At long long last, Mr B has gone an got himself his own blog. Read him every day, link to him, add him to your blog roll - go on, you know it makes sense if for no other reason that stuff like this ...
NOW I'VE never eaten a guinea pig, although I’m told that it’s something of a delicacy in parts of South America. To me, a guinea pig is a small furry creature akin to a rat that you allow your children to play with until they become bored and graduate to a proper animal like a ferret, a falcon or a lurcher. At which point the guinea pig gets “released into the wild”, a useful euphemism for being dropped on its head and then chucked in the bin.
I have many claims to fame, only a few of which can be safely mentioned in a family newspaper. I’ve eaten beans on toast with Wayne Fontana of the Mindbenders in a TV studio canteen, I’ve been visited in hospital by Sir Matt Busby when I had appendicitis at the age of 14, and I had lunch with John Major the day before he was due to lose the 1992 General Election by a country mile (and then cleaned up at the bookies after he showed me the private poll returns that had him as a clear winner).
But this I have never before confessed: I was in the Boy Scouts with Colonel Gaddafi.
Now don’t laugh. We didn’t exactly know at the time that we were dib-dib-dobbing with a future dictator. All we knew is that Brown Owl introduced a little Arab boy called Muammar one Tuesday night and asked us to look after him. Being good Boy Scouts (albeit the inner city variety) we embraced him to our collective bosom, picked his pocket of his weekly subs and sent him down to the off licence for five Park Drive and a pint of loose sherry. Funnily enough, he always had the best uniform.
Given that we were what could be described as a fundamentalist troop (the 1908 edition of Scouting For Boys was our bible) it is no surprise that little Muammar fitted right in. And a damn fine Scout he became, especially when it came to camping.
When most of the troop were huddling cold and damp under a ragged piece of canvas laughingly described as a “tent”, and pumping desperately at a mediaeval primus stove in a doomed attempt to fry perpetually-raw sausages, Muammar’s patrol luxuriated in a Bedouin-style marquee with fitted carpets, throw cushions, visiting belly dancers, an endless supply of mint tea and a kebab machine.
True, there were concerns when he spent one bob-a-job week’s takings on buying Armalites for his “family” in Dublin, but his perfect performance in his Air Spotter’s badge (speciality subject “Boeing 747 flight paths over southern Scotland”) soon won over any doubters. In the end we were sad to see him go, but when American jets bombed our scout hut, enough was enough.
So it was nice to see that the Colonel has acknowledged his debt to suburban society and Lord Baden-Powell in his soon-to-be-published autobiography. I only hope that he doesn’t hold a grudge about that the Chinese Burn I gave him during an over-exuberant game of British Bulldog.
Of course, this country has a long tradition of training future dictators and imbuing in them a love of our traditions. It is well known that Idi Amin was a star at Sandhurst, but what is less well known is that he was a fanatical Manchester United fan who regularly used to stand in the Stretford End watching George Best and Denis Law. (Ask some of United’s older hooligans and they will recall in awe some of Idi’s terrace antics.)
And we maintain that stance today. Not only were most of the alleged Tube Bombers happily living on state benefits, but we also shelled out to send them on a publicly-funded white water rafting course where they clearly wiled away the twilight hours by discussing how to assemble household explosives.
All those Abu Handsfree characters that Mr Blah is threatening to deport (yeah, right) seem to have more handouts flowing in than the average family of Scousers. (Although given their customary missing limbs, it must be difficult to turn down their disability benefit.)
I think the point I am trying to make is that we have always welcomed immigrants from every nation and have extended to them not just the hand of friendship, but allowed them access to some of this country’s finest institutions. It would be nice to think that they might repay us with gratitude, rather than gelignite.
Isn’t it time we gave up on the Space Shuttle programme? It can’t be much fun driving round and round the Earth in a clapped-out equivalent of a 1979 Ford Capri held together with sticky tape and chewing gum.
And what was all that nonsense about them not being able to land because it was raining? This is a spaceship we’re talking about. It is full of computers. They’re hardly going to be peering through a set of squeaking windscreen wipers with their headlights on full beam trying to spot something that looks like America, are they?
Mind you, they did have a woman driver in charge and, given the age of some of the astronauts, it’s a fair bet that her co-pilot was wearing a brown trilby and had a tartan travel rug over his legs. It’s just a good job they got them down before they ran out of travel sweets.
Dan Dare never had these problems.
You may have noticed that last week a gentleman called Jonathan Morton was jailed for seven years for the manslaughter of his wife, whose body has never been found.
So what, I hear you say. Another jobless scrote strangles his dole scum missus in a spat over where the next bottle of cheap wine is coming from. Ah, but Mr Morton is a millionaire architect and as we all know, millionaires don’t go to jail easily.
More importantly, there didn’t seem to be a single shred of evidence that Mr Morton actually killed his wife. Yes, he knocked her about a bit, but then who doesn’t administer the Fist of Matrimony in extreme circumstances?
It has long been an Englishman’s right to murder his wife as long as her body never turns up. It’s enshrined in Magna Carta. We know it, the cops know it, the courts know it. Pig farmers nationwide who take unexpected “deliveries” late at night know it. It’s like a great game. But now something has changed. I blame Europe. And Mrs Blah.
This is no laughing matter. Consider this: your missus runs off with an Polish masseur she’s met at the local health spa, never to be seen again. Her whining sister, who’s never liked you since you passed water in the spare bedroom wardrobe one Christmas, shops you to the police citing years of alleged physical and mental abuse. (For Christ’s sake, it’s called getting married.)
Next thing you know you’re banged up in chokey with a 20-stone cellmate who wears mascara and makes Big Brother’s Craig look butch. Call that justice? I don’t.
Breakfast time at Beelzebub Mansions. Kedgeree, kidneys and a large glass of port. All is well with the world. My man Whittaker has been up all night watching Big Brother Live and is consequently late with the papers. Mrs Beelzebub's People's Friend has yet to be ironed, so I lend her my copy of The Times. Then the trouble starts.
"Oh look," she says. "Apparently Sienna has kicked out Jude after he slept with the nanny and is now snogging Orlando who she once went out with after she was married to Jude while he was married to Sadie and she may even be six weeks pregnant."
"Meanwhile, Jennifer is in tears after Brad went off with Angelina and Tom has got engaged to Katie who's also got a new film coming out. No mention of Boris's latest."
Well thank you for that. I feel the bile rising and have to leave the table, forgoing a second plate of devilled kidneys. Outside I have to cool off with a spot of magpie shooting.
I mean, who are these people? And why are they infecting my television and newspapers? I understand that some of them are film actors, but I can't recall a single movie any of them has ever been in. All I get are screeds of meaningless tabloidese and daft women wittering on about the situation on breakfast TV.
It's not as if we were talking Richard Burton or Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor or Lauren Bacall. They were real film stars, not the know-nothing needy nobodies who purport to be celebrities these days. And that's why none of our children have realistic ambitions anymore. If idiots like those detailed above can become famous, then surely so can they?
When I were a lad, if you asked the average kid what they wanted to be when they grew up you'd get realistic answers. Train driver was a favourite, along with vet, policeman and nurse. The ginger kid who smelt a bit funny wanted to work in a slaughterhouse, but I think that had more to do with his unresolved emotional issues and deep longing to murder his taunting classmates, rather than any kind of planned career structure.
Ask the average 10-year-old these days what their ambitions are and they either want to be a pop star or a footballer. That's it. The idea that both fields of employment are firstly highly limited in terms of vacancies and secondly dependant on abundant talent doesn't seem to have occurred to them. They've watched the telly and read the papers. They want some of that instant fame.
So what happens to them when the harsh realities of life kick in? What happens when the next Robbie Williams finds out that he can't sing or when the next Wayne Rooney is told that he can't play? We have to pick up the pieces, that's what. And it's never their fault, oh no. It's society ganging up on them.
There is a way to tackle this distorted ambition – classroom quotas. Kids should be told at an early age what their future occupation is going to be, based on government forecasts of labour needs.
"You, Jenkins Minor, are going to be an accountant, so to help you develop the kind of small-minded, unimaginative, number-obsessed mentality that will help you in later life, you can be milk monitor. And kindly address the possibility of re-useable straws, so maximising the lips/bottle ratio of Class 3B."
"Dixon, you'll be a policeman, Titmuss, a nurse. Abu Hamza, you'll do as a rucksack salesman at Millett's."
"Paul Dobrowski. You're ginger and you smell a bit. Down to the slaughterhouse with you."
You get the picture. And surely that's better than our next generation wasting their hopes and dreams on fanciful notions that are doomed to end in tears when they could be learning how to unblock a toilet or change the spark plugs on a Rover 25?
Which brings us to the latest series of Big Brother. Now I have defended the quality of this programme in the past when it was fashionable for the leather-elbowed Guardianistas to ridicule the "ordinary" people taking part. But no more.
It appears that this time around the producers have solved the tricky issue of casting by simply recruiting the inmates of a local psychiatric ward. We have had a foul-mouthed fishwife whose highpoint was to relieve herself in public like a dray horse in the street. There's been a comedy drag artist who claimed he'd neglected to tell his parents he was a poofter, although I can't imagine that red stilettos are common footwear in Penge.
We've got a wig-wearing nurse who's a compulsive liar, a toffee-nosed black Tory whose murky past has still to be unveiled by the tabloids, a geek suffering from an advanced case of Asperger's Syndrome and a hairy midget Geordie called Anthony who says he's a "Seventies disco dancer", whatever one of those is.
But worse, much worse than those, we have Craig, a hairdresser from Norfolk who is an effeminate, man-boobed, grasping control freak, with a severe personality disorder and a crush on the aforementioned Anthony. I tell you, if Anthony had been female, Craig would have been nicked for attempted rape.
And then there's Kinga, an overweight 20-year-old whose self-esteem is so utterly shot to pieces that she feels the need to flubber her enormous breasts at all and sundry while impersonating an unconventional wine cooler. (Enough said. You'll know if you saw it.) I wonder what her poor parents must think.
It truly is car crash television: wall-to-wall freaks who are facing some serious counselling once they get out. I'd rather watch that documentary about people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorders who have to wash their hands 37 times an hour. At least they're proper nutters, not just teenage tosspots.
STUPIDITY ALERT: A dance teacher is to take a PhD at Salford University in the art of "air guitar playing". For those of you who live in a cultural vacuum (commonly known as Wales) this is the dance-like behaviour of playing an imaginary guitar displayed by 40-year-old Status Quo fans with bald spots on top and inappropriately long hair at the back.
I presume that Salford University (snigger) is publicly-funded. I therefore feel it only fair to point out to Mr Gordon Brown that in response to this educational abberation, I shall in future be paying "air tax". Thank you.
