Sad, deluded Scouse liars

SO WHAT HAVE we learned from the dreadful events in New Orleans?

Firstly, we now know that there are such things as Ronald McDonald old people’s homes. It’s a worrying thought. What do they feed them on? A constant diet of Big Macs and Vanilla Milkshakes?

Haven’t these people suffered enough? Haven’t they earned the right to drive the wrong way down a motorway in a Honda Civic without having endless fast food inflicted upon them?

Secondly (and as if we didn’t know it already), when it comes to recreational grief, no-one can hold a candle to dem dere Scousers.

Barely had the floodwaters lapped over the doorsteps than Liverpool’s Lord Mayor and council leaders had broken out the emergency boxes of Kleenex and were weeping copiously for what was, according to reports, their “twin city”.

Except that it isn’t. Not even slightly. Some rudimentary research on the city council’s own web site reveals that Liverpool is officially twinned with Cologne (1952), Dublin (1997), Shanghai (1999) and Odessa (1956). No mention of New Orleans because, as usual, the grief junkies are making it up just to get their fix of second-hand angst. The sad, sad liars. They’ll be claiming Chernobyl and Hiroshima next.

The BBC, which should really know better, reports that “the two port cities first created close ties based on a shared love of music”, but somehow manages to neglect the far more significant commercial relationship of slavery.

Stand by for the first mercy flights out of John Lennon Airport, carrying all that spare water the unwashed scrotes can’t find a use for. Plus plane loads of volunteers to help with the … err … looting. (And incidentally, was it really wise for George Dubya to promise the stranded citizens of New Orleans that “millions of gallons of water are on their way”?)

Meanwhile, still in the goodoleUSofA, an anti-gay activist group based in Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love) says that the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina reflects God's judgment on New Orleans for hosting the annual gay Southern Decadence party.

An organisation called Repent America has complained previously about “homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets” at the event, which was due to take place this weekend when over 125,000 poofters were due to turn up.

Showing remarkable magnanimity, Repent America director Michael Marcavage says: “Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. May it never be the same.”

Good to see you’re all rallying around, folks.

We also have the comic spectacle of Venezuela, Afghanistan and Cuba offering to send aid to help the Katrina survivors. Just goes to show that sarcasm isn’t dead, even if George Dubya’s political career is.

REMEMBER THAT bloke called Tony Blah? Prime Minister or something? Well he returned from his lengthy summer holidays this week, paused briefly to deliver a sermon threatening to hang the parents of naughty children, and then promptly buggered off again on a week-long tour of China and India.

Now I know that we’re not neck deep in murky floodwater, but surely there are issues worthy of his attention in this country? The disgraceful fact that five million Brits can’t read and write for instance. Or the fact that it’s easier to get a table at The Ivy than it is to see your GP. And can anyone explain to me why the zipper-gobbed Cherie is also on this freebie? Since when has she been a government employee?

Incidentally, given the high profile cricket is enjoying in this country at the moment, did I miss Mr Blah’s wistful reminiscences of how, as a child, he used to crouch by the boundary ropes in front of the pavilion watching the great W.G.Grace play? If not, he’s missed a trick there.

SO MOST OF the nation is currently glued to their television sets watching England trying to win the Ashes for the first time in 18 years by avoiding defeat against Australia at The Oval.

Yet the man who has played a major role in this resurgence of English cricket, coach Duncan Fletcher, still waits to be granted British citizenship after 15 years of trying.

His credentials – cricket aside - are impeccable: all his grandparents were British, his father fought for us in the war, his two younger brothers and his sister have been granted citizenship, but Mr Fletcher falls short of the Home Office criteria for a passport because he hasn’t lived permanently in this country for five years.

So where has he been? Leading the England team around the world on cricket tours, of course. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.

Mr Fletcher does not help himself – he is a white, middle class, Zimbabwean, heterosexual male. Not exactly flavour of the month with the Leftie thought police. No doubt if he’d been a barmy suicide bomber or a gay Brazilian student, like Peter Mandelson’s boyfriend Reinaldo, he’d have been sorted by now. (And has anyone ever got to the bottom of the speed with which that application was nodded through?)

When Alf Ramsey won the World Cup in 1966, he was immediately knighted. It will be more than a little embarrassing for the Powers That Be if they can’t hand out the same honour to the man behind a famous victory just because of a monstrous web of NuLabour red tape.

TO THE races in York, and what a splendid day it was.

As usual, I’d run out of money by the fourth race and was reduced to rummaging in Mrs Bentley’s hat for the white fiver she keeps there in case of emergencies. It mattered not. The winner of that race was a horse called Typhoon Ginger, which romped home at 33/1.

Of course no-one in their right mind backed it – apart from every ginger, carrot top or strawberry blonde on the course. I tell you, you should have seen the freaks of nature who shambled up to claim their winnings. Limps, hunches, dribbling – it was like chucking out time at the Asylum Arms.

Still, I suppose it made up for all those days when they were bullied at school.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone stocking up on the Beecham’s Powders in case they catch a nasty dose of Bird Flu, of anyone who can work out how those baths with doors work (surely the water runs out when you leave), or of anyone not celebrating the demise of the Wonderbra, the biggest con-trick since dyslexia was invented by lazy teachers.