Soft Sell

Oh my dear God - pluck mine eyes out for they offend me. I surely can't have any use for those particular balls any more as I think I have now seen everything.
It's telly selly time again and here's a bit of a quiz for you. See if you can guess what this blow-waved bint is advertising?

Sunsilk, perhaps? Nope!
Colgate? Naah, not even warm!
How about American Express, as in "That'll do nicely"? Noooh, oh dear me no.

I'll give you a clue. The product she is plugging (such an unfortunate choice of verb, bearing in mind what is to come) also, apparently, has exactly the same effect on these women:




It's obviously something which brings a radiant smile to the female of the species and also makes them appear beautiful. Give in? You'll kick yourself? Oh, all right then. It is, of course........wait for it..........and I quote.........."STOOL SOFTENER"!!!!!!!!
Could they, I thought to myself, mean something which makes it difficult to sit at the bar? No, surely not. I mean, unstable and bendy barstools are not something the licensed victuallers of this country have been crying out for. Then the mists of disbelief cleared. Jesus H Fucking Christ!!!! They have actually gone and invented a product which turns turds from extended pine cones into cream cheese! Worse than that, they're fucking advertising it on the box! - while people are having their dinner!!
This raises so many questions it has got my mind buzzing. I mean, first of all, did Hyacinth, Jacasta, Fifi, Lou-lou and Bella above seriously know what they were putting their faces to when the modelling agency sent them to "that" photoshoot?
Secondly, is it really a product you would carry around with you, openly, or admit to possessing? - "Yes, truly a magical evening darling. Fine wine, superb food and a sophisticated ambience. Just excuse me for a mo though, will you? I need to pop a couple of these because my shit's coming out like a reversing porcupine!"
Thirdly, why, in the name of all that's holy, would anyone who has access to beer, a curry, prunes or something similar go and splash out (pardon the choice of words) on something which is going to grease their dragon's nostril? As they say, happiness is a dry fart after a night out on the ale!
Lastly, I realise the advertisers had to be a tad coy about what they were promoting and so chose a neutral, non-descript name for this bionic bowel loosener......but Dulcoease!!!! How the Hell did they arrive at that?
I would have given anything to have been at the meeting of the admen when they were dreaming up a name and a campaign. "How about 'Grunt 'n' Glide' or 'Strain 'n' Drain'? I know, 'Ringpiece Repair'? No, no, I've got it, 'Sweet Sea Oil - For Your Chocolate Starfish'?"
All suggestions will be considered. In the meantime, I'm going to stack those soft stools and send them to Grantham.
P.S. The above photographs of the lovely ladies were taken after they used Dulcoease. This is what they looked like before:

Slap Pending

Every fucking Monday morning I have to take on the persona of Prof Pat Pending. Why? Because my very-soon-to-be ex-wife has invariably used my car over the previous weekend and turned it into the Convert-a-Car!






This morning was no different. I got into the car I lovingly call The Wardrobe (see photo for explanation) at 7am, in good time to get to work. To begin with I thought I had shrunk dramatically in the night as I couldn't reach either the steering wheel or pedals and then it dawned on me that I was almost sitting in the back owing to the fact that VSTB EW had rammed the seat back as far as it would go. Now, Mrs P is not a particularly tall woman. In fact she measures little more than 5ft from snout to hoofs. No, she doesn't adjust the seat to drive. She blasts it back as far as it will go each time she gets out of the car. Why, you may well ask? I don't fucking know, is the retort.
After I managed to get the seat back to somewhere near where I could operate the controls I made the mistake of firing up the engine. At that point a wall of sound almost sent me and the driver's seat back to where we had come from. It was the full-volume screaming of some mega-death-thrash-garage-shitemeister and not only did it wake up the neighbours four doors down it began to make my ears bleed. I dived for the volume and hastily turned it down, discovering as I did so that VSTB EW had retuned my beloved Radio 4 to some wankety-wank-wank station no doubt broadcast from some drug addict's tower block flat in Small Town.
Out of curiosity I began flicking around my pre-set channels to see if Radio 2, Radio 3, Five Live, the oldies station, the local BBC programme and a few others I happen to like in the morning were still where they should be. Not only could I not find them, I discovered that every single available station had been retuned to some unheard of Shite FM-style operation which belted out the works of others who were through suffering for their music and had decided it was now our turn.
I then tried to hook my mobile phone up to the charger normally plugged into the cigarette lighter socket but, guess what? The charger was not there (I found it later in the day on the back seat). Mrs P's charger was, however, plugged in and so I ripped it out and, feeling the need for something to stop me going on a gun rampage, I reached for a fag and then felt around in the handbrake well for the cigarette lighter (for that is where I keep it when it's not in use). That too was missing and after a frantic search I found it under the passenger seat!
Having reassembled what I recognised as my car I then drove off but there was still a bit of work for old Pat to do. Firstly, I glanced in my wing mirrors to find that they gave excellent views of both front doors having also been adjusted by the diminutive Mrs P. Secondly, I then discovered that there was fuck all petrol in the car, despite the fact that the tank had been half-full when I last used it on Saturday morning.
My efforts to put the Convert-a-Car back to my liking took about 15 minutes - 15 minutes which took me out of the realms of "a drive through heavy traffic into work" and into "a crawl through the Tokyo rush-hour which makes you late for work".
No, I love my Wardrobe and I like it as it is. Its spells as the Convert-a-Car and mine as Prof Pat can go to Grantham.

