THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT. Or: Why Folks Follow You Around With Loaves Of Bread And Waffles.

#Humour

Things To Worry About: Essential to someone like myself, having never yet failed to fill in a Job Application without listing “Living In Fear” as my Previous Occupation. If there’s a box for Hobbies And Leisure Interests, I put it in there too.

Not that I’m Worried about Being A Worrier. I find it comforting. It keeps you on your Mental Toes. Precisely as it should do. For a headful of Combat-Ready Mental Toes is all that has ever stood between Mankind and a starring role in Extinction: The Musical. Just imagine how important it was for early Homo Trepidatiens to avoid the Got Eaten/Squashed/Knocked Down By A Feather Categories on their Insurance Claims. Survival Instinct dictated anxious scrutiny of every rustle of grass; every rustle of Giant Newspaper.

So no, don’t beat yourself up: Ain’t nothing wrong with Being A Worrier. However, if you wake up each morning feeling A Bit Achey maybe you should Worry you’ve been doing Exactly That during sleeptime. That is: Beating Yourself Up.

None of which is to suggest that Worrying should occupy any more of the Average Life Span than Inspecting Nasal Passages for Evidence Of The Origin Of Species or instigating Staring Contests with Hamster Acquaintances. So with Time-Management of the essence, I would personally recommend Angst is afforded a little special Quality Time each day. Although it should be noted: Any recommendation emanating from within a two hundred mile radius of my snapper should be treated with the Suspicion you’d normally reserve for Parcels Which Tick… or resonate with the back-catalogues of Popstars Who Mime On TV.

What To Worry About is easy. I’m sure you can rat-a-tat your own chamberful of Global Warnings and Lines pertaining to Unemployment, Traffic, Foreheads and Visible Pantyhose. And yet… I would be neglecting the Duties Of Omniscience if I failed to introduce you to Some Of My Own Worries. No really. Hey! Come back! You’ll like them! You may even need new underwear.

Spontaneous Combustion for instance. This phenomenon has been reliably reported often enough to be a major source of debilitation to all but The Least Committed Worrier. History records hundreds of cases of people inexplicably bursting into flames in areas completely free of Mischievous Children. Figures would undoubtedly be higher but for the number of instances explained away by the proximity of Indian Food. Or Freedom Fighters from the Independent Zippo Nation.

What’s more, All the leading Sheepdogs Of Popular Opinion -including Scientists, Politicians and That Nice Girl On The Supermarket Till express doubts about the Evening Entertainment Value of watching one’s body transform into An Uncontrollable Ball Of Flame.

This is why I never leave home without a sandbucket and assorted wet sponges about my person. If you adopt these Wise Safety Precautions for yourself, keep away from traditional Red Light haunts. Unless you enjoy being accosted by Wallet-Wavers mouthing unspeakable requests for Perverse and Mildly Abrasive services.

As an excuse for declining Jury Service, Fear Of Imminent Spontaneous Combustion is not likely to receive much sympathy from The Judge. However, if you are fond of Crowds Of People following you around with Loaves Of Bread and Waffles, publicize your story via the Local Paper.

Manmade Earth Tremors are another Worthy Addition to any Erudite Human’s Directory Of Pantfillers. I specify Manmade, as the Natural type -at least of enough strength to induce Giggling in Ticklish Individuals- are uncommon in the U.K. Indeed, the Earth’s Tectonic Plates, which carry this Fair Isle like A Well Trained Waiter carries silver trays through a Gentleman’s Club, are only taking us nearer The Major Faults at a rate of two inches per thousand years. So diary notations are not a matter of urgency just yet.

Manmade Earth Tremors are easily manufactured. For instance: If four out of five residents of China jumped off a two foot stool at the same time, the Americas would be swamped by a Tidal Wave and the coastal towns of Britain would be buried in Dead Fish. Of course, this is improbable. Any Chinaman even thinking about jumping off any wooden object of any height would receive a Visit from the local equivalent of Homeland Security’s Furniture Division. The Offender’s home would be Comprehensively Redecorated and their health Severely Monitored -the Official Line being: Jumping is Bourgeoise and Decadent.

Incidentally, the People’s Republic compels Guilty Parties to tick the slightly disadvantageous Stinking Imperialist Dog category when applying for future State Welfare Benefits.

Anyway, expecting an Entire Nation’s Population to perform the same action at the same time is unrealistic. Aside, maybe, from hailing a taxi cab.  And yet… I wonder if a Mass Action could be induced rather than left to chance? The increased Worry Factor would be worth its’ weight in Valium. For example: With the aid of Giant Bags Of Popcorn it should be possible to persuade the population of the United States to tap themselves on the head for an hour. Resulting Vibration would surely disintegrate Mexico, Central America and Canada Except For The Cute Bit With The Bears.

In reality, nothing would happen to Mexico, Central America and Canada. But the entire population of the U.S. would suffer a simultaneous Migraine Attack and we could all go “Ha! Ha! April Fool!” in revenge for their Export of the cretinous Trick Or Treating.

Transmigration Of Souls is next up. For the Uninitiated –which always sounds A Bit More Polite than Thicko’s, dontcha think?- it is the process whereby an Out Of Contract Soul transfers from one body to another, together with its Characteristics. Depending on the Belief System this Ghostly Postal Service occurs At Random or: As a result of Something You Ate.

So according to Case One: Upon Death –following visits from The Grim Reaper, The Taxman and Relatives whose previous contact was limited to Exchange Holidays- Your Soul could end up Anybloodywhere: In a Future King Of Fiji; in a Good-Natured Baboon; in a Potato.

Alternatively: If you believe you imbibe the Soul of everything you eat, Every Sausage Sandwich adds to the increasingly overcrowded population of Invisible Pigs within. In both cases, the Characteristics  of the Original Owner of the Soul also tag along like kids who’ve just seen Santa.

It’s the Second One which Worries me. Why? Consider the primitive hunters who swear their courage, strength and indomitable spirit comes from feasting on Lions. Okey Dokey. But what about Other Lion Characteristics such as Bad Breath, Drooling, and Hiding In The Toilet When It’s Their Round? Consequently, I am anxious about the Quality Of Soul gotten from eating at Fastfood Restaurants. I mean, What Kind Of Monster ends up as a Cheeseburger in a future life?

My own experience of the Transmigration Of Souls phenomenon occurred as a youngster, when I concluded my Paper-Round wouldn’t take half the time if I was Batman. I took to eating Substantial Portions of Caped Crusader Comicbooks- taking care to avoid pages featuring Robin. For even an eleven year old knows the Boy Wonder is A Bit Of A Pussy.

Did it work? Was I suddenly imbued with the Agility, Strength and Eccentric Underwear Habits of Gotham City’s finest? Sadly, no. I spent six months in a Special Clinic receiving treatment for Dangerously Dog-Eared Corners. To this day I suffer periodic attacks of Uncontrollable Folding.

Space Debris is one of my current Favourite Distractions: Ever since I read somewhere that an average one person per day is struck by a solid object fallen from Orbit. What? Every Day? You ask. Yes, ‘fraid so, I answer. What? The same average person? You add. Er…  I’ll get back to you when I’ve done more research, I reply.

But guess what my little browfurrowing confederates? It’s not the Satellites, Space Stations and Flash Gordon Zip Guns we should be Worrying about. Certainly, a Falling Space Station ought to be visible from at least a couple of Cricket Pitches away. More than enough time, one would have thought, to shelter under A Stranger’s Skirts? Besides, by the time such projectiles have been burned-up in Re-entry, what hits the Bystander is surely no more threatening in size and smell than the average Fastfood Burger?

The real Worry is not a big one. It is small, very very small -and can take the top two tiers off a Wedding Cake in less than a second. Imagine a Falling Space Station -careering towards the ground faster than The Greased Pants Of Eros. Sure, the External Body of the craft would be reduced to Interplanetary Roughage. Likewise, internal Scientific Apparatus such as Paint Guns and Imitation Louis XIV Chandeliers. However, NASA Research indicates anything Inside A Refrigerator would remain intact. Leaving us with the Terrifying Prospect of being bombarded by Astronauts’ Between-Meals Snacks.

Most Scientists would bet their Entire Collection Of Duane Eddy Guitar Picks that meteorites were responsible for the extinction of Dinosaurs and the sudden decline in Sleepovers. If NASA are correct, a similar fate may await our civilization. In this case: Destruction at the hands of Deadly Chilled Apricots.

So Carry On Worrying. And having been recently awarded the International Transcontinental Belt for Incandescently Extravagant Humility, I would Humbly suggest that Worrying is merely one of a long list of things which serve to Make Us Human. Along with stuff like Ugly Feet, Over-Enthusiastic Body Hair and Creatively Located Chocolate Stains.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if like myself you claim membership of the worriers anonymous notional kinship eccentric regulars. ho ho.

J.C. SUPERSTAR TO LEAD WORLD SOCCER…. If Blatter Would Only Fffffifa Off!!

#humour

Corruption. Bribery. Wire Fraud. Sponsorship Of Hotels For Cats. Things don’t look good for FIFA as the Clouds Of Litigation close in. The FBI are just one amongst many governmental and/or regulatory bodies who look certain to shower Football’s Ruling Body with the contents of Cumulo Guano.

All of which leaves us with the question: Who will succeed outgoing president, Sepp Blatter?

The Favourite -at time of writing- is a man currently promoting himself as the Angelic, Honest and Innocent face of FIFA, whilst at the same time presenting an Incredibly Accurate Impersonation of the Swiss Godfather. Since the Contender in question met Bob Geldof, I’ve known him as Fifa Tricksibull. You all know him as Sepp Blatter.

What?! Yup. Sepp Bloodyblatter: A man so full of bull he can’t walk Latin lands without being pursued by packs of matadors. What?! you implore again: “I thought the World Class Cheeky Bugger resigned in June?” Well kinda….. but it seems It Was All A Dream. For the Lord Of The Manor has since Backtracked Into An Alternative Universe and will allow his Serfs at FIFA Congress to vote on his Fate. This move is at least as Brave as placing his neck in a Noose….. a noose fashioned from the world’s finest elastic. Because -don’t forget- Squire Blatter still believes he possesses enough support (and pantsdown secrets?) to influence the vote his way.

This has inevitably led to accusations that Seppi has no intention of relinquishing his Doggy-Style Grip. Indeed, it has been reported that he is still “flirting with power.” Rubbish! Blatter flirts with power in the same way that Hitler Flirted With Poland. I doubt anything would satisfy the Black Hole Of His Ego short of a Victory Parade through FIFA Congress accompanied by a massed fanfare of strumpets.

This is why the beautifully tonsured head of Das Kapitan can currently be seen bobbing up and down in the Trenches, whilst in the Battlefield above, his Troops are getting their boogers blown off. Do not doubt: If he considered Giving Up Power for a moment, that time-span could not be measured on the most advanced Atomic Clock on the Planet. Given the slightest sniff of the Dogbottom Of Opportunity, Sepp Blatter will run for a fifth term when the Election Contest takes place –arrowed haute couture notwithstanding- in a few months time.

For Sepp Blatter is indeed A Man Of Substance. Whether you’d wish to get any of that substance on your hands is another matter. The sixteen years of his FIFA Presidency were a slow puncture of corruption allegations, punctuated by personal enthusiasm for increases in the distance between goalposts and decreases in the amount of cloth used to make female football kit.

But there is a better candidate: A Saviour who goes by the initials JC; a fellow -thus far- unsoiled by allegations of corruption and bribery. Not so much as The Merest Hint of jiggery pokery with loaves has ever been directed at Jerome Champagne.

And he’s the chap I really want to talk about.

Jerome Champagne originally announced his rival candidacy to Blatter early last year. And when he did, a single question came to mind: Who The Hell Is Jerome Champagne?

With a name like that I’d expect him to be a Porn Star. Or a Suave ’70’s TV Detective like Jason King, the Frilly Dandy with sideburns longer than most peoples’ lawns. None of which, by the way, would be any sillier than Blatter’s own presidency of the World Society Of Friends Of Suspenders in the same era.

Champagne looks like British political behemoth John Prescott: Without accompaniment from The Proclaimers’ I Would Eat Five Hundred Pies but with the same matter-of-fact self-confidence. Why else would he have spent much of the past four years as a Football Troubleshooter brokering groundbreaking agreements between Palestine and Israel, Turkish Cyprus and Greek Cyprus, and Kosovo and FIFA? Self-confidence mon amis.

Read that list back. Could you imagine more arsequaking arenas for the Frenchman to test the skills he gained in fourteen years as an International Diplomat? Alien Vs. Predator maybe.

In each case JC represented The Little Guy: A stance echoed in his calls for fairer distribution of Football Finances between the rich bangle danglers of the world and the folk who can barely afford to swing their genitalia in the breeze.

Indeed, Che Champagne has already come up with enough revolutionary ideas to overthrow an entire chain of Cuban newsagents.

His plans to eradicate the disease of Second Yellow Madness, for instance. As things stand, a player on one Yellow Card can be sent off for a second innocuous pissant offence like removing their shirts after scoring. Or celebrating a goal with an impromptu fireworks display which gives Officials acid flashbacks.

Monsieur Champagne suggests an Inbetween Orange Card which places offenders in an Ice Hockey/Sex Dungeon style Sin Bin for a few minutes. So instead of weeping over Red Card Expulsion, players have time to consider their evil folly, put their clothes back on and correct spelling and syntax on their t-shirt messages.

Rather sensible, don’t you think? And why not? Jerome may not have kicked a ball outside of his mum’s back garden, but he wrote for France Football in his youth and between 1999 and 2010 sharpened his intellectual coutellerie at the top table of FIFA’s Executive Committee. So the 57 year old knows what he’s on about, methinks.

More problematic is his wish to place a quota on foreign players- European Labour Laws being as elastic as the Sightscreens at Lord’s Cricket Ground. Still, the intended increase in Locals would go some way to restoring the Souls of Certain Clubs, as the revolving door of International Mercenaries is blocked up by Homegrown Backsides.

Champagne also raises his Arc d’Triomphe Eyebrows in favour of using Video Technology to adjudicate penalties and offsides. Good Thinking Batman. For no member of Homo Refians has ever been physically able to simultaneously view the Ball Striker Over Here and the Defensive Line Over There, when attempting to suss out a possible offside. Not without Independently Swivelling Iguana Eyes.

As for Video Replays for penalties: Yeeeeeeeees!!! Why? Up to eighty per cent ain’t. Just witness the Relentless Brassnecked Bullshit of the EPL and say it ain’t so. (See Platinum Tipped Iceberg 013.”Simulation: How to spot it; how to stop it.”) The only concern is the time factor. The primo carnera requirement being Instant Video Replay, like in Rugbies League and Union.

Otherwise we’ll be left with the Interminable Hanging Around, Useless High-Fives and Drive-By Shootings of Merrkun Feutbawl, where decisions are configured in line with the Precepts and Adbreaks of the U.S. Constitution. After such lengthy pauses, an Association Football Goalkeeper would likely return to his post to discover someone had pissed on his towel.

But I’m certain Le Champ has time considerations in hand. After all, we wouldn’t want our Superstars to suffer Pneumonia or Raised Leghair Syndrome as they wait, shivering, for arbitration. And we certainly wouldn’t want to fuel the stick-rubbed fires of Anti-Video-Replay Luddites by taking too long. Heaven Forfend. Not when this Valuable Time is currently utilised by Players Bitching To Officials About Decisions.

Which brings us neatly to Champagne’s thoughts on Players Bitching To Officials About Decisions. Jerome has visited Half The Nations Of The World –!!!- and has witnessed such Wisdom as: Football is a game for Gentlemen played by Hooligans; Rugby is a game for Hooligans played by Gentlemen; Aussie Rules is a game for Hooligans played by Hooligans. I could add: American Football is a game for Couch Potatoes played by Couches. But I won’t.

Consequently, JC borrows from Rugger again. For as Rule 58(b) of The Laws Of Rugby Union Football stipulates: “Any backchat from you young man and you’ll be on the naughty step ten metres back and santa won’t be coming this year.” Rewarding Soccer Goboffs with the advancement of free-kicks by ten metres would furnish Officials with a wonderful Weapon Of Mouth Obstruction. And why not? Nothing else works. To date, the only beneficiary of the Respect The Ref Campaign has been the Bank Balance of the chaps who manufacture the armbands.

Add to this, Mr. C’s view that only Team Captains should be allowed to converse with Officials and we will finally remove the ugly spectacle of En Masse Sulkeurs surrounding Referees and turning every tepid controversy into The Siege Of Troy.

All edifying stuff, I think you’ll agree mon petite oiseux. But the question remains: Can Champagne Splatter Blatter?

Surprisingly enough, the one man who most publically voices doubts about his chances of beating Blatter is the man himself. For when asked if he can defeat Sepp, Champagne replies with a simple “I don’t think so.” This is likely based on the number of Safe Votes which the previous incumbent can count on due to prior links. And you know I use the word links with Olympian Euphemism.

Curiously though, JC’s corollary that Blatter is “a man of relevance” is bursting with cryptic restraint. Like a Diplomatic Fellow describing a woman as Looking Like A Picture, without clarifying whether the picture in mind is one of Beauty….. or….. A Baboon.

Indeed, that is as much as you’ll get out of the Frenchman on the subject of his former boss. Sepp actually brought Jerome into FIFA in 1999 and employed him as International Advisor, Deputy Secretary General and Director Of International Relations. However, it was a job he didn’t give him which led to their duelling with baguettes: The no.2 position of Secretary General.

Champagne has always kept admirably schtum on the circumstances of his departure from FIFA in 2010. Although the suspicion is that he was eased out, as his can can displays increasingly upstaged the shadow puppetry of Blatter.

Of course, once current investigations are concluded and the clanking of chains fades into the distance, Mr. Blatter may not be available for re-election. And I don’t just mean a Get Out Of Jail Free Card accruing from his tactical withdrawal from the contest. Or the possibility he’ll be busy Spring Cleaning His New Dungeon. I’m wondering whether Sepp will still be on Planet Earth.

Not that I support the Petition recommending him as a candidate for Alien Abduction. I am in fact referring to Blattyboy’s Age. He is 79 years old. So without wishing to sound callous, come Election Time it is entirely conceivable he could be otherwise occupied by a strip-search in the Immigration Room of The Pearly Gates. Either that, or in common with many men of advancing years, he may suddenly become obsessed with collecting string or complaining about the decreasing size of chocolate bars.

Any or all of this meandering and surprisingly factual testimony Ought to leave JC Superstar in a position to prod FIFA into a new era of Honesty, Transparency and Fairness.

For as Pele said of Jerome Champagne: “I trust him.”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you harbour a deep and enduring admiration of his ability to write about jerome champagne without using so much as a single solitary sparkling wine based pun.

THE PAUL GRIN HOPI BUCKET LIST. No.3: Infiltrate A Racist Organisation.

#humour

Infiltrate A Racist Organisation is No.3 in a series of Things To Do before St. Peter conducts the Pearly Gates Strip Search. In itself, Bucket List is an artful cat in a chaffinch-suit Euphemism. Coming as it does from the Idiom: To Kick The Bucket. As in: To Die; To Peg Out; To Peruse The Grim Reaper’s Pointy Bits.

The paul grin hopi bucket list is a fearless and foolhardy compilation of perfumed rubbish which fell out of my head when I wasn’t looking. As such, these undertakings should only be undertaken in the presence of undertakers.

Talking to people I know, which when I think about it almost exclusively encompasses the Retired Reykjavik Welsh Reserve Hookers, Blunt Cardsharps and C & A Assets of The Insolvent Anteater Public House, it seems that what appears on Lists Of Things To Do Before You Die is often predicated on the question: What Do I Have To Lose?

Exempli Gratia: During recent roundtable conversation between myself and a twenty year old Postman –with a young family-and a sixty year old Lady Lecturer –with terminal ingrowing toenails- it was the latter who was preparing to retrace Livingstone’s Search for the Source of the River Nile. The former pledged himself to “Search for the Source of The Mystery Smell Under The Sink.”

Ask yourself the same question: What comes to mind when you contemplate a Bucket List? Especially if –like the Lady Lecturer- you’re happy to declare you’ve got “Nothing  to lose but Virtue, Tupperware, and Bank Loans.”  Would you set yourself the dangerous task of Introducing Plastic Comedy Breasts to the Headhunters Of New Guinea? Howsabout earning the eternal gratitude of Planet Earth’s OCD Sufferers by straightening-up the Leaning Tower Of Pisa?

Your answer is of course, Very Revealing. One’s choice of To Do’s say a lot about a person and can lead to a surprising number of invitations to events where the Dress Code is based on petroleum products.

Anyway, that’s enough about You and the Drug-Addled Bats doing Busby Berkeleys in your Belfry. In other words: Memememememememememe.

When I considered my own Bucket List, one of the first ideas which popped out of my head -and it popped like a Bubblewrapped Bull In An Elevator- was to Infiltrate A Racist Organisation.

In terms of difficulty, I guess it would be slightly less troublesome -sex change notwithstanding- to Infiltrate A Women’s Institute Dogbaking Club. Although, the hardest part about attending a meeting of Local White Supremacists would be restraining myself from curtailing the fecundity of Males present, with the aid of a rusty pair of scissors.

So why would I think Infiltrating A Racist Organisation would possess any more entertainment value than sticking my head into a Hive Of Loony-Bees?

Well, for a start off, it would be An Enormous Hoot to interrupt Meetings by repeatedly bellowing Ridiculous Demands at the Speaker. I have in mind Calls For Action to stop the Invasion Of The British Salad Empire by boycotting Nigerian Coach Lettuce.

I am certain I could fake the earnest credibility of the Truly Cretinous Fanatic. Thus ensuring a Boycott Yes Vote from Assembled Emptyheads and….. violent migraines for The Committee, as they tried to bluster their way through unanswerable questions like: “How do we tell the difference between Nigerian Lettuce and British Lettuce?” Lettuce Is Lettuce Is Lettuce. Not to mention the minor point that the Nigerian Coach variety does not exist in Any Known Dimension.

In a similar vein, there are many other Irresistibly Useless Motions which could not be refused by The Committee without appearing to support Humans Of Other Hue. For no self-respecting Racist should stock the Produce of The Brown Economy within their larders and troughs.

So Second This Motion: Members Who Frequent The Fruit Aisle –not a euphemism- shall only purchase items Clearly Marked as Homegrown. Welsh Valley Bananas, for instance. Or Grapefruits Of The Scottish Glens.

Extend this vigilance to all Foodstuffs and White Stupidicists would soon be reduced to the constipated stoop of all those who limit themselves to Traditional British Stodge. They might also begin to hanker after some Culinary Multi-Culturalism….. perish the thought. They may even begin to question the cretophile xenophobe ideals of their Leadership….

If you think this is A Monumental Waste Of Time….. you’re getting it. For clarification, Your Honour, I draw attention to War Movies like The Great Escape, The Colditz Story and The Half-Time Footie Toilet Queue. P.O.W. Escape Efforts were an exercise in occupying enemy forces with useless tasks. Because The Baddies can’t fight at The Front if they’re preoccupied recapturing Runaways Disguised As Indigenous Bunkbeds.

With this in mind, I would like to Hook Up with a BNP March and perform a little more subtle subversion. Start a chant. “Saxons Out!” for instance. Or: “We want a holiday in Mecca! When do we want it?! Now!”

In days past, the Anti-Nazi League disrupted National Front and British National Party marches via The Medium Of Mime. Not the Marcel Marceau kind, mind. This was more the School Of Full Contact Mime. Not that I’m condoning violence. Although….. does Crushing Cockroaches Underfoot qualify as violence?

Whatever, sending White Supremacists on wild goose chases might not be as physically satisfying as knocking their noses into Nearby Post Codes, but at least it doesn’t give the poor lambs the opportunity to think of themselves as Victims.

So join me again at a Meeting Of The Curdled Cream Of White Supremacy. You’re probably getting the idea by now. It’s time for more from Monsieur Shoutybolleaux. “Mr. Chairman! I urge the Party to ban the wearing of all Foreignmade Clothing!” And: “Brothers! Sisters! Let us unite in refusal to watch any Sporting or Musical Event containing Brown People!” And best of all: “We, the White British Populace demand an island of Our Own!”

It’s not what I’m here to talk about, but that last one hits upon something. Why not? Give Whitewashers their own abode. Genius! For irony of ironies: Without Multi-Cultural Food, Clothing, Sport, Music et al, what a colourless World that would be!

Incidentally, apologies if you think I’ve been a bit preachy. The subject matter batters the mad hatter. The raisins in my etre are designed to be Funny –really!- rather than a means to Scratch My Pelotas in public.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog even if its just to confirm he genuinely wasnt making up that stuff about the lady lecturer.

HOW TO BE HAPPY. Or: Grand Pianos Hardly Ever Drop Out Of The Sky.

#humour

As I lumber from my Silken Sheets and sweep the heaped Rose Petals aside, I do so with the dark demeanour of a Norse God whose Thunder Finger is still burnt and smoking from a Fart-Lighting Prank the night before. In other words: I am a Miserable Sod in the morning.

And I don’t just mean ordinary miserable. I mean Record Breaking Rosettes From Head To Toe Miserable. My head’s amuddle; my brain functions muffled with The Mattresses Of A Thousand Mythical IKEA Sales. I can’t speak. I can’t eat. I can barely remember how to breathe.

But do I therefore face the day like a Death-Row Hamster on his way to a One-Twenty-Fourth Scale Gallows? No, Techno-Dogchildren, I do not! For my first action of the day –Green Period Picasso Pee notwithstanding– is to button up some Music.

It could be anything from Shostakovich to The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Anything….. as long as it’s Powerful Enough To Strip The Dust Cover Off An Unreturned Library Book. Thrilling Noise inspires Bolt Speed Ablutions which include Olympic Standard Toothbrushing, Barnacle Scraping and Vigourous Imperial Leathering. Note for Belgian Viewers: The latter is not a reference to Specialist Dungeon Activities. Imperial Leather is a brand of soap.

Addendum for Belgian Viewers: That note was included because you may not be familiar with this particular brand. I was not implying you have hummed your way through the centuries without at least managing a passing acquaintance with soap. Anyway…..

Once I complete the daily Oil-Tanker-Spillage Clean-Up my features transform from Disaster Area to George Clooney….. When Light Strikes From A Certain Angle. Now, I force myself to take the Deep Breaths which I dimly perceive will lift the Fog and flood my brain with The Enthusiasms Of A Regiment Of Flute-Playing Mice.

And so they do! Deep Breaths turn the trick. Although, if you want The Truth, I think Deep Breasts would be better. Still, Shedfuls of Scientific Proof show Deep Breaths are more effective than Ordinary Breaths in facilitating function of the Nervous System’s Synapses and Synthetic Shin Pads. Current Research also indicates Bad Breath is better than No Breath At All.

Wearing Clothes is the next step in the construction of my Post Imperial Capitalist Lapdog Happy Place. Wearing Clothes? What a good idea! you say- in the same Tone used to praise The Dog for successfully retrieving Sticks, Balls and Jehova’s Witnesses.

But really, my Morninghead is no more capable of arranging a Wardrobe Expedition than it is of Rearranging The Atoms In Albert Einstein’s Bellybutton. And I really don’t want to alert Paleontologists to The Missing Link Between Modern Man And The Ape by leaving the house sporting nothing more than A Nice Smile and A Spare Pen….. again.

If you think I’m Exaggerating, bear in mind I just spent the last hour looking for my Trusty Roget’s Thesaurus. I found it in the Refrigerator Vegetable Rack. I guess it got there via some kind of Ultradullard A.M. Tidy-Up. Frankly, I would have been better off utilising the time to swap my Cranial Matter for Acoupla Cabbages.

This is why I hang my gear in the bathroom the night before. On an impressive Limited Edition collection of Marvel Hero Ears, if you’re interested. So when I Alight each Morrow there is no immediate need to Crank any Special Team senses into action. Except maybe for the one which allows me to enjoy the Lovely Smell of one of my many starch-ironed Alex Harvey Tribute Stripy T-Shirts.

And yes, of course, there are Trousers there too. So I finally have got this Grown-Up Dressing Lark sussed. Although I confess The Trousers don’t always end up The Right Way Round.

I’ve already told you I can’t eat in the morning. So Breakfast depends on whether the Stewards Of My Digestive System are willing to take New Passengers aboard without yelling Abandon Ship! Whatever I manage to Sneak on deck is done with a Conscious Effort to please my Taste Buddies and Olfactory Workers.

Today, for instance, I had Coffee –loadsa granules loadsa milk loadsa sugar- and Tinned Strawberries with that Thick Sterilised Carnation Cream Which Should Taste ych-y-fi Because It’s Sterilised But Doesn’t. Not many stores stock it these days due to it’s vaguely metallic taste. But that’s precisely why I Love It. That and it’s gorgeous texture on my tongue.

And then there was The Pineapple Juice. Oh-Oh-Oh! Oh-Oh! When you’re thirsty in the morning it’s tempting to gulp it down like A Dog Who Hasn’t Been Fed For Half An Hour. But I spend a good two or three minutes Just Sniffing. The smell of pineapple juice has to be one of Mother Nature’s Greatest Gifts. It’s certainly right up there with New Mown Grass, Satziki and Scalextric.

This gives me a Thought. My third. Not today. Ever. Wouldn’t it be a boogaloo idea to compile a list of Favourite Foods For Breakfast? And then make that list so Arrantly Unbreakfastlike it is Against The Law. Chicken Mayo Tabasco Sandwiches for instance. Or Zigeuner Salat. Or Ice Cream. Or Buffalo Noses On A Stick. Or….. you get the idea.

Whatever the choice it comes under the Heading: Be Nice To Yourself. As such it cannot but guarantee a grin As Wide As A Greek Footballer’s Personal Number Plate.

Whilst you may have been prepared to go along with some of what’s been said so far -if only to see what The Nutter will think of next- you might want to Skip the next three paragraphs because they feature An Unpleasant Personal Habit. No, my dear. Not That One. I mean Smoking.

Before I light up my first filtered roll-up of the day I review the line-up of pre-prepared Bathing Beauties in the tobacco tin. Some are Veritable Bunters; some so spindly they look like Alien High-Jumpers; others so damnably scruffy they cause Tramps to flee in terror; a handful are positively Ivy League. I pick The Best One. When I want another smoke….. I pick The Best One. Und so weiter: I always give myself The Best One. The Point? 

I can only explain it in terms of Folks who save the best bits ’til last when eating a meal. They eat the worst first. Then the next worst. And so on. Get it? Entirely of their own volition they reside in Los Crappos. By extension, this Worldview is the opposite of the brilliantly cunning TV Ad which justifies Outrageous Expenditure with the Tag: Because You’re Worth It!

You see then, my tobacco protocol is just One Application of the Intellectual Cat Jugglery which leaves me content in the knowledge I award myself more Medals than a Megalomaniac Dictator….. Because I’m Worth It! 

Indeed, the foundations of my entire Enchanted Empire Of Rapture are built on Precisely That. I am only -barely?- Human. So it takes a Conscious Effort to avoid being bummed to death by the Triffids Of Negativity. In short: I endeavour not to make a Canute of myself by trying to hold back the Sea Of Big Stuff I Can’t Control.

I aim my Eric Bristow Titanium Dogsbollocks Darts at the Little Stuff. You will notice my tiny tweaks –the sentence doesn’t end there thankfully, I was just pausing to discourage The Cat’s keyboard contributions- my little tweaks have therefore been centred around the Senses of Sound, Smell and Taste. As well as a bit of Good Old Non-Sliced Hippy-Style Perceptual Modification.

My personal Happyworld Vision is actually a version of the ’60s Timothy Leary Mantra: Turn On, Tune In And Drop Out. Without the drugs. And without the dropping out. And without….. er….. actually it’s nothing like it, is it? Forget I mentioned it. You know what I’m trying to say though. 

Whatever, I rather think my daily -mayhap puny- A.M Assaults on Fortress Happiness are infinitely preferable to the Gloom and Doom of Buster Keaton World, where buildings collapse around you and Without Warning one’s Physog is b-flattened by A Grand Piano Falling Out Of The Sky.

Two N.B.s to finish with. (1) Imperial Leather is an Imaginative, Slightly Peculiar Product Of Eccentric Mindset. In other words: It’s British. It really is Quite Special because it is shaped like Two Isosceles Trapezoids Bonded Together By A Blood Oath. What’s More, Compadres: Each individual Soap comes with a label attached to its’ centre; a heraldic escutcheon which suggests it should only be used by European Royalty And Close Relatives Thereof. Remind me to Pad Out An Entire Page Of Contrived Bullshit on the subject when I’ve got a minute.

(2) Ych-y-fi is Welsh. You’ll already have guessed it describes something Unpleasant; Icky. Pronunciation? Ych: Soft “ch” as if you’re clearing your throat to spit out shipbuilding stanchions. Both “y’s” translate as Received Pronunciation English “u’s”. That is: Posh “cluster fluck” rather than the Thicko Northern Vernacular I use. “fi” is “vee.”

Now I’ve taken the trouble to explain it I expect you to bloody well use it. Altogether now: “Ych-y-fi!” Oh Yeah! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you pooh poohed the idea of a one twenty fourth scale hamster gallows because you realised it would not be functional at anything more than one sixty fourth scale.

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (003)

Source: POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (003)

A HISTORY OF HAIR. Or: Most Powerful Creature On The Planet And You Still Can’t Afford Socks That Stay Up?!

Source: A HISTORY OF HAIR. Or: Most Powerful Creature On The Planet And You Still Can’t Afford Socks That Stay Up?!

UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES. Or: How Come The Attic Is Infested With World War One Air Aces?

Source: UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES. Or: How Come The Attic Is Infested With World War One Air Aces?

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (003)

#Humour

TV CONTINUITY ANNOUNCERS are No.3 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

TV Continuity Announcers.

TV Continuity Announcing provides the spoken link between television programmes: A frivolous frilly-knicker endeavour which we would not expect to impact on our consciousness any more than An Ant rustling the Morning ‘Paper at the bottom of the garden.

And yet… Unseen Presenters contrive to Draw Attention To Themselves via Magnificent Parades of Epic wit and wisdom: Easily walking away with multiple Oscars for Aural Pestilence; right up there with Mucous Snorters and Railway Passengers Who Whistle Cretinous Alien Lloyd Webber Show Tunes.

Officially, their main contribution to holding up The Clowntrousers Of Planet Earth’s Complex Ecology is to tell us what TV show immediately follows the one just gone: Immediate and Follows being the Key Words in that sentence. For the secret identity of the next offering is only going to be secret until it begins in a few seconds and it would not have been secret for quite so long if it were not for the Linkman filling those very same seconds unveiling its’ secret identity…

Sometimes of course, TV Continuity Announcers reveal The Next But One Prog. This can be as much as one whole hour away. In The Future. Assuming the Sun hasn’t burnt out before this distant event occurs -reducing audiences to family-sized packs of frozen peas- C.A.s cannot risk the possibility we might forget that Roy is in for a hilarious surprise involving an involuntary breast implant and a bag of frogs. Such thoughtfulness is commendable when you consider one hour is quite sufficient for The Average Human to completely forget which way round they should be sitting in order to view the picture screen.

That is not to say these Voice Artists are any less useful to The World Of Broadcasting than Cardboard Wildebeest. Or nipples on a Honda Civic. Or… you get the idea.

Naturally, these sentiments would be met by Synchronised Eyebrow Dancing at the Networks, where Continuity Announcers are Worshipped as Allstar Turdpolishers. Especially now that Changing The Channel is not the fearful, lung-bursting trek across the living-room carpet it was before Remo Tecontrol gifted us the frights of his labours.

Networks place great store in the Hypnotic Ability of Linkmen to portray insipid soap-opera as Shakespearean splendour. Really? They’ve got more chance of persuading me not to make lewd comments about the Death Valley Décolletage of the leading ladies.

So how much do Networks value their Continuity Announcers? At least as much as Hollywood Stars value their beautiful breasts and hair- when they are in the same room as they are.

TV Companies like to think of their C.A.s as Ambassadors. Although if you meet one, don’t expect their shoulders to be adorned with the flamboyant epaulettes of traditional ambassadors. You’re more likely to see a Soup Stain that’s so old it’s got a Heritage Plaque on it. They help maintain Station Identity. (The Linkmen, that is, not The Soup Stains.) Television Executives will tell you all about Branding in microscopic detail- unless you run away very quickly. Or if you are foolish enough to stick around- unless you fill their mouths with cake fired out of a cannon.

