Mahatma Eye!!

"We woz just teachin' 'im ter dance, honest! Yer put yer right boot in, yer right boot out....."

Mahatma would be so proud.
That little man in an oversized nappy who helped topple the might of the British Empire and gain independence for India has found an army of spiritual followers back here in England.
Yes, Ghandi's tactic of "passive resistance" has seemingly been warmly embraced by one of this country's biggest exports - football hooligans.
I have just watched Manchester United fans, caught up in violence in Italy during their team's match against Roma, tell reporters how they were all innocent and had been set upon by savage, baton-wielding Carabinieri. Now, I have to admit from the pictures I have seen, they do seem to have a bit of a point this time but how many times does violence flare at games involving England supporters and the newsmen, amazingly, only seem to interview those who were totally innocent and had been set upon?
You know the scenario? A reporter is interviewing two 24-stone, shirtless, heavily tattooed England fans, both of whom, ironically, have Swastikas on their foreheads. One is carrying a burning cross while the other has the severed arm of a German supporter hanging out of his mouth:
Hack: "Were you one of the fans who burnt down the Olympiastadion here in Munich and stabbed German Chancellor Angela Merkel?"
Thug: "Weren't me. I day d'nothin'. It's them fuckin' square 'eads wot started it. Them an' the pigs."
Hack: "Are you saying you were nowhere near the trouble?"
Thug: "Listen, aresewipe, I woz at the library wiv me mate.
2nd Thug: "Yeah. We woz doin' book learnin' 'n' stuff.
Hack: "The police actually have you on film hacksawing off an officer's head and eating eine kleine kind."
Thug: "Well, yeah, we woz there a bit but we day kill no-one nor nuffink."
2nd Thug: "No. We ay allowed t'no more. It's one o' them conditions of us probation, and the ASBOs. Besides, we couldna'bin there. The court 'ad us passports off of us. We'm still in England."
Thug: "Shut up Vince!"
2nd Thug: "Oh, yeah, soz. We woz just pickin' flowers when some German bastards from a home for disabled pensioners attacked us. We'm innocent."
This is usually followed by an interview back home with the thugs' doting mothers. They have fags hanging out of their mouths and are usually on their worn out sofas, surrounded by empty beer cans and scores of near naked toddlers, while their fat husbands sit alongside, in pizza-stained vests, trying to watch hardcore porn on the telly.
Mrs Scum: "'E's a lovely fella, our Bozza, ay 'e Sid?"
Mr Scum: "Shut the fuck up, Gladys. I'm tryin'a watch the piggin' telly. 'Er's about to tek it up the wrongun."
Mrs Scum: "It's them bastard coppers and foreigners. They keep pickin' on 'im. This is the 237th time as e's bin attacked at a match. 'E's really kind. E's bin painting thar'old dear's 'ouse over t'road, bless 'im."
Mr Scum: "That's 'is community service you dozy mare! He shouldna hit the old bag over th'ead with a bottle in the first bloody place."
Same old, same old. None of these buggers apparently does anything wrong. No, they always tell us that someone else started "it" and they just sat there quietly on the ground, in the lotus position, while someone beat the living crap out of them. Dedicated exponents of passive resistence, see? I can hear them now: "Yeah, I luv Ghandi, me. Pity that woz the only film 'e made though."
No, sorry. My reaction to the stories of innocence they trot out each time England fans are "accidentally caught up" in a re-enactment of The Battle of The Little Bighorn? - "That dawg don't hunt!!"
Football thugs and their excuse-laden parents can crawl away, ape-like, to Grantham.

Show Me the Way to Amarillo - Please! Now!!

"Bollocks, Faye! Let's not start that again. Keep smiling and waving but I'm telling you, the bloody airport's THAT way!"

First of all, may I bid a fond farewell to all XX-chromosomed readers of these pathetic offerings - I fear you will not be stopping by in future. Why? Because it's Pither-The-Chauvinist-Pig Time!!
So, the 15 British members of the Iranian Tourist Board - sorry, sailors - held by the Iranians for just under a fortnight arrived back in London today (complete with goody bags, would you believe!). Hurrah! Welcome home, our brave lads and lasses (well, just lass, actually). That's one in the eye for Johnny Arab. God Save the Queen!

"Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame,
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never shall be slaves."

