Sugar and Spice.........?

So, the Spice Girls have bad an emotional farewell to us all (AGAIN!!).
Figuring that there was absolutely fuck all to do in Toronto on a Thursday night in February except get pissed, masturbate in a darkened room or watch shite, our heroines decided to give the good people of that Canadian city the chance to do all three by staging their farewell show there last night.

This bunch of surgically modified, thick, pox-riddled, mobile eating disorders (what is the collective noun for a group of people with eating disorders? A retch? A Ryveta?) bowed out after the one with the ginger pubes bellowed: "This is your last chance to see the Spice Girls!!" I suppose she could equally have told the audience it was their last chance to metaphorically contract HIV or have their eyeballs skewered with red hot knitting needles but doubtless the PR men insisted she go with the euphemism.

Yes, in an act of unselfish sacrifice, the "girls" (two of them were in my dad's regiment in the war!) have decided to cut short their world tour because, apparently, some of them had forgotten that they had kids before it began and they now want to get back to them. For God's sake, don't listen to anyone who sounds a note of cynicism by saying it was because they had been ripping each others eyes out backstage throughout and after poor attendances at their opening gigs at the Duck and Gynaecologist in Cleckheaton and the Sailors' Rest Home in Broadstairs they had managed to sell just three tickets for the other 2,357 venues they were due to play worldwide.

So, that's the end of the line, is it? No more Clotheshorse Spice, Fucked Up Spice, Paedo-Magnet Spice, Other Spice and The Fourth One Spice. What a sickening loss to culture and society in general. Still, never fear, we will always have their legacy. You know what their legacy is, don't you? You must remember, surely? The reptilian PR people screamed it at us enough times?..........Yes, it's "Girl Power".

And what exactly is Girl Power? Well, to the ill-informed and blinkered, like me, it is the supposed justification for turning this


into this


Drinking so much blue lighter fuel out of trendy bottles that your knickers descend at the same speed as your partly digested dinner rises up through your oesophagus is, apparently, the result of female empowerment (says 'ere!). Gone are the days when lads like me had to shell out for a trip to the pictures to see some rancid, romantic film we didn't want to see, stump up for a carton of Kiaora and a bag of popcorn and then walk our paramours 15 miles home, after which we were left beating our erections down with damp copies of the Beano because we had been told on their doorsteps how they weren't "that kind of girl" and would only allow us access to their underwear once we had married them. Ah! Happy days.

Nope! Forays into Pantyland come a lot cheaper for the knuckle-dragging, drunken, spotty young males of today:
"Fancy a shag?"
"Yeah, no sweat, hic! But, hic, Trisha's gettin' it over the bins out the back, Sharon and Trace, hic, are gettin' roasted by the barmen in the ladies and our Kylie's takin' it up the, hic, wrong 'un by the fire exit so there's no-one to mind me bag......buy us another WKD until, hic, they've finished!"

I just keep picturing Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson chatting earnestly over a cuppa at Carnforth Railway Station each time I see our trainee pondlife staggering around, necking vats of coloured anti-freeze, puking and touching each other up in pubs and bars these days - "It's so terribly, terribly upsetting, darling."

Girl Power (I keep mentioning it, even though it is patently obvious that there is no such fucking thing and it was only invented by admen to plug an otherwise unsellable product) has also led to a startling change in the apparel favoured by young ladies who venture out nowadays for an evening's fun. I remember going out
with girls who, on their mothers' and fathers' instructions, turned up "under the clock by the cinema" so heavily bedecked in clothing that your initial thought was that you were dating Scott of the Antarctic! Hell, I remember spending two hours with one young lady before she deigned to take off her gas mask!!
That's all gone! The clothing articles of choice today are a 3ins-wide belt and two
elastoplasts for the nipples! - and in summer the girls wear less!! I pity the male youth of today. As with their Megadeath Crashrape Nemesis computer games, they are confronted by sensory overload and have become totally desensitised as a result. Just as they cease to regard shooting, stabbing or "snuffing out" people as undesirable, let alone illegal, they have come to expect, nay demand, that girls should have their tits out in the pub and their muffs on view on the dancefloor when they so much as bend over more than five degrees!

