Home From Home

Our MPs - their dedication, honesty and tireless work for the country is already well documented, but I ask you to spare a special thought for the massive sacrifices made by our Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.

Imagine what she has given up to serve the nation. Before Mrs Smith became an MP, their she and her family were, living quite happily in the back bedroom of Mrs Smith's sister's house in Nunhead, south east London. Mrs Smith had the bottom bunk, Mr Smith took the top. Their four children - Vlad, Lucretia, Adolph and Saddam - each had their own draw in the chest in the corner in which to snuggle down at night while Mrs Smith's mother slept standing up in the wardrobe - she had a back condition and lying down proved painful so the orthopaedic wardrobe was a Godsend.

The family's four golden retrievers had the run of the 6ft by 8ft room so they were happy and Lucretia's pet pony, Hermann, was stabled on top of the dressing table and had a vase of tasty daffodils to munch on during the day.

Then Mrs Smith was catapulted into the House of Commons and, owing to an outbreak of bubonic plague among New Labour's ranks, she was appointed Home Secretary. The family's home in London was obviously no longer convenient for her getting to and from work. She was forced to seek a second home closer to Parliament where she could lay her head during the week before returning at weekends to the bosom of her family. All the taxpayers would give her to get this second home was a measly £116,000 and so, having studied her Acme school map of Britain and tightened her belt for all our sakes, she plumped for a £400,000, nine-bedroom, six-bathroom, detached home with a billiard room, function suite, gatehouse and lodge set in 200 acres of land 150 miles from London - in Redditch, Worcestershire. Such was the pokiness of this squalid pied de terre that it was bursting at the seams with her meagre collection of worldly goods. There was so little space that her cellar of champagne had to go in the centrally heated stable block, there was just one outdoor swimming pool for her bathing costume and her collection of tropical plants had to go in the indoor poolroom and jacuzzi with effect-waterfall and hydro pool.

What happened then? Not content with Mrs Smith having put herself out to this massive extent just so she could serve us all, the scum, gutter press had a go at her, claiming that her house in Redditch might actually be her first home while her sister's boxroom was in fact her second home, and not the other way around as she obviously said to get the extra accommodation allowance. In addition, the hacks also had the nerve to make the ludicrous allegation that not only was the London base her second home, £116,000 was rather steep rent for a one-room residence during weekdays.

There is a real danger here that if we continue to snipe at and criticise over things like this we will lose leaders of the dedication and calibre of Mrs Smith and they will go elsewhere to serve - you know, like we almost lost to America those genius bankers and financiers who spent billions of pounds of our money buying up loans to vagrants before they all had to be written off.

..............................................................................

Back in the real world, bear in mind this is not some grubby little backbencher we are talking about. This is the FUCKING HOME SECRETARY - the third most important and lofty office in the land behind the PM and Chancellor. If she's pulling this stunt, just think what the other fuckers are doing, given the fact that their chances of discovery are so much less likely as they are not in the limelight. As my pal BGT pointed out - THIS IS JUST TAKING THE FUCKING PISS!!!!!

And what is Mrs Smith's defence? I'll tell you what her fucking defence is. It's the same defence offered up by all these fuckers when they're caught out. It's the same defence used by those bankers and financiers mentioned earlier who creamed off millions to line their own pockets as a reward for bringing about the near collapse of the financial system - "it's in the rules"!

Listen, pal-o-mine, hanging in public used to be "in the rules". So did bear-bating, witch-ducking and the burning of Catholics. Hitler dictated that the annihilation of six million Jews was "in the rules". IT'S THE FUCKING RULES WHICH ARE WRONG - AND WHO MAKES THE RULES? THE FUCKING MPs!!!!!

Until we reintroduce public floggings - only for MPs - there will never be any progress. Up the revolution!!

Banking - A Fairytale?

Once upon a time there was a beautiful garden tended by a devoted and caring gardener.

In the middle of the garden stood a huge oak tree which had been there for as long as anyone could remember. The tall oak was the life of the garden and it attracted many red squirrels who made their homes in its leafy branches.

