tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-170999362024-03-13T09:31:58.391-07:00The Devil's AdvocateBarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.comBlogger239125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-6077211825872784492010-11-21T03:06:00.000-08:002010-11-21T03:07:58.589-08:00Long time, no seeIt may be just a rumour, but I might be feeling my way on this new Twitter thingy.<br /><br />See you there, if I can get it together...BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-48011108315404212852009-09-28T07:37:00.000-07:002009-09-28T07:39:20.466-07:00Slacking offThis blog is having to take a break for a while due to the demands of work (paying work, that is).<br /><br />It will return soon, if only to annoy the Guardianistas, although why they bother coming here is beyond me.BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com66tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-43020871330409400412009-08-18T08:29:00.000-07:002009-08-18T09:37:35.568-07:00If you don't like it, don't go back<a href="http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/3987/chaingang.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 239px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/3987/chaingang.jpg" /></a><br /><div><strong>IN THIS</strong> blinkered, bag-of-shite life that we endure, badgered by targets and rankings, it still comes as a surprise that prisoners of the Devon and Cornwall Police are being asked to fill out a 'customer satisfaction survey' after spending a night in the cells.<br /><br />Rapists, paedos, thugs, drunks and fiddling NuLabour MPs are being asked to rate their incarceration experience based on the quality of the food, the cleanliness of their cell, the lighting and air temperature, the quality of the towels provided and how 'safe' they felt. (Safe? They're in the fucking nick. How safe can you get?)<br /><br />The full list extends to 41 questions and also includes requests for ratings on bell/buzzer instruction, the provision of outside exercise if requested, the suitability of any reading material provided and whether or not lags were sufficiently instructed in how to make a complaint.<br /><br />The clown in charge of this madcap pandering to miscreants is Chief Inspector Ivan Trethewey, the force's 'Head of Custody' who, in the weasel words of modern Britain, says: "I wanted a reality check: what I think the service is that we are providing versus what detainees tell us we are giving them."<br /><br />The last time I spent a night in the nick (Good Friday, 1975, since you ask), customer satisfaction surveys were a bit thin on the ground. I was on my way back from a football match in a car we'd borrowed from a bloke we didn't actually know. I was booted across the concrete of a service station, 'accidentally' had my head smashed against the roof of the van as we were loaded up, 'fell down' the stairs at the nick and was given one paper plate of cold baked beans and two cups of machine tea a day, before being chucked out 64 hours later on Bank Holiday Monday morning, penniless and 150 miles from home.<br /><br />But it certainly worked for me. I haven't been back since.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-5133374568413515542009-08-02T08:41:00.000-07:002009-08-02T09:28:05.720-07:00Surely it's time to sterilise the poor<a href="http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5857/wintersv.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 230px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5857/wintersv.jpg" /></a><br /><div>SO WHAT are we going to do about Theresa Winters, the 36-year-old mother of 13 who is pregnant with her 14<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">th</span> even though every single one of her children has been taken into care?<br /><br />This mad woman is locked into some kind of battle of wills with the social services, vowing to keep on producing children until the authorities allow her to keep one. The financial bill for the care of these poor kids runs into millions of pounds; the emotional toll is even greater, with many of the children severely disabled or now dead. Yet still we allow this utter nutter to irresponsibly procreate, while getting through 40 fags a day and a carton of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Findus</span> Crispy Pancakes while on benefits.<br /><br />You all know the answer, however unpalatable it might be. She has to be stopped. She has to be sterilised. As should many of the thick-as-mince underclass slappers who see producing a child as a lucrative, home-securing career.<br /><br />The problem is, who decides? Who will be the Lord High <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Childkiller</span>, sitting in judgement on the poor and the disadvantaged; deciding which couple might fashion a credible life from the dregs of their miserable existence while giving the tramp-stamped, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">lycra</span>-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">legginged</span>, benefits-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">blaggers</span> a fast track to the sterilisation ward?