Now it's time to put away the little Union Jacks, break up the street parties and calmly reflect on the last few days.
So, those nasty Shiites were lying, weren't they? They had kidnapped our gaggle of expert seafarers for absolutely no reason other than sheer Iranian naughtiness. Royal Navy spokesmen had, after all, appeared on our TV screens with "proof" that the sailors had been in Iraqi and not Iranian waters. They showed photos of scans and radar screens and the like which they claimed clearly indicated that the HMS Fuckwit had not strayed.
Wrong!!! It now appears that the Navy Larkers HAD INDEED trespassed into Iranian territorial waters. Does this come as a surprise to anyone out there? Well, it doesn't to Pither. Why? Try this one on and see if it's tight around the hips? There were fifteen people in the boat and one of them was a woman. The woman was a qualified boatswain and so would, in all probability, have been the navigator. You do the maths! What the fuck do you expect? I'm amazed they didn't actually end up sailing up the Thames!! I can almost hear the frenetic chat on board as the Iranian gunboats loomed up over the horizon. "Give me the fucking map, Faye! Jesus, woman, it's upside down!! Not only that, it's the wrong page! No, I'm not going to stop and ask someone. Oh great! Crying! That'll help."
I know you should avoid cliches like the plague but women and navigating go together like bacon and custard. The soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither's complete lack of spatial awareness and map reading skills are almost legendary. Many's the holiday I have spent in Inverness, having booked a cottage for the week near Plymouth. Even when I think I have covered all the bases by pulling over to patiently point out on the map the route we need to take she then brings her other navigational no-no into play - dithering!
"Right, we're coming up to an island. Which exit do I take?"
"....so Brenda said that was just the way she parted her hair."
"Exit, woman, exit! Which exit?"
"Oh, yes, the map. Which page is it again?"
"Page 43! Quick! The island's getting very, VERY near!
"38..39..40..."
"QUICK!! WHICH BLEEDIN' EXIT. HURRY UP!!"
"41..42...ah, here we are, 43. Now, which road are we on again?"
"THE BLOODY A449. HURRY UP, HURRY UP! WE'RE ON THE SODDIN' ISLAND!!"
"There isn't an A449. Oh no, hang on a bit, here it is."
"I'M TAKING THIS DAMN EXIT, I'VE GOT NO CHOICE NOW!!"
"Oh dear, you've gone the wrong way you know."
"AAaaaaarrrrrgggghhh!!!!!!"

No, I'm sorry. It just does my head in. I shall, however, in a pathetic attempt not to be more of a sexist, send PEOPLE who cannot read maps to Grantham.

I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing.......

I usually blog every day but, you know what, I can't think of anything today which has made me want to invade another country.
Everything has gone so spiffingly that I am bracing myself for the Hell which will no doubt follow tomorrow but, in the meantime, I have enjoyed a lovely sunny day, the company of good friends and a fine meal.
Things were topped off when a bit of a girly appeared on the Devil's Lantern whom I have fallen in love with and want to ruin for all other men. She is English and co-starred in The Mummy which was screened this evening on one of the more obscure channels.
If anyone knows her name could they please tell me and, if possible, whip her, strip her and have her sent to my tent.
In the meantime, I am going to bed before my chips are metaphorically urinated upon. Good night, and I love you all.

The (Young) Goat's Gone Poohs!

I shouldn't watch it, I know. I should read a book, make a model aeroplane or, God forbid, go out of the house, but the telly has got me reaching for a sick bag yet again.
Advertisers are apparently prepared to stoop to any level to appeal to their target audience but I get particularly revolted by one area in which they insist on throwing the rules of taste and decency further out of the window than usual - the use of babies and kids.

I have just seen two ads featuring these younger members of our society and both have forced me to put my plans for dinner on hold. The first was for an air freshener. Now I know what an air freshener is for, I'm sure most people do - it is pretty much supposed to do what is says on the can! Why, then, do the admen insist on featuring a toddler sitting on the bog, post crap, shouting "Pooh! It stinks!" before mummy arrives to aerosol the arsehole and mask the offending odour? Yes, that is indeed one use for an air freshener but I am capable of grasping the concept without having to watch a toddler, in the lav with his pants round his ankles, screaming that shit stinks!