Station Identity is easy to establish if you are Comedy Central, Sandwich World or Jewellery Which Turns Your Skin Green Channel. But for more varied outputs, Continuity Announcers are responsible for establishing a tone: Trendy enough to entice Pimple Chasers; witty enough to win Wallet Wavers;and smart enough to distract Scientists from poking Misterbeanium.

Dave is the perfect example of a TV channel utilizing Linkmen to Borg itself onto the collective chequebooks of advertisers. Their Trail-Dudes use quiet humour and deafening self-deprecation to sell shows like Suits, Mock The Week and Top Gear. (The latter being the British version of Les Singes Sur Les Bicyclettes, Belgian Viewers.)

Dave’s Linkydinks do their jobs so well you very nearly fail to notice their schedule’s got more reruns than the International Stuttering League. If Dave were an animal, it would not be a Peacock: Coyly revealing its’ plumage to attract suitors. No sirree Bob. It would be an amorous Baboon: Demanding attention via enthusiastic displays of its’ buttocks.

S4C of Wales is the perfect example of a TV channel utilizing linkmen to Barge its’ way to the bottom of the ratings. Their Continuity Announcers sound like Desperate Housefatties who think no-one will like them unless they are Oppressively Nice to everyone. Sadly, however hard they try, the Viewerometer still registers at the end where you’d find Celebrity Floorboards and Here’s Some Mud!

For instance: Flagship Football Show Sgorio has been officially measured as having zero viewers on more than one occasion. Although, to be fair, survey figures did not include responses from sentients lacking the power of speech, such as Dogs, Cats and Herds of Moocows gathered outside the local telly shop.

Still, regardless of the Cornycopia of rubbish they are often directed to address, you gotta say TVCA’s really don’t help their own cause. Few seem to perform the task as an end in  itself. Rather, they regard it as the first step on The Imitation Leather Staircase To Stardom: Their big chance to impress Executives with a Talent which is at least the equal of any Williams; be it Robin, Andy, Tennessee or Barrow-In-Furness.

And therein lies the single, most annoying pokeyourselfintheeyewithamodeloftheeiffeltower characteristic of the Continuity Announcer: They can’t bloody well resist joining in. When God first manufactured this Sub-Species Of Gibbon, did He imagine their main use for His wonderful gift of opposable thumbs would be Pointing At Themselves?

Is it not enough for them to provide Simple Links? No. They inadvertently provide another Link: The missing one between Modern Man and The Ape. This is achieved via Self-Penned Non-Alcohol Versions of the show to follow. For example: If a Comedy is up next, you can wager your Ol’ Grampy’s Collection Of Rare Hamsternoses, they will make some lame reference to one of its’ Catchphrases- usually wearing the backside out of words like zany and antics on the way. 

But proximity to Talent does not make you Talented. The Raggety Pants of the C.A. do not fill with Reflected Glory. Indeed, in my experience, the only time Closeness To Someone Famous imbues you with any of their characteristics is if they stink like a dungheap.

The Language Of Linkmen is supposed to be bare summation: Drawing attention to Unmissable Delights. Disappointing, then, when it turns out to be masturbation: Drawing attention to why The Introducer is Introducing rather than appearing in Aforementioned Unmissable Delights.

Their vocabulary of superlatives is unmatched in the Animal Kingdom. Aside maybe from Rabid Holiday Reps and Chart DJ’s With Fleas. Incredible, Brilliant or Fantastic can be loosely translated as Okay if you’re drunk or your head is stuck in a vice. Any description of an upcoming show featuring the words Good, Great, Fun and Family is code for Fatuous Shite, Kill Yourself.

Dramatic = Expensive Contrivance With Big Hats. Heart-Warming = Cut-Price Contrivance With Mud Instead Of Hats. Hilarious: No it isn’t. Gripping: Ditto. Turbulent, Explosive and Unsettling: See above, and/or visit medicine cupboard.

I realise it would be naïve to expect honesty. There are Advertisers to win, Licence Fees to justify. BBC Linkman Rob Durham was sacked for trailing East Enders as “Crap” and Holby City as “Cockney rhyming slang.” But whatever you think of his –frankly hilarious- appraisal, it’s still an appraisal. And as such it is as welcome as An Underpants Visit from the Moskau State Flea Circus.

We really do not need the -positive or negative- opinions of Unfathomably Exciteable Sub-Humans to inform our viewing pleasure. We can certainly do without the assumption that we are so Unutterably Thick, all plot-lines require advance explanation. And we sure as hell can do without idiotic Linkmen providing a Moral Compass for the Level Of Offence we may or may not take at pending content.

Personally speaking, I am offended by Continuity Announcers. So much so, I would suggest a little intrusion into their Ultra-PC-World. Namely: “Some viewers may be offended by this network’s assumption you are affiliated to E5 Social Groups such as Criminally Stupid Teenagers and Bags Of Stinking Potatoes.” If they truly cannot resist the urge to Warn us about Something/Anything, howsabout letting us know when a Vintage Sitcom has been ruined with the modern addition of a load of bollocks Laughter Track?

With such evidence stacked up higher than Imelda Marcos’s Shoe Cupboard, it seems to me the most common reaction to the Whistleheaded Prejudgements of Programme Presenters will continue to be: “I’ll be the judge of that” or “Hang on while I go fetch my gun.”

As the great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once said as he pondered how much The Universe would benefit from Linkmen being converted into Grit For Our Winter Roads: “TV Continuity Announcers?! Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you plug your ears and go mnyaah-mnyaah mnyaah-mnyaah mnyaah-mnyaah within a millisecond of a linkman opening his snapper.

 

A HISTORY OF HAIR. Or: Most Powerful Creature On The Planet And You Still Can’t Afford Socks That Stay Up?!

#Humor #Comedy #Humour

A History Of Hair. Why does it exist? What is it for? And how the hell do you pull out the tiny grey ones at the back?

As a Gift From God, Hair ranks Equal 94th with Kitform Furniture, LBW Cricket Laws and The Contents Of Noses. You’re born with very little of it; looks ridiculous when you’ve got it; falls out when you most need it. And when you don’t need it at all? It flees out of your nose and ears like there was a fire inside your head.

Expanding upon that: It is in the Best Interests of every new-born baby to distract attention from his prunefaced physog by flourishing as attractive a head of hair as possible- in order that the Woman In His Life does not decline to place boobies in his mouth.

As one attains Manhood, a Dude Hairstyle retains its’ importance for much the same reason. Coiffeure Maintenance is effected in the bathroom, where fearsome Weapons Of Man Construction are employed in the unequal struggle with Haircules- The God Of Squiggly Barnets.

Demonic Youth is tooled up with Pavarotti Power Dryers, Yeti Hairbrushes and Agent Orange Hairsprays. It can take two hours of Follicular Armageddon to achieve the desired Just Got Out Of Bed Elegance. But even this Scorched Ear Policy is no defence against the spiteful gust of wind which transforms you from James Dean to Don King- precisely one second after you ring your girlie’s doorbell.

Coming off a second divorce Experienced Man reckons he’s got women sussed. So it’s a pity Missie Amidships gets an acid flashback the moment he leans forward for that first kiss, because the Disco lights are grooving all over his bald patch.

The cruellest irony of all comes when you are Least Interested In Sex. No, not during the World Wrestling Big Tickle between The Undertaker and The Cricket Umpire. I mean when you’re six feet under in a wooden box. For what does Hair do then? It keeps on bloody growing, that’s what!

The original Function Of Hair was to keep The Proprietor warm. The follicles hung down way below the bollicles: Rendering massive savings in Pre-Football Replica Kit from the likes of New York Neanderthals and the Indianapolis Dolts.

But Mankind soon discovered that whilst the warmth provided by Hair was entirely desirable, tripping over it into Giant Reptile Turds tended to detract from the quality of life. One of Man’s earliest inventions was thus encouraged: The Haircutting Instrument.

Deductions gleaned from archaeological digs indicate this took the form of a Slightly Less Than Blunt Boulder in each hand of the Hairstylist. It appears the invention was less than an unqualified success, as many Longhairs still preferred a lasting relationship with a steaming pile of Lizardshite to having their skulls fractured. Except Heavy Metal Fans- who showed no preference.

The most efficient way to get a haircut in this era was to bend your head towards a Bigbuggerasaurus and insult it with something like: “Most powerful creature on the planet and you still can’t afford socks that stay up?!”

Of course, as Man evolved, Hairanxiety shifted from how to get it cut, to how do you prevent it running away to join the circus? Early Hair Restoring Treatment consisted of directions to the Nearest Field, where the Patient was advised to eat the first thing he saw. As this usually tasted like shit he thought it must be doing him some good.

Permanent Hairstyles -as now achieved by Pro-Git! Stinker-Gel- were later designed from Animal Hair: A difficult process, but not as difficult as convincing onlookers the Donor was dead.

Perfumed Wigs were all the rage in the Middle Ages and Renaissance years. Perfumed because at a time when even The King was unlikely to bathe more than once a month, Hygiene United were still in the South-East Counties League and not fighting very hard for promotion.

In Modern Times, toupees and lotions are coveted by many a Baldyman who will do anything to keep his Hair on: Including rubbing in liquids whose only genuine property is as a sexual attractant to dogs. But is it worth spending more than the Gross National Product of Tuvalu on a Hair lotion which does little more than transform the wearer into a Walking Civet Fart? I don’t know. Ask Elton John.

Now that Homo Soppyens has reached the Evolutionary Peak which enables him to shelter from the elements in Designer-Vomit Track Suits and Hats With Plastic Hammers Sticking Out Of The Side, Hair is very much a superfluous requirement.

Its’ only obvious purpose these days is to frame the head as flatteringly as possible: Not an easy proposition in the current Cretorama of Teenage Fashion. Indeed, this E5 Social Group appear to favour Making Statements with their Hair. Personally, I have reservations about the Job Market Value of anyone who makes statements with their Hair. Especially as most of the follicular discourse appears to be along the lines of: “I am a tit.”

Anyway, imparting information via The Medium Of The Barnet does not strike me as effective a means of communication as a letter to The Times, for example. In truth, anyone hoping to convey any kind of message with their Hair is even further down the Darwinian Scale then The Ant, whose Language Of Smell says: “I am dead” or “Honestly, that was The Dog” quicker than any Floppy fringe ever could.

Middle-aged Hell’s Angels still wear their Hair long in an effort to foster their Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die image: As precarious and optimistic grip of reality as you will ever witness.

The Future? By the year 30015 we will have evolved into a singularly ugly, hairless species. Barbershops will still exist, but only so we have somewhere to go when we feel the urge to be trapped in a swivel chair while the Owner bombards us with his ridiculous opinions.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you would happily shave off all your hair if only your ears were not so vast folks hang their coats on them when you stand still for more than one second.

UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES. Or: How Come The Attic Is Infested With World War One Air Aces?

Centuries of Exploration have unravelled the Stringvested Mysteries of Land, Sea and Space: As with ever increasing Scientific Ingenuity we successfully deposit choccy wrappers and tinnies in locations Our Forefathers could only dream of.

And yet… Unexplained Mysteries still abound with bounding boundiness. What follows is the result of several thousand seconds of Careless Research and Investigation into the Narcotic Potential of Old Socks.

Black Holes.

Scientists theorize the Black Hole is the only Force in the Universe capable of attracting more material into a space the size of a wallet than the fellows who make documentaries about them.

I recall one where the narrator asked A Record Number Of Questions: What are Black Holes? Do they exist? What happens to all the squashed post codes? Can you entice relatives with unpleasant personal habits into them? Und so weiter. Unfortunately, the only Indisputable Truth to emerge from this hour of Powerdozy Posits was that Black Holes were the blackest things he knew. A fact only his Bank Manager would contest.

A Black Hole appears to suck in all nearby matter without actually doing anything useful with it- rather in the manner of the colossal Tottenham Hadrons Playerhoover. By its’ very nature the Black Hole constantly increases in size. So one day, even such Gargantuan Terrestrials as Arnold Schwarzenigger could discover its’ immutable force is not only enough to delete his ‘phone messages, but could also reduce him to the size of an Atom: A profoundly depressing thought for his Tailor.

Of course, no member of Homo Nosiens has ever ventured close enough to a Black Hole to test its’ incredible powers of disarrangement. Although Bob Geldof looks like he might have.

The Bermuda Triangle.

We are led to believe whole fleets of ships, aircraft and supermarket trolleys have vanished into the depths of this fabled area of mystery. It is said the powerful pantomime farces of The Bermuda Triangle may have also dragged down Missing Lord Lucan. And innumerable pairs of Madonna’s knickers.

The Bermuda Triangle is currently the subject of several Scientific and Empirical Studies. Keen to view the results, I personally subscribe to a number of Respected, High-Brow publications, including Scientific Armenian, Newd Scientist and National Geoboobies.

Research is still at the early Thinking About Painting The Fence stage. But so far, the Considered Opinion of the Scientific Community is -quote- The Bermuda Triangle Is A Load Of Old Bollocks Mate.

And where I come from, placing landing lights in the sea is an offence, buddy. The Bermudan Tourist Board has a lot to answer for. I do think, however, they should merchandise T-Shirts stating The Bermuda Triangle is right here… honest. Thus enabling wearers to swim in the world’s most dangerous waters- because not even a Shark would swallow that.

The Golden Fleece.

A rather smelly old goat skin, if truth be told. Yet it was much sought after by Heroes Of The Ancient World, such as Jason And The Argonauts, Gerry And The Caterer’s Assistants and The Supremes.

You’d think Mythological Demi-Gods would have better things to do between Signing-On days than chasing half-way around The Known World to get their hands on something more likely to give them Fleas than Untold Riches. Not so. They sailed violent seas, travelled inhospitable lands and suffered sub-standard room-service, during their battles with Multi-Headed Quango’s and Half-Human Reality Show Contestants. For what?

Frankly, if The Golden Fleece was dropped through my postbox I’d give it to The Dog to play with. And seeing as The Prize cost the modern equivalent of £4,000,000 in travel costs and medical bills, Jason And The Argonauts would have been better off cruising London’s King’s Road. Here, an equally chic jacket could have been acquired for a quarter of the price and the number of crew members hacked to death by Skinheads would have been halved.

The Loch Ness Monster.

Any antiquarian aquatic creature which contrives to photograph as a set of Discarded Inner-Tubes must be authentic. Although the Tartan Waistcoat and Tam O’Shanter it is depicted as wearing in Tourist Brochures would probably not survive deep-water pressure.

Poltergeists.

The name comes from Alt Deutsche for: Ghosts Of Folks Who Were Burned At The Stake Because They Dressed Like That Bloody Golfer Ian Poulter. These supposed Unearthly Spirits derive Unnatural Pleasure from smashing household crockery and spreading marmalade in your underpants. Though this could also be attributed to Angry Ex-Girlfriends.

There are many ways of getting rid of Poltergeists. Most of which are worse than having Poltergeists. Plus of course, many Local Councils classify them along with Bats and Owls and will not hesitate to curse you with a Preservation Order, the instant they discover your attic is infested with World War One Air Aces.

Exorcism is an effective method of Poltergeist removal. Especially if accompanied by musics from a Boyband Christmas DVD. It is also possible to nudge the Spirit aside by bulldozing the house to rubble and setting fire to the remains. Although once again, Permission will probably  be required from the Local Council.

Actually, the best way to get rid of a Poltergeist is to pretend you like it. Give it an adorable name like Chirpy and form a Ghost Club. Then pack it with the Spectacularly Boring People most likely to belabour the Entity with enquiries after the health of Deceased Social Lepers.

Poltergeists are often blamed for rearranging the roof beams so the house collapses when the Fridge Light comes on. But this can also be marked down to another Creature Of Fancy:

The Cowboy Builder.

This Rapscallion undoubtedly does exist. Although he does appear to possess the ability to Dematerialise once cash has changed hands. The mark of The Cowboy Builder’s Labour is its’ similarity to that of The Mongol Hordes, who were also known for their dislike of post-dated cheques.

The Cowboy Builder is best known for his capacity to fashion Conservatories and Entire Motorway Systems from materials normally donated to Blue Peter TV Charity Appeals, such as Buttons, Postage Stamps and Nuclear Waste.

The Abominable Snowman.

Legendary inhabitant of the Himalayan Peak District. Smelly, lazy and covered in Pot Noodle Detritus, this sub-human creature may well be a survivor of an early genus of Student-Hunter-Gatherer.

The Abominable Snowman avoids all contact with visitors as he regards Tourism as Elitist. Not that even the biggest Buff would engage in a holiday that promised at best: Frostbite, Snowblindness and the Stinking Embrace Of A Twenty Stone Wretch. Really, the Abominable Snowman is such a complete and utter waste of atoms, you’d have to be a Socialist just to allow him  to exist.

The Shroud Of Turin.

Said to be the material wrapped around the body of Jesus Christ following His temporary failure to renew His guarantee. Its’ utilization by Acolytes as an Overnight Parking Spot For Chewing Gum is the likely reason for His hasty relocation.

Some experts believe The Shroud Of Turin was actually A Comfy Dog Blanket used to cover Our Lord’s faithful hound, Elvis.

Scientific studies have revealed traces of Radioactivity in The Shroud, which if authenticated will prove Jesus did indeed Walk Upon Our Green And Pleasant Land. Probably in the Sellafield area.

Cat Hair.

There is no doubt Cat Hair exists. But one of the Great Mysteries Of All Time is: How the buggery do you get the stuff off your gear?

The Planet’s Puniest Telescope Which Fell Out Of A Cornflakes Packet is all you need to spot a Cat Owner. They are the ones sheathed in a carpet of tiny hairs. Thus bedecked they dare not appear in public wearing anything but pastel shades. Even at Funerals. And Rugby Hakas.

The thing is: Cat Hair is unmatched in The Known Universe for Immovability. You can employ any number of Desperate Dan Stubblebrushes and Jet Engined Clothes Cleaning Devices, but nothing gets it off your kit. Your favourite black blazer –the cool one with the white piping which allows you to command the Sixth Fleet and run away from balloons like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner- may appear to be free of Cat Hair after an hour’s attention.

But… One Second after you Swagger into a Public Gathering, hundreds of Feline Follicles innocently Reappear- whistling like butter wouldn’t melt in their tiny grappling irons. Resistance Is Futile. Not even The Borg Collective can assimilate Cat Hair.

The Police Complaints Committee.

A Fabled Beast which pretends to come to the aid of those attacked by its’ siblings. Despite its’ many arms and legs it is a very slow mover and is held to be unique in the Animal Kingdom in that its’ brain is outside its’ body.

Few have met with the creature, but reports indicate an unusual reaction to those it regards as a threat. For instead of displaying the aggressive behaviour of one with such powerful protective instincts, it affects deafness and blindness until the Complainant either dies of old age or goes away.

Legend has it that contact with a Police Complaints Committee renders one ten times as likely to commit Traffic Offences……

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you agree george bush junior should be added  to the carvings of great american presidents on mount rushmore…  hanging out of abraham lincoln’s nose.

HOW TO COMBAT STRESS. Or: Help! I’m Trapped Inside A Trombone! I’m Flatulent! And It’s Avalanche Season!

#humour

Your muscles are so tense, your shirt buttons shoot about like bullets from a Gatling Gun. Your nails are so bitten down, your wrists are starting to fray. And as for your eyes: They dart around like a Janitor with a fire-cracker in his Rear Corridor.

So what’s up doc? Stress is what’s up. Lip Dryin’, Thirst Makin’, Hand Shakin’, Neck Achin’, Hair Greyin’, Buttock Quakin’, Nose Bleedin’, Willy Coyote Wiltin’………. Stresssss*.

And don’t give me all that Clint Eastwood Man With No Name-Tag In His Pants Foucault Faux-Cool. Every Bod Gets Stress.

Everyone: A Satanist worrying where his next goat is coming from; a car salesman with the BMW Franchise for Antartica; a middle-aged executive searching for a brassiere strong enough to prevent her breasts fleeing her body.

And we’re not just talking about Human Boings either. I recall a TV Documentary about a Giant Lizard who was Having A Bad Day. Reptiles manifest Stress in such subtle form it is almost impossible to detect. Except when they’ve just levelled six square miles of Japanese Conurbation.

Oh, and while I remember: Go back to paragraph two for a second. The reason for the * was to remind me to apologise to A Certain Cola Manufacturer for my approximation of their advertisement………. for a product which will always Qualify For Europe but never win anything more than the League Cup for Stuff You Drink When You’ve Run Out Of Ditch Water and Cacti.

So what causes Stress? I wanted an Expert View, so I coaxed a Smelly-Cardiganed Sociologist out of its’ burrow with A Lovely Cake and A Brightly Painted Bomb.

It seems the influence of Living Conditions on Stress Levels is of Scoobysnack proportions. This is certainly true for any Flatulent Alpine Dweller Trapped Inside A Trombone During Avalanche Season.

It’s got to be worse, mind, if you live next to one of those elevated motorway interchanges such as Spaghetti Junction or the Sinkpube Intersection. Many Brummie Householders are so afeard of International Tour Buses breaching their walls they traverse entire lifetimes without changing their clothes.

After all, who wants to be caught with their Chairman Mao Centenary Speedo’s around their ankles? And what if they haven’t done the dusting? Or are unable to translate the Spanish for: “I wish to buy some of your Famous English Sausages Of Death.” And: “L.B.W. My Foot!” ?

The possibility of impromptu acquaintance with dozens of Foreign Strangers also means Tom Jones Impressions in front of the mirror are out of the question. As is any form of sexual activity involving items you’d normally associate with Philately.

Now we come to a phrase which brings a quiver to Cakeholes across the Animal Kingdom. If you’ve ever witnessed a Stampede Of Buffaloes you won’t be surprised to learn they are not only caused by Lions Whispering To Restaurant Staff. Nosirree Bob. The Mad Panic is just as likely to result from a Lady Buffalo announcing she wants to “Talk About Relationships.”

For this is indeed an area freight weighted with Stress. Even if one’s Relationship is characterised as A Feast Of Fine Cuisine, it can easily head for the Bin marked Offal if Sex starts to take second place to re-runs of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Fatgit On The Roof and Paint Your Baboons.

And you’re really in trouble if your Partner rejects Amorous Advances in favour of Checking The Cat For Fleas.

The Strain of modern life also shakes its’ bedandruffed head over the Work Arena. How, for example, would you like to be the Armless Dutchman responsible for plugging holes in the Dykes of his Homeland?

And what about the team of Young Ladies who test elastic for Bungee Manufacturers? They have to test the Bungee for real. They certainly can’t get away with measurements based on its’ Ability To Stop Their Knickers Falling Down.

My own experience of Workplace Stress is limited as I haven’t had a Proper Job since I left Hospital. No, I wasn’t ill…..  I was born. Ho ho.

At which point I do not doubt you are able to visualise a veritable trouserful of additional Stresses of your own. Me? I could try thinking up some more, but it’s stressing me out, dude.

Plus, I think it’s high time we locked the Harbinger Of Doom in the Wardrobe and brought out The Dancing Mice. For you may well ask: If Stress is the Problem, what is the Solution, Oh Wise One?

You’ll be gratified to hear that “Sex” is one answer. In fact, whatever the question, I can see no reason why “Sex” should not be the answer. And that includes questions like: What is the capital of Bolivia? and Does this ‘Phone Package come with any extras?

So Get Sexy mon amis! Dress up in a Seal Outfit and excite your partner with some Circus-Style Ball-Juggling. And –take my word for it- her ecstacy will hit new heights if you can remember the words to any of The Cliff Richard Pistol’s Eurovision numbers. But a word of warning: You’d be better off looking for other ways of relieving Stress if The Other Half insists upon waving Scorecards after each performance.

And no, I have not forgotten Sedentary Brethren who Baulk at such strenuous utilization of their… er… Baulks. I offer these Fellows a Stress Release which requires nothing more than The Ability To Smell. By which I mean –of course- Aroma Therapy. Not what you were thinking.

So how does Aroma Therapy grab you? And don’t say it grabs you by the part of the brain responsible for Falling Asleep On The Bus. Aroma Therapy need not be boring. Just pop along to a New Age Herbalist and politely enquire if she’s got anything you can sniff. You’ll be surprised at her response.

There’s stuff in Them There Dungeons that removes Tension in less time than it takes Cher to get dressed in the morning. Not that Aroma Therapy is for everyone. I concede it is not suitable for folks who judge Continuous Nostril Flaring to be A Bridge Too Far in terms of Athletic Endurance.

Then again, if you really want to reset your personal Stressometer below levels which predict Imminent Spontaneous Combustion, you can’t go wrong with Listening To Soothing Music. Whale Song is v. popular. As are The Songs Of Wales.

I suppose the sounds of the former are not music in the true sense of the word- unless your definition of music encompasses Underwater Tourettes. The Songs Of Wales, on the other hand, are relentlessly musical and are brimful of poetic commentary on Mountains, Average Rainfall and Heroic Attempts To Eat Disgusting Sandwiches Made From The Lava Of Local Volcanoes. So whilst sleep swiftly follows….. you may never wake again.

For my own part, I regard Athletics as the most effective method of Stress reduction. Which is why I watch so much of it on TV.

Really though, Stress is just Mother Nature’s way of saying: “Getchyer nose out of My décolletage and start using My Gifts for something other than making the fridge light come on.”

When the Ogre Of Stress appears, I find it helps to face up to its’ fearsome foot odour and sniff out The Problem which lies within its’ Socks Of Terror. Thus, I carefully inspect el gigantesco problema and endeavour to Sherlock a solution for Each Possible Outcome.

For example -and I’ll use Ogres here seeing as they’ve already made a Cameo Appearance- what would be the Worst Outcome of a visit from one of these Noisy Old Pantomime Wrestlers? Death By Having Your Head Sat On? Maybe. But the idea is not so Stressful when you accept that like A Realistic Grappling Match, the Grim Reaper comes but once in a Lifetime. Then again, what if it is possible to divert the attentions of the Ogre with the aid of a Length Of Drainpipe or a Finely Crafted Cornish Pastie?

The Best Outcome of a visit from an Ogre? That would be Anything You Can Think Of That Is Nice- accompanied by a Scottish Pipe Band, Tickertape Parade and the Presentation of a tailor-made Dog-Tooth Jacket. Once we’ve then considered all the permutations that lie between Best and Worst, Stress shrinks away like a Wooly Monster In A Boilwash.

After all, Stress is merely a symptom of an Unattended Problem and -you won’t know this unless you studied Classics- the word problem itself comes from the Greek Root for Bullies Who Smirk Until Their Backsides Are Blasted By Buckshot.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you’ve eaten laver bread and not turned into the hulk.

THE PAUL GRIN HOPI BUCKET LIST. No.2: Challenge Someone To A Duel.

#humour

Challenge Someone To A Duel is No.2 in a series of Things To Do before St. Peter conducts the Pearly Gates Strip Search. In itself, Bucket List is a Noisy kangaroo in a dustbin Euphemism. Coming as it does from the Idiom: To Kick The Bucket. As in: To Die; To Pass Away; To Meet Your Maker; To Meet A Number Nine Bus Whose Brakes Have Been Replaced By Lavender Petals And Dogfarts.

The paul grin hopi bucket list is a fearless and foolhardy compilation of perfumed rubbish which fell out of my head when I wasn’t looking. As such, these undertakings should only be undertaken in the presence of an undertaker.

Talking to people I know, which when I think about it almost exclusively encompasses the Poets, Pro Bono Messiahs and Saturday Night Fever Cricket Umpires of The Tourettes And Sniper Public House, it seems that what appears on lists of Things To Do Before You Die is partly decided by how many Coins Of The Realm one can spare from one’s Anti-Mugging Sock.

Exempli Gratia: Buy The Moon (V. V. Wealthy); Trip To The Moon (V. Wealthy); Moon At The Moon (Not Wealthy); Moo At The Moon (Unhealthy).

Ask yourself the same question: What comes to mind when you contemplate a Bucket List? Writing an autobiography for each of your multiple personalities, perhaps? Maybe something more realistic like re-enacting the fiendish experiments of Dr. Frankenstein in the Garden Shed?

Your answer is of course, Very Revealing. One’s choice of To Do’s say a lot about a person- and often leads to them being chased by Mobs Of Angry Villagers With Burning Torches And Lapsed Dental Plans.

Anyway, that’s enough about You and your Petrified Turds Of Intellect. In other words: Memememememememememe.

When I considered my own Bucket List, one of the first things which exploded from my mind -and it exploded like a Leper On A Rollercoaster- was How Much Fun it would be to Challenge someone to a Good Old Fashioned Duel.

I say Good Old Fashioned Duel, as opposed to Modern Methods where the query “You lookin’ at me?” is followed by the delivery of Bony Knuckles, Broken Glass or Faulty Water Faucet. Having said that, 21st Century Youth appear to have discarded even these basic forms of Revenge in favour of Vendetta In Absentia. As in: Is-Is-Is Isn’t-Isn’t-Isn’t Twatterati keyboard battles.

Oh for Bygone Days! When a perceived sleight was countered by a slap across the cheek with a Beautifully Crafted Leather Gauntlet and the words -preferably in a French Accent- “Yeuh ‘av besmieutched ze ‘onour of ma chaffinch, monsieur! Ah challench yeuh teuh a deuhell!”

The Code Duello has been around since the day the Intellect of Stone Age Man first rose above Flock Wallpaper. This enabled a Caveman to Take Offence at Rivals standing suspiciously close to his Collection Of Classic Twigs. Although in those days -in the absence of Gloves- a Challenge was informed with the strike of a Wet Fish or rolled-up copy of the Sunday Times Filthy Loincloth Supplement.

As for Weapons: I don’t suppose Early Duellists could do much more than brandish whatever Sharp Objects came to hand. As long as those Sharp Objects were not still attached to The Original Owners- and I’m thinking about Teeth, Toenails and Giant Lizard Bogies here.

Personally speaking, I would feel as much concern for my Opponent’s choice of Weapon as I would for their choice of Moustache Wax. At least I would if I were allowed to arm myself with a Grand Piano. Not the most conventional Duelling Weapon, I’ll grant you. But it definitely does the trick if you drop it from a great height. Even better if you add to the weight by tying Elton John to the keyboard.

Unfortunately, utilizing a Grand Piano contravenes the same Code Of Conduct which disallows a Duellist from arriving at the field of honour with his head popping out of a Panzer Tank….. or a Hotdog Van.

My own thoughts therefore drift towards the Swords and Pistols of the Musketeer films. Although it should be said that the historical accuracy of Alexandre Dumas’s novels was better portrayed in The Two Mouseketeers of Tom And Jerry.

But hold fast mon petite boutons du ventre. Before rushing to the fridge to remove the Cheese, Pineapple Chunks and Badger Ventricles from our épées, maybe we should think this idea through. For technically speaking a Duel is a Fight To The Death. So unless you are an Accomplished Swordsman, it might be wise to adapt some of the regulations from The Pre-Nuptial Agreement.

That is: As with debates with one’s spouse, Weapons should be limited to items which Go Soggy In Water. Baguettes, for instance. Or Cardboard Pantalons. Or Postage Stamps. Or….. you get the gist.

At this point, I would like to suggest a way to avoid the Post-Duel Career of Long John Silver Impersonator. You see, I’m not sure it’s really necessary to choose an Opponent on the basis of Personal Antagonism/Hygiene/Appearances On Countdown. Unless you have the Aforementioned Grand Piano to hand.

I believe we can Tick the Challenge Someone To A Duel Bucket List Box without placing unnecessary strain on either the National Health Service or our Favourite Ridiculous Golf Pants. To this end I would recommend the choice of Opposing Duellist comes from a list of Folks Who Wouldn’t Run You Through Given The Smallest Excuse. You are also more likely to survive a Duel if you owe your opponent money; or if he fancies your sister; or remembers it’s Your Round Next.

With all these affairs in order the only thing left to consider is Duelling Attire. Sellotaping pillows to your body protects against Rapier Thrusts but will upset any Natural Balance which has survived the imbibement of more than six pints of beer.

The Classic Duellist of course sports the Cavalier hat, cloak and knee-boots of The Renaissance Era. Failing that, there’s nothing wrong with searching the attic for all that ’70s Disco Pimp kit which you pretended to throw away.

At which point all I have left to say is: Touché Monsieur Pussycat!

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if the last time you brandished anything it was a brandysnap.

 

THE PAUL GRIN HOPI BUCKET LIST. No.1: Wear All Your Clothes At The Same Time.

#humour

Wear All Your Clothes At The Same Time is No.1 in a series of Things To Do before St. Peter conducts the Pearly Gates Strip-Search. In itself, Bucket List is a beautiful baboon in a bananashop Euphemism. Coming as it does from the idiom: To Kick The Bucket. That is: To Die; To Expire; To Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil; To Visit WaterWorld And Trip Into The Jaws Of That Sneaky Whale Who Cracks On He’s A Vegetarian.

The paul grin hopi bucket list is a fearless and foolhardy compilation of perfumed rubbish which fell out of my head when I wasn’t looking. As such, these undertakings should only be undertaken in the presence of an undertaker.

Talking to people I know, which when I think about it almost exclusively encompasses the Pranksters, Tall-Story Tellers and Part-Time Pirates of The Farty Sniper Public House, it seems that what appears on lists of Things To Do Before You Die is partly decided by how far along The Gangplank Of Life you have edged.

Exempli Gratia: Magic Mount Everest into a giant ice-cream and eat it (age 5); Climb Mount Everest (age 25); Visit Mount Everest (age 45); Find a book with pictures of Mount Everest in (age 65); “Mount who? I’d rather have a cooked dinner,” (age 85.)

Ask yourself the same question: What comes to mind when you contemplate a Bucket List? Superhuman carnality featuring Film Stars and/or Quantity Surveying Equipment? Olympian Feats involving fights, fetes and feets? Maybe you’d opt for something more realistic. Reading the complete works of Shakespeare, for instance. Or utilizing same to dust atop cumulo nimbus kitchen cupboards.

Your answer is of course, Very Revealing. A To Do Ledger says a lot about a person- and often simultaneously removes them from Everyone Else’s Christmas Card List.

Anyway, that’s enough about You and your Personal Universe Of Filth And Degradation. In other words: mememememememememememememememememe.

When I considered my own Bucket List, one thing immediately leapt to mind -and it leapt like A Panther Who’d Spotted A Fat Gazelle Engrossed In The Times Crossword: Wearing All My Clothes At The Same Time. Given the Dangers inherent in such an undertaking, this choice was quite unexpected. I actually surprised myself more than the first time I played Solo Hide-And Seek.

Wearing All My Clothes At The Same Time- Dangerous??? Oh yes indeed. The sharp starched corners of Wingtip Collars cause twice as many deaths per annum as Being Squashed By Giant Gorillas Falling Off Skyscrapers. And as for the Perils Of Flared Trousers: Who knows how many Salvation Army Assassins lie plotting and knitting in those voluminous folds?

Also: Don’t start with Gloves. Wearing All One’s Clothes At The Same Time is a tough enough assignment without reducing Manual Dexterity to the level of a Sexually Frustrated Astronaut. And forget Shoes. As for Hats: Irrelevant. No human who has managed to survive outside the walls of Penal or Mental Institutions for any length of time owns more than three nowadays.

I began The Quest by easing on my Imperial Museum Collection of Socks whose Siblings had either disintegrated or Ran Away To Join The Circus. Note: Leave Musical Socks until last, unless you want to listen to obscene versions of bloody Jingle Bells all day.

Next stop: Underpants City. Note: Go to the bathroom before you start slipping on your ferret ferries. But don’t panic if you don’t. Actually, yes….. Panic. Panic! Panic! Panic! I stopped at thirty pairs so I could get my trousers on… not the first time I’ve uttered that sentence.

Trousers are more troublesome. Which, by way of digression, is the Title of a Top Ten Pop Toon waiting to happen. Troublesome? Yup. Especially the ones fashioned from Polygelignite fabrics. I managed to shoehorn ten sets of Strides on. Pretty damn close to the Outer Limits Of Human Achievement, I’d say.

As for Shirts: When I got to my thirtieth Acid Flashback Hawaiian ensemble I began to appreciate why The Hulk was always such a Bad Tempered Bugger.

And then the doorbell clanged. The Punk Version of “Walk On By” if you’re interested. But I’ll never know who it was. In an Alternative Universe I answered the door and met the Future Mother Of My Children. Or maybe The Cat had decided to let me know she was Officially extending Dinner Time to Whenever I Feel Like It, Dude. Or maybe I’d been Specially Selected To Spend My Entire Savings On Fatuous Shite. Or….. you get the idea.

In This Universe I did not answer because I couldn’t. I had transformed into a Planetoid Of Cotton And Acrylics and was wedged halfway down the stairs.

