Calling All Birdwatcher Watchers

Where has Birdwatcher gone? He last posted on April 18.

I know he was getting excited about the curlews coming back but he can't still be up on the Goyt, trousers round his ankles and twitchers notebook in hand (euphemism).

Any sightings of him welcomed. Better still, come on BW, stop accounting, stop chasing birds and come back to us.

Humph

When I die I will not, to adapt a phrase from cricket, trouble the typesetters. "Reg Pither has died," the obituary will simply read.
Humphrey Lyttleton, on the other hand, has given printers the length and breadth of this land more of a workout. You see, Humph rolled a seven last night. "Trumpeter, bandleader, calligrapher, cartoonist, writer, journalist, witticist and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttleton has died aged 86," was the intro in just one report today.

My most illustrious relative was my paternal grandfather who was mayor of Mansfield. Impressed, huh? I didn't think so. Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttleton, on the other hand, was a cousin of the 10th Viscount Cobham and a great-nephew of the politician and sportsman Alfred Lyttleton - the first man to represent England at both football and cricket.
Humph was schooled at Eton where, inspired by Louis Armstrong (not a fellow pupil), he developed his love for jazz and the trumpet in particular. His first job was surprisingly in a steel works in Port Talbot, Wales, which, despite his aristocratic roots, no doubt had the greatest influence on his character, which he described as "romantic Socialist" - a lovely phrase which, with the insertion of the words "angry" and "comedic", I would like to think sums me up. He saw action in the Second World War at Salerno in Italy with, predictably enough bearing in mind his upbringing, the Grenadier Guards and went on to be a cartoonist with the Daily Mail before establishing his reputation as an excellent jazz musician and band leader.

Jazz will no doubt today account for the bulk of the obituaries but I have to say I am not a devotee of the genre. Jazz to me is much like a nuclear weapon. I can admire and fully appreciate the complexity, immense skill and hard work involved in its creation - I'm just not a big fan of the end product.

No, my love of Humph, like millions of you out there, was fostered by his chairmanship of the Radio 4 comedy panel game "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".
I began listening to it as a 12-year-old when he first hosted it back in 1972 - and I have been a huge fan ever since. I have no doubt the show will continue with someone else in the chair but it just won't be the same so I shall refer to it from now on in the past tense. Like my other radio favourite Round The Horne, the comedy on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue was as good as it gets. Not only was it often exceedingly clever, despite being ad-lib and on-the-spot, it was also sprinkled liberally with those kingpins of lots of great British comedy - double entendres, puns and sarcasm. The Carry On films and almost everything involving Kenneth Williams were built around much the same but neither of them was as intelligent or came as near to the knuckle as Humph. His double entendres particularly, when simply decoded, were positively obscene! Those little asides about the mythical Samantha, the show's supposed scorer, used to truly make me blush in front of my mother while listening to the radio on a Sunday.

"Samantha has to nip out again to see an elderly lord who regularly complains to Radio 4 about their parliamentary coverage. She says she thinks he's even going to start getting a little hard on Today In Parliament." (N.B. For non-British readers, Today is a news and current affairs programme aired each morning on Radio 4.)

"Samantha has to nip off to the National Opera where she's been giving private tuition to the singers. Having seen what she did to the baritone, the director is keen to see what she might do for a tenor."

"Samantha tells me that she has to nip off to a special Welsh Conservative Association dinner for their most senior MP, whose name is said to be almost impossible to pronounce. She's certainly found the longest standing Welsh member a bit of a mouthful."

"Samantha tells me she has to pop out now as she does a few chores for an elderly gentleman who lives nearby. She shows him how to use the washing machine and then goes out to prune his fruit trees. Later he'll be hanging out his pyjamas as he watches her beaver away up the ladder."

"After tasting the meat pies, Samantha said she liked Mr Dewhurst’s beef in ale, although she preferred his tongue in cider."

"Samantha has to go now as she’s off to meet her Italian gentleman friend who’s taking her out for an ice-cream. She says she likes to spend the evening licking the nuts off a large Neapolitan."

Etc, etc, etc.

