FESTIVE LINKS

Faces of Meth
Faces ravaged by meth use, many of them very ugly to begin with.

WhosaRat.com
Online database of snitches.

Idiots fighting in a garden
Does what it says on the tin.



A Face of Meth before and after. Or possibly vice versa.

I DESPAIR OF ENGLAND SOMETIMES

Christmas Eve. Back on the home acres. My father threatened to shoot me when I showed up, until I reminded him that I was his son.

"Ah, yes. You are the elder one, are you not? Or are you the one who went native at agricultural college? Anyway, come in, you squinting idiot. You want money, I suppose?"

He evicted old Longbottom from the his tied cottage this morning. He'd blundered into the bear traps we set for the poachers and lost a couple of limbs. "Damned annoying, of course," my father said, " but a double amputee is no damned use to me. The estate has to stand on its own two feet. Which is more than Longbottom can do, come to think of it...

"He stood there weeping in the drizzle with this ugly children and ugly dog, as the bailiffs did their work. Blubbering and snivelling like the worst kind of Spaniard. I despair of England sometimes."

On Monday we ride down to Somerset for the Boxing Day Badger Shoot. Tomorrow I'll probably just stay in and watch crap on the electric television. It's a family tradition.

The Sunday Times is selling champagne coolers made by Luo tribespeople* for £89.

Two thousand and six years ago Santa Claus was nailed to the cross, and they have turned his temple into a den of thieves. Christ, what arseholes.



*A tribe in Kenya. They settled on the shores of Lake Victoria where they live by fishing, and selling crap to Sunday Times readers.

HAPPY CRITMAS

A card arrives to “teacher Harry”, signed by all my students.

“Happy Critmas,” it says. “You is the best english teacher in the world.”

Apparently not, but thanks.

MORE AMERICAN MENTALISM

A 17-year-old in Georgia has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for getting a blowjob from a 15-year-old. That makes about as much sense as this video of singing cats.



You would think that maybe 8 years in jail would be enough to teach the lecherous young goat a lesson, but apparently not. He gets out in 2016.

Georgia’s state motto is "Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation". Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

(Cats via Tim Worstall and lysergic acid diethylamide.)

KILLER FACT!

Fewer than 1.4% of Iranians attend Friday prayers, according to Iran's Ministry Of Culture And Guidance. But 2.8% of Iranians are addicted to opiates.*

As in Britain, opium is the opium of the masses.

*It's on page 79 of the report.

GO AND FUCK YOURSELVES

Kos has won again in the North American Champion Bore Awards. The finalists were the same gits as last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. As a news source, there isn’t one of them that rises to the level of the Bournemouth Daily Echo, let alone the Cheddar Valley Gazette. And it’s not as if they have any other redeeming features. The Instapundit wrote 19 posts yesterday, but it doesn’t follow that he is doing anything useful.

I’ve had a gizzard full of these people. Blogs don’t have to be this dull, any more than phone calls have to be dull. I mean, it depends what you say. The problem is that Insta, Kos, Poweline, Malkin etc. set the tone because hundreds of thousands of cretins link to and imitate this solemn rubbish.

Malkin is from the Philippines; Kos is from Bolivia or some fucking hole; Reynolds is from the state of Tennessee, which is basically a bunch of idiots living in a giant rhombus. Legally they are American, but culturally they are Swiss.

What’s wrong with being Swiss? Listen, and I’ll tell you.

The Swiss are the world’s most miserable creatures. Baffled and affronted by anyone who tries to make a joke, they fanatically disapprove of any humour that rises above the level of a clown being hit with a broom, though if you spill soup down your shirt they will laugh. Incapable of joy, they devote their dismal lives to banking and endless niggling referendums. From time to time an Italian visitor will have his car clamped, or be fined for smoking: this provides the only sour amusement a Swiss ever experiences.

After a few decades of this he dies, and the cuckoo clock croaks its mournful music over his lifeless body.

Go and fuck yourself, if you are a blogger or a Swiss. A very Merry Christmas to everyone else.

THE CRIMINAL MIND

"THE bodies of two more victims of the Suffolk Ripper were found yesterday — taking the monster’s grim tally to FIVE."

Still no solid leads, but police have been working with criminal psychologists to build up a psychological profile of the killer.

“We seem to be dealing with some sort of nutter,” said Dr Keith Ashcroft, Professor of Forensic Psychology at the University of East Anglia. “A crazy strangler of the worst kind. Whoever is doing this is obviously completely off his chump, and I recommend they try to catch him as soon as possible.”

Suffolk’s Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter described the killer as “a ruddy lunatic”.

KILLER FACT!

5.5 million Britons have fled the country, their babies at their backs and their poor luggage, plodding to th’ ports and coasts for transportation...

I myself was forced into exile when militias loyal to Blair burned down my farm.

BRITONS ABROAD:
Australia- 1,300,000
Spain- 761,000
United States- 678,000
Canada- 603,000
Ireland- 291,000
New Zealand- 215,000
South Africa- 212,000
France- 200,000

I even met some in Cali the other day. These days, if you want to avoid the brutes you have to go to Bayswater.

POLAR CALENDAR

The 2007 Polar calendar is out (Venezuela’s main brand of beer).



In the real world, the more beer you drink the less you look like her, but this never seems to occur to anyone. I suppose they think something along the lines of, “Woman! Beer! Want!”

On the right is an actual beer drinker from real life. That's how you're going to end up, I'm afraid.

HOW TO BE A BURDEN AT SOCIAL OCCASIONS

"Jeanne Martinet, author of The Art of Mingling, offers insights for joining a conversation and making your way through the party."

Well I have some lines of my own, to neutralise her lines, and make sure the ice remains unbroken. Otherwise people like that will start telling you about their repulsive children, or trying to make jokes.

-“How's life?”
-“Shite, as usual.”

-“How do you know the host [hostess]?”
-“I’m his probation officer.”

-“This music reminds me of my childhood.”
-“I don’t care. I wish I was dead.”

"Am I interrupting something confidential?"
-“Go and boil your head.”

-“Isn't this mousse delicious?”
-“I hate kids. Hate them. And yet I’m a teacher. Ironic, isn’t it? Fucking ironic. And do you know why I hate kids? Listen, and I’ll tell you...” (By this time they will be trying to escape, but I, having foreseen this, am tugging their sleeve.)

Another tactic is to be even more boring than they are. So if they start going on about about cars, you up the ante by talking about telegraph poles. I have also memorised a large number of facts about carpets.

COLOMBIA, A YEAR IN REVIEW

From today's El Tiempo:

"The dollar is down; tourism is up; unemployment, sexual activity, the sale of motorbikes and embezzlement of public funds are all up."

A confusing picture, but one thing is clear: there has never been a better time to be a sexually-active embezzler who is shorting the dollar, especially if you own a coconut stand. It's all going their way at the moment.

HERBERT BUSH DOES A PALTROW

'TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Former president George H.W. Bush broke down in tears as he cited his dimwit son, Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example of leadership.'