I love women's bodies. They're fab. They've just got so many curvy bits and round bits and neatly arranged bits. Nothing asymmetrical hangs down and flaps about as though it was stuck on as an afterthought by The Creator. I also happen to love strawberries, however, and if I was confronted by more strawberries than you could shake your knob at every time I ventured out of the house I would soon grow tired of them and yearn for a more extreme fruit - until all the fruit had gone.

There's magic in slowly discovering a pleasure. That's the concertinad principle, I
think, behind striptease (sorry girls, but this IS a philosophical argument so bear with me) - it is the "tease" which is the thrill, not the end result. What would constitute a strip show to today's pubescent youths? I imagine some girl would stagger out on stage clutching a rum and Coke, quickly whip off her belt and elastoplasts and stand there buck naked for two seconds before there was a loud "Ta daaaaaaaa!" from the music machine and the curtains closed! Where's the fun in that? Another of the noble arts destroyed.

Where was I? Oh yes, Girl Power. As I mentioned earlier, I know no such thing actually exists and the behaviour of both young women/girls and men/boys nowadays is the result of a much deeper malaise in society but if the admen can conceptualise then I can do likewise.
The euphemistic term for the result of this peer pressure and malaise is "the ladette". Apparently, that means a girl who acts like a young man by getting pissed all the time, fighting, rolling around in gutters, waving her private parts around at anyone passing and fucking anything vaguely resembling a member of the opposite sex or the same Phylum.
Why, in the name of everything outside homosexuality/self abuse, would I want to fuck someone with my own disgusting habits? A lot of people have asked me to go and fuck myself, admittedly, but I've never "got round to it". It's just not my cup of mango juice.
I think that's about it. I seem to have run out of steam and forgotten where I was going with this anyway. Still, there's something to come out of it. Girl Power can go to Grantham.

It's What Beveridge Would Have Wanted

Great lines of the 21st Century - No. 2,349.

A pal of mine - let's just call him Pat, although his real name is.......is..........well............Pat, came across an acquaintance in the pub the other day.
Said acquaintance last hauled his fat, spotty, purulent arse out of bed to go to work when God's dog was a mere puppy. Since then, after a brief outing as a Coronation Day flag-seller, he has done FUCK ALL!! His P45 is, in fact, in the Victoria and Albert Museum!!
He is, however, kept in the higher rate tax bracket thanks to incapacity benefit (he suffers from chronic indolence), job-seekers allowance (he allows other people to look for work), child benefit (he has spawned more offspring than the average cod) and settee credits - all this, mind, without fear of bills for his rent, phone, clothes, bets, prostitutes, drugs or Tenants Extra ever being shoved through his letterbox to disturb his enjoyment of Trisha because, like the rest of his fucking outgoings, WE fucking pay them!
Where was I? Oh yes. So Pat sees this sloth at the bar and in a spirit of altruism says: "Can I get you a beer?"
What did our welfare system wonder reply? I kid you not, he said....................."No, let me get you one. You can't afford it, you're working."
I am a Socialist, but that is Socialist spelt S O C I A L I S T and not C U N T!
He can go to Grantham.

That's Entertainment!

What a truly magical weekend it is turning out to be!!


I've just returned from Brucie's 80th birthday bash - Oh, what a night!!! The Senatogen flowed like wine, along with the urine, but fortunately the great man and his cohorts were "bagged up" and so the dance floor stayed dry - as indeed did the private parts of all of his female contemporaries.

I'm sure you can imagine that, in the company of so many showbiz coffin-dodgers and Omega-list celebrities, I felt a little ostracised but I did manage to get to know Brucie's charming wife, Wilnelia. We were thrust together after Bruce handed me his rug to look after while he leapt around doing a particularly vigorous Lambada with
Dame Vera Lynn, and Puerto Rico-born Wilnelia turned out to be fascinating company. Despite her only knowledge of English being the words "me love you long time, five dollar" and "I want to travel and work with children", former Miss World Wilnelia manged to communicate with me by using her lippie to draw rudimentary images on her napkin.
Once her tongue withdrew from my throat, she scrawled out a quite detailed drawing of a penis and then scored it out with a giant, red cross! On the reverse, however, she drew a dollar sign and a big heart and so I was left with the impression that her marriage to "The King of Variety" had its good and bad sides.

