The Rugby Conspiracy

What exactly is going on at Rugby?

Don't tell me - it's not been bothering you? You see it as being of little importance? Well, it's worrying the Hell out of me! You see, I have gone beyond being a believer in conspiracy theories. I now think conspiracy theories are put about by the unseen, uber-powerful hands running the world in a bid to make their one, true conspiracy appear implausible - a sort of double-Mexican trick.

Well, I'm here to tell you that whatever "they" are creating at Rugby it is obviously gigantic and definitely sinister. Why gigantic? - because it's taking so fucking long to build. Why sinister? - because "they" refuse to give "us" any details about it.

For the uninitiated, I am talking about the closure this Bank Holiday of the nation's busiest rail link - the West Coast Mainline between London and Glasgow. Technically, it's only closed between London and Coventry this time but what bloody use is the remaining track? Wanting to flee Birmingham is understandable - almost laudable - but swapping it for Glasgow could best be termed "ill advised"!

No, if you're one of the seven million people crammed into the country's capital and you fancy a change of scene by sampling the delights of Watford, Milton Keynes,
Northampton, Rugby, Nuneaton, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester, Runcorn, Liverpool, Warrington, Wigan, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith, Carlisle, Motherwell, Edinburgh or Glasgow - FORGET IT!! Likewise, anyone in those towns and cities who fancies paying £3.50 for a pint of piss-poor beer while listening to gobshite, do-what-as-it-'appens-apple-'n'-pears-strewth-stroll-on types banging on about how General Pinochet should be running this country - they too will have to wait until another day.

This is not the first time this vital artery has been closed down, of course. The architects of this wheeze, Network Rail, shut the line off at Christmas and when it did not reopen on New Year's Day, as promised, they were fined £14 million. Incidentally, what a great idea that was!! We, the British taxpayers, all-but own Network Rail anyway because of the gigantic subsidies we provide and so what we in fact did was order ourselves to pay us a large fine to teach us a lesson!
Anyway, commuters weren't the only ones to suffer as a result of the shutdown. My heroes at Virgin Trains, having secured the West Coast Mainline operator's contract when they lost the Berlin-Auschwitz link, were unable to pack people into their cattle trucks, treat them like shit and make them late for whatever it was they wanted to do for four whole days! Virgin tends to get very annoyed if it is unable to mistreat passengers for so much as an hour.

The point of this diatribe - there is a point, honest - is that the same, implausible excuse is trundled out each time large parts of the country are left paralysed when a choo-choo-no-no order is handed down. Network Rail tells us it is as a result of................."ENGINEERING WORKS AT RUGBY".
I have one principal problem with this explanation/excuse. WHY FUCKING RUGBY? Follow me, if you will, on a brief journey along the logic mainline. Our rail infrastructure is crumbling through years of under-investment - agreed? The West Coast Mainline is approximately 400 miles long - agreed? (trust me, I've Googled it). Sleepers, railway track, points and signals must surely be distributed relatively evenly along the length of the line - agreed? Atmospheric conditions do no differ that massively between London and Glasgow - agreed? The ravages of time as far as rail links are concerned - i.e. rust, electrical faults, vandalism, warping, cracking etc. - do not favour one town or city or one stretch of countryside over another - agreed? We will shortly be arriving at our destination at Logicsville so please make sure you have all your bags and personal possessions with you when you alight - and mind the gap! Yup, why do Network Rail only ever carry out "engineering works" at one awful outpost of Warwickshire when the rest of the network is no doubt in equally dire need of repair?
Cynics might say that Network Rail workmen can't get to other parts of the line to do work on account of there being no trains because the line is shut. Heaven forfend that I should join those catcalls.

The only conclusion I can draw is that, as I said at the outset, something huge and sinister is being built at Rugby. Perhaps it's some labyrinthine, underground city to house our political masters and their corporate overlords after some forthcoming but top secret nuclear onslaught on Portugal?
Is there some Blofeld-type character with designs on world domination who is currently staying with his cat in a bed-sit in Rugby until his new headquarters are built? Then again, could it be that aliens from a distant galaxy have made contact with our top Government boffins and decreed that they intend to colonise our humble, blue-green planet and added the condition "Hmm, not too expensive, mind. And near to some good shops. We quite fancy Rugby"?

Like I said, this whole mystery is troubling me. If anyone has any other equally likely theories I would love to hear them. Until we decide exactly what is going on at Rugby I don't have anything for Grantham.