The thing I most admire about the United States is the way a grown man can blubber and snivel at a public event, and be widely applauded for it. One minute he’s praising his gormless offspring, the next he’s crying like a baby. By the time this embarrassing display was over, many in the audience were openly weeping too. I am sure many of them found it genuinely moving.

If you behaved like that in England, there would be a kind of frozen disgust, as people began inching towards the door. Whereas in Australia they’d let out a great roar at him –He’s a loony! Let’s get him!- and pelt the poor man with fruit.

There's a video, if you can stand it.

YOU ARE A ONE WITHOUT FRIENDS

Going back to Mud Island in a few days. Me and my friend Ollie are applying for an Arts Council grant for a project we’re doing.

We’re going to put posters with mysterious words and symbols around the London School of Economics, and people will wonder what it can mean. Then we put up more posters, but these ones have a website written underneath, and when they visit the website it insults LSE students in sounds and visuals.

Some of it is traditional Scottish insults such as, “Fuck off, ya scrawny wee poof,” and there will also be a recording in an Arabic accent with really lame insults like, "You are a one without friends" and "I hope you are unsuccessful in your studies.”

Let me know if you want to get involved.

TRUE STORY

A few years ago a Russian friend of mine was poisoned in central London. He became violently ill after eating at one of those mobile burger vans. He wasn’t a dissident or anything.

NEPHEW NOT A POOF

This is my new nephew, Des or Baz or Jez, or something. Or Peregrine.

He’s five days old already. They do grow up fast, don’t they? It seems like only yesterday that he was four days old.

No sign of him being a poof yet, thank God.


UPDATE! To protect the infant's privacy, I have replaced his photo with a photo of Paul Hogan, the well-known heterosexual.

KILLER FACT!

The Lunacy Act of 1890 gave mental hospitals the power to detain "lunatics, idiots and persons of unsound mind". The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 increased these powers, establishing a Board of Control to monitor asylums.

How do you go about getting someone sectioned these days? If I gave them an anonymous tip-off that my father was a fruitcake, do you think they’d send a van? Or would I have to provide video evidence of him roaring and throwing potatoes at the neighbours?

IDIOTS!

"Two more attempts to regain contact with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft failed this week."

Ha ha. Stupid Americans can’t even send a spaceship to Mars without fucking it up.

It’s hardly rocket science.

FOOTBALLER, OF ALL PEOPLE, CHARGED WITH ASSAULT

A sad day for sport. The ugly spectre of violence has erupted into football's hushed cloisters:

"West Ham defender Anton Ferdinand has been charged with assault and violent disorder."

Nothing could be more alien to the spirit of this wonderful game than a sordid punch-up in a nightclub, but once again a tiny majority of vicious psycopaths is letting everyone down. There must be literally tens of football players who aren’t drunken thugs and wife-beaters.

It is time for them to speak out. Because if this is how the players behave then before you know it West Ham fans might also become violent and disorderly.


Has football lost its innocence?

KILLER FACT!

Parmesan cheese accounts for 10 per cent of thefts from Italian shops —more than any other good.

'GREATEST LIVING ECONOMIST' NOW 28th GREATEST DEAD ONE

Milton Friedman has been killed by stingray, following a titanic underwater struggle.

"Milton was one of the great thinkers and economists of the 20th century," said Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose films include Conan the Destroyer and Twins.

Should we let the invisible hand caress our organ of government, as Friedman argued, or should we reintroduce the Golden Age of Steam? What do you think?

	Allow invisible hand to caress organ of government
	Re-introduce Golden Age of Steam
Free polls from Pollhost.com

QUEEN RECALLS PARLIAMENT

I can recall parliament, too. It’s that large neo-gothic building full of freaks, next to the river. I just wish I could recall why I bought this porcelain badger on eBay. A fat fucking lot of good that did me.





And speaking of no use at all, John Reid says that "security in a fast-changing world" will be the central theme of the Queen's Speech. "Mr Reid said security from the front room to the global level will be addressed in the next parliamentary session."

I really feel sorry for the Queen, having to read this hogwash.

DOWNFALL OF AN EVIL GENIUS

A Wisconsin master criminal has been arrested for passing a fake $20 bill. Eagle-eyed sales clerk Teresa Wells first suspected skulduggery when she noticed it was made of photocopier paper, and was blank on one side. Apart from that, it was indistinguishable from the real thing.

In Wisconsin, this person is known as The Phantom.



(Via fark.com)

ARMY BOXER, 67, BEATS THIEVES

How is it that every old man who gets mugged these days turns out to be a former boxing champion, or martial arts instructor for the SAS? It’s starting to get on my nerves. Just once I would like to read that a gang of youths set upon an old man who wasn’t a kung fu champion, gave him a good beating, then ran off with his stuff.

An 87-year-old former British karate champion got a nasty surprise Thursday, when he tried to take on a gang of fit young men who attacked him near his home.

"He picked on the wrong muggers,” said gang-leader Terry Scrote (19). “His geriatric martial arts skills were no match for our baseball bats, and he got a real pasting.”

From Hot Chicks With Douchebags.com:



Amazing, isn’t it? I mean, how does someone this twerpish-looking get women like that?

That’s not a criticism, by the way. It’s a serious question. I genuinely want to know how. He could scarcely look more foolish if he wore a pair of moose antlers. What can he possibly have said to them?








(Via Abandon all fear)

THE ANDREW SULLIVAN HOAX

I had a traditional upbringing by neo-Nazi Scottish crofters in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. While I often disagree with whatever Andrew Sullivan is saying –indeed, the opposite is usually the case- I have tremendous admiration for his courage, honesty, clarity of vision, etc. However, his ‘emails of the day’ are obvious hoaxes:

8.11.06- I'm a 29 year old, lifelong conservative Republican, and Roman Catholic from Pennsylvania. I'm not sure I agree with you 100% on everything, but I appreciate your intellectual honesty...

7.11.06- I was raised in an Irish-Catholic New Deal family... I appreciate your clarity, honesty and dedication to humane values...

2.11.06- I am an upper middle class, stay at home wife and mother of 2. All my life, I have believed in working hard, paying our own way and voting Republican ... but I just don't see how I can at this point in time. Watching you on CNN was a great relief...

30.10.06- I have lived my entire life in the south... You have broken the mold of what I consider to be a conservative and have helped me realize that there is hope to once again unite this country.

28.10.06- I am a proud Liberal and as such, you and I don't agree on some points. However, my observations of you are that above being a Traditional Conservative you are first a Realist and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that.

15.10.06- I grew up in a small town, raised conservative Christian by conservative and amazing parents, turned out gay... Although i don't always agree with you, I always find your opinions insightful.

13.10.06- My entire family is reading your book together, we're giving each other until Thanksgiving when we can all get together and talk about it.

I’ve been around a bit, seen a few things, but I have honestly never met anyone who talks like this. The guy who appreciates Sullivan’s dedication to humane values actually said that Sullivan and his blog have given him a sense that there is a light at the end of this tunnel of political darkness.

