The Which Blair Project?

To me, fashion is a dirty word. Something to be despised. Something for the brainless.

It is ephemeral, superficial and a tool the empty and inadequate believe gives them substance. Because of these things, it attracts the empty and inadequate into herds for supposed protection from the crushing reality that its members have nothing to offer as individuals.

Fashion, like the Devil, comes in many forms – “my name is legion, for we are many”. Talking of names, they are as much subject to the fleeting whims of fashion as are sideboards, the length of skirts, flares and tattoos. I was reminded of this the other day chatting to a good friend who is a swimming instructor at our local swimming baths (N.B. Our principal aquatic leisure facility is, thank God, still officially called “Small Town Baths”, and not “Crystal Glade Leisure Centre” or “Blue Lagoon Heaven”). Anyway, said pal told me about a little lad of seven or eight who impressed her and made her laugh, his personality shining through during a learn-to-swim session. His name? He was called Albert. What a great name! Particularly for a little lad.

How refreshing to come across a kid not called Brad, River, Drew or Angelina. Fashion waxes and wanes like the moon. Sometimes, some names are in, sometimes, some names are out. I mean, when was the last time you came across a little lad called Adolph? It’s just not as popular as it used to be about 70 years ago. Likewise, Hermann, Heinrich, Jack The, Vlad The and Marquis de – all gone.

Christian names are not the only ones subject to the tides of fashion. Thanks, I’m sure, to deed pole, surnames seem to go in cycles. For instance, there seems to have been a rise in the number of Blairs about these days, and they seem to have one thing in common.
Can you guess what it is? Firstly, there was the Middle East war-starting Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair. He was the man who oversaw the “miracle economy” built on debt which the whole of Britain is paying for now. He was the illegitimate heir to Thatcher who ushered in raving right policies not even that mad, old bitch dared to.


Last week we said goodbye (fingers crossed!) to the grinning oilbag’s namesake, Sir Ian Blair, the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Yes, the top bitch, the boss hog, the big cheese in our nation’s police forces. This was the man who, when his underlings shot a Brazilian seven times in the head as a way of finding out whether or not he was a Moslem terrorist, then bullshitted out a defence and was somewhat unclear about what he did and did not know about the incident. He was also the driving force behind making Britain what it is today – a police state.

It is not widely known, but before Blair was shown the door, he had drawn up proposals to increase the strength of the police force in the country to 42 million. That would have paved the way for his masterplan which was to have every man, woman and child in Britain permanently surrounded by three cops, wherever they went.

He was also a big proponent of locking people up for 18 years without charge to give our thick coppers time to forge documents, intimidate witnesses and practice lying in court so that a case could be brought against them and so boost the conviction figures.

His plan for lavatory bowl spy cams to be compulsory in every home were only narrowly defeated and his eviction from office has seen his “Hang Some Sense Into Them” amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill put on the back burner.

Only at the very end of his career did he actually start behaving as we would have wanted him to. His newly introduced policy of arresting and locking up Tory frontbench politicians was, I think, a real vote-winner but no doubt it will be revoked now he has gone.

Like his lying namesake, he also had a less than firm handle on the concept of irony. In his valedictory address, he hinted that he had been a victim of politics. Hah! That’s a laugh. He was the most political cop we’ve ever seen!

I hope they have a leaving do for him – and I hope it involves him and all the other boys and girls at the Met having to run through a tube station carrying a backpack.

Sir Ian Blair can follow the fashion by following Tony Blair to Grantham.

Oh Darling, What Have You Done?

Once again, we’re all wrong and they’re right!

New Labour’s fiscal fuckwit Captain Darling got up on his cloven hooves in The House today to announce a wizard wheeze he said would get us all out of the clart. I haven’t consulted Hansard yet, but I understand his speech went something like this:

Darling: “Ok, chums, me and the chaps at old Treasury Towers have had a little think and the way we see it is like this. All the proles out there are up to their tits in debt. Am I right or am I right?”

The House, as one: “You’re not wrong, Darling!”

Darling: “Well, if we borrow loads of the jingly and folding stuff to loan to them, they’ll have the necessary to go out and start buying enamel toastracks, Z Boxes, Cliff Richard LPs and all the sort of tat those guttersnipes love and that will get Johnny economy bim-bang-buzzing again.”

The House, somewhat slurred now, but still as one: “Hurrah!”

Darling: “Then everybody who sells things will have oodles of moolah again.”

