Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside.
Frightful, isn't it, hard-working British families having their holidays all fucked-up, by the world. And so to'ally, to'ally unfair, do you know what I mean? It's norrasthough them refugees are anyfin to do wiv us, I mean, we never made 'em leave 'ome, did we?
Prime minister Swarmy Cameron
spoke to the British people from inside number ten, where COMA, the cabinet's emergency committee, including Tracey I-Don't-Know-What-Day-It-Is May, Swampy Fallon and
Phil the Dope Hammond
as well as lots of Brigadiers-General Rupert Golightly-Jockstrap
Dave and Rupert get down'n'dirty.
convene at times of national crisis and march about looking stern and carrying documents,
- now implicated, gleefully, in HowardGate - bestrode the world like a conquering hero and would bend it to his will, the fucking mongrel.
Now look, Lessbeclear about this,
foreigners are all fucking bastards and all they wanna do is rip-off hard-working British taxpayers and it's my job to stand up for the interests of those same hard-working British taxpaying holidaymakers, stuck on the motorway because we have assisted Uncle Sam,
quite proply in my view, in setting the world on fire, causing all these nig-nogs to run for their lives and fetch-up here. I want to be absolutely clear about this, I haven't a fucking clue what to do. Mr Swampy Fallon, the War minister, wants to kill them all,
And you say it works jusr as well on Eritreans as it does on Somalis?
and who, frankly, quite proply, in my judgement, could blame him? I mean, we are all about to go on our well-deserved three month, paid holidays from fucking the country up and quite proply, in my view, selling it to the Chancellor's school friends and look what's happening. I should also point out that, as long as the proper procedures are observed, that is to say the proper donations are proply made to the Tory party or to Mayor Cock I have absolutely no objection to proper criminals, skilled criminals, I might add, because skilled workers are what we need in this county, especially in govament, where nobody can do fuck all right - no, only joking, Mr Smith and Judge Gove and Mrs May - from absolutely anywhere coming here and setting up their brothels and drug dens and slave auctions and laundering their money through the great City of London but most of these fuckers, the ones swarming at Calais, are dirt poor, not a pot to piss in.
And it's all very well for the Swedes and people like them to say we should accept these dirty wogs as our brothers and welcome them as fellow human beings, well, all I can say is that it's all very well for them, I know I've said that already but there's only so many things that even the most gifted premier can say at times like these, and fuck knows I'm certainly not one of them, although I am considerably more sensible than Mr Corbyn who actually works full-time for the Russians, no, MI5 can prove it, just like the WMDs they proved for the great Tony'n'Imelda, because they, the Swedes, raise proper income taxes and fund things adequately whereas the Chancellor and I are committed to a policy of taking from the worthless poor and giving to the worthy rich, that's our strategy for funding the requirements of an ageing society; rather than raising income taxes, we go around kicking disabled people out of their wheelchairs. Mr Duncan Schmidt seems to enjoy it and it does seem to offer him some consolation for his failures elsewhere in life. Which, in my judgement, are cinsiderable.
So anyway, unless you want a country where public services are proply funded and who, lets face it, in their right mind, would want that, then you all jolly well beter get behind me and my colleagues as we fuck-up something else. But no, voters are entitled to have their ghastly holidays, which are far too long, in my view, in cheap shitholes and I assure you I am going to, quite proply, in my view, do my very best to make sure they don't get them. Or do get them. Is it Do get them? Or Do not get them? Whatever it is, I will make absolutely certain of it. That's the kind of prime minister I am. Must run,. have a COMA meeting to sleep through. I mean chair.
Great, being important and everything.
And before I go, another thing. I know it's fashionable for people - generally the sort of people who would help Comrade Corbyn drag us back to the 'sixties, instead of to the 'thirties, as the govament would prefer, and quite proply, in my judgement, - to make the entirely bogus claim that the British border starts actually at the end of Britain, at, um, Land's End. No, at Dover.
Just let me tell them.
It doesn't.
It starts at Calais. Quite proply, too, in my view.
That's the start of the British border.
And M'sieu le Frog had jolly well better start enforcing it.
