You, Me and Our Aunty

My thanks go to the BGT for pointing out this little conundrum.

The great man roared at a story which hit the headlines today and which reminded me of the great Colin Bomber Harris, the man who wrestled himself in a Monty Python skit.

So, what has occurred? Well................."Record Fine Over BBC's Phone-Ins!!" screamed the headline. "Quite right too!" belched the idiot British public. "That'll learn 'em. They won't do that again in a hurry."

The "occurrance" is that the beloved British Broadcasting Corporation (known affectionately, for my overseas reader, as "Aunty Beeb") has been fined £400,000 by media watchdog Ofcom for misleading its audiences by faking phone-ins. In short, viewers were urged to phone some premium rate competition phone lines when winners had already been selected while some shows were pre-recorded and so no-one could win competitions which were supposedly "live".
The offending shows (pun intended) included the Comic Relief, Children in Need and Sport Relief TV shows, Liz Kershaw's offerings on 6 Music and Jo Whiley's Radio 1 show.

Hmmm! Let's examine this a little more closely, shall we? So, the BBC (that is to say "us", as we are the taxpayers who fund the organisation) has been ordered by a quango set up by the Government (i.e. "us", as we elected it and the money it has is ours because we pay taxes) to pay £400,000 to state funds (otherwise known as "us", as explained previously) for the corrupt actions of a bunch of dickheads employed by "us".
Call me Mr Picky, if you like, but shouldn't the headline have read "We Order Ourselves To Pay Us £400,000 For the Fraudulent Actions Of People We Employ"? Not quite as catchy, I'll grant you, but at least it's a little more accurate.

Watchdogs, eh? Don't ya just love 'em? Here's an idea, Ofcom. Instead of these wankers trying to rip people off and then expecting us to fine ourselves and pay ourselves a lot of money so that they won't do it again, why don't you actually take punitive action against the "people" who perpetrated this scam, or at least were the faces of the shows during which it was perpetrated?
Why not publicly hang Terry fucking Wogan? Wouldn't Jonathan Ross look nicer in a chair which has straps on it and is plugged into a mains supply? Why not deport Lenny Henry to Alabama after first tattooing him on the head with a simple "I hate whitey"? Perhaps we could order Seb Coe to....to....to....to just go and fuck himself! As for Liz Kershaw and Jo Whiley, Christ knows! There is no punishment in Hades adequate for the pair of them. Perhaps they should just be ordered to listen to each other's radio show all day, every day, for the rest of their disgusting, futile, purulent, lager-stained, vomit-inducing, stinking lives!

Harsh?...........Maybe, but fair.

Ofcom can go to Grantham.

About a Boy...........and a Girl.

Here is the news in brief.

1. Mrs Pither's status has been ugraded again. You may remember that she shifted from The Soon-To-Be Ex-Mrs Pither to the Very-Soon-To-Be last year? Well, she's now up to the Imminently Ex-Mrs Pither. In short, she has a new man. He is, of course, a self-obsessed, boring twat (grapes? Acidity?) but Hell, how on earth could she ever hope to follow Pither! No doubt he will eventually prove to be not as much of an arsehole as he is currently (I have met him and she has known him for years) but, as Jordan's publicity agent once said, you can't really polish a turd.

2. You may not believe this but............Pither has found someone else as well!!! For the cynical and suspicious out there, we got together months after Mr P announced news of her new beau. I shall write more about my lady in future but, suffice to say, she is lovely!! I just wish I had met her 20 years ago. She is beautiful, she is very intelligent, she is very funny and...........she has unfeasibly large chest furniture. Hurrah!! Sadly, she does not live over an off-licence or have a Nottingham Forest season ticket but, apart from that, she is perfect.

3. I have got a new dog! The truth is, I took the death of my beloved Pad earlier this year very hard. I suppose I am still not over it and think about him all the time.
There is a saying round at Pither Towers that I do not find rescue dogs - they find me. True to form, I did a story about another German Shepherd dog which was rescued by an animal welfare charity. The poor lad had been found collapsed in a town about 20 miles from where I work. He was so starving he weighed just 20 kilos (two thirds of what he should have done) and he had appalling mange which had left him all-but bald from the neck down. He was close to death but the rescue people nursed him back from the brink in the month they had him........and then Pither entered the frame.
I couldn't get his story out of my mind and eventually I buckled and rang the charity to ask about him. A string of phone calls followed which culminated in me and my three other dogs going over to see him last Wednesday.
They had done well with him - he had gained six kilos during his month-long stay - but he was still in a sorry state. However, he got on with my pack, was very friendly and seemed full of fun. He was back at Pither Towers the same night!!!!
When he first arrived I think you can see what a poor condition he was in. He also looked deeply troubled, understandably.



