Friday, August 29, 2008

The definition of pain

The definition of pain

A few years ago I was unfortunate enough to find myself having a problem when I was laying a cable. Much grimacing and straining and I would raise myself to find the toilet bowl caked in "Magenta! Ochre! Aquamarine!" they exclaimed, no, red blood. This went on for many months, in varying levels of haematology, and warranted a visit to the docs.

Now at the time I had a typically racist Northern Doctor in a small modern practice on the outskirts of Manchester, and he took great pleasure in having a chance to highlight this "southern poof’s" powers of no pain threshold. He’s got a wry smile on his face as he cried "sepia" as he came and stretched on the cyan marigolds, and asks me to lean on my side. It was at this point I actually heard myself say "Please God, don’t let this hurt." In fact it was like a cute kitteh. I looked down at the cute little kitteh...so cute...But that baby had claws. And kitteh attacked my chocolate starfish, and it hurt.

A lot.

In fact it was like having a recently broken bottle rammed up inside me, twisted, and pulled out again. The doctor queried as to how long I had been like this, and I nonchalantly replied "oooh for about 18 months."

"Does it hurt to poo?" he asked.

"Is the pope catholic?" I replied.

"How do you cope?" he then asked.

"I eat a lot of bad curries and hope for diarrhoea," was the slightly sarcastic if not truthful reply.

The diagnosis was as painful as it sounds. I had a growth, probably formed by straining to hard after eating too much muesli the day before. The growth had to be removed in a "Simple procedure, done under general anaesthetic." I had a note in my hand and a date for meeting my new found friend, the proctologist, at the local pain centre that was Tameside Hospital. Hat’s off to the guy, he was a lot more understanding then the GP, He didn’t go any further then he had to, to see the damage that was making me walk like I’d filled my kecks. In the meantime, I told my father all about the impending operation.

"Oh," he said, "I had that when I was about your age as well"

Bloody typical; I come from a family of tight arses.

Anyway, 2 weeks later at 7:30am, I check in for a day of poking around inside my lower bowel. The actual lead up wasn’t that eventful. There were about 6 people in the ward, all waiting to go into presumably similar operations. I was one of the last, actually going ‘under’ about midday. Just before being wheeled into theatre, I realised I needed a poo. Not to worry though, because surely they’d empty me out before they started to operate. I awoke from the general anaesthetic not feeling much at all. I laid there for 10 minutes staring at the ceiling, before realising I was actually in considerable pain. The pain was definitely coming from inside me, and it was getting worse. And to compound matters, I think I still needed a poo only it was rather more urgent now. The doctor came round to see all his victims, and enlightened me to the fact they had removed a large growth the size of 2 golf balls from my nether region, and I could now dump like a horse and not even touch the sides. They had also (rather unnecessarily in my books) removed the muscle that allows you to stop pooing once you start; the sphincter. I’d had a sphincterotomy, something that still has people chuckling today. Apparently a sphincter says "huh?" Mine didn't.

As I lay there, I could feel the urgent need to poo was getting worse. It was now painful beyond painful. I realised one thing; the longer I laid there not sending a brown package out to sea, the worse it would get. I had no choice, so with the aid of a nurse I made my way to the disabled toilet at the entrance to the ward. Carefully I positioned myself on the toilet seat and put one hand on each of the hand rails mounted conveniently on the walls near me, and pushed.

It went dark. Now call me a wimp, call me a poof, but I passed out in the wave of pain that followed. I dreamt that midget astronauts train in a clothes dryer, but meanwhile the nurses found me still sat on the loo. I’m not sure, but I reckon they’d have had to reinsert my lower bowel back in, possibly with a spork, before moving me. I came to on the hospital bed, and felt better then I had for a long time.

The fact that I’d walked to the hospital with the belief I’d also be walking home shows just how wrong a man can be. I got a taxi.

With soft seats.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Rikaitch is back...

The Rikaitch is back

and hogging the duck's space. He recently contacted me with an offer I could not refuse...
"Can you run my blog for a couple of days, or shall I just submit a small brown package through your letterbox?" He asked.
"Gneep" I said, losing bladder control (again). "Shall I sort out your template whilst I'm there?" I offered.
"Touch my ^#@+ing template and I'll make you wear a Chelsea shirt only, with David Mellor blindfolded, force fed Viagra, and locked in the same room..." he replied.
I'll take that as a no then.
First of all, I am taking the opportunity to entertain you with my tales of mirth and woe, and so tomorrow have chosen some choice tales from my own blog. Please to be choosing, and including lines to add.
  • Forest Fire - Kids, woods and lighters never mix.
  • Drink Up - The tale of my first teenage foray into too much alcohol.
  • The Definition of Pain - My favourite tale of woe, with added Sphincterotomy.
Meanwhile, I have condensed a film for your entertainment.

Top Gun

P. Maverick: Hello. I am Maverick of planet Scientology, and I am excellent.
B. Cougar: I am Cougar, and I haz fly.
P. Maverick: I am taking pix whilst upside down LOLZ
B. Cougar: Onoz, I am losing it. I am not mad.
P. Maverick: I haz lost an aircraft carrier, haz u seen it?
T. Stinger: Onoz. I am your boss (and also the headmaster in Back to the Future), and u haz to go to Top Gun
M. Viper: I am teh best pilotz. I am here to show you how to fly.
T. Iceman: I am Iceman, and I am the alpha male.
P. Maverick: I haz lost that loving feeling.
C. Blackwood: I am teh blonde bint. I know all about you flyboyz.
P. Maverick: Would you like to see my joystick? Fnarr Fnarr.
N. Goose: C'mon the Mav. One more game. We're being pwned.
P. Maverick: I haz to go get my willy serviced.
C. Blackwood: I am hungry for your saveloy.
P. Maverick: I haz to shower.
R. Jester: I am your boss. Do not shoot me.
P. Maverick: W00t! I haz cheated, now Jester's dead.
C. Blackwood: I haz no respect for your flying. I, however, wants to play shaggy shaggy.
P. Maverick: Hubba Hubba.
Music: Take my breath away.
P. Maverick: Goose is really my bum boy.
N. Goose: We can win this.
P. Maverick: I haz a flat spin.
N. Goose: Onoz. I haz died.
P. Maverick: I can't go on.
C. Blackwood. U haz to fly. U likes hair on fire.
P. Maverick: I haz to fly. I haz no wingman
S. Merlin: I am an extra. I can flyz.
T. Stinger: I am your boss again. I haz bogies.
P. Maverick: I haz to slow down.
S. Merlin: U iz mad. I has wet pants.
T. Iceman: I has lost it. I haz been beaten.
P. Maverick: I shall save you Iceman
R. Slider: I haz no bogiez.
T. Iceman: Maverick iz my wingman.
P. Maverick: Wrong, Iceman iz my wingman.
M. Viper: I haz a job for u.
P. Maverick: I am teh Top Gun.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

On living in a Brian Rix farce

On living in a Brian Rix farce

My parents-in-law are rather excellent people.

