Things Can Only Get Better - This Time?

I wasn’t going to make mention of it but I suppose it IS an historic day and so should not go by without comment.

America swore in its first black president today and I honestly believe that the world will now be a happier place, at least for the next few years - and NOT because of the colour of the new man's skin!

I am a realist, some say a cynic, and I don’t get swept up by mass hysteria.

When the Princess of Wales died I did not cry or travel to London to lay flowers and hug total strangers. I did not believe England had lost its “Rose”. I did not think a poor, innocent, saintly standard bearer for the ordinary men and women of this country had been cruelly taken from us. She was as manipulative as the firm she married into. She was as cunning as the media who followed her – and whom she courted. It was not the worst thing that had ever happened to this country. What was sad was that two young children had been left without their mother, a mother who died aged just 36. Nothing more.

When Blair was elected, contrary to the carefully spun hysteria among so-called Labour supporters, I was convinced we were in for a rabid continuation of the Thatcher years, that the man was a liar, a fraud and a dangerous individual as far as Britain’s future was concerned. I could see “New Labour” was an invention designed to cater for Daily Mail readers who wanted to say at their dinner parties that they had a social conscience. There was no “third way”. If there was, would it really have been likely that an obnoxious, grasping, greedy, insincere wannbe with a messianic complex would have been the first person in the last two hundred years to have discovered it? For the first time in my voting life I had not put my cross in the Labour box. I obviously couldn’t vote for the Tories or Lib Dems and so I spoiled my ballot paper. I have done that ever since – it IS a vote! And lo, it came to pass……………………..

Hype now surrounds Barak Obama. The media has gone absolutely barking mad over his election. To hear some of the reports, those with a religious bent could be forgiven for thinking he is The Second Coming. No, he’s just a man. He’s done nothing yet. He hasn’t made history. The colour of his skin does not and will not ever make him a better or worse president. It's the people of America who have made history. For the first time, a majority of voters have shouted down the WASPS and the ignorant. That majority has voted in a non-white, knowing, as they do, that skin has nothing to do with a person's character and ability.

Why, then, do I think things will be different? Well, firstly, all my instincts and what I have gathered so far lead me to believe Obama is an honest, sincere, honourable and very intelligent man. Compare all those character traits with those of his predecessor! I think he does want to change things, and change them for the better. As someone obviously interested in the USA's foreign policy, I think he does realise there is a world out there and it is not his nation's divine mission to subjugate those with different beliefs and impose its values on everyone else.

Secondly, things HAVE to get better now – logic dictates it. Why? Because the neo-Nazi, corrupt, war mongering, morally bankrupt, insane, radical Christian fanatics and members of the Texas Brotherhood have gone! ANYTHING has to be an improvement on that sinister and highly dangerous regime, headed by an illiterate idiot who was foisted on the American public by elections rigged by the multi-millionaires pulling his strings behind the scenes.

For once, that bloody awful song which Blair chose to herald his own arrival – a song which could not have been more inappropriate – is at last pertinent………Things Can Only Get Better.

Hell, who knows, maybe they USA will now even abolish the death penalty and quit the tiny list of backward, uncivilised countries which believe Lex Talionis should underpin their judicial systems?

Here endeth the lesson.

Black Power

Simply Irresistible!


Advertising is a corrupt and morally bankrupt industry. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Often, it’s not so much what they say that is sickening, it’s what’s left unsaid that deceives.

Take for instance the new Just For Men advert on telly. So sweet, you’re supposed to think. So heart-warming.

TWINING KID 1: “Dad, it’s time.”
TWINING KID 2: “Yeah, you’d be a really good catch for someone.”

Cut to the day after and dad decides to act on his precocious spawns’ advice. He buffs up his luxuriant barnet, paints out his grey hairs with Just For Men and instantly pulls some bleedin’ supermodel who just happened to be hanging about with no queue of men behind her desperate to get into her knickers. A wand is waved and, Hey Presto! Instant happy family again. All thanks to hair colourant.

Not quite how it was, I think. What about all that film on the cutting room floor? What film? This film?