If truth be told, my ambition to Wear All My Clothes At The Same Time was doomed  from the outset. I struggled like a Whale In A Washing Machine. But It really was impossible to get everything on. Really. Try it yourselves Puny Earthlings.

Then again, that places me in Good Company. Hercules the Legendary Colossus of Ancient Times successfully biffed Lions, Hydra and Teenagers Who Cheeked Him, during his Thirteen Labours. If you know your Greek Miffs you’ll recall he also cleared up The Stables Of Perpetual Poop. But not even the Son Of Zeus could Wear All His Clothes At The Same Time. Hence history records The Twelve Labours Of Hercules. 

If only I’d been born a Medieval Peasant, when Wearing All Your Clothes At The Same Time was pretty much what one did on a daily basis.

So in the manner of Apollo 13 I was forced to abort my Mission. But not before one last attempt to reach for the stars. I amended the plan to Wearing All My Ties, Shoplifting Waistcoats And Superhero Tribute T-Shirts At The Same Time.

I’ll concede that’s not what I’d originally intended, but Failure? Technically: Yes. Yet I did not allow my thoughts to descend into Despondent Troughs Of Disc-Jockey Drool. For the ill-fated exercise afforded me a glimpse into a Strange And Wonderful World which hitherto had been as hidden from my purview as The Fabled Powder Rooms of The Farty Sniper Public House.

That is: I discovered that wearing Vast Amounts of clothing allowed me to Roll Around The Living Room Like A Giant Dungball. Oh yes! How did that one slip through the net when I was compiling my list?

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you’ve ever trampolined into a drainage ditch whilst reaching for the stars.

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (004)

pst1308paulgrinhopi

#Humor #Comedy #Humour #Whistling

WHISTLING is No.4 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Whistling.

Whistling is the sound produced when Humans forcibly expel air -and kitform foodstuffs- through funnelled labia oris. Aperture modification modulates tone and key to replicate noises made in the Animal Kingdom by Birdlife, Punctured Whales and Giant Apes Falling Off The Empire State Building.

Whistling is the sound produced when Humans wish to falsely advertise their demeanour as Cheerful Chirpy Chimney Sweeps who are At One With…

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THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT. Or: Why Folks Follow You Around With Loaves Of Bread And Waffles.

pst1308paulgrinhopi

#Humour

Things To Worry About: Essential to someone like myself, having never yet failed to fill in a Job Application without listing “Living In Fear” as my Previous Occupation. If there’s a box for Hobbies And Leisure Interests, I put it in there too.

Not that I’m Worried about Being A Worrier. I find it comforting. It keeps you on your Mental Toes. Precisely as it should do. For a headful of Combat-Ready Mental Toes is all that has ever stood between Mankind and a starring role in Extinction: The Musical. Just imagine how important it was for early Homo Trepidatiens to avoid the Got Eaten/Squashed/Knocked Down By A Feather Categories on their Insurance Claims. Survival Instinct dictated anxious scrutiny of every rustle of grass; every rustle of Giant Newspaper.

So no, don’t beat yourself up: Ain’t nothing wrong with Being A Worrier. However, if you wake up each morning feeling A Bit Achey maybe…

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POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (007)

pst1308paulgrinhopi

#humour

SQUEAKING SHOES are No.7 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Squeaking Shoes are A Curse. They nevereverever Squeak when you try them on in The Shop. No no no. What they do is swell their soles with pride that You, The Supreme Arbiter Of Good Taste have chosen to propel Them to Superstardom.

Despite Warnings of pongs so Powerful they register on the Richter Scale and Storage Facilities that collapse into a pile of sticks when not wedged against the wall…

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NORTHWEST PASSAGE. Or: How Long Av Way Gottah Weah Theeaz Floppee Knickaz Man?

pst1308paulgrinhopi

#Humour #Comedy #Humor

My favourite film. Not the most promising theme, I’ll grant you- sounding as it does like one of those What I Did On My Summer Holidays School Essays we used to write. Unless of course, what you did on your holidays was investigate the orchestral potential of breasts when squeezed together and played like a trumpet.

But bear with me, hombres. I am talking about a glorious epic from The Golden Era Of Hollywood Monkeybunkum. A 1940 film which has everything: Action! Adventure! Silly Hats! Crunchy Frogs! The flick is Northwest Passage and it’s such a stinker it’s a masterpiece.

Now I know I really ought to have better things to do with my time than watch Weekday Moving Pictures. However, I’ve been bedbound with a semi-contagious disease normally associated with the Wild Dogs of the Kalahari, so I haven’t had much choice. And no, the gormrich…

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MERRKUN FEUTBAWL. Or: Come Back With Those Cushions You Little Bugger!

MERRKUN FEUTBAWL. Or: Come Back With Those Cushions You Little Bugger!.

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (011)

CANNED LAUGHTER is No.11 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Canned Laughter.

I sat down with my squashed Deepsea Monster And Mushroom Pizza the other night and watched an Early ’70s episode of M*A*S*H. If you don’t know it, it’s an American Situation Comedy and the Situation is a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. So, what with the casual slaughter of Conflict, where Soldiers And Their Appendages are constantly being wheeled in on Separate Tables, I’m surprised you’re not Falling About Laughing just thinking about it.

What made M*A*S*H so trail-blazingly Original and Hilarious, was the beautifully crafted writing, which illustrated the incomprehensible indomitability of the human spirit in what was essentially A Really Crap Timeshare With En Suite Innards And Incendiaries.

But as I observed Hawkeye Pierce in Surgery, his Wise-Cracking Extraction of bullets, shrapnel and haggis ingredients made me feel uneasy. The jokes of someone up to their elbows in another Human Being’s underground transport system suddenly weren’t funny anymore.

Why? The damned Canned Laughter was why. Each and every artificial bray and goofy giggle seemed insensitive; an inappropriate intrusion on private pain. It was like watching someone cracking one off at a Funeral.

So how come I didn’t react like this when I first watched M*A*S*H, I enquired of my One-Legged-Linedancing Mind? Had I really been such an unfeeling clod? Or had the show somehow swapped its’ Cummerbund And Tux for a pair of Plastic Comedy Tits?

Well, mis amigos, it transpires that What Was Different wasn’t me but the Laughter Track itself. As in: There never used to be one. All M*A*S*H episodes aired in the U.K. originally appeared without Hoho Muzak. Unlike the U.S. where series creators Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds lost the battle with CBS over its use. “What, no Laughter Track?” asked CBS. “Just like the real Korean War,” replied Gelbart.

So what were CBS up to? Tummy-Tickling the Advertisers is the answer to that one. Decades of Audience Research and Dogbiscuit Throwing proved Shows which contained the Meaty Morsels of Canned Laughter were watched by more people than those that didn’t. And aside from Nipple Count, that’s the only Statistic which impresses Advertisers enough to Make Their Pants Want To Get Up And Dance.

This is backed up by the Conclusive Research of Behavioural Scientists who would otherwise have been occupied seeing if they could Wear All Their Clothes At The Same Time. That is: The majority of Homo Sheepiens laugh more readily in the company of others.

The corollary being: If it’s Popular it must be good. Or to put it another way: A Hundred Billion Bugs Can’t Be Wrong- Eat Shit.

Laughter Tracks first stuck their bare buttocks out the window during taping of the Bing Crosby Show in the late 1940s. In an era when Industry Edicts barred Screen Kisses from lasting more than three seconds, and the most uncouth airwave utterance was “Grrrr,” the risqué material of comedian Bob Burns was cut from radio broadcast. But not before Scriptwriter Bill Morrow had noted the audience’s Richter Scale reaction and asked Soundman Jack Mullin to save it for future use.

Gigglerypokery soon became much coveted by Television Producers who realised laffgrafting was simpler than Making Stuff That Was Actually Funny. And even if a joke was funny, Canned Laughter could be substituted for people laughing Too Long, Too Loudly, or in the Wrong Time Zone.

So do TV Execs really believe we are so Incandescently Cretinous we need to be told What Is Funny and When To Laugh? …..er yes, I’m afraid they do.

The problem with Recorded Mirth is you don’t know where it’s been. Laughter can be defining, delightful, disarming, discreet, discerning, derisory, desultory, disbelieving, dismissive, disproportionate, dumb, dirty and decorated with dogbreath. In M*A*S*H it was merely disconnected. And of course it was. For the recordings of audience hilarity could just as easily have originated from The Bob Hope Show as The Adolf Hitler Summertime Special.

If only dear old Bing had refused to use those first squeezy-cheez chuckles: “If my jokes stink, they stink!” Then again, do you really think someone else wouldn’t have hit upon the same dismal ploy eventually?

Some people laugh at The Wrong Things. Canned Laughter introduces the concept of The Right Things being laughed at by The Wrong People.

As the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius said: “Canned Laughter? Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if your version of white christmas now goes bing crosby roasting on an open fire….. 

MERRKUN FEUTBAWL. Or: Come Back With Those Cushions You Little Bugger!

#humour

Now it seems to me American Football would remain a mystery to any Celt Of Albion whoever took to a sportsfield without the padding from eighteen settees around his body.

And yet, an agreement has been reached between the NFL and English Soccer Club Tottenham Hotspuds. This will bring two games of Bouncy-Castle-Chess to the Limeywhites’ new stadium per season when it is completed in 2018. And while it has not been clarified how long each game will last, the Ten Year contract not only indicates the increasing popularity of American Football in the Bratish Empire, but also places an approximate limit on the length of each contest.

What’s more, of late, myself and Faithful Hound Bob The Barbarian have noted -he with malicious clicking of teeth- the increasing numbers of Yeeharring Youngsters playing this exotic game in the local park. So keen are they to mimic our Brightly Plumaged Colonial Cousins, kids who lack Official Padded Uniforms sport substitutes that look suspiciously like Mum’s Settee Cushions.

Two questions: Are they in for it when they get home, or what?! And: What in goshdarn tarnation is all the Fuss about?

A Feutbawl game, as Merrkuns call it, is played by Squads of 200 specialist athletes. 201 if you count the fellow who is paid more than the entire Government Front Bench to fashion the little mudhills which the Placekickers angle the bug-sized ball against.

Being a Placekicker is an art in itself: Comparable only with the Magic Sponge Man of our own Football Codes. Both pride themselves on being able to Teararse off the field before being transformed into Smoothies by The Common Ruffians.

The only other position on the team I would at all relish -assuming I was suddenly able to throw further than an Eight Year Old Girl- would be that of Quarterback. This is the Lucky Bastard afforded the protection of A Rembrandt so he can deliver the ball forwards without being squashed by a Linebacker with a Dubious College Degree And Twenty Stones To Spare.

The Quarterback calls the plays and wears an Astronaut Radio Backpack which enables NASA Control to advise him on Tactics, Origami and What To Put In His Sandwiches. With so much constant information input it is little wonder many Quarterbacks end up in Mental Institutions. Or Congress.

Certain players, like Tackles and Guards are not allowed to receive a pass. Their brief is: Smash To Bits Anyone Wearing A Different Coloured Shirt. Unless the Target is wearing a Dental Brace and/or Eating Popcorn. In which case, they have just Assaulted A Spectator.

Defensive Backs highlight the sports’ Ant Farm specialisation. If I understand correctly, the primary function of the Strong Safety is to plug defensive holes with their massive bulk and available appendages. As such, it would be impossible to tell them apart from Silly Putty if they didn’t possess Driving Licences. The Free Safety is often the last line of cover and therefore has to combine the sturdiness of a table-tennis table with the speed of its’ superbly oiled casterwheels. The less committed of their number are sometimes seen running just slowly enough to avoid contact with Particularly Scary Opponents. All the while muttering: “Well what did you expect to get for Free?”

That covers the main positions then, except to correct one omission- just who can the poor put-upon Ricketts-Ridden Quarterback pass to before he gets to look like a Motorway Hedgehog? There is such a man. The Running Back can not only Receive passes. He is also allowed to fake Receipt of passes.

This tactic sounds like cheating to your average Defender Of The Empire. And while I can appreciate the sleight of hand required to Dupe the opposition into believing the ball is Up Yer Jumper -when in reality there is nothing there but your Hand and/or Assorted Japanese Businessmen- I can’t help thinking this is the sporting equivalent of Britain’s Rubbish Postal Service.

All of which should leave you with Two Thoughts: (a) paul grin hopi is a vacuous fraud whose Ignorance lights up the night sky like the fiery pants of the King’s Own Regiment Of Liars. And (b): American Football is what you’d end up with if Rugby and Soccer were assimilated by the Borg Collective. And I don’t mean that in A Bad Way. Merrkun Feutbawl incorporates Planet Earp’s highest forms of Technology, Organisation and Nasal Evacuation. But….. Butbutbut butbut…..

It’s the presentation of all this which fills the Trousers Of Excellence with mysterious alien lumps. The Club Names for instance. The Green Bay Packers? This less than fearsome appellation has to be a way of lulling opponents into a false sense of security. Unless the Packing of Wisconsin Suitcases is somehow fraught with a danger my own Underwear Folding usually lacks.

The Arizona Cardinals are named after a puny, gaudy, incredibly gobby bird which even by avian standards is Dumb As A Turd. So surely the time has come to change Cardinals to something more suitable; something more in keeping with the image of their historical success? How does Arizona Cardigans sound? Just a thought…..

The Cleveland Browns? Don’t tell me- supporters flock to the Banner because the World’s Most Boring Shade Of Scheissenhosen is their Favourite Colour. The most intriguing tag, though, has to be the San Francisco 49ers. Question: What is an “er” and why do the Californians compare themselves to forty nine of them?

Then there is all the girly war whooping and choreographed high-fives of the Players, which make it so hard to tell them apart from the Cheerleaders. And as for the shrill niceties of Cheerleaders and Mascots: This disease has already begun to infect British Football and does absolutely nothing to maintain our Proud Traditions of Mob Thuggery, Obscene Choral Singing and Kicking Round Things Into Goals Whether Or Not They Are Eating Pies.

Back on the local park, I would have thought re-enacting The Signing Of The Magna Carta would be a more profitable way for the Youth Of Blighty to spend their weekends. But no, they appear quite content to run around shouting about OFFence and DEEfence. Even if most of the Kids don’t really know what’s going on and wander aimlessly through each play like Slightly Pissed Sheep, it’s more than enough for them just being A Bit American.

Even as we speak, you can bet your bottom dollar that right now, in somewhere like Crewe, a group of earnest young men are keenly perusing their dictionaries to find a Suitably Exciting Title for their New Team. Imagine the disputes as they decide between Cruisers, Cranes, Creoles, Croutons and Cretins.

In making the final choice, Club Members are well aware the name should suggest they are ornery critters: Tough Enough to bite through iron bars; scoff piles of parking tickets; and withstand prolonged tickling on nothing more substantial than a packed lunch.

Again, all they’re trying to do is be A Bit American: Temporarily escape Grim Brittania into the land of Baywatch and ride their Imaginary Surfboards down Pamela Anderson.

For as much as us Brits love to pretend the U.S. is penful of Loud, Fat, Dimwits in Hawaiian Shirts and Cowboy Hats large enough to host a Penguin Swimming Gala, I for one would gladly chuck every last Chip Butty, Soggy Cardigan and Morris Dancer on a giant bonfire, if it meant we’d be allowed to superglue our island onto Florida’s Sticky-Out Bit.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you’ve ever accidentally pushed your best pal into the filthy local canal due to the shameful inaccuracy of your high-five.

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (010)

#humour

Tyrannyslimous Wrex is No.10 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

I heard two Schoolgirls talking at a bus stop. In common with Most Everyone Who Isn’t A Thirteen Year Old Schoolgirl I internally Ogre-Grumped at having to listen to One-Syllable-Saga’s recounting The Rise And Fall Of The Romance Empire.

But then they started talking about Diets. In particular: The Water Diet. Yup- thirteen. Yup- diets. Yup- water. I could have cried. It seems the most highly favoured Weightloss Method amongst the growing -or shrinking depending on which way you look at it- Young Female Population these days is The Water Diet.

Utter Gelignite-Juggling Madness! Howsabout the guaranteed weightloss of The Glue Yer Lips Together Diet then? Or the foolproof Self-Immolation Method?

I would have said something along the lines that British Male Byelaws do not require Women to display any of the characteristics of Twiglets to be attractive – aside maybe, from Excellent Beefy Taste- but Possible Headlines in the Local Press kept me schtum. Although, in truth, Getting Done For Harassment was a less likely outcome than being Incinerated by the withering stares of Humankind’s First Ever Sentient Generation.

But again….. water!!! That’s not a Diet. That’s Window Cleaning. One step up from The Stuff That Comes Out Of Bicycles Pumps in terms of nutrition. Not that I’m saying All Diets Are Bad, mon amis. If someone is so fat they can’t Nip To The Newsagents unless a Crack S.A.S. Unit blasts a Grand Canyon Hole in the side of their house, I get it.

It’s just -and feel free to correct and/or shoot me if I’m missing something- much of the Female Populace seems convinced Perfect Form is that which is displayed on the King’s New Clothes catwalks of London, New York and Paris.

Women are bombarded, bamboozled and bambergascoigned by representations of “Perfect Bodies” via the corpulent corporations of TV, Internet, Magazines and Godzilla-Sized Billboards. These Breastless, Hipless Waifs model outfits which make your eyes pop out if you measure anything more than Double-0 Underground. All this filters down to Shopping Racks stacked with clothes so small and light, they’d float away if not for the weight of the price tag.

So either the self-appointed Arbiters Of Cool Kit are showing commendable frugality in their use of Models who can be covered with a Postage Stamp’s Worth Of Silk…..or….. there is something else afoot. “What is that Oh Wise One?” I hear you ask. The answer? I would venture to suggest it is as Simple as a Skipful Of Simpletons.

Take your rat infested mind back acoupla paragraphs: The bit about Female Models lacking in Breast and Hip areas. For many Cultures around our Wonky Blue Orb employ another name for Women Who Lack Breasts And Hips. They fix them with an appellation which loosely translated means….. “Men.” That’s Fact Number One.

Next, consider the sexuality of the majority of Male Fashion Designers. That gives us Fact Number Two. Naturally, this begs the question: Why don’t Gay Male Fashion Designers favour the use of Male Clothes-Horses? Well, let’s be honest- most Men relish the Prospect Of Shopping the same way they relish the Prospect Of A Visit To The Dentist. Or the Prospect Of Being Sandblasted With Dead Tree-Frogs.

So of course the perceived Market for Watercress Flimsies and Hiphuggers Fashioned From Ferret Nipples Has To Be Women. ($$$) That is Fact Number Three.

Mix all the Facts together in this Vaguely Accurate Pot Of Generalisation and you get a Conclusion: The Fashion Industry is dominated by Men whose Preferred Model Of Choice is a Young Woman who looks like a Young Man.

But don’t get the idea I’m making any comment on Sexuality. What any Adult Human does with Household Appliances Usually Used To Unblock Drains is, in my opinion, entirely their own business. What I am doing is making a comment on the Trickle-Down Effect of the Fashion Industry. For inadvertently, the Industry has created a mindset amongst Young Women which wrecks their burgerstarved bodies with the Tyranny Of Slimming.

All of which draws something from my body which, for a change, you cannot smell -sorry, spell- A Jupiter-Sized Raspberry. (For Belgian Viewers: A Raspberry is the noise produced when you stick your tongue out and blow forcefully. Mais oui! you exclaim. Le Fart Gobbeaux!) Yes indeed. Also known in the U.S. as the Bronx Cheer. Or Drive-By Shooting.

The reason I blast a Fusillade Of Raspberries at the Fashion Industry’s vision of the Perfect Female is: I am certain the Women Of Western Civilization would faint with surprise -if they hadn’t already fainted from excessive slimming- if they viewed any Survey which asked Heterosexual Males to list The Most Attractive Women Of All Time. They might be surprised at What Men Want. Curvaceousness, Intelligence, Sense Of Humour, and Roof Tiling Expertise feature far more commonly than Media Horsebananas would have you believe.

My own list would include Marilyn Monroe, Halle Berry, Gina Lollabudgerigar, Angelina Jolie, Kay Lenz, Brigitte Bardot, Halle Berry, Shirley MacLaine, Candice Bergen, Meg Ryan and Halle Berry. Oh….. and The Beautiful Barmaid At The Fox And Hooters. Monroe, for instance, was if memory serves -and it’ll have to because I’m far too lazy to look it up- a size 14. In other words you get about three catwalk models in a half-pound bag of monroes.

And that really is The Point. The idea of the Perfect Woman being a skinny, no-hipped androgyne is the Accidental Creation of Gay Dr. Frankensteins who were really only trying to create playmates to accompany them to West End productions of The Sound Of Moosick.

What Planet Earth needs is more people like Gok Wan. If you’re not already familiar with this Top Class Human Being, he’s the Fashion Designer who fronted all those How To Look Good Naked shows- the raison d’etre of which was to prove Women of all ages could make An Impressive Best of any shape without turning Eating into a Capital Offence.

As the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once asked whilst undulating his love handles in time to Right Said Fred: “Let me get this straight- you torture yourself Slimming to look like Girls Who Appeal To Men Who Don’t Like Girls? Have All The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if the eyes of candice bergen ever caused you to divert a forkful of peas up your nose.

PSYCHIC PHENOMENA. Or: What’s My Ear Doing In That Bag Of Pork Scratchings?

#humour

Psychic Phenomena have bamboozled Scientists, Intellectuals and plain old Cardboard-Eating Cretorati for centuries. Not least because just saying Phenomena requires an Olympic Triple-Jump Run-Up and teeth designed in the Hadron Collider. 

But not me. I’m not bamboozled at all. I am perfectly willing to believe there are folks in this world who can shift objects by simple utilisation of thought power. In fact, anything which eases the Grand Gnashernal Trolleyduelling of Supermarket Shopping is fine by me.

Ever since I first read about the discovery of the Dead Bee Scrolls and their attribution to TV Psychic, Boz-Eyed Meg, the mysteries of the Human Mind have held me in their powerful grip. Many’s the time I have been Left Spellbound after lending an ear to Tellers Of Psychic Tales. I was once even Left Deaf, when the Cosmic Dude in question refused to return the ear and the next time I saw it was in a bag of Pork Scratchings.

Of course the knock on folks who believe in Psychic Phenomena is that we are gullible- which is daft because I’ve been told the word itself does not appear in any known dictionary. I confess I once bought a porsche-priced thirty volume First Edition of Ye Olde Plays Of Shakespeare R Us but strongly refute that this Tags Me gullible. Even if every odious door-to-door salesman Within A Hundred Miles remains convinced there is a Gold Leaf Ornamental Dogturd With My Name On It.

But I do like to Keep An Open Mind.  For surely, there must be some Kernel Of Truth, some minute Gerbil Dropping Of Veracity to be found amongst all the supersillious silliness of Psychic Phenomena?

Let’s have a look shall we?

Past Life Regression. This is where people are taken back to Previous Lives by means of hypnotism. A trancelike state is induced with a swinging pocketwatch or readings from Harry Potter And The Half-Cut Pig. Once the Subject is under, they are Regressed and encouraged to recount the myriad diddiddids and didn’tdidn’tdidn’ts of Childhood. As for the next step -Babyhood- you’ll be glad you kept your bicycle clips on, for one of the main characteristics of this early epoch is the mass-production of steaming effluent with a half-life of a million years.

Next comes the weird bit. The Regressor takes the subject back to a time before they were born- which with any luck coincides with the time Hiphoposaurs Ruled The Earth and Raquel Welch Was Running Around In That Fetching Loincloth. The Hypnotist then draws information about life in this past era; information which could only be known by a person if they’d Actually Lived in those times. Or were subscribers to Reader’s Digest.

My own research into folks who’ve been Regressed has brought me into contact with a busy production line of Former Napoleons, Marie Antoinettes and Ex-Generals with so many chest-ribbons they were either incredibly brave or demons with a needle and thread. To tell you the truth: I’ve Had It Up To Here with Egyptian Boy Kings.

And that’s the thing: I never met a Regressee who wasn’t A Big Banana in a Previous Life. I’d be less convinced it wasn’t a Bald Scam if I encountered just one person whose Sum Contribution To The Gilded Pages Of History amounted to eleven minutes of lucidity- during which they changed their underwear for the only time in their lives and read the newspaper instead of eating it.

When you think about it, though, you’re hardly likely to hand over your cash for a second Regression Session, if the first indicated you were not the hoped-for Fiery Sheik Warrior because you were actually a Filthy Sheep Worrier.

Telekinesis is the ability to exert influence over an object without using physical force- so no, kicking your brother and claiming you didn’t do it doesn’t count Young Lady. Similarly, TK is not to be confused with The Pfeiffer Effect, which manifests itself in the trousers of male cinema goers. Uri Geller is the first name which comes to mind when you think of Telekinetics.

The Israeli Psychic and his Mystical Tank-Tops first came to public prominence in the early ’70s and from time to time still unexpectedly pops up like some kind of Magic Genie. (Bing!!) And you know what? The bugger’s still bending spoons! Now I don’t know about you, but my gut feeling is Once You’ve Bent One Spoon You’ve Bent Them All.

Surely, when God first gifted those Powers Of Telekinesis, what He didn’t have in mind was Uri’s single-handed Rejuvenation Of The Cutlery Industry? Think about it. I bet the UN could have used him in the War Zones Of The World- telepathically removing buttock shrapnel. Or visiting Fueding Factions and transferring their Fillings to Distant Post Codes. (No-one starts fights whilst ravaged by Toothache.)

You’ll notice, incidentally, I have been careful not to voice the slightest doubt concerning Mr. Geller’s actual ability to move things by Thought Power. Am I worried he will ruin my prized Winnie The Pooh Cutlery Set? Or do I fear Litigation? Neither- I am moving house soon and am hoping he’ll go fifty-fifty on all monies saved on furniture truck hire.

Involuntary Telekinesis is exactly what it says it is: Things move whether you damn well want them to or not. Car Keys, Pound Coins and Nuts And Bolts You’ve Been Meaning To Attach To Terminally ill Cupboards, are all unaccountably relocated to Fish Tanks and Garden Ponds.

However, as only small items are usually involved, ITK remains largely unremarked upon. Unless your Fish Tank/Garden Pond contains Piranha. Or Pirates. Or a Worm Hole to Another Universe.

Then again, what if you sit up in bed to discover it has been transported to the Carnegie Hall Orchestra Pit? Worse than that: What if your Toothbrush has been rehoused in the semi-exposed butt cleavage of a Nearby Road Worker?

Telepathy is a form of Extra Sensory Perception; also known as the Sixth Sense; also known as Mind Reading; also known as There’s No Point Telling Porkies To Your Mum Because She’ll Know.

Of all the forms of Psychic Phenomena, the ability to describe the contents of another Human Boing’s Mental Dustbin is the one most commonly claimed. As in: I knew you were going to say that. Or: If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking I predict I will whap you with this spanner.

Thousands of Controlled Scientific Experiments have been carried out to Sherlock the cranial sock drawer of Suspected Telepaths. And just like other folks Suspected Of Stuff, they are placed in deliberately spartan environments and deprived of all sensory input -to the point where Test Subjects are convinced they’re in a police cell or Back In That Bloody Medieval Time-Share Hovel Again.

Telepathy Test Subjects attempt to recreate pictures drawn by Test Staff who are reclining on waterbeds eating exotic fruit off the navels of Call Girls in nearby Five Star Hotels. Or they see if they can correctly identify the symbols on Zener Cards by studying the reflection in the Scientist’s glasses.

There have been some recorded successes. But they merely prove that statistically speaking, if you Test enough people someone’s going to guess right. Or to put it another way: If you placed an infinite number of chimpanzees in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would eventually knock out the script to Rocky XIV. (A lot quicker than you might expect, actually.) Or to put it another way: If you placed an infinite number of football boots on the feet of an infinite number of Scottish International Centre-Forwards, one would eventually manage to hit the back of the net as opposed to the back of the head of the bloke who runs the hotdog stand.

Faith Healing is an intriguing one. You usually have to be The Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, Relative Of An Omnipotent Being, or a Subscriber To Reader’s Digest to qualify, so Careers Officers tend not to suggest it as often as they’d ask if you’d “thought about becoming Pope?” 

Mr. J. Christ of Nazareth, SW1 is probably the best known Faith Healer of all time and specialised in curing Leprosy, Blindness, Blandness and Blondeness. He also helped Folks Afflicted By Plagues Of Frogs and/or Depression after watching Too Many BBC Soaps.

Voodoo is mainly practised in Lousiana, Haiti, and Baseball Dugouts these days, according to Wonkypedia. The art is most widely known for its’ Psychic Transference of pain from a distance via Voodoo Dolls. Although the same effect can be achieved with Less Palaver by chucking a Frisbee in the Park.

It should be noted however, that Voodoo is about much more than the Beautiful Aerial Displays which result from its’ Tradition of Sticking Pins In Blow-Up Dolls. Although I can’t think of any examples at the moment because I’ve just developed a Stinko Headache.

Voodoo is probably the scariest of all forms of Psychic Phenomena. Although it can’t be that powerful or Haiti would have produced At Least One Decent Snooker Player by now.

Whilst the Paranormal Phenomenomenomenomena described thus far could be described as unusual –or if you want to Split Hairs: a load of old shoe repairers– Fortune Telling is a far more common occurrence. Predictors utilise Horoscopes, Tarot Cards, Crystal Balls and Budget Speeches. Some Read Palms, Tea Leaves or the Entrails Of Sheep. Some Read The Entrails Of Football Fans Too Drunk To Notice Their Absence. All are in the business of informing Just How Many ugly spavined children and laughable tax returns our Future Selves will produce.

Fortune Tellers are often met with derision. This is wrong. What they should be met with is A Number Nine Bus With Dodgy Brakes. It is hard to take the Russell Grants and Eva Petrabungalows of this world seriously when their intellectual gravitas is so reminiscent of Dogs Who Think Their Tails Are Alien Invaders. And while both Russell and Eva possess charm enough to bring wilted flowers to bloom, they don’t quite have the same mysterious aura as The Fabled Merlin, for instance….. or A Traffic Bollard.

You couldn’t say that about Sixteenth Century Astrologer Nostradamus. He definitely had gravitas. And a Beard. And Armpit Stains the size of the Isle Of Wight. He wrote of The Future in the form of quatrains at least as Unintelligible as Murray Walker’s Formula One Commentaries.

Accurate? Well, if you accept the similarity of Hister to Hitler, and how the evil wolf who came from the hills Obviously refers to That Scottish Geezer Off The Antiques Roadshow, the answer is yes.

Having said that, I was once so Heavy Of Pocket I purchased a copy of Nostradamus’s Predictions. So I guess the joke’s on me.

But you know what? I bought that book because a little part of me –located just behind the spot I was saving for a frontal lobotomy- wanted Old Nostrilhead’s foretellings to be right on the money. And why not? Is the World so full of Scientific Certainty that there is no longer any room for Stuff That Is Almost Certainly But Not Quite One Hundred Per Cent -Especially If We Are Invaded By Aliens Who Actually Can Do All That- Nonsense?

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you can’t help but raise your eyebrows just a tiny weeny little fraction when in one in thirty times your horoscope is near the mark.

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (009)

#humour

MUSIC FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE MUSIC is No.9 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage. 

When the Vampire Marketeers of Music Compilation CDs excitedly shrill: “Remember, you can’t buy this in the shops!” one cannot help but be impressed by such exclusivity. And indeed, the TV Ads do not lie! You can only purchase “Love Anthems,” “Dangerously Slow Driving Music” and “The Rotting Corpse of Country And Western” through Special Ads on The Big Shitbox, Online Rubbish Dumps or in Newspapers Which Would Only Possess Value If They Were Made Of Toilet Paper.

How do they manage to pull off such a feat? You’d think The Shops –not to mention The Smithsonian- would be clamouring to fill their shelves with every last one of these Epic Compendiums. I cannot think of anything else of equal value that You Can’t Buy In The Shops. Except Dandruff perhaps.

I saw a TV Advertisement for a Punk Compilation CD Set the other day. In between clips of The Stranglers, the Sex Pistols and The Damned, an Excitable Young Fellow who’d studied How To Be Working Class at the Sorbonne, informed the Viewing Public of the Amazing! Unmissable! Incredible! Inedible! nature of “Punk Classix.” I was left with the distinct impression that failure to use my credit card would Contravene At Least One Local Byelaw.

In common with all such offers, the word FREE was as abundant and busy as a swarm of Locust Bunny Rabbits. I kinda hoped the tertiary adjunct to this Once In A Lifetime Opportunity would be a gratis pair of Bondage Trousers….. or a Nice Smoking Jacket. I wept like a baby when the Cloud Of Dry Mice cleared and revealed the FREE bit was….. even more CDs.

And I don’t say this because the thought of Neat Neat Neat* leaves my brain as untidy as a visit from The Mongol Hordes. Nosirreebob! I Love The Damned*, Adam And The Ants, Sex Pistols, Stranglers, UK Subs, Generation X, Joy Division, Cortinas, Desperate Bicycles, Pere Ubu, Alberto’s, Swell Maps, The Fall, Wire, Gang Of Four, Vibrators, Buzzcocks, Alternative TV, Television, Celia And The Mutations, Jane Aire And The Belvederes, Radio Stars, The Mekons, Magazine….. et al. I’m out of breath now. Oh, and I even liked The Clash before they turned into Open University.

It’s just that most of that list wouldn’t get within an Effalump Sniff of the Punk Classix offering. Although it was enlightening that Hanging On The Telephone Did. For –Rip Her To Shreds aside- All The Acid Ever Made couldn’t stretch imagination far enough to believe Blondie were ever any more Punky than Mr.Ed.

I say enlightening because it reveals the mindset of the Producers of TV Compilation CDs. They highlight a genre like Rock’n’Roll, Folk, AOR, C&W, S&M, Hip Hop, Trip Hop, Hop Trip Broken-Hip Hop and then fill the CD with the most inoffensive, middle of the road, squashed hedgehog examples they can find. Indeed, they pump it so full of dogshit, aficionados wonder what half the stuff is doing there in the first place.

They do the same with Subject CDs: Summer, Love, Christmas, St. Swithin’s Day, Driving, Motorbiking and Whaling titles have all been marketed with track lists nailed together via tenuous links unthought of outside Institutional Care Facilities. I mention Compilations of Party Music separately, as these are the only Titles which suggest any irony. At least I hope so- as they tend to feature the most Miserable fleet of beeps and squeaks ever floated down the Auditory Canal.

As for the Sound Quality of most of these CD Sets: I prostrate myself at the feet of the Producers and wonder what inspires them to employ the Innovatory Masterstroke of recording all the material….. underwater.

The question is: Why? Or to put it another way: Whyohwhyohwhyohwhyohwhy????? What are these Recyclers Of Anti-Music looking to do? Precisely who are they aiming their Turdfilled Ballistas at? Surely the point of “Now That’s What I Call A Load Of Old Bollocks 53” is to Make Enough Cash To Achieve Morbid Obesity?

The answer, if you think about it, is simple. Real Enthusiasts of any particular genre will already have bought better versions of whatever’s on offer. So the Vampire Marketeers aim their Pointy Teeth at the folks who haven’t. Which –and this is quite clever- is Nearly Everyone Else. That is: The people who didn’t like it enough to buy it first time around. In particular: The people who didn’t like it enough to buy it first time around but wish they had liked it enough to buy it first time around. Or to put it another way: The people who didn’t like it enough to buy it first time around but wish they had liked it enough to buy it first time around because All The Cool Dudes Had liked it enough to buy it first time around.

So once the Compilers of Whichever Genre Dung Heap have Conveniently Removed anything remotely Challenging, Spikey, Dissonant or Interesting Enough To Attract The Attention Of A Hamster, substantial numbers of Nearly Everyone Else do like it enough to buy it firsteenth time around and get to feel a bit like the Cool Dudes they snuck wistful glances at during their teen years.

And Therein Lies The Rub. For what the Sticky-Fingered Barnums of Music For People Who Don’t Like Music are really doing is selling them their Youth back. Or rather: They are selling them back the Youth they’d liked to have had. The one where it was them who Pogoed to Johnny Rotten And The Pig Whistles without falling over and denting their nose on the kneecap of the most beautiful girl in the class.

The Malevolent Pimps of the Advertising Industry call this: Selling The Sizzle, Not The Sausage. So it doesn’t matter a tinker’s cuss if the purchaser doesn’t like anything more about their new CD Set than The Title, because what they’ve actually bought is a bunch of memories, dreams and ancient smells of splendidly unhealthy cakes.