Or I shall send Mr Blind Boy Blunkett to see for himself how they're slacking on the job.
foreigners are all fucking bastards and all they wanna do is rip-off hard-working British taxpayers and it's my job to stand up for the interests of those same hard-working British taxpaying holidaymakers, stuck on the motorway because we have assisted Uncle Sam,
quite proply in my view, in setting the world on fire, causing all these nig-nogs to run for their lives and fetch-up here. I want to be absolutely clear about this, I haven't a fucking clue what to do. Mr Swampy Fallon, the War minister, wants to kill them all,
And you say it works jusr as well on Eritreans as it does on Somalis?
and who, frankly, quite proply, in my judgement, could blame him? I mean, we are all about to go on our well-deserved three month, paid holidays from fucking the country up and quite proply, in my view, selling it to the Chancellor's school friends and look what's happening. I should also point out that, as long as the proper procedures are observed, that is to say the proper donations are proply made to the Tory party or to Mayor Cock I have absolutely no objection to proper criminals, skilled criminals, I might add, because skilled workers are what we need in this county, especially in govament, where nobody can do fuck all right - no, only joking, Mr Smith and Judge Gove and Mrs May - from absolutely anywhere coming here and setting up their brothels and drug dens and slave auctions and laundering their money through the great City of London but most of these fuckers, the ones swarming at Calais, are dirt poor, not a pot to piss in.
And it's all very well for the Swedes and people like them to say we should accept these dirty wogs as our brothers and welcome them as fellow human beings, well, all I can say is that it's all very well for them, I know I've said that already but there's only so many things that even the most gifted premier can say at times like these, and fuck knows I'm certainly not one of them, although I am considerably more sensible than Mr Corbyn who actually works full-time for the Russians, no, MI5 can prove it, just like the WMDs they proved for the great Tony'n'Imelda, because they, the Swedes, raise proper income taxes and fund things adequately whereas the Chancellor and I are committed to a policy of taking from the worthless poor and giving to the worthy rich, that's our strategy for funding the requirements of an ageing society; rather than raising income taxes, we go around kicking disabled people out of their wheelchairs. Mr Duncan Schmidt seems to enjoy it and it does seem to offer him some consolation for his failures elsewhere in life. Which, in my judgement, are cinsiderable.
So anyway, unless you want a country where public services are proply funded and who, lets face it, in their right mind, would want that, then you all jolly well beter get behind me and my colleagues as we fuck-up something else. But no, voters are entitled to have their ghastly holidays, which are far too long, in my view, in cheap shitholes and I assure you I am going to, quite proply, in my view, do my very best to make sure they don't get them. Or do get them. Is it Do get them? Or Do not get them? Whatever it is, I will make absolutely certain of it. That's the kind of prime minister I am. Must run,. have a COMA meeting to sleep through. I mean chair.
Great, being important and everything.
And before I go, another thing. I know it's fashionable for people - generally the sort of people who would help Comrade Corbyn drag us back to the 'sixties, instead of to the 'thirties, as the govament would prefer, and quite proply, in my judgement, - to make the entirely bogus claim that the British border starts actually at the end of Britain, at, um, Land's End. No, at Dover.
Just let me tell them.
It doesn't.
It starts at Calais. Quite proply, too, in my view.
That's the start of the British border.
And M'sieu le Frog had jolly well better start enforcing it.
Or I shall send Mr Blind Boy Blunkett to see for himself how they're slacking on the job.
Well, I've had a look around and them not doin' too bad a job, les frogs, but if you ask me they need to machine-gun a few a them criminal asylum seekers an' refugees. Or all on 'em.
What, a quick visa?
In exchange fer a fuck?
I'm yer man.
I was reading somewhere, recently, that the more impoverished a society the more its members demand feast days and holy days and festivals, occasions of one sort or another, to wallpaper over the damp and the bloodstains, and so it is in our property-not-owning-but-borrowing democracy. Govament gives us soldier caskets, all bound, at slow march, for MourningTown, Royal Wootton Basset, a place where phoney grieving is in the DNA and the nation trembles its lip and stiffens its sinews. Better than a cost-of-living opayrise, a good funeral.
Govament gives us two minutes' silences at the drop of a handful of imbecile tourists and we cease from our low-paid labours and remind ourselves of how very great we are at hypocrisy. And, as ever, Ruritania fucks the arses off its brood mares, that we may celebrate brat after brat after brat, gown after gown, tiara after tiara, carriage after carriage, and soon Brenda and Phil will be dead and Oh what a feast we shall be fed, the country will be unliveable-in. I shall travel abroad, if there is, any longer, post-Google, an abroad.
Or I shall take narcotics.
Govament gives us two minutes' silences at the drop of a handful of imbecile tourists and we cease from our low-paid labours and remind ourselves of how very great we are at hypocrisy. And, as ever, Ruritania fucks the arses off its brood mares, that we may celebrate brat after brat after brat, gown after gown, tiara after tiara, carriage after carriage, and soon Brenda and Phil will be dead and Oh what a feast we shall be fed, the country will be unliveable-in. I shall travel abroad, if there is, any longer, post-Google, an abroad.