This might come as a bit of a surprise, as in the whole panoply of comic writing, the mother-in-law gag is the one, great constant of British humour.

I like my mother-in-law, so, in comic terms, I feel I am letting the side down.

Working away from home on weekdays, the in-laws help me to keep my costs down by allowing me to stay overnight at their house once a week.

Both get up and leave for work at an unspeakably early hour, and I tend to get out of bed, dress and leave for work in my own time with the house to myself.

So, I did.

I wandered around upstairs in nothing but my birthday suit.

I had a shower with the door open, singing the crudest rugby songs I knew (about, I believe, a stupid dicky-di-dildo).

I did the biggest, smelliest, loudest poo in recent memory, with full commentary.

Then, seeking out a cup of tea, I went downstairs in nothing but a pair of pants…

… to find the mother-in-law watching GMTV in the living room

"What...? Why…? Wha…?"

"Oh, I didn't feel like going to work this morning."

"I'll…err… go and get dressed, then."

"Yes. I think you'd better had."

Fair play to her, she didn't laugh. Much.

A Brian Rix farce: I am in one.

"Oh crikey, there go my trousers"

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

On excellent inventions

On excellent inventions

Hello, I am Scaryduck Junior and I am excellent.

Today, I am here to tell you of my two inventions which will CHANGE THE WORLD

First invention: Pig Sky Diving – Jump out of a plane with a pig strapped to your back. It's the sport of the future.

Don't worry if your pig fails, as you've always got your auxiliary pig if you haven't turned it into a tasty porky snack.

Second invention: Spork-powered TIME MACHINE – Guaranteed 100 per cent success rate!

Scientists are spending a fortune on trying to invent time machines. They are, as my dad says, bloody fools. No matter what you do with particle accelerators and spare bits stolen out of pyramids left by ancient space civilisations, it's never going to work.

The Spork-powered TIME MACHINE has never been known to fail. Stare at the spork for two hours, and when you switch it off, it is A WHOLE TWO HOURS LATER.

The whole concept needs refining, particularly if you try to use it in public, where you will be arrested for looking like a noodle.

Also: Make sure you have a genuine KFC spork, otherwise you will be full of FAIL. Stare at a lower quality foon for two hours, and you will just have stared at a foon for two hours, and get arrested for looking like a noodle. A noodle and a git.

This time next year Rodders, we'll be millionaires.

Monday, August 25, 2008

On spoilers

On spoilers

There's always one, isn't there?

As we sat down one long, dull Sunday afternoon to watch Bruce Willis star vehicle The Sixth Sense on DVD, the otherwise excellent Scaryduck Junior surfaces long enough from his Nintendo DS to deliver ten devastating words of film-spoiling critique:

"Sixth Sense? That's the one where he's dead, isn't it?"

From the day the first cinema opened, there was always some smart-arse leaning over your shoulder with the words "Know what? Rosebud was his sled" thinking they're being hugely hepful, when in fact, they're they world's biggest git.

So - SPOILER ALERT! - here's a few more one-liners guaranteed to make Mr Popular at the start of any film. And you'll note that ANY M. Night Shyamalan film is just ripe for wrecking:

* "Nicole Kidman, Dr Who, Eric Sykes and the awful brats are all ghosts"

* "They're living in a nature reserve away from society"

* "Samuel L Jackson caused the train crash"

* "Water is poisonous to the aliens"

Not to mention the entire Hollywood canon:

* "Darth Vader's actually his dad"

* "Soylent Green is people"

* "He gets back to the future, and Doc's wearing a bullet-proof vest"

* "Bill gets killed"

* "Bond got Pussy Galore to swap the nerve gas"

* "They burn Edward Woodward in the wicker man"

* "Sylvester Stallone saves the penalty. Sylvester bloody Stallone."

* "They all get arrested before they reach the Holy Grail"

Please add your own. Don't name the film - we've got to work it out for ourselves.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Mirth and Woe: Cottaging

Mirth and Woe: Cottaging

Cottaging. It's not just a nine-letter word that wins the Countdown Conundrum, but a hobby that the entire family can play.

A family that's into bummy outdoor sex and embarrassing court appearances, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from indulging in what is becoming Britain's fastest growing hobby.

There's even a Premiership football team known as The Cottagers, paid by the corporate suits behind the pastime to hang around public toilets hoping to pick up a bit of rough. And not get relegated to the Championship in the process, of course.

So, what's your humble narrator been up to, you ask? And when's the court case?

I deny everything, m'lud, and offer the following by way of an alibi.

I had itchy feet, and found a plum job in the papers working the company that provides the transmission facilities for The World's Most Listened To Radio Station.

The job would involve the planning of frequency and transmission schedules, and travelling the world both to check up on the transmitters, and to verify where partner broadcasters were actually re-broadcasting the station's programmes as agreed.

A right cushy little number, even if shortwave radio is dying on its arse, I'm sure you'll agree, and the CV was in the post to their plush central London headquarters in a flash.

And bugger me backwards if they didn't grant me an interview.

Unfortunately, I had to work a nightshift the night before the interview, not wanting to arouse suspicion by taking a mystery sickie.

Irony can be a right old bastard, for about four o'clock in the morning, I was struck down with the galloping squirts and spent much of the next four hours attacking the company porcelain with jets from the brown laser.