In just five days he has come on massively. He now looks happier, he is playing with the other dogs, having sorted out his place in the pecking order (like Pad, at the bottom!), he is eating like a horse and he is full of beans. He sleeps on the bed with me and makes a real fuss when I come home after work. In truth, he is fantastic and has a great life ahead of him.




I took him to the vet's yesterday for a full check-over. As a result, he is now microchipped, insured, he has undergone blood and skin tests to take his treatment forward and has been wormed.
Back home, he has a new bed, a new, leather collar, a nice nametag, a box of fluffy toys (Alsatians love soft, fluffy toys for some reason) and piles of pasta, rice and dog food whenever he wants them.

Oh, and his name. Padfoot was the only dog I had ever rescued who came without a name and so I was able to choose one. Well, the new boy, who is definitely following in Pad's pawsteps, didn't have a name either. So, I have fulfilled a lifelong ambition.........................I have called him Dave. I've always wanted a dog called Dave.

There, life is good! The corner has been turned. I'm tempted to let everyone out of Grantham today but, bearing in mind we could soon have a state funeral for Thatcher which would change my mood, I had better keep everything in there for now.

TTFN

...And At the Setting of the Sun, And in the Morning, We Shall Remember.....What an Mad Fucking Bitch She Was!

It'll be the first and last time I ever dance with Scousers!


My thanks go to the lovely John and Theresa (well, the lovely Theresa and the warthog-faced, Mancunian cider-processing machine known as John, really) for the following link. They thought it might interest me - I can't think why.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/thatchfuneral/

Even more strangely, you might think, I will not be signing this document, however laudable its intent. You see, if there is no big, public funeral for the acid-blooded, Devilwitchqueenbitchclovenhoofedwhoreofanarseholecuntwaspslag formerly known as Margaret Roberts, then where the Hell are people like me ever again going to get the chance to mow down a few guardsmen and the odd gun carriage and smash their ageing Volvos into a Nazi flag-draped coffin containing the heart-staked remains of one of the spawn of Satan before entertaining lily-waving crowds by then pissing on said varicose-veined, whisky-sodden, blue-rinsed remains?

One Declan McManus once told us all to "Tramp the Dirt Down" - and so we must. No, bring it on, I say! I shall be there - and staying on late to make sure she doesn't rise from the grave when the moon is exhaulted.

Hurrah!!!

P.S. It's all round to my place for a few dry sherries when she finally rolls a seven, if the undead can die.

Those Who Dodge Coffins.

Here's one. I know I've posted about this before but it's so bleedin' annoying it's worthy of another mention.

I've had the day off today and among the exciting list of chores on my agenda was a trip to the building society. Readers may recall that The Reluctant, as I call it, has been making concerted efforts over the last few years to hide from its customers. If it's not moving and failing to tell you where it has moved to it is changing its livery and pretending to be a launderette.

Well, Pither walked in to join the queue and ahead of me were the same fucking dickheads who always seem to be ahead of me when I'm in a hurry. They were, ostensibly, all coffin-dodging pensioners, clutching mountains of paperwork.

I believe that when anyone else goes in the people ahead of them do not smell of piss and talk about the war. They just walk up to the counter, say "May I withdraw £20 please?", are handed the dosh, their passbook is stamped and they leave. Total time, approximately two minutes. Not fucking me! The crumbly international financiers I'm landed with never just want fucking cash or something simple, oh no! They want to launch a hostile take-over of some global corporation or convert their fucking life savings of 23.6 million farthings into almighty Yankee Dollars then withdraw it cent by fucking cent or they want to set up a cross-indexed tracker hedge fund with their bastard pension payments or discuss the range of mortgage options on offer to people within gnat's nadger of the grave or...........or...........or to just fucking talk!!!

"Ooh, isn't it hot today? My grand-daughter gets hot, you know? Do you want to see a picture of her. This is her on holiday at the caravan - and this is her at the side of the caravan - and this is her in front of the caravan - and here's the inside of the caravan......." JUST FUCK OFF WILL YOU!! FUCK RIGHT FUCKING OFF YOU DRIBBLING, INCONTINENT WANKER!!!"

A whole bloody hour I was in there this morning, in 90 degrees of humidity and sweating like a fucking Kosovan at immigration. Sod 'em!

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

From the Cradle to the Grave.

It's 6.45am and I'm about to leave for another tour of duty on the C&C. I'm at an inquest at 8.30am, then I've got to door knock a woman whose husband was beaten to death outside their home yesterday............It's the glamour I go for, and the uplifting work (NB, shed no tears for the battered one - he was a scumbag who had a record as long as a Ghurka's cock for robberies, GBH and assaults).
As death is all that seems to await me, I am in a downbeat mood and so might not be as chirpy, optimistic, and Pollyannaish as I normally am (it's called sarcasm) but I just had to put on record one little thought in the wake of the news.

