You'll never squawk alone

IN A WEEK when we seem to be living in a Monty Python sketch, it’s entirely appropriate that the news should be dominated by a dead parrot.

At least I assume that it’s dead. Does anyone know for sure? Maybe it’s still nailed to its perch, instead of pushing up the daisies or having joined the bleeding choir invisible.

And why are we importing parrots anyway? Who wants the smelly, noisy, feathered cousin of a pterodactyl in their home?

The only person I know who owns one is Blow Dry Burton, the village’s hairdresser to the stars (Madge Hindle, Joe Pasquale and Sir Roy Strong). It’s a big African Grey with a bad attitude and despite having owned it for seven years, he’s never got close enough to it to even give it a name.

The feathered monster has LOVE and HATE tattooed on its claws, it smokes roll-ups out of the corner of its beak and lurks swearing in its cage, snapping pencils with its beak every time you poke it, while a terrified Blow Dry is reduced to hurling millet through the cage door from the other side of the kitchen. It’s not so much a pet as a psychotic squatter. And the bastards live for years as well. Trust me, a sudden case of Bird Flu would be a mercy.

Of course, there were no guesses where this killer virus would first strike. Yep, the Scousers are in there already. And bear in mind the fact that these sad people had recently tried to claim hurricane-battered New Orleans as their twin town (utter nonsense) and had then gone on to issue a formal apology to a bunch of Welsh druids for flooding them out of their homes 40 years ago when a reservoir needed to be built.

It all began last Wednesday, when rumours started circulating in the Anfield district of Liverpool that the body of a baby had been found in a bin bag outside an angling shop. Overnight a Diana-esque shrine began to grow, with cards, teddy bears and more than a dozen bunches of flowers laid at the scene by neighbourhood grief junkies. One card read: "RIP Little Baby, safe in the arms of Jesus. From someone who is a loving mother."

Now no-one knew the “mother” involved in this so-called incident and no-one knew the “baby” who was the alleged victim. But that didn’t stop them. Soon there wasn’t a spare carnation to be had from Crosby to Croxteth. Welcome to Merseyside, the only place in the country where florists’ vans have sirens and flashing blue lights.

One small problem. After the cops had cordoned off the scene and called in forensic scientists, the dead “baby” turned out to be … a chicken carcass. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the Scousers. A drunken mob has already burned down a branch of KFC, wanted posters of Bernard Matthews have gone up on lampposts and Paul McCartney has reformed the band Wings to play a charity concert. Meanwhile the Liver Bird has been taken into protective quarantine.

Altogether now: “Squawk on, squawk on, with hope in your heart …”

I SEE that fat people are moaning that they’re being discriminated against in the workplace. Well why not?

As far as I know, there aren’t any fat catwalk models, slimming consultants, personal trainers or firemen. Why should there be? And there’s only one vacancy for a Dawn French and that’s filled (to some tune) at the moment.

Put yourself in the shoes of an employer. Two women turn up for interview. One is a 20-stone lard bucket who’ll spill out of her office chair, take days off sick with obesity-related illnesses, wear tracksuit bottoms to work and generally sweat a lot. The other is slim, fit and has big breasts. Which one would you give the job to?

“It’s me glands, me metabolism,” they moan. “I’m big boned.” No you’re not, you’re just fucking fat. Eat less and take some exercise, for Christ’s sake.

And let me make another suggestion. You know those metal frames that EasyJet have put up at airports to check the size of your carry-on bags? If it doesn’t go in, it doesn’t go on? Why not do the same with fat people?

There should be an average human-sized cut-out at every check-in desk. If the fatties can’t waddle through it without touching the sides, then they have to buy an extra seat. That way I won’t have to put up with someone else’s buttocks infringing my personal space at 30,000 feet for four hours.

THE DAUGHTER of Private Harry Farr, a First World War soldier who survived the Somme but was then court martialled and shot for cowardice after refusing to return to the front, has gone to the High Court to try to get her father pardoned.

She argued that his name should be cleared because he was suffering from shellshock, or “acute post-traumatic stress disorder”. Mrs Gertrude Harris said that the execution had been a stigma on the family, but her father had never shown cowardice and that the court martial didn’t take into account the evidence of his illness or his previous good record.

Well I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t wash. You didn’t see Baldrick bottling it, did you? What if every poor bugger who was trapped in the trenches decided that they didn’t fancy the next suicidal assault because they had “acute post-traumatic stress disorder”? We’d all be speaking German and eating Bratwurst. Applying bogus Nanny State bogus science to the case doesn’t change a thing.

And imagine if she wins. Won't a compo claim be just around the corner?

MORE DISTRESSING signs of the Times We Live In. Breakfast telly features a family of scrotes where both children AND their mother are taking the drug Ritalin because they suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, another recently-invented excuse for bad behaviour.

Another TV programme shows a 16-year-old girl drinking herself stupid every night, but doesn’t question why she’s been given her own council flat and £46 a week in benefits to get pissed on when she should still be living at home.

Meanwhile millions of people tune in on Saturday evening to watch a sad parade of desperate wannabees who think they can sing but actually sound like a pet shop on fire. I wonder what Harry Farr would have made of all this.

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 surprised that after banning pig-related toys and calendars from offices, the Forces of Evil have now declared war on piggy banks, of anyone wondering if animal rights protesters will turn down their bird flu vaccinations because the drug has been tested on animals, or of anyone not celebrating Devon & Cornwall police’s attempt to stop dangerous old people driving. And how do you tell who’s dangerous? Well let’s start with anyone wearing a hat behind the wheel.