Chase me, ladies, I'm in the cavalry

2011-11-29T13:18:00.002+01:00

A psychiatric report has ruled that Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people in a killing spree, is unfit to stand trial. It turns out he's a nutter.

Twenty injured in act of 'competitive shopping'

2011-11-25T20:08:00.004+01:00

A woman who pepper-sprayed other shoppers at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch had armed herself with the caustic spray to gain an advantage in the fight for merchandise at the Black Friday sale.

Excellent. A higher marginal propensity to consume among retarded Americans is precisely what is needed to get us out of this slump. I see this as a strong buy signal for stocks.

2011-11-15T17:29:00.004+01:00

I just read Morgue for Whores, Roy Edroso's first novel.

I don't know if you can imagine a plot by Martin Amis, with dialogue by Guy Ritchie, about a crime-fighting dog. Well, it's nothing like that, mercifully. In many ways, it's the opposite of that.

You can buy it here. Three thumbs up. Recommended.

THE SAFEST INVESTMENT

2011-11-10T01:05:00.011+01:00

The only really safe investment is wine, at times like these. If it goes up, you make a profit; and if it goes down you can drink it. Whereas when your shares or your nickel futures crash, that's that. The money has somehow vanished out of existence, as though you had you set fire to a pile of £50 notes.

Just this afternoon, while the bond markets were panicking, I invested in a case of Tesco Lambrusco Rosé Light (was £5 a bottle, now £2.35) and some Peruvian chardonnays (maison fondée en 1998; 39 Clubcard points.) These vintages could easily have doubled in value by the time I retire in 2035.

The key to understanding the Eurozone crisis is this: the ECB aren't incompetent; they are sadists. Until you've grasped that, none of it makes any sense. They want people to starve to death.

Links:
-Fine wine investments
-Tesco special offers

England, 2011

2011-11-03T02:18:00.004+01:00

The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Mayor of London were all in the Bullingdon Club, we're occupying Kabul, our parliament still has bishops in it, and now we’re preparing for war with the Persians.

On the other hand, it looks as though the ban on monarchs marrying papists may soon be lifted.

2011-10-31T00:48:00.008+01:00

The heart always sinks when South Americans say they are preparing the traditional dish of some province. You know you're in for beans again, perhaps with offal and fried snout of pig.

If you're lucky, you might also get some foul root which, because it tastes worse than hyena anus, they think is an aphrodisiac.

2011-10-11T01:40:00.000+01:00

Them bankers, at Goldman Sachs and that, they should pay them bankers the same wages our boys get in Afghanistan.

Stay tuned. More opinions later.

2011-10-09T22:45:00.004+01:00

William Perez, Colombian politician / mobster, was released from jail 54 times for dental work.

That’s a lot of dental work. He must look like Liberace by now.

INSANE HATRED OF CYCLISTS

2011-08-26T00:41:00.000+01:00

The driver in this clip turned out to be an employee of Brazil's central bank, which has raised interest rates at all five of its policy meetings this year. The under-explored relationship between hawkish monetary policy and insane hatred of cyclists would make an interesting study.

2011-08-25T02:50:00.002+01:00

When I first suggested filling Chicago airport with millions of bees, tended by former convicts, they all said I was mad. They said the same about Christopher Columbus.

I refused to take no for an answer. Like Luther Vandross nailing a worm to a church door, I could do no other. I’m going to fill that airport with bees, I said, whatever the cost, whoever gets hurt.

And today, my friends, that dream came true.

2011-08-22T20:58:00.002+01:00

American shot by sniper after bicycle tour of Tripoli. You're not safe anywhere these days.

2011-08-11T05:05:00.002+01:00

I was unable to take part in the looting this week, due to a bad back. There are strong arguments on both sides, but, on balance, I think the decision to burn down London was the correct one. And it was good to see Gloucester going up in flames.

NOT EVEN HULK HOGAN CAN PREVENT THIS ECONOMIC MELTDOWN

2011-08-09T04:00:00.003+01:00

Let's look at some facts.

FACT 1: Ben Bernanke has more influence over economic policy than Hulk Hogan, the wrestler. I think that is probably safe to say.

FACT 2: Hulk Hogan is better at wrestling than the Fed Chair. This too is uncontroversial.

In sane world, Hulk Hogan would get Bernanke in a headlock and punch his ears until he agreed to cut interest rates. Then, a few months later, recovery! Hogan saves America.

But hold your horses, Mr Hulk. Ain't you never heard of a Liquidity Trap? Bernanke is constrained by the zero lower bound, you gristlehead, and cannot cut interest rates however much you punch his ears. He couldn't cut the Federal Funds rate if his life depended on it.

Back to the drawing board, Hulk.

THE BERNANKE GENERATOR

2011-06-24T04:03:00.001+01:00

Flying cunt class from Bogota to Sao Paulo today, I made an important discovery. If you go through the Wall Street Journal, delete the word ``said'' from all the stories, and replace it with something else, the newspaper becomes about 15% less tedious.

For example:
-"We don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting," Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke whimpered.

-"We have no expectation or intention to get involved in state and local finance," Mr. Bernanke snarled.

-"This is really a political, fiscal issue," he chortled.

-"If we bail out one state, then all of the debt of all of the states is almost explicitly put on the books of the federal government," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan yelped.

I'm trying to design The Bernanke Generator. You simply copy and paste your WSJ article, and it automatically converts it for you, free of charge. Bernanke sneered, Bernanke tittered, Bernanke roared, Bernanke guffawed, Bernanke sobbed...

Who shall decide when doctors disagree?

2011-06-04T14:27:00.002+01:00

Brazil's government spent $9 million on a textbook which claims that ten minus seven equals four. "In reality, the correct answer is three," O Globo newspaper says, without revealing its source.

What do YOU think?

LOST IN TRANSLATION

2011-05-15T17:51:00.007+01:00

``He [Dominique Strauss-Kahn] came out of the bathroom naked, ran down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom and began to sexually assault her, according to her account. She pulled away from him and he dragged her down a hallway into the bathroom where he engaged in a criminal sexual act... He tried to lock her into the hotel room."

Back in France he could probably have laughed it off as a bit of horseplay that went too far, faults on both sides, lessons learned, etc. But not in the United States. Every time you try to have a little fun in that benighted country you get a vast army of meddlesome officials poking their long noses in, telling you where you can and can't smoke, and who you can and can't grope. Stand behind the yellow line, sir. I'm gonna need to see some ID, sir. Please put your pants back on, sir.

The French are always locking each other in hotel rooms and engaging in criminal sex acts. It's part of the laid-back Mediterranean lifestyle. But it was a serious error of judgement to try it in New York. The wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.
(If anyone knows where Martaban is, please send me an email. It sounds like a right laugh.)

Tequila and Pork Sausages Found in Bin Laden Lair, U.S. Officials Say

2011-05-14T05:41:00.002+01:00

A crate of tequila and a copy of the Satanic Verses garnished with pork sausages were found in Bin Laden's lair (or den), U.S. intelligence officials say.

You might also enjoy The Daily Telegraph classic "Bin Laden Buys Child Slaves for his Drug Farm".

You know what, I'm really starting to go off Bin Laden.

BRITISH vs CHINESE PARENTING

2011-04-25T15:36:00.007+01:00

Chinese parents:
"Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin

...By the time Sophia was three, she was reading Sartre, doing simple set theory and could write one hundred Chinese characters… In 1997, when she was three, Sophia got her first piano lesson."

(From The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.)