So these mad mullahs who are preaching hatred while on benefits and supporting the suicide bombers – how come they're never the one's on the Circle Line train with the big bag of fertilizer and batteries? If I was a radical young Muslim, I think I'd want to know.
In other terrorist news, Paddington was the subject of a major security alert when armed police ordered a small Peruvian bear to "step away from the suitcase", while it now emerges that the Brazilian shot dead last week didn't jump the ticket barriers, didn't run away from police and wasn't wearing a large, padded coat. It was, however, a bomber jacket.
Time for our weekly dose of Mr B - needless to say, this weeks topics are police shootings & "deferred success"...
The capital comes to a standstill as sirens blare and cars speed through the streets. It's a fleet of ambulance-chasing human rights lawyers heading for Stockwell tube station.
"It's a shoot-to-kill policy", the lentil-eating, leather-elbowed Guardianistas cry, evoking memories of Gibraltar and Belfast. Well I sincerely hope it is. What do they want? A shoot-to-sting-a-bit policy?
I am thoroughly sick of the liberal furore surrounding the unfortunate death of Jean Charles de Menezes. It is said that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Correct. He shouldn't have even been in the country in the first place, and wouldn't have been if Mr Blah hadn't surrendered control of our borders to the point where over half a million illegal immigrants have flooded into the country.
(And isn't it odd that during the general election campaign, Mr Blah claimed to have no idea how many illegal immigrants were here. Three months later and the Home Office appears to have known all along.)
We are told that Jean Charles de Menezes was working as an electrician and sending money back to his family in Brazil. We are not told whether or not he was paying tax and National Insurance contributions, nor if he was qualified in any way. At a time when Mr Prescott will have you arrested for changing a light bulb without a Man from the Council standing over you, this seems a little unfair.
Let's just look at the simple facts. Mr de Menezes who, it has to be conceded was of "foreign" appearance, walked out of a block of flats that was under surveillance by security forces after being linked directly to the attempted bombings of last Thursday. Despite the tropical temperatures, he was wearing a large padded jacket.
He was then followed via a bus journey to Stockwell tube station where he was challenged by armed plainclothes police. At which point he vaulted the barriers and ran off. Why he did this, we don't know. He is said to have spoken good English and can hardly have been unaware of the current state of tension in London. It wasn't the best of decisions.
Now put yourself in the place of the armed police tracking him. The suspected suicide bomber you are following (for that's what he was at that stage) runs off and dives onto a tube train. What do you do? You shoot him, of course. Lots of times. Sufficient to ensure that he can't detonate any explosives he may be carrying.
What was the alternative? Allow him time to obliterate himself, the police and any nearby passengers? Send for Dixon of Dock Green and give him a bit of a talking to? There was no choice and the poor bloke who pulled the trigger (and will now, no doubt, be crucified for this public service) did exactly the right thing.
Incidentally, is it only me who feels queasy when Mr de Menezes' family fly in and start complaining about the standards of British police and demanding a few million quid in compensation? Stockwell isn't San Paulo, and as far as I know, the Met have yet to start shooting homeless children dead just to keep the streets tidy, unlike their Brazilian counterparts.
A bit of bible for you: "Judge not, that ye be not judged … and why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own?"
It appears that I have been living under a misapprehension all these years. I did not fail my knots badge in the Cubs. Neither did I fail my Chemistry O-level (despite getting only two per cent). And I certainly didn't fail my driving test the first time around. I was merely a victim of "deferred success".
At least that is the theory of retired teacher Liz Beattie, who has tabled a motion for the annual conference of the Professional Association of Teachers arguing that the concept of "failure" should be removed from the British education system and be replaced with "deferred success".
It really does beggar belief. They've made exams so easy that you can pass despite getting four out of five questions wrong, even thickies get a guaranteed place at one of Mr Blah's new "universities", they've banned school sports because of "elitism" and now they're trying to do away with the very idea that some people might be smarter than others.
You can't fool kids like this. They learn from the very first day in the playground that life is all about winners and losers. The winners, even at the age of five, are bigger and cleverer than the norm. The losers are the ginger kids who smell a bit funny and wear Woolworths plastic sandals in summer and wellies in winter. It is life as we know it.
And what purpose can possibly be served by creating an artificial society where no-one fails? All you then do is generate false expectations amongst the rabble. There will always be dole scum, just as there will always be brave and bright individuals. Taking away any sense of personal responsibility for one's achievement (or lack of it) merely panders to the notion that nothing is ever anyone's fault.
"I'm thick because the teachers never liked me." "I'm pregnant because I missed the sex education lesson." "I can't get a job because I'd have to get a bus to work." The mind boggles.
God only knows where all our medal winners in the 2012 Olympics are supposed to come from.
Speaking of deferred success, and with the B Team of bombers in mind, what happens to a warrior of Islam whose bomb fails to go off and has to run away? Does he still get his full quota of 72 virgins? Or does he just get the one: a whiny, needy self-obsessed teenager who keeps saying that she'll only do it if he promises to respect her in the morning?
And what about the would-be martyrs who cocked it up on Thursday? Do they have to slink back to the Mosque, red-faced and sheepish, facing a stint of Bingo-calling at the Friday night social as punishment? (We won't even mention the meat raffle.)
I have a solution to this outbreak of commuter fear. Why not just make all swarthy-looking people travel in their own carriage? A reinforced metal one. I know it sounds harsh, but at least it would set a lot of minds at rest.
This weeks weeks devilment... terrorists in our cities & ethnic minorities in our countryside plus more besides.
There have been many casualties since NuLabour's urbanites declared war on the countryside.
The poor unfortunates who find themselves living next to a field of feral gypsies; the villagers who have lost their pub, post office and school; all those whose livelihoods are threatened by bans on country sports; the young and old alike left stranded and isolated by the extinction of public transport links; the small farmers starved into submission by supermarket buyers who think every carrot should be a standard size; the vulnerable and frightened who have been abandoned by a retreating police force; oh, and hang on, here comes John Prescott and his cement mixer, ready to concrete over thousands of acres of previously-protected green space for “affordable” housing. (And "affordable" for who? Why, the government employees of Mr Blah's Turkey Army, of course.)
Now even the Countryside Agency, the government quango set up to look after rural issues, has turned against the people it is supposed to represent. The reason?
Well, it appears that ethnic minorities, city dwellers and the disabled don't feel "welcome" once they venture out of their urban jungles into the leafy lanes beyond.
As part of a £1.5 million "diversity review" (no, I don't know what it means either), the agency has concluded that minority groups are keen to enjoy the countryside, but that "a lack of confidence among providers in approaching people from these groups results in a lack of engagement with people who could use their facilities" (and no, I don't know what that means either).
I suspect that the apparatchiks have been offended by the fact that the brochure for Mrs Miggins' Olde Fashioned Offal and Chutney Pie Experience (one of our local attractions) doesn't have any black faces on its cover. Or that very few wheelchair-users ride out with the local hunt. Or that we failed to invite an Islington-dwelling representative of the social services to last year's Ferret Racing and Witch Ducking Festival.
And don't forget, it's not so long ago that a group of ramblers who provided guided walks in the Lake District were threatened with having their funding withdrawn for much the same reason. (Although I can't imagine that bearded Muslims carrying rucsacks are in great demand at the moment.)
And what about the lifeboat service denied Lottery funding because they didn't save enough disabled people or "ethnics"? What are they supposed to do? Bring back the Press Gang?
"I don't know what happened, officer. I was having a quiet pint in the Blagger on Benefit when I was hit over the head. When I came to, I was strapped into my wheelchair and floating in the middle of the English Channel …"
The truth of the matter is that the countryside isn't a particularly welcoming place. It is a working environment, and often a harsh one. Nature raw in tooth and claw. Strangers are sometimes viewed with suspicion, usually because they've come to steal a tractor.
When the writers of The League of Gentlemen invented that fearsome "local shop for local people" they weren't exaggerating: they were playing it down. And if you do embrace the concept of shopping locally to support local business, and then summon up the courage to cross the forbidding threshold, all you'll find is stale cakes, dusty packets of Bisto and a couple of bottles of Icelandic chardonnay at £9.99 a time.
Sometimes it's just easier to jump in the 4x4 and go to Tesco. At least the checkout girl won't have six fingers and a squint. Well, not usually, anyway.
In the wake of the London bombings, grief junkies from around the world have been rushing to post pictures of themselves in various states of defiance on a website called www.wearenotafraid.com.
That's fine as far as it goes, but what about the people who are afraid? Who's looking after the interests of those who have no intention of ever setting foot on public transport again? Or ever going anywhere near London again?
With these timid souls in mind, I am about to launch a site called www.yesiamquitescaredactually.com where nervous commuters can post pictures of themselves looking a bit worried, rather timid, or simply scared shitless.
It's only fair.
I suppose that you, like me, have spent the last week being nice to Muslims.
It must be a bit unsettling for the poor buggers – dozens of middle-class white people grinning inanely at them instead of completely ignoring them as usual.
But you do feel the need to make some effort, if only to mentally project the message that “It’s OK, we understand that you’re not all fanatical suicide bombers … although actually that bloke over there does look a bit iffy”.
One of the most alarming facts to come to light this week was how easy it seems to assemble a bomb from basic household items like hydrogen peroxide and acetone. Although I would have hoped that the alarm bells might have rung when a bearded Muslim turned up in Boots buying hair bleach and nail varnish remover. And if I was MI5, I’d be popping round to see Barry Scott, star of the Cillit Bang television ads, sharpish.
And all these police raids on Islamic bookshops. If Al Quaeda are that smart, why don’t they open Christian bookshops instead? That would fool the cops. They could even buy Ottakars. That already sounds a bit Arabic.
Just a thought.
I am somewhat aggrieved that neither ITN nor the BBC have been round to Beelzebub Mansions to interview me regarding my narrow escape from last Thursday's dreadful terrorist attack in London.
True, I was 120 miles away at the time – grovelling at the feet of an Inland Revenue tax inspector – and was therefore nowhere near the scene of the attacks. But that hasn't stopped them interviewing myriad other people whose connection with the appalling events was tenuous to say the least.
You know the sort of thing: "Well I usually catch the 07.32 to Paddington, but that morning the dog had been sick in my handbag so I was late and when I got to Edgware Road station Mr Patel had run out of Guardians so I had to buy an Independent and then I spilt my double decaf fair trade Guatamalan frappacino which added another three minutes to my journey and normally when I get downstairs to the platform I always wait just where the doors on the second carriage will stop but this time I was scared by an errant pigeon so I turned right and got into the fourth carriage instead. So I was very, very lucky. Plus I was at home throwing a sickie anyway, but it could have been me."