Feeling like complete trash, I took a train up to London, and looking exactly like the kind of sleepless, unshaven, sweating derelict to whom no boss on Earth would ever offer a responsible management position, I turned up at Lincoln's Inn Field in London for my moment of truth.

Alas, not twenty yards from the front door of the company's luxuriously-appointed head office, the old lurgi came back with a vengeance, and I was forced to find somewhere – anywhere – to dump my load.

As luck would have it, there is a rather twee-looking public convenience in the corner of Lincoln's Inn Field. The area is, in fact, a rather pleasant square just behind the Royal Courts of Justice, where the great and good of the legal profession scoff their packed lunches alongside all the medics from the Royal College of Surgeons.

Built to look like a small cottage, you would have thought it the park-keeper's hut. But no, the sign over the door had it as a lav, and for that I was truly grateful.

As soon as I was seated, the brown laser struck again, and rich, brown, reeking turds filled the pan.

One thing I neither knew nor cared about at that precise moment in time was the fact that these particular facilities are notorious as central London's number one cottaging venue for London's legal types.

In fact, I only knew this for a fact when a semi-erect penis was pushed through a hole that some person has kindly drilled in the partition wall between the cubicles.

Attempting to attract my attention, the owner waggled it about a bit, but, in the main, it just sat there like a novelty hat peg.

Then, my innards getting the better of me. I was sick on it.

"YAAAAAAAAARCH!"

Rich, brown vomit, all over the proffered appendage.

"Ooh!" comes a voice as the warmth of my outpouring spread along his member.

"YAAAAAAAAARCH!"

Then, as the awful truth dawned: "Aaaaaaaaaaargh!"

And: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"

Followed by: "Oh God! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"

Not hanging around too long to clean up in case I came across my vomit-spattered nemesis, I mumbled my way through the interview, quite possibly looking, smelling and sounding like a tramp who had accidentally stumbled in off the street.

One of the questions, I remember, was: "Is that actually your suit?"

You will be unsurprised to learn that I didn't get the job.


Elsewhere

Yes. Yes it is the bloody Batboat.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

On rats

On rats

I'm feeling dead hard this morning. For I have been extra manly and caught – with these murderous, blood-stained hands - a rat in the in-laws' garden and killed it TO DEATH.

Lifting the lid of the compost bin on a recent visit, there it was, sitting on the top of the pile, waving to me like Basil the Rat in Fawlty Towers.

"Mwaaaaargh! I said, in surprise and alarm.

"Meeeeep!" it replied, also in surprise and alarm.

I slammed the lid back down and ran round the garden in a mild panic until I realised I wasn't, in fact, dying of the BLACK DEATH.

And this is where man's mastery over technology takes over, for I set a trap, and not long later a pleasing "SNAP" betrayed the truth.

Ratty could not have done the same to me, scuppered that he is by a brain the size of a peanut, BLACK DEATH and a lack of opposable thumbs.

Basil: He is DEAD, his Earthly soul – if you believe that kind of thing – in the bony hands of the Grim Squeaker.

So, I ask this important question: Anybody got any tasty rat recipes? There's good eating on one of them.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

On mank

On mank

I am a slightly overweight, happily married male in his early forties.

However, I have - in the name of research and the prospect of getting a cheap laugh - put contact ads on various dating websites pretending to be a woman of varying degrees of morality, mankiness, desperation and number of limbs to find out what level mankind will stoop to get a shag.

Result: very, very low.

I also did not realise it is considered de rigueur to send a cock shot with the first email.

Even promises of long country walks don't put them off. Nobody with an ounce of romance in their bodies goes for long country walks. The only people who do this invariably take a shovel and return alone.

For example:

"Cuddly single mum, skin condition, seeks open-minded male for cuddles and joint therapy. Must like cats and active kids!"

Cocks everywhere, and a tranny.

And:

"Spoiled bitch only wants you for your money. No plebs."

Dozens of plebs. And cocks. Never-ending spirit-sapping cocks.

And:

"Brenda, 50, Leytonstone. Gagging for it. Hot, messy, outdoor unprotected back-door action guaranteed on first date while husband films. Looks, experience not important. No fees, guaranteed"

Result: "Your mailbox has exceeded its capacity. Older mails will be deleted within 48 hours."

Your average web-based pervert is not, I find, put off by raging sarcasm. My most popular fake advert read simply:

"Wanted: Man, o.n.o."
More cocks. I gave up soon after.

The things I do for this blog. Sometimes I question my own sanity.

I am not mad. I think.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

On reincarnation

On reincarnation

It's no good. I accidentally watched the Discovery Channel the other day, and hidden among its usual diet of Hitler Porn, made-up crap about the Da Vinci Code presented as wide-eyed fact and endless documentaries on Ancient Egypt, was a big pile of donkey doings about reincarnation.

Of course, some of this world's major religions have reincarnation as one of its central tenets, but this was not one of those programmes.

Instead, it centred on easily swayed people with bad haircuts, who were filmed paying good money to hypnotists to reveal that they were – in fact – Queen Cleopatra in a previous life.

In fact, every mad woman who believes in reincarnation thinks they were Queen Cleopatra in a previous life. It must have been bloody crowded in there, that's all I can say.

Most blokes of this bent also think they were Queen Cleopatra in a previous life. Or Henry VIII. It's never some bloke who lived in a back street in Widnes, worked in a factory and died at the age of seventy surrounded by his family. It's Cleo or nothing, anybody else is clearly second rate. Even Hattie Jacques.

As I've said, I'm not dissing the idea of reincarnation. I can't say whether I've been here before (though I can see, in my mind's eye, the hideous face of Sid James bearing down on me), but I'd like to come back after my three-score-years-and-ten to sort out some unfinished business.

I am hoping – you see- to come back as a women's bicycle saddle at Center Parcs.

The perfect fusion of technology, nature and yummy mummies in tight, white T-shirts.

To die for, as it were.

Monday, August 18, 2008

On news, again

On news, again

Once again, it is down to me to explain TEH NEWS in terms that even a Sun Reader can understand, because current affairs are far too complex for us in these time-poor days.