The House, most of whom are by now swinging from the chandeliers and throwing cans at each other: “Double hurrah!! And who are they who sell things, Darling?”

Darling: “Well……uurrmmmm…..well, all our mates.”

Last member standing: “And thrice hurrah!!!”

Darling: “We’re also going to bring back mortgage tax relief so the proles will start buying houses again.”

Last member kneeling: “You’re a genius, Al. What will happen when loads of them have bought houses?”

Darling: “Well, we’ll scrap the relief again so they'll all be in the clart again. And we’ll also get them to pay back all that money we borrowed for them.”

Last member’s last words: “Won’t that put them even deeper in the clart?"

Darling: “Of course it will, numbskull, but who cares? We probably won’t be around then. If we’re not, the boys and girls in blue over there will have to deal with it. If by some miracle we are still here, we’ll just tell ‘em what we told ‘em when we closed the Post Offices and sold everything off and all that kind of doings.”

Mr Speaker: “What was that? Remind me.”

Darling: “Tough titty fishfaces. We’re in power now so what ya gunna do about it?”


Away from Lalaland, two of the principal problems as I see it are that businesses are having to pull in their horns because the banks won’t lend to them, despite having been given billions by taxpayers to oil the wheels of commerce.

Also, everyone is being crippled by ridiculous and exorbitant energy bills and fuel bills, despite the fact that the price of oil has just fallen to an all-time low. Jesus, a bunch of Somali blokes managed to get a whole tanker-full of the stuff for nothing the other week! Businesses have to pay the rip-off energy charges and so, to survive, they have to pass them onto their customers who are already paying for them at home.

Here’s an idea. Why doesn’t this pathetic regime FORCE the banks to lend? Hell, in most cases it’s OUR money they will be lending to US!!!. Also, why doesn’t it cap energy costs and FORCE the greedy energy companies to reimburse customers for the money they creamed off between the peak in oil prices and its current nadir?

It wouldn't be the answer to everything but, Hell, it would be a start.

I Hate You Butler! (No, Really, I Do!!)

Next stop the crematorium?


I have just learnt that a truly great Briton died today. He was reported to have passed away peacefully in his sleep at his home in Budleigh Salterton in Devon at the age of 92. His name?..............Reg Varney.

So just why was Varney such a giant?
Well, believe it or not, it was not because he opened the world’s first ATM cash dispenser at Barclay’s Bank in Church Street, Enfield, north London, on June 27, 1969 – strange, but true.

No, Reg’s fame stems from the fact that he achieved a feat no-one else in the world of dramatic art ever did or is likely to do. You see, he starred in and was largely responsible for THE THREE MOST MEMORABLE FILMS EVER MADE!!

Orson Welles came close with Citizen Kane but his follow-ups never quite cut the mustard – sorry Orson, close but no cigar this time. Olivier’s celluloid version of Henry V and Rebecca got rave reviews, but he never managed the illusive trio. David Lean’s fantastic Lawrence of Arabia was brilliant but he just couldn’t turn his hand to a worthy number two and three. No, our Reg was the only person in the history of cinematography to capture the top three spots and hold onto them.

The run-up to Varney’s leap into the record books began in 1969 when he started honing his real skills in a television series which was billed as “comedy”, although to all people of any sensitivity whatsoever it was up there alongside anything Stephen King ever produced. It was called On the Buses and, ostensibly, followed the hilarious (sic) antics of London Transport bus driver Stan Butler, his workmates and family.

One recurring feature in the series was for the audience to be informed that a naked baby sitting on the kitchen table or draining board at Stan’s home had either farted, pissed all over the place or shat itself. Indeed, bodily functions played a big part in the show’s format.

Another tool for the creation of side-splitting situations was the projection of Stan as some sort of international babe magnet whom women would willingly date. To further this image, the producers gave Stan a partner in crime who was, if anything, even more irresistible to the gentler sex. He was Jack Harper, played by Bob Grant. Now the suspension of disbelief is central to many programmes but with Stan and Jack it was simply not possible.
Stan was a 5ft 2ins part-time dwarf with a Brylcreemed ‘50s barnet and the face of a parrot looking through a glass-bottomed tankard. Repellent though he was, his genetic misfortune paled into insignificance alongside that of Jack.
Jack had the teeth of a Grand National winner, the hair of Catweazle, a nose which could open beer bottles, the pallor of an anaemic Eskimo, the body of Charles Hawtry and the personality of the bastard child of Peter Stringfellow and Eva Braun. These two were not only the sort of men women tend not to throw themselves at, they were the sort of men women emigrate to avoid.