ITN managed to hit a new low on Tuesday lunchtime, interviewing one of their own girly reporters about the "trauma" she suffered on having to report on the incident in the first place. That's what you're there for, love. Nasty things happen, you then go out and tell us about them. You are not the story: the facts are the story. It's enough to make Kate Adie spin in her grave.
Incidentally, much has been made of the forbearance of Londoners in the wake of the bombings. Blitz analogies abound. "If we stay at home, the terrorists have won," was the message. So where were they all on Friday?
Faced with getting out of bed and struggling into work on a disrupted transport system, or sun-bathing in the garden with a pint of jellied eels, a party can of Watney's Red Barrel and a copy of the Daily Star, they displayed that famous fighting spirit by … err … staying at home. Marvellous stuff.
As well as being the natural environment of dole scum, fat women, alcoholics and ex-Blue Peter presenters, daytime television is also home to some of the most irritating adverts on Planet Earth.
I suppose a 30-second advert in between an item on how wearing slippers can give you cancer and someone plugging a book about the drug-fuelled depravity of Kenny Ball's Jazzmen is now so cheap that any fool can afford a slot, but that's no excuse for the endless repetition.
My favourite hate-ad at the moment features a cuddly-looking cheery chappy talking on the phone to his mate Mike about football while his equally perky wife, for reasons I cannot fathom, follows him around the house with a video camera. But wait … it turns out that Mike isn't actually a mate at all, but is a telesales drone from a loan company.
"How much do we want to borrow?" says the cheery chappy. "£25,000 … and how much will that cost me? Wow … that's less than we pay now!"
What the grinning idiot doesn't seem to understand is that his "friend" Mike has just turned him over big time and that £25,000 will eventually end up costing him and his perky wife a massive £42,147 in repayments and interest.
One can only hope that his "mate" has the decency to bail him out when the bailiffs come kicking the door down.
Walking through town on Saturday afternoon I am accosted by a very nice elderly lady who is collecting on behalf of the Alzheimer's Society.
"But I gave you a fiver just ten minutes ago," I tell her, as she waves her collecting tin at me.
Fear, panic and confusion flash through her eyes as I walk away, whistling. I know it's wrong, but sometimes you just have to do it.
Think back to when you last sat an exam. What was the pass mark you were expected to get? Seventy-five per cent? Fifty-five per cent? Both sound reasonable enough. But no more. For 14-year-olds taking a national curriculum maths exam this month can get a pass mark even if they get three-quarters of the questions wrong. Yep, that's right. Marks of a measly 22.5 per cent are now deemed good enough for a pass in the subject.
Meanwhile pupils who get top grades in their GCSE exams are proving to be so poor at English and maths that they have to be tested again by prospective employers. Many can't write a simple letter or do a simple sum, and some firms are even testing teenagers to make sure they know the alphabet and are therefore able to do mundane tasks like filing.
Now we're not talking about thickies here. We're talking about kids who have got A grades. And Mr Blah still denies standards are slipping. Edukashun, edukashun, edukashun, eh Tone?
Nanny state update: There's been an outbreak of killer hanging baskets in the Somerset village of Norton Fitzwarren. The landlord of the Ring of Bells, who decorates his pub with dozens of baskets every year, has been found guilty of infringing the minimum height restriction of 8.2 feet, therefore endangering the passing public.
It matters not that the Ring of Bells display has won Prettiest Village Pub on four occasions, or that tourists flock to see the floral display. The rules is the rules.
Now I don't know about you, but I don't know many people who are eight feet six inches tall. That bloke who plays Darth Vader, perhaps, or maybe the odd stilt-walker. So unless Norton Fitzwarren plays host to the annual Tallest People in Britain contest or gets visited by a circus on a weekly basis, it seems unlikely that anyone is going to get lashed by a lobelia or interfered with by an ivy.
Still, the health and safety Nazis at Somerset County Council will be polishing their clipboards with pride. Another victory for small-mindedness and red tape.
A last word on Live8, which has now disappeared from the radar thanks to the Olympic bid and the terrible events in London.
One of the most irritating images of the whole extravaganza was Sir Bob Geldof snapping his fingers every three seconds to signify the loss of another African child's life.
It occurred to me that if someone was to take a lump hammer to Sir Bob's digits, so rendering them unclickable, hundreds of children could be saved at a stroke. Simple, isn't it.
Hoorah! We've got the 2012 Olympics!
Take that, you rifle-dropping, cheese-eating, surrender monkeys. Take that, you donkey-chucking, bull-stabbing, siesta merchants.
Right. I can calm down now. And no doubt the true nature of this NuLabour victory will be expressed in more restrained terms. We didn't in fact beat Paris and Madrid. We actually beat the Red and Blue cities.
And now the worry sets in. Let's face it, we don't actually have much of a track record of successfully staging major events and enormous building projects where London is concerned. The 1966 World Cup was spread around the country and relied on the icon of Wembley for the capital's involvement. The 1996 European Championship was another brilliant nationwide affair while the 2002 Commonwealth Games was a purely Mancunian extravaganza.
As far as the Southerners are concerned, they've cocked up the Millennium Dome and that wonky bridge across the Thames. And have you tried driving to the East End? By the time you've dodged the muggers, rapists, gangsters and Pearly Kings and Queens doing "Knees Up Mother Brown" in the middle of the road, you're rapidly losing the will to live.
Still, it's pie and mash all round. Let's enjoy the moment. And hope that the Del Boys can get it right over the next seven years.
SATURDAY, EH? What a day!
Thousands of happy people gambolling on the grass in London, some brilliant performances, a few old-timers showing that they've still got what it takes, and all beamed into the drawing room of Beelzebub Mansions where I was lazing in front of the 48-inch plasma telly with a bucket of cold beer and a box of pickled onion-flavoured Monster Munch.
Yes, I really enjoyed the one-day cricket final against Australia.
Forgive me for being a wet blanket, but the idea of trekking all the way down to that London just to stand in a field with 200,000 sweaty airheads, Lefties and hippies while millionaire pop stars preached twaddle at me from a stage that was a mere dot on the horizon held all the appeal of a double shift in a vegetarian sausage factory.
If I'd wanted to enter into the spirit of the occasion, I'd have parked a portable telly in the Lower Meadow, retreated the half a mile to the herb garden and stood there all day clasping a plastic bottle of warm water and refusing to flush any of the toilets in the house while my man Whittaker jumped up and down in front of me waving a flag that read "Aimee luvs Dildo, Maxwell 2 go".
(For the benefit of older readers, I should point out that the banner refers to a particularly whiney female singer and a popular current television series.)
Even more baffling were those people who queued up all night to get tickets to stand in an area of Hyde Park where they couldn't even see the stage but got to watch the whole nonsense on a big telly. What is the point of that? How much did their transport to London and hotel rooms cost? How many boxes of anti-malarial drugs would that pay for? How many fecking goats would that buy?
And I'm still puzzled as to why the damn thing had to happen at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the swivel-eyed loon and his G8 chums had revised their aid to Africa budget several weeks ago, and had substantially increased it. Is that just so they can pretend that they've listened to the mob? (And did Monsieur Chirac arrive at Gleneagles with a Tupperware container of horse and pickle sandwiches under his arm, given his views on British food?)
And is there really any point in gifting yet more billions in cash to corrupt dictators who'll fritter it away on fighter jets, limousines for the latest mistress or gold-plated George Foreman low-fat grills? Even the Nigerian government admits that its country's past rulers have stolen or misused over £220 billion in aid since independence in 1960 – the equivalent of every penny we've sent to Africa in the past 40 years. Under those circumstances, why should African poverty still be the white man's burden?
And don't get me started on global warming, which appears to be the other issue agitating the assorted soap-dodgers who smashed up the Burger King restaurant in Stirling and their pop star advocates. In the past year I have been to see both Coldplay and REM in concert (groovy, eh?). On both occasions, the audience was assailed by trendy propaganda about protecting our planet, yet a cursory glance at their tour schedules shows that these prophets of doom happily fly around the globe in their private jets, belching out enough poisonous emissions to poison a thousand fecking goats.
So was this whole, hypocritical, self-reverential ego-fest more to do with record sales and restoring reputations than actually achieving anything real? It should be noted that virtually every single act that appeared on Saturday saw their record sales soar on Monday. There wasn't a Pink Floyd CD to be had in the country by lunchtime. Even the foghorn-voiced Annie Lennox was knocking out a Greatest Hits album.
Now a few weeks ago I had a pop at Sir Bob and Sir Elton and Sir Bono and Sir Sting for not putting their own hands in their reinforced pockets when it came to providing relief for Africa. I may have pointed out that they could probably buy most of it between them and then sub-let it to the Welsh. So thank you to those artistes who have already committed to donating their extra royalties to charity.
Of course, it's easy to sneer, and on that point I yield to one of the nation's master practitioners, Mr Mark Steyn of Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph. Writing on Tuesday he points out that when Linda McCartney died of cancer, her lawyers fought tooth and nail to have her estate probated in New York, rather than London.
The reason for this is that the family thus avoided the 40 per cent inheritance tax on the estate, and copped for the best part of £150 million. As Mr Steyn points out, the original Live Aid concert in 1985 raised around £50 million for Africa. If the McCartney family had paid inheritance tax on dear Linda's dough, the amount of cash going into government coffers - and then possibly onto Africa as aid - would have dwarfed that.
So yes, it's easy to sneer.
And I'll sneer further at another target of recent weeks - Sir Bob's preposterous announcement that an armada of small ships would set sail for France and bring back thousands of protesters who would then be ferried by coach up to Edinburgh to annoy the local populace with their inbred rudeness and horse and pickle sandwiches (and given the obduracy of the natives, that would take some doing).
In the end Sail8, as it was imaginatively named, sank as fast as a Spanish frigate off Cadiz. Only five yachts made the crossing and when they got to Normandy could find no-one waiting (or even willing) to travel back with them – not even an asylum seeker. Sir Bob, who was due to meet the "flotilla" on its return, duly found something better to do and legged it. And who can blame him.
And here's another thing. If Live8 was intended to "raise awareness" and influence the outcome of the G8 summit, why didn't they just pick an easier target?
One man is easier to influence than eight, right? Yet in Rome there is one man who could, at a stroke, help alleviate the AIDS epidemic that is decimating Africa.
Perhaps Sir Bob should next turn his attention to getting Pope Benedict XVI to endorse the use of condoms. It would make a damn site more difference than having a pathetic drug addict shamble around Sir Elton's piano.
I suspect that the availability of reliable supply of water is a major priority in alleviating Africa poverty. It certainly is in Sussex, where the manicured lawns of suburbia have been hit by the first hosepipe ban of the year.
So well done then to artist Mark McGowan, who has turned on a tap for a year at an art gallery in London, and intends to let it run for a year, so wasting 15 million litres of water. (And how many goats would that keep going?)
