History, but not as we know it, Jim

The Great Escape is dragged out of its box again and described as a fact-based classic. Which just ignores the fact that there were no Yanks in the PoW camp in question . . .

And another

Not one porkie in blunkett consumed over Xmas.

Bullet dodged

One of the advantages of not having seen any of the original words of the US TV series Sex & the City is that I don’t have to waste any time watching the 20 years on version.

Don’t give up the day job!

One look at the picture of Dua the Diva in Monday’s Daily Mail told me why she has no future as a fashionista or a lifestyle guru. What a mess!

Unknown Celebs

Today’s TV, I noticed, includes Pointless Celebrities. Trades Description Act time. I haven’t heard of any of the three contestants.

Something good on TV

How excellently Gak! the film Mars Attacks! is. It’s ages since I last saw it. Great fun. Even if the Martians sound like extras from a Cadbury’s Smash TV advert.

A bucket of bogus

The Windsor Castle intruder was arrested ‘just 500 yards from the Queen’s apartments’.
    Gulp!
    On the wrong side of a fucking big castle wall with lots of security.
    Not so Gulp!

Weird lot

Things they don’t tell you on this side of the pond No. 12,497: the phrase “Let’s go, Brandon” now means: “FK Joe Biden”. The president himself seems not to be aware of this, which is probably for the best.

Ça didn’t change

The Dirty Harry film Sudden Impact was on last night. How true the observations on the dire state of justice administered by the legal trade remain some 40 years on.

One rule for them . . .

Strange that Israel sees a nuclear weapons programme in Iran, a rogue state run by religious extremists, as an existential threat to another rogue state with actual nuclear weapons.

Tell ’em anything . . .

Something else amusing; the Chinese claiming there was no democracy in Hong Kong until they took over in 1997. Well, there sure as hell ain’t none there now that they’ve arrested everyone who doesn’t agree with the party line from Peking. Just as amusing as that Putin bloke claiming he’s got his army parked on the border with Ukraine to stop them invading him.

Confidence Expiring

“Tomorrow begins today,” says the NatWest bank in a TV advert. But tomorrow, as any fule kno, can’t start until today is over and done with.
    How can you trust a bank that doesn’t know something so obvious?

Some sense, maybe

Nice to see the idiots in charge of the police getting a kick up the bum from the courts over this nonsense of keeping vast lists of non-criminal spurious hate crimes. Irrational, lacking common sense, and not what the police are paid to do.

Legal sense totally absent

I read that the nutty teen who was busted at Windsor Castle was done ‘on suspicion’ of being in possession of a lethal weapon. Why? In case some legal spiv persuaded a judge that his crossbow wasn’t lethal? Or he wasn’t actually in possession of it, even though he was holding it?
    The loonies really are in charge of the asylum.

Now pointless fillers

The thing that struck me about the rediscovered Morecambe & Wise episode from 1971 was the musical numbers, which were shoved in as breaks as part of a formula.
    I knew who Kenny Ball was but the lady doing the operatic version of a Beatles (?) dirge – I kept waiting for Eric to charge in to do a wind-up.
    And the bloke doing My Way – I had no idea he was the bloke wot wrote it.

Plastic people

Who counts as a real celeb? You have to wonder when you read a list of the names of people who are involved in some worthy venture and you know the first three names but after them, nothing!

Sounds convincing!

It seems there is no truth to the internet rumour that the Rule of Six in Wales means that you have to collect up five other people if you want to go anywhere or risk a fine of 60 quid.

Who the hell cares?

Some nerd has calculated that the average Brit eats four sandwiches made from leftovers between Xmas and New Year’s Day. Talk about make-work for the useless.

One point five cheers

Another winner for AEW wrestling with a lengthy comedy match at the start of this week’s offering. Nothing the WW can match. Except for the swindle finish and the drek we got in the next hour, of course.

More amusing reading

The leaders of the French fishermen, who want to hoover British waters clean out of fish, were mightily upset because their members refused to do a Chrismas blockade to upset us because they wanted to get on with their own Christmas holiday.

One up the kilt for the Greens

Someone inspecting a shipment of bricks from Pakistan found himself dodging one of the deadliest snakes in the world, I read.
    Which leaves me wondering, in these days of extreme greenwash, what we’re doing importing bricks all the way from Pakistan.
    Don’t they make them anywhere nearer?

