"Iole, iole"?, Lamma Sabachtaani.

For once in my life I am not mad - just sad. Very, very, very sad.
I rescue stray, ill-treated and unwanted dogs. Some people collect stamps, I collect dogs. I work for an animal rescue charity and offer foster homes to canines in desperate need of TLC and a roof over their heads and during my time have also taken in shedloads of dogs who have ended up living permanently at Pither Towers. Currently I have four magic muts, each with an appalling tale of cruelty or abandonment to tell but all now as happy as pigs in the proverbial.
I have always wanted to do more and take in others but The Boulevard of a Thousand Broken Dreams is now full to bursting point and there is just no room to swing a cat, let alone another dog. Then I hit on the idea of sponsoring a dog through the Dogs Trust and, as a result, I was able to pay for a poor pooch called Beavis to be offered a caring home for life at one of the charity's rescue centres. Beavis had had a miserable life and consequently was too mentally scarred to be found a home out in the community. Instead, he played his days away at the rescue centre in Telford, Shropshire, and I was able to go to visit him and say hello.
All was well until a letter dropped through the door today informing me that Beavis, who was by no means a youthful dog, had "passed away" in his sleep. Isn't life shit! Death is not a laugh a minute either. Poor lad. A fellow creature I got to know only briefly has touched me in a way no sodding human ever could, so much so that I can't summon the bile to be sarcastic, angry or witty. I shall just mourn quietly and try to content myself with the thought that Beavis is now in a better place, wherever that may be (anywhere has got to be better than fucking Telford!).
The only glimmer of light in the gloom is that those wonderful people at the Dogs Trust have allotted me another dog to splash out on and home. She is called Ellie and my dosh is keeping her warm, snug and loved at the charity's rescue centre on Merseyside. I shall hopefully see her before Christmas with toys for the festive season.
The point of all this? I don't know. I just wanted to get it out of my system a bit. Does Grantham come into this? No, not at all. I would not wish death or grieving on anyone. No, not even Grantham or the Devil Child it spawned.
Rest in peace Bevis. Take care Ellie.

Desert Fox Hunters?

A desert fox, pictured yesterday.

I am going to write to Anthony Whatwar Blair with a little idea which came to me today as I was listening to the wireless. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly want to help the smug, plastic-grinned, right-wing, not-so-closet Tory tit who heads our nation but I do feel two groups in our society are deserving of my cerebral gem.
There was a feature on my non-digital receiver about the families of squaddies who feared for the sanity of their sons and daughters out in Iraq because of the horrors they were witnessing. This was followed by another feature, this time on committed (if only) fox hunters who were bemoaning their lot now that they no longer had judicial backing to go around slaughtering wildlife.
Hang on, I thought. So we have a group of men and women whose mission in life is to ride around in silly uniforms chasing a perceived enemy in the middle of nowhere and they are unhappy that they HAVE TO massacre fellow creatures in the name of a totally unjust and unpopular cause? On the other hand we have a group of men and women whose mission in life is to ride around in silly uniforms chasing a perceived enemy in the middle of nowhere and they are unhappy that they are NO LONGER ALLOWED TO massacre fellow creatures in the name of a totally unjust and unpopular cause?
You've got it. Bring our Brave Boys and Girls home, Tone, and send the fucking fox hunters out to Iraq. Birds and stones? Everyone's happy. It's a belter.
In the meantime, let "the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable" police the streets of Grantham.

Puberty Passage, off Desecration Street.