I simply do not believe that Andrew Sullivan and his blog have given this man a sense that there is light at the end of this tunnel of political darkness. Nor do I necessarily believe that Sullivan writes them all himself, though it is clear they are all the work of a sole lunatic.

Who he is, or what drives him (other than his own madness) I don’t know. It’s a pretty dull mystery, as mysteries go.

DEMOCRATS HAVE 49 POINT LEAD, SAY POLES

Atrios has published some posts on his blog just days before the congressional elections. You have to admit, the timing is suspicious.

The Democrats have a 49 point lead, according to the Poles. But what the hell do the Poles know about it? And why are they always poking their noses in?

There are now more than a million Poles in the UK, according to my evil old father. I really like them, though I don’t much care for him. As far as I’m concerned, they are welcome. Where I draw the line is a Turk.

Anyway, so this guy walks down the street with a long stick. Someone says, “Are you a pole vaulter?”

“No, I’m a German. How did you know my name was Valter?”

Ba doom, ba doom, tish!



UPDATE! When I said the Democrats have a 49 point lead, I was obviously referring to their lead over the Welsh Nationalists. Their lead over the Republicans is less solid, more like 13%.

"DEFIANT TO THE END, SADDAM SHOUTS AT JUDGE"

That guy's got serious issues, always yelling and angry. He needs to learn to control his temper, before it gets him into trouble.

He could learn a lot from my father's friend Derek. When he was suffering from stress, he didn't shout at judges, or order massacres. You know what Derek did? He would take the phone of the hook for five minutes and walk around his office, juggling fruit. He made millions.

But are they right to hang Saddam Hussein, of previous good character, for a first offence? Will the death penalty deter other people from committing genocide? It will be egg on face time if they string him up, then it turns out they got the wrong guy.

REPORTER DROWNED LIKE CAT

Is it acceptable to waterboard the Fox News reporters who threaten our way of life? Many would argue, yes, drown them like mangy cats. They don't respect the Geneva Conventions, so why should we?

Others would say that this only makes us as bad as them. If in fighting Fox News reporters we become Fox News reporters ourselves, then the Fox News reporters have won, type of thing.

Maybe they thought they would get valuable information out of him. Fat chance of that. Information given under torture, and on Fox News, is notoriously unreliable.



Is it better that millions of innocent people get wiped out by a suitcase nuke, or that Japanese women put cats in their mouths? Skip that, that was a dumb question.

Incidentally, this is what your cat would do to you, if he were big enough. Never forget that.

FUN AND SUNSHINE: THERE'S ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE

A beautiful tropical evening, here on the Colombian coast. This is life as it should be lived. Cocktail in hand, breezes coming in off the sea, and the murderous pounding of reggaeton through the floorboards. I like to see the young people enjoying themselves. Shakespeare put it best when he said, 'Fun and sunshine: there's enough for everyone.' A couple of people just had a fight outside my hotel door. Some harpy kept shrieking, 'Let go of his leg.'

There must have been some kind of dispute, which resulted in someone’s leg getting seized. Life is often like that.

A beautiful evening on Colombia's coast, and not even Mrs Thatcher can stop me enjoying it.


Eating lobster is good for the skin, but it isn’t any good for the lobster. I shot this one myself.

GHOULISH GLEE

Saturday Night Live have been caught using canned laughter, to create the illusion that the entertainment is entertaining.

P.G. Wodehouse once made the point that, statistically, some of the people in canned laughter tracks will have died by the time the show is broadcast. So when you watch Friends you are hearing the mummified mirth of people who died during the Clinton administration, and now lie in the earth rotting.


Joey Tribbiani cracks wise, to the hideous, chilling laughter of the undead.

OPEN THREAD

I’m away at the moment, but here is an open thread so that you, the ordinary man in the street, can have your say about the issues of the day.

Today’s issue: is it wrong to shoplift?

KILLER FACT!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Key findings:
-There are 0 people in the U.S. named Snoop Diddy.

-While it is true that there are four Paul Krugmans, there is no such person as Adolf Blenkinsop.

-There are 503 people people named George Bush, but no one is called Orifice Bush, or George Twat.

-There is only one Hugh Janus.

NONCE ATLAS

The Sun has published a thought-provoking Nonce Map of the British Isles, showing where the UK’s sex beasts live. (Data from the probation service.)

Humberside, home to John Prescott MP, comes top, followed by Norfolk, where 83.6% of the bumpkins are now electronically tagged.



The head of the probation service said that future targets need to be more outcome-focussed and less process-based to get real staff buy-in.

CAPTION COMPETITION

UPDATE! I don’t know if this will interest you, but I actually bought a spoon this weekend, a spoon not unlike this one. I could have put the money into the property market, but I thought it was better to play it safe. Otherwise, if I lost my job or anything happened to my kids, I wouldn’t have a spoon.

UPDATE 2! I’ve just remembered that I don’t have any kids. Except to the extent that the spoon is like a son to me, the son I never had.

KILLER FACT!

Boris Johnsons’ great-grandfather was Interior Minister in the Ottoman Empire. He later had the misfortune to be stoned to death by a bunch of Turks. And to this day Johnsons himself is a quarter Turkish.


An Old Etonian Turkish Tory. He must be a crook.

THERE ARE TOO MANY GODDAMNED PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET

'Your parents didn’t think about what they were doing for a second. They just reproduced like dumb apes, and here you are- part of the problem.'

Message to the 300 millionth American, born today. From Dr Scott Dikkers.

KILLER FACT!

60% of cannabis in Britain is home-grown.

UPDATE! Incidentally, have you ever seen the FBI’s glossary of drug slang? Their underworld informants were obviously taking the piss.

-I got some Sweet Lucy for you, dude.
-No, thanks. I think perhaps I’ll snop some squirrel instead.

I asked for some wild cat dagga dagga last time I was in Harlem. It turned out to be a glass of sherry.

Had an interesting chat with a Nigerian email spammer this afternoon. Sounds like a good deal.

JAPAN BANS NORTH KOREAN IMPORTS

Japan has banned imports from North Korea. Look at these Japanese kids. Poor little chaps. Nothing is more heart-breaking than the tears on a child’s face when it goes to bed without its plutonium. If they keep this up, North Korea is in danger of becoming a pariah state.




The evil Kim Jong Il. Hobbies include huntin', shootin' and fission. Sent that one to Jay Leno, possibly the only person on earth less funny than Kim Jong Il-in-the-head.

CENSORSHIP

As well as YouTube, there is also now PornoTube, for persons requiring shaven amateurs, and things of that kind.

I’ve been banned for uploading videos of Al Gore speeches.

I WOULD BOYCOTT THEIR PRODUCTS, IF THEY HAD ANY PRODUCTS

North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon, despite my urging them not to. Think I'll stay in bed today. There doesn't seem much point in saving for retirement anymore. Here’s a video of people getting kicked in the nuts, to while away the time until species extinction. It's pretty amusing.



