Sensible planning

How kind of the MotorGP organizers to hold today’s event in Argentina so that fans can watch the action during the afternoon instead of having to crawl out of bed at some ungodly BST hour.

Cats don’t have clocks

. . . so how do they know what time it is? The cat usually goes out at 7 a.m. or so. She did it again today. Only it was really 6 a.m. GMT counting from yesterday and 7 a.m. only because of BST. Cats are just as smart as they seem to be.

Suppressed history

Did I really hear a plug for a programme about The Native American Revolution on Forces TV? They kept very quiet about that one when I was at school.

Definitely not fooled

You have to wonder about the mentality of the people who commission long, virtue-flagging TV adverts like the current one for Nationwide. You might pay attention to the first couple of showings, then it’s, “Oh, Nationwide again, mute button, Jeeves.”
    Worse, you start asking questions like: If the Nationwide is so wonderful because it’s a ‘mutual’, why do the bosses get million-pound salaries like the bosses of ‘commercial’ banks? And why are the interest rates for savers so pathetic?
    Virtue? Ph-tuie!

Good as any other

We were talking about a definition for a boo-hoo bugger last night. I’m chuffed to report that my suggestion of someone who throws a confected wobbly when the prime minister quotes from a meerkat TV advert made the top ten.

What’s the point?

What’s the point of having a general election when we know from direct recent experience that whatever the 2 main parties put in their manifesto, they’ll feel free to ignore if it suits them?
    It’s definitely Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me time.

Going, going . . . ?

“Brexit means Brexit” – no, it didn’t. “No deal is better than a bad deal” – yeah, right!

Quote for today

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” But there is no guarantee it’s saying anything worth listening to.

The whole truth doesn’t bash Whitey enough

Don’t you just wish the people rewriting the past of the likes of Edward Colson, slave trader and benefactor to the city of Bristol, would mention that he didn’t round up the slaves himself – they were sold to him by other Africans. And all the racialist African students who come here to slag us off about the slave trade are descendants of the Africans who ran the slave trade there and direct beneficiaries of the wealth which the slave trade brought to Africa.

Education is a wonderful thing

“This door’s getting a bit Monet,” one of the staff at the Mansion remarked. It wasn’t until he pointed out the small flakes of white paint on the floor that I realized he was saying it had been clawed – by the cat when a human slave failed to open the door fast enough.

Export only?

I was offered some posh red wine from Chile last night. It’s called The Flat Iron (very Spanish) and there’s a picture of a cow on the label. As they say, go figure. Or just enjoy the wine.

STFU, you yobs

Don’t you just wish that once in a while, a yelled-at politician would go over to the yeller and tell him/her that no one loves a loudmouth git?
    And there are the yellers in the background to BBC news reports from Parliament. Why aren’t these skivers working on a workday instead of yobbing?

Just a cliché for C21?

“It was like being on the Titanic”, people rescued from the Norwegian cruise liner which got into difficulties on Saturday. Which raises the obvious suspicion that there was a degree of prompting from Her Majesty’s Press to get the cliché.
    And if it really was like being on the Titanic, it was in a wimpy, C21 way with the ship not sinking and close enough to the shore for people to be helicoptered off despite the appalling weather.
    You don’t get maritime disasters like the ones in the Good Old Days any more.

Fanatics, don’t you just lurv them?

Something that would be nice to know is where the Blue Planet fanatics are hoping to drag us. Because it seems to be toward an earthly paradise in which anyone who dares to weed their garden is locked up for crimes against biodiversity.

Nothing much changes

Watching an episode of Starsky & Hutch last night – there was Starsky doing the alleged white power, circled thumb and finger gesture to Hutch. Did he know what he was supposed to be doing? Especially as the next thing you know, he had to kill a black kid who was about to shoot him. Predictably, the PC waxworks at the PD were all for throwing him to the wolves but the black witnesses were too honest to go along with the stitch-up.