Is nothing sacred? After another mindless day yesterday of making money to buy bread to keep me alive so that I could get up the next day to earn more money to buy bread etc I thought I would unwind with some harmless, televisual wallpaper, aka Coronation Street.
I haven't watched "The Street" for years. We fell out some years ago - I think it was when the show sold out to Cadbury's - and so I decided to stay away from the Devil's Lantern on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7.30pm thinking that my stand would shake up the Weatherfield bosses and panic them into a reversal of their advertising policy.
Last night I was sickened but not surprised to find that the Chocolate Barons are still there, plugging their teeth-rotting, corpulence-inducing, bowel-bashing chick comfort munchies but it turned out that was the only familiar thing about the whole soap.
During my absence, Coronation Street seems to have been transformed into a 50-yard-long fucking creche! It is just overflowing with bloody pre-pubescent teenagers doing what yoof of that ilk do best - falling in and out of "love" with each other, items of furniture and their pets, shagging, bitching, talking mindlessly about who's got the best spot-removal cream and getting up the duff. It used to be a gritty and yet often highly amusing snapshot of life in an industrial town, with all the ups and downs of which we all have had experience, featuring adults to whom we could relate. Not anymore! It's Neighbours By The Canal now. That, of course, is what the brain dead programme editors intended. "Cooeee! Jacasta. I say, that Neighbours show features lots of adolescents and so gets simply oodles of schoolkids watching it, pretending to be adults. Lets get simply loads of spotty types on the prog and then our ratings will be as good as their's." It's like repainting the Last Supper so that it now includes a KFC party bucket, 28 Goth kids hanging around a fountain outside, Judas with his MP3 player and Boyzone doing the fucking cabaret! These people evidently turned a deaf ear when their mothers told them "Don't fiddle with it dear, it will only get worse!" Give me a break. Another institution gone. Another rock in the sea of life worn away by the onrushing waves of obsession with youth. They had it about right in Logan's Run. A vision of the future in which everyone is topped once they have a completed thatch of pubic hair and no longer think the G Spot is a "wicked" club.
Not only is this rubbish thrown at us, they have extended it to three pigging nights a week and a bloody omnibus edition at weekends. Presumably that is the "the more shit you throw, you more some will stick" policy of programming which has engulfed us in recent years.
Coronation Street! Three times a day, every day of the week in Grantham. See how they like it.

You Can Look But You Can't Buy

I had to go to the supermarket today to get all the stuff for Sunday dinner I hadn't got yesterday because I made the mistake of popping in for a livener en-route - there really is no such thing as a quick pint.
Not used to Sunday shopping, I checked on the net to see what time the supermarket opened, noted that it said 9am, and so popped down just afterwards. I went in, grabbed a couple of baskets, zoomed round the aisles collecting what I had to and then made for the checkouts. Nine minutes flat - not bad I thought (man shopping, see) - and what's more there was no-one at any checkout. Suspiciously, no-one was manning (or womanning or yoofing) any of the checkouts either. I waited, and I waited, and I waited until I eventually spotted an assistant who was hovering up one of the aisles and frowning at me. "'Scuse me love, is anyone serving?" "No sales 'til 10am," she replied. "Yeah, right. No, seriously, is anyone going to come and serve me?" I queried, trying to press home my point. "Browsing hour from 9am," she said. Browsing! FUCKING BROWSING!!!! Who, in their right mind, wants to "browse" round a supermarket. If you're going somewhere to buy a new car I can imagine you would want to have a bit of a look around first before you handed over your hard-earned. Buying a house involves a lot of "browsing" and no doubt Al Faed shopped around (literally) before buying Harrods - but food shopping! What do these tossers envisage us doing? "'Scuse me love. This leg of lamb here. Could I try it on?" "Certainly dear. Just follow me to the freezer." Or maybe "Oi, mate! These bananas. Do you do them in a blue?" Perhaps "Do you mind if I take these Saccharino Cornycrunchflakes out into the light to see if they match my curtains?" Give me a break. Three quarters of a sodding hour I had to wait until someone was prepared to take my money off me. I'm going to write a book - '101 Things To Do While Waiting to be Served at a Supermarket Checkout'. I'd better warn in advance, it will be a bloody short book.
Browsing hour! I say let all of Grantham's shopkeepers open up early and then refuse to sell anything.

SPOT THE ODD ONE OUT.














Answer: Picture 3, Gurning Man, aka Walter Traincrash, of Ottery St Mary, Devon. All the others are named after parts of either the male or female body.

Interest-Free Loans To Powergen

"Oo, look darling, those wankers at Powergen have stiffed us out of £130 and the interest."