Nice dodge

I was amused to read that The Queen cancelled her usual Xmas do at Sandringham to make sure Prince Harry and his awful missus didn’t sneak in to do some more moaning.
    Or was it to give the nutter with the crossbow a shot at him if he dared to show himself at Windsor?

Sage without onions

How depressing to know that ‘the science’ which the government claims to follow is just a concoction of what the official scientists think Boris & Co. want to hear.
    But that does explain why it has so little touch with reality at times.

Bogus in Blankets

What is all this garbage about pigs in blankets being Xmas necessities? I don’t remember hearing word one about them before this year.

Should have left well alone

How enterprising of Michael Caine to get another pay day out of the remake of Get Carter. How surprising no one popped a couple of pills into the back of the head of Stallone’s thug after his first brush with the zillionaire.
    Not in touch with real life at all.

More misses than hits

How many of the allleged Best Xmas Films of All Time have I seen? One out of 20. Which one? Die Hard. Is that an Xmas film? It’s so long since I last saw it that I can’t recall.
    I suspect it’s set at Chrismas time but it’s probably about as Xmassy as The Great Escape. Or The Heroes of Telemark.

Nanny stateism

Could it be that a lot of Best Before dates are a load of rubbish? We’re still scoffing the last few Romney’s After Dinner Mints – chocolate-coated Kendal Mintcake – and they taste as good as they did before they expired.
    How did we end up with a box at the BB date exceeded? It was parked and overlooked for several months. Something we’ll be watching out for in the future.

Illusion shattered

Watchmen (2009) is a film about former super-heroes investigating the murder of one of their number? Falls over in amazement. Super-heros retire? And they can be done in? I thought being super, they went on forever.

Info overload

We’re trying out some dates from our local fruit & veg shop with the labelling information ‘600g -100g’. Does that mean the dates contain 100 grammes of stones and the edible content is 500 grammes? If so, it’s remarkably accurate information.
    p.s. The dates are from Iran, where they’re likely to chop your hand off for mislabelling! I hope they’re not exploding dates as a stealth weapon against enemies further west.

Good idea

I like this idea of Vaccine Equality Rights if it means that people who have taken the trouble to get themselves vaccinated don’t have to associate with people who haven’t because of some tripe they’ve picked up from the internet.

Soggy upper lip

A dignified silence from people who lost friends & relatives to the Chinese plague would have been more . . . dignified . . . than joining in the artificial row over leaked photos of people having a glass of wine & cheesy snacks.
    We’re better than that.

Nul Points? Negative Points from me

What exactly is so bloody Christmassy about World War II films? It’s just lazy programming.

There’s lots of better TV elsewhere

Top TV Shows of the Year, 10.
    Watched By Me, 1
    Draw your own conclusion on the topness.

Brilliant idea

That’s a stroke of genius. If nightclubs and pubs can’t open for business due to the Chinese plague, turn them into vaccination centres so that they can help the drive back to something like normality.

Bullet-holed feet

Are we seriously expected to believe that it was only the Tories who had meetings disguised as parties during lock-down last year?
    All the alleged news outlets which are pretending that this is so are doing themselves no favours, credibilitywise.

Nothing new

Not a lot of people know this but Formula One was down-graded to the ‘sports entertainment’ classification in 2008 after a shamefully inept swindle in that season’s Belgian Grand Prix robbed Lewis Hamilton of a win.
    Which means that F1's downgrade after this year’s inept swindle will have to be to the ‘entertainment’ category.
    Where will it go after the next downgrade? Depends whether the TV describers create a new lowest category named ‘bollocks’ or ‘tripe’.

Too weak to survive?

Is it really beyond modern snowflake kids to wield a ballpoint pen for however long it takes to do an exam? You have to wonder about the sanity of a headmaster who claims that it is. And also question that of the Welsh geniuses, who decided to take the sex out of school sex education and substitute wokery garbage.

Sense quotient zero

One of my neighbours was complaining that he’d found it impossible to make an appointment to get his meters swapped online because the company’s website didn’t want to know anyone who doesn’t have a pocket phone.
    Logically, a landline number is better because if someone answers the call, that means there is someone on the spot to let the engineer in.
    But since when did good sense have anything to do with the energy market?