"Basically it's an art piece for people to come and look at and enjoy aesthetically," he said. "It is also a comment on a social and environment issue."
I know not if Mr McGowan, whose previous "masterpieces" include pushing a peanut around London with his nose, has received a Lottery grant for this latest project. But I wouldn't be surprised.
In which Mr Beelzebub laments the decline of smoking. So spark one up & enjoy ...
I well remember the first newspaper office I ever worked in.
Everyone smoked, incessantly – even the company doctor. Overflowing ashtrays littered every desk, you had to wade through knee-deep drifts of ash if you ventured off the beaten track and the corridors echoed to the hacking coughs of grey cardigan-wearing sub editors.
We even smoked in the bath. Many's the time I've come home from a hard day at the coal face to light up a Capstan Number One while Mrs Beelzebub scrubbed off the Quink stains and pencil dust while I sat in an old tin bath in front of the fire. Rumour has it that W.D. & H.O.Wills were even working on a secret waterproof cigarette that could be smoked in the shower before the health Nazis banned the idea.
And we didn't smoke these poncy modern fags. We smoked real gaspers: Park Drive Plain, Woodbines and Senior Service. Give an old-fashioned newspaperman a Marlboro Lite and he'd faint in the street. Our fags had flavour and nicotine and tar and chemicals and cancer.
Look around the modern office these days and it's inconceivable to imagine that just a few years ago, a nimbus strata of cigarette smoke would have been hanging above the desks. You can't even pull out a tin of snuff now without the health and safety rep evacuating the building.
I have always tried to be a considerate smoker. I don't smoke in church or in primary school classrooms. If a pregnant woman is present, I give her a ten-second start before reaching for the lighter. And I never smoke between courses in restaurants … unless I'm having more than one course.
But despite this mannerly approach by myself and most other smokers, we continue to be persecuted by the rest of society and by the government. Smoking in the office has long gone, and now the ban has spread to shopping malls, cinemas, theatres and football grounds. Soon pubs serving food, office block doorways and even bus queues will become no-go areas.
And if this blatant victimisation isn't enough, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt intends to turn the entire nation into police informants by sticking notices everywhere smoking is verboten urging people to ring a hotline number if someone is brave or daft enough to light up. Crack teams from the Fag Inspectorate will then descend upon the hapless nicotine addict and fine him or her £50.
What next? Grassing up the diner on the next table for failing to eat his greens? Calling in the Alcoholic Unit Enforcement Officer when someone orders that second bottle of port? Compulsory weigh-ins in market squares on Saturday mornings, where the general populace can gather to ridicule any lard-arses who haven't lost the government-approved amount of weight? I tell you, the world is going mad.
The irony of the situation is that the potential flashpoint for confrontations between smokers and the Fag Inspectorate will be licensed premises like pubs and clubs, whose purpose in life is to supply the hoi polloi with vast quantities of alcohol, thus endangering their health and leading to outbreaks of rowdiness and violence.
Tell me, when did you last see a gang of unruly youths rampaging through the streets after overdoing the Lambert & Butlers? When has a teenage girl ever collapsed vomiting in the gutter after a night of binge smoking? When have our hospital wards ever been clogged up by the victims of Friday night cheap cigarette promotions... oh, hang on.
By the way, coming next from the control freaks is enforced recycling. In future you're going to have to separate glass, tins and paper from the rest of your household rubbish or face a visit from the local council “recycling assistant”, who will lecture you po-faced on the damage you're doing to the environment and then drive off belching fumes from his council-funded diesel van.
Persistent backsliders will face a court summons and a fine of £1,000. No, really. Let's just hope that they don't start counting the cigarette ends.
I searched in vain on the 48-inch plasma telly to find any live coverage of the climax of the Trafalgar 200 celebrations on Tuesday night. The Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation, which had shown some bits earlier in the day, stuck with a drama-soap about a hairdressers and a repeat of some middle aged women moaning (they can't do it half as well as we men) followed by “highlights” of a tennis tournament.
BBC3 had a repeat of Little Britain and BBC4 was showing a horribly right-on programme about African music. So nowhere on our public service broadcaster's network was there room to televise a major state occasion featuring Her Majesty The Queen and what's left of our once-mighty Royal Navy.
That, I'm afraid, is an utter disgrace. The PC mob had already denigrated Nelson's memory by avoiding mentioning that he gave the French and the Spanish a right good shoeing at Trafalgar; now the Lefties at Broadcasting House stick their muddled heads in the sand and pretend that nothing of consequence was happening. And they wonder why I don't pay my licence fee.
Incidentally, and while we're on the Royals, can I ask all those traitors whining about Prince Andrew's extravagant use of chartered helicopters one question? Where were you when he was using a helicopter as an Exocet decoy during the Falklands War?
Along with most of the nation's pensioners and students, I was saddened by the death of Richard Whiteley. He seemed a decent cove, even for a Yorkshireman.
And there seemed to be a certain synergy in the manner of his unfortunate death: Pneumonia, which is, of course, a nine-letter word. It's what he would have wanted.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before a weeping Carol Vorderman was wheeled out in front of the TV cameras to pay tribute to her Countdown partner. She seemed truly upset, or so I thought …
Barely ten minutes later, and on a different channel, there she was all smiles and reassuring nods offering to arrange for me a quick and easy, low-cost loan with flexible repayment options. Has the woman no shame?
As your humble correspondent has been condemned to spending Friday in that dark place where sheep are not considered to be livestock but objects of desire, I think that we had better do Mr B's weekly round up a little bit earlier than usual...
People who have suffered from being educated from the 1980s onwards won't know this, but there is an excellent novel by John Wyndham called The Midwich Cuckoos that used to be a set work in schools.
It tells the tale of a village where for a full day, every living thing is rendered unconscious by a mysterious force that forms a perfect circle enveloping the whole town. Just about everyone wakes up from the ordeal none the worse for their experience. Until it is revealed that every woman of child-bearing age in Midwich is pregnant.
The subsequent children turn out to be golden-eyed, telepathic, and with an accelerated growth rate. I won't spoil the ending for you, but their presence is problematic. Which brings me to Education Secretary Ruth Kelly and her mission to keep children in schools from dawn until dusk, a NuLabour project clearly modelled on the Midwich experience.
I have already discussed at length in this column the social engineering project that is Mr Blah's Turkey Army. Armies of bright-eyed if stupid 18-year-olds emerging from so-called schools with a full set of worthless A-levels, collecting an equally-worthless degree from an equally-worthless so-called university, and then marching off into a publicly-funded job-for-life in the Civil Service with a publicly-funded final salary scheme pension at the end of it.
Not surprisingly, these turkeys tend not to vote for Christmas, because electing NuLabour for another term keeps the gravy train on track. And meanwhile the rest of us who struggle through a risk-laden life in the private sector watch our pensions evaporate to the point where tins of Kit-e-Kat and bags of Werther's Originals will become luxury items, rather than daily purchases.
(Well that's what old people buy, isn't it? It's all they seem to have in their trolleys when they're blocking the aisles at Tesco anyway. Oh, and tinsel, especially in January.)
Now, not content with processing right-thinking cannon fodder from their teenage years, Ms Kelly's mad-eyed evangelism is trying to steal our children away from us in their primary school years.
How long will it be before our own offspring are grassing us up to the Thought Police for anti-social crimes like eating burgers, having a quick fag in the potting shed or shouting "Get off you big Nancy Boy" at the telly whenever Peter Mandelson appears? It's frightening.
And what about the thick kids: the ones who are too stupid to pass even NuLabour's tick-the-box exams? Asbo Estates, that's what.
The modern-day version of the Victorian workhouses, where recalcitrant youths are made to wear hoodies and hang around outside shopping centres in exchange for weekly supplies of microwave pizza, alcopops and oven chips.
They will then be ministered by publicly-funded social workers while Lottery-moneyed artists build them sculptures made out of broken bicycles and grant-aided street theatre companies put on shows about the horrors of glue-sniffing. It's beautiful; it's perpetual motion.
I've had enough. I'm digging a moat and making a tin foil hat.
Now I'm not one to pre-judge (arf!), but I have a terrible feeling that the offspring of Ms Trisha Parsons and Ms Hayley Fisher might be inhabitants of an Asbo Estate 14 years from now.
Their babies, both little girls, share the same father - a lumpen scrote called Scott Bingham. The two mothers have become firmest of friends after discovering each other's existence, and now even dress alike and have their hair dyed in similar fashion. A touching tale of modern-day relationships, I think you'll agree.
So why am I so ready to condemn these children, not yet out of nappies, to a lifetime of cheap jewellery, Pot Noodles and scratchcards? Their names. One is called Porscha and the other is called Khyra-Jaye.
To be honest, you may as well pierce their ears, stick them in thongs and make an appointment at the tattooists right now. When did you last hear of a university lecturer called Khyra-Jaye? Have you ever come across a managing director called Porscha?
What's wrong with Vera or Elsie, Norma or Gert? It's madness. Branded from birth by a dodgy monicker just because your schoolgirl mum watches Footballers' Wives. Where were social services at those Christenings? Eh? Eh?
Mind you, an Asbo Estate can pitch up just about anywhere these days. Just ask the residents of one of the leafiest streets in Kensington, where houses routinely fetch over a million pounds.
Their peace has been shattered by the arrival of the 13-strong Julian clan, who have been given a five-bedroomed council house in the street from which to menace the neighbourhood while pulling in £600 a week in benefits.
Let's do a name check, shall we? Amongst the 11 children, aged from 18 months to 18 years, are Tee Jay, Mason, Mia and Armani. (I may have made that last one up, but you get the picture.)
And again, not wishing to judge too soon, I will simply point to the fact that family's pets are a Staffordshire bull terrier and a Rottweiler. They may as well pierce the dogs' ears, stick them in thongs and make an appointment at the tattooists right now.
NANNY STATE update: For decades, the television legend that is Blue Peter has led the way in recycling, turning empty washing-up bottles, cornflake boxes and sticky-back plastic into everything from homemade Tracy Islands to large-scale models of the Big Brother House, complete with a plasticine effigy of the unspeakable Maxwell.
But, for a school in East Sussex, such engineering marvels will be no more. An essential component of any Blue Peter project – the empty egg carton – has been banned, for fear that they might pass salmonella onto teachers or children who handle them.
It would be appropriate at this point to ask the health and safety Nazis just how many people have ever been stuck down by this disease after willfully handling said containers. But we already know the answer: none, not one, ever.
Still, you can't be too careful, can you? God only knows what Brunel would have made of all this.
Meanwhile the nation's farmers, usually one of the least politically-correct groups of society, have been made giddy by the sudden sunshine and have picketed the offices of the Oxford University Press complaining about the use of the phrase "couch potato" in their dictionaries.