Time really flew by and before I knew it the patient transport minibuses were queueing up outside to take everyone home. As I sit here the morning after the night before, wondering how I am going to get the mashed up rusk stains out of my dinner jacket, I can't help marvelling not at HOW Brucie is so full of life as an octogenarian - but WHY!! Nice to see you call it a fucking day eventually, to see you call it a fucking day eventually, nice!

Well, I can't sit around all day - I've got a flight to catch! I've got to be in Los Angeles by tomorrow lunchtime so that I can soak up the atmosphere ahead of THE MOST IMPORTANT NIGHT OF THE ENTIRE YEAR!!!!!! No, it's not the signing of a peace accord
between the Arabs and the Israelis, it's not the resolution of the Iraq war and a guarantee of peace and democracy in the Middle East, it's not even the Second Coming of Christ. No, it's...............the Oscars!!
Oh yes, anyone who thinks that a 36-hour wankfest in which self-obsessed, vacuous, evidently retarded clotheshorses who dress up and pretend to be other people for a living award each other prizes and tell each other how fucking marvellous they are is not REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT is a fool to themselves!
"...and the silly, little, tacky statuette for the self-professed, earthbound god who best dressed up as someone else and then pranced about playing 'let's pretend' goes to...." I love it!

Why is it that when the "winning" turds skip up on stage and start blubbing as they are handed their ostentatious doorstops they always gush out a completely unwarranted list of people they feel they should thank? You know, the director, my co-star, my school, my mother's vulva? They never actually thank the people they should do - US!!! If it wasn't for US showing superhuman self-restraint by not gunning down these worthless penile warts in the street then they wouldn't be up there advertising Versace and wetting themselves at their own, supposed genius. What I want to know is where the fuck is Osama Bin Laden when you actually fucking want him?

Oh well, you get a complimentary sherry on the way in and a party bag so I suppose I'd better go.

As for Grantham, that is a tricky one. This will have to be my most undefined exile to date. With Brucie, the Oscars and actors in mind, I will send all wankers to Grantham.

My Padfoot

My Padfoot is dead. He died at 1.45pm exactly today.

We had to call the vet out this afternoon to put him to sleep and stop his pain.

My poor Pad had simply given up the will to live. Right now, I know exactly how he felt. The tiredness was in his eyes, as well as in his wasting limbs. He took to looking at me as he lay motionless on his bed, and his face just said "It's time for me to go now. Please".

I want to write more about Pad and what he meant to me but I can't at the moment. Truth be told, I'm in fucking bits!!
All those of you who throw up whenever I write about my dogs had better stay clear for a week or so.

The Blame Game

Pity poor Graham Calvert. He hasn't got two greyhounds to rub together - and it's
all THEIR fault.

For the uninitiated, young Graham - he's only 28, bless - is a former successful greyhound trainer with a penchant for gambling who didn't so much like a flutter as the deafening wingbeat of a million condors in flight.

It transpires that fat Graham - he's almost completely spherical - would bet on everything from the outcome of sporting contests and the likelihood of Lord Lucan riding into town on Shergar to his chances of marrying the Duchess of Bedford and spawning a lovechild with Carlos from Crossroads.
To his amazement, baby eater Graham - he's from Tyneside - gambled away his business, his home, his wife and his family (now that's what I call a bet!!) Trouble is, John Candy lookalike Graham - he looks like John Candy - is a sore loser. He is now going to sue bookie William Hill for the return of the £2.1 million he estimates he proverbially pissed across their counter.

Cunt Graham - he's a cunt! - has consulted a blood-sucking social outcast (solicitor) and been advised that he has a case because it could be argued that Billy Hill and Associates owed him "a duty of care". You know what a duty of care is, don't you? It's what an infantile, bloated, retarded, Geordie git must always remember he owes his wife and kids if ever he is tempted to blow the housekeeping on the 3.30pm at Kempton!