New Labour is about to undertake "the biggest shake-up of the benefits system since Beveridge". In short, they are going to get yet more private companies in and this time, instead of fucking up the railways, making our hospitals as clean as a mud wrestler's arse and losing our kids' SATs tests, they want them to run the benefits system.
How will that work, you ask (and if you don't you should)? Well, the huge wad of cash we - Joe and Josephine Taxpayer - pay for benefits to the less fortunate is given directly to these companies. The outgoings of these companies are the benefits payments. Companies HAVE to make big profits (Thatcher's Law of Greed), so, to make profits they have to dish out less in benefits payments than we give them money for. It doesn't take a genius to work that baby out, does it? If the companies stop giving loads of people benefits then they will be quids in.
But Reg, there ARE scroungers on the system who just scam benefit because they can't be arsed to work (I'm talking to myself again). Yes, there most certainly are - I know of a few myself. But does not the phrase involving the words "baby" and "bathwater" come to mind? These Nazi outfits won't give a sod who is deserving and who is not. They will have targets to meet and so it will be a case of "Sorry Mrs Johnson, I realise you are a blind paraplegic with terminal cancer and no ears but we think it's time you started fending for yourself - keerrching! Oh, Adam, our bonuses will take us to Colorado for the skiing this year!"
New Labour says it is "helping people back into work". Yeah, right. In the same way that Nazi camp guards used to "help people into the showers".
Fuck 'em! Fuck 'em all!!

Beveridge foresaw the system as taking care of everyone "from the cradle to the grave". God, if only he knew how prophetic the last part of that anthem was to be.

I've sent New Labour in and out of Grantham more times than....than....than....more times than a thing which goes in and out a lot (make up your own gags) but they've got to go again.

Have a lovely day. I won't.

The Cow and Coffee Morning

......Hang on a second...... Just bare with me....... Be with you in a mo. I'm just filling in my entry form.

I mean, let's face it, this is a chance not to be missed. After all, here is Pither, in desperate need of a costly dental revamp, crying out for expensive hair implants, longing for a gastric clamp to reduce his rotundity, with a house which needs thousands spending on it so it will at last be distinguishable from No. 73, Baghdad High Street, Iraq, but he would obviously tear up that wish list if he could just have................a year's supply of ketchup!

What a wank-wankety-wank-wank offer!! Who in the Holy name of Christ would want a fucking year's supply of ketchup? Besides anything else, in my case it would constitute ONE bottle. For the lardarses out there, where the fuck would you put it all?

Why are you banging on about ketchup, Reg, I don't hear anyone ask? Well, it's by way of explaining where I've been for the last few months. Confused? Bare with me again and let me explain.

In short, I have been working my mammary glands off at a new job - I think I mentioned I had finally swapped self-employment for PAYE again? Anyway, the job is with a daily paper. So far so good. They are a jolly nice bunch. Hurrah! The only drawback is the paper covers an area of the country which makes Siberia look heavily industrialised. It is what you might call........rural. Pither is used to the smoke and grime of the conurbations. He's used to murder, rape, explosions, death and darts. Where there's muck there's much to write about for a journo. My latest posting is, however, forcing me to lower my sights somewhat. I shall, henceforth, refer to the paper as The Cow and Coffee Morning.

Surprisingly, covering fuck all involves an awful lot of time and effort. I mean, those "bird found in tree" and "Women's Institute tea cup drama" stories don't write themselves. Consequently, I found myself working yet again yesterday and picking up the evening edition I realised just how silly my life has become.

The once in a lifetime, fabulous ketchup offer was trumpeted in a hamper on last night's front page, alongside the masthead. I was so tired and disillusioned I decided to actually read the bloody thing for once - (in reply to a previous editor who once asked "Pither, don't you ever read your own paper?" I replied "Of course I bloody don't! Do you?") - and so I present a few snippets to let you know just how near the cutting edge of journalism I am these days.

How about this? This, would you believe, is an entry on the letters page. It is my particular favourite. Does this give you any idea just how much there is to do on the patch and the calibre of reader?

This little item was a review. I think it not only says a lot about what a night in reading the paper is all about, it also says a bit about the standards of journalism around. If you read a review you want to get an overall impression, yeah? How are you supposed to come down one way or the other with this? Fence-sitting seems to be the order of the day.

Then there's this. I think it illustrates quite well that things are not done on a grand scale "round these 'ere paaarts". Hyperstore it ain't!

I include this merely to give you an idea about what the average reader looks like. I believe one of these two has won a dog show - sadly, the caption does not make clear which.
And finally, this was the strap along the bottom of yesterday's front page. Doesn't it just make the ketchup offer pale into insignificance? I can't wait.

So, there you have it. I shall keep you posted - literally - from now on. In the meantime, many thanks to all those kind types out there who have asked after me during my absence - notably BW, Ginni and Brad. Thanks again.
Nothing is more deserving of a trip to Grantham than this newspaper but, then again, if I send it I will be out of a job. It will have to stay out but......well, you know.