Apparently – wait for it – the term is insulting to potatoes and is putting people off buying them. No, really.
Given the amount of moaning farmers usually do, you would have thought that they would have been too busy to waste their time on such a stupid stunt. Perhaps Mr Plod ought to take a closer look at that burgeoning crop in the Lower Meadow.
Right, its off home to find some cold ones & head off to The Englishman's Castle. Dear readers, I shall leave you in the hands of Barry Beelzebub, who this week has been relating his expirence of America, in the light of the latest courtroom errrr drama & the high quality of scum that dear blighty produces, in increasing numbers these days.
Over to you, Mr B ....
You know what I think about Americans. Get them on their home patch and they're an incredibly friendly and hospitable people. But introduce the notion that there might be a big wide world out there that they don't actually control and they immediately retreat into McDonald's mode.
I first went to the States 35 years ago. At that time, the English were something of a novelty. To the extent that my host in Boston felt quite comfortable about singing IRA songs after dinner in the way of entertainment.
No offence was meant, particularly as he'd never been there. He was just one of those Plastic Paddies who threw a few dollars in the "fighting fund" mug when it came round the bar. (Without a fecking clue what the horrendous consequences of that funding would turn out to be.)
I soon returned, to work and travel for a couple of years, and managed to cover most of the country and most of the contrasts. Again, the accent was invaluable, but we'll quickly draw a line under that before Mrs Beelzebub starts asking awkward questions.
I later did every inch of Florida before it became a package tour destination, only fleeing to the Texas coast when every other person on International Drive was wearing a Premiership football shirt and the restaurants started adding a service charge to bills because the tight-arsed Brits refused to tip dollar-an-hour waitresses.
So I know my stuff and I know my USA. It's fairly simple. The west and east coasts are as civilised as any modern European city; the other 90 per cent of the country is, well … err … "different".
They don't do self-doubt, they don't do irony, and they certainly can't be described as either sophisticated or intellectual. They are confident in their values, they work hard to make a better life for themselves and their families, they revel in red tape and bureaucracy, and they're never happier than when they're given a uniform to wear and, if at all possible, a gun to carry. (I've seen armed road sweepers in Alabama, honest.) Oh, and they can't drink. Or fight.
But at the end of the day, and by our standards, they're thick. There's no way round it: even the Welsh would beat them in a pub quiz. With one of their three eyes tied behind their backs. Which brings us to the trial, and subsequent exoneration, of Mr Michael Jackson.
Isn't it astonishing what a rich white man can still get away with in America? I don't know about you, but a 47-year-old man who regularly feeds youngsters white wine before inviting them into his bed and showing them porn can't exactly be squeaky clean. Yet still he moonwalked out of court.
(And what was that woman with the box of doves going to do with them if he'd been found guilty?)
Did nobody raise an eyebrow when he built a full-scale, kiddy-attracting fairground in his garden? Most millionaires settle for a kidney-shaped swimming pool and a sauna. Not a roller coaster called The Big Nonce. And a waltzers ride called The Waving Willy.
But Americans, and American juries, are bedazzled by celebrity. Look at O.J. Simpson, caught as red-handed as you would wish (literally), but now still prowling the glove shops of Beverley Hills. In fact, the only high-profile conviction in recent years was of a Brit - the baby-shaking Scouser, Louise Woodward. And they even let her go.
And let me ask you this. If it was 13-year-old girls who'd been in Jacko's bed, rather than 13-year-old boys, would the verdict have been the same?
So we salute you, the completely innocent Mr Michael Jackson. And we look forward to your next tour, in aid of the Save The Children (For Me) fund. Just do us a favour and leave the Jesus Juice at home, eh?
(Incidentally, wasn't it nice to see Mr Uri Geller come out of his self-imposed purdah to defend his old mate after the verdict? So that's a man who makes things bend by rubbing them, supporting a man who … oh sod it, I can't be arsed.)
But we mustn't always be beastly to the Yanks. As an afficianado of crap television, I well remember when the original Jerry Springer Show first appeared on our domestic screens. Oh, how we laughed, as freak after weirdo after transvestite stripper after man-who-slept-with-his-horse were paraded in front of us in a modern-day version of Bedlam. Only in America, we thought.
Well laugh no more. The Primark trainer is firmly on the other foot. Mr Springer is now churning out a daily morning shockfest on behalf of ITV in this country and the sad news is that our home-grown scrotes are now even worse than the TransAtlantic toss-pots who polluted the original series.
It has to be said that they lack the originality of the Stateside scrotes. Most of ours seem to be alcoholics (It's The Drink Or Me!), absent fathers (DNA Tests 'R Us!) or serial adulterers (My Man Got My Sister's Second Cousin’s Mother Pregnant – And It's Twins! Black Twins!). And they really are a shabby, confused bunch; the real dregs of society. Even Jerry struggles to cope with the Stella-breathed accents from Tyneside, Liverpool and Huddersfield. And Wales, of course. And Jockland.
It's perhaps as well that we've had to close our Scrote of the Year contest. The judging would have taken forever. But we do still have a Junior Scrote of the Year section open, so step forward, 11-year-old Siobhan Blake of Hastings, East Sussex.
Little Siobhan, just 4 foot 3 inches tall, has just received the modern-day equivalent of the Blue Peter badge or a day on Jim'll Fix It - a court-ordered ASBO. She is now banned from "damaging property or causing alarm" on her home estate. In the past, Siobhan has bricked schools and other children, been caught spitting and swearing, has attacked school colleagues and destroyed neighbourhood gardens.
She admits to smoking, drinking and "doing Calpol". (Yes, but how? Does she smoke it? Inject it? Thousands of harrassed and sleepless parents of young children need to know.)
Also challenging for the honours are the Hooper brothers of Newport, Gwent. Kyle and Calvin (no, really, I'm not making this up) are aged 12 and 10 respectively. They've also collected their first ASBOs at an age when I was content with a sherbert dip and the occasional Park Drive Plain behind the bike sheds.
The Hooper boys hurl bricks at cars, shoot at passers-by with an air pistol, and have attacked those who have the temerity to complain about their behaviour with a metal bar. Pictured in the tabloids, 10-year-old Calvin wears an earring and a Burberry hat. He looks like a right pain, if only a knee-high one.
Of course, there are mothers on hand to defend all three of these children. Phrases like "They're not angels, but they're not evil either" and "She's very misunderstood" are bandied about like alcopops in assembly. There is no mention of fathers because we know, don't we, that the poor saps who inseminated these mini-hooligans have long since fled to the bookies. And the next scrote-bearing slapper.
So titter ye not. When it comes to turning out world-class scum, we are once again a great nation.
LAW UPDATE: A couple of weeks ago I alerted you to the dangers of old people doing 90mph through shopping centres on their motorised scooters. Sadly, this week we had the inquest into the death of a fellow pensioner who was mown down by a 66-year-old scooter rider who had covered his geriatric hot rod with Ferrari stickers, had the name Michael Schumacher emblazoned on the back of it and who was wearing the team cap at the time.
You have been warned.
Meanwhile a student from Oxford was banged up overnight and fined £80 for calling a police horse "gay".
Other than accepting the principal that gobby students should always suffer, I am at a loss as to who was the victim of this so-called crime.
Was the horse going to suffer post-traumatic stress from being branded a shirt-lifter? Would the other horses in the police stables poke fun at him and play him Shirley Bassey records all night? Would he wake up to find his hooves painted bright pink?
I know not, but one can only assume that the burden of evidence is somewhat different in this country as to what it is in Santa Monica.
So I fired up the 48-inch plasma telly the other night, sat back in the black leather LazyBoy recliner with a large glass of 10-year-old malt Rifkind, and was immediately assailed by a nightmare vision.
There, on screen, was a wild-haired, mad-eyed Tinker ranting and caterwauling away like a chip shop owner during the Potato Famine. I thought I'd stumbled upon film of the motivational speaker at a we've-got-a-bit-of-tarmac-left-over conference. Or an evangelical clothes peg salesman. It turned out to be the Right Honourable Lord Sir Bob Geldof CBE, ceremoniously re-launching the careers of dozens of faded pop stars with another Live Aid doodah, only 20 years on. Quite why, I'm not sure.
Now we all know that there are starving people in Africa. That's why I religiously take my old painting jumpers down to Oxfam once a year so they can ship them out to Swaziland (average temperature: 100 degrees Fahrenheit). I sent £100 to Comic Relief (on condition that they stopped showing videos of snotty-nosed waifs grubbing around for food on council tips … in Liverpool) and I buy a new poppy every year, whether I need one or not.
Furthermore, the Beelzebub household (admittedly in the guise of Mrs B) is the proud charitable sponsor of a donkey in Devon, a seahorse in Bristol, and a goat that was sent out on a free holiday to the Gambia (Did it call? Did it write? Did it buggery …)
So I don't need reminding that those of us who live in the lap of comparative luxury need to do our bit for those who have to get up at 5am and walk 50 miles to the nearest fag machine, or whatever it is that they do in deepest Africa.
But this is where I get confused. Dame Geldof's five-city worldwide extravaganza before an audience of a million daft middle-class Lefties and a billion TV viewers isn't intended to raise money. It's intended to make a point. Yes, "make a point". There's a meeting of the world's leaders in Edinburgh and Bolshy Bob is determined that they're going to get some grief while they're here.
(You may question where the £1.50-a-time fee - plus usual service charges - for text message ticket applications is going. I understand that the money raised will pay for the staging of the various concerts. And at least while your 12-year-old is texting the letter "C" to 84599, they're not downloading the Crazy Frog ringtone.)
I need some more brackets here. Bear with me. (Think about this. A couple of punts at £1.50 a time could easily get you a couple of tickets for Hyde Park. That's £3 spent. Now just imagine what you could get for those on E-Bay. £100? £200? £500? It's money for old rope. And don't worry. I won't tell any starving Africans what you've done.)
So I think this Live 8 thing has got something to do with Third World debt, and the theory that Western countries shouldn't have the temerity to ask African countries to pay us back all the money we've loaned them. Which isn't exactly good business when you think about it.
If it becomes widely known, for instance, that the nation of Chad has defaulted on the $637 million it owes to the Federal Bank of Gross Obesity, Alabama, who on earth is going to lend them money the next time the kids need new shoes?
Trust me, you don't want to mess around with your credit status that way. I got two weeks behind in paying the milkman and the next thing I knew the bailiffs had come round to repossess the Jacuzzi. And I had to slink away from the tills at IKEA after my attempt to buy a Plonka cheese-grater met with derision when the machine spat out my bank card.
And, without being hard-hearted, who's to blame for them getting themselves into this mess in the first place? On the wall of my study at Beelzebub Mansions, I have a map of the world showing the British Empire dated 1924. The globe is mostly pink and, frankly, was a much better place for it.