Each Spring the oak tree would soak up the sun and, nourished by the warm rain and rich soil in the garden, it would grow and then by the summer time produce a bountiful crop of acorns.

The squirrels fed on the acorns and, each autumn when the tree shed all its acorns as it preprared to shed its leaves
and shut down for the winter, the squirrels worked feverishly to gather up all the nuts which fell to the ground to make sure they had enough to tide them over the barren months to come.


One day a gang of fat cats got into the garden and they quickly climbed the tree to take a look round at what was going on. They saw all the squirrels working tirelessly to gather nuts and they sniggered at their antics. The cats were far too fat and lazy to work but came up with a wizard plan to ensure they could eat well throughout the year.

They called all the squirrels to a meeting and told them: "Listen, if you give us some of your nuts to look after we will put them into a magic nut machine we have and it will make them grow bigger. The magic machine will make every nut you give us grow three per cent larger."

"Goody!" shrieked the squirrels, and they agreed. What they didn't know was that there was no magic nut machine. What the fat cats did instead was to take all the nuts they had been given down to the furthest corner of the garden where there was a compost heap crawling with mice. Here they challenged the mice to games of hide and seek, using the nuts they had brought to bet on the results. Now the cats, being cats, almost always caught the mice and so they almost always came away with large winnings which they insisted were paid in freshly caught salmon and gallons of double cream.

The squirrels continued to work away every day, oblivious to what the fat cats were doing. Even if they had known, they wouldn't have been able to join in because they didn't have enough nuts left to gamble with - they had handed over all their surplus to the fat cats.

The fat cats' scheme worked so well for them that they soon amassed stockpiles of salmon and cream and still had some of the nuts given to them by the squirrels left over. That gave them another idea and so they called another meeting with the squirrells and said to them: "Listen, instead of just getting by over winter, why don't we lend you some nuts so you can eat a little better? For every nut we lend you, however, we will want a seven per cent bigger nut back."

Now the squirrels liked the idea of having a comfier Christmas and thought they would just have to work harder to come up with the bigger nuts demanded. It never occurred to them that all they would be doing would be borrowing their own nuts from the fat cats and paying for the privilege! Finally worn down by persistent pressure from the fat cats they agreed to the idea and started borrowing.

Now all the frantic exchanging of nuts and the gambling down at the compost heap attracted the attention of some rats in the neighbouring garden. They saw what a good scam the fat cats were running and wanted to join in but the gardener knew they were trouble and he determined to keep them out. He put poison down for the rats and chased them off whenever they appeared. But sadly, one dark and rainy day, the gardener died.

It was indeed tragic for the beautiful garden because, with the gardener dead, only his pets were left to look after it. Chief among these was the gardener's evil
cat, Moggie, and it was she who decided to take charge. Now Moggie was an arrogant, stupid and selfish cat who believed that the garden could look after itself. She would not listen to anyone, believing that only she could be right, and so, when the birds who lived in the garden tried to patrol it themselves and keep it safe, she chased them away.

Sure enough, soon after Moggie took over, the rats invaded the garden and she did nothing to stop them - "market garden forces!" she would bellow from the comfort of the gardener's palatial house. Once in the garden, the rats began copying the fat cats, lending nuts to the squirrels, gambling and generaly getting fat themselves on the profits. Meanwhile, Moggie spent her days looking down on the rapidly deteriorating garden, all the while smiling a self-satisfied smile and thinking that she was right and the garden could look after itself.

Eventually, Moggie grew so old and so senile that the birds and the squirrels were able to chase her away and she went to live in a bigger house down the road. Of the other pets left behind, a devious young rabbit who no-one had ever taken notice of before started jumping up and down all of a sudden and saying that he would do all that the birds and the squirrels wanted if he were to take charge, for he claimed to be one of them. He said he was on their side and so he was allowed the tend the garden - he was Blair Rabbit.