The shameless Blob

You have to wonder what sort of people are being allowed to take charge of schools these days – and at a salary comparable to the prime minister’s. Take Siobhan Lowe, the head of a school in Surbiton, for instance.
    She went on Radio 4 to do some ‘the cuts’ shroud-waving and told a string of lies about her school’s finances, staffing and pupil levels – all of which were exposed in today’s paper.
    Either she thought she could lie her head off and get away with it or she knew her lies would be exposed but she went ahead and told them anyway.
    What sort of person is that to be running a school?

Expert opinion

After watching an episode of Diagnosis Murder last night, we started wondering if anyone has done a study to find out how much of the currently fashionable tranny trend is an extreme form of homosexuality. That’s men and women having themselves got up to look like a member of the other sex in order to have relationships with heterosexual members of their own sex.
    Or maybe that’s a project no one has dared to suggest for fear of being lynched by outrage confectors.

Just go; no one will miss you

Out of fashion Bremoaner MP Dommy Grieve is whining that he’s ashamed to be a Tory. The good news is that he doesn’t have to be. The FOAD option remains open to him. It’s not compulsory to be a Tory MP and no one is twisting his arm.

Not never ever

There’s the ER doctor in a TV drama ordering an ‘IV push’ and there I am, thinking: “That’s a bit superfluous. When do they ever order an ‘IV pull’? And is that even possible?”

Lost sounds

The standard alibi for someone not noticing a gunshot; in a film or TV drama, at any rate; used to be that the person thought it was just a car back-firing. That’s not something you hear any more. Or maybe I just need to get out more among people with crappy old cars.

There’s a lot about

The Europe Minister of France claims she has called her cat Brexit because he wakes her up in the middle of the night, miaowing to go out, but when she opens the door, he hovers on the doorstep, and if she puts him out, he gives her an evil look.
    One of the staff at the Mansion has a cat which does exactly the same – which is why he named her Frenchy.

Tell us another

The experts have decided that adulthood begins at 30 these days, which means it’s okay for 20-somethings to behave like big kids. Sounds like the experts have been at the wacky baccy.

They’re everywhere

There’s even a Cockney spiv doing TV life insurance ads, I discovered during an episode of Bones on the FX channel yesterday evening. I hit the mute button during the wonky veg Cockney’s assault on our senses.

Are they brave enough?

Just watched some white schoolkids in New Zealand doing a Maori Haka in response to the attack on Moslem immigrants by an Aussie. Will the usual suspects dare to whinge about cultural burglary in this case?

The things people get away with

Just watched Zabriskie Point (well, yesterday afternoon) mainly because I have the Pink Floyd album of the same name. Gordon Bennett! Was it tedious and boring and in need of some ruthless editing and in need of a plot with some substance. That’s real substance, not ‘certain substance’, Mr. Antonioni.

Good job there’s a re-run

Anyone who dragged himself out of bed early to watch the Aussie Grand Prix season opener was doomed to disappointment. The shouty bloke was reduced to getting over-excited about 13th place and Hamilton was a good pit stop behind his team mate at the end in his second place.

Historical moment

The nation remains amazed that the Prime Minister is still alive and croaking (in a lost her voice sense) after the Ides of March.

You’re nicked

“Making the thumb and index finger into a circle” isn’t a white power salute, it’s a sign that something is spot on, and a gesture we shouldn’t allow the fake news merchants to steal.

More fake news

Is it front page news if the Home Sec. Has a pop at Facebook for live streaming the terrorist attack on the mosques in New Zealand? As virtue signalling is part of his job description, it would have been front page stuff only if he hadn’t done it.

It’s in your hands, maties

The Labour party is beefing about an end to austerity again, which is quite insulting, really. Do they really think we’re too thick to realize that the last spell of Labour government made austerity necessary? And it won’t go away until Labour chancellors stop doing a Gordon F. Brown. That’s borrowing vast amounts of money, splurging it and leaving behind nothing to show for it but a vast Brown Hole of debt.