Someone else can do it for me

Will I be spending 7½ hours messing about on the internet on Xmas Day, as a broadband company predicts for the average Brit? Joke.

Tough guys!

An hour-long match to start AEW Dynamite? Not something the WW snowflakes could ever manage. No surprise that the 60-minute time limit ran out to avoid declaring a winner. Then it was back to business as usual.

Cool with it

Do I feel deprived because I never have anything to eat containing sriracha, which turns out to be just hot chilli sauce, and the umpteen other features of flashy recipes? Nope. Real food for me every time.

Time distortion

Black as the Hole of Calcutta outside. I check my watch. Is that really the time? Compare it with one of the electric wall clocks. Yes, is really is only half-past four in the afternoon and the full Moon is rising.

Worth a look

Dr. Who & the Daleks (1965) has been lovingly remade as a digital version. A triumph of the conservator’s art. Even if the story is rather daft.

Just gratuitous

What is the point of a newspaper publishing a picture of Prince Charles struggling with a face mask? New normal nasty bastardism?
    How effin wonderful!

Who falls for it any more?

You’d have to be a real innocent to thinks some bloke with an  Indian accent who rings you up out of the blue about ‘your life insurance’ is from a reputable company. But I suppose there must be enough suckers around to make it worth the effort.

How very dare they?

It was absolutely gobsmacking to learn that India, allegedly the world’s largest democracy, is sending people to gaol for sedition if they dare to congratulate Pakistan for winning a cricket match. But there it was, on the BBC news.
    If ever a regime deserved cancellation as much as the one in Russia, it’s the one currently in charge of India.

When in doubt, make something up

Conspiracy theories are now conspiracy facts, Sky TV reckons as far as its documentary series are concerned.
    That’s facts, but not as we know them, Jim.
    Convenient ‘truths’, to be Al Goreish about it.

Protesting to much

“If I died tonight,” Inspector Rebus thought, “what would I bequeath to the world?”
    The answer, provided by the author of the collection of Rebus short stories, Ian Rankin, was “nothing” and that scared Rebus. But why?
    Why would a world with a population of around 8 billion have any need of a contribution from one battered copper?

The modern world, eh?

I was surprised to read that London Transport has banned people from taking their electric scooters on Tube trains because the gadgets are liable to burst into flames due to a faulty battery. Who needs exploding Islamists when consumer goods do just as good a job of spreading alarm?

The British way

The Health Secretary thinks obliging people to be vaccinated is unethical but it’s okay to exclude them from pubs & eateries & theatres & clubs by being unable to show a covid passport. At least he’s not going for the Greek solution of fining them a big chunk of cash for every month they remain a risk. That would really set the anti-vaxxers howling!

Go for it

Okay, that’s the WW’s RAW cast sussed. The bigger the tosser, the brighter and more garish the outfit.
    Can you do a 3-hour recording of the Monday show in under an hour by speeding through the rubbish? Easily.

Time I could redeploy

Am I going to give up on Formula One? It certainly can’t hold a candle to MotoGP, which can provide spectacle without the Schumacher Manoeuvres, especially now that a certain Mr. Rossi, who had no problem with shunting opponents off the track, has completed his descent into eclipse.

What rot!

Crossword clue: Fossil fuel (4)
    Peat? That’s not a fossil fuel. Nothing like one, no matter what the global warming fraudsters at the United Nations claim.

Lorst and gorn

Whatever happened to following the science? The government seems to be making up its own story about the meek & mild omicron variant of the Chinese plague and trying to turn it into a terrifying serial killer.
    Presumably, so that it can deliver either an ‘I told you so’ to justify all the extra locking in or a claim that its prompt actions delivered the nation from a terrible fate if nothing terrible happens.

Any old excuse

Christmas is doomed! Why? Because there’s a major shortage of . . . cardboard for creating posh boxes for bling.

Quite cunning

Staging mock debates to provide material for Xmas TV ads is a pretty cute way of raising a bit of cash. Clearly the debating society at Oxford University is in the hands of smart bods.

Still there

The bunch of idiots who were in the Harry Potter films might have tried to cancel the author, but that didn’t stop some rich Yank paying £365,000 for a Rowling first edition. Egregious, or what!