British parents:
"He [Arthur Waugh, father of Evelyn] suffered from asthma and was consequently no good at sport. [Alexander Waugh's] solution to his elder son's faiblesses was to enroll him on a toughen-you-up induction course based on the old-fashioned wisdom: ''Tis fear as makes 'em brave.'' To this end he forced his son to cling for his life to farm gates as he swung them violently back and forth, shouting ``Hold on, m'boy.'' He perched him on high branches, deserting him there for hours on end, and then would creep up behind him, blasting off both barrels of his gun just inches from his ear.

Dog-whipping and sudden explosions by his earhole had done nothing to sharpen his enthusiasm for the sport, so the Brute tried another ploy to arouse his interest. Every night for a week he dragged Arthur out of bed and pushed him into the damp gloom of a downstairs cupboard where, shivering in his pyjamas and doubtless crying like a baby, he was ordered to kiss his father's gun-case."

(From Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family, by Alexander Waugh.)

I would argue that the British method is superior at producing twitching, psychologically-maladjusted adults, while Chinese-style parenting is better at creating concert-level pianists with suicidal tendencies, reduced to playing in shopping malls and steak-houses due to the supply/demand mismatch.

It goes without saying that either approach is better than letting the young swine play Facebook and listen to "skiffle singers."

2011-03-09T04:21:00.003+01:00

Inflation is running at a two-year high, but you can still buy a puff adder for £50 pounds. It isn’t all doom and gloom. Get one for your girlfriend and watch her face light up!

This economy makes no sense. I emailed Steve Levitt, author or Freak O’nomics to see if he knows the answer.

Sir, A poisonous snake costs £50, less than a train ride to York £119.50*. How do you explain that, if you’re so smart? Is it because puff adders and trains to York are “imperfect substitutes”? Ah, to hell with you. You and your damned theories.

He didn’t reply. I think I stumped him with that one. But one thing is clear: these snake traders must operate on wafer-thin margins.

Legal question: suppose I left one of these budget adders lying around my father’s house. And suppose he trod on it, and it bit the old anus, and I inherited his lands and flocks. Would that be a crime, technically? I mean, it’s an accident, right?

*Single, economy class. Mark Steel on Radio 4 said they need special training to ask for these prices with a straight face.

2011-02-26T01:56:00.002+01:00

Wikileaks have published Colombian guerrilla commander Raul Reyes’ Yahoo mailbox:

-safe and secure viagra Canadian Pharmacy
-RE: REAL ESTATE AND TOURIST (INVESTMENT) Dr. Ken Johnson
-Escape to a romantic destination Yahoo! Travel
-You won £950.000! Yahoo! Mail congratulations YAHOO INTERNET LOTTERY

Interesting.

2011-02-15T02:48:00.006+01:00

How is my first stock tip performing, one month on? Disappointingly, to be honest with you. Had you followed my advice and shorted 50 Cent's H&H Imports, you would have lost your entire investment already. Indeed, for every dollar invested, you would now be 22 cents in debt.

I underperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average big time.

On the other hand, if you had done the opposite of what I said, you would have more than doubled your money. This 122 percent monthly return, compounded over three years, would give you $305 billion for every ten cents invested. After four years, your ten cents will grow to $4.2 thousand trillion dollars. You would never need to work again!

SHORT THIS STOCK!

2011-01-13T04:37:00.004+01:00

Shares in H&H Imports, which sells handbags, rose 122% percent on Friday, then another 290% on Monday, after 50 Cent tipped the stock on Twitter.

Opportunities as good as this don't come along very often. The share has fallen by more than a third since then, but it's obviously going to fall a lot further. You're not betting against Goldman Sachs or George Soros here. If you short it, the people on the other side of the wager are 50 Cent fans!

Fans such as cervix209, who wrote: ``How do u get involved i wanna swoop up on dat shit too. Lol.''

Or ChiefKoboei, who said: ``if I get rich from ur advice I'm throwing a rooftop party and invitin you.''

We may not see another opportunity like this in our lifetimes.

LOCO HAROLD UPDATE

2010-12-29T17:37:00.012+01:00

I put out an alert asking for information about Loco Harold, and five days later he was shot like a pig, in the company of his friend ''Knife''.

They were offering $2.5 million for Mr Knife* and an Amazon gift voucher for Harold. Personally, I would have given them probation, instead of shooting them like a pair of pigs.

*Señor Knife, in Spanish.

CORRECT!
As Laban the Tall points out, this post is a shoddy piece of crap, which compromises this site’s credibility as a serious news source. Loco Harold was no more shot like a pig than I was. They merely flung him in jail. And Mr Knife wasn't shot like a pig either. He seems to have drowned after police chased him into a river.

I would like to apologise to Loco Harold’s family for any distress I may have caused.

EL LOCO HAROLD

2010-12-20T01:18:00.008+01:00

Colombian police are looking for El Loco Harold. There's a reward if you know where he is.

I haven’t seen Loco Harold since Klosters in 1995 when he lost a wager with Percy Dingethorpe about who could fit the most snow down his salopettes, and Boris Johnson got his foot stuck in an alpine horn.

Of course, back then he was known as non-payment-of-council-tax Harold. We were at Eton together. Frightful cad. Used to cut the nose off the stilton.

And now he's gone and joined the Colombian paramilitaries, the dog. Doesn't surprise me. Doesn't surprise me in the least.

You know what? This isn’t the same guy.

2010-12-14T02:37:00.004+01:00

Steve Gerrard has a hamstring injury. Meanwhile, Turkey is trying to devalue its currency.

The obvious solution would be to give Gerrard a job as president of the Turkish central bank. His hamstring would get some rest, and the Turkish lira would plunge as investors bail out.

They pay me to solve problems.

ANOTHER HOLIDAY RUINED BY CROCODILES

2010-12-10T03:21:00.003+01:00

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — An acclaimed outdoorsman who wrote movingly about testing himself against nature is presumed dead after a crocodile snatched him from his kayak while he led an American expedition from the source of the White Nile into the heart of Congo.

You're not safe anywhere these days.

REVIEW

2010-10-10T04:27:00.004+01:00

The first thing that strikes you about the iPhone4 is how unlike it is to the Reverend Ian Paisley. Its compact design and slick curves bear little resemblance to the crag-faced unionist leader. And its new operating system allows it to run more than 50,000 applications, unlike Paisley, who can’t run any applications, and whose operating system hasn’t been upgraded since his birth in 1926.

But you can’t compare Apples with Orangemen.

2010-10-08T03:13:00.001+01:00

I just worked out a solution to the European debt crisis, but I’m not going to tell anyone what it is.

WIKILEEKS

2010-08-02T04:23:00.004+01:00

Bradley Manning, the prime suspect in the leaking of the Afghan war files, raged against his US Army employers before he allegedly downloaded thousands of secret memos. The US Army intelligence analyst, who is half British, went to school in Wales...

TODAY IN HISTORY

2010-07-20T23:33:00.006+01:00

It was 200 years ago today that Bogota rebelled against the Spanish crown, laying the foundations for the wealth and stability that Colombia has enjoyed since.

If the Spanish crown were still here, the Colombian success story simply would not have been possible.

Colombians living their life of love and laughter, free from the Spanish crown.

2010-06-11T05:00:00.000+01:00

Trouble is brewing in Russia.

GOLDMAN SACHS MAKES BILLIONS SHORTING GOLDMAN SACHS STOCK

2010-04-17T05:33:00.002+01:00

I was shocked and dismayed –I think we all were- to learn that Goldman Sachs had been involved in whatever it was they did. I had always ranked them with unlicensed boxing promoters and taxi drivers in Cairo, as people who inspire one with absolute confidence.

I was visiting my poor mother in Somerset when I heard the news.

"You’re never going to believe this," I told old Longbottom the farmer. "Goldman Sachs defrauded investors out of more than $1bn by mis-marketing toxic sub-prime mortgage-related securities."

He looked at me with tears in his honest, weather-beaten old face.