The Reluctant Diner

"Nine! Fucking nine!!! Come off it Kev, a fish course without tarragon is social death!!!"


I have been sitting on the settee for three days now, staring in silence and disbelief at the text. You see, I got a letter on Thursday.

It was in among the usual pile of delivery pizza menus, statements (of the bleedin' obvious) from Lloyds Bank and flyers offering a "once in a lifetime opportunity" which I would, apparently, have to be the victim of a cruel medical experiment to ignore.
The letter was from Granada Television - Factual Programming. Series producer Ms Genevieve (I fucking kid you not) Welch wrote:

"We are making a new, prime-time series of the hit TV show "Come Dine With Me" for Channel 4 and we are looking for people in your area to take part.
"We have specifically sent YOU this letter (that would kinda explain the address on the envelope an' all!) as we believe you could be just the sort of person we are looking for."

I don't know if you've ever caught an episode of this "hit" (the "s" evidently doesn't work on Ms Welch's keyboard!) show but it follows the fascinating exploits of a herd of about half a dozen social rejects who take it in turns to throw a dinner party at their grief hole for their fellow retards. Said diners award points for each host's efforts and the winner at the end of the week is given £1,000, presumably to by a one-way ticket to somewhere far away or to pay for a personality implant.

"All right, Nigel. So we've established that you're not overly keen on asparagus!"


You would have thought that with the wankiest idea for a wanky programme in the history of wanking that they couldn't possibly make it any wankier but inviting Pither to take part is truly ratcheting up the wankometer to an unimaginable degree!

First of all, anybody who ever refers to me as a "sort of person" invariably finds themselves shortly afterwards picking up their teeth with a broken arm! I am NOT "a sort", gottit, Gene-fucking-vieve??
Secondly, and anyway, do you honestly fucking think that a borderline alcoholic, neo-Trotskyite, nihilist, anarchist revolutionary is really "the sort" of person who is a regular on the "dinner party" circuit? The whole "dinner party" concept fills me with revulsion! The word "twee" just doesn't come close enough. Dinner parties are the oily, grinning uncles of that family which counts "Baby On Board" stickers, "family" cars, "his" and "hers" anoraks, fondue sets, badminton and bottled water among its number. Scamming food off mates and finishing off their cooking sherry - yes! Dinner parties - NO!!

Then we come to the basic - I use the word advisedly - elements of this televisual finger-down-the-throat. A bunch of people I would normally mount the pavement to run down descend on Pither Towers to film me cooking dinner. How fucking exciting is that? What next? International Shed-Painting Live from Luxembourg? Laundry Challenge? Pro-Celebrity Shitting? Knocking a Round Off With Chaz and Dave?

I don't know about you but I do happen to love cooking - but the way I do it is not suited to soft-focus, informative programming. The wine is usually cracked open before I've even emptied the Iceland carrier bags. I've been so banjaxed in the past that when it's come time to dish up I have carried the plates through into the cloakroom and been found shouting "Someone put the fucking lights on fer Chrissake!" Also, I really don't think that when Gene-bloody-vieve enquires what gastronomic delight I have come up with she will want to hear the slurred retort "Dunno, fucking label's fallen off the tin!" Likewise, I think she will expect more than everyone noshing Alphabetispaghetti on trays in the lounge while we all sit around watching The Street.

As for going round to the home of a complete stranger for me dinner every night for a week - what am I, in foster care? Besides, I know what I'd end up with each time. Some prettily arranged, pate of ponce's pricks which is to satiation what Bonsai is to the lumber industry.

No, I don't think I'll be giving Genevieve a bell. Dinner parties - and Come Dine With Me - can go to Grantham.

The End is Nigh!

I am nearing a life-changing moment. I have big, BIG decisions to make - I just need the courage and the financial wherewithal to make them.

Why? Well, I was tipped to the very edge of the precipice today when my contract at work was suddenly, and without warning, terminated - suspiciously, just after I'd finished getting out the two major publications my employers had wanted me to! Once again, I am out of work and the wolves are circling.

Meanwhile, the depth of the shithole into which this country has sunk since Thatcher began dismantling its society was vividly illustrated by three snippets of news aired today and one action taken by our sick and twisted leaders.