Or I shall take narcotics.
Others' births, deaths and marriages,
these are now the folk dances of the poor Briton.
Whipped and scourged, short-changed, lied-to, betrayed, his rights bartered away, his resources stolen and sold back to him by GlobaCrook, his old age auctioned-off to so-called private care-providers, his state dismantled, now holidays join his miserable dwindling list of must-'aves.
these are now the folk dances of the poor Briton.
Whipped and scourged, short-changed, lied-to, betrayed, his rights bartered away, his resources stolen and sold back to him by GlobaCrook, his old age auctioned-off to so-called private care-providers, his state dismantled, now holidays join his miserable dwindling list of must-'aves.
For now, though, disgruntled Wayne and Chardonnay fume in their Ford Fiestas, immobilised in twenty mile traffic jams,
with Ahmed and Jamal pissing all over their fortnight abroad, and moan.
LuvEm2Bits, they do, their kids, Alfie and Jack, sitting in the back of the Ford, looking, through their portable cellular shackle, at their digitised ConsumerWorldOfWant, and don't see why somebody doesn't do something about it, the world.
with Ahmed and Jamal pissing all over their fortnight abroad, and moan.
LuvEm2Bits, they do, their kids, Alfie and Jack, sitting in the back of the Ford, looking, through their portable cellular shackle, at their digitised ConsumerWorldOfWant, and don't see why somebody doesn't do something about it, the world.
It is as though, when we can be bothered to look, the world is something other, nothing to do with us, something which should certainly not disrupt our sports fixtures, much less our holidays. How very dare it?
I thought that when whatever happened on 7/7 happened that the nation might think, Ah, this must be what it's like in Gaza or Baghdad or Kabul, every day of the week, bombs going off, limbs blown off, people screaming their fucking heads off, the whole world kicking-off, all around you, however do they put up with it, poor bastards? Even during the height of Marty Kneecaps' and Gerry Incest's conflict resolution programme we only had a tiny taster of what happens elsewhere and yet, come 7/7, when ragheads were doing it in London, the whole country was weeping and wailing and shitting itself.
But only on our own behalf.
Nowhere do we raise monuments to the dead of Gaza or Eritrea or Somalia; that's their lookout. Bananas, that's the thing, and lemons, on great British lorries, delayed. And garlic.
Could be a shortage of that,
if we don't get the lorries moving.
After 7/7 some blend of Blitz Spirit and govament misinformation short-circuited any flickering empathy which might have sprung into being. Somehow a thousand Afghani families, a hundred thousand Iraqi ones, they're just not the same high-end human capital as a handful of Londoners; I mean, whaddathey expect, being born where they was, they should be used to it, seeing their kids intestines, all trailing about, like, in the street. An' it's not like they was proper kids, like ours. Oh, they got arms an' legs and things, an' feelings but they int like our own kids, are they, LuvEm2BitsIDo, MyKids, did I say that already? An' anyone says I don't is a paedo.
But only on our own behalf.
Nowhere do we raise monuments to the dead of Gaza or Eritrea or Somalia; that's their lookout. Bananas, that's the thing, and lemons, on great British lorries, delayed. And garlic.
Could be a shortage of that,
if we don't get the lorries moving.
After 7/7 some blend of Blitz Spirit and govament misinformation short-circuited any flickering empathy which might have sprung into being. Somehow a thousand Afghani families, a hundred thousand Iraqi ones, they're just not the same high-end human capital as a handful of Londoners; I mean, whaddathey expect, being born where they was, they should be used to it, seeing their kids intestines, all trailing about, like, in the street. An' it's not like they was proper kids, like ours. Oh, they got arms an' legs and things, an' feelings but they int like our own kids, are they, LuvEm2BitsIDo, MyKids, did I say that already? An' anyone says I don't is a paedo.
Somehow, like almost every aspect of our collective, penurious national experience, 7/7, too, was turned into a festival and during the recent, ten-year anniversary party there seemed to be innumerable star-struck victims, who had, for a decade, been rehearsing their moment in front of the cameras. Maybe there's a drama school, for little black dress army widows and bomb attack survivors, telegenic ones, anyway; certainly, there is no shortage of audience, happy to suround itself in sorrow, when it should, in my view, qute proply, be angry..