The evidence supposedly backing this claim is that our Gra reached an agreement with the bookies that they should not take any more of his fucking stupid bets because he had a slight problem - self-exclusion, as it's known in the business. They, so the argument goes, went back on that agreement and allowed him to start betting again.

What is not explained is WHY he was allowed to return to his old ways. Call me a cynic (you're a cynic, Reg!) but I bet (soz Gra) our rotund antihero pleaded, grovelled and begged to be allowed back onto William Hill's "good books" and, after much pestering, his wish was granted.

First of all, just which Graham Calvert was the bookmaker supposed to believe? The "if-I-come-in-here-ever-again-you-have-my-permission-to-shoot-me Graham Calvert or the I'm-much-better-now-honest-and-have-been-told-I-will-never-get-addicted-again-so-can-I-have-a-fiver-on-that-fly-on-your-window-having-a-crap-in-the-next-five-minutes Graham Calvert? Doubtless, if he had not been allowed to bet again he would have gone to the European Court of Human Rights claiming he was being persecuted.

Secondly, I have a real problem with accepting gambling as a true addiction. It's like other so-called conditions sush as "sex addiction", "shopping addiction" and "addiction to scratchcards".
To me, an addiction is fostered by chemicals. It is something physiological, not psychological or even socialogical. Nicotine is one of the most addictive chemicals on earth, so is heroin. Alcohol is pretty damn addictive as well. Walking into a bookies and gambling your wages on which of a field of diminutive Irish lads astride equine mammals is feeling the friskiest is not chemically addictive. It IS something you can choose not to do. Here's an idea - don't fucking do it!! No-one and no thing is compelling you to.

Finally, we get to the real infection which has swept this nation over the last 20 years (caught, predictably enough, from across "The Pond"). NOTHING IS ANYONE'S FAULT ANYMORE! If you go out and knife a disabled granny to death before buggering a few goats in front of a children's nursery then it is obvious that you weren't breast-fed as a child and so your mother is to blame. Remember the fat twat who tried to sue McDonald's because they sold him their shite and it made him obese? My favourite psychobabble of all time, however, is the following:

Why did a short-arsed, no-mark, insignificant, little Austrian corporal go on to order the annihilation of six million Jews, countless gipsies, disabled people and innocent civilians, decimate armies around the world and lay waste to Europe and Africa?.........................Come on, I'm waiting! Come on, come on, come one!! Give up? Ok, I'll tell you.........................He wasn't potty trained!!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big advocate of the Human Rights Act. It was a long time coming. Trouble is, with rights go responsibilities. Sadly, there is no Human Responsibilities Act.
Please, please, please, can't we go back to the way things were? Barring glandular disorders (a fucking site rarer than fatties would have you believe), you get obese because you have no self control and gorge yourself, not because some Nazi fastfood chain flogs you the fat-laden crap you have asked for. You injure yourself falling off a ladder because you are a dozy twat, not because you weren't sent on a ladder climbing course. You lose all your money gambling because you are a stupid, self-obsessed dickhead with no realisation of consequences, not because the bookmaker accepted your bets.

The no-one's-to-blame-for-their-actions society can be enjoyed by the people of Grantham.

P.S. Pad came through his operation yesterday and it has given him about another week with me.
P.P.S. I have no idea why this Blog has moved to babytype. I have tried to change it back but without success.