But all of this extravagant skull jugglery still doesn’t disguise the fact that the True Cost of CDs of Music For People Who Don’t Like Music –aside from the damage done to one’s soul- is Upped by fifty per cent (!) when the “Postage And Packing” is piled on. Although I suppose this is understandable in this Era Of Highwaymen And Bandits interfering with the passage of the Royal Mail.

As the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius observed during efforts to integrate himself into the light fittings via the Pogo: “Music For People Who Don’t Like Music?! Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you still shed a tear in memory of the haunting peruvian panpipes of alberto y los trios paranoias.

ONE MILLION YEARS A.D. Or: Miaow! Miaow! Miaow-Miaow-Miaow!

#humour

What will Earth be like in a million years time? Assuming Mankind hasn’t scienced our World into a Useless Dry Turd, who will be Kings Of The Cowpat?

One million years is more than long enough for another of the Planet’s sentient beings to catch up, overtake and cut us off- with appropriate Eat Me/Up Yours Evolutionary Road Rage Gestures.

Despite having conducted the most Incredibly Scanty Research you can imagine, I discovered the work of 19th century anthropologists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace perfectly answered the question: Who will have Custody Of All The Marbles a million years from now? Their Theories Of Natural Selection showed why some species survive, some perish and some hang around street corners looking shifty.

Aptly enough, one of the best illustrations of Survival Theory was Darwin’s success in propagating his own fame. With Wallace about to publish similar work, CD gathered up his papers and Teararsed off to The Printers just ahead of his rival. Hence Darwinism not Wallaceism. A shame really, for surely it would have been more fitting for them to engage in A Fight To The Death on the floor of the British Museum Library.

Soooo….. if I have correctly stored the Evolutionary Templates of Darwin and Wallace in the Uninhabitable Bombsite Of My Mind, the basic premise seems to be: A Monkey With An Inbuilt Hood is better equipped to deal with Stinko Weather than A Monkey Made Of Sponge….. or Breakfast Cereal.

When One Million Years A.D. squeaks into town any of The Following could conceivably contend for the Lords Of Terra Crown currently worn by Homo Stroppiens. You may well lean towards your own particular favourite. You may well lean towards a creature I fail to mention. Maybe you just can’t stop leaning. Seek Professional Medical Advice. I merely present the evidence, Your Honour.

Who will rule our Wonky Blue Orb in One Million Years A.D.? Here are The Contenduhs:

Homo Sapiens. There is no reason to believe Mankind won’t still be Head Honcho in a million years time. No reason except Mankind. Even if we ignore our propensity for Pooping Our Own Ecological Pants and assume we will Science some solutions, it may be Science itself which relegates us to the Third Division (North) of History.

For as other species strictly adhere to Darwin’s Theories Of Evolution and allow only the Fittest, Most Adaptable, Unticklish candidates to survive their Subbuteo World Cup Selection Process, Homo Crapiens insists on weakening its’ Gene Pool by filling its’ team with ever more Wishy-Washy-One-Legged-Wingers.

I myself cannot differentiate between A Football and A Spectator’s Pie until after I’ve kicked one of them up in the air- my Eyesight being as sharp as a Bag Of Bottoms. This is a Physiological Defect- one which in Pre-Technological Times would have made me a Major Contender for The International Floodlit Extinction Trophy.

A million years into the future, Human Beings are likely to be Taller, Less Hairy, More Pouty and Have Less Papercuts. We may even be born with Extra Readymade Holes for jewellery. But our very talent for propagating the imperfect by means of eye-glasses, lego-hearts and super-spongey insoles is the very reason Mankind will likely be superseded by Rivals With No Artificial Additives.

Sharks for instance. If Sharks were a Rock Band* they would be ZZ Top- same old riffs but honed to perfection. If Sharks were a Car they would be the Karmann Ghia- sleek yet Marilyn-Monroe-Curved. If Sharks were a Sandwich they would be Tuna-Sweetcorn-Mayonaise With An Educated Drizzle Of Tabasco. If Sharks…… you get the idea.

We really are talking Mother Nature’s Finest Work here. It’s hard to believe Those Same Powers gifted us Slugs, The Osmonds, Fleas and The Arsenal Offside Trap. (N.B. Feel free to remove the comma between Osmonds and Fleas if it adds to your Quality Of Life.)

It appears that Sharks have reached the Heads-Down-No-Nonsense-Boogie Apogee of their existence. This gives rise to the common knowledge that they haven’t changed their ideas -or socks- in millions of years, which makes them the Daily Mail readers of the Aquatic World. Sharks are such perfect Survival Machines they downed Evolutionary Tools is one of those Popular Nuggets of information we carry in our Noggin Knapsacks like: Man used to think the Earth was Fat.

But don’t bet on Sharks continuing to Blow Raspberries At Evolution. If you think about it, they have already -quite recently- had A Bit Of A Dabble at the process. Remember Sharkus Floppius? This Rubber Genus introduced itself to the World in the Jaws Film Franchise of the ’70’s and ’80’s. However, this limp offshoot’s tendency to thrash about like A Toddler Having A Supermarket Tantrum does not make it A Favourite in The Survival Sweepstakes. It is safe to assume Future Sharks will continue to be made of Shark.

And yet… the Effluent Overflow of my Intellectual Plumbing tells me they could quite easily develop into highly efficient Managers Of Fffst Fffwd Restaurants In Wales. So let’s pray that Sharks With No Use For Vowels do not Inherit The Earth. Not even the meek ones. I don’t think they could resist eating The Staff. Unreasonable? I don’t think so. Shark Species such as the Peckish Hammerhead and Medium Sliced White are already famous for eating each other if the Takeaway closes before the queue reaches the counter.

As such, Sharks are unlikely to ascend to No.1 in the Pop Charts of One Million Years A.D.

Dolphins. A bit like Sharks. Except they read The New Yorker. Dolphins are credited with a rudimentary language of bleeps and squeaks. Not dissimilar to Grandpa Bumtourette when he thinks the Rest Of Humanity’s Sensory Systems are On Pause.

We might be in for a bit of a surprise if we ever decipher the noises of these Underwater Raconteurs- Dolphins, that is, not Grandpas. My Theory is that the bleeps are not Language in the way that “My pantry is infested with Hip Hop DJs!” or “Getthehelloffmylawn!” is Language. Rather, the bleeps are the means by which Dolphins maintain their Trendy Village Vicar Image: Censoring the pornographic mudslide of cusswords which befoul their vocabulary.

Dolphins are undoubtedly the Smartest Creatures In The Aquatic University. Although Stripey-Scarfed Whales are nearly as clever. As are Swimming Belgians. 

Unfortunately, Family Delphinidae are cursed with the same Fatal Flaw as Old-Style Daleks: They are unable to climb stairs; wear fashionable footwear; or return overdue library books.

One million years might well be enough time for Dolphins to metamorphose into A Species Of Linedancers. However, I suspect their quest for World Champeen Status might be hamstrung by Local Authorities demanding payment of One Million Years Worth Of Overdue Library Book Fines.

Cock-A-Roaches. Not to be confused with Cock-Er-Nees. It is said only three things can survive the blast of a nuclear bomb: Cock-A-Roaches; Hollywood Botox; and the Offshore Stash Of International Bankers.

Cock-A-Roaches shun the limelight. Remember how they were often mentioned but never seen in Arthropod Gangster Movie Scurryface? Indeed, the Working Day of the Typical Cock-A-Roach consists of nefarious impersonation of Retired Pork Scratchings and Skulking Under Refrigerators. All done in a sly manner matched only by the sneakiest species of Car Keys and Smelly Cheese.

Consequently, these fellows are even more unpopular than Relentlessly Chirpy Cock-Er-Nees. And like them, have yet to score A Single Point in Eurovision or any other International Song Contest. Although, in fairness to both Cock-A-Roaches and Cock-Er-Nees, it should be noted they rarely get to finish the first lines of their entries, as other contestants feel compelled to crush them underfoot.

It occurs to me that Cock-A-Roaches will never ascend to anything more than Custodians Of Ancient Onion Rings at the Shitsonian Institution, unless they can somehow improve their Speed and Size. A version of the VW Beetle, for instance. Even if they can, I doubt they will ever be able to increase their Intellectual Capacity to master a vocabulary of anything more than “Cakes!!!” and “Beer!!!”

Moocows. Just kidding. I don’t really think Moocows have any more chance of attaining Planetary Supremacy than any other Mainstay Of Best-Selling Cookbooks. Which, coincidentally, is why none of The Leading Herbs are likely to rise to positions of power in The World Order. Not even the ones that taste like shit.

I only mention Moocows because they are a Cause Célèbre in How Not To Get Your Own Column in Survival Of The Fittest magazine. For as an Evolutionary Ploy, tasting of burgers is as useful as being able to Burp The Hits Of Pink Floyd.

Mad Cow Disease may be Mother Nature’s way of saying: “Hey! Eaters! Leave Those Cows Alone!” But it is less effective than preventing bullies poking you in the eye by cutting your own head off.

Kangaroos. By way of contrast, if Tastes were Cities, Kangaroos would be Twinned with Pongo Brasaville. So I’m told. I have no idea. My only experience of Kangaroos thus far being limited to Skippy and late-night chat-lines.

Conspiracy Theorists believe the Kangaroos Taste Like Greasy Iron-Filings Myth was born from Rotten Reviews from Restaurant Critics Who Just Happened To Be Kangaroos. If true, this Survival Tactic is at least as ingenious as Male Homo Sapiens feigning The Dexterity Of Potatoes, in order to avoid Ironing, Cooking and all tasks related to Cirque du Bébé Refuse Collection.

Of course, if you hold your nose, Kangaroo Geschmack is Just Fine. In fact, if you hold your nose, Sense Of Taste disappears as quickly as Sulky Footie Fans Whose Team Are Losing Three Nil. Try it yourselves Foolish Earthlings! Pinch your Sniffer and see if you can taste the difference between An Apple and An Onion. Or An Apple and A Filthy Old Tramp.

Whatever Kangaroos actually taste like -and they are far too pretty for me to want to find out- it won’t matter if Human Tastebuds continue to be dulled by the increasing amounts of methane being pumped into the atmosphere by Reality TV Shows. So it seems Furry Jumpers won’t be absent from the recipe books of Pie Manufacturers for too much longer.

Apart from Mankind, the greatest threat to the Kangaroo Population has historically been that of Public Telephone Boxes. Many a ‘Roo has been lured through the doors of these Bewitching Sirens with promises of Emergency Services and Recorded Betting Tips, only to knock themselves unconscious as they bounced their heads against The Deadly Low Ceilings.

In time to come, Kangaroos will only escape the predatory menace of Public Telephone Boxes if Evolution gifts them Zips on their Pouches, to prevent the loss of Mobile ‘Phones.

Despite all this, I still reckon Kangaroos have a reasonable shot at being the Head Bouncers –ho ho- of Future Earth. If only because their cuteness is enough to keep them above Slugs, Linebackers and Slug-Linebackers on any list of Protected Species.

Penguins. The Avian Entry in One Million Years A.D., they are masters of survival in Antartic Conditions, Underwater and Inside Silver Paper. They are also accomplished huddlers. But whilst this keeps them warm in Freezing Crapshrapnel, it is impossible to tell where one Barbershop Quartet finishes and another begins.

If Global Warming keeps going at its’ present rate Penguinsuits are likely to evolve into Trendy Skateboard Gear. This will grant Penguins license to extend their natural habitat into Urban Shopping Centres and allow them to utilize the area immediately above their saggy-arsed jeans for Pencil Storage.

As the World’s Leading Fish-Scented Charlie Chaplin Impersonators, Penguins occupy an Evolutionary Niche which should see them last at least as long as the Walton Plague.

But will they ever Rule The Global Roost? Doubtful. It is one thing to be part of an Elite Group of creatures able to contest Game Shows on both land and sea. Quite another to incite violence in the rest of The Animal Kingdom by Clapping Yourself All The Time.

Cats. The final candidates for the role of Keepers Of The Whole Ball Of Wool are Felis Silvestris Catus. In order to validate their suitability, I refer you to Cato.

Cato is a small, slinky, black-and-white currently employed as Executive Mouser in my own household. Although she tends to conduct her duties like a Greeter at a Las Vegas Casino. And by the way, if you think Cato is an odd name for a Cat, bring to mind the Pink Panther movies…… now you get it.

Cato is a Polydactyl Cat. I hope I do not disappoint too much when I clarify: This does not mean she is a Fifteen Foot Feline Dinosaur who terrorises local pizza deliverers and earns a second income as a B-Movie Film Extra. No mis amigos. Polydactyl means she possesses more than the usual five toes. Six in fact.

Nothing unusual in that you might think. But it furnishes her with the Catability to catch with the expertise of a Baseball Short-Stop and grip a pen as easily as William Shakespeare. By which I mean: Cato easily grips Writing Implements, rather than Cato easily grips William Shakespeare.

I hope that clears that one up because it indicates Cats are capable of developing Opposable Thumbs. And that is Evolutionary Dynamite. For History records how early Human Owners Of Opposable Thumbs became adept at using Simple Tools, like sticks and the microsoft 86. This in turn led to a rush of Rambling along neural pathways, which enabled the fashioning of Stone Implements with which to hit vending machines. The Development Of Opposable Thumbs was precisely the Evolutionary Improvement which started Early Man on his journey of Technological Advancement to the Computer Age, where he is now able to create Interplanetary Garbage, Microscopic Nouvelle Cuisine and Musical Bobble Hats… at will.

In conclusion, if Planet Earth still has enough puff left to blow out its’ Birthday Candles a million years from now, I rather suspect the Cake Icing will be comprehensively licked by a Race Of Supercats. The place of Hom. Saps. in this Planet Of The Moggies will almost exclusively be limited to positions in the Service Industry: Round The Clock Chefs, Tummy Ticklers and Newspaper Readers For Jumping On.

Any current Cat Owner, or better put: Any current Proprietor Of A Luxury Hotel For Cats, will tell you this inexorable progression towards Benign Feline Dictatorship has Already Begun.

One Million Years A.D.: Miaow! Miaow! Miaow-Miaow-Miaow!

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you knew sharks were a rockband* and contained one of the greatest guitarists of all time chris spedding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof? (008)

#humour

STUPIDARBITRARY BEER MEASURES are No.8 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Stupidarbitrary Beer Measures.

If you ever enter a British Pub -and let’s face it, The Armour Of Alcohol is essential protection for anyone preparing to read my World Class Horseshit- your Nostrils and Trousers will quickly Flare with disgust and repulsion.

This could easily result from a glance at the generous dispersion of Peanut Bowls along the Bar Top. “Oh! Ambassador! You spoil us with your Free Snacks delicately laced with Human Effluent!” Alternatively, you might recoil in Hammer Horror at the Oscar-Winning-Ugliness of the Local Populace- although infrequent habitués are soon becalmed by the happy discovery that this decreases as Alcohol Intake increases.

No meine freunde untermenschen! A Thousand Times No! Something far more insidvicious assails Our Senses as we creak aside the doors of The Frog And Messiah: The Evil Reek Of Best Bitter. The floor covering squishes like the bugturd carpets of the Amazon Jungle. The Bar Top slops like the decks of a stormtossed Ship….. or Salad. And worse: Any evening resident foolhardy enough to sport light-coloured trousering is soon marked with the Stinking Brand of The Ales Of Albion.

Not that I have anything against Best Bitter. It’s just that Emasculated Viking Lagers and Foppish North American Brews simply do not Stink like Dark Beer does.

So do I campaign for the removal of Pongobooze from the pumps of our hostelries? Pish Sir! For the imbibement of manly bitters is my own preferred pathway to Circumvented Locomotion. No, if I was going to make a noise about anything it would be the Stupidarbitrary Beer Measures which cause most of the Aforementioned Spillage and Subsequent Stinks.

Hah!! You exclaim. Finally….. a link between the Stupidarbitrary Beer Measures of The Title and the Soggy Ponderings which were fast leading down The Road To Despair. But there always was -and is- a link, mes braves.

You see, the Ogreish Ordinances of the British Beer And Pub Association dictate that a pint of beer “must contain a minimum of 95% liquid after the head has collapsed.” The head of the beer, that is, not the head of the consumer. (That comes later if the broth is of Sufficient Mind-Altering Potence.)

In Theory this is Fine And Dandy and is intended to protect the customer from the Black Hole Pockets of short-measuring Landlords. Then again alottastuff starts out in the Whoa! Am I Smart Or What?! category. The Unsinkable Titanic for instance. Or my own guesstimate of yeast levels required to make bread. I now appreciate improved exactitude is necessary to avoid turning one’s abode into a Hansel And Gretel Style Super-Loaf.

In practise, however, the insistence of 95% liquid after the head has collapsed ensures nothing more than Guaranteed Overspill. Try pulling a pint yourselves Puny Earthlings! You’ll find it is almost impossible to maintain liquid above the Official Line-Stamp without the head gungeing over the side. I say almost impossible: Given adequate time it can be done. But we’re not talking Pope Julius II’s Sistine Chapel here: “Okey dokey Mickey Boy- take as long as you like.” The average bar is surrounded by Ravening Freaks eager to Turn On Tune In And Fall Out.

Which brings us back Full Circle to dribbling pint-pots soiling bar tops, furniture, flooring and clothing. Not to mention the extra cleaning duties for Bar Staff, who already have their hands full Serving The Stuff, in addition to restraining the Extraordinary Sexual Athletes and Martial Arts Experts thus generated.

The Answer –for you know I don’t deal in miserable That’s Shit That Is outpourings. Rather: That’s Shit That Is Here’s A Solution outtakes- is obvious in My Extremely Loud Yet Humble Opinion. Howsabout telling the barperson you don’t mind not having a full pint if that will prevent spillage. I do. Nor is it beyond the wit of any Glass Manufacturer capable of tying shoelaces without an instruction manual to somehow Defy The Laws Of Physics and design Slightly Taller Glasses. (!!!)

Whoda thunkit?! In One Fell Swoop Of An Inebriated Falcon we have found a way to clean up our Pubs, whilst at the same time removing the majority of pongs from The Heaving Bosoms of grateful Bar Staff.

Not that any of this will prevent the Natural Spillage which results from unsuccessful attempts to imbibe alcohol via increasingly elusive Mouthparts.

Still, my little children of the Aquarian Age, I think it is fair to say these words have surely lifted just a little weight from the Pimply Shoulders Of Mankind.

As the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius observed through the froth of his McNutter’s Brain Burglary: “I am as sure-footed and clean as That Cat Off The Telly, yet I smell like a vomit repository. Arbitrary Beer Measures? Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you get more drunk from not drinking as much as you used to.

 

 

 

     

 

GLITTERATI OR GITTERATI? Sports Mic-Men In The UK.

#humour

Sports Commentators. Are they Babbling Freeloaders, useful only as an aid to muffling the noise of Joyriders racing down the street? Or are they Oracles, with orifices at least as indispensable as holes on a Muffin The Mule Sex Doll?

For the most part, I think we have to point our appendages in the direction of the first statement. This is because the work of the Typical Sports Commentator contains more Bogus Gravity than a Space Station.

For instance: A Grown Man dressed in short pants and a jersey designed to replicate the mess on pavements after pub closing time, lets a round leather object through his legs into something not dissimilar to Moby Dick’s Hairnet. This, informs Mr. Looselips, is A Tragedy. Another fellow fails to kick a Giant Pointy Egg between two cotton buds filched from King Kong’s Handbag. This, is A Disaster…  You get the picture.

The most pungent examples of this kind of Inflatable Horseshit are to be found in Football commentary, which has traditionally been riddled with more clichés than fleas on a goat. And by Football, I mean the Shakespearean Death Scene Version. Not the Merrkun Communist Per Version squeezed between adbreaks for Weedywaterbeer and Man-Corsets.

At The End Of The Day, football match commentators seem more concerned with letting us know what 110% mates they are with the Famous ex-pro pundit at their sides, than attending to the little matter of Who Has Actually Got The Ball. Even when upon every fourth or fifth contact they deign to tell us exactly who it was hoofed the ball into an Adjacent Continent, how often do the blathering baboons identify the wrong man or make a pig’s ear of pronouncing his name?

The BBC used to rule Footie presentation with all the condescension of the Divine Right Of Kings. But this has long since been replaced by Pantfilling Panic, as Sky and Talk Sport sped past them shouting “Wankaaaazz!!” 

This might explain the Beeb’s attempts to restore former glories by genetically modifying the orifices of their Mic-Men to mimic the sounds of the legendary John Motson. Fine up to a point… but surely, the proper place for Whiney Nasal Droning is Birmingham. Or behind a plasticounter enquiring: “Do you want fries with that?”

Apart from John Motson Clones, BBC Flagship Match Of The Day is also Binful of half-wits declaiming “He should have scored” at least as often as their trips to The Hotdog Van. Oh really?! Aside from the consideration that these Cheapshot Chipshop Fatties see fit to pass judgement on the Fittest, Most Skilful generation of soccer stars ever, they are forgetting their job is to let us know What Has Actually Bloody Happened, not… see first half of sentence.

There is, however, some hint of perfume in the dungheap of football commentary. Radio 5’s Alan Green has a kindly Alistair Cooke quality about his voice. This convinces listeners that the donkeys at the Stinko End of the Premier League are performing heroics, when they might be better suited providing rides on the beach.

The only drawback with Mr. Green is his accent. Reception only has to be a smidgin off to render his Ulster Brogue as impenetrable as a Titanium Chastity Belt. Get Alurrn Grain on The Box permanently and sell Mowbray, Bower and Wilson et al to White Slave Traders.

Sky’s Eddie Hemmings is another great favourite of mine. His telly voice-overs have done as much as Ray French did to remove Rugby League’s clogs and whippetshit image. Where once we had Eddie Waring pantomiming his way through “Ear-leeh-arr-err baths” and “Oop and oonderr-errs” we now get Concise And Informed Opinion.

At least we do until the English Ex-Pro Pundits at Hemmings’ side open their snappers. Playing Legends they usually are. Coherent speakers with a vocabulary larger than that of a Barbary Ape they usually are not. Feed them to The Dogs.

Still, there is one Band Of Professional Floppygobs who stand head and shoulders above the rest. I refer to the men who elucidate on the mysteries of Willow Wafting and Cork Chucking. By which I mean Cricket Batsmanship and Bowling, not Cricket Batsmanship and Hurling Dominic Into The Carpark.

I know Americans who whoop like Wild Dogs whenever Geoff Boycott revs up the Soopers. Never mind that their knowledge of the game is so vague they think Ball Polishing is a quaint form of public masturbation.

Even folks who’d rather Watch A Banana Go Brown than watch Cricket, cannot resist The Chat- a fact borne out by surveys indicating audience figures often go up when Play is suspended due to Rain, Bad Light or Bad Acid.

What makes Cricket commentaries more fun than a Post Office queue of Pogoing Penguins is their mix of expertise, intelligence and humour. The latter, of course, can be credited to the late, great Brian Johnston -the man who once informed the world: “The batsman’s Holding the bowler’s Willey” and “That’s Harvey at Slip with his legs apart, hoping for a tickle… I beg your pardon, a catch.”

It is fair to say Johners single-handedly took Cricket from stiff-as-a-piss-in-the-arctic reverence to the Fun Festival it is today. Brian’s influence lives on in Broadcast Teams’ insistence on Troughing Up on Cake Mountains and their refusal to treat the game as anything more than that.

David Gower is another Gent. For him, the slightest controversial pronouncement is tantamount to shouting bollocks in Church. But although he seems reluctant to say anything that would exclude him from a round in the Players’ Bar, I detect something of a code in his speech.

For instance, if D.G. says a batsman’s performance was “a bit disappointing,” his Inflection and Emphasis makes it sound like “That was a load of old shit, wasn’t it?!” Similarly, “The Umpire is taking a close look at that one” actually means “He was out by a mile, you blind bugger!”

Lord Gower is also a dabhand at using that new-fangled Etch-A-Sketch device to illustrate recommended Field Changes and Places To Pitch A Tent During The August Bank Holidays.

All in all, the Cricket Chappies have been pretty damned good through the years. With the exception of Andrew Strauss, whose attempts at humour are as deft and fluent as a washing machine falling down the stairs. I thank the Heavens, Gods, Weather Balloons and all the other Up There Stuff that he has just moved on to a new role as Head Of England Cricket. He made my Dog howl.

Conversely, Darts colour man Nigel Pearson not only keeps The Mutt quiet, he seems to have won Bob The Barbarian’s heart as well. And while canine erections are not necessarily a reliable measure of microphone expertise, Nigel -who also presents other minor sports such as Speedway and Nose Wrestling- is one of the most effective and likeable mic-men around.

His ability is underscored when you consider the material he has to work with. I mean, really, Darts as a spectator sport? Yet Mr.P. somehow manages to hypnotise the masses into believing they are witnessing a Gladiatorial Battle Of Titans. Rather than the reality of Two Fat Bastards Chucking Sticks At The Remains Of A Horse’s Arse.

Looking at the sports mentioned so far, there is one thing which unites them: I like them. So it must take Some Kind Of Genius to get me interested in Golf. I hate Golf. I hate Tartan Slacks. I hate Sweaters The Colour Of Baboon Bottoms. I hate the fact the ball always seems so far away….. at least until after I’ve hit it. I particularly hate my ownership of the St. Andrews course record. Sixty three, if you’re interested. Per hole.

Despite all this, I await TV Golf with an enthusiasm I’d normally reserve for my weekly Pizzathon. Why? Peter Aliss is why. He knows full well that pursuing small objects with more dimples than Shirley Temple is, in The Great Scheme Of Things, not as important as Helping Pensioners With Their Shoplifting. Or saying nice things about The Wife’s Hair, whenever it’s in the same room she is. But who cares? Peter loves the game and wants us to love it too.

It’s all in the voice. Its’ understated quality of congeniality means I would indeed buy a used car from this fellow. Even if it had no wheels and a trunk full of Smelly Folksingers.

As for Murray Walker, I am sad to say he’s always had the opposite effect on me. I say sad because although he is clearly A Very Nice Man, his screeching non-stop blather goes a long way towards putting me off Formula One. Do we really need to be told: “This is lap 68 of 73, which means we’ve got laps 69, 70, 71, 72 and 73 to go”? I tried listening to Motor Racing with the sound turned down but it was like Sex In A Spacesuit.

Thankfully, Murray has all but retired now, his microphone duties passed on to… passed on to… er… someone so remarkable I cannot remember their name. Hey! Murray! Come back!

Rugby Union commentators are but a microjockstrap away from their Cricket brethren in terms of informative opinion, humour and ability to avoid the possible Doomsday Scenario of every onfield event. Eddie Butler and Jonathon Davies deserve mention as the Taffs whose existence has done most to postpone British Government  plans to turn Wales into a vast nuclear dump.

Finally, let’s not forget the brave folk who fill us in on such Impossibly Boring sports as swimming, gymnastics and any event where dwarfs are employed to bounce atop four-legged Stink Machines. On second thoughts… let’s.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you believe jim rosenthal’s appearance on itv was predicted in revelations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NYCTOPHOBIA. Or: Why Night-Time Wins So Many Gold Medals In The Pantfilling Olympics. Or: Beaaaars!!!

#humour

I have a confession to make. I am afraid of The Dark. Silly, I know. A Big Tough Hombre like me, who can endure First Degree Paper Cuts, Daytime TV and drink gallons of Gibber Juice- and still not lose my marbles. Although their address is sometimes in doubt.

Yes indeed, I am a man who blows his noise in the face of danger. I don’t even blub when Lassie gets arrested by the FBI Department Of Bumsniffing. And yet, I’d do almost anything rather than switch off the light at night. I’d walk across photographs of broken glass; sit on non-matching cushions; even eat toenails discarded by the cast of Rubbish Musicals.

Not that being afraid of The Dark would normally be a problem. It’s just that The Baboon-Arsed Builders From Hell have just been in to plaster the walls. Apparently these Noble Fellows are bound by a Professional Code Of Conduct which forbids them from leaving a property until a nuclear mushroom cloud has been created. This and the fact that The Electrics were briefly transformed into an extravagant and –to be fair- Very Pretty fireworks display, means I cannot see a damn thing.

I haven’t been so terrified since Alvin Stardust threatened a comeback. The Nights are the worst. Not least because it is almost impossible to accurately direct traffic into the WC. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I’ve been taking a leak in the right room. The Tropical Fish, I fear, have been poisoned. And I think I heard Harvey –my invisible hamster- inflating his life-raft.

Whatever, I like to think of myself as a Clear Headed, Rational, Headsdownnononsenseboogie Kinda Dude. So in between leaping into the air screaming “Hah!!!” every time I hear a strange noise, I have been wondering why The Dark wins so many gold medals in The Pantfilling Olympics.

Certainly, as a source of fear, The Dark is at least the equivalent of Live Burial, being kissed by Auntie ZZ Top and Not Having The Right Change For That Shitmiserable Bus Driver. This irrational fear can’t just be down to my being The Intercontinental Yellerbelly Champeen. Though I’m sure it helps. There must be more to it than that.

I explore my head for an answer: Past the handsome features so like those of Al Pacino when the light strikes them in a certain way; so like those of Wile E. Coyote, when it doesn’t. I bound into the vast aircraft hangar of my mind. And you know what? It’s Empty except for the slight whiff of cheese and honey sandwiches and an ancient box of Trivial Pursuits….. and someone’s been tooling around with the answers.

What can I say? Don’t do drugs kids might be a good start. But I think I have found a resolution to my query: My fear of The Dark is a result of all those Horror Movies I watched as a Sprog.

If only The Babysitter had not given in so easily to Blackmail, I’d never have witnessed Dracula: Prince Of Darkness, The Hell Salads Of  Asda or the terrifying Ink-Smudge Scene in Conan The Librarian.

The biggest snorter though, was The House. Now you wouldn’t have thought the tale of An Evil Abode would place Unreasonable Strain on any but the Least Competently Manufactured Boxer Shorts. But I was a six year old who Ran For The Hills whenever Hamster Wars appeared on TV. So it did.

The ten-bedroomed brick construction displayed a talent for evil mischief and malevolence hitherto unknown in inanimate objects. Unless you count toasters. Its’ walls vibrated. Its’ doors banged. The plumbing squealed like a Boyband in a washing machine. I slept with the light on and erected a furniture barricade so substantial and complex, the makers of the Deluxe Maginot Chastity Belt hounded me for the patent.

This gives me a thought. My second. Not today. Ever. What is a Horror Flick but a Director’s visualisation of Man’s Primitive Fears? Not to mention a Director’s visualisation of How To Earn Enough Money To Send His Nose To The Moon. For while Night-Time Scaredy Cats are nowadays cast in the same category as Floppy-Fringed Shandy Drinkers and Mummy’s Boys Whose Name Is Stencilled Down The Sides Of Their Elasto-Cord Trousers, there was a time when such wariness was par for the course if you wanted to live longer than a chocccycake in the fearsome jaws of my five year old nephew.

You only have to look back to the Dawn Of Human History to understand why. Man was a savage, hairy fellow without fire, flea powder or fluffy slippers. All over Planet Earth he was experiencing his first encounters with The Dark: Its’ Growl; its’ Chomp; its’ Richter Scale Belch. And all without Formal Introduction.

The Dark… later to be filed away under : Things In The Dark With Teeth, paragraph (a) Beaaaars!!! I doubt it was long before further paragraphs were added featuring Pterrybledactyls and Wolves Running For Mayor Who Smile A Bit Too Much.

Playing such a starring role in the Food Chain must have placed quite a strain on Early Man’s Social Calendar. So you cannot blame them for declining Dinner Invitations from any creature whose dental bills outweighed the cast of Cats. Not that reluctance alone was enough to disperse the sharp-toothed queue forming at the bottom of the bunkbeds. In truth, this strategy was only marginally more effective than pretending not to understand what a Mugger wanted exactly.

No wonder Early Man feared The Dark so much. Being a source of fast-food for Everything With More Legs Than You would have wiped the Stickonsmile off a Reality Show Hopeful, let alone a Stinking Wretch with the life expectancy and career structure of a Chicken McNugget.

But what could our Ancient Ancestors do? Well what would you do? Yup… run like the wind pal. Unfortunately, The Dark kept following them around. It wasn’t as if it could be bribed to Bugger Off! like some pesky younger brother or sister. The Dark appeared each and every night. It was as permanent as an Ink Stain. As fixed as a Plungernosed Woodpecker.

The Dark then, has earned its’ place on the Team-Sheet of Mankind’s Unconscious Dreads. One Question remains, however. Is it reasonable to conclude my fear of The Dark is Nothing To Be Ashamed Of? Certainly, mes braves. My dearly cherished Subbuteo Table Football Youth Club Runners-Up Trophy provides much greater cause for Derision.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you are a grownup who still accompanies their subbuteo football play with human beatbox crowd soundtrack.

 

 

 

HOW TO BE A DICTATOR. Or: What’s The Matter, Can’t You Sew?

#humour

How would you like to be a Dictator? Come on now. Don’t be coy. Think of it: Total Political Power in a Bendyfruit Republic of your choice. Omnipotence in all areas relating to: Preferential Parking; Boogaloo Cinema Seats; and What Goes In Sausages. Not to mention: Unimpeachable Authority to wear “Despots Don’t Fart,” t-shirts.

Si Generalissimo! All this and a Presidential Mansion within a firing-squad volley of the beach!

Yes, I am aware the Faint-Hearted might like to consider the Moral and Ethical implications of Being A Dictator. Then again… maybe not. After all, the Extremities of Your Average Tyrant receive more Blonde Visitors per annum than Land’s End and John O’Groats put together.

And anyway, where would the Revolutionaries of the world be without a Howling Mad Despot to aim their Uzis at on August Bank Holidays? Out of work, that’s where. I mean, without an El Pig to Get Rid, the likes of the Shining Patio Movement and the Marxist Sons Of Abba would have nothing to do but twiddle their Dialectics, Scalextrics and Mantits.

I know my nearby Unemployment Office displays precious few  vacancies for Experienced Guerrilla Insurgents. And any Work History whose headline feature is: Overthrowing The Autocratic Bourgeoise probably won’t get you a job in the local golf club shop. Head Bottom Sniffer in a Three Star Dog Hotel? Sorry, hombre.

Sooo… if your answer to the Opening Question was: “I wouldn’t mind enslaving The Masses but don’t really want to inconvenience anyone,” Think Again. You’ll be keeping all those Scruffy Pinko Subversives in gainful, spiritually rewarding employment.

A secret yearning to Be A Dictator may have been yours since childhood. (If you’re interested –and there’s no sane reason you should be- my own early job market ambitions were limited to Ice Cream Man and Any Job Where You Get To Wear A Chicken Outfit.)

But you know you have to look the part if you really want to be taken seriously as an Oppressor Of The Lumpen Proletariat. And I don’t mean handsome. Historically, ninety per cent of the world’s Dictators required nothing more than a glance to send Native Songbirds plummeting from the branches. Ugly? Even their mothers fed them by mail.

This is precisely why Tyrants have traditionally sported moustaches the size of The Rings Of Saturn. A luxurious moustache disguises the most fearsome facial vomerama and provides Il Generalissimo with something to stroke during times of stress. Cats are also good for this. But you need big lips. Or they fall off.

Of course, some dismal chaps are unable to grow a suitably verminous Viva Zapata. But not to worry: If Puberty passed you by like a Stampede Of Conscientious Objectors, hope may yet flourish in the form of a carefully brandished pair of scissors. Simply trim off your pubic hair and fix it underneath your nose. Those with sensitive skin should note: A harmless glue can be gotten from boiling down the bones of An Old Show Jumper. A Horse, that is. Not Michael Whittaker.

I accept this will leave you with an Indisputably Itchy Personal Funland, so if you wish to maintain Caesarlike Gravitas once you’ve ascended to Power, please resist the urge to scratch yer balls during public debates of economic policy.

Other Evil Tyrant Accoutrements include: Cigars the size of The Fat Bloke On The Bus; Epaulettes like Albert Hall stage curtains; Mirror-Shades to hide kindly Christopher Robin Eyes; and A Uniform Sharp Enough To Dice Posh Sounding Veg Which No Sentient Being Actually Eats.

And don’t forget the Medals. The more Medals and Ribbons adorn your chest, the more likely you are to overawe a plebeian gibbon whose trophy cabinet is empty but for a Fancy Dress Runner-Up Certificate For Crazypants. At which point, it becomes clear why Hand-To-Hand Combat Skills are less important to the Aspiring Dictator than the Ability To Sew Nicely.

