WHAT THEY DON'T TEACH YOU AT HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL

"Everyone who lost money on Enron, as in almost every financial scandal ever, was a greedy thick fuck," argues the Pigdogfucker.

Well that’s true. I happen to be a greedy thick fuck myself, and know whereof I speak. First there was the 1997 Asian financial crisis, in which $4 trillion were wiped off share values. This included most of the loot my evil old father had left me, and I was reduced to teaching English, like a bum. Where is it now? Greenspan tried to claim that the money had just sort of vanished out of existence, but this never struck me as terribly plausible. I like to think the pixies have got it.

Then I went into derivatives trading as a way of "hedging the bears". For example, I recently sold 500 tonnes of zinc that I do not own, and which may not exist, and used the proceeds to buy cabbage futures. I am betting, you see, that it is a good zinc harvest, but an annus horribilis for the cabbage. It’s called arbitrage. I don’t really understand how it works, but basically if the price goes up I’ll make millions; and if it goes down I’ll grow a beard and move to Australia and start a new life selling didgeridoos, or whatever the hell it is that people do down there.

A couple of weeks ago the Fraud Squad called me in for questioning. It turned out that they weren’t the Fraud Squad at all, but a bunch of impostors.


Buy cabbage!

KILLER FACT!

France has won more Nobel Prizes for literature than any other country. The best-selling book in French history is Le Code Da Vinci.

God, how depressing.

I’M FOREVER THROWING BOTTLES

Some splendid punch-ups in Germany this evening. A tiny minority of several thousand drunks appear to have destroyed central Stuttgart. You’ll never guess where they are from. The English hooligan is second to none.

Before every World Cup the know-alls always try to run our hooligans down, saying that this time the real threat comes from Dutch and German fans, or the Poles, or neo-Nazis from Lapland. Wrong again, chaff-heads. Sadly, my enjoyment of the fighting was marred once again by the minority of idiots who insist on playing football.

Ecuador tomorrow. No sweat. The Ecuadorean hooligan is second to all.


I wish the German police would attack these dreadful people with cattle-prods.

Another scurrilous attack on Adolf Hitler. Instead of trying to refute his arguments the left just call him a Nazi, and compare him to the fruitcake Coulter.

Click the button to take the Hitler vs. Rolf Harris* quiz, if you have nothing more interesting to do.

*a fascist

ARSENAL OF WEAPONS

From today’s Sun:

"If violence does break out rapid reaction squads and riot police are positioned close by and ready with an arsenal of weapons."

As opposed to what? An arsenal of rabbits?

I caught The Sun in a tautology! What a triumph.

ATTENTION DAILY KOS!

Dsquared, whom you use as an example of a Republican hate-monger, is: a) English; b) left-wing; and c) a writer for The Guardian.

Hats off.


UPDATE! It turns out he’s Welsh. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

WORLD CUP DIARY

-The World Cup is always a magical time for me. It takes me back to my childhood, standing on the terraces at Wigan with my old Dad, eatin’ pies.

I never found out what we were doing there. I hated football, and my father was mostly into elephant polo. Nor did he ever give me any of his pies. I remember when I was eight he said to me, “You’re basically just an arsehole.”


-Apparently, a lot of black Britons are supporting African teams in this tournament. A couple of World Cups ago I was in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians were all cheering for Tunisia and Morocco, and dusty places generally. Yet Europeans don’t seem to be afflicted by this kind of ethnic solidarity. At any rate, when Sweden score I don’t think, “Yes! Another victory for the whites!”

If anything, it slightly annoys me when they win. They think they are so great with their social spending. “Ve are not haffing the beggars in Sveeden.” As far as I’m concerned, they can get stuffed.


-Oh to be in England, now that football’s there, to drive around beeping my car horn like a cunt, and taunt my idiot countrymen in German. “Ha! Ha! One-nil, Englisher dumbkopfs.” The expression of hatred on their dumb resentful faces sends my pleasure sensors soaring.

