And what prize do you have thoughts on?

I have a confession to make, that will shock and stun many of you, and I can only apologise for the trauma caused. I am not normally given to this level of public intimacy, but fear that my actions may be symptomatic of a decline into lower levels of consciousness that might detract from the value of the advice and counsel that you derive from these pages.

Many years ago, I experimented to see whether it was possible to sit through an entire evening of Saturday night ITV television programmes. I never made it. In fact, if the evening began with Ted Rogers and “3, 2, 1” I couldn’t last 10 minutes. I dismissed the whole lot as drivel, trash and crap, and went to watch a Samuel Beckett play on BBC2 or something. From what I can tell little has changed over the years. The schedules have been taken up by Bruce Forsyth, Cilla Black, Ant and Dec, game shows for the lobotomised, the dying remnants of what was called “Variety”, and latterly appalling celebrity shows. These are all to be avoided for the sake of one’s well being, in the same category as syphilis, English cuisine and the Tory party.

For the last few weeks, however, I have found myself watching a programme on Saturday evening ITV. There, I’ve said it. Please stay to help me redeem myself. It is at times such as these that friends are invaluable. The item in question is called “Harry Hill’s TV Burp”. I like it. It makes me laugh. On Saturday, I laughed out loud. My name is Vicus and I am a low-brow.

Thank you. Your advice will be welcomed and noted.

If you would like to read some first rate apology, then go over to my new friend Reg’s site.

If you would like to read something worthwhile, then see what Foilwoman has been up to. I read it regularly, but seldom sully her jottings with my dross.

Yes it IS nice, George

I have noticed an increase in traffic this morning, thanks to a link from Mike, so I thought it would be nice to have a little tidy up around here to make the new visitors welcome. You remember at school when there were visitors? How we all made a special effort? Well, let’s do it properly this time.

I have assigned tasks to some of you, but just because you are not specifically mentioned does not mean that you are not a vital part of the team, so buck up. This will also serve as an introduction to you to the countless stream of nice people coming through here, so it is in your own best interest to behave. (I hope all these buggers do not leave a mess).

• Dave: You are in charge of bidding a nice goodbye to everyone on their way out. Shake hands and smile, and hand out the leaflets about future attractions.
• Pamela: I think all that we can expect from you is to keep your clothes on this time, and not regale visitors with tales of your illness. It is not nice.
• Richard: Please do not leave sports related comments everywhere, people trip over and not everyone is keen on them. Sadly, that is true.
• Tom: do NOT touch. Remember what the judge said.
  
• Mark: make sure that everyone is briefed about whatever is happening in the world of Westminster. Don’t be too much of a misery though - remind everyone that the revolution is coming.
• Betty: We are not at home to Mrs Scatological.
• Geoff: Look after Betty, and make sure that no one leaves my nice articles in the wrong order.
• FFE – revert to your former profession for a while, please, and check the standard of any comments left for syntactical inexactitudes and sesquipedalian circumlocution.
• Zoe. Point out to everyone that you really are my friend and great admirer, and you were only joking with all of those very rude and hurtful comments.
• Adam. Don’t do that.
• Boris. Hide in the corner please, I love you dearly, but people might get the wrong idea.

Can you all make sure to point out to visitors that the information here is confidential; if any of them start poking about in the sections about my friends the Windsor-Mountbattens, be very diligent in pointing out the privacy rules.

So, welcome to all of you nice new people. Have you met the staff? I see them more as friends, which speaks volumes for my charitable nature, doesn’t it? Some of them have quite nice little homes of their own, which you can visit by means of the nice links that I have left, but I can’t take responsibility for what you find there. Some of them are less meticulous than I am. If you use the archives, please leave things as you found them. Have a nice time, ask me for help if you need it. No smoking or consumption of non-vegetarian food on the premises please.

It must have been like this for Dostoevsky

This morning my work was interrupted by a very nice young man from DHL, who presented me with my own “Shaggy Blog Stories”. (Have you bought one yet?)

It is, of course, an auspicious occasion when one first beholds a great literary masterpiece. I have in the past become quite emotional on similar circumstances. The August 1965 edition of Playboy had a similar effect.

Sales have reached 400, and raised £1700 pounds so far.

I am pleased to note that my entry contains way above the average use of vulgar language.

Generally I think that I find the writing more entertaining than I expected.

Here are some links to the sites of those who provided entries that I particularly liked.

Jack.

Jonathan.

Reg. He seems like a very nice young man, but needs some help with anger issues.

Mike has some pictures of himself and some friends showing off.

Let's all be nice to each other, shall we?

If you are under 25 I shall need a note from your mum before you can read this. I would hate to be accused of teaching things to the young that their parents would rather not have them know.

Astute readers (if that is not an oxymoron) will have noted that there are plans to make a film about the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, in particular the period leading up to the start of the Malvinas conflict.