In fact, I am parcelling all these condensed nuggets of wisdom and sending them to (oh-ho!) ZaNu La-Bore's Gordon Clown, just to keep him in the loop of this whole blowing-people-up-for-LULz-and-martyrdom thing.

I am, then, doing this for THE GOOD OF THE NATION. Are you watching David Milliband and your ridiculous bum-fluff tache? Good.

Today: The spread of Islamic extremist terrorism described in terms of "Ip dip"

One jihadi
Two jidahis
Three jidahis
Four
Five jihadis
Six jihadis
Seven jihadis
More

One. Bad. Abu Hamza.
and

Eeenie meenie minie mo
Catch bin Laden by the toe
If he hollers let him go
Because, frankly, bombing the shit out of the Middle East is no way to run your foreign policy
There. I hope this clears up the mysteries of TEH NEWS and WORLD DIPLOMACY for once and for all.


And now, the sport

In which your humble writer lands a gig blogging for the News of the Screws.

Before I am accused of selling my soul to devil incarnate Rupert Murdoch, I'd like to point out that - gulp - no money has changed hands. I am in it, sadly, only for the byline.

It shall be my crowning glory, then, that I managed to get the words "bizarre space-hopper accident" into the national press. I dare say "sick inna hedge" will get an outing before long.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Mirth and Woe: Jam

Mirth and Woe: Jam

As an 18-year-old, you grow to hate people-who-are-having-sex.

They may have been your best mate at school, but the moment they start having oh-so-earnest sex with their significant other, leaving you to wait, patiently downstairs, you soon learn to hate their guts.

So, when your best mate turns up at your eighteenth birthday party with long-standing girlfriend on arm, announcing that their sole target for the evening is to have sex, then you are doomed to surrender your bed.

And no, you are not invited.

And yes, we are stuffing the keyhole with tissue paper.

It gets much worse.

You are downstairs, strutting your fancy stuff, and trying your hardest to gets into the knickers of a certain young lady whose brother is in the RAF Regiment, and will never, ever sleep with you, no matter how many mix tapes you send.

There, at the back of your mind, is the thought of your best friend and his new best friend, hammering away between YOUR sheets.

And when the music runs out, the steady a-rump-a-rump-a-rump-a-rump-a coming upstairs that tells you they've been at it, solidly, for two hours.

TWO HOURS!

Then: Silence.

A door opens, and your former best friend sheepishly descends the stairs wearing YOUR dressing gown, and heads to the kitchen.

Liquid refreshment? No.

A handful of the finest party snacks known to man? No.

With furtive guile, he opens and closes a few cupboards, until he finds his goal.

A jar of your mother's finest strawberry jam.

"Just borrowing this."

"Wait… what? No!"

"It's Julie. She's always wanted to… you know"

"No. No I don't."

He spelled out, what, exactly, Julie wanted to do. Mostly involving the pink oboe, and a vow to have the jar sterilised after the act.

Alas, things didn't go as smoothly as planned.

There was, as the collected hordes in the living room listened intently, much giggling, a groan of pleasure followed by a deathly scream.

"GaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahHHHH!" my former best friend went, as I smiled with a certain satisfaction.

"Oh GOD! Sorry!" screamed a female voice.

Then the terrible sound of glass shattering against wall and the words that all men dread:

"There's seeds! Seeds up my bell-end"

Of course, with the house echoing to The Worst Thing Ever, a rescue party was sent to intervene.

And what a sight.

The bedroom was jam.

He was covered head-to-toe.

As was poor, naked Julie.

As was the bed.

The walls.

The window.

And my attaché case containing a priceless collection of Razzle Pile-Ups.

"You… you… you… FUCKER!"

"Yeah, sorry mate."

And downstairs, the sound that any host of a teen party fears the most: The sound of the front door opening and parental voices saying "Just popped in to see how you're getting on…"

Doom.

Only one thing for it. "It wasn't us. Bigger boys came."

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Condensed Films: The Terminator

Condensed Films: The Terminator

Here we go again with another condensed movie classic. Now that Governor Arnie is no longer making films, we're reduced to remixing the ones already loose in the wild. And what better way than to boil ROBO DEATH-FEST The Terminator down to eight hundred words of the best Queen's English for the disaffected youth of today?

I'll be back.

The Terminator

Teh Terminator: Hello. I am TEH TERMINATOR and I am excellent. Today, I shall be mostly travelling back in time to kill S. Connor TO DEATH. LULz

Hairy biker: LOL. You is nekkid

Teh Terminator: No, you is nekkid. PS Vote Arnie

Hairy biker: COCK

Teh Terminator: FFS. Teh phone book has loads of S. Connors. I could be here all day

S. Connor: Hello. I am S. Connor and I am excellent. Today, I shall be mostly going about my innocent business and trying not to get killed TO DETH

Teh Terminator: Excuse me plz. R U S. Connor?

10 PRINT "Excuse me plz. R U S. Connor?"
20 INPUT A$
30 IF A$="Y" OR "YES" THEN KILL TO DETH
40 IF A$="N" OR "NO" THEN PRINT "KTHXBAI"
50 GOTO 10
S. Connor: Yes. Yes I... glaaaark... DED

Teh Terminator: LOLOL

S. Connor: Hello. I am S. Connor and I, too, am excellent. Today, I shall be mostly going about my innocent business, just like that other S. Connor that just got killed TO DETH. Oh.

Teh Terminator. Excuse me plz. R U S. Connor?

S. Connor: Yes. Yes I... glaaaark... DED

Teh Terminator: LOLOL

K. Reese: Hello. I am K. Reese and I am excellent. Today, I shall be travelling back in time to stop S. Connor from getting killed TO DEATH. Also, I am nekkid, and strangely aroused

TEH COPS: Hey! You! Nekkid man! Put the weapon down and assume the position

K. Reese: That's not a weapon. Yoinks!

S. Connor: Hello. I am teh REAL S. Connor and I am rather more excellent than those other, S. Connors who are FULL OF FAIL. Today, I will be mostly not falling for that 'R U S. Connor?' guff

Teh Terminator: R U S. Connor?