Most of them are too thick even to insult me properly, though sometimes they’ll come back with, “Two World Wars and one World Cup,” which I always counter with, “Three World Cups and one economic miracle,” and then Deutschland Uber Alles or the Horst Wessel Song. During Italia 90 I got in three different fights. It’s always a magical time for me.

LIFE SAVED BY KOS, BORIS JOHNSONS

From the Daily Kos*:

Hello all... I got to meet a bunch of you during the convention and had a fabulous time. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that it might save my life.

I just got a call that someone "crashed my gate" and drove through my office and my daughter's room. Had we been home I would have been working at my desk, and she would have been sleeping in bed. Instead, I was here, so the family's fine... I can now honestly say "Thank you for everything, YearlyKos."

I am not easily moved to tears, but this post had me crying like a baby. Just think... he could have been... and the little ones are safe?... thank God for that!

Kos once saved my life too. I was reading a post about Senator Joseph Lieberman, and it was so dull that I got up to run my head under a cold tap. Just then this assagai comes flying through the window. Zulus! Fuck! If it hadn’t been for Kos, I could have wound up in a cooking pot. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

Anyway, so we formed a laager, called for reinforcements and went all Rorke’s Drift on their arses, and it all ended happily with a glorious slaughter of tribesmen. That was the day Boris Johnsons won the Victoria Cross.

*Tedious website about American politics.

DOWN THE LINE

This is the funniest thing I have heard all year, but Radio 4 listeners hated it.

I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH MORE I CAN TAKE

BOGOTA- A new beat is mugging the nation’s eardrums. They are Calle 13 from Puerto Rico. Their work is described as a fusion of hip hop, rap and reggaeton. What could be more agreeable?



They have just released a new track of absolutely the maximum facetiousness. [See above.] Every coffee shop, bar, car radio and supermarket is currently playing it, and if I’m exposed to much more I might just have a fit and bite someone. This, however, is possibly marginally worse. I haven’t heard a song this witless and infuriating since Twisting by the Pool by Dire Straits. And yet, short of moving to a cave in Scotland, it is inescapable.

I’ll never forget the summer of 96. The European Championships were on, and everyone was singing Football’s Coming Home, and a song about who ate all the pies. They eventually succeeded in driving me out of England. I emigrated a few weeks later, and took an oath never to return, except at the head of a conquering army to put those dunderheads to the sword.

Despising, for you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere.

WIKIPEDIA WHOPPERS

"With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world's most popular beverage."

What balderdash! Most people are Asian, and most Asians drink tea. Like it or not, China has 1.3 billion Chinese people living in it*. If they each drink one cup of tea per day that’s already more than 400 billion cups. And the true figure is more like 8 cups each. They drink it all day long, prodigious great pots of it. There are also 1.1 billion Indians, are there not, hardly any of whom drink coffee.

The man who wrote this is a disgrace, bringing the internet into disrepute with his preposterous claims. Either he knows dick-all about hot beverages, in which case he should keep his filthy yap shut; or he is a deceitful dog.

"Coffee is a beverage prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant."

Yeah, well that’s true. I’ll give you that one.

*To an anthropologist, they are known as China-men, or Chinese denizens.

HEADS MUST ROLL

Guess the celeb:

He did things that got him into the newspapers for all sorts of reasons. He was drinking heavily, there were times when he was overweight. The media were all over everything he did. You have to hope that the thousands of pounds he’s spent on therapy and rehab to try to battle his demons will have an effect. He’ll probably be remembered as the best player England never had.

If I gave you a thousand guesses you wouldn’t get it: it’s the Prophet Mohammed, from Radio Five’s The Real Mohammed. You click the clink, and the life of Mohammed turns out to be a load of boring rubbish about football- 55 dismal minutes of it. The BBC actually managed to confuse Mohammed, one of the all time great prophets, with Gazza, a footballer with a face like a resentful stoat.

Ah, well. Mistakes happen. I’m sure the Muslims will see the funny side.