Not even close to the target

That ‘sticks & stones’ TV advert featuring the kid being tormented by a buzzing phone has to be in line for the Worst Campaign In The World Award.
    “Switch the bloody thing off, you moron!” or worse, the TV audience now yells at the screen, even with the sound muted.

Where’s the regulator when you need one?

One of my neighbours has suffered two closures of his ‘local’ branch by Lloyds bank but he still gets correspondence telling him that his phone numbers and other details can be changed ‘easily’ by doing it ‘in branch’.
    Not if he has to drag his sorry carcase four miles to his current ‘local’ branch and four miles back.

Well, okay

Man. City 7, some bunch of Germans no one has ever heard of 0 – and lucky to have nil.
    Well done, City, but not actually a huge deal.

Calm down, dears, it’s only Twitting

The Attorney General replies “Bollocks!” to some bollocks from Fuk Jon Sno and creates a sensation in the ranks of the usual suspects. How . . . expected.

She’s not for going?

“She never wanted Brexit to happen in the first place and lo! she didn’t deliver it.”
    Just warming up the current prime minister’s epitaph.

Not so Intelligent Design

Friction has been voted the most annoying property of the physical world. It glues surfaces together when you want them to slide apart and fails to provide stick when it is needed most.

Not a remake too far

Against expectations, the all-female Ghostbusters film was a good watch; probably because it had Melissa McCarthy in it. She’s an absolute hoot!

Trust a TV Cockney? Yeah, right!

When, I wonder, did advertisers decide that people trust Cockney spivs? There’s the bloke who tells us he gembles responsabli (sic), and the Morrisons’ wonky foods bloke. Let’s face it, Cockneys are no longer automatically lovable in C21.

A great way to spend an afternoon

The return of MotoGP is very welcome – in Qatar this weekend. One of the Moto3 riders was a Mr. Arbolino, whose first name isn’t Vince! Not something that fascinated the cat, however.
    She spent yesterday’s wet morning asleep. Then she had some lunch and went out to enjoy the sun just after 2 p.m. And came back soggy.
    It was great to see Cal Crutchlow, who’s survived an 185 mph crash, claim a place on the podium with Dovi and Marc Marquez after the main race.

Truth, schmuth

The Northern Ireland Sec. flushed a lot of unpleasant people out of the bushes with her assertion that deaths caused by the police and army in Northern Ireland in the last century were not crimes. There’s nothing like being crushingly right for upsetting the usual suspects and their allies.
    What is a crime is prosecuting troops on the basis of evidence gathered from a crime scene which was contaminated/sanitized by terrorists and their stooges before the forensic mob were allowed anywhere near it.
    The evidence presented at a prosecution will be a joke; not that the members of the legal profession who are making money out of the trial will be bothered by that.

Some post-Brexit vocabulary

Coshon – vicious, stroppy Frog with a club.

Contrarywise

Princess Mhegan thinks her offspring, male or female, will be a feminist. Clearly, she has never heard of the tendency of children to do the opposite of what their parents did becoz they are stroppy little sods.

Passing off

If Hollywood can get away with turning Captain Marbles into a girl, who knows what else they think they can get away with. Spidertranny as next year’s blockbuster?
    Bond, Janice Bond. Winona Churchill seeing off the Nazis and saving Englandland. Adele Hitler conquering the world. Josephine Stalin enslaving it. There are more than enough possibilities to keep the cameras rolling until the punters stop buying it.

Memo to the cat

If you’re trying to hide under a piece of furniture, don’t leave your tail sticking out.

Unlimited entertainment

Ben & Jerry’s Bolkerol – now available in the health care aisle. I wonder if it contains vince and arbolino? TV adverts are so much more fun if you don’t pay attention and ignore borders between them.