S. Connor's friend: Glaaaark... DED

S. Connor: LOL. I mean AAAAAAAAAARGH! Run away!

K. Reese: Plz to let me rescue you

S. Connor: Cor. Hunk. A hub a hub a hub a hib a hub hub hub

K. Reese: No, srsly. I am from TEH FUTURE and I am here to save you from TEH TERMINATORS who are going to TAKE OVER TEH WORLD if they can kill your son TO DETH that you haven't given birth to yet

S. Connor: Yeh, right. Worst. Chat-up. EVAH.

K. Reese: PS I am not mad

S. Connor: Tell that to TEH COPS

Teh Cops: Hey! It's that nekkid guy! Hope ya like prison food and getting bummy, creep. LOL

K. Reese: Oh, spoons

Teh Cops: Don't worry, S. Connor, we'll protect you from the crazed S. Connor-killing lunatic, if it's the last thing we do.

Teh Terminator: I'll be back Shooty shooty kill kill kill. ROFFLE

Teh Cops: Oh, cock. We are all TEH DED

Teh Terminator: LOLOLOL

S. Connor: Soz, mental bloke from TEH FUTURE. I thought you were a MENTAL, LOL

K. Reese: Now we must kill TEH TERMINATOR to save TEH WURLD. But first we must have FUTURE SEX FROM TEH FUTURE

Thirty seconds later...

K. Reese: That was the best FUTURE SEX FROM THE FUTURE EVAH

S. Connor: FUTURE SEX FROM TEH FUTURE is not all it is cracked up to be

K. Reese: ONOZ! Teh Terminator haz found us!

Teh Terminator's Help File: Hello! I see you're trying to kill the saviour of the human race. Would you like some help with that?

K.Reese: ONOZ! It is trying to kill us TO DETH with a giant talking paper clip! I shall blow it up with my huge bomb in a petrol tanker

Huge bomb in a petrol tanker: Pop

K. Reese: ONOZ and FFS! My huge bomb in a petrol tanker didn't kill Teh Terminator! EPIC FAIL

S. Connor: Also, why does TEH TERMINATOR have an enormous willy attachment?

K. Reese: That's for FUTURE ROBO BUM SEX from TEH FUTURE. It is even worse than FUTURE SEX from TEH FUTURE and is also full of FAIL

S. Connor: Oh. How full of FAIL?

K. Reese: All TEH FAIL. I couldn't sit down for a week

Teh Terminator: Now to kill you all TO DETH for TEH LULZ

K. Reese: Ouch. I am TEH DED. But not before I made you TEH PREGNANT

S. Connor: What? You bastard! Don't you realise it's 1984? Ronald Reagan's president, FFS. I might as well be living in a cardboard box.

Teh Terminator: LOL. Just wait until I'm in charge. Vote Arnie!

S. Connor: Die die diediediediedie! DIE!

Teh Terminator: Abort, Retry, Fail

S. Connor: Die! DIE DIE!DIEDIEDIE!

Teh Terminator: Don't rub it is FFS. I'm TEH DED already. BSOD

S. Connor: That's what you get for running MS Windows for Skynet, LOL

Teh Terminator: I'm not quite DED

S. Connor: DIE! DIE!DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!

Teh Terminator: ouch

S. Connor: W00T! I am FULL OF WIN. Now to go on the run and SAVE HUMANITY from CERTAIN DETH

TEH END – or is it?*

* No

Digg!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

On news

On news

I know how confusing the news can be. In fact, I spend much of my day wondering around in utter bewilderment with absolutely no idea of the global implications of the current Iranian nuclear stand-off, and this is A Bad Thing.

It is, I have decided, my duty to simplify current affairs and transmit them to you, humble reader, in a style to which we can all relate.

So, for the hard-of-thinking, we present:

The war between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia simplified in terms of children's poetry


Mikhail Saakashvili
Had a ten foot willy
And showed it to the Ossetians next door
They thought it was a snake
And hit it with a rake*
And now it's only two foot four, and invaded by Russia in what is widely seen as an attempt by Moscow to re-establish control over a region it has traditionally viewed as its back yard; and to remind the West that its reliance on Russian fossil fuels could come to a horrible end at any moment.

Probably the first and last time that the president of a small, roped-off nation in the Caucasus has ever had a poem written about his Johnson. Hard, cutting-edge NEWS, that's us.

Coming next week: The credit crunch simplified as a game of Hide and Seek

* Large quantity of Russian tanks, helicopters and Su-25 ground-attack aircraft

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

On staging the best Olympics Walford's ever seen

On staging the best Olympics Walford's ever seen

The Olympics opening ceremony.

Wow.

No, really. Wow.

Every Games gets better and better and it's now London's job to up the ante for 2012.

And, I am pleased to report, we've got top men working on the job already. Top. Men.

As you can see from this 100 per cent genuine exclusive extract from Lord Coe's notebook, left on a bus in downtown Beijing (and passed on to this website my our mole Scary Peking Duck), we're already sorting out the Olympics opening ceremony to end all opening ceremonies.

And top marks to Sebby - not letting that little local rivalry with Steve Ovett get him down after all these years.


With our Games only four years away, it is vital that we get our act together RIGHT NOW, as it's going to take that long to get all the Art Council grants together to pay off the heavily-armed men tasked with making sure that those bastards from Coldplay get nowhere near London come the big day.

So:

* Chas and Dave

* Genuine cockney Dick van Dyke and his dance troupe – the DVD Players

* Pro-celebrity ritual burning of the Wicker Man (starring Jimmy Carr)

* Lord Coe to attempt new world record for jumping over Steve Ovetts in a steamroller (current record: half a Steve Ovett)

* Chas and Dave (big finish)

The London 2012 Organising Committee is still trawling for suggestions. I promise (in fact, my good friend Kim Jong-Il swears on his dog's life) to send on the best that you come up with.

Get in there!

Monday, August 11, 2008

On librarians

On librarians

We've all done it. We've all had a clear-out, moved house or something and found an overdue library book. From 1986.