Recycle! Recycle!

Starsky buys a pet rock from Huggy in the cop show. Sounds like something that should be revived for today’s wonks. They’re bound to fall for it.
    Same plot as the Dirty Harry film Hutch was in for the episode.

One that got away

How come the acronym COBOL for the computer language gets to keep its capitals but Nato and all the rest don't? This is a truly shameful case of discrimination.

A very small start for a panic

One person has died ‘with’ the omicron version of the Chinese plague. That’s rather than ‘of’ and probably caught whilst dying of other causes in a hospital. Don’t panic.

Equality Rules!

Good to know that the lady ref on AEW wrestling shows is as useless as the blokes when the script calls for an official blind eye while dirty work goes on.

Reality binned

There’s a ‘battle’ raging over what Norfolk’s Seahenge was used for? What utter crap. Academics are disagreeing, like they do, not holding battles with guns & bombs & air strikes. What utter garbage the confecters come up with.

Bin the excuses

“Less Bertie Woosterism and more boosterism”? What Britain needs is less hyperbole and more stoicism. Less victimhood and more getting on with it. Less triviality and more tenacity. Less looking back and more planning for the future.

Keeps on truckin’

Crumbs! There’s another Indiana Jones film, the fifth, due to come out next year. Let us hope his wheelchair is an electric one to save the planet from global warming.

‘E’ for Effort!

Camels getting botox for beauty contests in the Arab world? Enterprising, if nothing else.

Do any real people care

Was it 3 Xmas-ish parties at Downing Street for one reason or another last year, Or 4? Or 5? If they didn’t cause a major disaster, so bloody what?

Unintended consequences

President Macron thought giving rural areas better roads and the internet would buy him votes. But all he’s done is make it easier for stroppy farmers to organize protests and get their tractors to cities to park them on the streets as road blocks.

Abu Dhabi Debacle

Maybe if Mr. Hamilton had spent less time on his knees and more time focussed on the job in hand, he wouldn’t have ended up in a position where he could be swindled so easily.

Football logic

“He’s gone in there to clean up the mess”, wrote an excited Sportsmail bloke. Shudda bin “he went in” but hey!
    English grammar don’t apply to football, right? Never has, never will.

Female logic

“Why is it always the woman who carries the can?” Sarah Vine of the Mail demanded over the expired Boris aide who made the joke video. One woman, one incident makes all females victims. Fine example of inclusion, Sarah.

Meaningless or overblown nomenclature?

What is the full fibre broadband Sky was pushing? Are we supposed to think there’s half-fibre and quarter-fibre broadband?
    This sets up a Next Big Thing of going in for double-fibre broadband at an even fancier price.

Reality not included

I got a Sky broadband puff letter yesterday. Wonderfully amazingly fast, they reckon, but not a hint of an idea of the cost.
    “Use up to 60 devices online at once”
    Doing what? Sending my electricity bill into the stratosphere? There are ideas, there are damn bloody stoopid ideas and there’s this one.

Not bovvered

Is wearing a face mask an imposition? Not to those to whom it has become second nature and who never stopped wearing them in shops, etc. The plague has always been around us.

Why was it invented?

Which eating iron is most likely to end up on the floor accompanied by a loud yell of, “Fuquer!”? Always, the fork.

JBYM

I was puzzled by these initials, which are out of the same box as FYI, FOIA, etc. I had to agree when I found out what they mean.
    Just Because You’re Miserable comes with an implied: “that’s no reason why everyone else should be”.
    And there are definitely a lot of miserable buggers around at the moment, doing their best to spread their misery.

Multiple standards, or what

Can you get more racialist and undiverse than the MOBO Awards? But they’re okay, apparently, as only white people are excluded and they don’t count.

Who needs the BBC?

It’s ages since I last watched the Bruce Lee film Enter The Dragon, which was on 5Star the other night. It’s timeless despite being nearly 50 years old. Waaah! Mu tang ooo-eeer! in a roomful of mirrors.

Hidden agenda?