"I don't understand it," he said, "but I know it's wrong".

RUM: NOT JUST FOR RIFF-RAFF ANYMORE

2010-03-25T04:50:00.011+01:00

“You remember that I asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could get these other spirits? Yes, I was certain it was a seaman."
Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of Black Peter
When you think of brandy, you probably picture a St Bernard (dog) rescuing a man in a snowdrift. When you think of whisky, you perhaps think of ghillies, whatever they are, shooting grouse in their gentlemen’s club. When you think of rum, you probably imagine a Central American peasant lying face down in a ditch, or sailors fighting in Plymouth.

Rum has an image problem, but they’ve put their top marketing people on it, and are re-launching it as a luxury product, the kind of thing that oil traders and secret agents can drink on their golfing holidays. I was invited to a tasting of Zacapa, the best -or at any rate the most expensive- rum in the world. It is produced 2,300 metres above sea level in the mountains of Guatemala, said their salesman. Well, well.

They gave me the 23-year old Zacapa, with its rich dark flavours, the mystery of the Guatemalan highlands in every sip. Twenty-three years ago Guatemala was having a civil war which left 200,000 dead, but the rum seems to have escaped unscathed, thank God.

Anyway, so I bought a bottle. It was a lot of money, but I am a man who appreciates the finer things in life. I didn’t have much to do next day, so I drank it in my underpants, while playing Mike Tyson’s Super Punch-Out.

2010-03-16T14:51:00.003+01:00

Martin Amis wishes his sister had converted to Islam.

To me, Martin has always been the greatest of the Amis brothers. Sir Kingsley hasn’t written anything worth reading in years, while Sir Hardy has always been more interested in socks than in literature.

"Scarlet is perhaps the most masculine of all colours, but its very flamboyancy limits its use... The matching of socks to the tie I find affected."

Interesting points, but it’s not exactly Tolstoy, is it?

UPDATE!
On the other hand, Martin is the only Amis brother who doesn't have a knighthood, the useless fucker.

2010-03-12T23:42:00.004+01:00

According to Venezuela’s newspaper of record, purchasing power has fallen 162% under Chavez. So if, pre-Chavez, you could buy 100 potatoes, you can now only afford 62 anti-potatoes.

What about the Venezuelan intelligentsia? What does he have to say about this?

2010-03-11T22:52:00.002+01:00

Warren Buffett is now merely the world’s third-richest human. Thanks to my buy-high-sell-low investment strategy, I’m not even in the top twenty any more, so I’m in no position to point and laugh.

I may not know much about investing, but, if I were called Buffett, I would name my children All-u-can-eat and Salad.

REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTIONS IN COLOMBIA

2010-03-11T03:32:00.004+01:00

Patria this, patria that, patria the other. The patria can kiss my nutsack.

HOW TO WIN WITH WOMEN (2)

2010-02-21T18:20:00.002+01:00

So I had the new Morso Cleanheat Multifuel stove installed. I reckon I can heat my house for a whole winter with the pizza fliers that come through my door.

I tried recycling the pizza fliers, but they kept coming back as more pizza fliers, on top of the pizza fliers that would have come anyway. This is why you must destroy the pizza fliers with fire.

How many women have I had since I had the stove installed? None, believe it or not. I am sure a lot of chicks would give their right arm to go out with a guy with a top-of-the-range stove, but it is hard to drop it into the conversation without seeming like some nouveau riche Russian.

I took out my Morso Multifuel owners’ manual in Starbucks today, and leafed through it while winking at the girl opposite me. She got up and left. She could hardy finish her coffee fast enough.

I don’t understand women.

But we were talking about pizza fliers. I have no grievance against the suffering fellow creatures who put the things through my door. They are only doing their job. And they are doing it very well, since if I go away for a few days, the pizza fliers are ankle-deep by the time I get back. If only the rest of the economy were this efficient we wouldn’t be in this hole.

I guess what I’m saying is... (more later.)

2010-02-20T23:14:00.001+01:00

When I was a teenager, DJs would devote an inordinate amount of time to the question of who was, and who was not, in the house. Did anyone ever get to the bottom of that?

The Campaign for Uncommunicative Navigation and Transit

2010-02-12T15:40:00.004+01:00

Just bought a pair of polarizing sunglasses. They make me violently disagree with whoever I look at.

Needed some shades for my flight next week. This time I’m going to show up at the airport wearing dark glasses, a pair of earmuffs and a t-shirt that says, “I am not listening to your announcements.”

I’m flying with Delta, or “Swine Air” as they are known. They are the absolute worst for abusing the intercom system, especially the pilots. Bus drivers don’t spend twenty minutes hectoring one. They let one read one’s Vogue magazine in peace.

And if you politely request that he stops interrupting and shuts his goddamned cake hole for five minutes, they wrestle you to the ground, put plasticuffs on your wrists and have you charged with air rage when you land. I know this from personal experience.

And I can’t block them out with my iPod, because they claim it is an “electronic device” which interferes with their beastly avionics.

In fact, an iPod is not capable of bringing down a 300-tonne jet. If it were, 747s would be dropping from the sky like pheasants. But if you point this out, they will wrestle you to the ground, put plasticuffs on your wrists, taser you and have you charged with air rage when you land. The slightest show of defiance elicits this reaction.

I’m going to get the fucking boat next time. I really hate these people.

REASONS TO VOTE LABOUR

2010-01-30T17:32:00.004+01:00

Reading the latest news from Colombia I realised that the Labour Party does have one redeeming feature, and it is this: they don’t murder people and dump them in pits, at least not in England. No one ever gives Gordon Brown any credit for this. Nor did he go to Eton.

Vote Brown! He didn’t go to Eton, and he doesn’t bury people in pits.

2010-01-12T00:06:00.004+01:00

BOGOTA- Went to the market this weekend to buy an expandable cosh, but they didn’t have any colours I liked. I had a long chat with the salesman, to help find the right cosh for me, but they only had three varieties in stock, police issue rubbish from the United States. He tried to fob me off with a knuckle-duster, but knuckle-dusters are gauche whatever colour they are.

I don’t want a knuckle-duster, I want a cosh. And not just any cosh. I want the cosh that Harrods would sell me, if they had a branch in Colombia. A cosh that Princess Diana would not have been ashamed to club photographers with.

“You’re not going to see the Duchess of Devonshire wearing a knuckle-duster, you know what I mean?” I said to Pancho, the salesman. He didn’t have an answer to that one.

If a murderer comes round my house this evening I guess I’ll just have to make the best of a bad do and throw plates at him.

POPULAR MYTHS REFUTED

2010-01-05T04:20:00.003+01:00

“Shutting windows when you go out makes it harder for burglars to get in,” says Bystander, citing Her Majesty’s Government.

This simply isn’t true.

According to rogue economist Steve Levitt, there is no correlation between a window being open and a toe-rag climbing through it.

Money spent on windows might be better spent on tennis courts, Levitt argues in his book Freaking Idiots, since people wearing tennis shorts are only one fifteenth as likely to rob houses as non-tennis players are.

Or perhaps a dog would defend your house from burglars? Nothing could be further from the truth.

“A cat is 37 times more likely to bite a burglar than a dog is,” Levitt refutes. “A dog is more likely to bite its owner.” Money spent on dogs might be better spent on roller-skates, Levitt argues.

Statistically, a burglar is more likely to tread on a roller-skate, fly through a window and fracture his pelvis, than he is to be bitten by a cat, Levitt points out in his paper The Impact Of Sandwich Fillings On Prison Population: A Response To Pappenhacker and Stoat.

Levitt, hard at work debunking stuff.

2010-01-04T03:50:00.000+01:00

Fucking telephone gets on my tits, ringing and dinging all the time.