(Via Blogrot)

A SWEATY FACED LOUT SINGING LOVE SONGS

"George Melly your a repulsive sweaty faced lout singing love songs. Why your past it. Hang your gun up. And all your dirty jokes leave them to the real comedians. You have a mouth like a ducks ass. Have you only one suit and shabby at that. And your dirty suggestive songs. Somebody ought to tell you. You dirty minded oaf. Your a load of rubbish."

Roy Edroso has written a post "in praise of invective" about the joys of insulting people. That one was a nonamous letter to George Melly.

My favourite insult ever directed at me personally was "tea-sucking limey asshole".

CALL NO MAN A PERVERT

Some recent sex scandals, in no particular order:

Bill Clinton- pushed a cigar up an intern.

Stephen Milligan M.P.- found dead wearing stockings with an orange in his mouth during government morality campaign.

Bill O’Reilly- made foul phone calls with a vibrator up his rear loader (allegedly).

Mark Foley- sent obscene emails to 16-year old boys.

I strongly approve of all these activities, of course, but whatever happened to good old-fashioned fucking? The only public figure still making the effort would seem to be John Prescott.

As for Foley, I simply cannot see that he has done anything wrong, apart from joining the Republican Party in the first place, which was disgusting but perfectly legal. At 16 you are old enough to get married and join the army, but not old enough to receive emails asking perfectly reasonable questions about your dick measurements? The world’s gone mad.

Call no man a pervert. Just look inside your own head. Nasty, eh?

WELL I NEVER!

Using thermal imaging technology, scientists have discovered that watching Mr Bean clips does not produce sexual arousal in men or women.

They also found that “women become sexually aroused as quickly as men.” Not when I’m around, they don’t. Gonna have to work on that smooth talk. I’ve been falling at the first hurdle, asking if they want to come back to my place and watch some Bean videos.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

(via fark)

JACKASS: THE MOVIE- IT MAKES YOU LAUGH AND IT MAKES YOU THINK

Good news. The new Jackass film took $29 million in its opening weekend. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m really looking forward to it. The first one was a flawless masterpiece.

Steve-O can say more about Bush’s America by running through an alligator pit with a chicken tied to his arse than Thomas Friedman could say in a hundred columns.

And the scene in which Dave England –a real genius, in my opinion- wittily takes a dump in a hardware store, as customers look on in disgust, is simply outstanding. With a single satirical turd he challenges our taboos about defecating in hardware stores, and exposes the hypocrisy of a society that condemns a man for excreting out of turn, but sees nothing wrong in spending billions of dollars on weapons each year.

What is more sickening, he is saying, a man having a dung in a shop, or America’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto Treaty? Jackass raises some important questions.



In this clip the genius Steve-O dangles above alligators with a raw chicken attached to his jockstrap. In the US a lot of the humour goes over their heads, unfortunately.

KILLER FACT!

-1,248 books on 9/11 have been published.

-Half of British women own more than 30 pairs of shoes.

-Of the trillions of cells in a typical human body, only about one in ten is human. The rest are microbial.

Like a jigsaw, all the pieces are falling into place.

ALIBI

Let it be noted that at 2am on September 28th I was sitting at a computer typing these words. I was NOT taking part in any kind of illegal activity in a barn.

THE 100 GREATEST LISTS OF ALL TIME

This week Radio 4 listeners voted for their favourite lists from the UK. Here are the winners:

100. The Sunday Times' "12 Hottest New Resorts In Really Poor Countries".
99. "Top 50 Norfolk freaks." Norwich Evening News readers vote for squinting idiots from the Norfolk area.
98. "Britain’s 50 Best Dressed Homeless Men," in GQ Magazine. "It's hobo-tastic!"
97. "10 Fish We Would Most Like to Meet." Capital Radio listeners phone in with their favourite sea creatures. (Last year’s winner- the badger.)
96. "Britain’s 50 funniest fridge magnets," with Sir William Rees-Mogg (BBC 1).
95. Loaded Magazine’s "100 Worst Ever Football Haircuts". The Premier League’s most shocking barnets revealed.
94."Top of the Wops"- Vogue Magazine’s 15 Most Influential Italian Designers.
93. "Gay Of The Year." Radio Times readers vote for their favourite gay.
92. Saga Magazine's "12 Coolest Diseases to Catch on Holiday".
91. "Top 10 Geordie Porkers." Northern Echo readers vote for Tyneside’s fattest cunt.
90. "TV's Naughtiest Terrorists." Chris Tarrant counts down the nation's most memorable bloodbaths.

The countdown continues next week.


Jimmy Tarbuck, recently voted Britain’s Most Influential Thinker by Daily Mirror readers.

JOHNSONS

"I saw Boris Johnsons riding his bike outside Leicester Square tube station last night. I shouted out "Johnsons!" and he gave me a jaunty wave. He looked terribly pale, almost FINNISHLY pale. I was nonetheless feeling quite smug about the experience for some minutes afterwards. This feeling then turned into one of mild depression as I considered how much more I could have got out of our brief encounter, e.g pushing him off his bike into an oncoming taxi."

Ollie B in the comments a couple of month ago. Someone has sent me a most amusing clip of Johnsons complaining about the number of people who shout sod off at him as he rides his bicycle around London:



What would you shout at Johnsons? Perhaps the wittiest thing would be to say nothing at all, and heave half a brick at him.

CANADIAN EAR-BITING "SUSTAINABLE"

Bismarck police said the group tried to calm the woman down. And that was when, according to police, the agitated woman bit off part of the Winnipeg officer's right ear.

No one with any self-respect would live in Winnipeg. I say let them bite each other’s ears off.

Apart from that, not much happened in Canada this week. The situation seems to be under control, with everyone continuing to get richer and fatter at a sustainable 2% per annum.

TAKE UP THE POSH MAN'S BURDEN

“If Mr Cameron is going to take the reins of government he is going to have to look like he can run a country, and -most importantly- the country's foreign policy.”

What is so important about the country’s foreign policy? As long as we don’t get invaded, it will have been a success. Doing whatever Finland does would be a sound foreign policy. I don’t see them sending aircraft carriers to Afghanistan. They’ve got more sense.

As it happens, I know Cameron from Eton, and we often take showers together. I told him he needs to sort out the railways, crack down on the Welsh, and resist the temptation to go poking his nose into countries on the far side of the world.

“And get your hair cut, you look like a pooftah,” I added.

FUCK OFF, AND TAKE YOUR ELEPHANT WITH YOU

Bystander is annoyed by the number of people who claim that there is an elephant in the room, when there isn’t.

That one never made much sense to me, either. So the elephant is standing in your living room. No elephant would do that, but anyway, there it is, and there’s a sort of unspoken agreement not to mention it, and everyone carries on as if the premises were elephant-free. I know it’s only a metaphorical elephant, but, even so, this scenario doesn’t seem to bear much relation to real life as I have experienced it. Or am I being thick?