TK1: “Dad, it’s time.”
DAD: “Oh shit, are they open?”
TK2: “No, not the pub. You’d be a really good catch for someone.”
DAD: “Yerwhat?”
TK1: “Yeah, if you had jet black hair instead of hair with bits of grey in it you’d be able to pull some deep, intelligent, discerning bird who was in no way superficial.”
DAD: “Fuck off, will you, and pass me that can.”
TK2: “Go on dad, it IS time. I mean, you’ve been lying on that settee, masturbating and watching Trisha ever since mummy fucked off.”
DAD: “Callous bitch! And she still hasn’t told me who your real fathers are.”
TK1: “You were boning that woman from the florist’s, be honest. Anyway, mummy didn’t like anal sex and you knew that. Still, she’s out of hospital now.”
DAD: “Frigid cow!"
TK2: “Well, it’s time. You’re probation is up. That ban on making contact with any women aged between 17 and 105 within a 200 mile radius of home is lifted now.
TK1: “Yeah, get out there, shagmonster! You’ve got a knob like a babby’s arm holding an orange!! You’d make a really good catch for someone.”
TK2: “We’ve got the number of a high class prostitute in Chelsea – we found it in grandad’s wallet.”
TK1: “If you remortgage the house and sell us for medical experimentation you could have a hell of a night out with her.”
DAD: “Go on then. Pass me my hat – and my pants.”
TK2: “Don’t forget to colour you hair first, though. I mean, I think women will find your history of wife battering, chronic flatulence, alcoholism, bankruptcy, animal abuse and indecent exposure in public places really endearing – but grey hair? Get real.”

I think Just For Men had better go.

The Slippery Slope

The Imminently Ex-Mrs Pither is expected round at The Towers this weekend having just returned from holiday. She’s been skiing in France.

I wasn’t allowed to know the exact location in case I phoned up where she was staying, pretended to be from “the clinic” and left a message to say that her vaginal wart cream was ready for collection. She didn’t laugh the last time I did it. No, the location was kept a secret from me – but I surmised that it was somewhere hilly, maybe even mountainous, and probably cold.

Pither can’t afford skiing holidays. Besides, Pither is allergic to mittens, reflective sunglasses and people with toothpaste advert smiles. To tell the truth, skiing strikes him as a bit…..a bit…..well…..well……..wanky. All those wannabes and trendies talking about their shoes, their handbags or how they’ve adjusted the overhead torque on their new baby so that she’s now purring like a kitten. “Mwa, mwa!! Miss you already!”

Quite what the appeal is of sliding down a hill on two sawn-off floorboards while freezing your tits off only to be dragged back up to the top so you can slide down again remains a mystery to me. It’s sort of the Alpine equivalent of a dog chasing its tail.

I can’t really see that IEMP would have slid seamlessly into that set either, let alone down a frozen incline which does not lead directly to a bar. It’s just not her – or at least it wasn’t. She went, however, with her new man. Perhaps that was the attraction? Skiing certainly fits with what I know of him. He works in computers, you see, and so the concept of sliding must seem mind-blowingly exciting to him. This is the man, dear readers, who, when asked by Pither, some years ago now, who his comedy heroes were, replied “I don’t like old comedy”. If it’s trendy, it’s for him.

"If you’ve never been skiing then how can you comment?" I hear you ask. Well, smartarses, I did go once! It was the obligatory, cut-price, school skiing trip. I was 17 and saved up out of my holiday job, pumping gas at a petrol station, to split the cost with my mother.

In all the years previously kids from my school had gone to Italy, France, Switzerland or Austria. They returned will tales of girls, illicit booze and snogs in the snow. I wanted a bit of that. I thought the slopes needed Pither. I thought the continent in general needed him. I needed to know if bras could be unfastened with one hand in foreign climes, just as they could be in England. Did Eurobirds kiss like English girls? Were a Snoopy doll and a poster of David Cassidy a universal currency which would grant access to “third base”? Had Britain’s entry into Europe really cemented a trading alliance to rival the USA? All these questions needed to be answered.