There was also ardent letter writer "Mrs Trellis, of North Wales":

"A Mrs Trellis of North Wales has written in to complain that the show has 'an enormous fistful of rampant innuendo rammed into every crack', but only a truly filthy-minded person would think such a thing."

"Dear Mr Titchmarsh, This morning I went out to dig up some dandelions and a giant hogweed on my lawn. The filthy beast! Yours faithfully, Mrs Trellis."

"Dear Mrs McCartney, My, what a terrible mess. You must be kicking yourself."

"Dear Rolf, They say a dog isn't just for Christmas. How true. You can use it for sandwiches all through January."

Etc, etc, etc.

Then, of course, there was the regular game "Mornington Crescent". Trying to explain this - and why it is funny - to anyone outside Britain would be impossible, so I won't. Just cut and paste the following (sorry, I can't do links): www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjH70FeZoPQ&feature=related

To save wasting more minutes of our lives, why not also try the following clips?

If you're American, then why not start with this example of "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue for Colonials"? www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRFzVdvNQXo&feature=related

Then move on to:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV0BxHqS48Y&feature=related

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NNiJBmjL3E

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uzbOgsP-VM&feature=related

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-A7sEYi8A&feature=related

God bless Humph. Grantham shall not have him.

She

Way to go girl! Sisters are doing it for themselves!!

Not exclamations you often hear from Pither, I'll grant you, but I have at last found a holder of XX chromosomes to whom the adulation applies.

This future for personkind is the 11-year-old daughter of a really good friend of mine and she is destined for greatness. I know this having heard a story about her which came my way yesterday.

She - as in She Who Must Be Obeyed - has a nine-year-old brother who is almost a cartoon kid! He is Dennis the Menace, The Incredible Hulk and The Joker rolled into one and would, ordinarily, make any other sister's life a misery. His latest stunt, which saw him rushed to casualty, was to spend an hour in the bathroom shaving his whole body with his mum's razor! Not having a single bodily hair because of his tender years, all he succeeded in doing was flaying himself alive and the blood, I am told, took hours to clean away. When asked by his mum why he decided to shave himself he just barked: "Well, you do it!!"

Anyway, a few weeks ago this mini-monster, true to form, decided that he wanted a tattoo! Not a little tattoo, mind. No. A bloody big one, a la Beckham! Having made that mistake he then went and made a second one - he asked his sister to draw one on him.

Supergirl was only too happy to oblige and, feltpen in hand, she began drawing what he thought was a weird and "cool" design on his back and his chest. Said daughter, having stepped back and admired her handiwork, calmly walked downstairs to sit with her mum leaving terrorkid to find a mirror and check out his new look. That's when the first screams started, followed quickly by wails and floods of tears. The lad ran downstairs in a terrible state and bawled to his mum:

"Mum, mum, mum, look what she's done. She's drawn a bra on me!!"

Now that is class!! It took two baths and a lot of scrubbing by mum to get the artwork off him. Grantham shall not have her.

For You, Herr Banker, Zee Whoring Is Over!

"Blenkinsop, Johnson, Snodworthy!! Get in here!!! Are you sure this woman was Holland's Minister for Overseas Development?"


New boy at the school of "You Couldn't Make This Up" is a report on how deep the what-the-fuck-did-you-think-was-going-to-happen? credit crunch is biting.

While the rest of us are busy battling to save our homes and stay out of debtors prison, it is comforting to know that those poor boys and girls in The City who helped to bring about the whole crisis in the first place are suffering as well.

The alarm bells have begun ringing in Deutsche Bank where a memo has gone round to staff ordering them to tighten their belts. The memo gives a fascinating insight into the current looseness of belts in the capital's financial heart.

Does this shock memo warn of mass redundancies? Nope! Perhaps a three-day week is on the cards? Nope! The closure of the final salary pension scheme, surely? No, the swingeing cuts at Deutsche are being made in employees' expenses.