The second ad was for a nappy. A baby was lying on his/her back (don't ask me, they all look like sexless bulldogs at that age) and mummy was changing the nappy. So far so good. The voice-over then announced that this product absorbed "more pooh" than ever before. Look, dickshit, I may not have children of my own but in my 46 years I have just about managed to garner enough information as to the use of a nappy to render your description surplus to requirements! I think the words "more absorbant" would suffice, thanks very much.
It is all because it is ickle kiddies and teensy-weensy, gah-gah, goo-goo, wittle babies involved. The mothers of these things spend their lives up to their elbows in their shit and piss and so become immune to them, in much the same way as a cockroach would become immune to radiation following a nuclear attack. The destruction of their olfactory and visual senses leads them to regard the excreta of their spawn as actually rather cute and something to talk about. We've all experienced it. You're out at a restaurant and one of these earth mothers pipes up "Oh yes, little Johnny did a really firm pooh yesterday, didn't you darling?" Do me a favour love, keep it to yourself. The advertisers, of course, seize on this and so we are all supposed to regard foecal and urinary outpourings as "cute", so long as they are from little ones. Well, that is ageist, as I see it.
How about they start advertising Andrex by featuring a fat, sweaty bloke crouched on the bog on a Sunday morning after he quaffed 15 pints and a curry the night before? The sound of something like a flock of sparrows taking wing is heard, along with a passable impression of the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the bloke groans "Ooohh Jeeeessuus, fuck!!" Then the slogan: "Andrex!!! - For Those Big Jobs!!!"
No? Well how about Kleenex recruiting a teenager who is filmed, trousers round his ankles, frantically beating his meat in his bedroom while flicking through the underwear section of a Gratton's Catalogue? His whimpering, moaning climax could be accompanied by the voice-over: "Kleenex - Copes With The Biggest Wankers".
Adverts for Lillets and the like would be a little different, wouldn't they? A woman leaving behind the blood-stained sheets in her bedroom as she races to the bathroom, blood streaming down her legs, while trying to ram a tampon up her chuff? "Bloody Hell?? Thank Fuck For Lillets"? Come to think of it, that would be slightly preferable to the current tampon adverts which seem to imply that if you use the product you will miraculously learn to hang-glide, parascend and play tennis!
Sorry, but shit is shit to me. I'm not particularly bothered who it has come from. I shall, therefore, banish ads featuring the bodily functions of babies and toddlers to Grantham.

The Market For Manacles?

What have he and the love of money got in common?

This is one of my more serious posts, I have to say, so if you are looking to twang your chuckle muscle I wouldn't bother reading on. Also, it is going to go down like Bonnie Langford at Knebworth, I know, but only to those who fail to see who or what is the target of my bile. Anyway, here goes.
The 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery has been marked and so the subject is much on my mind, not least because the television schedules are crammed with associated documentaries and dramas. Meanwhile, the film industry is, with its customary capitalist morality, hoping to cash in with the release of Amazing Grace, about Billy Wilberforce and his campaign to smash the Triangle of Death once and for all.
Right, now call me cynical if you like (YOU'RE CYNICAL!!), but I have a theory that this is an unsettling time for our capitalist overlords - whoever is responsible for the post-Thatcher, everything-has-a-price world in which we live.
Chief among those is Adam Smith but, as he is dead, I suppose the blame has to lie with his Wealth of Nations disciples. You see, old Smithy would no doubt argue that there is nothing wrong with slavery, so long as there is a market for it. The market is king! Well, apart from the sub-human, loathesome scum who are official slave traffikers, kidnapping and shunting poor children and women around the globe, there are other people who would have no qualms at all about the return of slavery. No? Well, what about the creme fresche/Chelsea Tractor brigade in London? You know, the ones who demand a constant supply of people they can treat like shite because they regard them as inferior, to flog their guts out for them while living in slave-like conditions? I say "constant" because they work their poor "staff" into the ground so quickly that replacements are always needed. The victims of these tossers are invariably Filipino or Taiwanese or some such and are recruited under titles such as "nanny" or "domestic help" - but only because "Slave Wanted" doesn't look too good on their small ad in The Daily Telegraph or the Esher Gazette! These people deeply resent paying their "property" the £5-a-week they do ("You are an alien so the minimum wage doesn't apply to you") and so a supply of free, forced labour would be "an absolute Godsend darling!"
Naomi Campbell is only doing five days' community service because she was CAUGHT behaving like a plantation owner to her maid. The cockle pickers of today are 21st Century slaves. So too are those armies of young girls who walk the streets at night to drum up cash for their drug addiction and their violent pimps who got them hooked in the first place.
Ok, ok, ok, I am somewhat downgrading the almost unbearable suffering endured by black Africans and their plight on the death ships - those who survived - which ferried them to their lives of back-breaking labour in Virginia and the like - and I know they weren't paid so much as a penny. My point is merely that there are those in society who would secretly like to see slavery reintroduced.
Now, this is where today's capitalists and money-is-God corporate overlords come in. You see, they would say that so long as there is a market for slavery then it MUST be brought back because it is an opportunity to make moolah. If an opportunity to make money exists it HAS to be exploited. All that is needed is a little "rebranding" and a good advertising campaign.
I can hear the marketing wankers now. "The word 'slavery' is just so yesterday, Justin. We need to step up to the plate, get on the rocket of advancement and blast off into the sales of the future. Any ideas?"
"Just let me run this baby up the flagpole and see who salutes, Mariella. How about 'Organic Personal Time Liberation Services'?"
"I like your thinking, Justin. Definitely blue sky. What about 'Human Resources'?"
"Sozz, Mazza. That's already been had."
"Ok, 'Chains R Us?' Maybe 'Slaverie? No, no. Oil of Olay and Ciff have done that one. I know, 'The Black and White Work Exchange Partnership'"
"Yes, super! We'll need a catchy slogan. "Forget Wilberforce, Just Force Wilbur"? No, I know, "Why Put Your Back Into It? - Put a Black Into It!"
"Spiffing. Get Samuel L Jackson and the Harlem Globetrotters on the blower. See if they're free to shoot the ad next week? Ok, honeys, that's a wrap. Ciaou."
You think I am wandering off into the land of the far-fetched? Listen, if Blair can turn Labour into a party of rabid public service privatisation freaks, television programmers can get a nation hooked on watching a bunch of weirdos sitting around in a house and the Americans can twice elect a drunken Nazi cowboy with an IQ slightly lower than that of a plant then anything is possible!
No, if you work on "a" market, good for you. If you think life has to be run by "the" market then you can sod off to Grantham.