But calm down Tonto. Looking like an Acid-Crazed Dressage Rider is one thing,  Actually Seizing The Reins Of Power, quite another.

Confident exponents of Baboon Brute Force are more than happy to Unseat The Fillings of the Incumbent by way of Guns, Bombs and Stealth Toffee. But what if you feel a bit shy about instigating a Coup de Twat?

Answer? Get Elected. No, really. I kid you not, mon stinkeaux petits frères et soeurs. Many a Despot started out in A Nice Hat, eliciting votes with promises of Tax Cuts, Enslavement Of Zany TV Continuity Announcers and Violent Elimination of Turds Who Whistle On The Bus In The Morning.

Once in power, you can declare yourself President For Life and surreptitiously flush Tax Cuts down the toilet. No-one will notice increases in levies if you rename them Magic Moonbeams. Or encourage folks to bet on Horses With No Legs to fund “lovely new hospitals for wonky children.” This being Dictatorspeak for “funding my nice new pants with gold bits on.”

Unpopularity? Matters not a jot to a Proper Top Despot. Granted, a Dictator might actually be the kind of fellow who gets invited to dinner parties less often than Poopy Things In Fields. But… it is not difficult for the in situ Tyrant to maintain a one hundred per cent approval rating with the Voting Public when the Voting Public consists of but one vote. His.

Dissenters? Strafe them with vouchers for Miserable British Seaside Holiday Camps.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to google and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you think it would be quite nice to be a dictator part-time during the summer holidays as long as it doesn’t interfere with your paper round.

 

 

 

 

 

ANGLING FOR BEGINNERS. Or: Are You Sure Car Keys Are The Best Bait For Carp, Buddy?

#Humour #Fishing

What is the oldest profession? Prostitution? Fishing? Fashioning Sequins for Ballroom Danceasaurs?

Personally, I’d go for Fishing. Early Man almost certainly fished for food long before he first exchanged Wooden Fivers for Tummy Tickles: Or decided that throwing Rhinestones at ten-ton lizards was a profitable way to spend time between episodes of I’m A Ready-Meal… Get Me Out Of Here!

Leaping to the present, it’s not so much the Profession of Fishing which puzzles me: Simply because it’s just that- a paid job. No compadres, my insomniac doubts are directed at the folks who do it for free. For sport. For pleasure.

For pleasure??? Answer me this: What is the attraction of getting up at three o’clock in the morning in order to stand at the edge of a field staring at a bunch of Stinking Maggots? Silly question, you might reply. If you are a Committed Angler. Or an England football supporter.

But really, what is the attraction? Satisfaction of Man’s most basic instincts is the first thing that comes to mind. And I’m not talking about the Feeding Frenzy which grips Anglers the moment they unwrap a Gargantuan Wedge of Beef And Horse Radish Sandwiches. I refer to The Hunting Instinct. 

This is the pitting of one’s primitive cunning against the wiles of The Animal Kingdom, where Lions, Tigers and Shitmassiverhinos are more than happy to oblige anyone seeking to supplement their bodies with an extra orifice. Soooo….  if the urge to wrestle God’s Creatures really is that powerful, it strikes me armed combat with A Wet Fish is a pretty soft option.

So is the answer: Mankind’s Incontrovertible Affinity With Water? I don’t know. Ask me again when my socks have dried out.

How about Solitude then? Yup, I think we’re getting somewhere now. For however much you might value your spouse over and above a Genuine and Original sachet of Brigitte Bardot Bellybutton Fluff, there are times when a fellow needs to be alone with his thoughts. And if those thoughts are accompanied by a Fishing Rod and Bog-Chortler Six-Pack, so much the better.

Solitude is a marvellous thing. Jesus Christ, Buddha and Glenn Hoddle all spent time in The Wilderness. All returned in possession of Enlightenment, Bags Of Trout and Football Shirts signed by Higher Intelligences.

There is a better answer than all of those, of course. If you are at all curious about the Attraction of dangling Artificial Extremities into water, try it yourself. For like most other things in Life, opinion is best formed from personal experience -Self-Immolation and Linedancing notwithstanding.

The recommended introduction to Fishing is in the company of An Expert Friend. (As opposed to A Sworn Enemy, who might spike your sandwiches with worms and tell you The Best Bait For Carp is Car Keys.)

The First Time Angler should remember to put on enough waterproof clothing to keep warm, but not so much that they look like a Quarterback Wearing A Bouncy Castle.

Also, keep in mind Stylishness of Angling Attire is of very low import. Vamping around the water’s edge in Karl Lagerfeld Haute Couture means you will not only be As Stiff As A Piss In The Arctic within ten minutes, but Arrest for Flashing is also on the cards.

With the proper gear on your back, the next area of attention is the business of Fishing itself. In particular: The Art Of Casting. It might appear difficult at first, as the number of techniques to be learned very nearly matches The Kama Sutra. Overhead, Underarm, Uptide and Upside Down Without Farting are just some of the casting methods which threaten to send your confidence plummeting faster than a Footballer who’s been nudged by a bug.

But take heart Mes Braves. For once you learn how, Casting is a skill you never lose: Like riding a bicycle; or getting the last bit out of the jampot; or making vulgar noises with your armpits; or… you get the idea. Just try and avoid contact between The Hook and The Pants Of Adjacent Psychopaths.

A word here too about noise. You should know that Fish will leg it if they detect the slightest vibration. So do not take Radios or Motorcycle Display Teams to the waterside. Or anyone claiming to be the Son Of God.

Once you have been at it for a while, do not be surprised if the Embrace Of Angling grips you like A Dog On Heat. Even if the most obsessive thing you’ve ever done is spread cornflakes on the floor in a desperate attempt to locate a plastic camel, you may well discover that once the Ants Of Anglemania get in your pants, it is not an itch that is easily scratched.

The defining moment in the career of the Rookie Angler is the instant of that first catch. No matter that it is only marginally bigger than the hook upon which it rests. And even if the most advanced micro-technology on the planet couldn’t provide a piece of wood small enough on which to mount that debut fish, the feeling of intense pride is enough to burst your shirt with pride. How else do you think the Incredible Hulk was inspired to shred his shirt every Saturday night, if not: “Hey Lou! Remember that Stickleback!?”

By the way, don’t give up if you fail to land a fish on your first trip. Although… if the story is still the same after the sixth visit, delay your return until the ice has melted. Or ask the swimming pool Lifeguard to stop blowing that bloody whistle.

Once the decision to take up the Sport is made, your cheque book need not flap like a Scottish Goalkeeper’s arms. Secondhand gear is affordable without the combined cost of rods, hooks and keepnet et al necessitating the sale of Uncle Albert into Slavery.

And don’t forget the most important piece of kit in the Angler’s Armoury: The Rod Support. With this propping up the Tackle, the Fisherman is free to pursue concurrent activities. Reading is very popular, for example. Especially if this involves the exposition of a Voluptuous Librarian’s tattoos. Personally, I favour gently resting my hands behind my head, before returning to any dream featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, Art Deco Furniture and Unspellable Exotic Groceries. Upon waking, it is entirely possible you will find a fish has trapped itself on your hook: Complete with a slightly foolish “Knew it, I bloody knew it” expression on its’ face.

All of which marks Fishing out as the only Sport in which one can successfully participate Without Actually Being There. Not an idle claim. For I have tested this Theory at some length. Unfortunately, placing a Bowling Ball at the top of the Ten-Pin Alley before retiring to the bar has yet to afford me the fruits of success. But I’ll keep you informed.

If the Unquenchable Thirst For Combat With Nature becomes sated at any point, there is always the Unquenchable Thirst For Real Ale. It is an Unwritten Law Of Angling that the nearest Hostelry should be no further away than 750 Standard Highwayman’s Paces. As a Rule Of Thumb: Subtract 50 paces from the formula for every successive Alehouse visited. Not forgetting that the number of paces decreases markedly -to zero, actually- if you are Carried Horizontally.

At the close of the trip, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t caught a damned thing. More important is to have a least one Great Yarn to tell. Ideally, this will outshine The Canterbury Tales by including the discovery of a Japanese Infantry Unit still fighting World War Two. And if your competitive bent renders you unable to return home without a Prize Catch, you might consider stopping off at a Fish Shop. But keep in mind: Derision will greet any Moby Dick tale illustrated with a jar of cockles or tin of tuna.

One more thing before you pit yourself against the Denizens Of The Deep And/Or Reasonably Shallow: Carry the relevant licence. And No before you ask- a Dog Licence won’t do. However much you bark and lick the River Warden’s face.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you know it’s a waste of time trying to tickle trout because you’re better off telling them a good joke or reading excerpts from the 1961 national council of social services report on new towns in great britain.

 

 

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (007)

#humour

SQUEAKING SHOES are No.7 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Squeaking Shoes are A Curse. They nevereverever Squeak when you try them on in The Shop. No no no. What they do is swell their soles with pride that You, The Supreme Arbiter Of Good Taste have chosen to propel Them to Superstardom.

Despite Warnings of pongs so Powerful they register on the Richter Scale and Storage Facilities that collapse into a pile of sticks when not wedged against the wall, the Unbought Shoe seems to love you for what you are and hints at a ménage à trois with its’ twin. I would Swear in a Court Of Law it gives off Baboon d’Sex Parfume and Winks. So of course you buy ’em. 

The Honeymoon Period is marvellous. Brand New Stompers make you feel like you are Walking On Air. Or Treading The Heads of Foamhatted Peasantry. Then comes The Day After You Can Legally Take Them Back To The Shop. And they know. This is when the Malevolent Little Buggers decide to burst into song.

Squeak Squeak Bloody Squeak. Public Humiliation. Wearers Of Squeaking Shoes face Derision on a Daily Basis. The nextdoor neighbour complains he’s woken up each morning by your Dawn Chorus of Slightly Pissed Crows. Construction Workers mock your Invisible Floorboards. Blokes In The Pub say they would have stayed home if they wanted to listen to Constant Squawking.

Consequently, many sufferers of Squeaking Shoes feel such shame they never leave the house. And frankly, I can’t blame them. I’m not sure I’d want to appear in public if my Steelies sounded like Simon And Garfunkel When They Were Mice.

What’s worse: Some Organised Gangs of Squeaking Shoes think it is An Enormous Hoot to modify their emissions so they sound like Moosefarts. And that’s Moose not Mouse. So you know what’s going on if you spot a Partygoer who seems so Unwilling To Move the host hires Industrial Lifting Gear.

The question is: What in the name of The Holy Sock Shroud Of Tunbridge Wells causes Footwear to utter such Demonic Musics? I am inclined to believe The Blame lies at the delicate perfumed feet of Fashion Designers. In their increasingly frenzied efforts to corner the market in Utterly Contrived Inutility, they blueprint Inhumanely Angular High Heels and  Pointy Boots cast in the image of Lucifer’s Pencil Sharpeners. Add complex designs replete with weighty buckles, bolts and chains more suited to an Escapologist’s stage show and it’s No Wonder shoes Creak and Squeak.

If you regularly strike out along the High Street in such Foot Apparel you would be right to voice concern. For compared to the rest of the population, Wearers Of Squeaking Shoes are seven times more likely to be so Distracted they stray into Potholes. Or Nests Of Ballroom Dancers. Or the Hadron Collider.

One’s very Life Force ebbs away upon consideration of the assumptions made about Loudshoed Unfortunates. For example: “He can’t afford to buy Quieter Shoes because he drinks too much.” Or: “He is so stupid he buys shoes which fit everyone’s feet but his own.” But the Ultimate Insult is this: Wearers Of Squeaking Shoes are regarded as so Pitiful and Beneath Consideration they don’t even get Junk Mail.

But what compels Footwear to make such Loathsome sounds? Are they just trying to piss us off? Is it a cry for help? Worse than that: Are they being influenced by Marxist Crazy Paving encouraging the rise of the downtrodden? If so, the Squeaks may actually be a Secret Language between Shoes- preparing for the day they turn on us like The Birds in Hitchcock’s Movie.

So can Unwanted Shoe Noise be removed? I doubt it. If you really want to keep galomping about in those Arc d’Triomphe Stack Heels the best you can hope for is to muffle the sound. And Fierce Skinheads should bear in mind: Footwear Noise decreases in inverse ratio to Ruffian Fear Factor, the more socks you wear Outside Yer Bovver Boots.

Heel Studs also help smother Squeaks. But they need to be of weighty manufacture. Try lead. Or Scotland. Alternatively, you could hum. Disguising the Din as part of a Tourettes Stylee 1812 Overture is popular. Especially if your Talents enable you to imitate the sound of canonfire.

Finally, why not fit Squeaking Shoes with somekinda Computer Synthesiser Bingbong? Offending Noises could be altered to mimic Rampaging Elephants or Meteorite Showers. And whilst it is entirely conceivable that the New Sounds attract even more attention than the Old Sounds, it is worth noting they are quite effective in securing Public Transport Seats during the Rush Hour.

Incidentally, have you ever seen a movie in which the Assassin/Hitman/Postman had Their Cover Blown because the Intended Recipient of bullets heard Shoes Squeaking in the distance? If memory serves, Shoot-Em-Up Flicks like Diehard, Diehard With A Vengeance and Diehard With A Pension did not feature a single Shoe Fart between them. How do the chaps whose passports read “Vicious Gunman” under “Occupation” keep their Brogues so quiet? Surely they don’t threaten their Footwear with violence? That would come under the heading of Shooting Yourself In The Foot, methinks.

As the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius commented whilst flicking through the latest FiveHundredQuidAShot Fashion Piffle: “If this is the pinnacle of planned design, how come it bloodywell Squeaks?! Have All The Arches Fallen Off Your Feet?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you live life by the maxim never trust a man whose going out shoes are any colour but black.

BOREDOM. Or: Toronto! Toronto! Toronto!

#humour

We all want life to be as Interesting and Suspenseful as is possible without going to the expense of attaching Lightning Rods to our Erogenous Zones.

We practise variations of the Olympic Ideals –Faster, Higher, Stinkier- in an attempt to fill the time between Morning Toaster Wars and night-time dreams of Film Stars And Their Exotic Vegetables.

And yet, Boredom is unavoidable. Like the common cold and private itching in public places, no one is immune to it. You know the grip of The Goddess Tedia is never very far away when you consider: Approximately five per cent of a Human Boing’s lifespan is spent not having the slightest empty carpark of an idea what to do with themselves. This figure drops to one per cent if you discount Nose Scratching and Trying To Find Wrong-Coloured Hair.

Now, one per cent out of three score years and ten might not seem like an Excessively Large Hole in The Socks Of Life. Certainly, some folks set aside at least as much time as that for Peeling Postage Stamps Off Their Tongues. But work it out: If mental arithmetic serves -and it will have to because a guy in a Fish Suit stole my calculator shortly before being booted into the jaws of the Whale at Aqua World- one per cent of the average person’s lifespan is eight point four months.

Eight point four months!! Who would voluntarily subject themselves to such a long period of Boredom? Unless it was an Entry Requirement for the Royal Air Force. Or the Hell’s Angels.

For instance, if a Double-Glazing Salesman knocked your front door and told you that given the Slightest Glimmer Of Encouragement he was about to waste eight point four months of your time, you’d tell him to Go Scatter His Seed, wouldn’t you?

The trick then, is to Spot these Boremongers before They Spot You. If you truly wish your existence to maintain the Thrill! of that First Love Affair or the Thrill! of that First Cheese And Honey Sandwich, you would be Wise to avoid Any One selling Any Thing.

In observing Hom Saps whose capacity for Boredom Inducement is less immediately obvious than a salesperson’s, you will rarely tread in The Turds Of Tedium if you heed this advice: Jump on the nearest Bus -regardless of where it is going- the moment you are approached by anyone wearing Excessive Lapel Badges or a tie featuring Dogs Re-Enacting The Signing Of The Treaty Of Versailles.

This is because some of the World’s Most Ballscratchingly Boring people present Zany Exteriors. For example: Have you ever met an Idle Wretch sporting One Blue Contact Lens and One Brown Contact Lens, who did not ache to be asked about his Kinship with David Bowie? Remember: Eight Point Four Months. Run like The Wind my friend.

Other folks to be avoided like The Shit Collector at the Moskau State Circus are people who own the Original version of Trivial Pursuits. The Original version of Trivial Pursuits was Canadian. And whilst Canada is no more boring than any other Snowbound Wasteland, answering “Toronto!” seventy times in one evening certainly is.

Of course, there are situations where you are not afforded the luxury of vetting Potential Companions. A party where the host introduces you to a fellow who is dressed in A Stinking Goat Outfit, for instance. Or a Bookstore Brawl over the last copy of The Life And Times Of Gandhi.

But Be Still Oh Beating Heart, even in such dire Happenstance there is a simple test for The Quicksands Of Boremongery. Mention: (a) The Weather; (b) Slip-On Seat Covers, or (c) Anything With Specifications In It. Tediophiles will instantly expose themselves by expounding upon such subject matter as if they’ve been presented with A Work Of Art. Or Any Item Of Underclothing Ever Left In A Hotel Room By Gina Lollabudgerigar. Escape? Wait until the eyes of the Tediophile are turned heavenwards in ecstatic discourse, then slip away. Alternatively: Render them unconscious with a Stun Grenade.

Eluding Humdrummers is one thing. But what if there is no choice? What if we ‘ve been appointed to an empty waiting room? We are all consigned to these particular hell holes at some time or other. Tables strewn with stunningly useless magazines. Walls filled with No Smoking/Eating/Masturbation notices. The odds against us would appear to be stacked higher than Imelda Marcos’s Shoe Cupboard, but is it possible to avoid Boredom in this predicament?

The answer is straightforward if you are forearmed with the knowledge that All waiting room walls are so constructed that The Strolling Bones could be banging away –musically speaking- on the other side and you still wouldn’t hear a thing. Naturally, this means Efforts To Relieve Monotony on your side need not be any quieter than The Siege Of Mafeking.

In my own experience, the most entertaining way to stave off waiting room yawns is Animal Imitation. In my case, Profusion Of Body Hair and Brightly Coloured Buttocks lead me to an obvious choice: The Baboon. Realistic Simulation is achieved by arching the back and bouncing up and down as enthusiastically as furniture will allow. Regular viewers of Zoo Watch and/or Family Fortunes will no doubt complete the illusion by adding suitably Simian Grunts and Squeaks.

But a word of warning: Keep an eye on the door handle. A Doctor or Psychologist might not be unduly alarmed if they caught you in the act. However, Seeds Of Doubt would be sewn in the mind of a Prospective Employer.

Still, a Waiting Room is Thrill City compared to being stuck in front of the Telly, blankly wondering if there could conceivably be Any Connection between the tiresome events of a Duff Sitcom and its’ Desperate Canned Laffs.

If it is so Boring, why watch? Good question. Yet there are times when the day’s labours leave a fellow unable to do anything more energetic than search for Bellybutton Fluff.

Once again I have A Brilliant Solution: An activity that promises all the pleasures of Slovenly Deportment whilst at the same time stimulating the most jaded mind. Put on a Balaclava. In the absence of a Balaclava, Underpants will do. Then crawl Combat Fashion behind the settee. You are now a Military Sniper pinned down by Bandidos With Kneelength Moustaches.

Hour upon hour can be whiled away in this state of excited idleness. Should anyone be foolish enough to interrupt this fantasy -the Pizza Man or The Nice Old Lady From The Sally Army, for instance- take them hostage. And if the mood takes you- you can always burst out of your house and zigzag down the street shouting: “You’ll never take me alive.” But don’t forget to take a spare door key.

If you harbour dreams of sidestepping Boredom on a regular and organised basis, I humbly/maliciously suggest you join The Dangerous Sports Club Of Great Britain. This, unlike most of the other stuff that occupies my waking thoughts, actually does exist. These are the chaps who introduced the joys of Bungee Jumping to the general public.

Paradoxically, the Dangerous Sports Club seeks out the most Pants Expanding activities and converts them to *Totenhosen. Fair enough. After all, they’re titled Dangerous, not Suicidal. (*Look it up, you lazy bugger.) In the case of Bungee Jumping, this means bouncing up and down as predictably as possible. As opposed to the Jumper duplicating the appearance of a Pub Pavement after closing time. 

Of course, if it were down to me… I ‘d take a good long look at this Format. Then I’d grip it by the Procreations and turn it upside down. As in : The Tedious Sports Club Of Great Britain. With the aid of Cunningly Concealed Firecrackers, mindnumbing tasks like Mowing The Lawn would be transformed into Spectacular Forays Into The Unknown. Imagine: The Excitement of ironing… if you had to do it blindfolded; The Suspense Of Mealtimes… if you took the labels off everything from Self-Raising Flour to The Cat’s Flea Powder.

Wouldn’t life be a joy?! Hmmm… maybe  I’ll keep sashayingalong with the thought that Boredom is: Only What I Get When All The Stuff I Oughta Got Get Done Is Done Gone Not Just Yet What I Wanna Get Got Done. Anyway, it’s not Boredom if you think of it as Meditación, mis amigos.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you’re ticked off with your boxes getting ticked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (006)

#humour

INTELLIGENCE TESTS are No.6 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens  to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard. As such I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

I have often pondered the nature of Intelligence. What is it? Where is it? And will it burst the seams on your Favourite Hat if you have too much of it?

My Next Door Neighbour’s assistance has proven invaluable to my In-Vest Igations. Indeed, as I observe him eating Syrup Waffles in a manner rarely seen since The Dawn Of Civilization, I am seized by the compulsion to contact National Geographic Magazine claiming Discovery of the Missing Link between Modern Man and The Ape. Enthusiasm wanes, however, with the realisation he would almost certainly refuse to pose for their Statutory Nudie Pics.

But is he any less Intelligent than you or I, merely because he remains baffled by the Non-Return of his Cremated Pigeons once he has scattered them to The Winds? (We found a beak once. But the British Pigeon Club ruled: “The return of one-twenty-fourth of a bird is insufficient for a Rosette to be awarded.”)

Is it fair to say my Neighbour is a Congenital Idiot because he Whistles louder than an Airforce Jet whilst pilfering my apples? Who is to say? His Elder Brother won a Major Scientific Award for Something To Do With Cloning Sticky-Out Nipples. At almost exactly the same time his Younger Brother lost the King Tomatoes Cup on a technicality. (He entered A Beetroot.)

How then, do you measure Intelligence? More to the point: How do you measure the validity of the Tests which measure Intelligence? Indeed: How would you provide a measurement to measure the validity of measures which measure the validity of the Tests which measure Intelligence? How would… you get the idea.   

Up until the late 19th Century, Intelligence was often defined by HowMuchCake Could Be Stuffed In One’s Snapper before the Lord Of The Manor got off his horse. How times change. Since then the likes of Alfred Binet, David Wechsler and Assorted Kaufmans have all sought to illustrate which bits of the intellect are useful in measuring Intelligence and which bits should be weighted with bricks and chucked in the canal.

Their Intelligence Tests are used by Educational, Military, Business and plain old Nuthouse Institutions around the world to work out who is and who ain’t. And by the way, before anyone starts gurning about my use of Nuthouse: I come from A Long And Proud Line of Hereditary Nutters, so I get a Free Pass in PC World. And Dolphin World for that matter.

The result of Intelligence Tests is folks Do Or Don’t get certain Jobs, Colleges and/or Big-Assed Egos. Many a poor soul has had their ambitions, dreams and pebbles dashed because their Intelligence Quotient was deemed too Ordinary or Gibbonish. But what if the Intelligence Tests themselves are flawed? I.e. A Load Of Old Bollocks.

For instance: MENSA, Triple Nine and the Prometheus Society are exclusive to all but the Non-Stinkeroos with Ultra-High I.Qs. But… butbutbut butbut: Their Test Material can be characterised as an arbitrary set of Word, Number and Picture –stop me and poke me in the eye if I left something out- Puzzles. So if you’ve ever been Cut Down by a member of the Self-Appointed Intelligentsia, consider this: They wouldn’t sound so Hi-Falutin’ if they were –correctly- called The Good At Puzzles Club.

Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with Puzzles. I personally whizz through at least Acoupla Superhero-Standard Su Doku’s every time I sit down to take… too much information. And I frequently complete The Times Crossword in less than five minutes. Although, to paraphrase Morecambe And Wise, this involves the use of All The Right Letters- but not necessarily in the right order.

So Intelligence Tests are Jolly d. Their puzzles certainly are a pleasant way to pass time spent With Pants Around Ankles. But they certainly ain’t an accurate Scale Of Intelligence. Why? Not a one takes into account the most important ingredient in The Mountainous Pie Of Human Intellect: Creativity. Really? Ask yourself this: Is there any aspect of an Intelligence Test which couldn’t be solved by a Computer Programme? For processing info is One Thing, doing something the hell with it Entirely Another.

Intelligence as defined by current Intelligence Tests would have enabled Early Man to Count Sticks. It would have enabled Early Man to avoid the effects of Fire on their personal Bush City Limits. But it would have excluded the Creativity which enabled Early Man to put Sticks and Fire together to provide heated Cave Massage Parlours.

So if the Beautiful Breasts Of Creativity would Indeed be a fine addition to the Ugly Body of existing Intelligence Tests, you have to ask: How do you measure Creativity?

Many a Great Mind has been asked that question. Their considered replies being along the lines of: “Sorry.. Is that the time?” And: “How about those Seahawks, eh?” The Truth is: No-One has ever managed to design a satisfactory Creativity Test.

At which point mon amis, one could Quite Reasonably wonder: “If Intelligence Tests are Shite because their measurements preclude Creativity and Creativity Itself cannot be properly measured, how will I ever know whether I am A Genius or A Witless Ketchup Stain?” Does this mean we might be left with What We Already Got?

No. Nonononononono. There is no real reason why elements of Creativity cannot be Shoehorned into the Pongoboots of Intelligence Tests. Even then they won’t be perfect. Like a Boxer who is 20 and 0. You can take his Record at face value… or ask how many opponents possessed a Winning Ledger. Or were Actually Alive. After you’ve woken up consider this:

Intelligence Tests will remain An Entertaining Conceit. But they are what they are. Useful without being the Be All And End All. It takes one hell of a Cretocracy to pretend otherwise.

Or as the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once said: “You gotta be pretty damn stupid to think you can really measure intelligence. Intelligence Tests? Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you don’t like intelligence tests but think the paper tastes nice.

 

ANT ATTACK! Or: Careful Where You Drop Your Metaphorical Pants Mes Braves.

#humour

I keep dreaming about Ants. Ants in the Kitchen. Ants in the Bathroom. Ants in the Living Room, scoffing at the colour scheme. The swine grin malevolently as they make off with the contents of the larder and deliberately scratch my Record Collection.

Accidently tuning in to the Popular Phonograph Shit Parade could hardly cause me more distress. The Shrink says the Nightmares are the Manifestation of a Guilt Complex- brought on by my brutal and violent reaction to anyone tapping Artificial Sweeteners into my coffee.

I’m not so sure though. I think the answer is much simpler than that. For Summer is about to drop its’ Metaphorical Pants. And what do I get a Plague of each and every Hot Season? No, not Double-Glazing Salesmen. I’m talking about Family Formicidae. In other words: I don’t need a Ninety Quid An Hour Witchdoctor to tell me I keep dreaming about Ants because I will soon be overrun by the little buggers.

Don’t tell me it’s No Big Deal. Even the World’s Greatest Antophile, with walls plastered with posters of the critters in Goalscoring Poses, and an address book Brimful with Ant Pen Pals, would not be amused to discover they’d claimed Squatters’ Rights in his toothbrush.

Am I over-reacting to a trivial matter? I don’t think so, hombre. I can’t get near the Morning ‘Paper until 70,000 Tiny Open University Students have read it first. The queue for the bathroom wouldn’t be any longer if there was Free Money at the end of it. And there’s never any milk in the Fridge.

Not that I’ve got anything against these Admirably Industrious Insects. Hell! I used to own a lavishly furnished Ant Farm- and always took great pains to ensure it was run as a Profit-Sharing Workers’ Collective. It’s just that I’m getting jacked off winning the Nomination for the Ant Olympics every year.

In the past I’ve tried to stampede the pests to Foreign Climes by showing them Scottish Olympic Bid Brochures. (These are not Brochures as such. More Vouchers. All You can Drink Vouchers.) I have also employed the more obvious methods of discouragement. But approaching them on an Individual Basis and declaring: “I’m not ready to Commit,” and “I want to see other Ants,” has made no difference. Indeed, without the black eyes I’d have nothing to prove the conversations ever took place.

I’ve even applied Russian Scorched Earth policy. And whilst this was successful in turning back Invasions by Napoleon, Hitler and The Miserable Cow Who Runs The Post Office, it has not helped me: My Home is now valued in the same equity bracket as Shitey Old Shopping Trolleys.

So you can see my little children of the Aquarian Age, how I’ve persevered with the Non-Violent Approach. Nothing. Ants still rampage through my Food Supplies like matrons on the trail of Assorted Osmonds. Net result: A grocery bill which resembles the Moon Landing Budget.

But not this year. No matter that the most macho thing I’ve ever done is collapse the ceiling around my ears on Pancake Day. The time has come for all those who have ever had An Ant kick sand in their faces.

To this end I have been the studying the Household Pests Section of Soldier Of Fortune magazine. If you too are fed up with Battalions of miniature X Factor contestants rolling over your borders each Summer, read on.

The most common Theatre Of War for the invading forces of Antdom is the kitchen. This is because Ants possess an unrivalled sweet tooth. As well as a Cavalier Attitude to Dental Charges.

The Campaign is best opened with Verbal Intimidation. Shout: “Yo da disease, ahm da cure.” Or tell them you are about to release The Hounds Of Hell. (That’s the Boxset of Hits From The Musicals, Belgian Readers.)

Do not fret over the dangers of such provocation. Enraged Ants are unlikely to pursue and pistolwhip you to Within An Inch Of Your Life. For despite their well-documented ability to carry Leaves and Elvis Memorabilia many times their weight, they are not renowned sprinters. Having thus far failed to ascend the Medal Podium at any of the world’s major athletic events.

Next item on the agenda is Physical Engagement Proper. Carpet Bombing is O.K. but it stinks up the house. Less destructive is the application of Doughnut Flavoured Spray slightly to the fore of advanced positions. So much the better if you can afford to hire a Barbershop Quartet to sing with torturous faintness just out of enemy earshot. This is the surest way to Lure An Ant To His Doom as he ventures into the danger zone in order to make out the words.

As for Taking Prisoners: Do not fraternise with captured foes. Personal Resolve will only be weakened if you exchange telephone numbers with a P.O.W. and discover he is the father of 220 Tinies- all named Bing.

Should hostilities stray into the Festive Season, the Traditional Christmas Ceasefire provides a marvellous opportunity to show off Sporting Prowess by challenging Johnny Ant to A Game Of Football. But if you have a low boredom threshold, bear in mind it takes four million of the little critters to move the ball of the centre-spot. Blow Football is a fairer test. Unless you’re a Spitter.

The Ceasefire has to end some time of course. Sooner than you think if there’s any dispute over Offside Laws or Who’s Going To Be Brazil. Then it’s Onwards and Upwards to victory: Singing rousing Battle Hymns and declaiming all that Once More Into The Breeches Stuff.

Frankly though, a Teararsed Bash-Up between any member of Hom Saps and a creature who would describe a day out in your Bellybutton Fluff as a Terrifying Adventure, can only have one winner. Not that it’s necessary to Blast every last Ant into oblivion. Think of the Lino Stains. Once Ringleaders have been rounded up and coated in chocolate, the remainder can be handed suitable custodial sentences- to be served in the Infernal Thatches of Donald Trump’s Hair.

But do not punish vanquished foes too harshly. Compelling them to read Which Magazine Consumer Surveys is more than any sentient being can stand and will only fuel future resentment. On top of that, extracting retribution from Family Formicidae is a futile exercise. You can demand War Reparations until you’re blue in the face, because Ants have as much to offer in the Spoils Of War Department as Crap Christmas Crackers.

Torture is also out of the question. Locating Ant Fingernails places an unbelievable strain on Human eyes and only serves to leave you with a Stinko headache.

Far better then to Mend Bridges and Embrace The Enemy. Especially if the enemy has Attractive Breasts. And remember the old Maxim: Be Magnanimous in victory, Gracious in defeat. And if you’re not sure who’s won Wave Enthusiastically At Whoever’s Got The Biggest Gun.

Learn from History. Ants possess a meagre memory span- about 0.0001 of a second, actually. So be prepared for their return next Summer. Expensive Gun-Nests and Smart Ant Pellets are an option, if you don’t mind living off soup and tree-bark for a year. But there is a cheaper way.

Buy Black Treacle. Three tins should be enough to divert the Massed Male Voice Choirs of the Ant Nation. Simply lay trails of stickiness away from your home. These can lead to River Rapids or Fastfood Restaurants if you’re feeling vindictive.

However, even if your Heart is as Stony -and absent- as the arms of the Venus de Milo, the Little Fellows won’t be eased to their demise. Just thread the treacle trail in the direction of anyone with a better car than you.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if the sight of molehills on the lawn inspires placement of airfix paratroopers in preference to the heavy roller.

 

 

 

 

HOW TO ATTRACT WOMEN. Or: How I Learned To Visit Circus Mammae Maximus And Not Make A Complete Pill Of Myself.

#Humour

Magazine and Tabloid pages are bursting at the flies with questions on the subject of Man’s Attractiveness To Women. They can generally be summarised thus: “Dear Agony Aunt, I look like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle, have the brainpower of a chuckyegg and possess less personality than a watercress bun. How do I get a girlie?”

Politically Correct consolation is usually offered along the lines of Hit Toon Everyone Is Beautiful In Their Own Way. As a consequence, thousands of people have been hoodwinked into taking partners with all the looks of a Measles Anti-Body. And many men now not only believe Beauty Is On The Inside, they are prepared to spend more time than ever before, investigating exactly that possibility.

Most chaps are motivated by the desire to Reproduce. Especially if there is no possibility of Actual Reproduction. But how is the sought after Joining Of JimJams achieved? Stretch-Limo Swimming Pools aside, what attracts the girlies?

Good Looks are an advantage when Trying To Attract Women, of course. As are A Sense Of Humour and Intelligence. Few men possess all three qualities to the extent they would cause the slightest twitch on the planet’s most sensitive Shagometer. This is why most males mentally file away Richard Gere under the heading of Devil’s Spawn. Who amongst us would display the generosity of spirit Not to have Something In Our Eye if we spotted the Officer And Gentleman lying inert in the middle of a busy motorway?

Thankfully, Excessive Good Looks in a man usually come packaged with Character Defects such as Terminal Vanity or Inability To Eat Toast Without Having The Crusts Cut Off.

If you were trapped in The Queue For Buttock Pimples when the Good Looks were being handed out, A Keen Sense Of Humour is the next best thing.

Look at Woody Allen, Marty Feldman and Mel Brooks -three of the Funniest Creatures Who Weren’t Cats to have ever graced this world. But… how can I put it? Mother Nature must have been a little distracted when She assembled their Physogs. A Swarm Of Bees, maybe. Or a Swarm Of Market Surveyors. More likely She was filling out Her Lottery Numbers and contracted those jobs out to some Incompetent Clay Modeller. And yet, each of these men has been married or attached to at least one beautiful and intelligent woman.

Intelligence is another Important Undergarment in the Attire Of Seduction. Practically speaking, a certain degree of intelligence is essential in discerning that when a female whispers “S-E-X” in your ear, she isn’t just testing your spelling. Pure Intelligence, in the form which tempts you to delight The Dancehall Throng with Indisputable Arguments Against Socratic Philosophy may prove less rewarding. Though you are welcome to try.

Intelligence alone won’t necessarily get you a pull. Although it should keep out of the bed of any woman whose husband’s muscle-power exceeds yours by a ratio of more than 2:1. Intelligence is best utilized in conjunction with other qualities, mon stinkeau Casanovas.

Pacing for one. In short, just because a girl agrees to a dance does not mean your next question should be: “Any chance of a ScoobyShag then?” Pace Yourself. If she’s still playing the trouper after the DJ has played all those Homo Bellbottomus disco tunes you requested, the time may indeed be ripe for the Application Of Higher Intellect. That is: Framing the enquiry “Any chance of a ScoobyShag then?” in words less likely to provoke a response which converts your Privates into A Flaming Bonfire.

Which brings us neatly to Sensitivity. Personally, I am not completely persuaded, but the Giants Of Breakfast TV tell us women place great store by a man who is prepared to Blub In Public. This might well be true. But do try to hold back the tears for at least five minutes after the waiter has presented the bill.