The producer, ironically some chap called Damien, has contacted me to see whether I would be interested in the role of Denis. He sounded pleasant enough, but I made it clear that should I pursue this, there was no way in which I would countenance any sex scenes. I know for a fact that the Thatcher marriage was entirely celibate (it is not difficult to imagine, is it?) (The twins were adopted, the result of a liaison, much better not speculated upon, between Keith Joseph and a member of a species of mammal now extinct.) I am therefore insisting that they find a leading lady whose hideousness approaches that of the Thatch. I suggested the woman who plays Deirdre Barlow, Janet Street-Porter and the surviving one out of the “Two Fat Ladies”, although the dead one might be a closer match. None of them are quite bad enough though, so do not be too disappointed if I turn the role down. Although I will be very tempted appear if only to utter the line “The Belgrano is sailing away from the islands, you murderous, fascist, revolting fucking cunt.”

Please form an orderly queue

I sit in a somewhat tired and resigned way hoping that there will be no more contact from the mass media, at least for a few hours.

My decision to allow my work to appear in print has caused a frenzy of interest around the world. Despite the good causes that will benefit – probably to the tune of several billion pounds, I feel that there is only so much that I can give, and I may have to cut off communication in order to recuperate.

Inevitably, it was the BBC who were first. I turned down Jeremy Paxman, opting instead to be interviewed by Ainsley Harriott (I know his name sounds girly, but he is very butch in person), as I thought that gravitas was essential to the project. You will be able to see the interview in which I describe how I intend to bring world peace, find a cure for gout, stop the slave trade in Toronto and prepare a meal for six using only a turnip, some bean sprouts and a packet of green lentils for under £4.50 shortly.

The Daily Express were obviously given preference to other less reputable British newspapers, and I guided their less perspicacious readers through those passages in “Shaggy Blog Stories” that give final proof that Princess Diana was murdered by Donny Osmond.

I have had my shed photographed for a sixteen page spread in “Hello” magazine, and my inner thigh photographed for “Hello Sailor!” magazine.

The Times of India were keen to explore my views on multiculturalism, and whether Oxford United would return to the football league this season.

I am a little vague about the video interview that I did for the “Men and Motors” channel, and think that I should not have been so candid in my meeting with the gardening correspondent from “Thrusting Teutonic Twinks” magazine.

It is all getting very fraught.

Have you bought the book yet?

Yes, that includes you.

Let me join the growing band of talentless, egotistical unpaid hacks who are advertising the publication “Shaggy Blog Stories”, for sale now with the profits going to Comic Relief. Appalling title, worse writing. Buy one now. Go on.

Trust that tart Lulu to get involved.

Buy it here.

Who says he doesn't smoke dope?

Not for the first time, I have to extend my sympathies to my non UK readers (a Mrs Trellis of North Wollongong) who have only had exposure to the information pouring from that veritable organ, The Telegraph, since the dawning of the electronic age. For over a hundred and fifty years readers of said organ have been able to absorb news from around, well, the Telegraph, as they break their fast each morning. Only those blessed with acute perspicacity are able to distinguish the current edition from the previous one, and, indeed, if the newsagent were to deliver a copy from 1873, then a mere handful of customers would notice.

It is this continuity that provided structure in the latter days of the empire, and leads to a feeling of contentment against a backdrop of a bewildering world in the breasts of the British gentry.

It is therefore strangely comforting to discover, due to the good graces of the writers of the Telegraph, that the current Pope, “Ratty” to his mates, does not indulge in a huge love of popular music. Apparently, he is also a Roman Catholic. I will return to this theme.

The article from which I learned these important lessons describes how Ratty, when he was a mere cardinal, attempted to intervene in a concert organised by the church in which the popular beat singer, Mr Robert Dylan, was due to perform. It appears that Ratty’s objection was not to Mr Dylan being “up himself”, which would have had some justification, but rather that he saw him as some sort of evangelical threat to the stability of the church. John Paul, on the other hand, adopted some of the words as performed by Mr Dylan as the basis of his sermon. Fortunately, or perhaps not, on this particular day Mr Dylan had chosen to perform “Blowin’ in the Wind” rather than “Lay, Lady, Lay” or “Positively 4^th Street”. I will desist from further comment on Mr Dylan as it upsets Mark so, and we can ill afford that.

What you have read so far is what the Telegraph would like you to believe. The head of the catholic church is a conservative, reactionary traditionalist with strong views about the need to keep things as they are. There is a lot to be said for keeping things as they are. This is the way God created the world, and woe betide anyone who queries the design.

