Trying to focus. What, all of us?

As I have mentioned before, I have taken refuge from the demands of the needy on the electric internet by immersing myself in the ancient science of genealogy. I had given up hope of ever tracing my male line back further than gt.gt.grandfather Ben, who had the misfortune to be born in Ireland. There is nothing wrong with being Irish, I must clarify, it is just that they failed to keep records of who did what to whom and the consequences thereof.

However, some time ago I submitted a DNA sample to some kind folk who were compiling a database, and this week I have found that there is a match, and Ben had a brother/cousin/second cousin and all sorts of people who came from Staffordshire, so although I cannot be sure of the relationships at the moment, I have found hundreds of his kin who wondered what possessed his mother to go to Dublin to give birth (perhaps they were doing a census, and Quirinius had mistaken Ben’s dad for a leprechaun).

Staffordshire sounds quite neutral, doesn’t it? It may lead you to deduce that the Scurras of Staffs were rural folk, tending their sheep and alpacas. But no, it is time to fess up. My forebears came from Willenhall. You know. Near Wolverhampton. In the Black Country. Willenhall, for some reason with which I am not yet cognisant, is associated with lock making. Many lock makers developed humped backs as a result of their work, but it is not this affliction that concerns me. I am not, as far as I know, quasimodoesque, although since the invention of the electric internet and Sky television I have little occasion to stand up. No, rather it is the fact that the Black Country has the most appalling dialect in this corner of the galaxy.

I am bereft to discover that not only do I not have anything worthwhile to say, but that when I say it I sound like a constipated manic depressive. For those of you of a foreign persuasion who are unfamiliar with the sound of the Wolverhampton accent, and are curious to hear it, let me just say this. DON’T!

Lugubrious does not begin to describe it. The caterwaulings of Robbie Williams, all country and western singers, Max Bygraves and Celine Dion combined are as heavenly choirs compared to the speech of the typical Willenhallonian. Those of you who find the singing of Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen less than cheerful (and I do not share that view) would change your mind if you had to spend a morning conversing in Walsall.

The dialect is more hideous than that of:

• Trevor Brooking, whose nasal whine and failure to pronounce the letter ‘g’ even though it is in his own name, has caused over 3 million people to defect from following football to taking up crochet.
• David Frost, for whom the word “smarm” would be complimentary.
• Mariella Frostrup, obviously one of Frost’s cousins whose sickening saccharine laden utterances have forced me to abandon watching the only cultural programme on Sky 1.
• Hugh Whatshisbollocks who does the rugby commentary in South Africa. God, in the cause of balance, decided that one of the most beautiful countries on earth should have an over abundance of Nazis, and, were that not enough, gave the inhabitants an accent that could only be achieved by a normal human being who was wearing underwear three sizes too small. Hugh has taken this already Hades-like rant, and infected it with a monotone so loathsome that his microphone melts three times during a typical Currie Cup game.
• Bob Willis. His voice may put you to sleep, however you will not sleep soundly, but rather have nightmares so horrendous that you would rather stay awake and read Jeffrey Archer.
• Gyles Badbreath. No explanation necessary.

Welcome to Kali Yuga

It is a strange day for news at the Torygraph. When there is a shift in its policies, one fears for the future of civilisation.

1) Cue for old joke.
It says that one person in five would consider voting for the BNP. There are five in my family, but I am not sure which one is the right winger – mum, dad, me, sister Stalina or brother Franco. I think it must be mum.
2) It reports on a book which says that pets are bad for the environment and that people should consider eating them. I was so incensed that I telephoned the palace to complain, but was told that Liz was busy, apparently making a Corgi Khorma in the kitchen. “A medium-sized dog has the same impact as a Toyota Land Cruiser driven 6,000 miles a year”. No, really, that is what it says.
3) “Woman gives birth in midair”. It transpires that she was on an aeroplane, so not such an entertaining spectacle as I had imagined.
4) A woman from Accrington has won £240,000 for biting a poisonous worm while on holiday. The worm was in her dinner. No matter what the financial incentives, little will tempt me to abandon my annual 10 days in Mablethorpe.

********

Over on twitter, by contrast, there are thousands of people suggesting “one letter off movies”.
Scaryduck is (and how could it be any other way?) the winner, with “The Shiting”. Although I thought my entry – “King Solomon’s Mints” was not without merit.

Contributors are welcome here for those too poor to afford Twitter, but I must warn you that they will all have been done already.

As promised

The Torygraph offers me the opportunity to return to topics promised in my last post.