Sensitivity Skills are of Paramount importance when approaching an Unexploded Femme for the first time. Although the Thickness Of The Ice is also worthy of attention -if there is a Frozen Pond between you. Once you are at her side, a Friendly Smell -sorry… Smile- is not a bad idea. It certainly has more to recommend it at this early stage in proceedings then your rendition of The Ten Commandments- with the Extra One you made up about Romanian Gymnasts.

But don’t forget: There is no Law Of Nature which impels you to bare your teeth and simper like some sub-human Spin Politico. Then again, if you don’t smile with your teeth, alternatives are pretty thin on the ground. The Eyes are definitely worth considering- unless they are positioned like Headlamps on a VW Beetle. In these circumstances, Displays Of Friendliness are best limited to Soles Of Feet.

Next up is as Unpterybyldactyl a Greeting as you can draw from the rapidly drying Well of Vocabulary. Unfortunately, what comes out Around About Now is that most derided of banalities: The Line.

No-one with less sensitivity than a toilet seat uses “Do you come here often?” anymore. Only marginally up the Cretometer is telling a lass she looks like someone V.V.V.V. Famous, when it is Incandescently Untrue. Not so bad -and Lucky You- if it is true, mind. What woman would object to being told they looked a bit like Marilyn Monroe or Angelina Jolie? (Except Marilyn Monroe and Angelina Jolie.) Tread carefully all the same. If you are at all sensitive about your age, don’t give the game away by likening the young filly to Maureen O’Hara or Greta Garbo. And for your own good, steer Well Clear of The Silent Era.

And don’t forget: Comparing the intended to someone famous will not necessarily pave the way to her heart. Or any Adjacent Region for that matter. In this context at least, it is advisable to Banish the Queen Mother, Chevy Chase and Champion The Wonder Horse.

If you must use A Line, try a funny one. When spotting a Lovely Maiden walking her dog in the park you could do worse than pat her pooch* before casually enquiring: “That’s a nice dog. What’s his telephone number?” But only attempt this approach in Daylight Hours. Or you will be speedily acquainted with Defense-O-Spray and/or The Boston Crab. (N.B. * Stop making up your own jokes. Pooch is U.K. English for Canine.)

When all is said and done though, using Prepared Lines is as attractive and alluring as interrupting Coitus to prop up The Reader’s Digest Guide To Noiseless Sex on your partner’s molars.

With Good Looks, Sense Of Humour, Intelligence and Sensitivity out of the way, a few Unfortunates may bemoan the unlikelihood of any of these attributes getting In the way. But all is not lost Meine Freunde Tollwütigen. As with all the Grace of a Freshly Exhumed Fred Astaire, we arrive at our final Port Of Call: Listening.

It might come as A Bit Of A Shock to hear A Shitload of women are utterly Pongoed up to the Pogoes with men assailing them with the verbal equivalent of a Napalm Attack. She mentions she likes Films. He immediately Hijacks the conversation and doesn’t stop until he has recounted the entire plots of Rambo, Predator, Lassie Comes Home and Lassie Empties His Balls. So surprise her. Just listen.

After all this, isn’t it heartening to realise women have all the same problems as men? And more. PMT anyone? And how many men spend Sunday morning searching for Depth Charges so they can prise the Pillows away from their Saturday Night Make-Up?

You know, it’s actually worth making a Dental Appointment just so you can read Women’s Magazines in the waiting room. The Problem Pages are thick with Fat Ankles, Impossible Hair and Personal Odours; Fat Hair, Personal Ankles and Impossible Odours.

Incidentally, the mere perusal of a Woman’s Magazine is more effective than the Pyrotechnics of any Ad Campaign in recruiting chaps to The Order Of Celibate Monks. So don’t read anything with yeast in the title.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you can waggle one eyebrow but realise women are really only impressed by men who can waggle both.

 

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (005)

#humour

FOOTBALL TIMEWASTERS is No.5 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard. As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Football Timewasters.

In its’ widest compass the subject of Football Timewasters includes an array of Wretched Oafs  in its’ stinking embrace. The simpering Booboy Babies who leave early because their team is losing, for instance. The Didn’t See It Managers who are only Economical With The Truth in the same way that Lucifer is Economical With Baddudery. And the CCTV operators who display the Moral Fibre of a Fleaturd each time they ignore a racist chant.

But I’ve already covered that stuff elsewhere in my Dunghill Of World Class Horseshit With A Kernel Of Truth In The Middle. So…

Pointless No.5 is dedicated to Professional Football Players Who Don’t. Play, that is.

One-Nil up. Ten minutes to go. The left-back who usually covets Throw-Ins like an insanely-jealous husband… declines to take it. Instead he underarms the ball –with pinpoint inaccuracy- towards a team-mate who idles across so slowly you’d think he was afraid his shorts were falling down. The ball, hands and executive box windows are all wiped with the same painstaking care Michaelangelo lavished on the Sistine Chapel, before the taker hops up the touchline like a Penguin with a firecracker up its’ backside.

At this point, unless the player is engulfed by Amorous Birds mistaking the display for a Mating Dance, the referee whistles and sends him back to take the throw from The Proper Place. Exactly What Bob Whomeref was counting on all along.

This is Time-Wasting. A.K.A. Cheating. A.K.A. You’ll rot in Hell if God looks up from his Scratchcards long enough to spot you. There can be few sights in Football more soul-destroying –aside from the half-time toilet queue- than watching your team lose to this Rotten Ploy. On the list of Things Which Spoil The Beautiful Game, Time-Wasting is right up there with Diving, Spitting and Alien Abduction.

Many Time-Wasting Tricks are performed by Defenders to prevent free-kicks from being taken quickly: They hoof the ball into Outer Space; Refuse to move until the taker’s armpits have been Thoroughly Sniffed; Engage the Referee in conversation about (a) The Contentiousness of his decision and (b) Opposing theories of Dualistic and Monistic Philosophy.

Goalkeepers hug the ball like a newborn babe. Wingers place the ball just outside the corner quarter-circle knowing the Referee’s Assistant will insist they re-spot it.

The Skullduggery Cupboard is bigger than King Kong’s Sock Hamper and smells worse. Even accepting that some Professionals get so tired towards the end of a match they fall asleep the moment they hit the ground, we are still left with the Horrible Certainty that Players are winning games with the simple tactic of opting not to play.

So what can be done? Time-Wasting is hated at least as much as the al-Quaeda Offside Trap, but can it be beaten? F.I.F.A. the Fantasy Island Fart Arses who govern the game, are encouraging referees to Add Time On. Brilliant- they’ve done-gone gone and done it again. For aside from confirming The Rules Committee as the only creature in the Animal Kingdom whose cranial matter is entirely composed of Wood, the directive fixes Referees in an all too familiar Invidious Position.

Some Whistle-Holders will book Players for Time-Wasting. But not since the days of Achilles –who would have been a footballer if not for Dodgy Ankles- has there been a Referee brave enough to play out full stoppage time when The Crowd are screaming and chanting Serving Suggestions for his internal organs.

As usual, F.I.F.A. are Passing The Buck. Advising Referees to add time on? Bollocks. A more puny flail at a more potent foe is surely beyond the wit of anyone capable of combing their hair without an instruction manual. David might as well have tried to slay Goliath with one of those hats England Football Supporters so favour: The Baseball Cap With Attached Sticky-Out Hammer.

So is there a solution? Yes. A very simple one. A Stop-Clock. Hardly revolutionary either. Our Cousins in the American Colonies have been using Stop-Clocks in their sports for ever. And whilst Having Fun With Baskets translates to Brits as Dusting Wicker Holders On The Front Of Bicycles, we Really Do Get what a fast game Basketballing is because of Stop-Clocks.

Merrkun Feutbawl is another example of Dandy Yankee Doodle expertise in clearing away the Yellow Snow of Chicanery. And although I personally remain impermeable to the delights of Upholstery Chess, there is no denying its’ Stop-Clock system provides fans with the full one hour of action. One hundred per cent. Every time. The only problem I can see in translating this to Soccer, is the time required to register sixty minutes playing time. For I am told it can take up to two months for a Merrkun Feutbawl contest to complete its’ Gestation.

Still, if the answer is to cut Association Football matches from ninety to sixty minutes, it won’t matter a tinker’s cuss because fans will be guaranteed Ball Playing as opposed to Ball Scratching.

Only the most inspired of Clownshoed Muses could match The Supreme Irony that F.I.F.A. Time-Wasting Directives are themselves a beautifully crafted example of Time-Wasting. These relentlessly fatuous impositions are certainly the actions of a Bureaucratic Body whose boss Timeshares his brain with a baboon.

So yes, the Drunken Dart Throwers of F.I.F.A. are addressing Time-Wasting. But only in the way that giving prison inmates Nicer Haircuts would ease the ills of the Penal System. So get real! Get a Stop-Clock!

As the Great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once said as he watched the Galumpios of a West Midlands Derby match: “Eh nivva tutched yer aer kid!! ‘ave OWL The Toils Foelun Aff Yo Rofe?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you’ve never been a baggie yet wish the wife had let you name the kids cunningham, cantello, regis, robson, batson, statham, and assorted browns.

 

HULLABALOO IN TIGER TOWN.

#football

In a dramatic change of heart the owner of Hull City has decided against renaming them Hull Tigers. Having observed the levels of Wild Fury evident in their slide towards relegation, Dr. Assem Allam has settled on Hull Hamsters instead.

Just kidding. But not about The Great Name Robbery. That’s definitely back on. Mr. Allam is resubmitting his application to rebrand the arse of the city’s pride and joy: Despite the Hullabaloo which accompanied his original attempt in 2013.

The City Till We Die Pressure Group was formed and -when I last heard- had collected 14,000 petition names. 1.e. Nearly three quarters of the team’s average attendance. Protesters at the KC Stadium continue to voice opposition to the proposed Name-Rape by shoehorning “City!” into almost every utterance, when they could quite reasonably be expected to fling obscenities and digestive-tract by-products at Mr. Allam.  Proof indeed that Kingston Upon Hull is indeed home to The World’s Most Polite Tourettes Sufferers. As in: “No Mr. Allam if you don’t CITY! mind we’d CITY! prefer it if you didn’t CITY! graffito our 110 years of CITY! history,” they chant. With a bit more Zip than I just did. And in Proper Musical Verse Form.

The fans roar. The team squeaks. The owner exudes the slightly embarrassed air of an OAP who’s left his teeth attached to a pie in the fridge.

CTWD are already About Town handing out leaflets and badges: Slipping over Slick Salespeople and Charity Rattlers as they battle for the attention of City Centre Passers-By. Whilst tensions between street advertisers are always high at this time of year, there have as yet been no reports of Fatal Brawls between CTWD Agitators and Salvation Army Collectors.

Maximum publicity is being provided for The Cause by the city’s One Proper Newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail. (No. Free Sheets don’t count. They only possess value when fashioned from toilet paper.) The Mail’s constant high-profile coverage of The Great Name Robbery comes as no surprise though. This being the Biggest Theft to hit the area since the Tenth Century, when Viking Invaders made off with all the Soap, Towels and Women Under Sixty they could carry.

And yet Fan Resistance may prove futile. Assem Allam’s intransigence appears to be Borglike in its’ Finality. According to his strident declarations: CTWD should do exactly that. And: “No-one on Earth is allowed to question how I do my business.”

It seems only the Superheroes who inhabit the Football Association Council stand between Doctor Doom and a 2015-16 Hull Tigers Fixture List. And whilst they were not persuaded by his Serenades first time round, the F.A. are allowing Allam a second audition. The Geetar Strings of Hullbillies are understandably tensed-up to breaking point. They couldn’t? Could they?

Remember the Wimbledon/Milton Keynes Fandango: The shocking first ever Franchise Transfer. And most folks have forgotten the day in 1972 when Bournemouth And Boscombe Football Club had half their Monikers chopped off. The owners felt Bournemouth And Boscombe was an Ugly and Cumbersome name, so with F.A. Approval had it destroyed. Similar reasoning led to calls for a cull of local females. And whilst the latter was mercifully averted, the former left Boscombians with no more Sport in their lives than the Counting Of Passing Tumbleweed.

As for Dr. Allam, the question remains: Why? Yer Man Himself, CTWD Supporters and barfuls of Skiving Christmas Elves have all expounded reasons for The City Drop. These are:

1. AA truly believes the name-change will fill foreign pillow cases with Chrimbo Tigers Kit. 2. AA is aiming a Titanic Tantrum at Hull City Council, because they turned down his stadium buy-out and now won’t share his Toys -i.e. the name City- with them. 3. It’s because of AA’s secret belief that Fans will pressurise The Council into selling him the KC. 4. It’s because of The Voices In His Head.

What strikes me as oddoddodd about Mr.Allam’s apparent Pig-Headedness is: He’s practically A Saint in Hull. Since escaping the Red-Hot Pokers of President Nasser’s Egypt in 1968, he has provided Local jobs by building up Allam Marine and donated millions of pounds to Local hospitals, education and culture. He brought the British Open Squish Tournament to town and gave Hull K.R. Rugby League Club a million quid. He stands at the financial forefront of support for Local Grassroots Sport in an effort to dissuade kids from Lives Of Crime and Cod Teasing. Oh… and Assem Allem has also chucked more than £70,000,000 at the Bunter Kong appetite of Hull City A.F.C. since he pulled the Club out of the Football Khazi in 2010.

So What’s Up Doc?

Is he an Evil Megalomaniac whose only motives for buying the Club were to fiddle with its’ name and turn the KC into a Deathcamp For Kittens? Or is he a Rupert Trousered Philanthropist whose ambitions are being thwarted by a Lacklustre Local Council?

Dr. Allem had Big Boogaloo Plans for Hull City. Buy the ground and surrounding land from the Local Authority owners and make the Club self-sufficient. To achieve this he proposed £114 million worth of improvements, including a 10,000 KC capacity increase, hotel, and sports facilities for Squash, Tennis, Swimming, Gymnastics and Ice Skating. A Multi-Storey Car Park was also proposed, so Death-Wish Skateboarders wouldn’t feel left out.

But in September 2011 Hull City Council said No Way Baby. Officially… they were reluctant to give up the Walton Street site of Hull Fair: An Annual one week Festival of Candy-Floss, Vomit Inducing Rides and General Fancy American Behaviour.

Now, I’m no Expert On Funfairs. Nor would I deny anyone the joys of high-altitude superspeed supper-sharing. But surely… Funfair Logistical Requirements are no more complex than those of The Subbuteo World Cup. i.e. A Flat Surface. In other words: Unless the Topography of the area has suddenly mutated into Kingston Upon Andes, you can hold a Funfair bloody anywhere.

So maybe the Unofficial Whispers were true: The Good Doctor just didn’t offer Enough Money to secure the Stadium Freehold.

Whatever, with self-finance via site funds in the bin, Disingenuous Mr. Allam declared Rebranding Hull City as Hull Tigers to be the only way to increase income. Thus farting In the face of fans… and his Very Own Business and  Economics Degrees.

The thing about a Label is it’s only as good as the product it’s attached to. For instance: Slapping a Chanel Tag on a Turd is unlikely to increase sales. Only Team Success can sell more Hull F.C. Jockstraps in Jakarta be they emblazoned with City, Tigers or Typhoid. The proposed Name-Change is patently ridiculous and irrelevant. It damages Historical Worth and therefore cheapens and devalues The Brand. Tigers can still be marketed as part of Hull City. Again: Onfield Success is the key. But I have a feeling Dr. Allem… Already Gets All This.

Unless I’m reading the Canny Old Bugger wrong, he doesn’t really want to rename Hull City. But he can’t Let On because the Threatened Name-Change is a Manipulatory Tool. The Doc is presenting a Straight Choice: Council Sell or Name-Change. Get it? He always knew The Fans would be opposed to the Latter, so he’s counting on them putting pressure on the Council to expedite the Former. Hull City Council and Assem Allam need to sit down and hold hands again.

Worst Case Scenario is Mr. Allam leaves- aligning The Tigers far more closely to the endangered species of Panthera Tigris than anyone intended. Don’t forget: Local Multi-Millionaire Hull City Supporters are as rare as a Danny Graham goal.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog but not before you’ve given hull council hell.

 

 

 

ALTERNATIVE GARDENING NIRVANA. Or: The Joy Of Sheds.

#humour #gardening

Would you like to know what you can do with your Hardy Perennials? What about those Saggy-Arsed Chrysanthemums? And what if Tomatoes join the long list of things in your household with Verticillium Wilt?

If you truly seek the Ancient Wisdoms Of  Horticulture In All Its’ Beauty, you could do worse than visit my own Famed Garden of Albion. Yes indeed: You could do worse. But you’d have to travel to the surface of the Moon to do so.

In other words: Don’t look at me. I don’t know. It is impossible to deny: If my ignorance of Gardening were a Planet, it would not be small and embarrassingly hot like Mercury. It would be Saturn: Huge with drunken squadrons of Morris Dancers flying around it.

Not that I have anything against Natural Beauty. I have often been rooted to the spot by The Magnificence Of The Noble Oak. Their weight is pretty impressive too. Remind me to Run Like Hell next time I hear “Timber!”

Pretty woodland flowers also bring a tear to my eye. Although I’m not sure where Mother Nature gets off telling insects Human Nostrils are a Dandy place to search for pollen.

Whatever, the truth remains stuck to me like a lorryload of long lost furry peppermints: My Gardening Skills will forever be filed away in the same library as Locust Plagues. But do I hang my head in shame at my lack of Horticultural Knowledge? Nein, meine kleine totenhosen. The thing is, the back-breaking accomplishments of Suburban Gardeners have never been something I’ve aimed at… Unless you count the Practical Module of my Snipers Correspondence Course.

The Tamed Gardens Of Suburbia are like farty old zoo baboons with no teeth. And while I can appreciate some folks derive as much pleasure from Gardening as I would Cornering The Market In Toothbrush Bristle, perfect weedless plots are as sterile as Superman’s Pants.

What’s more: Such Gardens do not attract butterflies. Don’t press me on this –I read it somewhere- but butterflies like weeds. So you know what to do if you want your Pride And Joy to be graced by Red Admirals and Cabbage White Cockneys. Add some old Cow Carcasses and you’ll be assured of the aerial displays provided by Circling Vultures.

Does all this mean I’m a Philistine? I don’t think so. For if Mother Nature were to put in a Personal Appearance I doubt she’d carry a handbag cramful of sprays and make-up, in case anything so Unnatural as a gust of wind should stir her coiffure. I reckon she’d be the kind of naturally curvy beautiful woman with more important things to do with her time than shave her armpits. No handbag either. More likely a Six-Pack of Beer courtesy of The Bounteous Earth. And don’t forget the tattoo: I’m Not A Bloody Theme Park. Don’t Touch Gardens manned by King Canutes? Where’s the fun in that?

The most fun I’ve ever had in a Garden, aside from Obscene Scrabble and re-enactments of Gordon Banks’s 1970 World Cup Miracle Save, was when I helped a pensioner friend remove her headhigh weeds. No Supermower here. Not even a Strimmer That Cuts As It Trims As It Bakes Sticky Buns. No Sirree Bob, she handed me a Scythe The Size Of A Moocow’s Backside.

After enquiring fruitlessly how to plug it in, I set to work. And you know what? I had a great time. Gallumping about with a Scythe flashing like the Sword Of Zorro has to be one of Life’s Underrated Pleasures. By the time I’d finished, overgrown weeds were barbered to the point where they resembled an aerial view of the U.S. Marine Corps. It’s easy to understand how the French Revolution got out of hand.

Not only was the experience enjoyable, it was educational too. Exploration of the dense undergrowth turned up a Coven Of Surly Cinema Usherettes. And a Lost Tribe Of Bigfoot Philatelists searching for a rare stamp. Although the latter was probably a ZZ Top Tribute Band.

I owe my love of Nature to that Scythe. Though I never did locate the thumb I hacked off because I’d been scared to within an inch of my life by what I mistook for A Worm. Still, my tale of the UFO which stole the digit away just as I was about to pick it up has earned me many a free pint. Particularly as I always maintain that somewhere out there lies an Alien Civilization convinced our planet is ruled by A Race Of Thumbs.

Anyway, I digress. I was banging on about Fun In The Garden and was about to provide instruction of World Class Idiocy on creating more of the same.

One word: Sheds. They really are the first step on the way to Nirvana for the Alternative Gardener. Read The Joy Of Sheds if you harbour any doubts on that score. And don’t start gurning about the raging Sheds Vs. Greenhouses Debate. Yes, greenhouse are jolly d places for tomatoes. But all that heat can only have a detrimental effect on the Nuclear Lager Stockpile. You don’t want to turn it all warm and frothy while it’s still in the tin do you? Why meddle in the natural order of Darwin’s Theory Of Evolution?

No, forget Greenhouses. Stick with a Shed. If only because its’ wooden walls allow you to inspect your extremities for gangrene without Disgusted Neighbours sending videotapes to the Local Constabulary. As for choice of Shed: It should be big enough to fall down in and ugly enough to really disgust the Neighbours.

With the Gothic Horror Shed in place, what next? Tell me Hombres, what is the Primo Nebiolo priority on the Altenative Gardener’s list? Tools? Stop it. You’re making me laugh. No, what you need is A Comfy Chair.

In fact, if I may digress again: The World would be A Better Place if God had knocked up a few Comfy Chairs before He created Adam and Eve. I’ve already sent a letter to the United Nations suggesting they send Comfy Chairs to trouble spots instead of Troops.

But back to The Shed. Next requirement is an extension lead from the house. This is not for tools either. Stopitwiththetoolsalready!! Electricity is essential for watching Futbol Espanol on a Sunday afternoon while Her Indoors blubs over Cary Grant. With leccy careering into the most obscenely large TV you can find, you might like to utilise remaining groundspace with a card table and a bar-heater for Toasting Stuff and Burning Unwanted Cards. A modest drinks cabinet is also an attractive proposition: If you mean Modest in the sense that The Hanging Gardens Of Babylon were Modest. And don’t forget the First Aid Kit: Rude magazines to counteract low blood pressure; and teabags. The latter are ideal for staunching DIY cuts and can still be used to make a cup of tea afterwards.

Tools? Well, if Work Areas have been organised for Optimum Efficiency, there will be more than enough room for a set of Junior-Ant Microspanners.

You can now begin to enjoy the rewards of privacy and peace of mind that Buddha had to spend six years in the Tropical Jungles of Wales to achieve. If only he’d had a Shed.

Maintaining privacy is another matter. Small Children are very fond of Sheds, however filthy and rat-infested. (The Sheds that is, not the Small Children.) Disabuse them of the notion that Sheds are Boogaloo Places to play Cowboys And Injured Nuns by filling the air with Ultra-Stink Tobacco.

Other unwanted visitors will be elbowed away from your Haven if you can persuade them it is A Nerve Centre For Dangerous Industrial Experimentation. I recommend machine parts scattered with balletic artistic flourish. For instance: What about the Bits Left Over from AnytimeEver you tried to fix Anything Electrical?

And Finally, there remains one Trump Card to play: Your Shed will ascend to Plague Island status if you soil its’ immediate surroundings with the radio sounds of Relentlessly Cheerful Disc Jockeys. So much the better if the sounds are accompanied by the Actual Relentlessly Cheerful Disc Jockeys themselves- tethered to wooden posts like Wild Dogs.

The rest of the garden? Stop it you’re making me laugh.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you really don’t give a monkeys about the concept of matching socks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NORTHWEST PASSAGE. Or: How Long Av Way Gottah Weah Theeaz Floppee Knickaz Man?

#Humour #Comedy #Humor

My favourite film. Not the most promising theme, I’ll grant you- sounding as it does like one of those What I Did On My Summer Holidays School Essays we used to write. Unless of course, what you did on your holidays was investigate the orchestral potential of breasts when squeezed together and played like a trumpet.

But bear with me, hombres. I am talking about a glorious epic from The Golden Era Of Hollywood Monkeybunkum. A 1940 film which has everything: Action! Adventure! Silly Hats! Crunchy Frogs! The flick is Northwest Passage and it’s such a stinker it’s a masterpiece.

Now I know I really ought to have better things to do with my time than watch Weekday Moving Pictures. However, I’ve been bedbound with a semi-contagious disease normally associated with the Wild Dogs of the Kalahari, so I haven’t had much choice. And no, the gormrich zone inhabited by the supertoothed blatherers of Daytime TV does not constitute choice.

Northwest Passage was one of those pseudo-historical features which Schmalzifornian Studios churned out like Sugared Battery Chickens in the ’40s and ’50s. It cost two million dollars to make and was directed by the leperdary King Vidor- a man whose name has gone down in history as an inspiration to the World’s Producers. Producers of Giant Vibrator Batteries, that is.

You can tell Northwest Passage was a production-line job because shooting began before the script was finished. This erudite tome was flown in bit by bit. Pity really. I rather liked the idea the story was Made Up As They Went Along And No Bugger Had A Clue What It Was About.

One thing Northwest Passage was not about was… the Northwest Passage. History Books tell of the Fabled Pathway between North America and Cathay. (Cathay as in China. Not Zeta-Jones.) But for all the effort made to tell the tale of the Quest For A New Trade Route, it might as well have been about the Quest For Underwear Mislaid By Christopher Columbus. But no matter. What we get is a classic comedy of Unintentional Hollywood Halfwittery.

Spencer Tracy stars as the leader of Rogers’ Raiders. It is 1759 and 160 Settlers foolishly sign-up for his trip into Injun territory, when frankly, they’d have been better off hiding behind the settee when he Ding-Donged their cabin doors.

Tracy leads his Skunk-Capped Band of Bush-Crappers through forests, rivers and primitive penis-enlargement clinics run by mosquitoes. Throughout these adventures it is a source of great wonder that Spencer’s Buckskins look as if they’ve suffered nothing more wearing than poor waiter service at a fashionable restaurant. It is a source of even greater wonder that such a fine actor as Trace The Ace is in such a duffo film at all.

Maybe it’s me, but there are moments in the movie where I would swear he is This Close to exploding into Lunatic Laughter at the outrageous script. This for instance: “What time do you leave?” asks a British officer, who could reasonably expect a reply like: “Half past four, pal.” But this is Hollywood. So Spencer gazes meaningfully heavenwards and deadpans: “When the last glow of the sun has left the evening sky.” Now, if you don’t think that sounds Utterly Risible, try it yourself the next time someone inquires what time you’re off to the pub.

It is Beautifully Crafted Bollocks like this which must have been an inspiration to Shortpanted Monty Pythons. In fact, I’ll make a cake out of the Mahatma Gandhi’s discarded TV Guides if one of their most famous sketches was not based on the following scene from Northwest Passage. Unreliable memory notwithstanding, it goes like this:

The exhausted pioneers have just waded through a swamp and are so starved they are reduced to eating their own jerkin tassles. (Not an Americanism for genitalia, by the way.)

Tracy: “Men! I know you’re tired and hungry but what about the story of Moses?!”

The Men: “What the…….?

Tracy: “Moses didn’t have all this water to drink did he?!”

The Men: “No! Hahaha!”

Tracy: “We’re lucky!”

The Men: “Hahaha! Hoho!”

Tracy: “And he didn’t have all these crunchy frogs to eat, did he?!”

The Men: “No! Hahaha!”

Tracy: “We’re lucky!”

The Men: “Hahaha! Hoho! Hahaha!”

Tracy: “And…

The Men: (Rolling around with hysterical laughter) “Stop it! You’re killing us!”

Und so weiter. If it had been me, mind, I would have likely been The Naughty One At The Back shouting: “Bollocks!” For surely, Spencer’s puppyfat would have gone a long way towards providing a healthy and filling omelette for everyone. But what do The Men do? The Men go “Hoorah! Hoorah!” that’s what.

The Real Stars of Northwest Passage though, are the 300 Native American extras. Not that they have much to say for themselves. This was way before films like Dances With Volvos, so Screen Injuns still started sentences with Heap Big and didn’t do much aside from Milling Around forts and stagecoaches like Kids Who’d Spotted An Ice-Cream Van.

But who cares? This lot are a riot. I can honestly say: A more pasty-faced, sheepish shower of pretend injuns I have never seen. When they’re around Forget Centre-Screen. Watch these guys in the background. For although the Official Line was the extras were The Real McCoy, I don’t believe it. I reckon they can only have been recruited from a Geordie Workingmen’s Club.

They shift awkwardly from side to side- clearly embarrassed at having to wear all the girly warpaint. And while Spencer Tracy is prattling away up front, exchange glances that plead: “How long av way gottah weah theeaz floppee knickaz, man?” The best though is when The Lads are required to run barefoot through the forest. They don’t so much run as hop from foot to foot. If you can lip-read you know they’re going: “Ouch-ouch! Ouch-ouch-ouch!”

Of such moments my Favourite Film is made. Today at least. Ask me again tomow and I’ll likely deny ownership of anything so decadent as a television and challenge you to a duel with a slap of my collected works of Winnie The Pooh.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if halfway through this you couldn’t help but think of another so bad it’s good film where racquel welch was hoofing around in that fetching loincloth in one million years bc.

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (002)

#Humor #Comedy #Humour

NOUVELLE CUISINE is the second subject in the POINTLESS, Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen off Your Roof ?! series, whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Nouvelle Cuisine.

(001) was about Foolish Food –Shark Fin Soup- and Yup: So is (002). But this is mere coincidence mes braves. Food is not high on the list of things lying around the house I want to write about or have sex with. So be still oh beating heart: The entire list is not going to be about food. My imagination does stretch a little farther than that. Really. Anyway: Bugger Off! It’s my list.

Nouvelle Cuisine translates as New Kitchen. No kidding. And yes, I am thick enough not to know. It’s disappointing all the same. I expected Nouvelle Cuisine to flit its’ silken wings over the French Language Fence into something along the lines of: New Cowburning Beyond The Wit Of Smelly Foreign Riff-Raff. New Kitchen sounds lumpen, cakefaced and cack-handed. That is: It sounds British.

Which is precisely why we hold up our Culinary Pants with French: The language of Art, Beauty and Cunningly Disguised Rubbish. Like Cheval, Chemise and Chirac: Three other examples of things which sound great In French but will surround you and your bank balance in a cloud of horseflies if you get too close. 

According to Wonkypedia, Nouvelle Cuisine has been fopping around in Painfully Jazzy Pantalons since the early eighteenth century. A time when the closest most folks got to Dandified Preparation of Hamster Loins Floating On A Raft Of Spinach was rolling in a ditch with a rat, disputing ownership of a potato. So if I appear to have taken against this version of Hautey Cuisine, it is only because it’s always had the whiff of Marie Antoinette “Let them eat golf carts” about it.

21st Century Modus Operandi of Nouvelle Cuisine places new emphasis on imaginative gathering and preparation of fresh ingredients- and then insisting they be cooked in less time than it takes to create a Bacillus Torch Singer… er… duo… er… quartet… er… eightpiece… und so weiter.

However, it is the arena of Presentation which grows my Garden Of Scoffs and best illustrates the innovative spinning of Michelin Tyres. The inspiration for the presentation of Modern Nouvelle Cuisine hails from the Post-Impressionist Art fashioned by The Two Pauls: Gaugin and Gascoigne- who both produced influential work featuring Tits On A Plate.

The sheer beauty of the food and the careful construction of each edifice brings to mind the Expert Topiary of Bonsai Trees- and the famous Tiny Lumberjacks bred specifically for that purpose. And yet….. I can’t help feeling Le Jumpeurs Wooly are being pulled over my eyes. As the saying goes: Never give a sucker an even break; or a small restaurant bill.

There is something very King’s New Clothes about paying a month’s rent for a plate whose portion would be Entirely Imaginary if not for the complex scientific instruments required to prove its’ existence.

There is something very Suspicious about anything which utilizes such Hi-Falutin’ Sales Technique to tickle your tummy into its’ Orbit Of Appetites. Not that I would sling any disparaging asparagus in the direction of the chaps with the Gift to perform such Culinary Gymnastics. For in the words of the Great Chefs: “It’s not easy to knock this stuff out, pal.”

I get the skill. So surely it’s not the Chefs themselves who Roget Themselves Half To Death, in order to fill Menus with Epaulettes Of Beowulf Sunbathing On A Hammock Of Haricot In An Armada Of Horsefeathers? Whoever is writing this pompous poodlepoop- Stop It!

I am fully cognisant of the notion that the self-assigned raison d’etre of Nouvelle Cuisine is to elevate itself aloft of common fancy. But that elevation is up a Dutch Mountain that doesn’t really need climbing. In short Nouvelle Cuisineurs: The Scran’s fine. But an Expensive Tinypig is still an Expensive Tinypig, however much you paint it with lipstick and call it Imogen.

As the great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once said as he carefully considered the complex architecture of A Bobdylanbean On A Satellite Dish: “Nouvelle Cuisine?! Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or shoot down like a dog if you knew that confucius didn’t really say that what he really said was got any pies? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (004)

#Humor #Comedy #Humour #Whistling

WHISTLING is No.4 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Whistling.

Whistling is the sound produced when Humans forcibly expel air -and kitform foodstuffs- through funnelled labia oris. Aperture modification modulates tone and key to replicate noises made in the Animal Kingdom by Birdlife, Punctured Whales and Giant Apes Falling Off The Empire State Building.

Whistling is the sound produced when Humans wish to falsely advertise their demeanour as Cheerful Chirpy Chimney Sweeps who are At One With The Universe. Although it is worth noting these behavioural characteristics also feature prominently in lists of Victims Of Rooftop Snipers.

Whistling in its’ most base form is a mode of expression a bare level above Belching in terms of creativity. That is: Aimless Whistling On Public Transport. If proof were needed that Whistling is the sound of air passing through an empty vessel, this is it.

You’d think Taking The Train To Work Everyday was a rotten enough experience already. What with the Spanish Inquisition Dolls House Seating and general pall of Medieval Dogbreath.

But no, compadres: The Orchestra Of Pleasure is not complete without some incandescently wretched Whistling. I do not doubt that Inside Their Heads the Artistes are smiling modestly and bowing, as the Royal Albert Hall vibrates with applause at their Symphonic Brilliance. However, in the Real World fellow passengers cringe at this tuneless torture and search contact files for Local Hitmen- paying particular attention to Mechanics whose contract is completed with the aid of Rusty Fondue Forks.

You will note that direct action by Fellow Passengers never takes place. The most extreme measure aimed at The Aimless Whistler -and it takes a week for The Average Brit to work up to this- is a disapproving glance. And this of course only serves to increase the nervousness of the nervous whistler who now whistles even more nervously to disguise his nervousness.

Wolf-Whistling is a slightly more tuneful version of the pastime. But only in the same way that Death Metal is a slightly more tuneful version of puking into a microphone.

Wolf-Whistling consists of two shrill notes delivered with the subtlety of an arse in a bus window. As such it is usually directed at women who have the shameless impudence to display more than one square centimetre of flesh in public. Historically, Wolf-Whistling is the Domain of a particular sub-human sub-sect of Construction Worker: Those whose wearing of hard-hats to protect their brains is at least as ironic as genius Superheroes suiting-up with their underpants on the outside.

Then there are the Professional Whistlers. What can you say about them? What World Class insults can be hurled at the idiots who think Whistling has any more place in a Proper Pop Song than the noise made by Armpit Scratching or Cleaning Your Ears Out With A Stick? Er….. none really because they are usually Pretty Damn Good.

It don’t matter that my windows usually rattle to the likes of The Socks Pustules and The Unbearably Noisy Buggers: My Top Pop 100 would be incomplete without Otis Redding’s Dock Of The Bay and Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy. Their grinbringing Whistling instantly dulls the painful memory of my Masterpiece Mayonnaise-Tuna-Sweetcorn-HotSauce-Sandwich which The Cat Stole the moment my back was turned.

Which brings us to an Interesting Technical Point: It is physically impossible to Whistle whilst smiling. So how did McFerrin manage to cease smiling long enough to cut The Whistle Bits? Did some Canny Producer wipe the smile off his face by telling him his Pet Budgerigar had been Hospitalised? (Wedged up The Dog’s Backside again.)

No such problems on One Republic’s chillingly dreary “Good Life” where Ryan Tedder took Whistling Duty so seriously he filled his face with a ton of Chapstick. Surely someone could have let him know pound for pound, Cavity Wall Insulation would have been far more cost-effective?

All of which are mere Chewbacco Spitters in comparison with The World’s Greatest Whistler: Roger Whittaker. The Professional Whistling performed since the ’60’s by this English singer-songwriter is so incendiary it causes leaves to rustle.