For my part, I wish reporters would stop saying that people are “on the ground”. Troops on the ground in Afghanistan... Our people on the ground in Iraq... Where the hell else would they be? Larking around in trees?

The ground, sir, is their habitat.


People in Iraq are on the ground, much as I expected.

TRUE GRIT

A friend of mine –he's a Colombian politician in a small town- receives frequent death threats. Last year he denounced the paramilitaries for skimming a percentage off public contracts, and there’s a strong chance that he'll now be murdered (they've already tried once). He thinks they might try to abduct him.

I'm going to order him a copy of On Becoming Fearless by Arianna Huffington, in the hope that it will inspire him as much as it has inspired American women. It isn't easy being a multi-millionaire in California, and Arianna has shown real courage in standing up against the detentions and disappearances that go on in Beverly Hills, not to mention the gossip columnists, intimidated by the idea of a strong, independent woman.

I even heard someone praise Andrei Agassi's courage the other day. They thought he had been very brave to keep playing tennis all these years, when a lesser man would have retired and opened a pub.



Arianna was promoting her book on the O'Reilly Factor last week and, credit where it's due, she did give that frightful bellowing mick a run for his money. But if she really were fearless she would have maced him.

WOULDN'T SAY NO TO A BIT OF THE OLD HELIUM

Bollocks. Love them or hate them, you can't ignore them. They're everywhere- in our homes, in our supermarkets. For many people in Britain today, life without bollocks just wouldn't be the same.

The domain name bollocks.com is free, I just discovered. I nearly bought it myself -hell, I deserve it- then I thought it would be an unjustifiable extravagance when there are so many poor people in the world.

Argon.com is also available, if you are into inert gases. In fact, I think I'll register that one right now, to stop the Jews from getting their hands on it. Though actually, I'm more of a helium man, myself.

CARDIFF STIFF

Cardiff's town drunk has died:



From Cardiff Terrifies Me, via Worstall.

HELIOCENTRIC IS THE HARDEST WORD

"The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry Muslims had been offended by a speech."

It takes a big Pope to apologise. It took them three and half centuries to “express regret” about Galileo, despite the fact that Galileo was 100% right and they were 100% wrong. The Church of England is a sorry religion. They could learn a lot from us.

Muslims have accepted his apology. Saudi cleric Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh said everything is now “cool” between Islam and the Vatican. “Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, we all say things we don’t mean. Over the years I, too, have said some stuff... Let’s use this as an opportunity for personal growth, and then move on.”

By the way, if Dave from work is reading this, I’m sorry I took your yoghurt, man. I know you were probably looking forward to that. And I’m sorry I accused you of heresy.

Frank and manly- that is how it is done. Now compare my apology to Pope John Paul II’s:

“The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture.”

Kind of mean and grudging, isn’t it? When you’re in the wrong, admit it and say you’re sorry. Take it on the chin. Sometimes, when you’re dealing with women or Muslim clerics they’ll want to keep bitching at you even after you’ve already apologised, like, 8 times. I find that a bunch of daffodils usually answers the case.


Oh, no! Someone's upset them.

FRANK CHALK

My friend Chalk has a new book out:

"He is an ordinary teacher in an ordinary British school... a school where the kids get drunk, beat up the teachers and take drugs - when they can be bothered to turn up... Chalk confiscates porn, booze and trainers..."

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Britain’s teachers. If it weren’t for them we’d all be speaking German. And French. And Latin. And be able to do sums.

I once met an Austrian woman who worked in a British school. The poor creature had a nervous breakdown after a couple of months, just as I predicted. “Zey behave like devils,” she said.

CLIP

In this clip a highly off-putting Tory argues that free speech is bad for London's tourist industry.

It has been a vintage year for the non-sequitur, thanks to the Turks.


via Chicken Yoghurt

THE GREATEST LIVING AUSTRALIAN?

Reader fjl accuses me of being “obsessed” with Steve Irwin.

I make no apologies for my admiration of Irwin, the West’s first line of defence against lizards. In my opinion he was the greatest Australian since Eddie Izzard, and Eddie Izzard isn’t even Australian.

Who have they got now? Crocodile Greer and a bunch of champion swimmers. It would be a sorry state of affairs if the greatest living Australian were now Rolf Harris, but I’m afraid this may well be the case. Dan Ackroyd is pretty great, but he turns out to be Canadian.



The Greatest Living Australian? What do YOU think? Come on, guys, let’s poll.

STINGRAY KILLINGS MAY BE IRWIN REVENGE

"People may be avenging the death of Steve Irwin by slaying stingrays..."

As Mark Steyn always says, it’s not a question of how sorry you are -anyone can be sorry- it’s a question of how you go about organising reprisals. That is what separates the chaff from the goats.

If we let them get away with this, the rays will think we are decadent. All I can do for Steve is insist that the ray which killed him is hunted down and prevented from targeting more Australians.

Come on, guys, let's rotate.

THE HYPOCRITICAL MALKIN

When a Muslim blows stuff up or lops some chap’s head off, she just goes on and on about it. But what about Christian violence? Hmm?

A vicar’s tea party in Berkshire degenerates into a vicious fist-fight, and she doesn’t say a word. Christian on Christian violence doesn’t fit into the Malkin world view, so she carries on as if it never happened, twisting the facts to suit her prejudices.

Don’t get me wrong. The Church of England has made an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Anglicans are doctors, lawyers, members of the military, shopkeepers, mums and dads. And they must be treated with respect.

But they are also a violent, mental set of people, not unlike the Arabs. And when the scones run out and the fists start flying, it is a timely reminder of the dangers we face.



Another Church of England tea party turns rabid. The Venerable Norman Russell, Archdeacon of Berkshire, said: “I was very sorry to hear about the incident at the tea.”


Full disclosure: I myself am an Anglican, though I am thinking of converting to Islam to annoy my father.

MORE POLICE

...and in Cornwall they did a man called Gordon MacKillop for "placing a garden gnome with intent to cause harassment".

Unless the story is a hoax. I sometimes wonder if the fucking country might not be a hoax. I mean, you turn on the TV and everything is a spoof something else.

The other day I dreamt that Blair was in California, and that John Prescott was running the land.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE TAVERN

A mother of two has been fined for swearing at yobs who terrorised her neighbourhood… Ms Appleyard finally lost her temper and pleaded with her tormenters: "Please, just f*** off". Two weeks later, officers called at her house and issued her with the fine.

Sergeant Neil Haley, from West Yorkshire police, said: "We appreciate that anti-social behaviour can be frustrating for people but they should not take the law into their own hands."

Quite right. Swearing is the sign of a limited vocabulary. I hope they throw the book at her, just as they did with Wayne Rooney when he called the referee a cunt and a blighter, thereby setting a poor example to the young people. (It is important to nip this kind of thing in bud, otherwise the fans might start swearing.)

Freedom of speech does not give one the right to shout “Bollocks!” in a crowded theatre.



The authentic face of modern Britain: the face of a resentful stoat.

KILLER FACT!