It seems rather strange that only the non-Moslem US and UK are doing diplomatic boycotts of the Chinese winter Olympics and the Middle East isn’t. But if the protest is about the Chinese failing to give their Moslem minority human rights, maybe that’s the key. Most of the people of the Middle East don’t have anything much in the way of the human rights and their leaders are quite happy to leave things like that. And they’re not going to rock the boat by posturing over what the Chinese are doing.

Uniform, anyway

Is it reassuring to know that the Scottish prison service has a culture of concealment for its defects, just like Police Scotland? At least they’re all operating with the same rule book.

Speedy Gonzales, but why?

Further to delivery times: I had a look at my tracking data on the UPS website and found that the parcel was scheduled for delivery on Wednesday. But it arrived on Tuesday!
    Does that mean they’re not getting as much trade as the much unloved Yodel, etc.?
    Anyway, that’s my Xmas supply of Kendal Mintcake sorted.

Condemned by denial

Mad Max claims nothing Lewis Hamilton says about him bothers him. But if he has to tell us that, the opposite is obviously true.

Artificial Alarm

If the only ‘crisis’ at Downing Street is about a jokey video made by the staff a year ago, then we have bugger all to worry about, which is great.
    There’s nothing that pushes the synthetic outrage button harder than the mere thought that someone else might have enjoyed themself. Especially the stuffed shirt currently in charge of the Labour party.

What we want for Xmas

Could we have a general election warning, please? Then the Chancellor will be able to rush through cuts in income tax and VAT to buy some insurance popularity.

Another of life’s mysteries

One has to wonder how a gaol sentence of 2 years & 9 months was considered right for circulating pictures of bodies at a crime scene rather than 2½ or 3 years.
    It looks like a peculiarly precise, and therefore suspect, guesstimate of the ex-coppers’ rehab time.

That’s life

It’s all very well to claim that the nation is shocked by the death of Little Arthur at the hands of his father but we have been here before, the boss of the council department which failed him is unrepentant, no one will be sacked and it will happen again.
    Because there will always be evil buggers and people on the public payroll with their eyes shut.

The big question

Will all the repairs made after Storm Arwen stand up to the renewed battering they’re going to get from today’s Storm Bogdanovich?

Not to be put up with

There are times when armed insurrection and stringing berks up from lamp posts is fully justified. Such as arriving home to find that your local council in Berkshire jacked you car up to paint double yellow lines under it and then let the local traffic warden stick a ticket on it for illegal parking.

Feeling excluded

How come the PM got a badge with his plague booster and I didn’t? Just made the one badge, did they?

Make an effort, get it nearly right

The refugee camp on Lesbos which the Pope visited isn’t a replacement for one that ‘burned down’. The previous one was arsonized by the inmates, which is something entirely different.

Pretty good start

The Saudi Grand Prix track looked like it had enough lights to double global warming! Looks like it’s a good place for a) overtaking and b) crashes.
    Safety car whilst bits were hoovered up, Hamilton stopped for tyres, Mad Max didn’t and took the lead. Cancel the SC, red flag instead, Mick Schumacher had demolished a barrier.
    A massive crash on the restart! Get the red flag out again. Another crash but just a VSC this time. Lots more dodgem crashes. Mad Max had to let Hamilton past so he did a Schumacher Senior brake test on him; but failed to demolish Hamilton’s front wing. They are now level on points but Mad Max has more wins.

Had to come

Amon-Ra St. Brown – what a wonderful name – was the rookie of the day yesterday for taking a catch past the dozy Viking defence for the TD that gave the Detroit Lions their first win of the season – in Week 13!

Did he lose a bet?

Is there anyone in the world with a hairstyle stoopider than that of Brock Lesnar of the WW? That tied down pony-tail sure takes the whole box of biscuits.

Give me proper food

Sunflower miso dip, said the title of the recipe. What the hell is a miso? Animal or vegetable? Fish or fowl? Mr. Internet would know but I can’t be bothered asking.
    Sorry! Searching.

Not enough paying attention going on

What’s a good way to blow a hundred million quid of our money? Leave a plastic rain cover on a stealth jet so that it gets sucked into the engine when the plane takes off, causing it to do a nose dive into the sea.
    When they find the bloke responsible, they should make him and his descendants pay for the damage. That might persuade his comrades to be a bit more careful in future.

Scare tactic?