I received my "power invoice" today from Powergen. Paying as I do by monthly direct debit, I never normally read it. I only check the colour and if it's not red it just gets filed in the "Gunna Come In Handy For The Court Case" pile of crap I have amassed in the slightly enlarged airing cupboard I laughingly call my study.
A colonic stirring came upon me after I opened the envelope and, being a man and so unable to just sit and stare silently at the back of the toilet door while nature takes its course, I took it into the loo to read.
Shit!! (no pun intended). Turns out I am £94-something in CREDIT. Not only that, the previous quarter Powergen had been into me for £130-something I had overpaid for gas and lecky used. I double checked the contents of the envelope to find leaflet upon leaflet plugging more ways of bunging the firm cash - but no cheque for the dosh I am owed, let alone the interest accrued on it.
Let's just play role reversal for a moment. Imagine I was busy burning their gas (wasn't it OUR gas once?) and plugging in to tap their electricity (ditto) and ran up a bill of £130 without paying them a brass farthing. Would they let it ride? Would a Powergen letter arrive saying "No sweat Chucklebunny, give us something when you've got it. I know the run-up to Chrimbo is a difficult time. Take it as an interest free loan to tide you over until you're less strapped. Hugs 'n' kisses, the boys and girls at Powergen"? Would it bollocks! Their bloody solicitors would be in the post faster than you can say "Die debtor, die!". You would immediately be plunged into freezing darkness by a flick of a switch at their end and then threats of court action, treatment with leeches, castration and piano wire round the knob would ensue!
What is the resort to justice they offer me? "Oh, chill man (unfortunate choice of words). We'll knock it off your next bill in three months time." In the meantime, no doubt, the capital and interest built up will probably be used to pay bailiffs to evict all the hard-pressed pensioners who fall behind with their payments as they attempt to stop their gonads beginning to ice-over with the onset of winter while surviving on the £4 8s 6d they get from the state in return for the £84 billion they have paid in to the pension pot over the years. There again, the sneakily acquired windfall is probably used to pay for handjobs and "rabbits" for all Powergen's shareholders. They MUST cum first.
Gits! Isn't it time all of Grantham's billing services were run on these lines?

Virgin West Coast Main Line

"Ok driver, have it your way. I haven't got off at Watford and this isn't a fucking Virgin train."

For a variety of reasons, I have made three trips to north London in the last three weeks. I chose, wrongly as it turned out, to make the trips by train. All the journeys were made at around 2pm on Fridays and, as far as I am aware, the capital has neither moved further away from where I live nor crept up closer while my back was turned. Over the said three-week period there was no volcanic activity in the middle ground which could have thrown up large mountains or gaping chasms in the path of the train. Teleportation was not adopted by Virgin as the new way of getting about, the Royal Train did not run on that line and a hot and a cold running naughty maid service was not introduced for the enjoyment of those in either Cattle or Thatch Class. Why, then, did the same bloody journey at the same bloody time of day in the same bloody manner each bloody time cost a bewildering array of different bloody amounts?
The first trip weighed in at £27 for a return to Euston. I upgraded to Thatch Class when I was told that the Cattle Transportation Wagons were stuffed to the rafters and it would cost just an extra £10 for a seat in one of the plush, half-empty fucking "this is the way it should all be" carriages. I had, in the meantime, decided to get off at Watford (long story) but was told that the train didn't stop at Watford. When it DID stop at Watford I got off! I overstayed my return journey and so had to buy a single to get back home two days later than planned. I opted for Thatch class, as it had not been as expensive as I had imagined the last time I travelled. The cost? £94!!!! How does that work? Single Thatch is more than twice the cost of return Thatch!!!!!
The third trip I asked for a return to Watford. "None of our trains stop at Watford," said the blood-red suited Virgin woman (irony was apparently lost on her). "One did the other week," I chirrupped. "This one, in fact." "No it didn't," she persisted. "Yes it did," I maintained. "No it didn't," etc. etc. "Then how the bleeding Hell did I get off at Watford?" I inquired, beginning to lose it. "Did I leap from the speeding carriage? Do I look like that bloke from the Black Magic advert?" Anyway, to ward off the onset of retirement we agreed that she was right and I was wrong. I hadn't got off at Watford. That must have been the "other me" in our parallel universe. "A single to Euston then, please." How much this time? £10!!! I kid you not, £10!!!! Same day, same time remember.
The return? I got on at Watford for my trip back, again a Friday, again about 2pm. How much this time for a single? £35.90!!!!! Not only is Watford nearer to my home than Euston, why does covering the distance in the same manner cost almost four times as much?
I am convinced Virgin ticket machines are in fact salvaged Enigma coding devices from the Second World War. Staff just key in the destination and the machine belches out one of 23,457,986 different possible ticket prices. Where is Alan Turing when you bloody need him?
Virgin West Coast Mainline has to be diverted through Grantham!