If you think you've got it tough, how about this? The memo - THIS IS TRUE - insists that:

1. Staff should no longer charge the use of prostitutes and brothels to exes.
2. Nights spent at lap dancing or strip clubs are no longer on the company.
3. Deutsche Bank will say "nein" to claims for time spent on wrist exercise, tissue in hand, watching the porn channel in hotel rooms.
3. Staff should only travel second class on journeys of under two hours.
4. The cost of lunch be no more than £52-per-person - that's FIFTY TWO POUNDS - unless by prior arrangement.
5. Staff arriving in another country on an early morning flight should shower and shave at the airport and not claim expensive "You're Better Than Everyone Else" check-in facilities.
6. Cross-London travel should be by Tube and not taxi, unless by prior arrangement.

I think this is utterly disgraceful. As the CBI, fat cats and successive governments have repeatedly warned, unless we pay the proper rate to people who spend their time whoring, masturbating and gorging themselves while being ferried around the country in the lap of luxury then we face the prospect of losing them to companies abroad.

Wake up Britain!

Greed Is Good

Further to the last post about Britain's fat, fickle and fornicating former Deputy Prime Minister and his claims that he suffered/still suffers? from bulimia, I am forced to put digits to keyboard again on the subject after Prescott did that at which he is best - he put some flesh on the bones.

We now hear that the lardarse lapsed Labourite was bulimic because he ate so much at a sitting that even his voluminous gut couldn't take it so he was sick shortly afterwards. THAT'S NOT FUCKING BULIMIA! THAT IS BEING A REVOLTING, GREEDY BASTARD!!

Bulimia is a mental disorder. It is a "fingers-down-the-throat-to-make-one-vomit" condition. The sufferer takes a conscious decision to evacuate the contents of his or her stomach so that none of it will end up being laid down as fat. Stuffing yourself so much that your system is unable to cope with the vast amount ingested so that it chucks it back up is not a mental disorder - it is a sociological one.

This bullshit from Prescott illustrates vividly two recurrent themes on this Blog:
1. The New Labour cuckoos are INCAPABLE of telling the truth and even come to believe their own lies so assume the public will do likewise.
2. No-one is responsible for their actions. Everything anti-social or objectionable is down to some spurious medical condition which absolves the perpetrator from all blame.

It's little-boy-and-emperor's-new-clothes time again. Sadly, while this little boy continues to shout from the sidelines, our mindless, touchy-feely, women's magazine-obsessed broadcasters actually PRAISE Prescott for what they see as a "brave admission". Result? The fat, lumbering, turncoat, greedy oaf who is Prescott is suddenly held up as some paragon of virtue.

Greed is good? Thatcher implied it, Gordon Gekko said it, now it is a reality in this upside down country.

Greed can go to Grantham.

Of Porky Pies, Bull and Bulimia

So, John Prescott reckons he used to suffer from bulimia, does he?

Well, I'm no dietician or clinical expert - as I'm sure you know - but my rudimentary knowledge of bulimia is that sufferers gorge themselves on vast quantities of any kind of foodstuff on which they can lay their spindly, grasping, grease-stained little mits..................and then make themselves throw it all up immediately afterwards.

I am more than willing to believe that the fornicating former Deputy Prime Minister had more than mastered the first part of the condition. Let's face it, the evidence is on show every time he waddles, walrus-like, out into the media spotlight. Where I think old Two Jags let himself down was in the vomiting stakes:
"Now chuck it all back up John, there's a good lad."
"No, shan't!"

This, I believe, made Prescott only halfway to being bulimic - sort of "bull", I suppose.

Now, I may be wrong (it has happened in the past) and if I am I look forward to Prezzer's name being entered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the planet's only 34-stone bulimic! After all, there are those out there who, in an effort to defend him, could point to the fact that he does indeed have a history of throwing up. Let's face it, the former "Mouth of the Humber" and militant Seamen's Union official was only too quick to throw up his Socialist principles, his union membership and his hands when he was offered snout-space in the trough along with the co-driver's seat on the Blair gravy train.

I still stick to my belief, however. In fact, I will go further and more accurately diagnose Prescott's former condition. I believe he was, and still is, suffering not so much from "bull" as from "bulimia by proxy", as in Munchausens Syndrome by proxy. You know, the illiterate old lardarse shovels as much biodegradable material in his gob as is physically possible and then, instead of being sick, he makes everyone he comes into contact with want to throw up.

No, Prescott can go to Grantham.

