Tuesday 12 May 2009

Tuesday 12/05/09

I’m feeling particularly irreverent (and prolific) today.

Earlier this month the government came out with a list of people banned from the UK for promoting hatred, committing terrorist violence or committing serious criminal activity. I would like to lobby for most UK MPs to be added to the list for engaging in criminal activity. Is transportation to Australia still a valid sentence?

Police say the recent spate of parliamentary petty larceny is merely copy-cat crime.

Conservative leader, Darth Cameron, has said that all MPs should say sorry, and that should be the end of it – despite today’s reports that his own MPs are subsidising their country estates through the public purse. Douglas Hogg, former Tory minister, 3rd Viscount Hailsham and occasional Norman robber baron, stands accused of claiming his moat clearance on expenses; also his piano tuning, his housekeeper and her car. Paradoxically Hogg has the lowest expenses of any MP, so God knows what the others are spending their ill gotten gains on.

As an aside, Hogg’s father was the Tory Lord Chancellor Quintin Hogg, a.k.a. Lord Hailsham (who was in turn the son of a Lord Chancellor). In 1963, when his fellow Minister John Profumo had to resign after admitting telling lies to Parliament about his private life, Lord Hailsham savagely attacked him on TV. The following evening Profumo's brother-in-law, Lord Balfour of Inchrye remarked on live television that "When a man has by self-indulgence acquired the shape of Lord Hailsham, sexual continence requires no more than a sense of the ridiculous".

Obi-Wan Brown has already apologised to the nation on behalf of MPs of all hues. With this in mind, Ronnie Biggs, celebrity convict, train robber and very sick old person, has asked if he can be let out of jail if he says sorry too. Justice Minister, Jack Straw, has issued new sentencing guidelines to the UK courts. Henceforth, all convicted criminals will be let off scot-free if they say sorry.

A new term has been coined by the politically correct lobby for MPs who deny having done anything wrong – Expense Fraud Deniers.

When Obi-Wan apologised yesterday he said that his ‘profession’ had to gain respect. Profession? A profession is defined as a vocation requiring demonstrable knowledge of some recognized department of learning or science, like the law or medicine. MPs don’t need a single qualification, except the ability to lie through their teeth and persuade the electorate to act against self-interest and pursue the politicians’ visions of the greater good – or indeed the greater greed.

Since the weekend, several people in Scotland have been swept away by swollen rivers. Anti-obesity campaigner, Hamish McFatarse, said it is a national disgrace that Scottish rivers are flabby and swollen and is lobbying the Scottish Assembly to have all Scottish rivers put on cholesterol-busting drugs.

Children's charities are backing a plan to make web retailers ensure young people cannot buy age-restricted goods. As things stand, the only verification on on-line sites is a tick box and in a recent check by trading standards officers from Greenwich Council, a child was able to purchase 18-rated DVDs, knives, tobacco and alcohol.

Debenhams, which sold knives to the teenage crash-test-dummy, said it had a very clear policy on the issue of selling knives online. "Customers who visit Debenhams' website pages where knives are for sale are made aware that these are age-restricted products and should therefore only purchase them if they are over 18," it said in a statement. "Debenhams would never knowingly sell knives to anyone under the age of 18 years old," it added.

So, the way in which Debenhams overcomes the issue is to ask the purchaser to tick a box to say he or she is over 18, thereby enabling the company to deny any responsibility whatsoever. The hideously complex method by which teenagers overcome this rigorous verification method is by using something we experts call the blatant lie. Now the blatant lie is a virtually undetectable ploy which has hitherto not been used much outside of the deep recesses of the British political system. A viral genetic modification of it is now apparently able to completely neutralize the technologically sophisticated security procedures Debenhams applies to its on-line sales operation.

Hideous old bag and love-child of Her Majesty the Queen, Barbara Windsor, has received a lifetime achievement honour for her part in the soap, Eastenders. ‘Princess’ Barbara is considering donating her trade-mark cast iron beehive hairstyle to the Victoria and Albert museum, where it will be exhibited alongside Jimmy Knapp, Marianne Faithful and a nylon replica of Andy Warhol’s wig – oh sorry, that IS Andy Warhol’s wig.

King Abdullah of Jordan (the King formerly known as Prince) has warned that failure to reach an agreement for peace in the Middle East will result in a new conflict within 12-18 months. For this master-stroke of enlightened rhetoric and perfect example of incisive applied logic, the Nobel Prize Committee is considering awarding him the 2009 Nobel Prize for Stating the Bleeding Obvious.

