Tomorrow will be the last edition of the News of the World. It will become a collector’s item, trawled over for years by the conspiracy theorists looking for hidden messages, truths revealed, if you just take the
Continue reading →Anna Raccoon
Pick a date, any date
There are many dates to choose from: the date that someone authorized the first “phone hack”. The date the first hacking happened. The date that phone hacking first came to light.
I suspect that the
Continue reading →Sucking on a safe Fag.
Dr Leg-Iron, Dr Feelgood, or Saint Leg-Iron as I have taken to referring to him, has very kindly sent me a safe fag to suck on when I am confined to bed. Not
Continue reading →Michael Lyons.
As a Quaker, I have mixed feelings about a man being forced to kill another man. It may be true that because I have mixed feeling about being forced to kill another human being, that I am
Continue reading →More Please!
Is it worth the waiting for?
If we live ’til eighty four
All we ever get is gru…el!
Ev’ry day we say our prayer –
Will they change the bill of fare?
Still we get the same old gru…el!
I think the tax
Continue reading →Spinning Millie.
Could there be a more emotive firecracker tossed into the flagellation that is the New of the World hacking scandal? A more despicable, heinous act than accessing ‘Murdered Millie’s’ phone messages? – for she is one of
Continue reading →Heart Stopping Moments.
If you have to have a heart attack, if you must, what better place to find yourself than in a roomful of cardiac surgeons? Not in Rochdale, no Siree.
Not
Continue reading →Life in the goldfish bowl.
I have always been fascinated by how the law, invariably shaped to deal with the ‘hard cases’ that make the headlines and force change, pans out to affect the ordinary, the mundane, the banal, that vast chunk
Continue reading →Et tu, Reuters?
Around ten years ago, an old friend of mine, an ambitious, clever and talented journalist became the news editor of, as they say, a ‘quality Sunday paper’.
‘Congratulations, you must be delighted’, said I.
‘Harrumph’,
Continue reading →Dordogne Angst Unlimited.
This nightmare that I had
woke up in the hospital suite
And thought “my, this is worse than bad”
just where on earth did I meet
That chick with whom I share this room?
Champagne’s inappropriate
right now and so are those balloons
got no cause
Hacked-off Hackers.
Back in the dark ages, well, 40 years ago, there was a ‘private club’ in the Walworth Road known as the Crusaders. It was a long dark room, lined with mirrors; mirrored balls sparkled overhead, tables stretched
Continue reading →Raccoongate? No way, José!
Hello my darlings! It’s been an eventful week. Action packed as they say, and Ms Raccoon has a fight on her hands; fear not, we will win.
So, pour yourself a drink, make it a double;
Continue reading →Caption contest – Advertising Ewe-turns.
I can see this catching on – imagine the M40 running through the Labour strongholds in the Rhonda Valley, lined with bleating manifesto promises. Politicians really will be able to eat their words once the count is
Continue reading →Bugging Bugarach.
Life as the Maire of a small French commune can be onerous. You are a self contained one-man social services department, with responsibility for the welfare of all the inhabitants. An adult literacy department, with responsibility for
Continue reading →Out Damn Wart!
A SECURITY guard from South Yorkshire shot himself in the hand to try to remove a wart from his finger.
No point in aiming at his foot when the wart was on his finger, was
Continue reading →Fat Boy Fiction.
One of the failings of the European Union is in its attempt to convince us that we are all the same, just human beings. We are not – and nothing divides us more than our sense of
Continue reading →Disinterring Old Arguments.
I make no apologies for keeping the corpse of the euthanasia/assisted suicide argument hanging around the bar today; if the stench is unpleasant and disagreeable to you, so be it. It’ll be your stench one day, you can’t live
Continue reading →The Right to put your family through Hell?
I freely admit I didn’t watch the Terry Pratchett documentary on the Right to Die. At the last minute I voted in favour of a quiet glass of wine with Mr G in the setting sun. It
Continue reading →Quote of the Decade…
“Of course there is and always has been a role for anonymous quotes in journalism. But whereas it used to be that the balance of probability was that they were genuine, I think these days the balance
Continue reading →Freebies on offer, roll up, roll up!
I’ve been doing well this week – first Stuart Fairney’s book arrived in the post, then an advance copy of a riveting DVD. ‘Inside Job’.
It genuinely is a riveting DVD; it’s well
Continue reading →The Bearded Lady.
There is nothing the Western world of bleeding heart liberals likes more than tales of oppressed women and oppressed homosexuals. Oppressed women who are also homosexual, and have been seized by armed men, and hustled into large
Continue reading →Libertarian-bodice rippers.
Stuart Fairney sent me his new book, ‘Single Acts of Tyranny’, to read last week. Until I forced myself to read the Millennium trilogy a few weeks ago, I hadn’t read a novel in years.
Continue reading →On Internet Anonymity and Snake Oil Salesmen.
Over 100 years ago, the Rev. LaFayette Moore, a Baptist minister, gave up parish work and entered the business world with a pill cutter and gelatin coating machine. He rented
Continue reading →World Hypocrisy Day?
We should really celebrate some of the magnificent examples that surround us at the moment. Perhaps a sludge grey ribbon lapel button or a badge with an upside down principle, or even better, one of those mobile
Continue reading →Unlawfully Detained!
Last year I reported extensively on the case of Steven Neary, a 20 year old autistic man. At the time, only Private Eye had taken
Continue reading →Weiner’s Schnitzel.
The Schnitzel, as any good cook will tell you, is a lump of immature meat, encased in a crust. The only way to make it edible is to beat it within an inch of its life, and
Continue reading →Our Vera hits the headlines again.
The house that Vera Baird put on the market for £315,000 last year after she had finished ‘winding up’ her constituents in sunny Redcar, has finally sold for £265,000.
This is the house that
Continue reading →Does he take sugar?
Where, precisely, does our sexual orientation stem from?
Certainly not our birth certificate which is a rough ‘rule of thumb’ observation recorded at a time of considerable drama. Yep, looks like a penis, that’s a boy!
e-Coli, the computer age plague.
Have we seen such fear and loathing since the Black Death hit London?
The Daily Mail says we should avoid eating ‘European food’, conveniently forgetting that the UK is part and parcel of Europe, no matter
Continue reading →Chocolate boobs.
So there you are – a responsible parent, anxious only to do the best by your children.
It’s your son’s 12th birthday, a celebration is called for! What are you? 30, 35? Certainly the right age
Continue reading →