A Two Pipe Problem

I now know how Sherlock Holmes felt.

"My mind rebels at stagnation - the insufferable fatigues of idleness," he said.
"My mind is like a racing engine, tearing itself to pieces because it is not connected up with the work for which it was built."

Like Sherlock on a slow day, my own cranial cranks and cogs are chewing themselves to pieces because I am, once again, "in between contracts". Add to that the fact that I am not feeling very well - my non-functional innards sapping any strength I had - and I am not only confined to barracks but also seemingly nailed to the settee in the lounge, within touching distance of the TV.

I'm not sure for which work my mind was built but I know it wasn't for scratching myself and breaking wind while watching countless hours of daytime television. Output from the Devil's Lantern during the day is not for entertainment, information or education. It is simply photosonic wallpaper aimed at numbing the senses of the jobless, lone parents and the mentally and physically ill, who make up its core audience, with a view to reducing their cognitive capacity to a level where they are no longer aware of the hopelessness and futility of their existence.

Sadly, my Holmesian leanings make me immune to this form of sedation. Instead, I just lie there and I watch. I think and I watch and I think. I can't help it. It just happens. The gears race, the cogs grind and the motor heats but I don't go anywhere, mentally let alone physically. Instead, these excruciating machinations just keep on pushing the same word to the front of my mind, time and time again - "why?".

I have been cursed with an inquiring mind and an insatiable desire to know "why?" ever since I was a little boy - not something which has endeared me to those in authority, ever since Miss McCartney used to ask me to make a ship out of a Cornflakes box and two loo roll holders when I was in kindergarten. "How", my second favourite, is one those in charge prefer to grapple with but they invariably come up with bullshit just to fob you off and so I am equally tormented by it.

In a desperate attempt to make my mind actually GO somewhere, could anyone out there please answer all or any of the following:

1. Why, when Quincy has a top job, is paid shedloads and is able to pull any bird in
Christendom despite evidently being in his 60s, almost completely spherical and with a face like James Dean (after the accident), is he always so fucking angry?

2. Why, if he is such a brilliant fucking private dick and can afford a powerful, flash sports car, does Jim Rockford live in a caravan on a car park?

3. How does Ironside get dressed in the mornings or go for a shit if he's single and
doesn't appear to have a full-time carer?

4. Why do women seemingly only feel the need to go paragliding or rock climbing when they are on their period and wearing white trousers?

5. If The Champions really can read each others
minds then why has the woman never had the two blokes arrested?

6. What does John do all day in Thunderbird 5 when he gets tired of listening to the radio and why doesn't Virgil just cut down those two fucking palm trees either side of the Thunderbird 2 runway?

7. Why does Kevin's brother Wayne in The Wonder Years stay the same size all the way through the different series and was he the model for Beavis?

8. How would the crew of Star Trek ever know when their five-year mission was over, bearing in mind that they frequently travelled at several times the speed of light and so time warped accordingly?

9. Why does it not occur to anyone involved with Skippy that a talking kangaroo might just be the answer to their money worries?

10. If a puppy ran off with the last of the bog roll while you were sitting taking a dump would your first reaction when you caught up with it be to smile and cuddle the little scamp?

Unemployment, and daytime TV, can go to Grantham.

It's A Secret.

I'm starting to warm to Robert Mugabe. I think people are just being jolly nasty about him and should leave him alone.

Ok, so he's overseen the slaughter of thousands of his countrymen, ordered the maiming of countless others, put up the cost of a loaf of bread from 36p to £4,129,456,897.37p, created a police state, intimated and threatened the electorate, embezzled billions while the nation starves and stolen hundreds of farms while evicting their rightful owners...........but who can honestly say that as a youngster they didn't do the same kind of thing?

No, all of the above is just petty niggling from hyper-critical, namby pamby, pinko, Commie, lefty do-gooders. What these Guardian-reading types fail to mention is all the good Bob has done.
Bob is given absolutely no credit for his brilliant idea for ensuring political stability. When the airy-fairy, hoity toity, ok-yah, social worker-types demanded that he call a General Election he did just that. No-one could ever accuse him of not letting his people their say - but what happened then? He was only asked to tell everyone the result, that's all! Well, Johnny Noseypants, it's a secret - so there! I mean, for God's sake, if you call an election there is always a chance that you could lose - particularly if you've personally beaten up every one of the 13 million voters in the preceding years. What would be the point in telling everyone you've lost? It's political correctness (literally) gone mad.