“Italy this year,” said the geography teacher leading the trip. That’ll do for me, I thought. I bought an Italian phrase book and desperately tried to piece together sentences such as “You have big tits for a vegetarian” and “Bet I can guess the colour of the pants you’re wearing just by licking them while blindfolded?”

I paid my deposit and then began counting the days. I couldn’t wait. I should have known, however. Nothing runs smoothly in Pither’s life. Four weeks before we were due to go there was a change of plan. “We’re not going to Italy after all,” said the geography teacher. “No, we’ve decided to have a complete change this time. We’re going instead to………………………Bulgaria!”

"Bul-Fucking-Garia?!” I enquired, with barely disguised incredulity. "Bul-Fucking-Garia?!!! You’re ‘aving a laarf, aren’t you? If God wanted to give the world an enema he'd stick the tube in Bulgaria!”

“Now, now Pither,” said the teacher. “We’re going there because it’s unspoilt.”

“There are reasons for that,” I said. “Firstly, it’s impossible to spoil it anymore than it's already been spoilt! Secondly, it’s unspoilt because no-one wants to go there on account of the fact they know it’s a shithole! Thirdly, those who do go aren’t allowed out again anyway and, finally and on a purely personal note, have you ever seen a photograph of a Bulgarian woman? They’re all like Geoff Capes with tits!”

My comments were duly noted – and ignored – and so Bulgaria was where we went.

This was 1977, bear in mind. Not only was the Berlin Wall still up, it was being re-rendered every month! The Soviet Union was still very much a massive power, the Iron Curtain showed not one iota of rust and the Eastern Bloc was about as geared up for tourism as Saturn is for a miniature golf tournament. Holland would have been a better destination for a skiing holiday.

If you were fascinated by potatoes and beetroot then Bulgaria was the get-away destination of a lifetime! Outside of root vegetables and apart from snow there was…….there was…….well, fuck all! Seemingly endless days of sliding down state-owned mountains, being dragged back up to the top and the obligatory statue of Lenin, then back down again. Hour in, hour out, day in, day out. On top of it all, I couldn’t even ski! I was shite!! I was also too logical for skiing.

“Hope you don’t mind me asking this, Sir, but why, having slid and fallen hundreds of feet down this freezing fucking mountain, would I want to get dragged back up to the top and do it again? I mean, if I was run over by a bus, would you expect me to ask the driver to hang on a sec while I got up, walked down the road and lay down so he could do it again?”

The only bright moment arrived one night, just before the end of this trip from Hell, when a woman from the kitchens at the prison camp where we were staying let herself into my room using a pass key. She then took off all her clothes and got into bed with me! Sounds like a teenage fantasy, I know, but I swear it is true. I’ve no doubt she looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp but, Hell, it was dark, any Comunist port in a snow storm and at 17 you don't look at the mantlepiece when you're poking the fire, I thought. She didn't speak a word of English either but, then again, I wasn't in the mood to discuss the merits of Dostoyevsky or CSKA Sofia's decision to switch to a conventional 4-4-2 for European games. What happened? What fucking happened?!! Just as she was about play the pink oboe there was a fucking fire drill! Honest. I know this sounds made up but it DID happen. We all had to get dressed and go outside. She disappeared into the crowd and I was left standing there, pantless and in my tracksuit bottoms, looking like an organic T-square! Not even the biting cold eased the situation. Those of you who know my real surname will no doubt be able to imagine the laughter which followed when my name was read out in the roll call and I had to answer.

She never wrote, never phoned......

No, skiing’s not for Pither. I shall still, however, listen with feigned interest to IEMP’s tales of her holiday on the piste – safe in the knowledge that I have sent Alpine sports to Grantham.

Go Out? Me? 'Ow?

That’s it! I’m never going outside again. It’s safe here, it’s warm and only Pither’s rules apply. What a supreme irony, bearing in mind what has finally convinced me that either the world has gone mad and it’s brain-sappingly dangerous out there or it is in fact me who has gone mad and I’m not safe to be let loose on the public.