How Are You? (As If I Care!)

I'm fed up with this sodding rain!
It's not the achingly deep gloom which descends alongside the raindrops. It's not the chance of fun in the great outdoors it washes away. It's not even the monotony......... It's the fucking small talk!
"Phew! I've never known anything like it." (FASCINATING! TELL ME MORE THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW)
"Is it ever going to stop raining?" (YES. NOW FUCK OFF)
"This weather! What's happening?" (IT'S FUCKING RAINING, DUMBASS!)
God, I hate small talk! I face it the moment I shamble into work every morning. Having sworn a holy vow of non-ambulatory-exertion, I take the lift up to my offices and lifts are at the centre of the small talk universe. Before the latch on the Heavens broke, I was regularly greeted with pearlers such as "Another day, another dollar, eh?", "The morning soon comes around, doesn't it?" and "Roll on Friday".
The trouble with that kind of small talk is that it's almost all, in practice, rhetorical. I mean, if you really are earning a dollar a day then you need to have a serious word with your union. As to how long mornings take to follow evenings, that only ever gets shorter when you approach the speed of light. Roll on Friday? Yeah, and butter on Tuesday and soup on Wednesday. What's your point?
Other small talk classics are the ones which involve supposedly enquiring after the other person's welfare. "How are you?", prompting the inevitable "Oh, fine, thanks". "Good weekend?" leading to the predictable "Not bad, cheers". Can't we just exchange cards instead of going through this bollocks?
I have taken to turning small talk into real talk. That soon stops things. "How are you?" "Do you really fucking care?" or "Well, actually, I've got this rash which is itching like buggery and, talking of which, I'm in debt up to my testicles and my marriage is almost at an end and my back hurts and I'm knackered and the car is playing up and........."
"Good weekend?" "Yes, brilliant, thanks. I got drunk on Saturday night and went out on a killing spree. I managed to slaughter 27 prostitutes and a cake shop assistant but enough about me. How about you?"
"Can you believe this rain?" "Now that is a very interesting point. I mean, is it really here? How can you actually prove it's existence? I'm sure Jean Paul Sartre would take issue with me but this could all be just a dream. Belief in itself is a fascinating subject. I mean, imagine for one moment you're a grasshopper on a speeding comet and..............."
It's so much more imaginative and mind exercising than just rolling your head round to greet the chirpy person next to you, stubbing your fag out on their lapel and saying "Why don't you just fuck off and die?"
No, sorry, small talk can go to Grantham.

Hold Your Breath

To be serious for a moment, I have watched and listened to Gordon Brown over the last couple of weeks and been reminded of a classic line from the film The Boston Strangler.
When a number of clues come together out of the blue to point the finger of suspicion firmly at Albert De Salvo and it is possible the hunt for the serial killer who has brought panic to the steets of Boston is at an end, the detective played by George Kennedy turns to his boss, played by Henry Fonda, and says something to the effect of: "I'm almost frightened to breathe."
Well, that is just how I feel at the moment. I have previously ranted that I fear Brown is just a Blair clone and we are destined to travel even further down the sewer pipe of right-wing politics until we eventually reach the septic tank which is American-style life. Well, there is a chance, just a slim chance, that I might be wrong.
In just two weeks it has emerged that:
1. Plans for mafia-backed, super-casinos - which Blair insisted we needed because they would make his corrupt pals very rich and yet no-one else wanted - are dead in the water.
2. There have been mutterings by the new regime that we should pull out of Blair's war in Iraq.
3. Some have even suggested there should be an inquiry into whether or not Blair was guilty of war crimes by jointly prosecting the invasion.
4. Brown's defence chief no longer wants us to militarily follow the USA and the mad ravings of that twat Bush but instead wants Britain to think and act as an independent nation.
5. Brown wants time for sport at schools to be increased - as opposed to time for learning how to get in debt with banks and play the Stock Market.
6. Brown wants to build more houses and wants to see a return to and expansion of social housing provided by local authorities. Yes, council houses!
Jesus H Christ! If you close your eyes and dream for a while you might be forgiven for imagining that socialism is on the way back.
I'm almost frightened to breathe.