Secondly, when Gordon Brown (notice you never see him and Robbie Coltrane in the same room at the same time) said the world was losing patience with him, he described the British PM as "a little, tiny dot" who could not speak for the world. Hurrah! Well said!! No-one in Britain takes a blind bit of notice of anything fatty says so why should the Zimbabweans?

Finally, Bob has banned all British journalists from his country. If only Brown had the balls to ban all British journalists from THIS country. Well done.

Admit it, you're still thinking about the bad stuff, aren't you? Ok, Bob had better go to Grantham.

The Reluctant

I was installing a fire alarm when I was given the wrong type of ladder and...........no, hang on a tick, wrong story.
Let's see.....Oh yes, I went to the building society this morning - yes, that's better, that's the one - to be confronted by yet another example of the genius which is the ubiquitous British "manager" - you know, the people to whom we have to pay obscenely high wages or else they will go abroad and take their unique skills with them!!!!!
There I was, waiting patiently in a queue of blue-rinse, "two-rashers-of-bacon-and-have-them-delivered" old bats who seem to make up 99 per cent of the clientele of this particular society when, being a trained observer, I spotted a poster on the wall which was upside down (that is the poster was upside down, not the wall, although I'm not sure how you can tell when a wall is the wrong way up? I mean, it may have been, but that didn't spark my imagination as much as the inverted poster did.) Anyway, inquisitive type that I am, when it was my turn to be served I asked the woman cashier why this one particular poster was upside down when all the others flogging the society's offers were the right way up.
"So that people will ask me why it is the wrong way up," she replied.
"Come again?" I said.
"Well, the thinking is, apparently, that you ask me why it is upside down and I tell you it is to draw your attention to it."
"Wouldn't a poster of a naked woman with big tits also grab my attention?"
"Ah, but the provision of women with big tits is not one of the services we offer."
"What about that woman at the Cashier Number 5 till?"
"Cheeky! No, it is supposed to draw your attention to the loans we offer, as detailed on the poster."
"But I can't read about the loans because the poster is upside down."
"I know, so when you ask why it is upside down I'm supposed to ask if you would like me to tell you about the loans we offer."
"You're bloody kidding me?"
"No. Would you like to know about the loans we offer?"
"I'd rather scrape my retina off with a rusty chisel."
"I know. That's what everyone says - well, not always in those words. Don't ask me. It was some clown's idea at head office. I just obey orders."

The young managerial prospect behind the upside down poster idea receives the Pither Award for Contribution to Business.


Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the type of brilliance we are in danger of losing to other countries if we do not pay the fuckwit oilbags who generate it professional footballer-style salaries, with sickening bonuses, company 7 Series BMWs and use of executive lavatories thrown in! Dunno about you, but I kinda feel Britain would not sink below the waves if that particular kind of brain were allowed to go down the drain?

On another tack, the unreadable poster idea is just the latest wheeze dreamed up by this particular building society in an effort to make it less usable.
When I first signed up it was known as The Staffordshire and had a branch in our village.
For a while I thought it was a normal building society and used to pop in from time to time to make deposits or withdrawals. It soon dawned on me, however, that The Staffordshire just hated people having anything to do with it and so began a determined campaign to shake off any customers foolish enough to join. To this end, after about six months, the branch in the village closed down - no explanation, no warning, nothing. Just a waxed message in the window saying "closed". Then, about a fortnight later, it reopened. This time,
however, it went by the name of The Portman. All the women behind the counter had swapped their little green uniforms for little blue ones and we all had to swap our passbooks for ones with similarly updated livery.
All went well again for about two months when, horror of horrors, it closed down again. This time, a message in the window said "Have Moved". Sadly, the message did not carry any addendum with instructions on where to find the new branch.
Fortunately, however, Mrs Pither and I received an anonymous letter tipping us off that the branch was now to be found about a mile away. Sure enough, there it was, in the location given in the
letter. Fellow customers eventually discovered the new location and business was in danger of returning to normal and so.............it closed down again. Yet again there was no warning, nothing. A week passed. Another week passed. Then, just as we were all about to give up and hide our money under our mattresses, it reopened! Da Daaa!! There was, of course, yet another attempt to throw us off the scent. The society had changed its name again. This time it was called The Nationwide - but they couldn't fool us. We knew is was them. They couldn't hide. All the same ladies were behind the counter, even though they had all had make-overs and new uniforms and, once again, we were forced to swap our passbooks for new ones.
That was about six months ago and a new attempt to shake off customers is no doubt about to be unleashed. In the meantime, I have taken to calling the society The Reluctant as that makes life more constant and understandable for me and, I think, more correctly reflects the business's attitude to attracting investors.