STOP PICKING ON THE STASI

2009-12-19T19:23:00.006+01:00

The Stasi have been getting a bad press lately, especially in readers’ comments in The Guardian. They’re all, ooh, I got fined for feeding the ducks, the British police are turning into the Stasi. The Bitish police are photographing enemies of the party just like in East Germany.

This is absurd. As well as suppressing dissidents, the Stasi also suppressed wrongdoers and bad apples. They did some fine police work. Life in DDR wasn’t many laughs, but it was safe to walk the streets.

Say what you like about police states, but they do at least have low crime rates.

In Britain we have managed to combine Singaporean levels of mindless niggling harassment with South American levels of crime.

-“Help! Police! There’s an intruder in my house.”

-I’m sorry, we’d love to help. But all our officers are cunting around in a field in Wiltshire, talking photos of some hippies.”

That’s a word-for-word transcript of a conversation I had with them last week. I’m just glad I don’t pay my taxes.

Some bad apples recently.

2009-11-28T20:43:00.003+01:00

I was cycling round London the other day when I noticed that someone has built a hulking great wheel by the Thames, right opposite parliament. Seriously, what will those arseholes think of next? Look out for it, next time you’re in London. It's right next to County Hall. You can’t miss it.

Is a huge wheel supposed to inspire us, or cheer us up? I never heard such nonsense.

Future archeologists will no doubt lump it with Stonehenge, Avebury and the chalk horses, as having some kind of cultural or religious importance. No one will guess that it signifies absolutely bugger all.

LITTLE VICTORIES

2009-11-17T12:13:00.011+01:00

"A council today defended its decision to fine a young mother £75 for feeding bread to birds while visiting a park's duck pond with her 17-month-old son."

Man, I would love nothing more than for a warden with no powers of arrest to try to fine me. The sheer joy of taunting such a person would put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. If I could taunt a smoking inspector as well, sleep with the Russian women’s gymnastics team, punch Tony Blair on his ears and eat dim sum, all at the same time, that would be the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

I was on my bike in Hyde Park a couple of months ago and one of Blunkett’s scruffy twat-style police officers shouted at me that there was a £200 fine for not sticking to the cycle path. But she was on foot, and I was on a bike, so I just kept right on going. Didn’t even speed up. My spirits soared when I thought of the impotent rage she must have felt.

I even woke up in the middle of the night and felt a wave of euphoria as I remembered my victory. I jumped out of bed and punched the air in triumph, shouting, “Yes! Yes! One-nil!”

IRONY CAN BE PRETTY IRONIC SOMETIMES

2009-11-02T15:18:00.007+01:00

The head of the Campaign for a Safe Caracas has been shot dead in Caracas.

Earlier this year, a team from National Geographic was in Colombia making a film about the country’s “secure highways” initiative. It almost goes without saying that they got carjacked.

Apart from getting robbed blind by its thieving inhabitants, the journalists found Colombia to be a country marvellous for its peoples, its customs, its festivals and its landscapes, the article says.

KILLER FACT!

2009-10-26T20:46:00.001+01:00

Smokers die younger than oak trees.

ALL TOBACCONISTS ARE FASCISTS

2009-10-20T21:24:00.009+01:00

Just went through the leaked BNP membership list to check if my local tobacconist was on it. He wasn't, but I came across this guy:

Rev John Stanton
Rochford
Essex
Activist. Ex-Conservative and then Lib-Dem councillor, ex-chairman of local Green Party and UKIP member. Minister of Religion. Cert. Ed. Hobbies: steam railways

There are apparently eleven BNP members in my constituency, including four student documentary-makers, two undercover reporters, one police spy, two anti-fascist campaigners, and two actual fascists.

2009-10-20T17:56:00.004+01:00

Via Old H

THE SLAPPERS IN CLOSETS ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST

2009-10-19T19:57:00.005+01:00

Shakira’s new video She Wolf is as subtle and rich in meaning as a Garcia Marquez novel, but I’m afraid that, like a Garcia Marquez novel, a lot of it went over my head.

For example, that glistening pink cavern she dances around is obviously a metaphor for something. But what?

“There’s a she-wolf in the closet...”

In Colombia, a she wolf –una loba- is a woman of easy virtue, a slapper. “There’s a slapper in the closet.” This is excellent news, if true, even if it’s only a metaphorical slapper in the closet of life type of situation.

Cultured Dan, an appalling oaf in my office, argued that this song “mucho sucks”, but said that, despite this, he would be prepared to give the pint-sized Colombian crooner one up the gary, if called upon to do so.

Peals before swine. See what I have to put up with?

2009-10-05T22:41:00.002+01:00

To Berlin, for the opening of Wolfgang's Waffle Bar in Potsdamer Platz. On the way back to the hotel I ran into a demonstration against nuclear power, and, not having anything more pressing to do, walked along with it for a while.

Germany has never been known as the land of the friendly policeman, but they are charm itself compared to ours. No scowling fluorescent apes with clubs, no “intelligence” teams pointing telephoto lenses at you, no helicopters or sirens, no officious twerps searching people. All my experience of cops in recent years has been in banana republics like England and Colombia, where the police hate the public and the public hate the police. I had forgotten what a non-malevolent Western democracy feels like.

I soon got bored, though.

2009-09-24T23:09:00.004+01:00

Yet another article about Smeato. The guy punches one burning terrorist and suddenly he’s a hero. But what was Mr Smeato doing when the Arabs struck? Loafing, having a cigarette. To me, the real heroes are the baggage handlers who were handling baggage. They are the ones who should get medals.

As far as I’m concerned, Smeato can punch as many terrorists he pleases in his free time, but not when he’s meant to be working. It’s any excuse for a fight with these people.

COMMUTER DIARY

2009-09-21T07:58:00.003+01:00

Sitting on the train with my iPod turned up full, listening to Move Bitch by the rapper Ludacris, with my finger tips pressed together and my eyes closed in rapture as if it were a Bach cantata. Excellent, I think it’s annoying the other rail users.

Ooh, look at that guy with the Mac. He seems to be hard at work on an important presentation. In a minute I’m going roll up a copy of Metro and take a swipe at an imaginary wasp, and accidentally smite him on his ear. That will show him.

UPDATE!
Here.

THE BIG THREE SEVEN

2009-09-10T21:22:00.006+01:00

I helped an old lady with her suitcase the other day. She said, “Thank you. I’m 110.” My niece tells people with great pride that she is nearly 6.

But when I tell people I am 37, they are not interested.

Looking back on my life, I would say that there have been two great world-historical changes: the Soviet Union fell, and women started shaving their bits.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall was breached and East Germans poured through to be met by cheering West Germans on the other side. The Cold War was over.

And look at this photo of Madonna from 1985. Shocking, isn’t it? Yet our homo erectus ancestors would not have raised an eyebrow at Madonna’s bush. They would have found it to be much as they expected. To them –and to the Victorians, and the Tudors– that was simply what it looked like, and always had. A design classic. Who could have forseen, when that picture was taken, that 100,000 years of history were about to come to an end?

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.

I suppose the great sorpasso must have happened in the final years of John Major’s government*, when, for the first time in history, it became more surprising to see one that hadn’t been…

And, of course, Nelson Mandela got released, and South African grapefruit was back on the menu. Under the old apartheid laws, Mandela served 27 years on Robben Island for riding a bicycle without lights, whereas a white man would probably have been let off with a fine.

The Berlin Wall, Mandela, Madonna’s bush… Like a jigsaw, all the pieces fall into place as you get older. Then, just when you are finally starting to make sense of it all, you die.

*Correct me if I am wrong about the dates. God knows, I am hardly the go-to guy on this subject. You might want to double check with David Mellor or Heff or someone.