Fatsos outnumber the malnourished for the first time in history. 800 million people are still underfed, but there are now more than a billion wheezing porkers. Finally the masses are living up to their name.

KILLER FACT!

Drivers called Ben are the most likely to crash.

YOU FUCK ONE GOAT...

I hate the way people keep bringing up the time Steve Irwin dangled his child above a snapping crocodile. Was it wise to use his only son as bait? Not really. On the other hand, it was ages ago and the kid is fine.

There’s a phenomenon these days, I don’t know how to name it, but you make one asinine remark, dangle one infant above one crocodile, shoot one lawyer in the head, fuck one goat, and no one ever lets you forget it.

Kos’ “screw them" comment about the dead military contractors is a case in point. His enemies bring it up every time his name is mentioned, and they’ll probably still be hounding him about it when he’s eighty. To me, Kos is a pain in the arse, but I don’t think this remark was particularly revealing, insofar as everyone will say something vicious and idiotic if they keep talking long enough.

It's kind of horrifying that every time you fuck up from now on the details will be filed for all eternity on the internet, where moths and rust do not corrupt. If we are to keep our sanity in an age like this we'll have to try to be a bit more lenient to human nature. (I suppose I may as well take this opportunity to apologise for the time I posted a decades-old photo of Germaine Greer’s gusset.)

People make mistakes: that’s why they put rubbers on pencils.

*American readers, in my country a rubber... oh, to hell with you.

STEVE IRWIN

Steve Irwin has been eaten by a stingray.

I really liked him. That show where he poked at wild beasts with a stick was the only decent thing on television. His death is especially tragic when you consider how many people there are on TV who deserve to be attacked by stingrays. To kill Steve Irwin and spare the entire cast of Friends shows very poor judgement on the stingray’s part, in my opinion.

He was highly talented, in his way. Almost any other job on TV I could do myself, but I couldn't do his. I could read the news- so could any idiot. I could commentate on a tennis match. But could I sneak up on a deadly snake and twat it with a stick? Could I wrestle an infuriated crocodile into a pit, using only my bare hands? Probably not, is the answer.

R.I.P.

THE TOWN WHERE GOD LEFT THE SHOVEL

"Some British people are nice. But on Friday and Saturday night everybody gets drunk. Many girls get pregnant at 16 or 17. The general level of education is low. I'm going back for a couple of months to collect our things. Then we'll start a new life in Bulgaria."

I don’t blame her. The big danger of EU expansion is that Britain’s skilled workers and young professionals may leave in unprecedented numbers, attracted by the higher standard of living in Bulgaria and Albania.

I left High Wycombe in the 90s to seek a better life in the Gaza Strip. People who have never been to Wycombe think I’m joking when I tell them this, but that’s actually what I did do, and it was the right decision. Sure, Wycombe has a Municipal Leisure Complex and a tree, but in most other respects the quality of life is better in the Gaza camps.

Wycombe’s main selling point, apart from the tree, is that there aren’t quite so many terrorist loonies and swarms of locusts (though we're catching up). When I was a nipper, strangers would arrive off the train, take one look at the surroundings and say, “Great God, this is a dreadful place!”

“Cheer up!” I would tell them. “At least there aren’t any terrorists.”

Last month's bomb plot means we're going to have to come up with a new redeeming feature. Being marginally less hellish than Slough isn't cutting it anymore.



"Welcome to High Wycombe. Keep out."
I don't know what this is supposed to be. Most of the town looks like this.

KILLER FACT!

The Times have published a league table of top orchestras:

1. Hallé
2. London Symphony
3. Northern Sinfonia

My team, The Royal Philharmonic, are facing relegation after our key bassoonist was hit by a hamstring injury, and we had to play Terry Butcher on the kazoo.

There was a thing on Radio 4 the other day about how touring orchestras have problems caused by the ban on hand luggage. Your $3 million Stradivarius must now travel in the hold, where monkeys of baggage handlers will throw it around and bash dents in it.

(Via Normblog Geras)

AN ALARMING TREND

The name Blair originated in the west of Scotland. The number of Blairs in Britain has grown by 50 per cent since the 19th century to 12,473 today.

If this trend continues then by the year 2030 there will be more than 70 million of them, if my calculations are correct, sacking and laying waste. The country will be uninhabitable.



These two are all I can stand. What this country needs is fewer and better Blairs.


UPDATE! I have no quarrel with the 2,581 Tasmanian Blairs, or the Blairs of Kentucky, or Tim Blair the larrikin. Although I used to know a Blair from Vancouver, and he was a world-class tit.

I LOST MY CHERRY TO GOAT WOMAN, CLAIMS PARRIS

We’ll always have Parris. Or will we? Matthew Parris has just married some guy called Julian:

Parris knew that he was homosexual from a young age, but he lost his virginity to a woman. “It could have been a goat as far as I was concerned.”

He argued that at the mid-point of one’s life the understanding dawned that there were only a finite number of Saturdays left. "A marriage can be dissolved. A bachelorhood can be regained. A lost Saturday never can."

With Parris off the market I am now Britain’s 4,876,347th most eligible bachelor.

SITE OF THE DAY

Cats That Look Like Hitler.com

Most of the cats don't look anything like Hitler. It's a load of rubbish. If you said, "Who does this look like?", I would say, "It looks like a cat. And, I believe, is one."

Disappointing.

As for Hitler, he comes in for a lot of criticism -much of it justified, in my opinion- but at least he did something with his life. He didn't just sit around laughing at pictures of cats, like a simpleton.

And you have to give Hitler credit for that.



OK, this cat looks like Hitler.

(Full disclosure: I myself own two cats, and am a Nazi.)

EL PIRULINO

A video showing how to dance the pirulino, a foolish dance which nearly cost me my life. I must tell you about it some time.

Anyway, I hope you find it edifying.

WHAT MADE MILWAUKEE FAMOUS HAS MADE A LOSER OUT OF ME

Killer Fact! Milwaukee is America's drunkest city, according to Forbes magazine.

1. Milwaukee
2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
3. Columbus, Ohio
4. Boston
5. Austin, Texas
6. Chicago
7. Cleveland
8. Pittsburgh
-9. Philadelphia
-9. Providence, R.I.

But Luxembourg has the world's highest alcohol consumption (15.4 litres per capita).

-I drink to forget.
-Forget what?
-I don't remember.

Ba-doom, ba-doom, tish!

WHAT WILL THOSE TOSSERS THINK OF NEXT?

Airlines are now banning shoes on all flights to the US, according to the New York Times. All footwear must now be checked in before boarding, with no exceptions. Hats are also forbidden, but ice picks are allowed provided they are made of marzipan. You couldn’t make it up.

As a matter of fact, I just did make it up; but that’s not the point. The point is that once again my enjoyment of the in-flight snack was marred by burning hatred of the airline, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the cast of Dr Doolittle 3 (the in-flight movie). Bin Laden I don’t mind so much. To me he’s just a nutter in a cave on the other side of the world. I don’t feel anything like the rancour towards him that I feel for the interfering old gusset-face who made me wait behind the yellow line until it was my turn to put my shoes in the x-ray machine. In fact, I quite like him.