However, I should let you know that in this report, as in many others, the Telegraph has crossed the boundary of accuracy, by some considerable distance. I telephoned Ratty this morning. He was a little annoyed that I called while “Wheel of Fortune” was on, but either because of his impeccable manners, or his desire not to lose me as an advisor, he managed to gloss over it. Within a few minutes we were chatting away and reminiscing about the many times that we spent together, prominent among which was the time that, high on mescaline, we tried to urinate on Leonard Cohen while he was singing “Suzanne” at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970. During our conversation, I was sure I could detect the beat to “Pinball Wizard” in the background. Ratty was famous for finishing mass with a very passable impersonation of Pete Townshend which would culminate in smashing a wooden guitar into the font. For several years I have been acting as an emissary to try to organise a tour for the Grateful Dead. It has been my ambition to have the pope as a replacement for Jerry Garcia, although we are both aware that God’s vicar on earth is not a sufficiently exalted position to fill that role. Things were going quite well, apart from the continued habit of drummers dying, and our not wanting to be seen to nominate someone for this apparently jinxed position. “No bastard would mind if we got Nancy Reagan to do it”, his holiness confided. I have my doubts however.

So, kids, you cannot, alas, believe all that you read in the media. While it may be some time before the church publicly embraces rock and roll, and we see Grace Slick appointed as Cardinal of San Francisco, do not be too surprised if the contents of your last confession feature in the lyrics on the new Kaiser Chiefs album.

Beeching - the Chinese book of twats

Yes, I know, I haven’t been writing much here lately, and what I have churned out is as appetising as a lunch with Cecil Parkinson, but I, along with, it would seem, several of my closest and dearest friends, just haven’t been up to it of late. Perhaps everything worthwhile, and indeed everything worthless, has already been written. Perhaps there are no more ideas out there and imagination is on the brink of extinction.

Or perhaps I am too mellow and relaxed. I haven’t felt much passion about anything for some time, despite what my loyal readers (aMToNW) might infer from my recent dips into the literary pond.

I feel what is needed is some mild naughty behaviour. For example, I have just nipped over to Boris’s place and put a comment there that contributes nothing to the debate, will only serve to upset his pals, and may, if they can be bothered, result in some withering speculation about my mental capacity. I may not even bother to go back and check. There were too many commas in the second sentence of this paragraph so here is a sentence without any if you that is ignore the word commas and can understand that it should have finished after the word “any” but I realised somewhat too late that I needed to qualify what I had written.

It did, however, cause me to write about one of those people in history who I will never forgive. I am largely in a position of ignorance about the twat, because I was too young at the time to understand the background and economics behind his role in the dismantling of the national railway system in this country. Two facts alone provide me with all of the information I need to vindicate my labelling of him as a twat. He was a tory. He was a physicist. I will not enter into a debate on these pages about the rights and wrongs of his policies. This is my blog, and I am not in the business of reasoned debate or cerebral argument in those places where venom and vitriol will suffice. The man was a twat, and that is that.

Let’s pick some other twats at random (as they occur to me)

1. The Spurs player (I can’t remember who it was) who injured Len Chalmers in the 1961 cup final, thereby reducing Leicester to 10 men, and effectively ruining the game as far as my unbiased young eyes could see.
   
2. Cecil Parkinson.
   
3. The smug git in the BT ads at the moment – I know where I’d like to redirect his calls.
   
4. Laurie Lee.
   
5. People who say “revert back”.

No, I don’t feel even the slightest irritable. Very sorry. Perhaps you can provide me with a suitable list of twats to slander. Or websites where I can go to leave rude comments. Just something to get me started again.

And Richard, still not sure about “Lewis”, I agree it is much better than “Morse”, and tried to view it without prejudice – trying to imagine I was watching for the first time. Well acted and all that, but the plots are shite. I don’t think I can take many more where the cops arrive at the last minute to save someone’s life. Unless it is Dr Beeching, and they fail.

Caption Competition

"In general, the plan by First Great Western to put waxwork models of celebrities on their trains were a great success, but passengers on the 8:07 from East Fewmet were baffled. 'That Sue Barker has really let herself go'" opined one young traveller."

Look. Stop it. Even realdoc is in on the act now. This bloody word “cute”. In my dictionary it is close to another four letter word that begins with ‘cu’ and for good reason. It is also close to “cut” which is what should probably be done without any penalties to the throat of anything that is described as “cute”. Bollocks to it. Just bloody stop it, will you. Even my lovely niece uses the word, and I am not one of those who allows the excuse of ‘being American’. She usually uses it to describe babies or something equally tedious. And as for the person, and yes you know who you are, who sent me photographs of their as yet unborn baby, well you can just blooming well stop it. Now. I don’t want to have anything to do with your babies until they are old enough to sensibly opine about the composition of a world cricket team, or at least of an age when they can be taught to pull my finger. No, sod off, the lot of them. Cute? Shove it.

Even they are nowhere near as bad as the proponents of phrases such as “future planning”. What other kind of bollocky planning is there, numbnuts? And even worse “pre-planning”. Fuck right off.

I think that will do for now. Anyone need a babysitter?