But now foreigness impinges directly on our consumer expectations, fruit and vegetables rot in their stranded containers
as fat, angry lorrydrivers renew their ancient chorus of complaint and hatred, tailgating and undertaking the rest of us, just as they do on the roads, almost running us over, nasty fucking bullies, most of them, men who should never be allowed behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
Just in passing, I believe it was the abolition of the driver's mate or co-driver which created these monsters, sitting alone in the cab of some juggernaut, listening to that cunt, wotsisname, Ferrari, maybe being hassled on the phone by some despatcher at head office, gotta drive you homicidal. About the only time I ever smiled at Clarkson the Pig was when he snorted the unspeakable about the vile trucker community.
The hauliers' associations threaten to withold their bungs to the Tory Party. Events in the world are costing us money, they squeal, and they shouldn't.
as fat, angry lorrydrivers renew their ancient chorus of complaint and hatred, tailgating and undertaking the rest of us, just as they do on the roads, almost running us over, nasty fucking bullies, most of them, men who should never be allowed behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
Just in passing, I believe it was the abolition of the driver's mate or co-driver which created these monsters, sitting alone in the cab of some juggernaut, listening to that cunt, wotsisname, Ferrari, maybe being hassled on the phone by some despatcher at head office, gotta drive you homicidal. About the only time I ever smiled at Clarkson the Pig was when he snorted the unspeakable about the vile trucker community.
The hauliers' associations threaten to withold their bungs to the Tory Party. Events in the world are costing us money, they squeal, and they shouldn't.
I find it all quite cheering, actually, this never-ending refugee/migrant crisis and I hope it continues until our holidaymakers realise that John Donne wasn't lying. Many of these people are directly or indirectly made refugee as a result of our own - British - actions; Blair's and Straw's in Iraq, Brown's and Reid's in Afghanistan and Swarmy and Dopey Phil's in Libya. And then there's our alliance with the head-chopping fuckpigs, the Sauds, in Saudi Arabia, our unquestioning parliamentary support for the religious nutters in apartheid Israel and our love for the monsters of Bahrain.
This presently small tide of humanity now sabotaging our precious holidays and upsetting our precious lorry drivers, it ebbs and flows by our own gravity, is pushed and pulled by our own stupid, cruel indifference; its highs and lows, its Springs and Neaps are orchestrated by our very own verminous masters; this is the start of the Blair Tide of Consequence and were there any justice it would wash-away the Houses of Parliament and drown all of its members.
NEWSNIGHT,
ON TRAGEDY AT HOME.
WELL IN SPAIN, ACTUALLY
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
And the tragedy news tonight is that a national skinflint, I mean treasure, has tragically died, at only my age.
Yes, Cilla Black has left the studio.
Perhaps the thing that people will most remember about Cilla Black was the fuss she made when she couldn't prove her insurance claim for stolen jewellery and how distraught fans clubbed together to make up the difference.
And the way she spoke to airline staff who did not treat her with the respect she deserved.
But we are joined in the studio, now, by professional Liverpudlian, Roger McGough, who's gonna talk us through the life and times of Cilla Black. Roger, you're a poet, say something about Cilla that's poetic.
Well that's right Kirsty, I am a poet, and a writer and I do present a rather special programme on Radio Four, the Thinkers' Station, as I describe it, where I introduce bits of poetry and think out-loud about what poetry means, about its message to ordinary people, and about how, seemingly effortlessly, I can speak knowledgeably about iambic pentameter.
And things like that.
Oh, I daresay I can quote from William Wandsworth and Thomas Handy and William Bloke with the very best of them but it's my sensitivity that listeners respond to.
And I'm a rock god, too.
Younger, hipper listeners will remember my beat group, The Scaffold,
and our string of hits called Lily the Pink. That was inspired, actually, by Cilla, as she was then known, working down the Cavern. And originally the song was called not Lily the Pink but Cilla the Vanilla.
Unfortunately, however, Cilla the Vanilla doesn't actually do what we poets call rhyme. Or is it scan ?
I mean, you can't actually expect to have a Nunmber One hit with a song going We'll drink a drink, a drink to Cilla the Vanilla, the Vanilla, the Vanilla, the save-yer of the human ray-ah-ayce... not if you want to be taken seriously in poetic circles, and let's face it, what Liverpudlian doesn't want to be?
Wait a minute, Roger,
was that THE Cavern, the famous Cavern,
the one in Liverpool?
The place where modern culture started?
Yeah-yeah-yeah,
it was fab gear, an' that,
too much, man,
down the Cavern with Cilla checkin' yer 'at fer youse,
in a manner a speakin'.
'ad me 'at checked by Cilla a number of times, I did,
an' me coat,
but shurrup a minute, our Kirsty,
we're 'ere to mourn a national treasure and I would just like to repine that it's a very much-used phrase, that one, but in this case, as with cliches generally, it really is true.
