might just be labouring the point a tad but the list does seem endless.
My family, my teachers, my lecturers and, latterly, my employers have all said that I have a problem with authority. That is just not true. I have absolutely no problem with authority. The problem I have is with meaningless rules. By way of an example, there are signs up at petrol stations stating that smoking is prohibited. There is a reason for that, a reason I can understand, and consequently I obey the command. When, however, I'm told that I am not allowed to sit in an empty First Class carriage on a train, having bought a standard ticket and found that there is not even standing room in cattle class, I tend to go somewhat apeshit!
Authority figures are, I admit, often the cause of some concern to me. You see, I have this stupid notion that to have authority you have to earn respect. With regard to that, I would take orders from people like, say, Nelson Mandela, Lawrence of Arabia (even though he's dead!) and a number of reporters with whom I have worked and who have proved themselves to be infinitely better at the job than I am. Just wearing a hat with "in charge" written on it does not, however, entitle the wearer to respect and the right to exercise authority.
I think I've lost my train of thought now. Why? I can't remember. Anyway, it's now 5.45am, I have not been to bed and so there is nothing for Grantham. Why? - because I'm too tired to think of anything.