A fine US citizen has been arrested for indecency after been seen ‘making coffee’ in his own home while naked. A passing woman (Pam? And why were you on stilts? And do you always carry binoculars?) with a 7 year old boy saw him.

She obviously took exception to his frappuccino, or didn’t approve of his method of stirring the brew. Perhaps she thought that his latte was too skinny. Perhaps he is the chap who put the “swell” into Macswell House (geddit?).

Tomorrow, the story of the man dunkin donuts in his kitchen.


I was also pleased to read the headline at the BBC that “Nasa should scrap Ares rocket”. Until I realised my mistake. It certainly sounded very unpleasant and dangerous.

Another county heard from

I am up late at night, twatting about on the internet again, with a compunction to write something about a topic about which every twat and his dog has opined ad nauseam this week.

We are all concerned about overcrowding. The bandwagon of sages and seers pontificating about the BNP is in danger of collapsing due to overpopulation. Controls must be adhered to, and only those who were on it to begin with should be allowed to stay.

This week a number of people (aMToNW) have been alarmed that the BBC has allowed a fascist to air his views on a popular television programme. Sundry shows on the electric radio featuring Ms Polly Filler and her associates have invited people to telephone and shout on air and completely ignore what everyone else has to say. If you switched on your wireless set you can hardly have avoided it.

The television programme has ended. Nothing has changed. No one has had their opinion changed about anything, apart from perhaps some very naughty boys on twitter and facebook who wish to shag Bonnie Greer.

Does anyone really believe that the knuckle-draggers and bottom-feeding paki-haters who make up a sizeable minority of the population of this fine nation will have had their views modified by the sight of Nick Griffin impersonating a twat tonight? Has anyone, and I admit it seems slightly less likely, suddenly realised that they don’t like rap music or gulab jamuns because they were so swayed by the deep insights offered by the leader of the BNP? Of course not.

I watched ‘Question Time’ this evening. A small part of it consisted of representatives of the three major political parties (The Silly party of Britain, The British Silly Party, and the Silly British Party) adopting their usual stance of trying to assert whose dad was bigger than whose. This is the normal format of these discussions. Tonight there was a significant diversion as the BBC had cleverly invited along someone so uncompromisingly odious that they could all take turns in calling him names. They had also provided on the panel, for the sake of university students who had been told to watch this particular edition but did not know why, a sexy woman.

My political opinions have hardly changed since I was eight years old. I didn’t believe then that it was right to exploit minorities and I still adhere to that view. I believed then that it was incumbent (although I couldn’t spell it then) on society to take care of the underprivileged, and I still share that view. When I was eighteen I found Jack Straw to be a tad right wing, now I find him to be a total authoritarian tory loony, but, I would argue, it is Jack, not I, who has changed.

The programme should be renamed ‘Questionable Time’, because it is neither use nor ornament (apart from for the perverts mentioned above). This is why I don’t do serious on my blog very often. Even though I am clearly the most intelligent and perspicacious creature on the planet, my views are of no concern to anyone and will have no influence whatever.

So, let’s get back to knob jokes and captions featuring the Windsors, shall we?

Crap through the letterbox

A loyal reader (a Rev. Trellis of North Norfolk) has suggested that I might like to share my feelings about a certain 84th birthday that has been reported in sections of the media. I am suspicious that there is mischief in this request, and that the requestor feels that I might be moved to a rise in blood pressure when writing about this subject.
Let me make this clear. I wish the lady in question a long (albeit miserable) life. I am determined to dance on her grave, and her continued existence bodes well for my continued health and fitness.

However, after venturing from my hearth today, I returned to find some literature on my doormat (you see, the title of this little essay is descriptive rather than imperative).
From the Tory Party! ROFL!
It contained the headline “When Times Are Tough, Trust the Conservatives!”
I suspect that they ran out of space. Can you suggest a suitable conclusion to that sentence? I can think of lots.
Points will be awarded for the most creative answers.
And what do points mean?

Thoughtfully they have included on the leaflet a cut-out-and-return section with the imprecation “Let us know about your concerns”. I have replied “You keep pushing crap like this through my letterbox”.

You have 30 seconds to make sense of this

I am laying myself open to looking foolish in publishing this, but will take this major risk. I am, after all, blessed with modesty, so making the occasional mistake will not over concern me.

I was intrigued to find an article in the Torygraph giving space to that vacuous tart Carol Vorderman. The Torygraph seems to think that her opinions carry some weight. Perhaps they do, after all, vacuous tarts are not disenfranchised in this fine democracy of ours. She has decided that the Labour party has not done a good job with regard to education.