The Gin and Tonic Brigade

Go into a non-scuzzy pub almost anywhere in Britain this lunchtime and you will find them. Their name should be Legion, for they are many, but they are, in fact, The Gin and Tonic Brigade.
How do you spot them? Well, it's almost impossible NOT to spot them! They are those corpulent, greasy, shabby-suited, middle-aged twats, with their guts hanging over their rolled over waistbands, who hog the bar, usually stuck on top of bar stools like giant, sweaty, glycogenic toffee apples.
They are usually "directors" or "MDs" of small businesses, they insist on talking very loudly and laughing uproariously/belching/farting every few minutes while all the time holding onto their symbols of office - goldfish bowls on stems filled with G and a bit of T.
These wankers were at the height of their powers during the Thatcher years but, like the Bitch Queen herself, have just refused to crawl back into their caves, let alone die!
Almost every sentence they belch out begins "And I'll tell you another thing....." The principal topic of conversation is always the state of "the bloody country" and how "sodding pinko, Commie, lesbian/poofda, namby-pamby, do-gooders" are ruining things. They long for the return of "Maggie", quote the fucking Daily bastard fucking Mail intermittently (those of them who can read) and preface at least one sentence with "I'm no bloody racist but ....." or "They come over here and....."
"All that crap spouted about Pinochet," they bellow. "So a few people disappeared! Our labrador Adolph went missing for two days once! You fucking tellin' me I should be executed for that?"
They also bemoan the idleness in the country, all this during a boozing session which begins at about 12 noon and, with the odd break to "nip up the fucking golf club", goes on until nearly closing time. Irony is, to say the least, lost on them. Who the fuck, then, is running their businesses and sweating their guts out to keep these lardarses in gaudy gold watches and neckchains of only a slightly lower gauge than the one which held the anchor on the Titanic while they are doing fuck all apart from gaining even more weight?
You never, EVER see the wives of these reptiles. I imagine them all to be equally gin-soaked, all with heads which have outworn four bodies and bedecked in designer gear and appallingly loud jewellery, who lounge around their "barn conversions" all day leching at the young gardener and using alcohol to blot out of the sad, meaninglessness which is their existence.
No, members of the Gin and Tonic Brigade ALWAYS turn their attentions to the young
barmaid at some stage and start making lewd remarks to her in the hope that she will find them irresistible - in the same way the programme makers seriously thought we could ever believe that Reg Varney and Bob Grant were the fanny magnets they were made out to be in On The Buses!
When the barmaid has broken down in tears or just fled in disgust there is usually a brief lull until "The Harpies" arrive. The Harpies are a gaggle of about three or four late middle-aged, former glamour gals who are now so haggard they always turn up late because the first coat of their makeup never takes! They are gold diggers who can no longer prey on rich, young men so are desperate to drop their voluminous drawers for these bloated drunkards in the hope of getting some jewellery or a free holiday. The price they pay, apart from having to endure the sight of the brigade members' ginger-pubed, teapot dicks at the end of the night, is to have their backsides pinched and their breasts cupped in the pub!
Well, I am off to the pub now! No, I'm most definitely NOT one of the brigade. I just like to taunt them with lines like "Oi, mate, is that your Jag that kid is scratching with a stick?" or "'Scuse me. Have you heard anything about the golf club fire this afternoon?"
Sod 'em. The Gin and Tonic Brigade can go to Grantham.