But oh no, the early Guardianistas whined, in between mouthfuls of General Strike muesli. We must give these people their independence. It's not fair that we should rule over indigenous races. And off they went to spread resentment and revolt. And cycling. And beards.
So the once-pink nations got their independence and we ended up owning the Isle of Man and a rock 300 miles south east of Argentina. Not much of an empire, is it?
But we left behind a generous legacy. We left behind gold mines, diamond mines, copper mines and oil. We left behind railways, telephones, kedgeree and gin. We left behind industry and infrastructure. And what did they do, these indigenous peoples? They cocked it up, that's what they did.
Never mind the horrors of Ethiopia that spawned the original Live Aid publicity-fest. Only recently that nice Mr Mugabe from Zimbabwe sent in his feral troops to drive white farmers off their land so that it could be returned the "the people" (and all, no doubt, to approving nods from the lentil-eating classes back in Islington). But what's happened now? An apocalyptic famine, that's what. They just can't handle it.
And what's happened to all the money that we've already sent them in the past 20 years? What's happened to the child's pocket money, the pensioner's nest egg and the government's millions? Why is the situation just as bad now as it was when the ailing Freddie Mercury had to be propped up on drugs and ego to perform at Wembley?
Because while we might be generous to a fault when it comes to sticking our hands in our pockets for those less fortunate than ourselves, we're absolutely crap at making sure that the money goes to those who need it, rather than into the coffers of power-crazed despots.
Remember that blue fiver that Lord Feck of Fecking Fianne bullied you into sending off on that historic day back in 1985? Do you want to know where it ended up? I'll tell you – it helped build a new palace for the dictator's latest queen, it helped pay for a flight of fighter planes for a country that has no airborne enemies, and the few bob that was left over was eaten up when the gold-plated presidential Cadillac was sent down to KwikFit on a Saturday morning for a new set of alloys.
Maybe that's the problem. Second-rate dictators. At least with Idi Amin you knew where you stood (up to your knees in a pool full of crocodiles, usually). He was Sandhurst-trained. He knew the score. When he ripped you off, he did it with a refreshing honesty.
But back to the Baron of Bluster, the Count of Cacophony, Mr Geldof Himself. Not content with inflicting some distinctly nondescript pop bands on our ears, he also now seems to be confusing himself with Martin Luther King or Winston Churchill.
So not only are we to have all these pop concerts pushing Doctor Who off the telly, but the daft sod has also demanded that a million people should march on Edinburgh and … err … stand around looking concerned. And, incidentally, disrupt The Queen's summer holiday, the unthinking bastard.
I've done some quick sums. A flight from Brissle to Edinburgh costs between £40 and £80. The cost of travel will be the same from most parts of the country, be it coach, car, train or plane. Add to that the cost of food and drink (and I'm assuming that no hotel cost is involved) then I reckon you're looking at £100 a head just to … err … stand around looking concerned. Multiply that by a million and you’ve got ONE HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS. Call me a cynic, but what could that amount of money achieve in Africa? Never mind, we'll return to this argument later.
Princess Bob also wants a massive fleet of small boats to set sail to France to fetch back any passing European who fancies a few days bobbing about off the mouth of the Forth amidst SAS blokes in dinghies, American nuclear submarines with itchy trigger figures and mine-carrying dolphins while looking … err … concerned. (Rightly so, you might think.)
We'll set aside any cheap shots about illegal asylum seekers getting a cheap ride and merely concentrate on the practicalities. Let's assume a thousand assorted vessels respond to the Duke of Geldof's siren call. That's a thousand small boats, loaded to the gunnels with seasick soap-dodgers, bobbing around in the middle of the busiest shipping lane in the world. Is that altogether wise? Should I now start saving up to donate to Scrote Aid after the seemingly-inevitable disaster?
And as for cheap shots, we cannot ignore the simple fact that if these assorted egomaniacs swapped posturing for positive action, a great many problems could be solved overnight without involving the current publicity-fest.
I seem to recall reading that it costs only £15 to provide an African with copious and clean water for a year. Perhaps the multi-millionaire Mr Geldof might want to have a quick word with the multi-millionaire Sir Elton John, the multi-millionaire Sir Paul McCartney, the multi-millionaire Sir Mr Sting and the multi-millionaire Sir Mr Bono and see what they might achieve simply by putting their own fecking hands in their own fecking pockets.
After all, if George Bush can find £300 million in loose change down the back of the White House sofa (equivalent to Homer Simpson's doughnut bill), and a few pop oligarchs chucked their weekly beer money into the kitty, just imagine how many small countries would have been sorted out already.
I'll have you lot know that I turned down a free dinner at The Ivy so as to have time to bring you this weekly nonsense, so we'll have no talking at the back and whatever Titmuss has got in her mouth, she can spit it out into the bin NOW.
I'm confused. These shopping centres that are banning the wearing of hooded tops and baseball caps. Has it not occurred to anyone that most of the retail outlets contained therein are busy selling … hooded tops and baseball caps? And at stupid prices as well.
So you can buy them, but you can't wear them while you're buying them. Is that joined-up thinking? And what about Robin Hood, Little Red Riding Hood, assorted Benedictine monks and Darth Vader, all devotees of the "hoody" and not your typical anti-social scrotes? (Although you wouldn't want to come across the latter wielding a bad-tempered light sabre in the interminable queue at the Post Office on pension day.)
And then there's Prince William, the Right Honourable William Hague and US millionaire Malcolm Glazer, all regular wearers of the ubiquitous baseball cap. Are they to be condemned? (Although once again, the latter is undoubtedly the Spawn of Satan and will surely meet a messy end should he ever turn up to watch his newly-acquired football club.)
As long as I can remember, "normal" society has felt threatened by aggressive fashion statements. From Teddy Boys, to Mods and Rockers, to Skinheads and to Punks, the wearing of a hooligan uniform has put the wind up old ladies nationwide.
And I must admit that it isn't pleasant to be surrounded by gangs of feral teenagers who hide their faces like modern-day highwaymen, which is why I always carry a swordstick after dark.
But fashions pass and fade. All the Powers That Be have to do is wait. Within six months, hoodies and baseball caps will be on the way out and some new sartorial horror will have taken their place. Red socks, comedy ties or spats worn with a spotted pocket handkerchief, that sort of thing.
Perhaps the answer is to set up Scrote-only shopping centers, where the slack-jawed, gum-chewing, feckless detritus of society can shop amongst their own kind without frightening the horses. (Yes, I've heard of Aldi and Netto.)
These "pleb precincts" could even have stores specifically aimed at their target market. Endless branches of Dolestretcher (where everything is 37p) and Clinton Scratchcards (where women with scraped-back hair-dos, inappropriate nylon thongs and dodgy tattoos just above their arse cracks could exchange the few of their children's birthday postal orders that escaped the attentions of the thieving postman for a few seconds of sexual gratification, scraping frantically away at a piece of cardboard with a milk token).
And then there's the MotherDon'tCare shop strategically placed next door to the Early Pregnancy Centre. And Sex Toys ‘R Us down the road near the furniture warehouse called Pikea. The possibilities are endless. Rows after rows of microwave pizza emporiums, Elizabeth Duke bling outlets and Burberry-patterned three-abreast pushchair shops selling lightweight easy-push buggies to 13-year-old mothers.
Incidentally, I ended up stood behind a typical Pleb Precinct shopper in Tescos at the weekend. The tracksuit-clad slapper had a complaint – and so did the rest of the queue as her three brats Shiraz, Carsophagus and Chanel No 5 laid waste to the check-out displays.
She was brandishing one of those disposable barbecues and complaining loudly to the poor check-out girl that … wait for it … there were no burgers inside as pictured on the packaging. "Just effing coal."
To be fair, the girl explained the situation as tactfully as possible, offering the screaming harridan a full refund if she wasn't happy. It was then that she noticed the detail of the receipt.
"But you bought three of these," she told the Bardsley in front of her. "Have you brought the other two back as well?"
"No," said the tattooed troll. "They're in the freezer at home."
Enough said.
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Nanny State update: Now I'm sure we all know that you should never scratch a mole.
Why? Because it makes them very cross. (Listen. That would win a Perrier prize in a slow year.)
I have my own procedure for dealing with these furry pests. My man Whittaker, having bound his plus fours to the top of his shins with baling twine to prevent involuntary mole incursion, then pushes lit bangers down their burrows and when they blindly emerge, coughing and spluttering with little hands held over their little ears, I despatch them with the trusty Purdy. It's quite fun.
Of course, it wouldn't do for the politically-correct bunny-hugging classes to enter into mole control in the same fashion, would it? Well, you could be wrong.
Council officials responsible for the grounds of Kearnsey Abbey in Kent are pondering whether or not to gas the poor blighters who inhabit the estate. And why? In case visiting walkers fail to spot the molehills and trip over them, thus leaving Dover District Council open to a compensation claim.
Now any experienced walker (i.e. anyone who has safely traversed their own lawn) knows that moles push soil up through the surface creating little hillocks. The sensible advice to anyone facing this kind of garden hazard is to carefully vary one's trajectory so that you WALK AROUND THEM. It's not exactly rocket science. Iraqis pick up the idea very quickly.
Perhaps the moles of Kearnsey are particularly cunning. Perhaps they have perfected the art of creating invisible molehills, all the more the trap the unwary rambler. Perhaps they're the hard cases of the mole world, with tattooed flippers and nylon Burberry thongs.
And perhaps the Kent courts are overloaded with a plethora of compensation claims for grievous injury? You never know, Kearnsey Abbey might just be high on the list of holiday destinations for coachloads of short-sighted Scouse pensioners.
But no, not a single injury has yet to be reported; not a single claim has yet to be received. But they might be. And therefore the moles must die.
To be honest, they'd stand more chance running the gauntlet of Whittaker and me. Especially after sundown, when the cheap white cider is taking its toll.
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Terror Alert update: As the tourist coach approached the Eurotunnel terminal at Calais, the security scanners at the police checkpoint went beserk.
For once, the French plod weren't on strike, asleep or drunk and stirred themselves sufficiently to declare a full-scale security alert. Guns were cocked, helicopters were scrambled. A major terrorist incident was underway. Except that on board the coach were 48 hard-core members of the Suffolk West Federation of the Women's Institute. And not one of them wearing a burkha.
An hour later, after sniffer dogs had prowled up and down the aisle trying to distinguish between plastic corset bones and plastic explosives, the suspected terrorists were allowed to proceed, it being widely agreed that nail varnish fumes had set off the bomb detectors.
I can't be the only one to think that the Gendarmerie had a lucky escape.
