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."