2009-08-29T23:56:00.005+01:00

Like everyone else in my generation, I have no idea where I was when I heard the news that Edward Kennedy had died. I can't even remember what town I was in.

OPEN LETTER TO THE PEASANTS OF HONDURAS

2009-08-25T21:05:00.006+01:00

Dear Peasants,
I don’t want to give you compassion fatigue or anything, but try to see it from my point of view.

I haul my weary carcass out of bed each day before I am rested, and get on a train with the other lame-os. Most days there are signal failures. I don’t know where they buy their signals, or why they can’t get some that work, but there you go. Some days the driver stays in bed with a bad back. No doubt you have such trains in Honduras.

Sooner or later the train will show up, if I stand there long enough, and I’ll waste the rest of the day in some stinking office up a tower, surrounded by oafs, scrotes, scrubbers, louts, buffoons, toadies, tossers, illiterates and football fans.

Mine is a pig’s life.

At lunch I sit in the shopping precinct and eat my sandwiches, washed down with five or six tins of cider. And as I eat my sandwiches and drink my cider, I open The Guardian, and see that there has been another military coup in Honduras. Or perhaps it’s the same coup as the one a couple of months ago. It is hard to keep track. Someone must know.

Either way, there doesn’t seem to be much that I can do about it, since Honduras is more than 100 miles away, and my influence there is limited. But reading about it has depressed me even more, and I was already as miserable as hell. The train, the office, the shopping precinct, Honduras… wherever one looks, this world is just a vale of tears.

Then I go back to the office, lock myself in the stationary cupboard and sob for twenty minutes, about Honduras and about my life.

I would be happy to donate £10 for the oppressed peasants of the Andes, or wherever it is, but I’m not going to read about it anymore.

I got my own troubles, Honduras.

Good luck!

2009-08-13T21:09:00.001+01:00

How is it that NASA can put Americans on the moon, while in this country Sainsburys cannot even make a soup container that doesn’t explode like a ^#&*ing hand grenade when you open it?

As I type this, with tomato pulp all down my new suit, I do not love my country any less. But we have to be honest about our failings. As Benjamin Franklin said, the true patriot is the man who complains all the time.

On second thoughts, to hell with this country and its exploding soups. If Gordon Brown hasn’t sorted this by Christmas, I’m emigrating to Canada.

THE PANT-WETTERS OF GATWICK

2009-07-26T12:18:00.000+01:00

A fire alarm in Gatwick airport. No one took it seriously. You’re dealing with people who think a tube of sun cream is a threat to the flight, so when they tell you there’s an emergency you think, "Yeah, yeah. Fuck off." I wanted to stay in the departure lounge and explain to someone in charge that I was ignoring their alarm, that they had blown their credibility when they confiscated my nail scissors, and that if I got I roasted alive it would be their fault.

But, of course, there was no fire. For the hundredth time, they were just dicking me around.

BLACKMAIL

2009-07-12T23:45:00.013+01:00

If I worked for the Foreign Office in Russia I would probably spend half my salary on blackmail payments. My heart is bleeding for James Hudson, the British diplomat filmed with a pair of local tarts by Russian spies. Like most of these sex scandals it reflects terribly on everyone except the man at its centre.

Shame on the Russians, who still live in the same spy-infested tyranny they had in Peter the Great’s day. Shame on the smirking tossers who put the clip on the internet. Shame on his sanctimonious vindictive ratbag of an ex-wife. Shame on me, who searched for the clip on Google. And shame on Pizza Hut, who put my bodyweight in pizza leaflets through the door each month. They are not directly involved in this case, but damn them to hell.

What was he supposed to on his own on a wet afternoon in central Russia, thousands of miles from his friends and family? Read an improving book? Buy some fruit and learn to juggle? Apparently Yakaterinburg is known for its theatres, but how many gloomy Russian plays can one stand in a weekend? He’d have shot himself, sooner or later.

Were they underage? Did he mistreat them? Leave him alone, then.

CALIFORNIA'S CREDIT RATING SLASHED ON BRITNEY ENGAGEMENT

2009-07-07T21:43:00.005+01:00

The state's debt rating was slashed to near-junk this week after the princess of pop was spotted with a massive sparkler on her wedding finger.

Californians should do what their forefathers did when times got hard: go west.

BROWN’S BRITAIN

2009-07-05T22:30:00.004+01:00

-Graduates of mediaeval history reduced to working as pimps.

-Wiltshire Police acquire a spy drone and use it to photograph some hippies. (This was by Jeremy Clarkson in The Sunday Times, so it may well be untrue.)

-And this is simply the most retarded thing I have read in my life.

KRUGMAN’S CAT

2009-07-04T16:18:00.002+01:00

Krugman has posted a photo of his cat on the New York Times website. It is just the sort of cat you would expect Krugman to have, all snooty and superior-looking. Acting like it won the Nobel Prize.

I am Krugman’s Russian Blue,
Pray tell me, sir, whose cat are you?

It is no secret that Krugman and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on the issues. He thinks we need a $28 trillion fiscal stimulus, for instance, whereas I believe that you don’t need a fiscal stimulus if you’ve got Jesus.

And there are those who say that this is a debate between one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, and Krugman, sparring as equals. Let us not drag families and pets into this clash of the heavyweights, they say. Leave the cat out of it.

But wait a minute. Once the Clintons appeared in public with their 13-year old daughter, the rules changed. She became public figure, and Rush Limbaugh could call her a dog with a clear conscience.

Sorry, but if Krugman is going to use his cat to bolster his public image, there is no reason why I cannot call his cat a dog, and write ad felinium attacks mocking and denouncing the animal.

As far as I’m concerned, it is open season on Krugman’s cat.

HE TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF SIMPLETONS EVERYWHERE

2009-06-26T07:32:00.005+01:00

Michael Jackson is dead, but his songs will always be with us. So will he, in fact: he's made of plastic.

Obviously I had grown out of that crap by the time I went to secondary school, but I know you simple folk used to like him, and I respect your simple tastes. Some of his early stuff was good.

Whatsa matter you? Hey!
Why you looka so sad? Hey!
Gotta no respecca...

That song helped me through a lot of difficult times, though I don't know if I would use the word genius.

No display of ass-hattery will be judged excessive in the coming days. If Blair himself read a prayer at Jackson's funeral then led the congregation in an embarrassing dance, I would hardly wince.

HUGH GRANT

2009-06-11T20:18:00.005+01:00

With typically English understatement he hoofed a photographer in the testicles.

If it weren’t for that man the foreigners would have realised years ago how violent and uncouth the British are. We could reel their streets at noon, smashing up bars and vomiting into the fountains, but there was always Hugh Grant with his floppy haircut, making out that we’re a nation of weedy booksellers.

Now that even Hugh Grant is snarling and taking socks at people, perhaps the truth will dawn.

2009-06-04T22:56:00.003+01:00

There are only two things in this world I hate: R n’ B singers, and the people who hide them.

These people are trying to claim that the British National Party (the B n’ P) want to ban R n’ B and replace it with Chas n’ Dave. The idea being, I suppose, that millions of Whitney Houston fans will Unite Against Fascism.

Now you is just the kinda girl to break my heart in two,
I knew right off when I first clapped my eyes on you,
But how was I to know you'd bend my earholes too?

You know who else liked Chas n’ Dave? Himmler.

Chas n’ Dave, Whitney Houston, Himmler, the BNP… it is hard to take these people seriously.

DE MENEZES, JAQUI SMITH

2009-05-27T20:45:00.000+01:00

The boys in blue have complementary opposing forces up the yin yang.

THE SOAP YOU CAN BELIEVE IN

2009-05-26T22:23:00.001+01:00

Needing some Daz! for the washing machine I left the house and proceeded in a disorderly manner to the shop on the corner. It was shut.