Alongside these central characters there was Stan’s sister, Olive (Anna Karen), who was quite simply the most revolting lump of lard which has ever squeezed itself into a floral print tent-dress, her curmudgeonly husband “Arfur” (Michael Robbins) and then the inspector at the bus garage, Blakey.
Blakey, played by Stephen Lewis, ostensibly had two lines during all seven series. They were “Get that bus outta ‘ere” and the nerve-janglingly, guffaw-inducing “I ‘ate yooo Batler!” which became the show’s catchline.

It was bad – it was very, very, very bad, but then, in 1971, Reginald stepped up a number of gears and undertook a project which was to catapult him to the very top of the hall of film fame.
He starred in the movie version of On the Buses!! Oh, dear God in heaven, it was terrible – simply unendurable. TW – THE worst - or so we thought. Quite definitely the most appalling film ever made….EVER.

I had only just crawled out from behind the settee when, a year later, Reg showed the world that it had been premature in its ranking of On the Buses and he starred in Mutiny on the Buses.
This was even worse! It seemed impossible but someone had managed to produce a new world-beater. It was the Medusa of the cinema – to look at it turned one to stone. People would rather gnaw off their own feet than watch it.

No one person had been responsible for THE two worst films ever made and so Varney was already a legend……………………..but then he only went and did it again.

1973 was a landmark year. I was just 13 and tiptoeing my way through puberty, Britain was busy entering the then EEC, Nixon announced a ceasefire in North Vietnam, councillors in Clay Cross, Derbyshire, were surcharged in an unprecedented move, George Foreman beat Joe Frazier to take the heavyweight championship of the world and Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon. All of these events paled into insignificance, however, alongside something that happened in cinemas across the land. Yes, the stomach-churning Holiday on the Buses was released.








HOLIDAY ON THE BUSES IS, UNARGUABLY, THE MOST APPALLINGLY REVOLTING AND ATROCIOUS FILM OF ALL TIME!!!!! I’m sorry, but I find mere words inadequate to describe just how truly bad that film is. I believe the original version was set in concrete and buried somewhere in the Marianas trench, almost seven miles down in the north Pacific. It is shown to convicted serial killers as a substitute for the gas chamber. It………..Oh God, I can’t go on.

As I said, to clock up the two worst films of all time is a monumental achievement. To top that and produce a film which gives you the top three is unheard of.

God bless you, Reg. You have left us a legacy which shall never be forgotten. On top of that, you helped launch the career of one of my comedy heroes. You were the comedian in a double act in your early days and your partner, the straight man, was –the fabulous Benny Hill.

Grantham shall not have you, although the undertakers will.

Taking The Wii-Wii

I know I’m old. I know I’m trapped in the 1960s and ‘70s. I know I’m a bit of a technophobe………………………..but what the buggery banana plants is this Wii business about?

The boffins can make carbon copies of mice and sheep, they found a way of travelling under the English Channel without getting wet, they’ve put men on the moon, they can beam information around the world in a millisecond, they even found a way of making George W Bush electable! With this kind of genius at humankind’s disposal, what has been its next giant leap

Well, a series of ads is currently running on TV which plugs this technological marvel.
It’s called Wii. Turns out that is not pronounced the same as a Geordie greeting but as “wee” – as in piss (as in piss-poor).

My favourite of these adverts has a group of four trendy, beautiful, metrosexual types in a lounge somewhere illustrating one particular use for this pisstoric invention. Yes, all those krillions of pounds, dollars and yen, all those years of development, all those brains, all those tears, all that heartache, all those discoveries, all that hard work has resulted in…………………a machine that lets you play air-guitar!

Gee, thanks! Forgive me while I marvel at what they can do these days. Fuck me! Air-bloody-guitar? For £40!! And £40 for a remote!! “

Ok, so you can play air-piano and air-drums and air-saxophone and probably air-comb-and-tissue but………..well……….so what!!?? The advert brilliantly illustrates the exact scale of the so-whattishness of the idea as it shows these four alleged adults standing in total silence, occasionally grinning inanely at each other while they watch a group of cheap, Jappo cartoon characters on the box playing a stylophone version of.....wait for it.......Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go!!! How fucking appropriate is that? If these dickheads invited me round for a party and I found it involved standing around in silence, pretending to play musical instruments, they’d definitely have to wake me up before I went home home in a taxi because I would have drunk myself unconscious unconscious on the settee.