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When dozens of gipsy caravans moved into a field opposite the 70-year-old cottage in Somerset occupied by two ladies (who may, or may not, wear comfortable shoes and do their own carpentry), their lawyers advised them to keep a detailed log of activities on the illegal site.
When yet more caravans arrived, bringing with them assorted dogs, feral children, peg-sellers, tarmac-layers and out-and-out thieves, the ladies rang to the police to inform them. Imagine their surprise when the local plod, rather than thanking them for their diligence, warned them that their behaviour could put their personal safety at risk and that they should not inflame the situation by looking out of their own windows.
Apparently the gippos had been moaning to the swiftly-deployed, publicly-funded members of Mr Blah's Turkey Army that the ladies were invading their privacy by looking at them. Social Services rule OK.
I don't really know what to say about this. I think I'll just go and shoot some moles instead.
So what are we to do with the Atkins/Williams family? You know. The one that’s had more media exposure than that bloody Crazy Frog advert in the past few days.
That we have to call them the Atkins/Williams family should give you a clue. The matriarch, single mother Julie Atkins (38), is a product our family-free society. She has three daughters, some of whom appear to be called Williams, presumably in honour of a long-departed "father".
And now we really get into it. Eldest daughter Natasha got pregnant at 16 and gave birth to a daughter called Amani. (The fact that she can’t even spell "Armani" is a matter for the education authorities in Derby, where the family lives.)
The father of Amani does not appear to be on the scene. Described as a 38-year-old Asian gambler who still lives with his mum and dad, he must be fervently hoping that his parents aren’t in the habit of watching television or reading newspapers. One toss of the dice too far, eh pal?
We now turn to daughter number two, a 15-year-old called Jade, who gave birth to a daughter called Lita last December. (Why the child is named after a Bristol City striker is neither here nor there. The father is a local teenager who appears to have conveniently forgotten the one-night stand that resulted in his offspring.)
If this wasn't enough, may I introduce Atkins/Williams daughter number three? Step forward Jemma, pregnant at 12 and mother of 14-month-old T-Jay. A boy, I think. (Bear with me on these names. At least the kid isn't called Matalan or Lidl. Yet.)
Now it doesn't take a genius to work out that young Jemma must have been having sex at the age of 11. What is surprising is that her mother apparently knew of the situation and possibly even condoned it, allowing her child to cavort with her "boyfriend" in the next-door bedroom. The mind truly boggles.
When I was 11, I was still collecting stamps and had only just started smoking. The thought of playing Doctors and Nurses with members of the opposite sex would have been quite outrageous. Apart from the odd dalliance with Helen Swinbank in her Wendy House, of course.
The Atkins/Williams family came to national attention after complaining locally about the awful conditions they have to live in. Their three-bedroomed council house (and didn't you just know that was coming) is apparently too small for this multiplying brood and they would like somewhere bigger, if you don't mind.
For the record, this State-funded baby factory brings in around £31,000 a year in benefits, paid for by you and me. They pay no rent or council tax. They have a big telly and a DVD player. And a freezer full of Findus Crispy Pancakes. And free lottery tickets every Saturday.
So who do we blame for this situation? Who do we take to task for the fact that an 11-year-old girl is having sex with the connivance of her own mother? Well not the feckless Ms Atkins for a start. She blames the schools and the government. According to her, none of her children received sufficient sex education at school and therefore fell foul of what they thought was innocent horseplay.
What rubbish. Innocent horseplay at the age of 11 is playing conkers and tag in the playground. Not re-enacting porn films with a boy just out of long trousers while your mother sleeps in the next bedroom. As a parent I feel sick to even think about it. Frankly, I'd call the police. The woman is an accomplice to a clear-cut case of statutory rape.
And anyway, the fact that her eldest daughter, Natasha, managed to sleep her way through two miscarriages and an abortion before producing a child gives lie to that assertion. Hadn't the stupid girl worked out by then what was causing the morning sickness and the craving for coal?
But however horrific these local difficulties might be, we have to accept that for many children, shelling out illegitimate kids like a Birds Eye combine harvester is simply a career move. They have no ambition, no plans for the life ahead. A quick bunk-up with a passing hoodie and Hey Presto! They're someone, they're a mother.
And with that status come the rewards. Benefits sufficient enough to provide a steady supply of cheap white cider, packets of Lambert & Butlers and some Elizabeth Duke bling. Food for the cuckoos in the nest, even if it does only amount to microwave pizzas and oven chips. And perhaps even their own council flats, where they can entertain further passing scrotes.
Then come the ASBOs, the additional multi-coloured kids, the elasticated waistbands, the tattoos and, eventually, the disability benefits from obesity and chronic smoking. With a bit of luck, the ever-swelling brood will by then be asthmatic, reaping further rewards. And special needs, of course. Which means a free car. It's like Bingo, only in real life.
And you have to say, as a career plan it beats working your balls off for 50 years only to find out that your pension has been swallowed up by the demands of the welfare state. And Gordon Brown.
In other countries such teenage fecundity would be encouraged. After all, we need more citizens coming into the workforce to help look after the swelling ranks of the old. There is only one problem with that theory. In all likelihood, the offspring of the likes of Natasha, Jade and Jemma will merely continue the cycle of state-funded leeching. They won't contribute to society. They'll just continue to take, setting up baby factories and feral hoodie gangs of their own.
There is only one way to tackle this problem. Before any woman under the age of 25 is allowed to have a child, she must first obtain a Baby Licence. She will only be able to do this by first proving that she has the basic intelligence, the financial means, and the secure family structure that will allow her to bring up the child properly.
Any tracksuit-wearing trollop who "falls pregnant" whilst not in possession of a licence will face a compulsory termination. End of story. (And don't pull that face at me, Ms Middle Class Lefty. It suited you to have your potential sprog aborted when promotion beckoned. All we're doing is making the decision for those incapable of reasoning for themselves.)
And do you know the saddest aspect of this story? I've had to abandon this column's Scrote of the Year Contest. Once Julie Atkins appeared on the scene, there was only one winner.
I am hesitant to jump upon the bandwagon of BBC complaints, but could I possibly have my old television weather graphics back?
As you may have noticed, the venerated Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation has dumped the old magnetic weather symbols and now inflicts upon us a nauseating, virtual-reality, roller-coaster ride around Britain instead.
Listen, you lentil-eating, leather-elbowed Lefties. This is a sea-faring nation. We exported goods all around the world, we built railways across continents, we discovered the Spice Routes and we turned half of the globe pink. We beat the French at Trafalgar, we were nearly starved to death by Hitler's U-Boats and we needed the weather window in order to invade Normandy.
We couldn't have done all this without meteorological information: the troughs, the anticyclones, the prevailing south-westerlies, and the Siberian winds in winter. I want my Atlantic weather system chart back and I want my isobars back, pronto.
Can you be cruel to a Dalek? Given that they're the Earth's biggest enemies, one wouldn't have thought so. Yet the British Board of Film Classification has decreed that the forthcoming DVD of the new Doctor Who series has to be given the classification "12", meaning that it can't be seen by new mothers from Derby.
A spokesman for the board (no, really) says: "However cross one might be with a Dalek, being cruel to it is not the way to deal with the issue." I hesitate to ask which planet this spokesman might be from.
And we should also note for the record that this series of Doctor Who is beautifully made, wonderfully shot, brilliantly original, superbly educational and, at times, very frightening indeed. That it should appear on the same television screen that brings me Celebrity Love Island is just another of life's mysteries.
Natasha, Jade and Jemma might be interested to learn that an investigation into the environmental-friendliness of nappies has deduced that disposables are no more harmful than the old terry towel rags that people of a certain age used to be clad in.
This is a major blow to those members of the Turkey Army whose job is to convince new mothers that an evil smelling bucket in the corner of the kitchen is a better option than a bumper packet of Huggies.
Is it too much to expect that these advocates of nonsense, all of whom will be on £25,000 and free muesli, might now be sacked? Just a thought.
I am unsure as to the point at which the last generation’s Young Rebel turned into this generation’s Grumpy Old Man. I suspect it may have had something to so with the diminishing diameter of Wagon Wheels, the sudden disappearance of Olde English Spangles and the emergence of something called “jus” onto restaurant menus.
(What is “jus” anyway? As far as I can see it’s just thin gravy - a great selling point when it comes to the Sunday dinner. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and watered-down Bisto. Thank you, Gordon f*****g Ramsey.)
But grumpy I am, indisputably. Some weeks it seems that everywhere I turn, some horrible new aspect of modern life jumps up and pokes me in the eye. Let’s start with television.
I returned to Beelzebub Mansions on Monday night - having been on a mercy mission to replenish Mrs B’s stocks of rough cut St Bruno - to find the old girl watching what I took to be a low-budget satellite channel on the 48-inch plasma superscreen. The programme she was perusing seemed to consist of a dozen unknown “celebrities” farting around on a luxurious desert island.
After a short arm-wrestling contest I regained possession of the remote control. (Girls, girls – when will you learn that men have to hold the remote control? We cannot function without it. And at least it stops us putting own hands down our pants and scratching.)
I turned back to ITV in anticipation of watching Sir Trevor McDoughnut in action only to find that the “celebs” were still there. Yes, dear reader. This pile of abominable dross was actually being shown on our principal nationwide commercial channel. It is no wonder that I began to choke on a Werther’s Original.
From what I can gather, Celebrity Love Island consists of sticking 12 marginally-attractive people most of us have never heard of in a private holiday resort for five weeks and then surrounding them with hidden cameras in the hope that they’ll start having sex. At which point, they won’t show it. I think I may have spotted the flaw in this plan.
This televisual humiliation comes hard on the heels of the cancellation of Celebrity Wrestling, also on ITV, which featured young women grappling with each other to the point of toplessness at which point … they wouldn’t show it. Once again, I think I spot the flaw.
It’s all a bit sad really. ITV is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. They might be a bit tacky these days, but in the past have brought some innovative and inspiring programmes to the screen. And don’t forget, if it wasn’t for ITV we’d still be having the news read to us by people wearing dinner jackets. Although in Moira Stewart’s case, that wouldn’t necessarily be A Bad Thing.
(There’s an opening there for all you Internet porn barons. Black women wearing dinner jackets. It’s about the only preference yet to be catered for online. And why do I have the terrible feeling that I’ve just said that out loud?)
One can only imagine what Ena Sharples would have had to say about the whole mess.
And why am I grumpy? I’ll tell you why. The lazy, slack-arsed postman who can barely be bothered to drag himself up the driveway of Beelzebub Mansions is to get a £1,000 bonus after the Royal Mail allegedly met its performance targets last year. He also gets a free car if he can be bothered to turn up to work instead of going sick every time it rains.
Perhaps he might now have the decency to pay me back for the £10 postal order from my Gran he stole out of my last birthday card.