Firstly, there was a debate on the wireless this evening about plans by Harriet Harmon - yes, that totally talentless, vocal cunt on legs which ditched its husband the moment it thought an investigation into his dealings he could harm her career - to discriminate against men, the able-bodied and non-ethnic minorities when it comes to the job market. I have not got this wrong, believe me, but the stupid bitch Harmon is actually trying to push forward a law decreeing that women, disabled people and people from an ethnic minority should be given preference over men, the able-bodied and white people when deciding between equally qualified candidates! Yes, we now have a Government which wants to enshrine its support of racism, sexism and every other "ism" you can think of in law! Meritocracy? Of course Harmon wants to destroy the idea of a meritocracy. Only when that is truly destroyed can she even begin to justify her lofty position in government - no, make that ANY position ANYWHERE!

Next, there was an item on the radio news saying that an investigation was under way into strong suspicions that some fat cat, capitalist vultures were deliberately putting round claims that the banking system was on the verge of collapse - thereby exacerbating the credit crunch which could see thousands lose their homes and face poverty - in an effort to depress the share prices so that they can then snap them up cheap. Capitalism works, don't forget. It is the ONLY way, don't forget. Yeah, like fuck! Doesn't this one little example of what the system is all about speak volumes to all but the socially deaf?

Thirdly, it was further revealed in the news that these New Labour Fascists, while standing by and doing fuck all when huge corporations hire and fire staff at will, want to recruit hundreds more people to the security services to spy on everyone else. Fuck me!! They've already tried to push through the abolition of some jury trials, extended detention without trial to levels unimaginable in the rest of the civilised world, given police such carte blanche powers that they can now not only stop and search again but, for some offences, can impose on the spot punishments without recourse to a defence or a court appearance. Now they want to bolster Big Brother because they don't think he's got a tight enough hold on the rest of us.

Finally, those dipshits in Parliament tonight voted through plans to close down hundreds of Post Offices around the country. The justification? They claim the Post Office is losing money. The fact that many of the branches earmarked for closure are packed out every day of the week is not important. The fact that elderly people - who make up a large part of the customer base - will have to hike to another branch is also not important. Fuck 'em, New Labour says. All that's important is the market and our capitalist, big corporation buddies. How can we let them cream off even more money unless we strip the Post Office to the fucking bone before we flog it off to them?

ALL OF THIS HAPPENED/CAME TO LIGHT ON ONE FUCKING DAY!!!!

I seriously believe this fucking country is beyond any hope of reclamation/salvation. It's just too late to stop the rot - and even if those in Daily Mail land actually wake up and realise what is happening they will be too bothered about getting Jakasta and Jerome to school in their 4x4 gas guzzlers to stop off along the way to vote against it.

Fuck 'em all, I say. Fuck 'em all!!!

The Hunt for Arabella

Arabella, come back to us!! Don't tell me you've gone and found a life?
Does anyone know what's happened to her?

Dyslexics of the World Untie

No-one can be this dyslexic, surely?


So, the latest winner is a report out today which claims that 55 per cent of all schoolkids who fuck up their exams in primary school are suffering from undiagnosed dyslexia.

Wish they had invented dyslexia when I was a kid. Ok, it might not have been useful to me in my early years but after I went to Big School it sure would have come in handy when I fucked up my A-Levels. "Not my fault, sir. I'm dyslexic!"

No, we weren't allowed the excuse of being dyslexic when I was a kid. Children who, given a set of Naperian Logarithms, used to just make a paper hat out of them and then spend the rest of the test whistling the tune to Thunderbirds while trying to stuff a pencil up their nose were diagnosed differently.................they were said, purely and simply, to be thick!

I used to sit next to a lad in class who was a classic example of those afflicted by this seemingly forgotten condition. Greg, his name was. Greg was thick enough to fart gravel. The fact that he never did any work didn't help his situation. Also, his best pal at school was nicknamed Brick (as in "thick as a ..") and so he was never going to be much advanced by pressure from his peers.

Whereas most of us sat exams to judge how far we had advanced, Greg was just stood
alongside one of those evolution charts depicting a monkey at one end, Homo Erectus in the middle and a modern man at the other. I think when he left he had just passed the halfway mark.

Lord knows what he is doing now. I would hope he has managed to grasp the rudimentary use of cutlery. He may even be able to tie his own tie. Doubtless he is, consequently, working for the Government somewhere.

Where is all this leading? Oh yes, I remember now. It's that old "no-one's to blame for anything" syndrome again. Everyone has some sort of condition or ailment which accounts for their fuckwitedness or anti-social behaviour. Nothing is ever just down to them. Likewise academically, no-one is allowed to just be "thick" anymore.