Interesting that we are being told that e-cigarettes cause the dreaded reptile dysfunction that we hear so much about in the adverts on certain TV channels. Is this part of a strategy to make people who use them to get off proper cigarettes to give up the e-version when the job is done?

Not the real BBC

Once upon a time, the BBC was the model of correctitude. Now, the morons working there are too lazy to find out how to pronounce the Greek letter omicron. So much for keeping up standards.

Irrelevant Question

“Have we left it too late to save Earth” was spotted in a newspaper that was being recycled. Even if we have, it wouldn’t make the pathetic victimhood seekers shut the hell up.
    Let us not forget that nothing we do here in the way of pretend Earth-saving will make a scrap of difference to global emissions of greenhouse gases as long as China, India, etc. continue to let rip.

The other side of the coin

I know now why Yodel gets such low marks in satisfaction tests. A neighbour opened his front door the other day to find a case of wine dumped in the porch.
    It had been there since the previous evening. No knock on the door or ring on the bell, of course, even though it was supposed to require a signature. Just hit & run and if someone takes a fancy to it before the customer can find it, tough.

Strong sense of futility

We’ll find out who failed baby Arthur (murdered by his parents), says the PM. But no social workers & police will be sacked and the same will happen again, as it has in the past, because bad people will continue to be in charge of small kids.

Credibility gap

If it really is My5 for Channel 5 repeats, how come other people get to watch it without my permission?

Dredging

Is it a crime for Prince Andrew to have had a ride of J. Epstein’s plane? Of course, it isn’t. And pretending it is just makes the outrage confecter look stoopid.

Worked for me

What do you do if your TV is kaput, apart from Beeb 1 & 2, ITV 1 and Channel 4, because Virgin Media has dropped to bits? Watch your recording of the film Scanners and look out for the exploding head about a quarter of an hour in is an option.

Monumental sulk

The lady who wrote to my morning paper to observe that the French were happy to see British troops on their beaches in 1944 should have gone on to add that they still haven’t forgiven us for liberating them (with a little help from the US) because they were too useless to do it themselves.

Overworn excuse

No surprise that the Chinese plague is getting the blame for all the neglect of the country’s roads and a doubling of pot-hole damage. There’s always some excuse for people in the public sector not doing the job they’re paid to do.

Sack the lot of them

The Boris Road Bridge between Scotland & Northern Ireland was originally costed at £20 billion. But the morons in the government’s service have managed to inflate it to over £300 billion. Okay, the project is just a fantasy, but does the taxpayer really deserve to have to pay morons to rig the price upwards like this?

Right for the job

That Open Goaal system featuring a goal with a huge wall of netting behind it for misses – especially for posh kids with a huge garden – should be endorsed by Mr. Rashford or one of the other England football team’s penalty missers when it counted.

It’s always all about the dosh

The people lining up in the freezing cold from 5 a.m. to get into the Ghislane Maxwell trial are ‘observers’? Not a bunch of scandal-mongers with no jobs to go to? Right.
    Her defence lawyer is on pretty solid ground when she says Ms Maxwell is being done over by the people who did nothing about the J. Savile clone J. Epstein and the case against her client is all about their guilt plus memory manipulation and money. Especially money.

Pony up the dosh anyway

“Which could arrive in time for Xmas,” says the cheery voice in the TV ad.
    Or not.
    How weasel can your words get, mate!

Delivery rating

Further to Royal Mail getting a satisfaction rating of 50%. We had the hit & run packet bandit today. Knock, then a card through the door and away before anyone could get near it.

Channelling LBJ?

Something suggested for yelling at the French President:
“Hey, Hey, Macrony, How many dead aujourd’hui?”

Against the odds

I was rather surprised to read that Yodel and Hermes can manage only about 30% customer satisfaction for their deliveries on a good day. Our local Hermes lady seems very efficient. Maybe we’re just lucky.

Half a point for trying

I gather the WHO had reached mu in its list of variants of the Chinese plague, most of them vanishing quickly. The official explanation for why they jumped two letters in the Greek alphabet to omicron is that nu sounds too much like new and there are lots of people around called Xi. Including the President of China.
    Flimsy, at best.

They’ll tell you anything on TV

Ebby Scrooge has a Pelington bike? How daft can you get! No doubt Charles Dickens is spinning in his grave.