The Reluctant shall not go to Grantham - God knows, I have enough trouble trying to find or recognise it as it is - but ridiculous ideas dreamed up by talentless "managers" will be dispatched with all speed.

Debt and the Long Distance Runner

First of all, a message to everyone involved in advertising. If you have anything to do with this lying, amoral, pointless trade then please do not read on. I urge you - nay, I beg you - for all our sakes, take yourselves off to a darkened room, open a vein and then sit quietly until it's all over, for all of us.
For those of you left, what the fuck is the latest bastard Visa advert all about? This piece of publicly-aired pubic pus features a bloke jogging stark, bollock naked, except for his socks, from the middle of the desert, through a couple of trailer trash towns where he gains half a boiler suit, through some shite city where he swaps his grubby work gear for a proper suit, to the steps of a church where, having amazingly managed to have a shower, shave, haircut, make-over and pedicure somewhere on the pavement outside, he makes a dramatic entrance to join, we are led to believe, his bride-to-be at the altar - all of this to some mind-numbing dum-dum-dum dee-dee dum-dum-dummer soundtrack.
I say again - what the fuck is that all about? How, in the Holy name of Fuck, does this illustrate or promote the services of a corporation which invites you to borrow money at an exorbitant interest rate so that you end up divorced, in prison and with your children taken into care because you can't afford to pay it back? Perhaps if you ran the film backwards it would make more sense. You know, you see the man enjoying the happiest day of his life, wedding his sweetheart in church, and then, on discovering Visa and how to get into debt, he is forced to move further and further out of the city and into less expensive areas as his bills mount until he loses his job as a fucking women's hairdresser or ponce or whatever it is we are supposed to think he started off as and ends up as a grease monkey in a succession of poverty stricken, one-horse towns until he loses that job as well, gambles away the last remnants of his clothes (apart from his socks) to make yet another "minimum payment" and finally, filthy dirty, exhausted and without hope (but with socks), he takes himself off into the desert to die a sad, pathetic, lonely and agonising death from heat stroke, starvation and exhaustion.

Back in adworld, why choose a flasher who lives in the desert to plug your tawdry product in the first place? If I wanted to con the public into believing that they actually needed the festering, vaginal discharge which is Visa I could think of someone better to front up my adverts - The Devil, perhaps? Pol Pot? Hitler? Jim Davidson? Whichever "face of" Visa I plumped for I would, however, expect them to be fully clothed and live nextdoor to some trendies and not a few scorpions, a rock and a lizard.
Secondly, I would like to give the impression that my "face of" creature had at least a modicum of intelligence. Just in case it hadn't occurred to you, that would not include some twat who is so terminally thick that, instead of sliding his credit card out of his bum crack (the only place I believe he would have been able to carry one) and booking a bus ticket to get to church, he runs totally naked for 50 miles in testicle-exploding temperatures to keep his date with destiny.
Thirdly, are we supposed to be so blind to this idiot's idiocy that we are expected not to think any less of him because he has apparently forgotten it's his wedding day, let alone that he might need to be dressed to attend the ceremony and sort out a way of getting from his fucking rock in the desert to the church? Forgetting your house keys as you close that front door behind you is excusable. Forgetting someone's birthday is something which happens to us all - but forgetting you're getting married and that you're stark bollock naked is pushing the bounds of credibility a little far.
Finally, are they seriously trying to tell us that by carrying a Visa card you are immune to prosecution for indecent exposure? "Bollocks out in public? Oh yes, Visa - that'll do nicely!" I think not.