Unlike the FAA, Bin Laden has a coherent Weltanschaung that a person of average intelligence might understand. The real maniac is the guy who banned nail scissors. By the way, if they confiscate your clippers, a bottle of duty-free Scotch makes a spiffing cosh. I wrote that on one of the sick bags. That will put the wind up them, those cocksuckers.



Continental Airlines, Business Class. "For your comfort and safety we ask that all passengers remain manacled for the entire trip, with sacks over their heads. Thank you for choosing Continental."

JUST HAD AN IDEA

I’m flying to the US this afternoon. I’m going to try to smuggle a jar of Nivea cream on board. Then, half-way through the flight I’m going to stand up and scream, “Look out! There’s a balm on board. Salve yourselves! Aarrrggh!”

Ooh, my sides! The other passengers will probably soil themselves with fear! And technically I won't have done anything illegal, if I really do have a balm.

The airlines have brought this on themselves. If they're not going to let us take books, we'll have to make our own entertainment. I’ll see you on News at Ten.

MISERABLE SOW

A plane made an emergency landing because someone wrote “There’s a bomb on the plane,” on a sick bag.

A few years ago I was flying Caracas-London, and Liam Gallagher was in first class. “Tell the pilot there’s a bum on the plane,” I whispered to the flight attendant. But she didn’t laugh, the miserable sow.

No one ever does.

Frank Chalk, August 15th:

'A' Level results out in a couple of days- I am willing to take bets against the following:

1) Every broadsheet newspaper will have a picture of half a dozen pretty girls from a very nice school, waving their 'A' Level results...

2) The results will be the best ever. A ridiculous number of kids will get A-C grades...

From today's Guardian:


From today's Telegraph:


Lucy Dingethorpe-Smythe (left) achieved twenty-three A grades, and has won a place to study Fashion with Canadian Studies at the University of North Wales (formerly Bangor Mental Hospital).

Pippa von Humbolt-Parker (second from left; 19 'A's) plans to spend her gap year in the Congo, teaching Pygmies to bungee jump.

A government spokesman denied A-levels were getting easier.

MR CHALK

Frank Chalk writes:

I decided to put up Amazon's ad banner at the top of my site after being assured that the content it would advertise would be directly relevant to the people viewing my Blog.

I therefore expected ads for Mensa applications, books about Astrophysics, Philosophy, Politics and Fine Arts. Instead all I've got is stuff with the word 'Chalk' in it.

WHITE WHINE

The British National Party is selling wine on its website. Wine? Sounds more the kind of thing a French neo-nazi would drink. That’s lost my vote, I’m afraid. An English fascist should be drinking hogsheads of mead, or I’ll simply refuse to take him seriously. A nazi who drinks Chardonnay is not a nazi in whom one can have complete confidence.

“This wine, redolent of fruitcake, has a bouquet suggestive of barbed wire and jackboots, that gets right up your nose. It presents a soft first impression, but ultimately leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.”

If it was from Kent I might have bought a crate, just to piss people off. But it’s from Cornwall, and I don't like the Cornish. They killed our Lord God Jesus.



The Cornish- a stunted and goat-like race, thought to have arrived during the Ice Age. They don't pay their taxes.

CODGER'S TALE MOVES MILLIONS

This old git is YouTube’s newest star. His video got 800,000 views and 7,000 comments. He’s on the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, USA today... A lot of Americans actually wept when they saw it, just as they howled and snivelled during Forrest Gump.

An old man with a video camera... how incredibly moving. It makes me want to bawl. It represents a real triumph of the human spirit. Old man, I salute you!

I sat through it stony faced, though as an Englishman I will burst into tears if I see a rabbit with a thorn in its paw.

There’s a strong undercurrent of hysteria around at the moment that could break out into pogroms and lynchings at any time, and this old man is as much to blame as anyone.

SOURPUSS MALKIN

And now we stare astonished at the sea
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us...

This Yeats line came back to me when I saw the lunatic Malkin on Fox News the other week. I don’t mind being hectored about the Middle East by people who have never been within 500 miles of it –that’s what blogs are all about- but now this hellish woman is attacking our TV shows as well, and this cannot be borne. It seems she's in a foaming rage about Armando Iannucci’s new programme on BBC 2, among several hundred other things that she's furious about.

Jesus, woman, calm down. You’re like a bear with a sore head. I don’t think I’ve ever been as enraged about anything as she is about everything. “When did 9/11 become a laughing matter?” she asks, as if anyone were laughing about it, and as if she were able to tell the difference between award-winning comedy and a poke in the eye with a burnt stick.

You’ve got to realise the kind of people we’re dealing with here. Malkin doesn’t just take life seriously; she actually takes Hugh Hewitt seriously. Such a person is simply not qualified to have an opinion on what is, and what is not, “a laughing matter”, since a sense of humour calls for a sense of proportion, which in her case she has not got. Almost any attempt to make jokes that rises above the level of a fat man falling over is going to confuse and upset her and her readers, but that’s just something the BBC is going to have to live with. She wasn’t the target audience anyway.

Given that they neither pay the licence fee, watch the shows, nor live in the stinking country, it doesn’t matter how many cretins join your email campaign. The BBC should tell them all to knob off.


Sourpuss Malkin recently. The BBC didn’t upset her- she started upset.

BOYCOTT ISRAELI MUD

A bunch of people are boycotting Israeli products until they release Mandela, or whatever it is they’re whinging about now. I myself am doing my bit by boycotting Dead Sea mud, even if it does eliminate toxins and restore my skin’s pH balance.

They sell it in the Whitely’s Centre in Bayswater. £20 or £30 for a jar of black slime! People in W2 rub it into their stupid faces.

I can see the point of Israeli oranges, though. Eating fruit- I can relate to that.


 
             Before                                    After

   Beauty products from the Dead Sea.

NEW ZEALAND IS A CESSPIT, IT TURNS OUT

"NEW ZEALAND is a little, South Pacific version of 1950s England. People are friendly, trustworthy and hard-working. You can leave your front door unlocked when you go out. Women can safely walk alone at night and, if you drop your wallet, someone will deliver it to your door the next day."

That’s what I thought, too, but it turns out the country is an infernal cesspit, at least the 0.03% of it that is inhabited.

Killer Fact! New Zealand has 67% more murders per capita than the UK.

BLAIR- I WOULDN'T PUT ANYTHING PAST THAT A-HOLE

Did Blair time terror alerts to coincide with the opening of the County Pig Fair in Shropshire? That’s the question no one dares ask. Personally, I wouldn’t put anything past that a-hole.

What have we learnt from this week's events? That if you stamp out terrorism at Heathrow it sprouts up again in Henley-on-Thames:

TRADER TRAPPED IN SHOP BY SNIPERS. Hooligans armed with air rifles held a company director under siege after firing a hail of shots at his Henley showroom...