I’ve said it before, and I have always thought I should have chosen it as the title of this Blog, but it’s the Emperor’s New Clothes all over again. Once again, I’m that little boy in the crowd shouting “this is all bollocks, you know?” while the masses rave about something they just shouldn’t rave about.

Wii can piss off to Grantham.

Remember

I came across two firms today which would not let all their staff join the two minutes' silence in memory of the war dead because it would have meant either a loss of money or their poxy computer systems would have taken a few hours to re-boot...........I shall remember them! The sacrifice of a few hours of corporate greed is too much for some, way too much for the sake of remembering the insane slaughterhouse which was World War One.

Here's to Harry Patch and the millions of men who didn't make it. The grandsons and grand-daughters of those deranged, mad bastards who sent you out to die are still with us.

Andy Donkersley

I lost an old friend last week.

Andy Donkersley was found dead at his home last Wednesday. He was only about 54 – I never knew his real age because he would never tell me!

Andy – aka "Donkersley", “skinny” or “hippy” (see photo) - was born in Huddersfield and took to journalism on leaving school, doing stints on both the Huddersfield Daily Examiner and later the Blackpool Gazette to my knowledge. There may have been more ports of call up north, I don’t know. Andy’s past is somewhat shrouded in mystery.

We first came across each other when he headed south and started work on the Express & Star newspaper in Wolverhampton at around the same time as I did back in 1985. Initially, he wouldn’t talk to me. You see, I had been to college and got a degree. That was bar humbug to Andy. “Bloody college kids! They know nowt. Come over ‘ere with their poncey ways and la de bloody da pieces of paper! School of life, me! That’s the only bloody qualification tha’ needs, ‘appen.”

I drink alcohol, however – and so did Andy. It was the medium destined to bring us together. He began to warm to me when he discovered that I didn’t walk around with a college scarf, my name wasn’t Tarquin or Gerald, that I would always be there at closing time with him, that I loved Monty Python and football, that I mistrusted authority, that I hated brown nosers and that I thought friends were important and work was not.

After that, the only way I can think of describing Andy is that he was akin to a spaniel – totally loyal, defensive of me in public, willing to do anything for me and always up for my company. I grew to feel much the same about him. Andy was a special individual. Special for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Andy was quite simply the best damn journalist I have ever met! He was bloody brilliant and yet completely modest about his abilities. To him it was just what he did. He was regarded as the best by everyone I knew whose opinion was worth listening to.

Secondly, Andy had a fantastic sense of humour! We found the same things funny and both loved to laugh over more than a few beers after work. That was important – careers were not. We would sum it all up by quoting Mr Dainty, the fantastic, if a little perverted, coach of Barnstoneworth United at every available opportunity: “Shorts don’t matter!”

Thirdly, once Andy had your approval, he was an incredibly warm person and he cared about his friends.

Fourthly, and I am going to curtail this list to avoid devaluing any of the above, he was an intelligent bloke who had rock solid values and beliefs, all of them greatly relished by me and those who knew him.

Andy left the Express & Star in 2006 after a sustained campaign of abuse and bullying by mini-managers who knew and still know absolutely nothing about either journalism or people and he became more ill, spending the last two years of his life in a self-imposed isolation. Myself and many others lost contact with him, despite repeated attempts to look after him – Andy had just had enough. We, I am not ashamed to say, gave up because, when someone just wants to be left alone, they should be. You can't do anything about it anyway, no matter how hard you try.

I make no denials that I was angry about Andy's surrender. It was such a waste and was hurtful to those who loved him. Then, when the inevitable happened, all the anger drained away and I just wanted to remember the guy I knew.

It was such a sad end for such a truly lovely man. We will all be gathering in the coming weeks for his funeral and we are going to remember all those good times, all the times he made us laugh, the times he astounded people with his work, the anecdotes, the scrapes, the fun.

Goodbye, Andy old mate. I am so glad I knew you. We will all miss the real Andy Donkersley very much.

Easy Come, Easy Go.....Whatever.

.....And this is the morning after. Is he worried? Is he scared? Is he ashamed? Is he Hell! Good old Adam. What a man!

If anyone deserves a job in journalism - or anywhere - and to be a roaring success, it's him. Steve Dyson is a wanker - Adam Smith is a star!!!!

Good for you, mate.

This Is The Best Thing.........EVER!!!!!

I have given up trying to load this soddin' video so here is the link. Just click to look at it - I promise, it's well worth it.

Adam is our hero, Adam is our hero!!!