In a recent spring clean, I found an A-Level Chemistry text book I borrowed from Bracknell College library in 1983, and alcohol being what it is, I somehow neglected to return.

I blame them entirely – they never asked for it back, and I was so busy skiving off lectures and getting a Grade E in my exams, that the bloody thing got buried and forgotten about. Buried and forgotten through 25 years and three house moves.

If I was diligent enough, I could have ripped off the entire college library, and they would have been none the wiser. The curse of student slacking, I am afraid.

This sort of thing, I suppose, is one of the occupational hazards in the high-risk world of librarianship, right up there with having to wake up the tramps at chucking-out time.

But no. Libarianianing is no longer the art it once was, and these poor, put-upon people need our help.

Ever since they were classified as Information Dissemination Officers under the Local Government Act of 2003, their professional lives has been an endless drudge of form-filling, risk assessments, Tramp Handling Courses and a page-by-page audit of their entire book stock to weed out pornographic, seditious, harmful and terrorist related literature to protect vulnerable customers from having to think.

Also, they've become pretty adept at spotting tiny mirrors superglued to your shoes to …err… enable you to read the book titles on the bottom shelf.

So, I've decided to give something back to the profession.

Paint Ball.

They love it.

Face it: There's loads of places to hide in your local public library, especially if it's one of those Victorian buildings filled with balconies and little nooks and crannies, perfect for leaping out and shooting your …err… spoodge all over a sweaty middle-aged woman who has spent her life ignoring the design-for-life that is the entire canon of Jackie Collins.

Better still, the Not-To-Be-Removed books in the Reference Section are just the right size and weight to build a little castle in the middle of the floor, enabling the occupant to cover all angles as the battle rages around them.

For, and let's be perfectly frank here, there's nothing Miss Peabody, who has sat meekly behind the counter for 27 years wants more than to rampage through the Dewey Decimal System screaming "DIEDIEDIEYOUFUCKER Shhhhhhhhhhh!" whilst pumping red-hot paint blobs at the inert and partially-clothed body of a colleague who once filed Charles Darwin under 'Fiction'.

Hell on Earth, I think you'll agree. But pure naked heaven for these poor, tortured souls.

And then, when it's all over: the baby oil, and the eventual release of the home-produced DVD classic "Librarians Gone Wild"

Oh. Have I been typing out loud again?

Friday, August 08, 2008

Mirth and Woe: The Olympic Spirit

Mirth and Woe: The Olympic Spirit

The Olympic Games kick off today.

OK, if you're going to be pedantic about things, they actually started on Wednesday, but nobody noticed.

As they say in Olympic circles: "Higher, Faster, Stronger", and it is a creed to which any serious athlete lives.

I went through a phase in my life, you will be pleased to hear, where I was indeed enthused by these very words, and was higher, faster and stronger than anybody I knew. And luckily, the stains came out.

In my late teens, I developed a liking for long distance running. Desperate to impress my wrinkle-faced maths tutor at college (Inventor of the mini-roundabout – 100% of FACT), I invested in a pair of trainers and signed up for the Bracknell half-marathon.

I finished it, too, in less than two hours and was well pleased with myself.

So pleased, in fact, I immediately put my name down – as a loyal member of the Air Cadets – for the Thames Valley Wing Cross Country Tournament.

So, on one exceedingly wet Sunday morning one May, several car loads of teenagers were dumped in a particularly barren part of the Ridgeway in Oxfordshire, and were made to run, walk or stagger to a point several miles away, where we were to be rewarded with a cup of the finest Scout Hut quality tea.

Bronzed and rock hard from my half-marathon training, I somehow contrived to come a distant third, and went home feeling rather pleased with myself.

Months passed, and I soon came to forget about my triumph. That was until I was summoned into the CO's office one September evening.

We exchanged salutes.

"Ah, Corporal Duck", he says, "I've just received a letter from Wing HQ."

Oh, spoons.

"One of the chaps in the Wing Cross Country team's moved to New Zealand and they're a man short for the nationals. Could you fill in?"

Ack!

It turned out that the Wing Commander had been rather impressed by my spurt of speed in the finishing straight in the Wing Trials, and had ordered me to take part.

There was only one problem.

I was seventeen.

And, instead of training, I had spent much of the summer discovered the delights of under-age boozing at a sympathetic local pub that didn't mind small fry coming in and asking for "a cup of beer please mister" as long as they had the money up front.

I had turned from Higher, Faster, Stronger to Lower, Slower, Outstandingly Rubbish within three or four months.

After the previous year's debacle – where I had been accidentally rather good at swimming and qualified for the regional finals – I was loathe to volunteer for this one. For a start, it was a Sunday away from the pub, and for second, I now knew the kind of determined twerp that took these events rather too seriously.

In the words of Harry Flashman, I didn't fancy it above half. And like Flashy, I couldn't turn him down.

"Very good, sir", I said, engaging mouth before the brain had a chance to catch up, "I'll not let you down."

So, there I was, in the back of a minibus at RAF Cranwell, with the remnants of my school PE kit in a bag, hoping that somehow, all the other runners had spent the summer slacking off.

They hadn't.

In fact, they were all six foot tall, had facial hair and were rock hard in their professional-looking running gear with the names of well-known athletic clubs on the front.

These were proper competitive runners. I'd once watched bosoms at the school sports day.

It wasn't any old run through the countryside with a cup of Scout Hut tea at the end, either. It was three laps of a proper cross country course, full of nasty, challenging little hills and muddy scrambles as it lamped down with rain.

I came shit last. I was still on the second lap when the last of the bronzed colossi finished, and they let me off going round again. Which was nice.

Squadron Leader Sheppard, on the other hand, wasn't best pleased. Our supposed coach (they'd left the word 'driver' off the end of his official title) emerged from a cloud of cigarette smoke and finally managed to offer me the benefit of his experience.

"Duck! What the bloody hell was that?"

I had flogged my guts out against the cream of English youth, and had no words to give. No words, except:

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCH!"

Higher, Faster, Stronger, all over his mirror-polished drill shoes.

"Sorry sir…YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARCH!"

The following week, I was dragged into the CO's Office.