Amazing oversight

How many credit cards are there? When signing the back of my latest replacement, I noticed that 50% of the emergency phone numbers are illegible. Embossing the start & valid until dates and my name has obliterated them. How strange that no one at the bank has ever spotted this and done something about it.

Today’s Clerihew

Jeremy Corbyn
    is great at absorbin’
terrorist and anti-social creeds
    and apologizing for their proponents’ misdeeds.

Today’s word

I know the word whinge, as there’s lots of it going on, but I didn’t know that winge is a word in its own right rather than just a typo. Apparently, it applies to a wig/hairpiece which gives the wearer a fringe.

A bucket of sleaze

The Labour party is seeking to sanitize its anti-Semitism by branding the Tories anti-Islamists. It’s not a fair comparison but if we’re in the world of politics, truth and decency don’t count. Even so, let us not forget that Jewish terrorists, unlike their Irish and Islamist counterparts, have stopped trying to kill us.

Due credit, you rotters!

“Here on Forces TV, Robert McCall is The Equalizer.” No, he isn’t, it’s Edward Woodward. Unless it’s a remake.
    No, it was the old original and I was reminded that Robert McCall is the name of the character played by Mr. Woodward. But I still reckon that he should have got the name check in the pre-programme announcement.

Line ’em up

We were considering who should be nominated as the person who put the RED into redundancy. Jeremy Corbyn is the obvious starting point. But when we started going backwards from the present generation of politicians, we realized it would be more compact to work out who didn’t put the RED into redundancy.

Mustard uncut

Why did they call the 2015 ‘remake’ The Man From U.N.C.L.E. [Channel 5 last night] when it had absolutely nothing to do with the original TV series? It’s just two schmucks and a routine Narzi atom bomb plot.
    Someone watching the film and then an episode of the real U.N.C.L.E. would see no connection at all, apart from the misappropriated title and a couple of nicked names.
    It’s a clear case of passing off with intent to deceive.

Tell ’em anything

That story that cats mimic their staff is pure BS. She has free access to the kitchen (to get to the back door) but I have yet to see the Mansion’s cat bake a cake or knock up some Fantastic Food in Fifteen (minutes).

Today’s bon mot

“Nasty bastards like you should be horse-whipped – if a suitable horse can be found.”
    With apologies to Groucho Marx.

And again

Someone else who hasn’t been paying attention is the Daily Mail pundit Peter Oborne, who thinks Gordon F. Brown, the Man Who Stole Your Pension, deserves to be admitted to the Order of the Garter.

Blunted impact 2

Prince Harry is on a crusade/jihad against single-use plastic bottles. That’s a bloke whose wife goes in for encouraging the ‘climate enemy’ fashion industry by hoovering up lots of single-use expensive posh frocks.

Blunted impact

In his rant against Corbyn Labour in today’s paper, Professor Ladany proves he’s not paying attention by saying of Corbyn ‘it’s as if the man has never read a history book’.
    But only recently, Corbyn was making a virtue out of never reading books of any sort, including history. Indignation to phut in a second.

This month’s awards

Nominations are open for the person who put the ‘anal’ into banal, i.e. bum-numbingly ordinary and the person who put the ‘anal’ into panal, i.e. backside agony. There are dozens of politicians up for nomination in the latter category.

Daft Answers to Correspondents

Q: How do Catholic clerics fix a skullcap to their head?
A: If haired, nails or staples. If bald, superglue.

Maybe they were paid by the pound weight

The striking thing about the picture of the models who aroused such indignation at a fashion show is not so much the matchstick legs as the miserable expressions. But maybe they were worried that they’d break something if they cracked a smile.

Not that bovvered

Some guy I’ve never heard of took a pop at some celeb I’ve never heard of in yesterday’s paper and achieved zero impact. The paper usually tags on some credentials at the end of such whinges but, presumably, the guy was so much of a non-entity that the paper couldn’t come up with anything. Still, his rant filled up a page nicely.