I still laugh long and hard at this, every time I see it! I used to work with young Adam and, although our stays on the Bimringham Mial only overlapped by about six months, I quickly sussed him out as a kindred spirit and a top bloke. Like me, he just couldn't give a rat's ass about office politics, he couldn't stand arse-lickers and, like me, he thought that authority and respect had to be earnt and were not just granted automatically to anyone given a hat with "In Charge" written on it. We had a mutual loathing for the fat, talentless, brown-nosing, cunt of an editor and Adam was always too good to stay at that sad little paper. Here is his own fantastic resignation video. God bless Adam - my hero. He did exactly what I would have done - only I wouldn't have volunteered to write something for those idiots back in Brum while on my holidays!

Below is the story from Times Online to accompany the video - could I load the page and video? Could I bollards!

"Sometimes, you wake up following a drunken night out and realise you have sent an inappropriate text to an ex-girlfriend or your boss.

And sometimes you realise you have drunkenly admitted to plagiarism to camera, and spectacularly resigned from your job, shouting "F**k you' to your boss.

This is what happened to Birmingham Mail reporter Adam Smith on Wednesday morning, as footage appeared on YouTube of him writing a report on the US election, slumped on a Miami pavement, and barely able to speak.

Mr Smith, who also calls himself Steve Zacharanda in the hit video which was viewed almost 20,000 times in 48 hours, had taken a week's holiday to go to Miami to volunteer for the Barack Obama election campaign.

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After the victory, and very much the worse for wear and drink, Smith was caught flopped against a set of railings, a laptop on his lap, filing an article about Mr Obama's victory for the Mail.

The maker of the video, a Dutch amateur journalist from Couscous Global, had stumbled across Smith by the roadside, and asked him what he was doing.

"I jumped on a plane on Friday to volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign," Mr Smith explained in a strong, if rather slurred, Brummie accent. "As an ill-advised promise, I've decided to say to my paper back home that I'd write about the American election.

"I wanted to be here because I'm here for history. The trouble is, the readers of the Birmingham Mail are going to get my version of history. And I'm just a little bit pissed..."

With a laugh and a clap of the hands, he added: "And thank god for the BBC, because I'm cutting and pasting, oh, baby!"

Not wanting to seem too unprofessional, he added: "I'm a proper news journalist."

To pile further misery on his ignominy, Mr Smith ended the video by announcing: "My name is Adam Smith, also known as Steve Zacharanda, who has just resigned from the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Sunday Mercury, to set up my own magazine…F**k you, I'm doing what I want."

Mr Smith's employment status remains unclear today within a company which is undergoing significant restructuring.

Steve Dyson, editor of the Birmingham Mail, said: "This is an internal matter, so we cannot discuss it."

Asked about the company's attitude towards plagarism, he added: "Whilst we cannot discuss internal matters, plagarism will not be tolerated in any form by BTM Media Limited - although we do not believe that any has been taking place."

In a further comment left the next morning by Mr Smith on the YouTube page, he appeared to have sobered up significantly.

"Right, the thing is, right I've just woke up. And seen this video, which I don't really remember. I've been told to phone the Birmingham Mail because I am in trouble.

"I was off duty, I am on official holiday working at the South Beach Miami Barack Obama campaign where I had just done a 18-hour shift trying to make the world a better place. Please check every BBC News outlet and see if I have cut and pasted anything. I have not, it was a joke and should be taken in the spirit it was said."

In a follow-up video, filmed in the Obama campaign office, a more sober Mr Smith said he did not have a job anymore, and was "scared to speak to work" after phrases like "outrageous" and "bringing the company into disrepute" had been banded about.

He said: "The Birmingham Mail is a fantastic organisation, staffed by people who really care."

That Was Then and This is Now

Further to my shamelessly self-centred dog-blog earlier, I thought I would continue the canine theme having obtained a special photograph.

Dave, pictured previously, is, like his pals, a rescue dog. I have had him about three months. Prior to that he had been plucked from the streets of a provincial town where he had collapsed because he was near death, weighing as he did just 19 kg (half his proper weight) and being so infested with mange that he had chewed off large parts of his coat.

His rescue warranted a story in the Carrot and Cow and, as no-one else was in a rush to take him on, Pither took him into The Towers to join the pack.

Below is the photo used in the story about his rescue and one of those photos I told you about which were taken a few days ago. Quite a difference, eh?
(Incidentally, and for Ginni, that's not Pither with him - it's a lad from the rescue centre)