Listen to The Skye Boat Song, The Mexican Whistler and The Man With The Criminally Shiny Shoes for Whistling of such virtuoso beauty it makes Angels weep, Angles bend….. and Anglers share their finest pies with Fish They Only Just Met.

Whilst I have to confess his music is far too close to the Queasy Listening end of the scale to float my particular Fleet Of Plastic Ducks, it cannot be denied: Roger Whittaker is the Jimi Hendrix of Whistling. If he were a Smart Bomb he’d be so damn accurate he’d blast the crusts off your toast and undo alternate buttons on your kecks….. At The Same Time.

Mr. W. is quite brilliant. But…..Butbutbutbutbut: Frankly, Rog really is a bit of a Bloody Show-Off.

And therein lies the rub, mon petit oiseaux nucléaire: Out of all the methods of communication perfected by Mankind since he first speared a dinner invitation through a neighbour’s thigh, Whistling has to be The Most Annoying.

And that includes Smoke Signals fuelled by bonfires of Cro-Magnon Boybands.

As the great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once said as he aimed his Turdfilled Ballista at The Git who was drowning out his beloved Morning Chorus: “Whistling?! Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you possess the talent to whistle out of every orifice except the one where your teeth used to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ONE MILLION YEARS A.D. Or: Miaow! Miaow! Miaow-Miaow-Miaow!

#Humor #Animals #Humour #Funny #Comedy #paulgrinhopi

What will Earth be like in a million years time? Assuming Mankind hasn’t scienced our World into a Useless Dry Turd, who will be Kings Of The Cowpat? One million years is more than long enough for another of the Planet’s sentient beings to catch up, overtake and cut us off, with appropriate Eat Me/Up Yours Evolutionary Road Rage gestures.

Having conducted the most Incredibly Scanty Research you can imagine, I discovered the work of 19th Century anthropologists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace perfectly answered the question: Who will have Custody Of All The Marbles a million years from now? Their Theories Of Natural Selection showed why some species survive, some perish and some hang around street corners looking shifty.

Aptly enough, one of the best illustrations of Survival Theory was Darwin’s success in propagating his own fame. With Wallace about to publish similar work, CD gathered up his papers and Teararsed off to The Printers just ahead of his rival. Hence Darwinism not Wallaceism. I think they missed a bit of free publicity there. Surely it would have been more fitting for them to engage in a Fight To The Death on the floor of the British Museum Reading Room.

If my Aircraft Hangar Mind has correctly stored the Darwin/Wallace Evolutionary Templates, the basic premise seems to be: A Monkey With An Inbuilt Hood is better equipped to deal with Stinko Weather than A Monkey Made Of Sponge. Or Breakfast Cereal.

When One Million Years A.D. squeaks into town, any of the following could conceivably contend for the Lords Of Terra Crown currently worn by Homo Sapiens. You may well lean towards your own particular favourite. You may well lean towards a creature I fail to mention. Maybe you just can’t stop leaning. Seek professional help. I merely present the evidence Your Honour.

Who will rule our Wonky Blue Orb in One Million Years A.D.? These are the Contenduhs:

Homo Sapiens.

There is no reason to believe Mankind won’t still be Head Honchos in a million years time. No reason except Mankind. Even if we ignore our propensity for pooping our Ecological Pants and assume we will Science some solutions, it may be Science itself which relegates us to the Spartan League of history.

For as other species strictly adhere to Darwin’s Theories Of Evolution and allow only the Fittest, Most Adaptable, Unticklish candidates to survive their Subbuteo World Cup Selection Process, Homo Crapiens insists on weakening its’ Gene Pool by filling its’ team with ever more Wishy-Washy-One-Legged-Wingers.

I myself cannot differentiate between A Football and A Spectator’s Pie until I have kicked one of them up in the air. This is a Physiological Defect, which in pre-technological times would have made me a major contender for The International Floodlit Extinction Trophy.

A million years into the future, Human Beings are likely to be taller, less hairy, more pouty and have less papercuts. We may even be born with extra readymade holes for jewellery. But our very talent for Propagating The Imperfect by means of eye-glasses, lego-hearts and superspongey insoles, is the very reason Man will be superseded by Rivals With No Artificial Additives.

Sharks.

Sharks appear to have reached the Headsdownnononsenseboogie Apogee of their existence. If Sharks were a rockband* they would be ZZ Top: Same old riffs but honed to perfection.

It is Common Knowledge Sharks have not changed in millions of years, which makes them the Daily Mail readers of the Aquatic World. Sharks are such perfect Survival Machines they downed Evolutionary Tools, is one of those Nuggets of Popular Information we all carry in our Noggin Knapsacks like: Man used to think the Earth was fat.

But don’t bet on Sharks continuing to Blow Raspberries At Evolution. Yes, for Millennia they have been the Unchanging Unchallenged Champions Of Coastal T-Shirt Collecting. Yet I can quite imagine them developing into highly efficient Managers of Ffffst Ffffwd Restaurants in Wales.

So let’s hope Sharks With No Use For Vowels do not inherit the Earth. I doubt even The Meek Ones could resist eating the staff.

If you think about it, mind, they have already had A Bit Of A Dabble at Evolution. Quite recently in fact. Remember Sharkus Floppius? This new rubber genus introduced itself in the Jaws film franchise of the ’70s and the ‘8os. However, this limp offshoot’s tendency to thrash about like A Toddler Having A Supermarket Tantrum does not make it a favourite in the Survival Sweepstakes. It is safe to assume Future Sharks will continue to be made of Shark.

As such, Sharks are unlikely to ascend to No.1 in the Pop Charts of One Million Years A.D.

Dolphins.

A bit like Sharks. Except they read The New Yorker. Dolphins are credited with a rudimentary language of bleeps and squeaks. Not dissimilar to Grandpa Bumtourette when he thinks the rest of Humanity’s sensory systems are on pause.

We might be in for a bit of a surprise if we ever decipher the noises of these Underwater Raconteurs- Dolphins, that is, not Grandpas. My theory is that the bleeps are not Language in the way that “My pantry is infested with medium-sized bears” or “Oy! Getthehelloffmylawn!” is Language. Rather, the bleeps are the means by which Dolphins perpetuate their Trendy Village Vicar image: Censoring the pornographic mudslide of cusswords which befouls their vocabulary.

Dolphins are undoubtedly the smartest creatures in The Aquatic University. Although Stripey-Scarfed Whales are nearly as clever. As are Swimming Belgians.

Unfortunately, Family Delphinidae are cursed with the same fatal flaws as Old-Style Daleks: They are unable to climb stairs; wear fashionable footwear; or return overdue library books.

One million years might well allow Dolphins sufficient time to transform into A Species Of Linedancers. However, I feel their quest for World Champeen status will be hamstrung by Local Authorities demanding One Million Years Worth Of Overdue Library Book Fines.

Cock-A-Roaches.

Not to be confused with Cock-Er-Nees. It is said only two things can survive the blast of a nuclear bomb: Cock-A-Roaches and the Storage Silos containing The Joan Rivers Cosmetics Stockpile.

Cock-A-Roaches shun the limelight. Remember how they were often mentioned but never seen in Arthropod Gangster Movie Scurryface? This shady behaviour characterises creatures who happily share Weekend Breaks with The Discarded Toenails Of Disgraced Politicians.

The working day of the typical Cock-A-Roach consists of nefarious impersonation of Retired Pork Scratchings and Skulking Under Refrigerators: All done in a sly manner matched only by the sneakiest species of Smelly Cheese and Car Keys.

Consequently, these fellows are more unpopular than Relentlessly Chirpy Cock-Er-Nees. And like them have yet to score a single point in Eurovision or any other International Song Contest. Although, in fairness to both Cock-A-Roaches and Cock-Er-Nees, it should be noted they rarely get to finish the first lines of their entries, as other contestants feel compelled to crush them underfoot.

It occurs to me that Cock-A-Roaches will not ascend to anything more than Führers Of Planet Earth’s Bellybutton Fluff by One Million Years A.D. Unless they somehow manage to improve their popularity, size and speed. A version of the VW Beetle for instance. Even if they can, I doubt they will ever increase their Intellectual Capacity to master a vocabulary much bigger than “Cakes!!!” and “Beer!!!”

Moocows.

Just kidding. I don’t really think Moocows have any more chance of Planetary Supremacy than any other Mainstay Of Best-Selling Cookbooks. Which, coincidentally, is why none of The Leading Herbs are likely to rise to positions of power in the World Order. Not even the ones which taste like shit.

I only mention Moocows because they are a Cause Célèbre in How Not To Get Your Own Column in Survival Of The Fittest Magazine. For as an Evolutionary Ploy, Tasting Of Burgers is as useful as being able to burp the hits of Pink Floyd.

Mad Cow Disease may be Mother Nature’s way of saying: “Hey! Eaters! Leave Those Cows Alone!” But it is less effective than preventing bullies from poking you in the eye by cutting your own head off.

Kangaroos.

By way of contrast: If Tastes were Cities, Kangaroos would be twinned with Pongo Pantsville. So I’m told. I have no idea. My only experience of Kangaroos thus far being limited to Skippy and late-night chat-lines.

Conspiracy Theorists believe the Kangaroos Taste Like Greasy Iron Filings Myth was born from Rotten Reviews published by Restaurant Critics who just happened to be Kangaroos. If this is true, this Survival Tactic is at least the equal of Male Homo Sapiens feigning The Dexterity Of Potatoes, in order to avoid Ironing, Cooking and all tasks related to Cirque du Bébé Refuse Collection.

Of course, if you hold your nose sense of taste all but disappears: So Kangaroo Geschmack is suddenly Just Fine. Try it yourselves Foolish Earthlings! Pinch your Sniffer and see if you can tell the difference between an Apple and an Onion. Or an Apple Computer and the Arse Of A Popular Gameshow Host.

Whatever Kangaroos actually taste like -and they are far too pretty for me to want to find out- it won’t matter if Human Tastebuds continue to be dulled by the increasing amounts of Methane being pumped into the atmosphere by TV Reality Shows. So it seems Furry Jumpers won’t be safe from Pie Manufacturers for too much longer.

Apart from Mankind, the greatest threat to the Kangaroo Population has historically been that of Public Telephone Boxes. Many a ‘Roo has been lured through the doors of these bewitching Sirens with promises of Emergency Services and Recorded Betting Tips- only to knock themselves out as they bounce against the Deadly Low Ceilings.

In time to come, Kangaroos will only escape the predatory menace of Public Telephone Boxes if they can develop Zip pouches for mobile ‘phones.

Despite all this, I still reckon Kangaroos have a reasonable shot at being the Head Bouncers –ho ho- of Future Earth. If only because they are cute enough to stay ahead of Slugs, Linebackers and Slug-Linebackers on any list of Protected Species.

Penguins.

The Avian Entry in One Million Years A.D. Penguins are masters of survival in Antarctic Conditions, Underwater and Inside Silver Paper. They are Accomplished Huddlers. And whilst this keeps them warm in Freezing Crapshrapnel, it is impossible to tell where one Barbershop Quartet ends and another one begins.

If Global Warming keeps going at its’ present rate, Penguinsuits are likely to evolve into Trendy Skateboard Gear. This will grant them licence to extend their natural habitats into Shopping Centres and utilize the area immediately above their saggy-arsed jeans for Pencil Storage.

As The World’s Leading Fish-Scented Charlie Chaplin Impersonators, Penguins occupy an Evolutionary Niche which should see them last as least as long as A Plague Of Waltons.

I do believe, however, that jealousy will prevent Penguins from becoming Rulers Of The Global Roost. It is one thing to be one of a handful of creatures able to contest Gameshows on both land and  sea. It is quite another to incite the rest of the Animal Kingdom to violence by clapping yourself all the time.

Cats.

The final candidates for the role of Keepers Of The Whole Ball Of Wool is Felis Silvestris Catus. To validate their suitability I refer you to Cato.

Cato is a small, slinky, black-and-white who is currently employed as Executive Mouser in my own household. Although she tends to conduct her duties like a Greeter at a Las Vegas Casino. And by the way, if you think Cato is an odd name for a Cat, try bringing to mind the Pink Panther movies….. Now you get it.

Cato is a Polydactyl Cat. I hope I do not disappoint too much when I clarify: This does not mean she is a Fifteen Foot Feline Dinosaur who terrorises Local Pizza Deliverers and earns a second income as a Monster Movie Extra. No mis amigos. Polydactyl means Cato has more than the usual five toes on each paw. Six in fact.

Nothing unusual about that you might think. But it furnishes her with the Catability to catch with the expertise of a Baseball Short-Stop and grip a pen as comfortably as Gore Vidal. By which I mean: Cato easily grips writing implements. Rather than: Cato easily grips Gore Vidal.

I hope that clears that one up, because it indicates Cats are capable of developing Opposable Thumbs. It was this Evolutionary Improvement which started Early Man on his journey of technological advancement to the Computer Age, where he is now able to create Interplanetary Garbage, Microscopic Nouvelle Cuisine Portions and Musical Bobblehats… at will.

In conclusion: If Planet Earth still has enough puff to blow out its’ Birthday Cake Candles a million years from now, I rather suspect the Icing will be Comprehensively Licked by a race of Supercats.

The place of Hom. Saps in this Planet Of The Cats will almost exclusively be limited to positions in the Service Industry: Round The Clock Chefs, Tummy Ticklers and Newspaper Readers For Jumping On.

Any current Cat Owner, or better put: Any current Proprietor Of A Luxury Hotel For Cats, will tell you this inexorable progression towards Benign Dictatorship has already begun.

One Million Years A.D. ….. Miaow! Miaow! Miaow-Miaow-Miaow!

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you knew sharks were a rockband* and featured one of the greatest guitarists of all time chris spedding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOLIDAY GUIDE. Or: Where Are Those Visigoth Motorcycle Display Teams Going With Our Towels?

#Comedy #Humor #Humour #Funny #Holiday #paulgrinhopi

Aside from the annual plugging of The Son Of  God Is Back Easter Franchise- sub-titled: “This time he’s got chocolate rabbits,” What Next for the Adhyaenas now that the traditional ringing of Christmas Cash Tills is over?

The latest Gravytrain to hit town is the Holiday Express. For Summer is on its’ way and all roads lead to the sea. You’d think God had gripped Britain by the Scottish End and tipped the bugger up, the rate at which the population is being encouraged to depart for foreign climes.

Wave goodbye to the homestead and say hello to the M1: A major road where the holiday traffic moves only fractionally faster than the Tectonic Plates below. Flying? Three hours in an Aerial Dungeon while our luggage is being Generously dispersed around Exotic Locations we can only dream of. I yearn for the day Star Trek technology instantly transports us to our destination. Not wearing a red jumper, mind.

But where to go? If you haven’t really decided yet, because you’ve been tied up perfecting a Harry Houdini Tribute Act, or are simply waiting to pounce on last-minute bargains like a farty old circus lion… Read on.

 

Package Holidays. Why is it such a revelation to me when I meet Some Git from Near! My! Home! Town! on a Package Holiday? Granted, it would be a bit of an eyebrow-raiser if I made the acquaintance of the Scarlet Pimpernel or Halley’s Comet. But another British person on a British Package Holiday to a Costa Del Delboy infested with fifty other British Package Tours? It’s not Arthur Bloody Conan Doyle is it?  Then again, I might not be the Greatest Judge: An inordinate amount of my time being spent mesmerised by Ants Carrying Stuff.

Still, it cannot be disputed: The Truth -like “Five billion flies can’t be wrong”- is that Package Holidays afford most everyone the opportunity to travel; an accessibility unmatched since the days when a snaffled loaf of bread was all that stood between a chap and a free ticket to the Australian Colonies.

Exchange Holidays. I dunno bout this one. The deal is: I open the doors of my Habitat Paradise to a band of Professional Pickpockets. In return I get to spend two weeks in their Vermin Infested Hovel.

The earliest exponents of the Exchange Holiday were the Barbarian Hordes, who duped the Romans into believing they lived Within A Spearthrow of Blackpool Illuminations. Whilst the Legions were away the massed ranks of Visigoth Motorcycle Display Teams hit Rome and did not leave until they’d loaded up with all the soap, towels and women under sixty they could carry.

What worries me though, is whether the Exchange Family will feed my household pets or roast them at Gas Mark Five. And does my home satisfy Government Guidelines on Vomit Capacity?

But get this! Exchange Holidays are definitely the best way of keeping in touch with Plague Of Locust Relatives….. without actually having to meet them.

Self-Catering Holidays. If I am going to be poisoned by mysterious, suspiciously active Foreign Food, I reckon it might as well be me who cooks it.

Over the years I have come to regard Holiday Brochurespeak such as “Exclusive” and “Private” with a wariness I would normally reserve for The Dog -if he came With Fleas… or The Treorchy Male Voice Choir. Does “Exclusive” merely signify that all home comforts invented since the Punic Wars have been Excluded? And is “Private” just their tricky way of saying: Locals avoid the stinking, ramshackle cabins because they house a Nest Of Timeshare Salesmen?

Whatever, at least Self-Catering Holidays afford one the luxury of staying somewhere that sounds A Bit French. Even if the Chalets are A Bit Chit.

Adventure Holidays. Apparently, Peru’s Shining Path movement are currently offering Getaway Breaks of quite spectacular drudgery in the “Genuine Squalor” of their Andean Mountain hideouts. Two weeks with Award Winning Revolutionaries. Just the ticket for someone like me: Driven by the uncontrollable urge to overthrow the Evil Capitalist Socio-Economic System. As long as it doesn’t impinge upon my Cocktail Party Itinerary.

The Holiday Reps are actually Semi-Professional Bandits –same-old-same-old- and jauntily teach Weapons Handling, Ambush Tactics –Boo!- and the art of Camouflaging Oneself Without Getting Llamashit On One’s Tuxedo.

There are no shortage of activities on a trip like this. Bloodstained Hosts, Pancho Villa and his brother Aston –ho ho- lead campfire sing-alongs featuring local Good-Time Hits like the 1970 Peru World Cup Song, El Presidente Es Un Scrabble Trucco and Down With The Decision Not To Amend The Constitution. Invitations are also extended to take part in a Guerrilla Raid, where milk bottles are liberated from the doorsteps of Government Lackeys.

At the end of the Adventure Holiday it is hardly surprising some visitors don’t want to leave their new comrades. And it is not unusual for hosts to reciprocate. At least until your family have paid the ransom: $50,000 or they get your bollocks in the mail.

Unadventure Holidays. Perfect for men who normally do not converse with their wives unless there is a newspaper or riot shield between them.

Purchase a ticket to Benidorm but neglect to buy one for yourself. From now until the airport check-in desk is reached, a Herculean effort is required. Every waking minute should be utilized outlining your impatience to spend the holiday drinking too much, chasing after flirty women and mooning anyone in a uniform. This will influence her decision when the following theatre unfolds.

When your flight ticket is requested, investigate yourself as thoroughly as you would Proving That Grey Pube was just A Trick Of The Light. Of course: “Stap me!” and  “Knock me down with a giant inflatable phallus!” the ticket is nowhere to to be found.

She jets off to the Land Of Dodgy Water. You jet off to the Garden Shed, where record quantities of cunningly stashed lager await.

Healthfarm Holidays. A bit of an oxymoron this one. I would certainly need to be some kind of moron to go anywhere near one of their Converted Cowsheds. For once inside, the word converted quickly loses its’ tenuous grip. This is what became of the huts in The Great Escape.

Diet and exercise regimens are the order of the day- enthusiastically regulated by Helpers who moonlight as Mafia Enforcers. So there is no reason you shouldn’t leave with improved health, a haunted look in your eye and an irrational fear of soya beans. Not that it’s all purgatory. Treats are dispensed in the form of wholemeal nut bars. Although the wrappers usually taste better.

I rather suspect I could achieve all the aims of a Healthfarm Holiday and halve the cost. Provided I stayed at home, set fire to the food cupboards and carried out bathroom tasks like hair-combing and tooth-cleaning with a Heavily-Weighted Yardbrush.

Spiritual Enlightenment Holidays. I used to believe Spiritual Enlightenment Holidays were spent chanting “Om” ten thousand times. Or visiting the Holiday Gardens to glory at Mother Nature’s bounteous dispensation of Dogturds.

However, it seems I was barking up the wrong robe, for Spiritual Enlightenment Holidays are more like Healthfarm Holidays… with the added ingredient of Cramp.

According to disciplines such as Yoga, Spiritual Enlightenment cannot be attained unless your limbs are tangled up like two dogs in need of a bucket of water. The Lotus position is the most famous. Although I prefer the Ferrari position: You get to wear all your clothes at the same time whilst crashing into walls at high speed. There are other contortions, like The Twist, The Plough and Abdominal Retraction, which only serve to confirm that Yoga is the Kama Sutra without the sex.

Once a Spiritual Enlightenment Holiday is concluded, many folks claim to have been completely relieved of their physical and mental stress. Not to mention the contents of their wallets.

Cruise Holidays. Not recommended if watching reruns of Baywatch make you seasick. However, if the beach scenes Make Your Pants Want To Get Up And Dance, you will be gratified to learn: Cruise Holidays are 18-30 Holidays For People With Money.

At least this ensures you meet a better class of liar. The decks are awash with Bogus Captains Of Industry, Phooey Dictators and accomplished Baloney Doctors. This is the competition. But pay it no heed. There are approximately three women per man on your average Cruise. So don’t waste time exposing Sham Gynaecologists by asking them to locate the Deck Quoits.

Some companies employ retired sportsmen to add lustre to their temptations. I recall ex-England footballer Norman Bites Yer Legs Hunter used to teach soccer skills on one such ship. So if amorous efforts with the ladies were proving predictably fruitless, Some Sport could at least be had Booting Norm Into The Sea.

On arriving on the final decision on where to go for your Holidays, avoid hotels which trumpet they are five minutes away from the beach. This is usually only true if you happen to be at the controls of a Jet Fighter.

And what about the dangers of prolonged exposure to the Sun? For a Holiday that affords a hot climate, yet still provides protection from harmful IVF Rays, I think a Cycling Tour Inside The World’s Active Volcanoes is hard to beat.

So… all aboard. Dover For The Continent. Eastbourne For The Incontinent.

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you are so unimpressed by organised fun you’d rather just stick a pin in the map of an interesting country and blast your british racing green karmann ghia into the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?! (001)

#Humor #Comedy #Humour

SHARK FIN SOUP is No.1 in a series whose intention is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy.

I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

Shark Fin Soup.

Fearful as Western Civilization is of China’s inevitable domination of Earth’s economy, military power and snooker, much negativity is laid at their finely crafted feet. Chinese Burns for example: That staple of Schoolyard Protection Rackets. Although these days I am told the kids would rather assault each other via Poison Text and Virtual Carpet Bombing.

China is also the target of Olympic-Standard Finger-Pointing for marketing Copycat versions of Western Automobiles. Not that this elicits anything more than equally High Standard Shoulder-Shrugging when the originality of models such as the Mingi, Forged Crapi and VW Butthole is questioned.

Shark Fin Soup sure as hell is their fault however, and is precisely as ridiculous a foodstuff as its’ name implies. It sprang -as much as soup can be said to spring- from the Ming Dysentery, when brainstorming sessions concluded: What our soup really lacks is bits surreptitiously snipped off the planet’s champeen killing machine.

I would have loved to see the look on the faces of Local Fishermen when Chefs told them there was an addendum to the usual shopping list of innocuous seafood: “Cod, Tuna, Cockles, Brandy Snaps… oh-and-some-fins. Hmm? Off… ermm… Sh… arks… Hmm? Nooo… of course they won’t notice.”

And by the way, the attraction of Shark Fins is not related to them tasting like Delicious Spring Rolls or Lovely Moist Cake With Five Types Of Fruit In. No, mon amis: I am reliably informed they offer less in The Tastiness Department than either Water-Cress or the Ear-Lobes of Mad Panthers.

Shark Fins are regarded as a delicacy due to their texture, which Culinary Experts describe as gelatinous, sinewy, coarse and chewy. Sounds like lentils and rubber bands to me. Both of which are easier to catch than Sharks and present Hunters with far more manageable levels of life-threatening peril.

Because of the expense of acquiring Shark Fins, their presence at a dinner party traditionally signifies Wealth and Power. Although a Big Shiny Gun has the same effect and is more useful as a Weapon Of War than a Bowl Of Soup.

So…  if I have correctly stacked all the twigs in this nest of nonsense: What one does in order to serve up soup which does little for one’s tastebuds but lots for one’s Social Caché, is acquire a State Of The Art example of Perfect Natural Engineering and hack its’ fins off. Not all of them, mind. Then one bids farewell to the remaining nine-tenths of the creature with a cheery boot back into the ocean. Well frankly, one is nuts!

You might as well cut one of Van Gogh’s ears off and throw the rest of him away. Not that similar action wouldn’t improve the output of some Modern Artists I can think of. I eagerly await the day Aliens invade the Earth. Aliens with a penchant for Man-Nose Biscuits.

As the great Chinese Philosopher Confucius once said whilst quietly contemplating which Chisel to solve his Rubik’s Cube with: “Soup?! From Shark Fins?! Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof?!”

Thanks for listening.

paul grin hopi is a freelance professional nuisance you really ought to investigate and/or hunt down and shoot like a dog if you agree it’s probably mean to say madness is in the eye of the beholder but accept that carrying around a holdall full of eyes means you’re probably mad.

 

 

 

POINTLESS. Or: Have ALL The Tiles Fallen Off Your Roof? (003) paul grin hopi

TV CONTINUITY ANNOUNCERS: The third entry in an embarrassingly long list of testimonials to The Assend Of Man.

The intention of this series is to map the most gloriously pointless conquests in Mankind’s Empire Of Frippocracy. I am irritated and intrigued by the increasingly frenzied efforts of Homo Sappyens to perfect the production and presentation of utterly contrived nonsense. But I am also amused and entertained by this wilful and witless flaunting of bareness in the upstairs brain cupboard.

As such, I shall be performing as much Pointless Pointing At Pointlessness as I can possibly manage.

TV Continuity Announcers are the spoken link between television programmes. Therefore, you would expect their impact on our consciousness to be no greater than an Ant rustling the Morning ‘Paper at the bottom of the garden.

However, the ability of C.A.s to Draw Attention To Themselves with relentless attempts at wit and wisdom, has placed them in the Premier League of Major Irritants: Right up there with Scabies and Rail Passengers Who Whistle Cretinous Alien Lloyd Webber Show Tunes.

Officially, their main contribution to holding up the saggy pants of Planet Earth’s Complex Ecology, is to tell us what TV Show immediately follows the one just gone. Some may argue immediately and follows are key words in that sentence. For the secret identity of the next offering is only going to be secret until it begins in a few more seconds and would not have been secret for quite so long if it were not  for the Linkman filling those very same seconds unveiling its’ secret identity…

Sometimes, of course, TV Continuity Announcers tell us about The Next But One Prog. This can be as much as one whole hour away. In The Future. Assuming the Sun hasn’t burnt out before this distant event occurs- reducing audiences to family sized packs of frozen peas- our decreasing attention span decrees One Hour is time enough for the average man to completely forget which way round he should be sitting in order to view the picture screen. It is certainly enough time for the average man to forget what the C.A. said about Roy being in for an unpleasant surprise involving an involuntary breast implant and a bag of stoats.

That is not to say these Voice Artists are any less useful to the World Of Broadcasting than Cardboard Wildebeest. Or nipples on a Honda Civic. Or… you get the idea.

Networks regard them as indispensable Turd Polishers. Especially now that Changing The Channel is not the fearful, lung-bursting trek across the living room carpet it was before Jimmy-Bob Remotecontrol gifted us the frights of his labour.

This is why Networks value their Continuity Announcers at least as much as Hollywood Stars value their beautiful breasts and hair- when they are in the same room as them. Networks seem to believe C.A.s have the power to prevent viewers from changing The Channel. Or disappearing to swim or dump nuclear waste in same. 

Illustration of this desperate battle for advertising income can be seen on their Answers To All The Questions You Would Have Asked If You Gave A Shit websites. Less expensive illustrations are available if you just flog off to the town centre and watch a bunch of filthy old tramps fighting over mislaid coinage.

Networks like to think of Continuity Announcers as Ambassadors. Although, if you met one, you would be unlikely to see their shoulders adorned with the flamboyant epaulettes of traditional ambassadors. Their insignia of rank would more likely be English Heritage Soup Stains or trousers unironed since the Silent Era.

Part of this ambassadorial role is to help maintain Station Identity. Television Executives will tell you all about the importance of Branding in sub-microscopic detail, unless you run away very quickly. Or -if you are foolish enough to stick around- unless you fill their mouths with Cavity Wall Insulation.

Station Identity is simple to establish and sustain if you are Comedy Central, Sandwich World or Jewellery Which Turns Your Skin Green Channel. But for more varied outputs, the Continuity Announcer is responsible for establishing a tone: Trendy enough to entice Pimple Chasers; witty enough to win Wallet Wavers; quirky enough to distract Scientists from poking Misterbeanium.

Dave is the perfect example of a television channel utilizing Linkmen to Borg its’ image onto the cheque books of collective advertisers. If Dave were an animal, it would not be a Peacock, coyly revealing its’ plumage to attract suitors. No siree Bob. Dave would be an amorous Baboon: Demanding attention via enthusiastic displays of its’ buttocks.

Their Continuity Announcers perpetuate a witty, self-deprecatory, self-knowing image to sell a schedule dominated by re-runs. If I were to sum up Dave, I would say: Suits, Mock The Week and Top Gear. (The latter being the British version of Les Singes Sur Les Bicyclettes, Belgian Viewers.)

S4C is the perfect example of a television channel utilizing its’ Linkmen to negative effect. Their enduring message is: Share our bed. We might be Bedwetters, but we’re Welsh Bedwetters.

And, no, I’m not poking the begrimed, grumpy, sneezy and bashful Progeny Of Gladys Pugh, because I’m a mean spirited, uncomprehending Saesneg Diawl. My credentials are quite sound: One of my relatives wrote the Welsh National Anthem. Another was involved in a betting scandal involving multiple Drop Goals over his own posts.

S4C’s C.A.s perpetuate a We Speak Welsh- Live With It Moch, Station Identity. The result is an output which registers at the end of the Viewerometer where you’d normally find Celebrity Floorboards and Here’s Some Mud. For instance: The number of people tuning into football show Sgorio, has been officially measured as Zero on more than one occasion. Though, to be fair, these viewing figures did not include survey responses from sentient beings lacking the power of speech, such as Dogs, Cats and Herds Of Moocows gathered outside the local telly shop.

But it is not just the fault of TV Companies that the merest hint of Approaching Linkmen results in Death-Defying Dives for the Mute button and/or a flat-screen pitted with Cake Debris. Continuity Announcers do not help their own cause. When God first manufactured this sub-species of Gibbon, did He imagine their main use for His wonderful Gift Of Opposable Thumbs would be: Pointing At Themselves?

Few Continuity Announcers perform the task as an end in itself. Rather, they regard it as the first step on the Imitation Leather Staircase To Stardom: Their Big Chance to impress TV Executives with Talent which is at least the equivalent of Shakespeare, Eddie Izzard and Spit The Dog. And therein lies the single most Annoying, Pokeyourselfintheeyewithamodeloftheeiffeltower characteristic of the C.A.- They can’t bloody well resist joining in.

It seems it is not enough for them to provide simple Links. They inadvertently provide another link: That between Modern Man and the Ape. This is achieved with self-penned Non-Alcohol Lager versions of the Show to follow. For example: If a Comedy Show is up next, you can wager your Grampa’s entire Collection Of Rare Hamster Noses, the C.A. will make some embarrassingly lame reference to one of its’ Catchphrases– usually involving the words zany and antics. As a sidebar, I wonder why they do not make use of words like laughter-track and bollocks more often? Just asking.

It’s as if they believe their Raggety Pants will somehow be filled with Reflected Glory. But proximity to Talent does not make you Talented. In my experience, the only time that Closeness To Someone Famous imbues you with any of their characteristics is if they stink like a dung-heap.

The Language Of Linkmen is supposed to be bare summation, drawing attention to Unmissable Delights. Unfortunately, it usually turns out to be masturbation, drawing attention to why the C.A. is introducing rather than appearing in Aforementioned Unmissable Delights.

Their vocabulary of superlatives is unmatched in the Animal Kingdom. Aside, maybe, from Rabid Holiday Reps and Chart D.J.s With Fleas. Incredible, Brilliant and Fantastic can be loosely translated as: Okay if you’re drunk or your head is trapped in a vice. Any description of an upcoming show containing Good, Great, Fun or Family is Code for: Fatuous Shite. Kill Yourself.

Dramatic= Expensive Contrivance With Big Hats. Heart-Warming = Cut-Price Contrivance With Mud Instead Of Hats. Hilarious: No it isn’t. Gripping: Ditto. Turbulent, Explosive and Unsettling: See above and/or visit medicine cabinet.

I realise it would be naïve to expect Honesty. There are Advertisers to win, Licence Fees to justify. BBC Linkman Rob Durham was sacked for trailing East Enders as “Crap” and Holby City as “Cockney Rhyming Slang.” Whatever you think of his honest -and frankly hilarious- appraisal, it’s still an appraisal. As such, it is as welcome as a guest appearance by The International Flea Circus in your Underpants.

We really do not need the opinions of Unfathomably Excitable Sub-Humans to inform our viewing pleasure. We can certainly do without the assumption that we are so unutterably thick, all plot lines require advance explanation. And we sure as hell can live without idiotic Linkmen providing a Moral Compass for the level of offence we may or may not take at upcoming content.

Personally speaking, I am offended by Continuity Announcers. Maybe, in Ultra-PC-World they should begin all links with: “Some Viewers may be offended by this Network’s presumption that you are all affiliated to E5 Social Groups, such as Criminally Stupid Teenagers and Bags Of Stinking Potatoes.”

Therefore, the  most common response to the whistle-headed prejudgements of C.A.s will continue to be: Thanks for the input, but I’ll be the judge of that. Or: Hang on while I go fetch my gun.

So while it is unlikely that TV Companies will ever make better use of Continuity Announcers by converting them into Grit for our Winter Roads, the least they could do is ask them to keep it simple dudes.

As the great Chinese philosopher Confucius used to say in Dragnet: “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if  you plug your ears and go mnyaah-mnyaah mnyaah-mnyaah mnyaah-mnyaah within a millisecond of a linkman opening his snapper.

(28/03/14)

PLATINUM TIPPED ICEBERG: Litter From Footballica. (023) paul grin hopi

F.A. LOVES R.H. 

But are they having an affair behind the back of His Royal Hodgness?

Warning: The following text contains Hodgering. And Spock Ears. And the next England manager.

When the F.A. reaffirmed their marriage vows to Roy Hodgson, my first thought was: Why now? My second thought was: What have they been up to behind his back?

Alex Horne, the phenomenally anonymous General Secretary of the Football Association of Ingerlund, rarely feels the necessity to confirm he is still alive by speaking in public, so when he said the national team boss was brilliant and exactly what he’d hoped for, my Spock Ears instantly pricked up. Especially when he  concluded his gratuitous Hodgering by saying there was no reason Roy shouldn’t be our man to Euro 2016.

Secretive organisations like the F.A., M.I.5 and the Special Hair Service of the W.I., do not usually volunteer such statements unless they fear evidence to the contrary is about to be made public. That is: Horne is only saying nice things about Hodgson in case Pinocchio Journos find out the F.A. have been conducting syruptitious negotiations behind Roy’s back; Disguising themselves in filthy old Huddlestone Hedgerow Wigs whilst twanging the pants of potential  successors.

And yet we’ve heard nothing. Yet. But it’s not just my Elvisian Suspicious Mind at work. For even in the Planet-Sized-Unlikelihood that there is nothing going on, there bloody well should be. Think about it. The F.A. would be as crazy as a bagful of Kung Fu Cantonas if they were not already considering a future without His Royal Hodgness.

The World Cup is just three months away. In Depth Navel Gazing At The Quality Of England’s Bellybutton Fluff is a story for another day. But with a group containing Italy and Uruguay, it don’t look good, do it? Even if I ignore FIFA Rankings -and let’s be honest, that’s not a bad way for a Buddhist Monk to lead his life- Italy and Uruguay are favoured to leave me fashioning a noose from my saffron robes.

So if Ingerlund prove not to be greater than the sum of their parts; If in fact the Brazilian Close Shave we expect, culminates in a gruesome pile of Aforementioned Parts, Hodgson will be sacked.

Even if he does well –as things stand-  he won’t be around for Euro 2016. Why? Unless I have lost the ability to count up numbers larger than my mental age, the Four Year Contract which Roy Hodgson signed in May 2012, ends one month before those finals begin. Which is probably why Horney Alex chose his words more carefully than we realised: No reason Roy shouldn’t be our man TO France.