I know dyslexia is a real condition. I know how much it can hamper the education and personal development of a person - God knows, I used to work for an outfit which specialised in helping dyslexics get their affliction identified and then provided them with help to cope with/overcome it. To suggest, however, that more than half of failing kids are dyslexic is a tad silly. That makes dyslexia the norm!

Bollocks to it. I'm too tired to round this off logically or sensibly. I've already sent the blameless society to Grantham so repetition will have to go as well.

For Pither.... Zee Vorr Would Have Been Over Dead Quick

Takes you back, doesn't it? Well, it didn't take Steve back, if you remember (he got shot!) Me, on the other hand? I had this exact poster on my bedroom wall at home during my formative years.

............................

Have you got what it takes to be British? Well, have you?

Ok, some of you aren't British so.....well.....well you haven't - and whatever it is, no doubt you don't want it. But what about those of you born ON these septic isles? Are you made of the right stuff?

I always thought I was. I always thought I had what it took. As a youngster, I used to watch films about good ole W..W..I..I and pictured myself as a fearless flyer, going wing tip to wing tip with the Wingco and downing bally Gerry in his hundreds before victory rolls, a cup of tea, a few jam sandwiches and a night on the town with Julie Christie.
When I wasn't winning the Battle of Britain I was alongside Johnny and Dickie and the chaps in the north Atlantic, braving the mountainous waves and playing cat and mouse with Johnny U-boat.

All that was blown out of the water this afternoon. Well, strictly speaking, and continuing the aquatic theme, it was probably worn away in the years after I left school, inevitably eroded as would be a man's forehead under the dripping tap of the Chinese Water Torture.

I watched a good old British war film this afternoon - day off, don't ya know! - and it was about a bunch of Tommies intent on breaking out of a German prisoner of war camp. That was the premise which made me re-evaluate my Britishness.
So, Johnny Nazi has captured me - it's my duty to escape, isn't it? They say that in all the films, don't they? Here's a poser for you, however............WHY??
Picture the scene. My Rover MG tank has broken down in Dusseldorf, all my pals have fucked off, grey seems to be the uniform of choice of those around me.....and it's 1944 - oops! So, I get led away to Stalag Luft Laughalot and "for you Tommy, zee vorr ist over!"
What does the future hold for me? Well, I haven't got to go to work again, I get a communal home, a bed, food and the chance to leap over a vaulting horse in my spare time. When the war is over - win, lose or draw - I get to go back to some twat, somewhere, telling me what to do all day.
What, on the other hand, happens if I escape? Well, if I dodge the bullets from the watch towers, if I dodge the bullets as I run for the woods, if I don't die of exhaustion heading for civilisation, if I don't get arrested and shot by the SS as I try to board a train for Switzerland and if I'm not stopped at the border and strung up with piano wire....I face a two week, exhausting trek getting back to good old Blighty where I am dusted down, given a fresh rifle and sent back to die fighting Johnnny Hun again over in Germany, where I've just come from! If, by some miracle, I don't get stabbed, shot, garotted or blown up during the course of the rest of the war what lies in store? I get to go back to some twat, somewhere, telling me what to do all day.
Now, call me anal if you like. Call me disloyal. Call me unpatriotic (Oh please, please, please call me unpatriotic!) but why the fucking Hell would I want to escape from somewhere where I am dry, have a place to sleep and something to eat, surrounded by a bunch of pals, to somewhere where I face imminent death shortly after arrival?
It leads me to think that I would have dreamed of being captured. "Ok Fritz, it's a fair cop. Look, I'm laying down my pistol and putting up my hands. Right, now does your camp stage comedy revues?" "But, Mein Herr, I am just bartender. You vait for soldier to surrender?"

That's about it, I think. Patriotism can go to Grantham - so can escaping.

P.S. I was going up update this post anyway but The Scurra has, as usual, beaten me to it. Young Vicus suggests that I might not be altogether in favour of Lord Goldsmith's proposals aired the day after I wrote the above.
The loony, loaded lord suggested that "Britishness" - whatever the fuck that is - should be taught in our schools and our snotty-nosed delinquents should be made to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen.
Am I in favour? - of the flower of this nation swearing loyalty to a German, who is married to a Greek, who lives on benefits, in a council house, pays no rent, has a bunch of disfunctional kids all likewise on some kind of handouts - all paid for by the taxpayer - and who has, to date, refused every job opportunity offered to her by the Mayfair JobCentre? Uuuurrrmmmmm...............no!