The Mayor of Grantham

My tongue is severely bruised today. No, not that. It's because I spent most of yesterday biting it.
The chewing began in the late afternoon, a few hours after I bumped into an old pal I hadn't seen for 20 years. I was alive in those days (honestly!) and it was fun to reminisce about the hoots and jolly japes we used to get up to before my hair ran off, my stomach bulged and my enthusiasm and optimism boiled away like the morning mist in summer (Wordsworth? I shit 'im!)
My chum was always full of tales and he was no different yesterday. Since I had last seen him he had TWICE got himself in the Guinness Book of Records (or is it Guinness Book of World Records these days?) - once for being part of a team which trampolined non-stop for 14 days and again for taking part in a 300-plus mile leapfrog! It was hard to top that, although he was impressed to hear that I had, eventually, leapt from a 26ft-high bridge near where we live into a canal as a bet - at 2 in the morning! I am so proud. It was something he had always wanted to do and we had talked about in those days when we used to knock about together - like Everest, "it was there" - but we had never been drunk enough to try.
We were, as you would expect of Pither at a weekend, on licensed premises and, as the drink flowed, friends of my chum arrived to join us. They came in ones and twos and were nearly all female. We decamped to another pub and as we all got to know one another my chum said the girls and myself had a mutual "friend". That's when the tongue biting began..........it was my ex-girlfriend!
Now Pither is an loyal sort of cove. In the 30 years I have been sexually active (well, since I first had sex, let's say) I have had three long-term relationships
which account for almost all of that time, including the current Mrs Pither. My first long-term girlfriend and I are still in contact and on very good terms and although Mrs Pither and I will soon be going our separate ways we are still each others best friend. No, the "ex" in question was the middle of the three ladies and, although we somehow managed to stay together for a decade, they were the worst 10 years of my life!!
She will doubtless have her own opinion of me. My opinion of her is............how can I put this?............she was a PSYCHO, NUTJOB, INSECURE, FALSE, VIOLENTLY-JEALOUS, POISONOUS, CRUEL, UNFAITHFUL WITCH! We do not, you may be surprised to hear, still exchange Christmas cards!
The women yesterday had, it turned out, got to know my ex after we split and so had no idea that I had featured in her life.
"Oh, she's lovely, isn't she?".....BITE.
"She's so wacky.".................BITE.
"I remember her 50th birthday. We all turned up and she left after 10 minutes. She's marvellously unpredictable."......BITE.
"Her marriage is in trouble but I think that's down to her husband. She tells us horrible things about him."..........BITE.
"She just loves her Staffies." (The dogs the bloke she ran off with brought to the relationship and for which she dumped the beloved three-legged mongrel we had rescued and which she promised I could have if ever she no longer wanted him.).................................BITE.
"She's so honest." (Yeah, that's why she lied about her qualifications to get a job as a teacher.)......................BITE.

You do mellow with age. Back in those days I would have piped up with "Hang on a bit here. I'm not sure you've got the whole picture." These days, not only has so much water flowed under the proverbial, I just can't be arsed. Besides, why should I disabuse them of the vision of loveliness she purports to be. She always could act for England. Men, you will find, tend to have a slightly different view of her.
I think the tongue-biting went unnoticed. The only time I might have given it away was when blood seeped from my mouth as I smiled broadly at being told that she was now as fat as an obese walrus. Hurrah!
The oral pain has subsided today. Now it is my ex's turn. She will no doubt be chomping hard on that overactive tongue of hers when the women I met yesterday meet up with her and say "Oh, by the way, we met Reg the other day. He's lovely, isn't he?" Suffer, witch, suffer!
My ex is not only going to go to Grantham - I shall make her the fucking mayor of Grantham!