Pither - The Return

I have been putting life on hold for a few days and decided last night to get even more distance between myself and reality by spending the evening over in Big Town East with my uber-pals Ed Straker and Lady Di.
Their house is actually an unlicensed drop-in centre and creche for the people of the area and last night it was in full use. I arrived to find it packed to the rafters with scores of childreny-type things, all running around with rubber tomahawks, squawking and generally trying to get as dirty as possible.
The scene of bedlam was completed when I was greeted by Ed, sporting an interesting and rather fetching head wound. "Oh, yeah. I was trying to make a staff for the lad because he is playing Little John in a school production of Robin Hood. I stamped on the branch in the middle to break it but both the ends came up and smacked me on the head." Could 'appen! It's comforting to know somone else is as inept at DIY as I am.
Mrs Straker was sparked out in an armchair, trying to have a snooze after another long day running the National Health Service, but not getting much rest as three or four urchins were crawling all over her.
I was soon surrounded by the army of tiny terrors who, coaxed on by Ed, found much mirth in an extremely stylish, fire-retardant, polyester, action-sports T-shirt I was wearing. "Reg has knitted a jumper, Reg has knitted a jumper!" the mantra went - ALL NIGHT.
Us adults decamped to the garden and were soon joined by the neighbours and two other visitors, all of whom are rapidly becoming good friends, owing to my regular visits to the House of Straker. We spent the evening drinking while sheltering under a large parasol from a near-monsoon, all the time muttering things such as "I don't care if it's bloody raining. It's bloody July and we're supposed to be out in the bloody garden so sod getting bloody soaked!"
As the wine flowed, along with a selection of superb ales from the nearby Best Off-Licence In The World, we managed to cover all the crucial topics of the day (all readers' views gratefully accepted, by the way). I think you can see how the conversation developed, and almost count the number of bottles consumed by the time each subject was reached, from the following chronological list:
1. Would WE have won the war if the Americans hadn't joined in?
2. Did British imperialism ever benefit anyone other than the British?
3. Are the Potteries beautiful and populated by some of the finest people on the planet or are they just the place where God would stick the tube if he wanted to give the world an enema?
4. Is it acceptable in the 21st Century to hate the French?
5. What is it like to date Eddie the Eagle Edwards for a week (yes, one of our number had actually done that).
6. What was Eddie the Eagle called in his younger days? (Eddie the Egret? Eddie the Egg?)
7. How useful a form of protest against the NHS is it for one to have ones bottom tattooed with the words "In the event of an accident I do not wish to be taken to Barnsley General Hospital" (yes, a friend of one of our number had had that done).
8. Isn't it annoying how one or two setbacks can spoil the otherwise laughter-packed event which is a family funeral?
8. Would you invite Judy Garland to your aunty's funeral?
9. Where, exactly, on a slabbed patio is the stylus from a mini-computer/phone likely to land when wrenched from its hideyhole and what are the chances of locating it in the dark?
10. Is there more to life than big breasts?
11. Did Lisa leave her keys in the front door when she came out or in the pub she visited before calling round and how, exactly, is she going to get back in?
12. How does one appear to be genuinely willing to walk Lisa home to make sure she gets in safely even though it would mean getting piss-wet through and you have lost the ability to move anyway and just want to go to bed?
During the heated debate which surrounded one or two topics I chose to opt out and spent the time instead making yet another friend - she is truly beautiful, belongs to the neighbours and is named after the clotted cream county:

With her on board, I am now, more than ever, able to say in true Daily Mail fashion that I am not a racist because I have black friends, having becoming very close to another resident of the House of Straker some months ago:

Yes, a truly magical evening. I was awoken early this morning by a band of screaming banshees in the form of little people who had also stayed the night. Before I was allowed to leave I was presented with a note......and a problem to solve:

So, where do you buy yo-yos? I am back at the House of Straker next weekend for a gig in which Ed is playing and so I need help before then. Answers on a postcard, please.

Adjust Your Set

Owing to circumstances beyond my control, namely a volley of outrageously, fortuitous slings and arrows, I shall not be blogging again for about a week. Should I not return, I wish my body to be donated to Pedigree Pet Foods for research.
Might I recommend that, while I disappear down the U-bend of life, you go in search of chuckles at my cyber chums at "stately moans", "kaliyuga kronicles", "betty's utility room" and "lost in a common language".
TTFN.

The Sunday Quiz

EACH PAIR OF PICTURES IS CONNECTED BY A SINGLE WORD OR PHRASE. SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT WHAT THEY ARE AND THEN STRING THEM TOGETHER TO FORM THE REAL MIDDLE NAMES OF A FAMOUS, FORMER WOMAN PRIME MINISTER.








































Talking of the last one, have you heard that Mandelson is about to be demoted? He's going to be made a lord. Bit of a come down for a queen? (ba doom, tshhh!!)