Determined to demonstrate my tolerance, I read further. This is what I found:

"I tell you what, as soon as you lift a rock, there is snakes down there," she said.

My dilemma is that I fear that she may have been either demonstrating irony, or quoting from someone/something, but I can find no reference to anyone else speaking in such a manner. Do any of my erudite readers (aMToNW) know?

For those of you of a foreign inclination, and who have avoided news of “celebrity”, I should tell you a little about Ms Vorderman.
1) She is a vacuous tart.
2) She earned a very poor degree in engineering, albeit from a reputable seat of learning
3) She earned a fortune by doing pointless sums on a quiz show. Doing pointless sums is all very well if you are Chancellor of the Exchequer, but otherwise has no known value to humanity.
4) Outside of doing sums she has consistently displayed her air-headedness in spectacular and consistent style.
5) She won the award for “Most annoying vacuous tart” by advertising rip-off debt consolidation services on the electric television
6) She is a vacuous tart.

I tell you what, anyone who prefaces their utterances with “I tell you what” is not worth listening to. I expect she will be next prime minister but one. After all, our transatlantic friends elected a vacuous twat who also didn’t know the difference between “is” and “are”.

Having devoted some precious space on my lovely blog to lambasting some vacuous tart’s mangling of the language, I will now sit back and wait for all of you to point out the typos and gross grammatical errors here.

*******

TCM strike again. I am indebted to my friends at the Torygraph for informing me about this important scientific research. Scientists claim that rooks understand the laws of physics better than chimpanzees. No, really.

The rooks were surprised when shown an 'egg-like' object 'floating' in mid-air. They looked for longer at pictures of these impossible scenarios than possible pictures where the egg was correctly supported by a platform.
The seven adults understood not only that contact between the egg and platform was necessary for support but also that there must be a sufficient amount of contact and that the contact must be from below.
This has been shown to be beyond the grasp of chimpanzees, said zoologist Christopher Bird and colleagues at the University of Cambridge.

I would make the following observations.

• The name of the researcher gives lie to his ability to be objective.
• They talk about “understanding the laws of physics” as if this is a good thing.
• Carol Vorderman went to the university of Cambridge.

Tuesday, and still no sign of the revolution.

I don't always get around to reading Michael Meacher in full, but as one of the remaining labour parliamentarians it is sometimes reassuring to know that there are alternative points of view.

It's only rock in hole, but I hate it.

I think that this must be the season in between the summer and autumn schedules where there is nothing but repeats on. I have already done Jane Austen (missus) and old stuff this week, and am aching to find something new about which to pontificate.

Alas, my friends at BBC news have thwarted my yearnings and caused me more than a little distress by reporting that some great steaming wassock has found the remains of another henge in Wiltshire. I have, on more than one occasion, made it sparklingly clear that one henge is too many, to the tune of one.

The henge that is the only famous thing in Wiltshire is irksome to me, as it is visible from my route to Tom’s house. Visiting Tom is stressful enough, what with all of his problems about which I am too considerate to dwell on here, but to have my attention drawn to countless daft bastards gawking at some old rocks every time I pass by does nothing to put me in the right frame of mind for dealing with Tom.

I wish someone would knock the monstrosity (Stonehenge, not Tom) down, or perhaps steal it.

Bloody great eyesore (Stonehenge, not Tom, and I won’t clarify the subject of my writing again).

At least the new henge doesn’t have any stones. Just holes where they think the stones were. John Lennon wept. There will now be CDB (see above) going to look at the place were the stones aren’t. Bugger off, the lot of you. Stay at home, and look at the stuff that isn’t there – Tosspot on Severn or Witless, Kentucky whereeverthebollocks it is that you live.

“The circle was made using the Preseli spotted dolerite stone.”

Hoo pigging ray. Well you won’t be able to bloody spot it any more, will you, because it ain’t bloody well there?

I may be missing something, but cannot work out all this fascination with trying to work out the significance of Stonehenge is about. It is just a bunch of rocks stuck in a field in Wiltshire. It is either the work of some prehistoric loony god-botherers, a student prank or the psychotic result of an attempt to relieve acute boredom by my great granddad and his mates one weekend when the internet was down. We should be no more fascinated by the eccentricities of these ancient weirdos than by their descendants today who watch “The Antiques Roadshow”, enjoy Country and Western music or vote Conservative. Or go and gawk at a bunch of stones in a field in Wiltshire.