And what targets were those then, anyway? The second delivery has been binned, people regularly get their mail (or even their neighbours) at six o’clock at night, and if there’s a post office open within 10 miles of your home, you can consider yourself lucky.
Worse than that, the Royal Mail is employing so many casual staff that they daren’t even trust them to deliver anything that looks remotely valuable in case they just steal it. Instead they creep up your path like a Viet Cong guerilla, silently slip a card through your letterbox, and then leave you to drive to the nearest Post Office depot to collect the free packet of “jus” sent to you with the compliments of Naked Monkey Celebrity Cooking, ITV’s latest Saturday night extravaganza.
It will come as no surprise to learn that the boss of the Royal Mail, a brylcreemed blunderhead called Adam Crozier, didn’t get the £1,000 bonus his worker drones pocketed. No, he only trousered a cool £3m. Think about that the next time you’re watching Naked Grannies Jog To The Post Office To Collect Their Pension on primetime ITV.
And why am I grumpy? Because poor spelling is not being penalised in English national curriculum tests for 14-year-olds. No, really.
Your indolent, ignorant, slack-jawed, hoodie-wearing offspring can now complete an entire exam in textspeak (2 B or nt2 B) and still get away with a pass. It’s enough to make you weep. What ever happened to “education, educashun, edukashun”?
We are now churning out droves of under-educated, semi-literate morons who expect a place at university by right and then pitch up in our offices unable to make the tea without taking off their socks and shoes to count how many sugars the Editor wants in his mid-morning Buckfast and Vimto.
It just isn’t good enough. Still, at least ITV will be guaranteed an audience for its latest series, Naked Celebrity Teachers Play With An Abacus.
And why am I grumpy? Let’s have a quick Nanny State update. Mr John Prescott, whose only saving grace is that he once punched a Welshman, has decreed that we are no longer capable of judging how hot our own bath water should be.
Consequently, we will all have to fit officially-approved NuLabour bath taps that will automatically shut off if Alistair Campbell gets a message on his computer indicating that our toes are going a trifle pink.
Now it’s a long time since I was a new parent (my ex-wife gave birth to Rosemary’s Baby over 20 years ago) but I seem to recall that there was a perfectly sensible test relating to the ambient temperature of bath water. It was called an elbow. Still, better to have a government-appointed jobsworth to come round your house once a year to check, isn’t it?
Our black shirt-wearing friends in the Health Police have also spent £100,000 on a leaflet warning you that it might be a bit sunny this summer so if you want to live to see the next series of Celebrity Naked Bath-Testing On Ice, in which Abi Titmuss comes round to your house and dips her silicone-enhanced baps in your bath (Saturday, 9.30, ITV) you might want to stay inside if that yellow thing is in the sky.
You should also learn that it’s cooler in the shade, that cold water can cool you down, and that cold food is colder than hot food. Well, thanks for that.
And we’re so full of self-righteous indignation that we’ll have to leave the Working Rights For Donkeys directive until another time.
And why am I grumpy? Take this David Blunkett fella. I read in the Mail on Sunday the dramatic story that the utterly-discredited-but-now-miraculously-back-as-a-Minister serial shagger is at it again. And, believe it or not, his latest floozy is “a woman friend who looks uncannily like his former mistress, Kimberley Quinn”.
At which point I sigh. Now I have every respect for the fine newspapers of the Daily Mail group (of which this is one), but did it not occur to the utter prat who wrote the story that there was a significant error in her over-emotional intro? Namely, if the woman did look like Kimberley Quinn, HOW WOULD DAVID BLUNKETT KNOW???
The case for the prosecution rests. And fervently hopes that they don’t waste a Cup Final ticket on him this year.
This column has long sung the praises of Rolf Harris. In fact, only last week I pointed out that our Antipodean artist in residence was clearly the superior to L.S.Lowry because he could paint horses’ legs while Lowry couldn’t.
Well, you never know where these words are read. Minutes after the presses rolled at the Brown Lubianka that is home to the Evening Post, it was announced that Rolf would have the honour of painting the official 80th birthday portrait of Her Majesty The Queen.
Can you tell what it is yet? Well it looks very much like a knighthood to me.
The sound of The Red Flag floats out at indecent volume from the East Wing of Beelzebub Mansions. Mrs B. is toasting NuLabour's general election victory with vodka and caviar blinis while smashing her emptied glasses in the fireplace. No wonder GCHQ are tapping our phones.
I skulk in the deserted kennel block with my man Whittaker, sharing a plastic two-litre bottle of cheap white cider and a plate of Findus Crispy Pancakes. There are difficult times ahead and we'll need every penny when Mr Brown comes calling with the next lot of stonking great tax increases.
So, five more years then. Mr Blah's Turkey Army came up trumps and trooped to the polling stations to save their jobs. For how long remains to be seen.
As if to celebrate this opening of a new branch line for the gravy train, the usual suspects were piling into one of The Guardian's jobs supplements on Monday like fat birds in a free cake shop. One advert in particular caught my eye. Prepare yourselves.
“Big Fish Theatre, one of South London's most innovative young people's theatre companies, is looking for an experienced arts practitioner to manage a groundbreaking new project. The post holder will be responsible for developing and managing effective multi-arts programmes for young people in Southwark. Salary (35 hours) £29,000, free lentils and bike.”
And the job title? “Unwanted Sexual Contact Project Manager.” What? What???
What on earth is an Unwanted Sexual Contact Project Manager? And what has it got to do with art for young people? The mind boggles. Are you supposed to prevent Unwanted Sexual Contact? Instigate it? Film it? Draw it? What? Tony Hart must be spinning in his Vision On gallery.
(A quick art note. L.S.Lowry couldn't draw horses' legs, so he always hid them behind a wall. Rolf Harris can draw horses' legs, and very well too. Ergo, Rolf is a better artist than Lowry. I bet they didn't teach Prince Harry that when he didn't do his A-level.)
To be fair, this exciting new post isn't exactly a Turkey Army position, although I don't doubt that oodles of public money will be sloshing around the South London arts scene. The newly-appointed, £29,000-a-year Unwanted Sexual Contact Project Manager will be funded by the National Lottery.
So that's alright then. It's not taxpayers' money after all; it's just the poor people who'll be paying for it when they rush to the nearest Scrote Shop with their last pound, desperate for that scratchcard fix regardless of the fact that there's no microwave pizza or oven chips in the tower block fridge.
Closing date is June 1st. Good luck.
Of course, before you can get your children safely on board the public sector gravy train, it is necessary for them pass a few exams. Now even though they've been made so easy that only the feckless, the workshy, the terminally slow and the Welsh can possibly fail them, getting your kids into the right school seems to play on parents' minds an awful lot.
Which brings us to the case of Primrose and Scarlet Moore, innocent victims of a Jobsworth attitude that is quite breathtaking in its obduracy.
Primrose and Scarlet are four-year-old identical twins from Chelmsford in Essex. Their mother had assumed that they would both be able to attend the reception class at a new school just 10 minutes walk from their home. She had reckoned without the concrete-headed bureaucrats who sit behind computers in local council offices.
The Moore's home falls right on the edge of the school's catchment area and there is a limit of 30 places on offer. You know what's coming, don't you?
Primrose is offered a place because she is number 30; Scarlet, whose name comes second alphabetically, isn't. You really couldn't make it up. Their mother now faces the immense hassle of two different schools, two different uniforms, two different parents' evenings and perhaps even two different school years. And that's without considering the implications of splitting up identical twins.
It's pathetic. Whichever idiot is responsible for this decision deserves to be locked in a dark room with the newly-appointed and preferably priapic Unwanted Sexual Contact Project Manager for Southwark. When he's been without for a while.
So you've managed to get your child into a half-decent school and he or she still turns out to be so irredeemably stupid that they can't manage to accumulate the 15 marks out of 100 to pass one of Mr Blah's new Ezlite A-levels. That job for life counting paper clips for the civil service is receding into the distance. What do you do?
Don't despair. Buy a cat. Or two. It emerged this week that if your child's favourite pet expires on the day you are due to take an exam, his or her teacher can ask for an extra two per cent to be added to their marks. If old Tiddles turns up her toes the day before the exam, you can blag an extra one per cent.
And it gets better. A terminally-ill parent or recent family bereavement is worth an extra five per cent. (Shave your head, lose weight and hang around the school gates coughing a lot.) A severe car accident involving a parent or the death of a distant relative clocks up only four per cent.
And it gets better. A “broken limb on the mend” gets you two per cent, the same as a dead cat. A fresh break, however, ranks alongside a recent domestic crisis like a divorce or an organ disease at three per cent. An asthma attack or witnessing a distressing event on the day (step forward, the engorged Unwanted Sexual Contact Project Manager for Southwark) gets you three per cent. Hay-fever is worth only two per cent. A mere headache (you wimp) gets you another one per cent.
There are serious issues to consider here. For the purposes of comedic effect, I have specified a cat as the family pet. Yet the exam board guidelines are not so specific. And who is to argue that the life of a pet hamster or even a pet stick insect is worth less than the life of a pet cat? On this basis, the children of the Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly would get an immediate double-first at Cambridge.
But even the leather-elbowed, talent-free zones who pass for teachers these days are unlikely to swallow that story. So here's the patented Bazza scenario guaranteed to get even slack-jawed, gum-chewing morons a decent pass. Gather round, children. Are you sitting comfortably?
Your parents are on the verge of divorce (3) when your Dad is diagnosed with cancer (5). Your Grandad drives over to take you to school, but being one of those ancient loons on the Trevor McDoughnut show the other night, runs over the cat (2) and then smashes into an HGV (4).
Meanwhile you run outside to see what all the noise is and trip and break your arm (3). While at the hospital you contract MRSA (3) and when you finally escape A&E to catch the bus to the exam hall, you're flashed at by the Unwanted Sexual Contact Project Manager for Southwark (3). The council are cutting the grass verges (as if!) which brings on hay-fever (2) and to be quite honest, all this aggravation has given you a bit of a headache (1).
Now by my calculations, that gives you 26 per cent which is worth an immediate A-grade in Maths or Physics and a clear pass in any other subject. Spell your name correctly on the paper and we're talking distinction time.
And let's face it. If all else fails you can always be a traffic warden.
Of course, it would help our woefully undereducated children if we didn't allow them to use that appalling “textspeak” when using their mobile phones.
I got a message last week that said “GR8 2 C U YDAY CU SN LOL”. Thinking it had come from some Burberry Ape who had mistakenly got my number, I replied in forthright – and four-letter – fashion.
Two minutes later my phone rang. It was my mother, the Dowager Lady Beelzebub of Miles Platting. I'd got her a mobile phone for Christmas and she was apparently taking the How To Text booklet that came with it very seriously indeed. Ho hum!