Sadly, what the birds and the squirrels didn't know was that Blair Rabbit was a liar. All he wanted was to be in charge and he didn't care two hoots about the birds and the squirrels. In fact, not only was he not one of them he was, in reality, a great admirer of Moggie and so, once at the helm, not only did he not stop the lending and the gambling he said there should be much more of it. He told the squirrels: "Why just get by over winter? Why just get by at any time? Why not have as much as you want, if not more, all the time? Borrow more nuts and then you can gorge yourself all year round!" Then he told the fat cats that not only could they play hide and seek with the mice, they could gamble on any games they wanted to.

And so the squirrels began borrowing more and more nuts from the fat cats, guzzling them all year round. "This is the life," they thought. "Why didn't we think of this before? We can have as much as we want and more, just by borrowing from the fat cats. Prudence and financial management are for the birds!!" The fat cats, meanwhile, started challenging the mice to swimming and shouting competitions, as well as to their usual games of hide and seek, and, as before, they bet on the outcomes.

Then, one day, a pack of dogs moved into the garden and they made their home down by the compost heap. They chased away all the mice and when the fat cats and the rats came calling to play they were waiting. The dogs said they would also gamble with them on the games but as they were bigger, faster and more ferocious than the fat cats and rats they would agree to pay out much, much more to them if they lost. The fat cats and the rats began drooling at the thought of how much more salmon and cream and other goodeis they could get and, even though they already had more food than they could ever eat in a lifetime, they accepted the wagers - and for the first time they bagan to lose!

The dogs were far too quick and cunning and could easily win swimming and shouting contests, let alone games of hide and seek - something which should have been obvious from the start - but still the fat cats and rats kept on betting........and losing.

They lost so much that eventually they only had enough food left to tide them through the coming winter. Admittedly, it was enough to ensure each of them enjoyed a banquet every day, but that was not enough for the fat cats and rats who were by now used to the high life so they decided to ask all the squirrels for the nuts back they had lent them. Of course, many of the squirrels had borrowed so much that they couldn't repay the fat cats and the rats. Many of them had to give the fat cats and the rats their homes in lieu of payment while others just starved to death once they had given back all they had.

Soon the garden was littered with the bodies of dead squirrels and empty dreys which no-one could afford to buy. Eventually, things became so bad that even the fat cats and the rats ate through their stockpiles and they too were faced with starvation.

Now just before all this happenend Blair Rabbit had left the garden and been put in charge of looking after all the carrots in a neighbouring farmer's fields. The fat cats passed food over the fence to him and at nights they let him sleep in their luxurious beds in return for the help he had given them.
In his place, his brother had taken over - Brown Bunny. Now Brown Bunny had a huge job ahead of him, trying to stop the rot and bring life back into the garden. The birds told him he had to stop the fat cats and rats gambling with the dogs. They told him he had to make the fat cats and the rats live more frugally and not stockpile salmon and cream. Some even told him that the starving fat cats and rats should be left to die as they had caused the famine in the first place. There were even those who said that the fat cats and rats should be punished, or at least banished from the garden.

Brown Bunny, however, like Blair Rabbit and Moggie before him, believed that the garden could not survive without fat cats. He thought that if they went, all the squirrels would die. Besides, he thought, he had to stay well in with the fat cats or else there would be no-one to feed him and offer him a bed for the night once he retired?

So Brown Bunny came up with his plan to save the garden. He decided to bring all the fat cats and rats into the gardener's house. He also ordered that the squirrels should all donate a proportion of the nuts they planned to eat each day to the fat cats so that they could be well fed. That way, he thought, the fat cats and the rats could go out and gamble in the garden and loan money to the squirrels but if anything ever went wrong again and they lost they could always come back to the house and be looked after.

And they all lived happily ever after...........well, the fat cats and the rats did!



The moral of this story is clear:


BE BLOODY CAREFUL WHEN FAT CATS GET THEIR PAWS ON YOUR FUCKING NUTS!!!

P.S. The first person to say cats don't eat nuts gets it!!

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.