It's the mark of a great poet, such as myself, that he can say things like that,
what nobody's ever said before,
about national tresures really bein' national treasures
She really was a national treasure, was Cilla.
I mean, if people Like Micky Grade
Well, music hall is my thing, and if Cilla was alive then she wiould've been a great music hall artiste. A proper Cockney Sparra. Only Scouse, obviously. As it is, she helped me lower the standards of light entertainment, almost to where they are today. Can't say fairer than that, Oy vay. Have a nagilah day.
- Lord Micky Grade - and Piers Moron - Custodians of the National Culture - are singing yer praises, like they have been with Cilla, yer can't be 'alf bad, now, can yer?
Cruelty TeeVee?
Well, perhaps, like Esther Rantzen,
another great star and artiste,
Cilla was one a the first to make cunts of ordinary people, yeah,
who were cheap to 'ave on the show, worked for nothin', in fact, but she were ever so good at it.
Yeah, Liverpool's just such a really great place, like, that's why everybody fucks off the first chance they get.
To the States, or like Cilla, to some vulgar villa in Spain or to London.
Me?
Yeah, Notting Hill,
because I'm a poet.
but me 'earts down the Pier Head.
sings.....
so ferry, cross the Mairsey, cuz this land's the place I lurve,
an' 'ere I'll stay......
That was Poetry Please's Roger McGough for us, there, on this special Newsnight Cilla Black Memorial edition and we're joined now by cultural icon
Barbara Windsor.
Barbara, you knew Cilla Black, say something chirpy an' a bit smutty about her for us would you?
Oh, Kirsty, you are a one
.......wanna see my tits?
But no, she was a proper dahlin', was Cilla. An' when I 'eard, about her passin' like, cor, I cooden Adam an' Eve it, I felt proper Moby, I did.
We did fings togevver, like, me and Cilla
proper chinas we was.
But wharrahwoodsay, Kirsty, dahlin', is that this never woodofappened, norrif Ronnie and Reggie Kray was still alive. Diamond geezers they was, them boys, loved their old mum2bits, they did, an' everybody in our bizness is a bit gay, like them, ain't we, Kirsty, dahlin';
fancy a suck on me ol' melons afterwards, do ya?
Nah, not Cilla, too busy countin' her millions, she was, 'er an' er ole man, but no she were a great star, bit like meself, really, I got me 'undred year old tits fer you to gawp at and she 'ad her 'undred year old hit record. Diddden 'ave no tits' erself, like, an' the ol' BoatRace wasn't nuffin t'write ome abaht,
more rodent than dolly bird,
them Hampsteads, in that Norf'n'Souf, but ugly or not, she were a Great star, were Cilla, a proper dahlin'. But no, I mean, Kirsty, when them boys was around, Ronnie an' Reggie you could leave yer door open and nuffin' wooduv 'appened.
Wish I could say the same about me Mystic Megs, open them up an' 'alf a the East End'd be around, eh?
high-pitched shrieks and cackles and cries of Cheeky!
as old lady staggers, top-heavy, from the studio on impossibly high heels.
That was the legendary Barbara Tits there,
sharing her memories of Cilla Black, with you, the viewers, out there, somewhere awful.
That's it for tonight's Cilla Black retrospective. Tomorrow, Gerry Marsden will be explaining why Cilla will Ne-e-e-e-ever Walk Alone and Lord Sir Paul McCartney will be talking to Evan RentBoy about his new album, which he won't be dedicating to Cilla Black and will be telling us why.
To sports news now and this is America's triumph in the Brutality Gold Medal, the competition is only open to Americans, in which the Barack Obama Hypocrisy Gold Medal goes to the person who presently best represents true and lasting American values.
"...and if all the animals in the world joined together and formed a religion, Man would be their Devil " AC Grayling
This is selfie-porn a l'americaine.
Now, I'm liberal but to a degree.
And I'd shoot this bitch in the head.
And to play us out, here is Cilla, at her very best.......Wossat????
You can't find anything that doesn't sound like a cat being vivisected by a thrills-hungry American? No, I know she wasn't Dusty Springfield but surely there's something.....??
Sorry about that, a technical hitch. We can't bring you Cilla at her best. Seems there wasn't any best. It was all bad.
But here's the Swinging Blue Jeans, Liverpool contemporaries of Cilla's, singing something called For Goodness' Sakes, I Got The Hippy-Hippy Shakes.
Goodnight from all of us on the programme.
('mic still on:)
Fuck me seven ways to Christmas but I'm getting too old for this shit.