It’s a little known fact that King Abdullah appeared in a Space Trek Voyager episode when still known as Prince (episode 35: Investigations - 1995 to be exact).

King Abdullah in mufti



Ex Hitler Jugende storm trooper and God’s Rottweiler, Pope Ratzo MCCXIV, is currently leading a Holy Crusade to reclaim the Holy Land. He landed with his crack commandos, the black-shirted Opus Dei (Padre Pio Brigade), and proceeded to establish a beachhead (where else will you find a double h in the English language?) in Haifa, intending to advance on Jerusalem in a pincer movement using the old tried-and-tested Sicilian strategy. Squads of bishops, armed with high-powered, semi-automatic knockwursts and recoilless berettas, chanting: “Arbeit macht frei,” are being supported by the 4th Episcopal Panzer Popemobile Division under the joint command of Cardinal Fang and Silvio Berlusconi.

In a battlefield interview, serial philanderer and gaffe-prone Berlusconi said he really fancied Susan Boyle and would divorce his wife for her, although at 48 he would have preferred her to be a third of her age.

Cardinal Max Clifford, Pope Ratzo’s personal nuncio to the tabloids, has dismissed as totally baseless the rumours that Pope Ratzo is going to establish a Thousand Year Reich in the Holy Land, has replaced the traditional cross with an Iron Cross and has instructed cardinals to wear little pointy spikes on the top of their cardinals’ berettas.

Israeli forces have responded to the papal incursion by bombing the shit out of the Palestinians (again) and torching the UN building in Gaza City (again).

Hamas responded that they had a gun to their heads and weren’t afraid to pull the trigger.

Papal Enforcer, Monsignor ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan, responded with: “Go on, make my day.”

The Pope himself said: “I totally condemn Expense Fraud Denial and a crime of this magnitude should never be allowed to happen again.”

A young Pope Ratzo

Pope Ratzo today and in his acting days.

Pope Ratzo (right) prepares for self-propelled take-off at Rome airport.

Pope Ratzo performing his famous bird hand-shadow act.

Pope Ratzo addressing the faithful at a rally in Nuremberg.

While blitzkrieging his way through the Holy Land, the Pope will be stopping off to visit Christian pilgrimage sites, such as McDonalds and Marks & Spencer.

Late breaking news: in an announcement that shocked Burberry Close, Leytonstone, Katie Price, the pneumatic, chicken-tikka-tanned ex-horsewoman and soft porn star formerly known as Jordan, told the world through her agent, Professor Max Clifford, that her breasts are to separate. Her ex-husband to be, the washboard-stomached, failed Ozzie pop star and compulsive self-publicist, Peter Andre, said he was devastated and that he suspected several other sad, narcissistic, infantile boys were involved in the love dodecahedron. He added later that Katie’s bush tucker was crap anyway.

Professor Max Clifford, emeritus professor of applied cynicism at the Essex Institute for the Terminally Chavvy, will be handling the reality divorce TV rights.

6 comments:

Bee said...

CB, you are on fire today. I'm glad that the Confederacy of Dunces can at least provide comic material . . . although I would also prefer that MPs returned some of that swimming pool maintenance money.

You almost made me spit out my tea at the Barbara Windsor commentary. Thank goodness I had taken precautions by the time that I got to Katie Price. (Do you think that divorce will inspire our dearest Jordan to upsize again?)

Also, I'm glad that religious extremists are being kept away from Speaker's Corner and tube stations. Michael Savage and Fred Waldron Shelp Snr really do make atheism so very attractive.

jenny smith said...

Gosh, Bill you weren't kidding - you really are prolific today.

Gosh I remember Quinten Hogg! Bit harsh on Babs Windsor aren't you. I am in awe of her as she's the only "carry on" person left now Peter Rogers has gone (even tho' she was only in 12 of them)

Good sharp post xxx

kapgaf said...

The only appropriate comment I can think of for today's excellent post is ..... sorry !

Chairman Bill said...

Bee: Don't get me started on Michael Savage and Fred Waldron Shelp.

Jenny: Harsh on Babs? She makes her money playing a harridan - like Hugh Grant, she's plays herself.

Kapgaf: Sorry for what? You haven't been fiddling your expenses, have you?

A Woman Of No Importance said...

You are on startling form today mein Herr!

Chairman Bill said...

Woman: You have, as always, excedlingly good taste.