So unless England’s Foot. Ass. intends to shoot itself in those bodyparts by changing coaches just before France 2016, they are already thinking about two things: Extending Hodgson’s contract to include the Euro Finals; Or Who’s Next?

It might surprise you to hear that Roy will get that contract extension, even if England don’t get past the group stage in Brazil, as long as they play well. But my sources* tell me that is the case. The F.A. often fuss around their managers like dogs who don’t like their dinner very much, but they love Roy Hodgson.

They love how his dignified, diplomatic manners ensure Meejavultures seldom exit Hodgson Press Conferences with anything more than haunted looks on their starving faces and alottaborincrap in their barren notebooks. The success of Roy’s Weapons Of Press Distraction is reflected in the risible attempts of Journos to convince us the Monkeyjoke and Manaushit stories were Mighty Matterhorns, rather than the Weedy Dutch Hills they actually were.

The F.A.  loved the way Roy side-stepped the Idiot Mayor Of Manaus. Arthur Virgilio Neto was clearly suffering from roybies when he frothed his England Won’t Be Welcome rubbish. In between making sure cameras caught his best side, the Mayor contrived to take Olympian Offence at Hodgson stating the obvious: Anglos would rather not wear their Sunblocklard 60  in the heat and humidity of the Amazon Jungle.

Hodgson quietly apologised and praised Manaus by Drawing Attention to local theatre culture. Either R.H. has a sense of humour which is drier than dust, or is a believer in the old saying: Revenge is a dish best served whilst filling the Manaus Opera House with England fans singing ere-we-go, ere-we-go, ere-we-go, during Swan Lake.

The F.A. would like nothing more than to continue nailing their colours to the weather-beaten physog of Roy Hodgson. A choice which would be welcomed by all Thinking England Fans- as opposed to the witless dolts who believe Empty-Headed Passion and a Brian Blessed Foghorngob are all a Manager needs to solve football’s conundrums. The reappointment of Hodgson would also be welcomed by our Island’s population of Puffins, who also name his craggy features as their preferred nesting place.

But if the aftermath of Brazil 2014 leaves the Gods of Wembley feeling the need to thunderbolt Roy into a pile of cinders, the question is: Will their next managerial choice be English or Foreign?

It is a reflection of the EPL, that the F.A. have no Quality English candidates to maintain their Preferred Policy of avoiding another expensive Acapello artist from Abroad. Incredible, really, how times have changed. When Don Revie gave up the England job in 1977, Top League managers included Ron Greenwood, Brian Clough, Dave Sexton, Jack Charlton, Bobby Robson, Lawrie McMenemy and Jimmy Bloomfield. Any of these would get the job ahead of the current crap… sorry... crop. Not that a field of Two –Pardew and Allardyce- constitutes A Crop.

The only other Englishman worth consideration would be one who has already held the job, but has not managed a top-flight club in over ten years: Glenn Hoddle. I will always remember him for his tactical masterclass in holding Italy to a 0-0 away draw to qualify for the ’98 World Cup. The F.A. will always remember him for sharing his jaw-droppingly silly beliefs with the world.

The F.A. sacked him from the England job in 1999 following an interview in which Hod delivered his Stone Tablets from the Mount: Words to the effect that folks who were disadvantaged in This Life were being punished by God for having Chopper Harris Posters on their bedroom walls in a Previous Life. Glenn’s chances of getting the job back are therefore nil, because Alex Horne is petrified Hod might tell him when he dies he’ll come back as… Alex Horne.

Another Foreign England Manager? I am certain the F.A. are smooching their way along the casting couch as we speak. The list of candidates is bound to contain The Usual Suspects, but personally speaking, I would say they are not worth mentioning because the list can only be topped by one man: Marcelo Bielsa.

The Argentinian Guru of attractive, high-pressing football is probably the most influential Coach in World Football today. The likes of Gerardo Martino (Barcelona), Claudio Pochettino (Southampton), Jorge Sampaoli (Chile) and Eduardo Berizzo (O’Higgins), all count themselves disciples of Bielsaball.

Marcelo’s Modus Operandi would perfectly utilise the high work-rate and increasingly pacy qualities of our current crop of players. In short: It’s all about the angles, baby. His system is simple: Create angles of attack by filling the spaces when you’ve got the ball; Remove angles of attack by filling the spaces when you haven’t got the ball.

Count the number of passing options always available to his teams. Then look at England. Contrast and compare, compadres.

If you think about it, our National Side already play a half-hearted version of  Bielsaball. I really believe Marcelo Bielsa could tweak us into contention.

In conclusion: The F.A. should stick with Uncle Roy, but make sure the baton is passed onto Marcelo Bielsa. Failing this, I would suggest the F.A. find another home for the baton: One which requires more asterisks than any sentence can reasonably be expected to carry, without recourse to the International Court Of Human Rights.

(*My sources being the Voices In My Head.)

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if you find it impossible not to watch a game without constantly and obsessively counting up numbers of available passing options.

(21-02-14)

PLATINUM TIPPED ICEBERG: Litter From Footballica. (022) paul grin hopi

CHEATO FLOORS! ONE TAP AND THEY LAY THEMSELVES!

FOR SALE!! Cheato Floors! Fulham Flops! World Class Cretins!

The January Transfer Window is now shut to the English Premier League’s herd of malodorous Cowboy Builders. So if you are wondering why there is still a funny smell in the room, there can be but one answer. The Ad. Pages of the EPL are still bursting with opportunities for those with Bottomless Pockets and Pocketless Bottoms, determined to flush their fortunes, integrity and rational thought away.

Here is the latest selection from the Mad But True Section of: Exchange And Whaaat?!

Cheato Floors!

As advertised in the West Ham-Swansea fixture, Cheato Floors are the latest in wooden-headed Spanish Flooring. Ideal for covering living-rooms, football pitches and cess pits. Cheato Floors combine the feline beauty and grace of the Pyrenean Lynx with the stuff which falls out of its’ rear end after mealtimes.

Cheato Floors have been specifically designed to serve the needs of Fashionable 21st Century Man: Men not afraid to model their hairstyles on equine backsides; Men not afraid to get in touch with their feminine side and swoon groundwards to smell the grass; Men with the artistic imagination to recoil from airborne microbes like they were deadly dodgem cars.

Cheato Floors really are a miracle of simple-to-install engineering for the sedentary D.I.Y enthusiast: The slightest tap and Cheato Floors lay themselves!

Cheato Floors contain no moral fibre and less guts than a ladybird! They might look rough and tough, but in reality are as delicate as rickets-ridden kittens. Any ‘andy chap can wave an arm and Cheato Floors instantly display the oak-style characteristics of advanced rigor mortis.

Cost: Upwards of £50m if Cheato Floors relegate your local football club.

( Terms and conditions apply: The Premier League administrators of this product do not accept liability for any of its’ mendacious fabrication.  The Premier League administrators of this product intend no resemblance between themselves and any unflinching moral arbiter, living, dead, or undead. No refunds if Cheato Floors get up and run away one minute after installation.)

Fulham Car Boot Sale!

Advance Notice of May Day Sale! Everything must go! The owners of this quaint South London Pied-a-Terror are determined to relocate to the Championship Islands in time for the 2014-15 Grouse And Gripe Season, in order to pursue their favourite pastime of shooting themselves in the foot.

All occupants whose upkeep amounts to more than a dozen magic beans must be sold. Even the household pets. Some of the old dogs, like Parker, Duff, Riise and Sidwell, are getting wonky and farty, but new masters will undoubtedly restore shininess to their coats and waggy tails. Failing that, any of them would make an excellent Korean pie filling.

The Playroom contains Rodallega, Zverotic and Boateng: Dusty Action Figures which no longer work properly and are usually left in the junkbox with the other rubbish toys. May possess some sell-on value as garden ornaments. The owners will swap them for any item of underwear ever left in a hotel room by Lady Gaga.

Craven Cottage also houses a collection of fireworks. Berbatov, Ruiz and Richardson sometimes provide spectacular displays. But Buyer Beware: These fireworks may not go off at all. Or if they do, do not assume their pyrotechnics will be any more exciting than digestive biscuits dipped in hot tea.

(Interested buyers: Contact any member of staff who hasn’t already been fired, run away to join the Foreign Legion, or injected themselves with Bubonic Plague. Do not contact Managers for directions. They never stay long enough to remember the address.)

Nazi Linedancing Lessons!

Nazi Linedancing Lessons are the perfect present for folks too lazy to move their arms and legs, and too stupid to recognise bigotry when they see it.

Nazi Linedancing Lessons are a delightful gift for Right-Wingers with underarm odour, as the activity combines the cross-chest salute of traditional Fascists, with the straight arm and flat hand of the Nazi movement. Except the straight arm is pointed downwards. As such, the new craze is simple to learn: As long as the arms and brain cells of Nazi Linedancers are equal in number.

Britain first viewed Nazi Linedancing, a.k.a. the Quenelle, on TV’s Strictly Bullshit, when footloose and sanity-free Nicolas Anelka performed his new moves whilst celebrating a goal. Local telly watchers just thought Old Nick was indicating the weather was a bit colder than he was used to. At worst, the way he locked his right arm looked like the admirable self-restraint of a man preventing himself from masturbating on live television.

But no! French folks visiting Blighty in a bid to improve our cuisine and gene pool, said France was awash with Unwashed Dunderheads performing that very same move: A Reverse Nazi Salute. Tokens for Free Nazi Linedancing Lessons will shortly appear in the British Press. Probably the Daily Mail.

(Disclaimer: Nicolas Anelka does not wish to be seen as a pillar/pillock of support for Nazi Linedancing. He says the Quenelle is an innocent hullo clouds, hullo sky, method of expressing support for a friend who is in dispute with the French authorities. He calls the Quenelle: Anti-Authority, not Anti-Semitic. Its’ inventor is the aforementioned friend, comedian Dieudonne, who also says he is not Anti-Semitic, but has close ties with Jean Le Pen of the extreme right-wing Front d’Nutters, who also says he is not Anti-Semitic. If you think this is beginning to sound like some bullshit estate agent chain, you’d be right. Both Dieudonne and Le Penis have multiple convictions for offences related to Anti-Semitism and Hate Crime.)

Postscript.

Swansea City Stunt-Turd Chico Flores is bitching about the abuse he’s been getting from the Twitterati, for conning the ref into sending a fellow Pro off. Aside from wondering if he hasn’t got better things to with his time than looking his own name up in the Sub-Human Social Media, I am astounded at his shameless reaction to being caught with his hands down the Pants Of Transgression.

Cheato is clearly trying to win the No-Balls Prize For Self-Delusion when he bleats about Andy Carroll’s aggressive Intent. Chico, Chico, Chico: If Intent Were Tangible, the Nation’s Football Fans would have you floating down the Bristol Channel on a Burning Viking Funeral Pyre.

Fulham? Rene Meulensteen is still Wearing The Trousers, but is waking up to the fact they are five sizes too big. It is only a matter of time before they are around his ankles. So move along now. There’s nothing to see here. Move along. Will the last Fulham Fan please switch off the lights before heading to The Asylum.

As for Monsieur Anelka… The F.A. are considering disciplinary action. Whatever way he argues the semantics of the case, there is no Middle Ground: Nicolas Anelka is either a Piece-Of-Shit Anti-Semite or a World Class Cretin, for allowing himself to be linked to Bigotry and Hate Crime.

The Football Field is no place for Politics: Evil or Otherwise. Anyway, communicating support for a friend via The Medium Of Dance, is hardly an effective method of information exchange. Writing a letter to The Times might have been a better plan. Or Burping A Satirical Poem.

Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala -real name: Derek Bigot- has been banned from performing his Nazi Linedancing in Britain: A Cultural Loss equivalent to booting the Nation’s Boybands into the North Sea.

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if you agree dieudonne is less the lenny bruce comic antidote to hypocracy he thinks he is and more the loony abuse moronic courier of idiocracy we think he is.

(05-02-14)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLATINUM TIPPED ICEBERG: Litter From Footballica. (021) paul grin hopi

WHO IS JEROME CHAMPAGNE?

What Does The Football Revolutionary Want? Why Should We Care? Can He Splatter Blatter?

When Jerome Champagne announced his candidature for Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Presidency a few days ago, a single question came to mind: Who the bloody hell is Jerome Champagne?

With a name like that, I’d expect him to be a porn star. Or a suave ’70’s TV Detective like Jason King, the Frilly Dandy with sideburns longer than most people’s lawns. None of which, by the way, would be any sillier than Sepp Blatter’s presidency of the World Society Of Friends Of Suspenders in the same era.

Champagne looks like British political behemoth John Prescott, minus accompaniment from The Proclaimers’ I Would Eat Five Hundred Pies and shares his matter-of-fact self-confidence. Why else would he have spent much of the past three years as a football Troubleshooter brokering ground-breaking agreements between Palestine and Israel, Turkish Cyprus and Greek Cyprus, and Kosovo and FIFA? Self-Confidence, mon amis.

Read that list back. Could you imagine more Arsequaking Arenas for the Frenchman to test the skills he gained in fourteen years as an International Diplomat? Alien Vs. Predator maybe.

In each case J.C. represented The Little Guy: A stance echoed in his calls for fairer distribution of Football Finances between the rich bangle danglers of the world and those folk who can barely afford to swing their genitalia in the breeze. However, until the minutiae of his proposals can be examined, it remains to be seen exactly how Mr. C. will extricate the hands of the wealthy from their own gold-lined underwear.

In the meantime, Che Champagne has already come up with enough revolutionary ideas to overthrow an Entire Chain Of Cuban Newsagents.

His plans to eradicate the disease of Second Yellow Madness for instance. As things stand, a player on one Yellow Card can be sent off for a second innocuous pissant offence like removing his shirt after scoring. Or celebrating a goal with an impromptu fireworks display which gives officials Acid Flashbacks.

Monsieur Champagne suggests an In Between Orange Card which will place these minor offenders in an Ice Hockey/Sex Dungeon Style Sin Bin for a few minutes. So instead of weeping over Red Card Expulsion, players have time to consider their evil folly, put their clothes back on, and correct spelling and syntax in their t-shirt messages.

Rather sensible don’t you think? And why not? Jerome may not have kicked a football outside of his Mum’s back garden, but he wrote for France Football in his youth and between 1999 and 2010 sharpened his intellectual coutellerie at the top table of FIFA’s Executive Committee. So the 55 year old knows what he’s on about methinks.

More problematic is his wish to place a quota on foreign players- European Labour Laws being what they are. Still, the intended increase in Locals would go some way to restoring the Souls of Certain Clubs, as the Revolving Door of International Mercenaries is blocked up with Homegrown Backsides.

Champagne also raises his Arc de Triomphe Eyebrows in favour of using Video Technology to adjudicate penalties and offsides. Good Thinking Batman. No member of Homo Refians has ever been physically able to Simultaneously view The Ball Striker Over Here and The Defensive Line Over There: Not without Independently Swivelling Iguana Eyes.

As for Penalties: Up to eighty per cent ain’t. Just witness the relentless over-acting and brassnecked bullshit which befouls the EPL. (See Platinum Tipped Iceberg 014. Simulation: How to spot it; How to stop it.)

The only concern is the time factor. The Primo Carnera requirement is Instant Video Replay, like in Rugby. Otherwise we’ll be left with all the Useless High-Fives, Drive-By Shootings and Interminable Hanging Around of Merrkun Feutbawl, whilst decisions are configured in line with The Precepts And Ad-Breaks Of The U.S. Constitution. After such lengthy pauses, an Association Football Goalkeeper would likely return to his post to find someone had pissed on his towel.

But I’m sure Le Champ has time considerations in hand. After all, we wouldn’t want our Superstars to suffer Pneumonia and Raised Leg-Hair Syndrome as they wait, shivering, for arbitration. And we certainly wouldn’t want to fuel the stick-rubbed fires of Anti-Video Luddites by Taking Too Long.  Not when this Valuable Time is currently utilised by Players Bitching To Officials About Decisions.

Which brings us to Champagne’s thoughts on Players Bitching To Officials About Decisions. Jerome has visited half the nations of the world (!) and has witnessed such Wisdom as: Football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans; Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen; Aussie Rules is a game for hooligans played by hooligans. (I could add: Merrkun Feutbawl is a game for couch potatoes played by couches. But I won’t.)

Consequently, J.C. borrows from Rugger again. For as Law 58(b) of The Rules Of The Rugby Football Union stipulates: Any back-chat from you young man and you’ll be on the naughty step ten metres back with no supper and santa won’t be coming this year. Rewarding Goboffs with the advancement of free-kicks by ten metres would be a wonderfully dictatorial weapon for Football Referees. And why not? Nothing else works. The only beneficiary of the Respect The Ref Campaign has been the bank balance of the chaps who manufacture the armbands.

So Champagne is right. If Players won’t listen, the way forward is Weapons Of Mouth Obstruction. Add to this his view that Only the Team Captain should be allowed to speak to Officials, and we will finally remove the ugly spectacle of En Masse Sulkeurs surrounding Referees and turning every tepid controversy into The Siege Of Troy.

All edifying stuff I think you’ll agree mon petite oiseaux. But the question remains: Can Champagne splatter Blatter?

Surprisingly, the one man who says Jerome Champagne cannot defeat Sepp Blatter is Jerome Champagne. He replies with a simple: “I don’t think so.” Curiously though, his corollary that Blatter is “A man of relevance,” is bursting with cryptic restraint. Like a diplomatic fellow describing a woman as Looking like a picture, without clarifying whether the picture in mind is one of beauty……or a baboon.

Mr. Blatter is undoubtedly a man of substance. Whether you would want to get any of that substance on your hands is another matter. The fifteen years of his FIFA Presidency have been a slow puncture of corruption allegations, punctuated by personal enthusiasm for increases in the distance between goalposts and decreases in the amount of cloth used to make female football kit.

Take into account Schlepp’s age -he’s 77- and without wishing to sound callous, there is a good chance that come the Elections of 2015, he’ll be getting strip-searched in the Immigration Room of The Pearly Gates. Either that, or in common with other men of advanced years, he may suddenly become obsessed with collecting string and complaining about the decreasing size of chocolate bars.

So maybe Champagnzee is wise not to criticise his Former Boss and keep his banana powder dry. If he swings on his Diplomatic Tyre for long enough, he knows Das Blatt is quite capable of torpedoing his own Election Campaign with one of his infamous Bigot Missiles.

Sepp actually brought Champagne into FIFA in 1999 and employed him as International Advisor, Deputy Secretary General and Director Of International Relations. However, it was a job he didn’t give him that led to their fall out: The FIFA No.2. position of Secretary General.

The Frenchman has always kept admirably schtum on the circumstances of his departure from FIFA in 2010, though the suspicion is that he was eased out, as his Can-Can displays increasingly upstaged the Shadow Puppetry of Blatter.

The current State Of Play in the FIFA Presidential Election Campaign is this: Scheisse Blotter looks increasingly like changing his mind and running for a fifth term in 2015. Concacaf  President Jeffrey Webb says he won’t run but probably will. UEFA President Michel Platini has indicated he will but probably won’t. And it has been suggested: If Blatter do, Champagne don’t. I hope he does. 

As Pele said of J.C.: “I trust him.”

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if you harbour a deep and lasting admiration for his ability to speak of jerome champagne without using so much as a single solitary sparkling wine based pun.

(24-01-14)

PLATINUM TIPPED ICEBERG: Litter From Footballica. (020) paul grin hopi

STATS SAY MOYES IS BETTER THAN FERGIE!    

Warning: The following text contains stats. And the Watney Cup. And the future of Manchester United.

David Moyes is a better MUFC Manager than Alex Ferguson? You think I’m having a chaffinch don’t you? The Crazy Eyed Jock has had 27 games in charge. (Friendlies, Community Shield and 0-0 draws against Traffic Cones not included.) Davie’s record is W18 D2 L7.

Only one Muffers Manager has had a more successful statistical start. Ever. Frank O’Farrell in 1971. (16-8-3). Here are the post WWII also-rans who failed to match up to Lord Dave:

• Matt Busby: (1945)………… Won: 14, Drawn: 7, Lost: 6.
  
• Ron Atkinson: (1981)…….. Won: 13, Drawn: 6, Lost: 8.
  
• Wilf McGuinness: (1969)..Won: 12, Drawn: 9, Lost: 6.
  
• Alex Ferguson:  (1986)…….Won: 11, Drawn: 9, Lost: 7.                               
• Dave Sexton: (1977)…………Won: 11, Drawn: 4, Lost: 12.                  
• Tommy Docherty: (1972).. Won:  9, Drawn: 7, Lost: 11.

Interesting huh? After 27 games, David Moyes is statistically better than Alex Ferguson. In response, aside from… “Cakes!” …and… “Beer!” … I would reasonably expect The First Thought of Moyes Haters to be: You can’t compare him to Fergie after just 27 games, look what Alex went on to achieve! And they’d be right.

Statistics are like Forrest Gump: They’ll pretty much go wherever they’re directed. Which is precisely why I used statistics to favour Alf Moyes. Because right now, the Airwaves are awash with stats from Moyes Haters, saying United haven’t lost so many home games, or haven’t lost so many consecutive games, or haven’t had a worse start, or haven’t featured in so many sentences containing the word haven’t, since 1066 when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Anyone presenting A Stats Only Case –for or against- Moyes, is a Witless Baboon. So stop bloody doing it! (Or I’ll send my Gump Cousins round to run over your herbaceous borders.)

Of course The New Guy isn’t better than Big Sir. Brave Dave will probably never catch the same wave he did. But let’s be honest: If the 27 Match Stats prove anything, they prove how hard it is to get off to a good start at The Theatre Of Bream. They also indicate Sir Alex’s Secret Love-Child maybe hasn’t had such a bad start after all.

Not that this will quiet the fat soulless whiners who have gorged their obese bodies on success for a generation. These Trophy Hogs don’t remember ’69-’75 when apart from a 2nd(!!!) Division Title, the nearest United came to sniffing The Socks Of Glory was a 1970 Watney Cup Final appearance.

This stunningly worthless piece of tin was competed for by each divisions’ top two scorers from the previous season. As long as they hadn’t won anything. Or qualified for anything: Other than Care In The Community. Yet these were the days when Manchester United had the Largest, Loudest, Most Loyal and Downright Bloody Scary Away Support in the country.

If you should meet one of these Proper United Supporters in a pub, approach with care. For beneath their Vast Flares lie hungry, mean, Steelies. Attach a scampi fry to a stick with a piece of string and wave it. That should distract them long enough to get an answer to this question: What was the most fun you ever had following The Reds?

I can tell you what they would say: Blasting up through the Second and First Divisions with Tommy Doc’s mix of mad kids and gnarled old pirates.

Fast forward to the miserable turds who’ve already begun to Boooooo! in between Boohooing! If they get their way Moyes will be flushed down the toilet and United will sell one of the last remaining bits of their Soul: Loyalty to Managers. For if Davie goes what next? A new Sparkly Chequebook Coach every coupla years? They might as well change their name to Real, or…… City.

Which is not to say Mr. Moyes is guaranteed to fill the Old Trafford Trophy Room with anything other than cobwebs. Indeed, I would wager all my left shoes that United qualify for the Chimpions rather than the Champions League this season. So if Alfie is destined to do nothing more than slash the club’s Silver Polish Expense Account, what is he good for?

The answer is: Stability. When the Legendary Sir Matt Busby gave up the managership in 1969, he chose Reserve Team Boss Wilf McGuinness to fill his boots. But when dear old Wilf put them on they turned into Clown Shoes. In all it took four years, four managers, one relegation and no trophies, before Tommy Docherty got them back on an even keel, once again playing football you could watch without needing sea sickness pills.

Manchester City meanwhile, were laughing all the way to the trophy cabinet. So unless The Red Weevils want another lengthy period watching the arses of Blue Mooners disappear into the distance, they’d be best advised giving David Moyes time.

The Sting In The Tail though, is: The result won’t be pretty. If Staid Moyes is allowed to clear the decks and build a team in his own image, I rather suspect that image will be: Hard-Working Efficiency. Less Red Devilment. More Red Librarian. Exciting: No. Stable: Yes.

But I would suggest it’s what United need. With Club finances resting on skyscrapers built from a billion matchsticks, Manchester United require all the Stability they can beg, borrow or leverage. So take your medicine, shut tha gob and let Lord Dave get on with the job of building a solid, stable, foundation.

This will enable Roberto Martinez to take over in three years time and add the extravagant and beautiful gazebos and tree-houses for which he is famous.

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if  you believe architectural football metaphors are stretching it a bit but are prepared to let it pass just this once. 

(12-01-14)

 

PLATINUM TIPPED ICEBERG: Litter From Footballica. (019) paul grin hopi

 FEDERAL BUREAU OF INSENSITIVITY ARREST WALCOTT.

Warning: The following text contains nets. And uncharitable coin donation. And weeping Spurs fans.

Years of Undercover Detective Work closed the net on notorious gangster Theo Walcott, when the secret whereabouts of the elusive Godfather of Criminal Insensitivity were sensationally revealed on TV during the F.A. Cup Third Round.

No-one would have noticed him –viewing figures for the moribund competition being somewhat tardy of late- if he had kept a low profile. But he drew attention to himself: By deaf-signing live match scores whilst being carried from the arena in the manner of a Roman Emperor. There probably would have been an instant Police Sting, but popstar Stink was off in A Babylonian Rainforest… as far as I know.

The full story –of course we get there in the end you just need a little patience mon amis- The Full Story goes like this: In the 83rd minute of the Arsenal-Tottenham tussle, Theo Walcott, the Gunners Winger who wants to be a Centre-Forward when he grows up, hurt his knee. In a Wing Incident which ironically occurred while he was dressed up as An Adult Centre-Forward.

As St. John’s Ambulance Stretcher Bearers carried the unfortunate young man past the Away Enclave, some Minstrels consulted their Abuse Songbooks and voiced their Considered Opinion of Walcott’s Professional Competence: Likening him to items not usually associated with Football Excellence, like faecal matter and one-legged self-abusers. The less vocally talented of the Spurs Boyband Contingent just shouted. Those incapable of forming a rudimentary sentence grunted like apprentice farm animals and threw the highest value coins they could afford.

This, to be fair, would be reasonable grounds for a response far more extreme than the smiling face and Two-Nil Hand Gesture with which Theo replied and apparently offended so many. In fact it would be reasonable grounds for the response which The Sun reported. Using Journalistic Licence which converted fact into fiction quicker than you can say Hans Christian Andersen, they reversed reality to claim the missile throwing followed rather than preceded Theo’s gesture. I.e. He provoked the crowd.

The Sun also saw fit to describe his mild mannerisms as Taunting. Now I don’t know about you, but my reading of The Tauntometer places TW’s actions at the same end of the scale where you’d discover Hiccupping, rather than the end where you’d register Invading Poland. At time of writing, the Police and the F.A. have been asked to investigate Walcott’s Incitement To Public Disorder. Although if anything comes of it I’ll eat my hat.*

Insensitive? Theo’s hand-jive rendition of Two-Nil might have annoyed Spurs fans who were recording the TV Highlights and didn’t want to know the score. At worst, Theo’s accomplished mime mocked those unable to count that high.

And by the way, I’m not Anti-Totterers: I’m the same dude who defended their self-deprecatory chants of Yid –and all conjugations thereof- because I believe irony and humour are the most effective way to consign pejorative word connotations to The Dogbowl Of History.(See PTI 010. Get past the headline: It’s ironic, my tiny swimming champions.) So I maintain my right to question the quality of any Gene Pool which produces Coin Tossers. With or without coins.

Top Marks to new Spurs Boss Tim Sherwood, mind, for dismissing Theodolite’s score measuring handiwork as a bit of banter. Personally, I think it does wonders for Walcott’s image: Adding Intellectual Gravitas to his strengthened physique and convincing Doubters that his Boy’s First Beard might just survive the Very Windy Weather we’ve been having.

And yet… in all this talk of Offended Hotspurs dragging their Rickets-Ridden Frames to Hurt Feelings Counselling, there seems to have been some World Class Missing The Point.

For amidst the flying bullshit of the Phoney War, the contribution of the St. John’s Ambulance was completely forgotten. These sterling fellows carried Walcott from the field of play and shielded him from the shower of coins. And as they give of their time and expertise for free, I hope they will be allowed to keep any monies which are later discovered lodged in their orifices.

And then there are the Tottenham ‘fans’ -don’t forget four paragraphs back- who did the lobbing. This isn’t the first time is it? Aston Villa-Spurs (20-10-13) featured an Awayday Awaybrain hitting Assistant Referee David Bryan with a Burning Flare.

I am not proud of the United Kingdom’s ownership of the World Record for the highest per capita ratio of nosyarsed surveillance cameras. But this is a prime example of when they should be used- to weed out offenders, throw them on a Compost Heap and burn them like Medieval Witches and TV Continuity Announcers. But not before removing their season tickets and relocating them with the poor children of the parish. 

In conclusion, it would be rotten if the Red Nosed Red Tops viewed Walcottgate as an opportunity to produce a run of Lazy Stories, featuring the Contrived Controversy of Fan-Player Banter. Within reason, it is harmlessly entertaining mass open-mic stand-up.

For instance: My simple mind thinks it is hilarious when Terrace Wits loudly josh Wayne Rooney about his big backside. Not because I dislike him. I am a Wazzamaniac who would cheerfully spray graffiti on anyone who denies he is The Greatest English Footballer Of His Generation. It’s just that no-one’s ego should be so inflated they can’t take a little Balloon Popping from time to time.

I for one will cherish the day Mr. Rooney enters the field of play accompanied by a terrace version of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls. Or the beautiful Burt Bacharach number: Walk On By (The Biscuit Tin You Greedy Bugger.)

Having written all this, it seems the injury which saw young Theo stretchered off for what initially looked like precautionary measures will rule him out of this summer’s World Cup, with surgery on a ruptured anterior cruciate knee ligament set to take place. Ouch. The poor bugger’s only just come back after two months out from abdominal surgery.

If memory serves, Theo’s knee injury is very, very similar to the one which Legendary Paul Gascoigne suffered in the 1991 F.A. Cup Final for Spurs against Forest. And he came back to Light Up Lazio, Rangers and England and turn the Lights Out on Scotland in the ’96 Euro’s. So……

Maybe that Dream I had with Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sturridge interchanging forward positions like Crazy Bastards to smash Germany in the Final of the 2016 Euro’s could still come true. Yeah, I know: Most men dream about Cheryl Cole, Marilyn Monroe and trolleyfuls of exotic vegetables. I dream about versions of English Catenaccio and high-speed Forward Permutations for the National Side.

*Having said I would eat my hat if the Police or the F.A. or Sting prosecute Theo Walcott, I should point out I do not possess a hat. Although I would be happy to eat whatever foodstuffs happen to be on my head at the time.

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if you ever sang jilted john’s nyeah nyeah it’s not fair rather than you’re gonna get your f****n eads kicked in when your team was getting gubbed.

(06-01-14)

 

 

PLATINUM TIPPED ICEBERG: Litter From Footballica. (018) paul grin hopi

CRYSTAL BALLONEY.

Fixture List Anomalies Make It Easier To Pick A Winner.

Warning: The following text contains nattering. And predictions. And Predictions.

Who will win the EPL? Who will qualify for the Champions League? Will Man.U. end up in the Chimpions League? Are Liverpool done? Betting Slips at the ready as paul grin hopeless employs the prognosticatory skills of Nostrildamus to lead you to the Black Hole of The Bookies.

Half the season has gone and the nattering Oddsmakers seem pretty settled on who’s going to do what. But I have noticed A Hidden Factor, something which might just give Us Gamblers the Edge we crave in our Tug-Of-War with the Turfies: An Anomaly.

And anomalies are the enemies of the anemone Armani Army.

I weight my predictions heavily on A Singular Statistic: One which is oft shuffled but always contains the same cards- The Fixture List. You may well hold your nose, laugh derisively  and pelt me with scrunched-up old copies of The Football League Review, which clubs used to conceal inside their programmes like it was Lezzo or Newd Scientist,  but…butbutbut…butbut: I am a great believer in The Fixture List. For this is The Cave where the Anomalies live.

For Example: Anomalies is why I didn’t utter more than acoupla tinysqueak War Whoops when I observed the early season circus tricks of Southampton. Yes, they are a good side. (See PTI 013, Southampton Ahoy! Or Saints Ahoho?) But their early opponents in the EPL Colisseum were less Fierce Lion and more Gummi Bear. So it’s not that Mauricius Pochus Sotonius have suddenly gone from Gladiator to Gladiolus. It’s just that they’ve drawn the short sword of Anomaly: A lopsidedly difficult second-half of season. (Prediction: Top of the EPL ‘B’ League. I.e. A Damn Good 8th.)

But I am more concerned with the EPL ‘A’ League, the rivals who’ll be elbowing each other for space in the Champions League: Everton, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Assorted Manchesters.

It is a Football Truism –as opposed to a Lazyarsed Cliché- that You Need To Beat The Teams Around You. So it would be awful nice for someone if they had an easier ride than the rest. Back we go to Anomalies: All the ‘A’ League have Six remaining fixtures against ‘A’ League rivals. (This was written before the Man.U.-Spurs game.) Liverpool play five of their six… At Home…… Whoa!

If you go to Liverpool By Choice, to win a bet for instance, or as one of your Seven Labours Of Hercules, you will note Reds are remarkably reserved about their chances of finishing in the Top Four. Especially after back-to-back losses to Man.C. and Chelsea. But be still oh beating heart. Remember: Five at home, One away.

Plus of course, The Scousers are playing their most beautiful footer since the days of Fowler, McManamanamanaman and The Fat Bugger who was magnetised to the Centre Circle like it was A Giant Iron Pie: Jenius Molby. Hats off to The Fans -and The Board-  for giving Brendan Rodgers time, even when the side was flirting with the blouse buttons of The Relegation Zone last season. Remember?

That patience may yet yield a Championship. Not this season though. (Prediction: A Surprisingly High Keep The Faith, 3rd.)

Manchester United. The Big Question at Old Triffid is whether or not they will lengthen their record 18 straight Champions League qualifications. It sure as hell isn’t: Will they win the EPL? Despite the incandescently unconvincing protestations of Alf Moyes that they still can. And therein lies the rub with the increasingly shot Scot. He is as believable as a Pub Drunk who claims the pants of any woman he chooses will soon be on his head.

Whether Fans and Board will allow Davie the time and cash he needs is a story for another day, but with remaining ‘A’ League appointments balanced at three Home and three Away, I can’t see this batch of Red Drivels improving their lot. In fact, they are going straight to Hell. Or the Europa League, as it’s now known. (Prediction: A Worst Is Not Over Yet, 6th.)

The biggest victims of Fixture List Anomalies are Manchester City. Bookmakers have been tickling the Blue Eyed Babies under the chin since the first day of the campaign, when Newcastle were gummed 4-0. Chelsea are their only betting rivals. So it would be at least as helpful as a self-cleaning baby, if gamblers could discount one of the pair. And so we can, mes braves, as those sweet little Anomalies gurgle once again.

Manchester City have but One remaining ‘A’ League Home Fixture left to play. They face Five away. That anomalous imbalance is the reason they won’t win the EPL In My Humble Opinion. Compare that to Chelsea: Four and Two. Despite my head, heart and all other internal organs screaming otherwise, The Anomaly Baby is telling me City have some slipping to do. (Prediction: A Barely Believable, 4th.)

Which leaves Chelsea as 2013-14 EPL Champions. Like MUFC last season, they are the most ill-functioning of the contenders. It just goes to show: A Farty Old Ferrari still beats a bunch of Souped-Up Honda Civets, any day of the week.

As for Arsenal, Everton and Spurs -if you still haven’t plugged your ears and gone nya nya nya – their remaining ‘A’ League Fixtures are balanced thus: 2-4,  3-3 and 3-3. Leaving us with an Anomaly Influenced end-of-season listing of: 1. Chelsea 2. Arsenal 3. Liverpool 4. Man.C. 5.Everton 6.Man.U. 7. Spurs.

So Kids, off to The Bookies with you: Armed with my Inspired/Insane Table Of Anomalies. But don’t use your own cash: I suggest you only bet monies gained from Protection Rackets or Scam Sales Of Cheese With Massive Holes In.

Thanks for listening. paul grin hopi is a Freelance Professional Nuisance you really ought to google if you’ve heard the word anomaly and conjugations thereof quite enough for one day thank you very much. 

(02-01-14)