High Noon

There was a problem at work today.
Fixing Pither with an icey stare, the - surprise, fucking surprise - ex-teacher who is his current and immediate boss bellowed: "So what are WE going to do about it?"
"ONE doesn't know about ONESELF," Pither replied, fixing her with his Grade 1 Paddington stare in return, "but if WE talk to ONE like a five-year-old again WE are going to be doing it all on our LONESY-WONESOME! Comprenez?"
This retort followed two weeks of carping, snide comments, uselessness and interference from said pig-in-a-dress so the Bunfight at the OK Tea Rooms moment had to arrive sooner or later.
"We need to talk, Pither. In my office!!"
As I closed the door behind us, she just managed to get as far as "I have never, in all my born days, been spoken to like....." when I said, calmly yet menacingly "I'm sure you haven't - and that is part of your problem. If you ever patronise me like that again in front of colleagues I will be out of here before you can say 'is it chairs-on-desks-time-already?' Me? I will walk into another job the following day. You? You will be left with a national, in-house magazine and a regional newsletter to bring out all on your own, you will actually have to field press calls instead of pretending you are too busy to take them and you will have to dig up news worthy stuff to issue as releases to the press. What's it gunna be?"
"All I meant was......"
"You meant to be rude, over-bearing, arrogant and to score points off the latest arrival in the office. Sadly, you have picked the wrong person. If you talk to me like that again or, for that matter, in the condescending way you have been doing since I came here, I shall respond in kind, with several words you will have to go and look up in a medical textbook!"
"Ok, I see how it could cause offence and I apologise."
"While we're on the subject of how not to run an office, might I suggest you stop asking me every five minutes to do things I actually did last week? Also, here's an idea. If you want to query my hours in front of other members of staff, I have logged them in detail and shall post them on the office wall. Might I suggest you do the same, although it might cause some embarrassment as you went home early on Friday, were off on Monday and are leaving early again today."
"You keep going out for smoke breaks."
"That would be because a) I smoke and b) You and your ilke have dictated that I have to go down nine floors and outside the building to smoke! Besides, I only go out about as frequently as you disappear to make tea or go to the snacks machine."
"I accept I can't stop you smoking but..."
"Too bleedin' right you can't! I can't stop you constantly eating chocolate either so let's call that a draw, shall we?"
"You take your lunch break at the wrong time."
"What!??!!"
"You go out at 2pm. Everyone else goes out from 1-2pm."
"That's WHY I go out at 2pm - to wait for everyone else to have their break, gentleman and considerate co-worker that I am, so that the office is not empty with no-one to take calls."
"Well I want you to go from 1-2pm."
"Fine, let's leave the office empty. Another stroke of genius."
"And I signed your hours last week at 2pm on Friday and you said you would be staying until 5pm."
"So?"
"Well I don't know that you actually did those hours on Friday, do I?"
"No, you don't, because you buggered off home just after 2pm. I, meanwhile, stayed until 5pm. Now, let's get the witnesses in to prove it."
"There's no need for that."
"Oh really? You've just implied that I could and might have defrauded the company and the agency which found me the job and you don't think that's something we need to sort out? I kinda think it is - either now or in court!"
"Ok, I accept you do not fiddle your hours, it's just..."
"Just what?!? The fact is you are desperately trying to find something to pin on me because I have pointed out that which is blindingly obvious to everyone out there - that you can no more run an office than you can run up Everest. Your job - your ONLY job - is to man-manage and, dare I say, you have Stalin's people skills. What you don't like is people who don't take crap. Well, I've taken more crap in 25 years of journalism than you've had Mars bars and I made up my mind a while ago that I wasn't about to take any more."
"I didn't realise you were so unhappy or angry."
"Oh, this isn't me being angry. The police are usually called when that happens."
"Well, I'm sorry if I've upset you. You are outspoken and I respect that. Let's move on and work together."
"For the best results, might I suggest that, from now on, I do my job and you don't do yours. I am self-employed, remember? I am not under the same tinpot little arbitrary rules you choose to make up for the others. We're not at school now."
"Is there anything else you're concerned about."
"My hair is thinning and I'm worried about our young tennis players not breaking through at international level but, apart from that, nothing at the moment - but I'll let you know if there is."
"Ok, maybe we should meet once a week, just to air any problems. Anyway, I'll have to go now as I've got to get home for 3pm because I'm going away tonight."
"No comment."

Bloody managers! Why is it that, invariably, they haven't got a fucking clue about how to encourage the people who work for them or how human beings behave? Conversely, all they fucking do is cause strife, make everyone want to give up and bring things to a grinding halt. Wankers!!
Anyway, I'm off tomorrow!! Before the catcalls start, Pad is going in for another operation and so I offered to work a half-day from home, instead of taking a day's leave, so long as I could take the dog to hospital. That idea was thrown out by Mrs Hitler and so the things which are on the diary/need to be done tomorrow just won't get fucking done because she sure as buggery-bollocks won't get off her purulent, voluminous, spotty arse to do them.