We exchanged salutes.

"Ah! Corporal Duck," he says, "I understand there's a little trouble following that running thingy."

I could not lie, and told him so.

"What d'you do?"

"Puked onna Officer."

"Who's charging you, Cadet?"

"Squadron Leader Sheppard."

"He's a prick. Case dismissed."

The Sheppard Defence – twice in one year. Bingo.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

On asking Dr Scary difficult questions

On asking Dr Scary difficult questions

Another delve into the postbag of Dr Scary's Problem Page. And what do we have? Lunatics, that's what.

Dear Dr Scary

I wonder if you can settle a family argument?

We recently took delivery of this year's British Telecom Phone Directory ("Book of the Year. From Aaron A. Aardvark to Zachary Z. Zzyzz, this work is a stunning exploration of the human condition" – Paul Ross).

My initial disappointment that the front cover didn't feature the yummy mummy from the TV adverts in a number of undraped poses soon gave way to the red curtain of blood-crazed anger.

The reason? This:

I am certain this is a picture of smug TV annoyance Nick Knowles, who has clearly sold his soul for a slice of red hot BT action and as many yummy mummies as he can eat.

My charming wife aka The Queen of WRONG is equally convinced that this is merely a smug-looking Knowles-a-like, who plies his trade opening school fetes and posing for phone books while the real thing gets down to the yummy mummy thing.

"You can tell it's him", I say, "you can see the horns and everything, for he is clearly spawn of the Devil."

"Ooh, you liar," replies my clearly deranged wife, "You just drew them on. Just like when you draw all over the TV screen whenever DIY SOS is on. It's a bastard to get off with Windowlene"

And so are evenings are spent with my carefully honed arguments that N. Knowles is the spawn of Satan, whilst the HARRIDAN to whom I am married photoshops his smug, stubbled face onto the bodies of well-hung Italian studs.

Who, we ask Dr Scary, is right?

Your pal,

Aaron A. Aardvark


Dear Aaron,

Fucked if I know.

Your pal

Dr Scary

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

On your mileage varying

On your mileage varying

Sad but true. I now drive like an old man.

With petrol changing hands at five quid a gallon, it came as a huge surprise to me that I could actually save genuine cash money by driving to work in the All-New Silver Hornet a little bit slower than I used to.

In fact, I've been driving to work a lot slower.

No. Slower than that.

Slower.

There.

Before:

Average speed between Weymouth (jewel of the south coast) and Reading (shit hole): 90mph

Average fuel consumption: 30 miles per gallon

Average reaction to other drivers: "GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU TOSSERRRRS! BURN! BURN BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!"

After:

Average speed between Weymouth (sun-kissed seaside utopia) and Reading (shit hole): 55 mph

Average fuel consumption: 52 miles per gallon

Average reaction to other drivers: Watching with unconcealed amusement as the driver in your rear view mirror mouths the words "GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU TOSSERRRRS! BURN! BURN BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!" as you tootle away in front of him like you've just become the proud owner of a pipe and matching slippers.

To put this in perspective, that's about five hundred quid a year in savings. Which will, ironically, go some way to paying off the extra tax I'll have to pay for driving a so-called gas-guzzling car. No, I don't get it, either.

Of course, this all turns to shit once you reach Reading (shit hole). The whole concept of what our Septic friends call "hypermiling" turns to shit as the entire town is turned over to that one great enemy of fuel economy: traffic lights.

The whole idea is to get from base to destination without having to stop and start every thirty seconds at the hands of some cretin with a road traffic degree who thinks that vehicles are useful only when piled up at traffic lights. Or roundabouts with traffic lights. Or bus lanes with traffic lights.

Stop.

Start.

Stop.

Swear.

Stop.

Start.

Stop.

Swear.

I like to think I'm a pretty relaxed chap behind the wheel these days, but:

"GO GREEN YOU TOSSERS! GREEN! GREEEEEEEEEEN!"

At the risk of encouraging anti-social behaviour, I would encourage each and every one of you to converge on Reading Civic Centre and deposit a rich, brown turd through the letterbox of the Traffic and Streets Department. It's the only language these curs understand.

Thank you.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Condensed Movies: Miss Potter

Condensed Movies: Miss Potter

It comes to something that a grown man finds himself sitting in front of a family movie on TV, and instead of watching it quietly, he spends the next hour and a half condensing it to size and taking the piss out of the female lead's annoyingly squinty face.

Yes, they showed the utterly charming biopic of Beatrix Potter on Sunday night, and I couldn't leave it alone.

Miss Potter

Squinty-eyed R. Zellweger: Hello. I am B. Potter and I am excellent, but I am cursed by an annoyingly squinty face. Today, I shall be mostly publishing my cute ickle children's books about bunnies and kittens an' stuff

Obi Wan Kenobi: Hello. I am O. W. Kenobi, and I am excellent. Today I shall be mostly publishing the cute ickle children's books of Miss Squinty-eyed B. Potter, for TEH LULZ

Squinty-eyed R. Zellweger: W00t! My cute ickle children's books about bunnies and kittens have made me unspeakably rich!

Obi Wan Kenobi: Plz to marry me. Even though your squinty face makes me feel ill and you spend all your time drawing pictures of cute fluffy bunnies and kittens. It's …err… not about the money. At all. Honest.

Squinty-eyed R. Zellweger: KK

Obi Wan Kenobi: Just do us a favour and wear this bag over your head while I get my light sabre out

Squinty-eyed R. Zellweger: Anything you say, my Jedi warrior love. My squinty face has already broken three mirrors this week

Obi Wan Kenobi: Oh. I am TEH DEAD, just as I was about to see her lady-garden. That's a bollock.

Squinty-eyed R. Zellweger: ONOZ! I am so sad, and I can never love again

Childhood sweetheart: Plz to marry me, even though you have an annoyingly squinty face and spend all your time writing cute ickle children's books about bunnies and kittens an' stuff

Squinty-eyed R. Zellweger: Obi Wan who? LOL

Childhood sweetheart: This bag – plz to wear it

TEH END - Or is it?*

* Yes. Yes it is.