I have started my own Twitter account. Now you can follow the minutiae of my dull lifestyle minute by minute, and share the tedium with me in real time as my life unfolds, or folds up.

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY

2009-05-25T20:39:00.001+01:00

Nobody came in, nobody called, nothing happened, nobody cared whether I died or went to El Paso.

(Raymond Chandler, The High Window)

2009-05-06T22:39:00.000+01:00

Today is Tony Blair’s birthday. If there were any justice he would be shot like a pig and hung upside down like Mussolini. But not on his birthday! I hope you’ll join with me in wishing him a very special day with his friends and family. We can always shoot him like a pig and hang him upside down tomorrow.

HAIKU

2009-04-21T18:47:00.001+01:00

Do not whinge about
Signal failures at Balham.
Turn puce with fury.

NORMAN CONQUEST DENIERS

2009-04-19T12:13:00.001+01:00

Tim Worstall is banging on about something called the “Anti-Gallican League.”

“Dedicated to such absurd ideas as keeping French products, French dancing masters, French garlic and French “frickasees” out of a proper plain beef-eating nation...”

There used to be a movement called Saxonism which wanted to turn English back to a Germanic language. The tiresome sods wanted everyone to say “sunprint” instead of “photograph”; “tonewright” for “composer”; “birdlore” for “ornithology”; “bendsome” instead of “flexible”.

But there is no Saxon word for vol-au-vent and the movement collapsed in ignominy. And you have to admit that French phrases have a certain I-don’t-know-what. Saxonism got nowhere.

2009-04-18T15:52:00.006+01:00

The I-R.A.S.C is simple, consisting of a circle of infra-red LEDs mounted on a headband. The infra red will cause CCTV cameras to flare out over the face of the wearer...

Gonna order one of these. You can make your head look like a burning ball of magnesium when you are waiting for the train.

Meanwhile, high above, Blair is circling the earth in his space rocket. He bangs his little fists on the monitors and howls with impotent rage when he realises you have defeated him.

.

2009-04-15T23:18:00.007+01:00

Fritzl, who turned 74 on Thursday, has been pestering the family he had with his wife Rosemarie to visit him behind bars so he can "reconcile" with them.

Some of the stuff said about Fritzl recently would be considered highly offensive if you said it about the Irish.

The Irish lock their daughters in underground cellars and rape them. The Irish hide their evil old faces behind blue folders.

If I said stuff like I’d probably be arrested under the Nanny State’s bonkers Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which makes it illegal to murder people for their religious beliefs.

But wait a minute! What are the police arresting me for? I’m not the one who raped his daughter. I’m not even Irish! Why aren’t they out there on the streets, trying to catch Fritzl?

The world’s gone mad.

THIS COUNTRY HAS REALLY GONE TO THE DOGS SINCE JADE GOODY DIED

2009-04-06T23:23:00.006+01:00

Yesterday was the last day you could use the internet without the stinking government spying on you. In future I shall check my emails in a series of internet cafés, wearing a Mexican sombrero and dark glasses.

London is the most hellish place I have ever visited. Last time I counted there were five CCTV cameras pointed directly at my front door. These days you would need to be mad –literally insane- to travel on the Underground without a Mexican sombrero.

“Please report any suspicious behaviour to a member of staff.” Whenever I see one of their members of staff I take him to one side and whisper that some fucker keeps filming me. And you have to admit that’s suspicious.

Now when I travel I buy a ticket with my credit card then I pay cash for another ticket heading in the opposite direction. Last weekend, for example, I wanted to visit my old Mum in Norfolk, but I didn’t want the government to know that. So I bought a ticket to Scotland, sending the police haring off in the wrong direction, while I concealed myself in Tie Rack. Then, when the coast was clear, I boarded the Norfolk train wearing a false beard.

And the beauty of the scheme is that my mother doesn’t even live in Norfolk. It was somebody else’s mother! I am outwitting them at every turn.

Fritzl's Approval Ratings Fall Below Brown's

2009-03-31T20:02:00.005+01:00

The approval ratings of Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl have fallen below Gordon Brown's according to a Daily Mirror YouGov poll published today which suggests that Brown would win a 20-seat majority at the next election if the Conservative Party were led by Fritzl.

Just over 7% of those polled said they were satisfied with the prime minister’s performance, compared to 3% for Fritzl, and 11% for burglars. Brown must hold an election by June 2010 or declare himself Lord Protector.

The imprisonment and rape of his daughter may be taking a toll on Fritzl's approval ratings, particularly among women voters, the survey found. The Prime Minister scored higher than Fritzl on law and order and family values, though voters trusted Fritzl more to manage the economy.

Brown, who repeatedly raped the British economy during a horrific 12-year ordeal, has seen his approval ratings fall below Nigerian spammers and dog arsonists, though he retains a narrow lead over the Liberal Democrats.

Related articles:
Miliband puts butt-plug on expenses
Opinion: Can handjobs survive without state subsidy?

BLAIR MUST HANG

2009-02-22T12:56:00.004+01:00

Interesting piece in The Times about what Bomber Blair is up to these days. As you know, my campaign to have him hanged has yet to bear fruit, though these are early days, and after he resigned as PM he started looking around for new ways of “making the world a better place”.

The UN, the European Union, the United States and Russia appointed him Peace Envoy for the Middle East, and within a few months the locals were tearing each other limb from limb, much as I expected.

How did he do it? “I was on the phone to the Arabs, the Americans and the Israelis and the Americans the whole time,” he explains.

Even by his own standards, he has done a marvellous job as Peace Envoy. Really first-class.

In January 2008, J P Morgan Chase took him on as an advisor, plunging the bank into a crisis from which it may not recover. “Our firm will benefit greatly from his knowledge and experience", they said. Over the next year the share price halved and profits plunged by more than 80%, much as I expected.

Now he’s helping to modernise Rwanda. Woe to that land that appoints Blair to modernise it! His normal way of expressing concern is to send the RAF to destroy their infrastructure. I don’t know what precise form the catastrophe in Rwanda will take –could be genocide, could be a plague of frogs- but it will come. And if the Americans ever ask his advice on resolving the financial crisis he may yet succeed in ruining us all.

I honestly believe him to be insane. And the fact that this very dangerous lunatic is still poking his nose into the Middle East shows that Blair remains one of the most serious threats to our national security, and that his arrest and execution should be matters of the highest priority.

Fucking nutcase.

SNOW DIARY

2009-02-02T21:47:00.006+01:00

-I’m supposed to be doing some stuff in London today, but the snivelling tossers cancelled all the trains and buses because there was a bit of snow. On the bright side, shutting down our financial services industry for a day will save the country billions.

-Some kids down the street built a gigantic snow cock. It was mighty witty, I’m not denying it, though the effort / benefit ratio was huge. They must have spent hours on it.

-Some Venezuelan ditz in London sent me a message complaining about the English climate. What did she expect? Tropical breezes? The stupid cow.

-The Guardian set up a live snow blog, which quickly got overrun with tiresome northerners saying that our snow is a poof, and congratulating themselves on living somewhere even more freezing and uninhabitable than London. Why does anyone stick it out up there? Do they enjoy all these gales and blizzards?

Take Scotland, for example. Everyone in Scotland has an EU passport. They don’t have to stay, which begs the question: why do they stay? Why does the entire population not re-locate to Tenerife?

-Some guy on The Guardian pulled rank on the northerners. Snow, you say? Well permit me, as a Canadian, to butt in here...

"... we've record amounts of snow in Toronto right now too... lots of driveway shoveling... ermmmm but yes we're used to it I guess (everyone has their own snow shovel.. indeed it's the standard big birthday present when you're 11..."