33 comments:
Jesus tittyfucking Christ, why would anybody want to top a giraffe? If one of these twats wants to chase down and strangle a mamba, I'd pay to watch (from a safe distance) but boasting about the slaughter of a clunky great vegetarian is a new class of stupid. (And if they make it through the mamba, they can take their chances with a rusty pen-knife and an angry hippo.)
BBC Radio got Lionel Blair on the phone when news of Mother Scouse's passing had just broken. He blathered away and then added "it's ruined my weekend."
verge.//
There is, mr verge, already another image of a hippo, similarly slain, for bimbo-fun.
I never saw Cilla on telly - must be something about me, never seen Friends, Cheers, the Simpsons, Seinfeld, Downton, The West Wing, Strictly Come Dancing, The X-Factor, oceans of stuff that everyone else seems to have seen - and I never heard her sing a note that didn't hurt. Thaf Brian Epstein, eh, taking a delicious, queer revenge; his very own Coronation Street, was Cilla and what they call her career.
Isn't it time Lionel Blair was dead? I watched him on my mother's knee, on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. He's really Beating the Clock, is Lionel.
Haven't seen Lily Savage, yet, the bloke Cilla fag-hagged for, maybe he's preparing a TeeVee special, maybe a seance, the mad bastard. Wouldn't wanna be in his animal sanctuary just now.
Mr Verge: its only Yanks being Yanks, killing stuff. It proves they are "exceptional". Though they dont seem to like it when someone kills them, and they wonder why we all have a little smirk. Bastards.
Some of us here in Cilla's fair city are containing our grief quite well. Her preposterous accent was entirely manufactured (she lost what would have been her real voice as quickly as she fucked off out of the city to Berkshire) and she was indeed one of the Queens of Cultural Degradation, patronising and transparently loathing the poor morons herded onto her shows.
That other chirpy scouser, Tarby, was inevitably wheeled out to throw some more shite at us from Ascot-on-Mersey.
All part of the national collapse as you very well remind us, and part of the same stupidity that now waves its arms ludicrously in the direction of Calais. Our Tabloid Isle, worth climbing under a truck for.
I did read, mr mike, that when white, EuroTrash Cavalrymen were invading the Injun lands, they would herd tens of thousands of buffalo into canyons, mow 'em down with Gatling guns and just leave 'em to rot, so Dancing Bear would starve. The filthy redskins had lived in respectful symbiosis with these creatures for thousands of years, killing only what they needed and using every part of the beasts' bodies. Uncle Sam came along in the nick of time and civilised them. Those nignogs, in Africa, they should be grateful to Miss Snuff, for showing them the promise of the American Bastards' Dream, killing things for fun just to piss-off the locals.
Never ceases to baffle me. mr bungalow bill, how such as those you mention have the temerity to, in the first place, promote a non-existent talent and then, with the help of filth like Grade, maintain the illusion for a lucrative lifetime. Golfing Tarbuck, eh, yesterday's John Bishop. I liked Liverpool so much more, as a kid, before it became, briefly, a showbiz fleapit.
Yes a lost city I'm sad to say, like so many others.
Mr Mike: next we'll have Gwyneth Paltroon talking up the tribulations of her latest bacterial safari - she goes in massively tooled up with an arsenal of organic zero-carbon antibiotics (a huge enema of artisanal yoghurt in other words) then posts killshot photos of herself posing with a bucket of her quarry's slurried corpse...sure showed those little bastards; consciously uncoupled their gutflora-asses all to hell...
On a contrarian note, I remember reading a biography of Constantine (CJP) Ionides, who hunted a lot as a young adult, and being more impressed than appalled. No helicopters, no jeeps, no Holiday Inns; frequently not even a guide ("up there, boss? You fucking kidding me" or words to that effect). Old and lame, he collected snakes - the locals thought he must be a witch, handling such things - and sold them on for antivenom manufacture and so forth. (Shame the USA can't be less like a jittery kill-em-all mamba than a deadly-but-generally-placid Gaboon Viper.)
verge.//
Mr ish, Noble savages, Before the spanish introduced the horse to north america the indians drove buffalo over cliffs to secure their meat,And i read an account by an american soldier years ago that you could smell an indian encampment miles away by the smell of rotting meat,I dont believe all this white guilt shite about noble savages, if they were noble they would be vegetarians!
Who the fuck is Gwyneth Paltry? You been down Blockbusters again, mr verge, renting shit videos? She the one de-coupled from that toothy, singing mutant, the one I don't even know the name of?