SHE can go to Grantham.

It.

I was going to have a rant tonight about life (surprised?). I was going to rant about how I don't understand what is going on. I was going to rant about the modern work ethos? I was going to rant again about my latest job. I was going to rant about the nerdosity of it all. I was going to.......but I'm so knackered I can't be bothered.

Instead, I shall quote one of the world's greatest philosophers whose wisdom accurately and succinctly sums up my feelings at the moment.


"I used to be 'with it'......................but then they changed what 'it' was."

Here, here, grandpa! 'It' can go to Grantham.

Pither Go Home!!

I have gone back to school and I am in the naughty corner already!

Last Monday marked the start of a new, temporary contract for me and, once again, I am in "public service". I'm working for a Government agency allied to the National Health Service but, after just seven days before the mast, that is all I understand about what the fuck goes on there!

The offices are on the top floor of a nine-story tower block which, being quasi-Government property, is controlled by a small army of security staff (trust me, this is relevant). As a result, I had to have a full retina scan and bowel scrape in order to get a security pass, something I find difficult to comprehend as the only people who would like to blow up the building are the ones who work there!

Anyway, it turns out that the men from security have a second duty. Not only do they have to make it as difficult as possible for you to get into work, they also have to make it as difficult as possible for you to stay there. "Prithee, what is the evidence for this that you say, Pither?" I'll explain.
On Wednesday I found myself alone in the office at 6.50pm when a security drone came up and stood behind me.

"You leaving?" it seemingly enquired.
"Ha haa, no! Just got a report to finish so looks like it's going to be a late one for me. Never mind, pays the bills, eh?"
"No, you leaving!"
"Excuse me?"
"You leaving!!"
"There appears to be some kind of breakdown in communications here. I'm not leaving because I've got some more work I want to do."
"No, no. You leaving! You must have leave!! Building locked 7pm. You go home....now!!!! Home good! Stay bad!"

Turns out, no matter what is going on, what needs to be done, how conscientious you are or who else might want to avail themselves of your services in the evening, you gotta quit the building by 7 every night at the very latest!!
Okey-dokey-pig-in-a-pokey, I thought. I'm self-employed, I get paid a flat, daily rate for the life of the contract, with no overtime, so I'll start watching the clock and going home the moment my hours are up! Sod professionalism!! This is the Government after all. There might be an outbreak of Jenkinson's Purple Flange Disease at 5.01pm but, hey, I'm outta there! It's home time!!
The realisation that I was back at school, however, truly hit home on Friday when, at around 4.20pm, there was a slight flurry of snow outside and a colleague's phone rang.

"Yeah. Yup. Yup. Great! Ok, complying," she said, before hastily slamming the phone down. "Right, I'm going. The snow is going to snarl up the roads and the trains. I'm getting off early. See ya!"
"Oh, bye," I said, somewhat startled. "I don't blame you, mind. It looks miserable out there. Best get off now to avoid the traffic. I'm hoping to get away in about half an hour myself."

Just then, EVERY FUCKING BODY ELSE in the office filed past me, wishing me goodbye and heading for the exit.

"Is there a bomb alert?" I asked.
"No, mate. Snow alert. We've had notification through from security that we're in an official snow alert and so have got to go home straight away to avoid anyone getting stranded by the weather."

I KID YOU NOT! FUCKING SNOW ALERT!! I counted about 27 flakes coming down outside the window!!! Where the fuck were we? Siberia? I remember we sometimes used to get sent home from school early for similar reasons when there was a particularly heavy snow storm but I distinctly recall having finished school 30 years ago - I had to hand my cap and my satchel in at the gate! What the fuck was going on?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no Johnny Goodygoody. I don't work long hours to impress anyone. I don't do "creeping to the boss" - a string of disciplinary proceedings at former places of work testify to that. I work to do what has to be done and then some. It makes me feel good and helps me sleep at nights. Being "sent home" because it is snowing or it's late, therefore, just staggers me. Wanna know why the fucking country is falling to pieces? I think I'm beginning to find out.

Hurrumph!! Bureaucracy and juvenile working practices can go to Grantham.