Digging snow out of your drive to get to work is very impressive, and makes you a real man. But to do this every day for three months because you lack the wit to move to a habitat fit for humans is the behaviour of a fuckhead.

MY BOY GEORGE VIDEO SHAME

2009-01-17T19:10:00.003+01:00

“Sex-crazed Boy George has been jailed for 15 months after he handcuffed a male escort to his bed and threatened: “You’re going to get it!”

Sounds like wholesome British fun to me, I don’t know why people can’t mind their own business. Like Big Sausage Pizza, chaining up rent boys and threatening them with dildos is good for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon, but these people who build their whole lifestyle around it give me the creeps.

Boy George is the only pop star I have ever met. When I was about 10 they bussed a load of kids my from school up to London to be in his video The War Song. I don’t know who organised it or why, but we were forced to dress up as skeletons and walk down a street to make some trite point about war being stupid.

In fact, he couldn’t have been more wrong. War is great, providing children with fresh air and healthy exercise. If it weren’t for war and the opportunities it gives them, Congolese children would be as fat and repulsive as our English bratties.

Not long after I appeared in his video, Mr Boy was in some kind of heroin scandal*. I don’t remember if he was arrested or if it was just a story in the papers, but he wrote a letter to our school apologising for letting us all down. I think he thought he was a role model for us, though before they forced me to be a skeleton in the man’s video I had never heard of him. One of the teachers read his letter out in assembly. It said something like, “Drugs are bad. Whatever you do, children, don’t spend 800 pounds a week on heroin.”

And to this day I have never spent 800 pounds a week on heroin.

I'm on at 3.13

*This was about 1982 or 1983. I can’t find anything about it on the internet, but it definitely happened, and I think that figure of 800 pounds a week is accurate.

2009-01-16T16:55:00.000+01:00

About a decade ago I conducted a survey on the wine and spirits trade in the Gaza Strip. Here are my findings.

BLOGGING IS FOR TOSSERS

2009-01-06T17:12:00.005+01:00

My post about Big Sausage Pizza has degenerated into a row about Jews and the Israel-Palestine question. This nuisance must now cease.

This is a web site, primarily, for the pizza-lover. People come here to read about pizza, cock-munching and things of that kind. They don’t want to have to wade though a lot of extraneous material about the Israeli Air Force.

As it happens I agree with Sol Kashberg, but what does he want me to do about it? Is he under the impression that my views carry great weight with the State Department and the Israeli High Command? I am one of the few people in the British bloggingsphere who has ever lived in the Gaza Strip, and I like to think that for once I am marginally less ignorant than average on the issue of the day. But mouthing off about it on the internet would only serve to confirm my own impotence, whereas by writing about Big Sausage Pizza I feel I can really make a difference.

Palestine is the happy hunting ground for minds that have lost their balance. Blogging is for tossers.

BIG SAUSAGE PIZZA

2009-01-01T04:09:00.002+01:00

Dost thou renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them?

If not, you may be interested to know that Big Sausage Pizza* volume 20 is out on DVD. A lot of people felt that the Big Sausage series lost its way after volume seven, but now they are back on track with a new director and some great new plots.

The key to writing a Big Sausage Pizza script, in my opinion, is finding a plausible scenario in which a man might wish to stick his genitals through a pizza in the first place, other than sheer horseplay.

In the old days, back in 2005, a pizza delivery boy in southern California would ring on the door, then a chick answers in a see-through dressing gown and says, hey, why don’t y’all carve a hole in this ole pizza, then y’all put your meaty sausage through it? Then the chick would invariably make some trite remark about how his “sausage” is even more mouth-watering than the pizza, delicious though the latter was.

But that just isn’t cutting it anymore. Real life simply isn’t like that.

The worst one was the one in which the guy shows up with a pizza but, wait a minute, these aren’t the toppings she ordered! The chick doesn’t like olives or something. So she threatens to have him fired, and he’s terrified of losing his job, so to placate her he makes a hole in the pizza and whips out his knob and says, “How about this topping?” Then she comes back with, “Here, let me give you your tip.” Preposterous.

That was volume 13, if memory serves.

*Hobby in which the man is fellated through a hole in a pizza, said to be the fastest-growing perversion in Canada.

2008-11-27T13:36:00.002+01:00

Sorry I haven’t updated. I spent the last three weeks getting drunk to celebrate the election of Joe Biden as America’s 47th white vice-president. I never thought I’d live to see the day. Me and some other whites went out for a drink, then after a few port and lemons Giles Poncington (a pasty acquaintance of mine) starts asking if Biden is white enough. This led to a sharp exchange of views with Biffo Dingethorpe, who argued that Boris Johnson is even whiter than Biden, and yet a bigger arse-head you shall not see in a summer’s day.

The discussion soon degenerated into a snarling melee between the Whites and the Very Whites, and to cut a long story short I just got out on bail this morning.

LIVEBLOGGING THE ELECTION

2008-11-05T01:58:00.037+01:00

8.01- Obama has won the first 1% of Indiana. Big whoop. Only a turkey would live in Indiana.

8.03- McCain wants to cut taxes for decent hard-working Americans. How right the Vietnamese were to bayonet him!

8.04- I went to Vietnam for a holiday and not once did I get bayoneted. Not once. The secret? I didn’t go around dropping bombs on them.

8.05- If there’s one thing I can't stand it’s decent hard-working Americans.

8.06- Indecent slothful Americans I don't mind so much.

8.07- Wolf Blitzer is pointing at a pie chart.

8.09- Wolf Blitzer. Morton Kondrake. Why do Americans have these fucking idiotic names?

8.20- What time is Obama going to make his moving speech? Obviously I hope he wins, though I know he’s going to spend the next four years getting on my tits. Bush has been more disastrous than a plague of locusts, but at least he didn’t go around boring everyone to death.

8.22- Bush! I'd forgotten all about that tosser.

8.23- You could release 1,000 gang bangers from US jails, give each banger a wrecking ball and tell him that he had 8 years to do as much wrecking as he pleased, and between them they would still do less damage than Bush has done.

8.26- And yet, the damage he caused wasn’t infinite. A million bangers with wrecking balls would be more ruinous even than Bush. So the amount of damage, measured in wrecking ball years must be some number in between. In principle it ought to be possible to arrive at a precise figure, had I but world enough and time.

8.35- Bush still has a 20% approval rating. Who are all these people who approve of him? Who look at the dog's breakfast he has made of everything and think, yes, of this I approve? President Bush, I salute you!

8.51- CNN is calling it for Obama. The question is no longer, “Is America ready for its first black president?" It is, “Is America ready for the assassination of its first black president?" (got that from Jeremy Hardy on the News Quiz)

8.59- "Jonah Goldberg, in his role as television-raised idiot manchild of The Right, has been posting weird movie clips all day." I pass this on, for anyone who is interested.

10.42- Obama has lost Arkansas. There is now no way for him to win, unless he takes Maine.

10.48- I'm calling it for Ralph Nader.

10.54- Pretty convenient old grandma Obama croaking the night before the election, wouldn’t you say? Not that I necessarily believe that there was any foul play.

10.59- Heaven knows, I’m no pinko. People who steal toffees would be flogged in the public square if I were in charge. And yet I have always felt the most boiling hatred for the Republican party.

11.02- Ha ha. McCain lost. What an arsehole. I'd like to pelt the cantankerous old git with fruit.

11.20- Michelle Malkin: "Here’s my promise to you: As long as I can still publish a blog and speak my mind openly about the next denizen of the White House, I will."

Malkin will not be muzzled. That's a load off my mind.

1.17- End live blogging. Off to Bedfordshire.