I remember reading Or I'll Dress You In Mourning, the biocgraphy of the bullfighter, El Cordobes, and being attracted by the fatalistic bravery of the young peasant but I was younger then and now despise the whole wretched business; our nows often play contrarian to our thens.
I did see a magical, I believe foreign film, mr walter, about the first native American to ride a horse which had wandered in from the conquistadores, down Southand had wondered how they hunted before that or migrated any distance but I also do believe that native, aboriginal populations all over the world led lives much more in harmony with Creation than those imposed upon them by itinerant white trash, or Civilisation, as we call it.
You could, I understand, walk through London streets awash with human and animal faeces in the nineteenth century, perhaps the American soldier should have set off to visit the Queen in order to properly offend his nostrils.
It wasn't nobility to which I alluded to but the harmony with nature which characterised pre-industrialists everywhere.
Yes Mr I. It's a fucking, fucked up world out there and the fuckers who did the fucking ain't going to be called to account anytime soon. By the time anyone gets to them, they'll be travelling first class (of course) into the afterlife....
One imagines that it was a tough ask taking down a a buffalo with a pointy stick.
I crossed paths a couple of years back with a young woman who works in lion conservation with the Masai. The tall, thin mean-looking buggers kill the lions that come by trying to eat their livestock. They'd been doing it forever. See above, in a harmony of a kind. Instead of this happening, said woman has persuaded them to put radio-collars on the beasts and to track them - moving their animals to safety ahead of the hunter. A fantastic kid - loping along alongside these warrior blokes. Across the bush every day looking for lions. All that and then some dental fetishist turns up and does his bow-and-arrow worst. Dick. Five years in a Zimbabwe jail would do, I reckon. As a minimum.
Jesus, it's not enough I know roughly who the bitch is, you expect me to watch her fucking films as well? (As it happens I have a feeling she doesn't really bother any more - too busy with lifestyle tips and uncoupled rockstars. On the subject of which I just had a thought - when a celebrity has a wank, does it count as starfucking?)
v.//
Ah, she is in films, then. There are so many, whose names I half-know, models, actors, singers, but of whose product I know nothing. And I know nothing of the masturbatory conventions among showbizzers, believing, up until now, mr verge, that they would have someone to fo that sort of thing for them, a sort of wank-double, who did all the work, while the celebrity got all the credit.
Or perhaps inhabiting it, mr sg, like the Grocer does, the afterlife. Of all the beast-rumours, it is the Grocer's about which I am sceptical. But what do I know?
That's a goodnews story, mr mongoose, some of the new people, the electronic nomads, they dance lightly over Convention's coals.
Ref: illegal immigrunts; should we not be pointing the finger of blame at the conniving politicians who have allowed and encouraged this situation to develop in the certain knowledge that upset, destabilisation and terror will result, rather than the ‘refugees’ who are doing what any of us may do in similar circumstances? I do not blame them in the slightest for trying to better themselves; I would very much rather that they stayed in their home country and try to improve matters there, but they know their own situation best. They look at their leaders and the hopeless corruption and violence in their homeland and compare it with that semblance of what was once great about England and come to the inevitable conclusion that Life is too short to fuck about waiting. And over they come. The Eyeties and the Frogs do all they can to speed the buggers on their way with as little hindrance as humanly possible … and you can’t really blame them either if the British are too stupid to draw up the necessarily robust measures to protect the realm. No, the fault lies fair and square with our own quisling politicians … and the stupid fucking sheep who keep voting the cunts back into office. Time after fucking time after fucking time...
Ahem .. forgive me .. occasionally the red mist descends.
All of that is correct and only common sense, common sense also dictates that the British border can only be in Britain, its ports and shores and airports, bleating that another country must police one's own borders is a posture beyond satire. And in any event, even if the South Coast were locked-up tight, at the cost of billions, there remain the Eastern and Northern coasts, as well as transport links with Ireland and the Low and Scandinavian countries; should Scotland secede even the partial halting of unregulated immigration would become impossible.
On top of that, the legal arrival in, say, Orkney, of a couple of dozen pregnant, unmarried Rumanian teenagers would bankrupt the council and throw the place into chaos. It is a potentially catastrophic situation and it is outrageous that it has taken a chancer like Nigel Poundland to even get if onto Power's breakfast menu. And while the Daily Mail and Co pander to the prejudice against Otherness the problem will only multiply, in the interests of its own populations the so-called developed world simply must beat its swords into ploughshares and distribute them among those in need, who are, in most cases, only doing what people have always done.
Jailing Americans abroad, I forgot to mention, mr mongoose, is, under international law, strictly forbidden.