I'm open to requests for my next Condensed Movie. I'm leaning towards Indiana Jones and TEH Last Crusade. But... over to you.

Monday, August 04, 2008

On meeting multiple James Bondses

On meeting multiple James Bondses

It's a story I've alluded to on many occasions on these pages, but never quite managed to tell in full.

That is – thanks to recent changes in the Official Secrets Act – UNTIL NOW.

For I've met James Bond.

The real, 100 per cent genuine James Bond.

On a weekly basis. All five of him.

In a previous existence, way back in the mid-1980s, I worked at the Unemployment Benefit Office in Reading. I was, after a small amount of training and a reminder not to engage the customers in fisticuffs, in charge of people with the surname A-C.

Amongst my claimants, I was less than surprised to find, were no less than five James Bonds, all of whom signed on within 15 minutes of each other on a Monday morning.

Every last one of them, you will not be surprised to hear, has previously changed their name by deed poll in the thought that possessing the superspy's name would open a door to fame, fortune and loose women.

Or, one of them could have been the real 007, deep, DEEP undercover in the heart of the Thames Valley, saving the world from SPECTRE agents running around with dodgy UB-40 cards and forged jobseekers' bus passes.

If that were the case, at least four of them were either complete liars, extremely well-placed decoys or poor, dead George Lazenby.

Their lot in life, it seemed, consisted of the long, lonely wait for a new set of top secret orders to come with their dole cheque, which, thanks to the wizards at Q Division, turned into strong lager within ten minutes of its arrival.

Of course, that all happened in the days when I was part of MI6's secret operations against the forces of SMERSH - Smert Spionem - Death to Spies - and a lightly-oiled Miss Moneypenny was nothing to be scared of. In fact, we were all issued with a number of glossy 10x8s of the service's favourite receptionist and minx, which we were told to guard with our lives, just to ensure our loyalty to the cause.

Just to be on the safe side, and in the name of national security, I went through my records to check: I had no claimants called Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who might have signed on every Tuesday.

Sadly for those of you with an interest with butch Russian lesbians, Rosa Klebb's claim would have been handled by the office downstairs, so I had no idea about the knife-wielding dyke of the Russian Steppe.

As I've said, this sort of thing is revealed only on a "need-to-know" basis, so only tell everybody on the entire internet.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Mirth and Woe: Dogging



Regular readers will know that I live a bizarre dual-centred lifestyle, whereby I live in the jewel of the South Coast that is Weymouth, yet work in the turd of the Thames Valley that is the not-quite-a-city Reading. A sun-kissed resort that invented the seaside holiday versus a car-choked metropolis that is only famous for locking up its most famous resident, and carelessly losing a crowned King of England.

The result of this little arrangement means that I really clock up the miles between home and the office, and really appreciate the solitude of my shed of a weekend. Just me, the hamster and a priceless collection of vintage lingerie catalogues. Heaven.

The long hours on the road, coupled with a steady all-tea diet means that I know absolutely every lay-by, public convenience, service area and unlocked farmer's field between Dorset and Berkshire, for my bladder thinks that the minute I get into a car, it must be time to go to the toilet.

(In fact, I might as well own up, seeing as my brother or sister will obviously point this out in the comments: On a two-hour trip through the middle of London to visit my grandparents who lived in Basildon – twin town Fallujah – I was told to 'tie a knot in it'. So I tried.)

One of these days I'll invent something that involves a long tube, a funnel, and boots with an recyclable wee container, and this time next year Rodders, we'll be millionaires. But right now, if the toilet urge strikes I know where on my route I can take a wazz, and where will get me an ASBO.

The middle of Salisbury, for example, is right out, as is a stretch just south of Andover, where you're likely to get shot at by passing military helicopters out of top LULz.

So, there I was, not twenty minutes out of Weymouth one evening, driving up to the office in the dead of night, ready to pull an early shift the next morning in the white heat of global journalism. Alas, it had been a long day, and my tea intake has approached double figures, and the contents of my stomach sloshed gently as I founded the Dorchester bypass.

Doom!

Only ten miles into the journey and the onions needed straining.

Only one thing for it – the lay-by on the A35 near Troytown (home of Nroddy), where I could leap out of the car, do the business, hop back into the car and floor the pedal onwards towards the New Forest, the M3 and beyond.

During the day, this is a popular stopping-off point for drivers, holiday-makers and lorry-drivers alike, where the enterprising farmer next door has set up an over-the-fence refreshments business.

What my obsessively-filed knowledge DIDN'T know was that this particular lay-by and its attendant public convenience becomes, in the hours of darkness, Dorset's most notorious dogging spot for cross-dressers.

Big, burly cross-dressers with bandy legs, facial hair and Laura Ashley frocks, all hoping for a well-performed solo on the pink oboe.

I only found this out as I zipped up, and turned to wash my hands, only to be confronted by a burly cross-dresser with bandy legs, facial hair and Laura Ashley frock, tottering slightly on his heels.

I looked him up and down.

He looked me up and down.

Christ, I thought, Don't fancy yours much.

"So, wanna wank?" s/he asked in the kind of direct talk that will give a girl a reputation.

"You bet your ugly ass I don't", I wanted to say afterwards, but it came out: "Mwaaaargh!"

S/he turned on his heels and tottered back to the lay-by. Hardly the Marilyn Monroe chewing gum walk, but then, Marilyn didn't have a Johnson dangling between her legs.

I saw, in the half-light, two other blokes in Laura Ashley frocks and bad wigs also emerging from their vehicles – one of which being a forty ton truck of a well-known haulage firm that would have kittens if they knew that one of their drivers was brown-hatting on company property.

"Any luck, Miranda?" said the one with the tattoos.

"Nah, Tiffany-Jade," said Fungus Face, "He was havin' a piss."

"Bloody time wasters," the third Bad Transvestite* chipped in, giving me a dirty look.

I fled.

So, to summarise, for the benefit of the hard-working ladies and gentlemen of the Dorsetshire Constabulary: That's the A35 layby, just outside Dorchester towards Troytown (home of Nroddy). If you're lucky, they might take down your particulars.

* A small town in southern Germany