Go-Cat! Go-Fucking-Cat!! – that’s what has at last tipped me over the edge. I just don’t know where to begin on this one. I really don’t. Is it about the awesome stupidity and mind-numbing irrelevance of marketing? Perhaps it’s the terrifying depths to which the intelligence of the consumerists have sunk? Then again, perhaps it’s just the cats of today? I don’t know.

I almost dropped me chips when I heard it…………….“Go-Cat Indoors,” the advert purred.

“………………….for cats that don’t get out much.”

WHAAAAAAAT?!?!!? CATS THAT DON’T GET OUT MUCH???? AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I know this country has chased the United States of America down the standards toilet, I know everything now has a price and not a value and I know nothing is allowed to just “be” anymore – it has to be “sold”, BUT SELLING A PRODUCT AIMED AT AGORAPHOBIC CATS IS FUCKING LUNACY!!!

What next?
Pedigree Chum Personality Disorder – For Dogs Who Think They are Napoleon?
Friskies Tentik Fodo – For Dyslexic Kittens?
Nazi Nibbles – For Hamsters Who Want To Annexe the Sudetenland?

They’ll come one day, you watch! I mean, if the ad men can sell Shreddies by telling the great unwashed that they are knitted by a bunch of piss-stained, crumbly old grannies crammed into a basement somewhere then everything is possible.

Go-Cat Indoors can go – outdoors……to Grantham.

The Black Dog Years

I wish I was Kevin Arnold.

Kev? You know? The dumpy, goofy little kid in The Wonder Years?

Not only did/does Kevin not live in this shithole of a country, he’s apparently got one of those special paintings in the loft, like that Dorian Gray cove.

Due to an unexpected and, believe it or not, unwanted absence from work for a while, I have found myself filling the dark and deepening void by sitting in front of the Devil’s Lantern more than is healthy. Just as it’s inevitable that if you stand still long enough in any town or city centre some twat will come along and ask if you are interested in changing your god or gas supplier, so too it’s inevitable that if you watch the box long enough an episode of The Wonder Years will come along.

So it was this morning when I reached for the button of distraction. The last time I can recall watching the seemingly never ending saga of Kevin Arnold he had a car and was at high school. Today, thanks no doubt to that attic artwork, he was 13 again!

Schadenfreude had got me looking forward to him hitting his late teens, the show by then having been retitled The Blunder Years. You know, all those 18th birthday parties and that discovering girls stuff? The beginning of that long, painful and drip-drip-drip lesson which would have taught him, too late, that females were not only made of sugar and spice, but also oestrogen and a burning desire for shoes and strife.

What happened to the episodes when Kev hit his 20s? – The Chunder Years. When he burst on an unsuspecting world, full of hope and ambition, only to be trampled down by mile-long dole queues and the dawning realisation that, without an atom bomb, he could not change the world after all. When his diary was full of 21st birthday parties where friends got the key of the door, only to learn that it granted them admission to a world of conformity and drudge.

Then there would have been The Goes-Under Years charting the rolling by of his 30s. The struggling to find a little semi-detached castle where he imagined he could pull up the drawbridge at nights and tell the world to go away. The finding of a partner who, with fingers crossed behind her back, promised to love and honour him for the rest of his days. The “Happy Divorce” presents to buy for his pals. The aching banality of business, bills, Barmouth and badminton.

Then we would at last have come bang up to date and found Kev in his 40s. His hair gone, his teeth as complete as a row of houses in Lockerbie. He would have at last learnt how to spectacularly please a woman in bed, only to find that, like a juggler in an airing cupboard, there was no-one to whom he could show off his skills. He would have become very good at his line of work but found that experience and expertise were no longer wanted – cheapness and blind obedience were all that mattered. He would have become accustomed to regularly dressing smartly and hearing good things said about old friends before attending lavish booze-ups where reminiscences flowed as thick and fast as the beer and the wine. Shame those old friends would not be there – because he had just seen them buried.

Back to The Wonder Years? – wonder where it all went so wrong?

Still, our Kev can just press a button, or perhaps sneak up into the attic, and, hey presto! He’s back to being 13 again.

I wish I was Kevin Arnold.