“It’s absolute idiocy,” said a local woman.

All the news is bad, but I keep myself sane by moving my foot in clockwise circles, while drawing the number 6 in the air with my finger. Your foot changes direction! Try it yourself.

If you would like to learn more about moving your foot clockwise while drawing the number six, click here for details.

WHY BOTHER?

Blogs foil terror plot! Charles Johnson arrests 24 in dawn raids! “Mainstream police” outclassed by internet busybodies!

I was going to write a side-splitting spoof news report, but now I find I can’t be bothered. Life is too short, the effort/benefit ratio too high. And would it have been worth it, after all?

Have to fly next week. Sodding bollocks. They’re really going to ratchet up the misery this time. I’m going to turn up at the airport with just my underpants and a book. They’ll probably confiscate the book, the cretins, but they won’t get my pants without a struggle.

But what book to take? And what pants to wear?

PULL THE OTHER ONE, IT’S GOT BELLS ON!

Reuters released more photos of Beirut today, trying to make it look as if the Israelis are bombing the city.

Not going to fall for that one again.

BRITISH AIRWAYS ARE A LEGITIMATE TARGET

Who on earth would want to blow up a British Airways flight? I would, as it happens, and so would millions of other passenger-victims. Obviously one should try to minimise civilian casualties, but BA themselves are a legitimate target, in my opinion, as are Easy Jet (i.e. Difficult Jet) and Ryanair (i.e. Bastardair).

British Airways management are cranks and sadists, who have caused more misery than all the terrorists combined, at least to me.

Tim Blair says he blames the presbyterians for today’s events. I take the point that when a train blows up, or a guy gets his head mown off with a sword, it’s usually safe to say that the presbyterians were involved. But an attack on BA could have been anyone.

Could have been presbyterian mad dog Laden; could have been a frequent flyer who decided he’d had enough. Whoever it was, we should make common cause with him on lesser evil grounds, just as our grandfathers sided with Hitler against British Rail.

The last time I was in one of BA’s trademark 3-hour delays I didn’t happen to have any explosives on me, so I stood in the queue and read out one of their pamphlets in a sarcastic voice.

“British Airways,” it said. “Your passport to freedom...”

Little victories. But they always have the last laugh.

KRUGMAN BANGING COCKTAIL WAITRESSES, TWO AT A TIME

I sit in a conference centre in Bogota's business district, thinking of Kate Bush.

And suddenly I find myself
Listening to a man I’ve never known before
Telling me about the sea...

Only instead of a man I’ve never known before, it’s Krugman. And instead of telling me about the sea, he is droning on about interest rates and the property bubble.

What he’s doing here, fuck knows. But he seems to be enjoying himself, in his own way. I thought that, since he was in Colombia, it would be a great opportunity for him to meet me. I sent a bottle of champagne to his hotel room, with an anonymous note. “Welcome to Bogota,” it says. “Watch out for snipers.”

I just want him to feel at home.

Hotel Tequendama refused to comment on the rumour –which I started myself- that he was banging cocktail waitresses, two at a time, like Freddy Corleone, bringing shame to the economics faculty of the University of Princeton.




     "Who inspires you as an economist?"
     "I would have to say Barbra Streisand..."
Krugman opens his heart to Paola Ochoa, economics editor of Semana magazine.

ANT CITY

People often say to me, "Harry, how is it that we can put men on the moon, but we still can’t fry pedestrians, ant-style, under giant magnifying glasses?"

No doubt you have often asked yourself the same question. Well now we can. Only on a computer for now, but it's a start.

Via Hemlock

OPEN LETTER TO MEL GIBSON

Dear Mr Gribson,

This is a final warning to pay for your electricity use. You owe £48.32.

The original figure was £50.32, but I gave you a discount because it’s a sunny day, and I think you’re right about the Jews. Otherwise I would have to punch you on the ear.

If, in seven days, you do not respond to this final demand, we shall refer the matter to a third party for recovery.

Contact:-

Terrence Shepard
Customer Services
Powergen
PO Box 7750
Nottingham
NG1 6WR

P.S. There is no God.

POWERGEN- the finest electricity in the world.

KILLER FACT!

1.3% of Lebanese are Canadians.

"I had a most delightful pizza on the quayside in Palermo in 1976. My dining companion went on to hold minor office in the Sicilian government, to the extent that they have such a thing. She was quite sexually adventurous. Dead now, of course. All dead."

Comment by david c in the comments.

A RIGHT TIT

Hitchens, though in many ways a tit, appears to have been right on this occasion.

UPDATE! I’ve never told anyone this before, but I actually quite like Hitchens. (Keep it under your hat.) Though in some ways a tit, he is also the Real Thing. He isn’t just some overpaid mediocrity of the Andrew Sullivan type.

If you compare the most prominent left-wing columnist, whom I suppose is Krugman, with Kos; or if you compare Mark Steyn with Glenn Reynolds; or Robert Fisk with Juan Cole; or Hitchens with Michael Totten: in every case the newspaper guy is the genuine article, while the blogging equivalent is a tiresome snivelling non-entity.

Takes one to know one.

WE CAME HERE TO LEARN ENGLISH, NOT PRANCE AROUND LIKE A BUNCH OF KANSAS CITY FAGGOTS

If you showed this to an ordinary person he would say, "What, in the name of Beelzebub...?" But show it to an English teacher and he would say, "Ah yes. The audio-lingual method."

This kind of nonsense is completely standard in the TEFL racket.

via Dog Bones

KNOB-HEADS

The Send A Pizza To An Israeli Soldier campaign has been a victim of its own success. The soldier in question has already received more than 20,000 pizzas and is suffering from cholesterol poisoning.

What kind of knob-head sends pizzas to the Israeli Army?

UPDATE! Someone told me that the pizza idea is funny because it will “irritate the lefties”. Well all right, but in that case why not send pizzas to the Republican Party or the board of British Petroleum? And surely there are more irritating things than a pizza. You could ring on a lefty’s doorbell and run away tittering, for example. Or hurl Milton Friedman's Monetary History Of The United States through his window, tied to a brick. Or cut though all the red tape and simply punch him on the nose.

Sending baked bread covered in cheese and tomatoes* to the Levant is going about it the long way, it seems to me.

*with optional toppings

DEATH HATH SO MANY DOORS...

"Christopher Hitchens will be executed at 12.00 noon GMT on 20 July."

The most chilling words I have ever read. It doesn't say whether he was to be shot, strangled, knifed or bludgeoned: death hath so many doors to let out life. On the other hand, he could also be garrotted, poisoned or thrown off a building. This last one has the advantage that it could be made to look like an accident, and if I were going to assassinate Hitchens that would probably be my method.

Or I might just let out a great bellow and charge at him with one of those Chinese meat cleavers. Yaarrrghh! That would wipe the smile off his face.

Though obviously I hope and pray this never happens.



Hitchens. Even as we speak he could be being shot, strangled, knifed, bludgeoned, poisoned, garrotted...