On the subject of holidays....I'm still on mine.
We have left the badlands of Northern Engerland behind, although a side visit to Durham and its magnificent cathedral was a welcomed respite.
We are now in Malta - its hot, but the Rose is dry and chilled.
If you haven't visited Malta, then I can highly recommend it. Its mostly built of stone, by craftsmen from a bygone era; monumental and magnificent. And if you like history, the place is bursting at the seams. Ancient megaliths older than stonehenge and temples abound. But of course, Malta is famous for the Knights. If you can get hold of a copy of The Great Seige by Ernle (sic) Bradford (Penguin) it tells the story of the last time the Islamics tried to conquer Europe in the 1500s. The might of the Ottoman empire was stopped in its tracks by a handful of knights supported by the locals. Its was a bloody and brutal affair even by the standards of that period. At one point the Turks beheaded a couple of knights and nailed them to a cross and floated it on the Grand Harbour. John de la Valette, the Knight Grand Master ordered the beheading of all prisoners, and their heads to be loaded into canon and fired onto the attacking Turks. A man's man you could say, no limp dick like Cameron or Obama. As a reward when the Turks pissed off with their turbans between their legs they built the magnifican city of Valetta in his name, buit to withstand any future seige. And it has; not even the Hermans could defeat Malta.
Probably the next Geat Seige is now underway, but this time the outcome may not be so certain for the infidels.
On the subject of Cilla, we did receive the sad news, and just today I can report we heard a scouser - just leaving a post office, obviously cashing a benefits Giro.
You could, I understand, walk through London streets awash with human and animal faeces in the nineteenth century
The genesis of the platform sole is not, as people imagine, the clumpy shoe of the 1940s but the chopines and pattens of earlier times. They strap on over the house shoe and allow you to hobble through the streets.
Wiki points out in a hyper-detail from the Arnolfini Portrait that if you look at the pair of pattens in the bottom left of the picture, you can see they are dirty from the mud of the street. I urge you to click through to the full-screen version of the detail to marvel at both the painting and the technology which brings it to you.
Here, have a link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patten_%28shoe%29#/media/File:Jan_van_Eyck_004.jpg
Such economic chaos and inconvenience caused by a comparative handful of people, wanting to go from A to B and not fearing, nor giving their details to, the police. Shows what power people really have when they aren't distracted by the unnecessary or believe the myth of authority.
NB: I've got a copy of The Great Siege. Very good read indeed.
-richard
I looked at the youtube, smarthistory, arnolfini portrait, the one with a commentary, mrs woar, and also recommend that -it's about five, dazzling, scholarly minutes. I do believe we looked at the painting for non-fecal reasons, further back down the road a ways, but great to be reminded of it in another context, thanks. I will look at wiki, too.
I live in a more of less constant state of drop-jawed amazement at the technology and propose to discuss how and why it is so cynically hijacked and devalued by, for instance, Buzzfeed and Facebook; we should be smarter than ever, yet we are infantilised by spurious Want. Good, as always. to see you.
I was watching that PBC Byzantium show last night, covering the rise and fall of Constantinople, the Christian schism and the depradations of knights such as those you mention, mr mike, as well as the Turks; blood-curdling stuff.
Malts is a winter-break destination favoured by Orcadians and when I am fitter we intend to visit. Funny, I rediscovered Mateus Rose a few years ago and am now never without it. I only manage it with food, not sophisticated enough to drink it for itself, wine, like mr bujgslow bill and others, here. But I had better grow to be, as I continue to buy the bloody stuff, even though, like yourself, I eat no meat.
I love Durham Cathedral, I like them all but some of them I love, Worcester, Exeter, Bath and Wells; best to fill your boots whilst here, the native Australians worshipped a less demanding God.
One of the acioms of penology, mr richard, is that the jail can only function with the co-operation of the prisoners.
axioms
If you get a copy of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich you'll enjoy an entertaining and superlatively-written account of the various Emperors and their goings-on.
-richard
Right, will do. Give the library something to do. I had a customer, one time, a professor of Byzantineology at Birmingham University, his wife, too, that was her field, and his head was screwed-on by a different thread. The lives some people find for themselves, holidaying in amazing places and talking to people about it for a living. Bit like mr mike does, but with a salary.
A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich is mostly about Venice but does give some insight into the Byzantine Empire, Sicily and Malta, from a Venician pesepective.
The Travels of Marco Polo by Hugh Murray was also a fascinating read, if you can find a reproduction which hasn't destroyed the layout and maps (there are some free PDF scans of original editions lurking in cyberspace).
Thanks mr bhs.
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