No, it's advertisers again. The entire business consists of no-brained wankers with no concept of anything in life, the universe or anything except for money and themselves who draw on the "skills" of fuckwit arts graduates who do not earn enough money from their life's work - which involves them labouring to create "modern art" in the guise of some voles soaked in kerosene stuck on the top of old bikes - and so dream up equally meaningless, pretentious pap to impress their brain-dead employers who are so easily impressed in the first place that they think Teasmades are "really neat".

Fuck 'em. Advertising (AGAIN!!) and Visa - and THAT fucking advert - can go to Grantham.

The National

"As they cross the Melling Road for the first time....!!!"

Yes, it's that time again - it's Grand National time!!

The very-soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither and I are not, by nature, gamblers. Somehow, the glamour and allure of hanging around litter-strewn, smoke-choked bookies with a load of sullen tramps/alcoholics/Irish "gentlemen" has never really appealed to us. Likewise, handing over the few pence Lloyds Bank doesn't filch off us each week to crooked spivs, bedecked in anchor chain-jewellery, on the outcome of races between drugged lower mammals carrying on their backs drugged higher mammals - well, Irishmen at any rate - stricken by pituitary dwarfism has always seemed to us to be an ill-advised use of scarce funds.

However, today is Grand National day and so VSTB EW and I have what is euphemistically known as "a flutter". Well, it's tradition, isn't it? It's like contracting clap from sore-riddled whores when you're in the Army or accidentally breaking wind when you meet your other half's parents for the first time - it's got to be done.

So, STB EW and I have pooled our knowledge of the Sport of Kings, examined the form, had a quiet word with a few stable girls, read the Racing Post from cover to cover and, having poured over all the resultant information, picked out a number of nags based on whether they've got a nice name or the jockeys wear pretty colours.

Yes, you will be pleased to know that the clever money this afternoon will be riding on:

Simon - 12/1 (Pither), Chelsea Harbour - 14/1 (Pither), McKelvey - 25/1 (Pither), Cloudy Lane - 6/1 (Soon-to-be ex-wife), Tumbling Dice - 150/1 (Soon-to-be ex-wife), Hedgehunter - 12/1 and Comply Or Die - 10/1 (Soon-to-be ex-wife).

Ok, it's not so much a flutter as a livestock auction! I've also got £1 on John McCrirrick winning as well!! The performance of my thoroughbreds will depend largely on how much their milk rounds took out of them this morning while Mrs P has plumped for the favourite, a second favourite, a 247-year-old gluepot-dodger and, in Tumbling Dice, an animal which has recovered well from surgery and is showing no signs of being troubled by the removal of one of its legs.

The Grand National and betting in general are hovering on the edge of Grantham as I write.

POSTSCRIPT:
8.48pm, Saturday, April 5. STB EW is £60 up on the deal. I am SOL so......the Grand National and betting in general can go to Grantham.

Reports of My Death......

I'm not yet in a position to write anything original but, to prove that I am not quite dead, here is a salutary warning for those of you, like me, who dream of flying to the sun.
It comes from Spike Milligan and is dedicated, particularly, to The Bird Watcher and Ziggi:

Silly Old Baboon by Spike Milligan

There was a baboon
Who one afternoon
Said I think I will fly to the sun
So with two great palms
Strapped to his arms
He started his take-off run.

Mile after mile
He galloped in style
But never once left the ground.
You’re going too slow said a passing crow
Try reaching the speed of sound.

SO
He put on a spurt
My God how it hurt
The soles of his feet caught fire.
As he went through a stream
There were great clouds of steam
But he never got any higher.

On and on through the night
Both his knees caught alight
Clouds of smoke billowed out of his rear!!!
Quick to his aid
Were the fire brigade
They chased him for over a year.

Many moons passed by
Did Baboon ever fly
Did he ever get to the sun?
I’ve just heard today
He’s well on his way
He’ll be passing through Acton at one.