QUICK QUIZ

2008-11-02T19:55:00.000+01:00

Q. Which character in The Wire said, “I’m just a humble motherfucker with a big-ass dick?”

A. Trick question! It was Winston Churchill.

2008-10-15T16:03:00.001+01:00

Nouriel Roubini, the professor who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, said the U.S. will suffer its worst recession in 40 years, causing the rally in the stock market to "sputter".

I had my first jujitsu class today, to prepare for a future of fighting for bread crusts and potato peelings. I can now defend myself against a wheezing mendicant who attacks me in slow motion and tries to grab my lapels.

I’m going to get more than my share of crusts. Vote Republican, by the way.

2008-10-14T16:03:00.005+01:00

In a Lilliluptian act of malice, the Instapundit has posted a poll asking, “On a scale of insufferability, how much more insufferable will the Nobel make Paul Krugman?”

On a scale of pathetic that’s on a level with letting down Krugman’s bicycle tyres and running away sniggering, or shaving Krugman's cat.

That will show him!

NOBEL PRIZE FOR ECONOMICS

2008-10-13T16:49:00.004+01:00

I really thought I was in with a chance this year, but they gave it to Krugman.

OK, so Krugman is better than I am at economics, but I have had more women than he has. I don’t suppose I have had as many women as Shaggy, the popular entertainer, but Shaggy knows dick-all about trade theory. That thought is a great comfort to me.

When the media rank Krugman, Shaggy and me according to our various abilities I always come second, be it knowledge of trade theory, the number of scrubbers we have had, ability at reggae singing or wrestling skills. I come second in every instance.

-"What are you going to do to cash in on your newfound fame?"
-"I'm going to Disneyland!"

STOCKS END LOWER AFTER HOUSE OKAYS PLAN

2008-10-03T21:36:00.000+01:00

They reject the bill, the market goes down. They pass the bill, the market goes down. There’s no pleasing these cocksuckers.

ECONOMIC FORECAST

2008-10-03T17:50:00.000+01:00

Sooner or later they’ll pass their wretched bailout scheme and there will be a sucker rally for a while, then the market will start falling again, dozens of banks will go under, the dollar will hit parity with the Colombian peso, until eventually the last of the hedge fund managers is strangled by the guts of the last Republican. Then you should be able to pick up some nice recovery stocks, which should recover around the year 2080.

None of this affects me, of course, because I don’t have any money. I’m just going to point and laugh.

SITE OF THE DAY

2008-09-23T01:16:00.000+01:00

buymyshitpile.com

"Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off your hands."

I bought a house a couple of years ago, but I can’t sell it because I can't remember where it is. I think it’s in the West Country somewhere. Ah, fuck it. It’s only money.*

*Motto of the US Treasury.

THE GREAT NOSE JOB FAMINE

2008-09-20T18:08:00.002+01:00

The Wall Street Journal looks at the human cost of the financial crisis:

"A nose job in a hospital with a private nurse in attendance had been something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher's children. But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it. The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old's proboscis."

And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The central banks “pumped” $180 billion into the economy last week. If you divide that by 6 billion people in the world, about $30 of that should have been pumped at me, but wasn’t. Who got my share? I’ll tell you who. The whole $180 billion went to about 200 dickheads in New York who will fritter it all away on nose jobs and treasury bills and other vulgarities. Meanwhile I’m living in a Colombian hovel reduced to eating instant noodles to survive.

I wrote to Krugman demanding to know where that $180 billion is now, and why can’t I have some. But he’s being very cagey about it. No doubt he got his share.

It really gets my goat.

CREDIT CRISIS LATEST

2008-09-18T14:14:00.000+01:00

The dollar has been abolished. All money is now worthless.

2008-09-16T16:13:00.002+01:00

Since the credit crisis started I have been cramming my face with cheeseburgers. Now that I weigh 300lb the Federal Reserve will consider me Too Big To Fail.

Once again I have outwitted them.

DRESSAGE "AS DULL AS GOLF ITSELF"

2008-08-19T17:35:00.001+01:00

"Hong Kong's horse racing-mad population appear to have found the first day of Olympic equestrian competition a turn-off. Many of the initial 10,400 spectators fell asleep during the dressage events.

One of them told the city's Sunday Morning Post newspaper she was 'deeply bored.' 'The horses just walked from one side of the arena to the other and then back again,' she said.

‘I really don't think Hong Kong people will be interested in this.'

As the stands emptied, another spectator said: 'I expected to see horse racing. I have to say this is the most boring thing I've ever seen in my life.'"

Via Hemlock

Don't worry, horsey. The fat idiot will be getting off in a minute.

2008-08-17T19:31:00.006+01:00

An email arrives from the desk of Mr Usman Adama, accounts manager of an African bank. He says he recently came across a huge sum of money belonging to a deceased person who died in plane crash.

Yeah, yeah, you are thinking. Heard that one before. But hold your horses. What if this guy is on the level?

The tragedy is that these fraudsters are giving a bad name to all the honest Nigerians who need to use your bank account to deposit $80 million. No one will give them a fair hearing.

I think I’m going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt.

SCRIPT

2008-08-15T17:09:00.001+01:00

An airport. Man on a business trip waiting in line to go through metal detector. A plain clothes man approaches him, shows him some ID, and says, please, sir, come this way.

They sit in an office. Plain clothes guy explains that he is Colonel Cathcart, in charge of tightening up airport security. Can you help us? Do your bit in the War On Terror?

“What do you want?” says the man.

Plain clothes says, “We’re looking for civilians like you to try to get weapons on to planes, see if our people are awake. We want you to try to take this grenade through security. Hide it in your undies, let’s see if they find it. Relax, it’s not even a real grenade. I’ll be watching behind the two-way mirror. If they don’t find it, they’re going to get a real dressing down in my report for the Congressional Inquiry. Heads will roll.”

Man says, um, sure.

Man strolls through the metal detector, is wrestled to the floor and tasered.

“I’m part of the Congressional Inquiry. Ask Colonel Cathcart,” screams the man.

Cathcart appears. "I have never seen this man before in my life," he says.

Cell door slams shut. Man lies on the floor in an orange jump suit, weeping.

I was thinking of entering this as a short for the Slamdance festival. If any of you are American millionaires or Kuwaitis or whatever, could you get in touch? I reckon we can shoot the whole thing for less than it cost to make Terminator. Investors will get 50% of the profits or a bag of crisps, whichever is greater.

I expect I'll get Samuel L Jackson to play the Colonel. Do any of you happen to have his number? He cool.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2008-08-08T01:20:00.002+01:00

"Don’t stand there fuckin dinging the bell every fuckin two seconds. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Fuckin wrap it.”

Irascible Scotchman who drives a bus.

2008-07-29T18:18:00.004+01:00

Sending an email to Obama turns out to have been a mistake. They’ve been bombarding me with crap ever since. Here is this morning’s effort, supposedly from his wife:

My Backstage With Barack Story
H -- Barack likes to tell a story about the two of us standing backstage before his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

The way he tells it, he was too busy in the days before the convention to feel any pressure -- but about an hour before the speech, I could tell he was getting a little nervous.

To break the tension, right before he went out on stage I leaned in close and said, "Just don't screw it up, buddy."

We laughed. And then Barack brought the house down.

Make a contribution of $5 or more today and you could have your own Backstage with Barack story to tell.

---------

My Train Platform With Sir Walter Story
Dear Michelle— Nothing that interesting has ever happened to me, though I did once cross paths with someone quite famous!

I was standing on the platform at Darlington station in 1939, when I saw a well-known figure, reading The Times.

“Aren’t you Sir Walter Wommersly, the Minister for Pensions?” I inquired.

“Very much so,” Sir Walter replied, with a twinkle in his eye.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this train was late,” I joshed. And sure enough it was!

How we both laughed! Then five and a half years later, Herr Hitler committed suicide.

Tell Barack that if he wants to use that in his speeches, he can.