<br /><br />Well let's have a points system. Unless you can clock up a sufficient score for being in a stable relationship, with at least one partner working (or willing to work), and without several previous multi-coloured offspring, then you won't be allowed that cash-generating infant. The minute you turn up at the doctor's surgery with your beneficial bump, then you'll be shipped off to the government abortion facility before you can say Gordon's Gin.<br /><br />It might seem harsh, but you have to agree that it would meet with the approval of most poor bloody taxpayers.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-50980997116310910432009-07-16T11:18:00.000-07:002009-08-04T02:06:45.439-07:00Blue lights and red tapeHOW LONG do you think it will be before our Health and Safety nutters start killing more people every year than they actually save?<br /><br />We've already had a child drown in a pond because the Hobby Bobbies called to his rescue hadn't been trained in the correct use of Wellington boots and so declined to intervene. And a woman bled to death after being stabbed by her boyfriend because armed police didn't fancy entering her home just in case the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">knifeman</span> was still on the prowl.<br /><br />Now we have 61-year-old Roy Adams, who dialled 999 when having a heart attack only for the paramedic who was supposed to come to his aid refusing to enter the house until he'd spent 16 minutes carrying out a risk assessment ... by which time, of course, Mr Adams was dead.<br /><br />The nub of the problem was an open front door, which suggested to the lily-livered medic that there might be armed and dangerous burglars lurking within. The truth of the matter is that Mr Adams was asked by the emergency services to leave his front door open so that assistance could be at his side all the sooner. Ironic, isn't it?<br /><br />The London Ambulance Service says: "In this case the medic conducted an on-scene risk assessment and had safety concerns and decided to call for back-up. The assessment is a mental check list which medics are required to go through when they arrive at an emergency. Questions include: does the scene look safe? Are there any obvious risks? Will I need extra help? Are there any steps or other obstacles that could cause a problem?"<br /><br />Well no, you shithouse. There's just a dying man lying on the floor on the other side of that open door and you're such a jobsworth that you won't even help him. Honestly, it beggars belief.<br /><br />EDIT: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203501/Health-safety-row-man-dies-water-ditch-999-services-stood-waited.html">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203501/Health-safety-row-man-dies-water-ditch-999-services-stood-waited.html</a>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-53801978179067759442009-07-16T10:24:00.000-07:002009-07-16T10:44:21.500-07:00Make our MPs line the road at Wootton BassettI WAS going to go to Wootton Bassett on Tuesday. I don't know why; I just thought I should.<br /><br />But when it was clear that it was going to turn into a flower-chucking, Diana-inspired media circus - as we saw on the telly later that night - I decided to give it a miss. I'll go again, another day, when it's quieter and a lone squaddie is being brought back in a body bag.<br /><br />I'm torn on this whole thing. The lining of the streets of this minor English town to show respect for our fallen has grown organically, and for the right reasons. It began when a funeral cortege just happened to go down the High Street as the local branch of the British Legion were rehearsing for a parade. From there it's grown and grown, but it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a genuine outpouring of emotion and respect and a sort of ghoulish theme park experience.<br /><br />What is certain is that not a single government minister has ever shown his face in the vicinity. Neither, to the best of my knowledge, has any representative of NuLabour, the people who sent Our Boys to war, ever attended a funeral of one of the fallen. The excuse is that "if we go to one, we'll have to go to them all". Well what's wrong with that?<br /><br />Unless some of the thieving bastards have resigned in the past 24 hours, there are 349 Labour MPs across the country. There is no reason at all why they can't draw up a rota to ensure that one of them manages to don the black tie and drag themselves along to any Army funeral in their vicinity. It's the least they can do.<br /><br />And if that proves too difficult to organise, then let's just send toothbrush-moustached Bob Ainworth, Minister for the Armed Forces, down to Wootton Bassett every time that coffin-laden plane flies into RAF Lyneham.<br /><br />The lads who are dying are simply doing the government's bidding. So why are our politicians so desperate to distance themselves from the death toll?BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-63806780740381258022009-06-30T06:53:00.000-07:002009-06-30T07:13:09.480-07:00Coffee morning leaves a bitter tasteWE ALL know that old people can be bitter and vindictive - anyone who's experienced the hand-to-hand fighting in the queue at the Post Office on pension day will know what they're capable of - but to suggest that they might willingly maim toddlers is a bit beyond the pale.<br /><br />Yet pensioners have been banned from holding a coffee morning at a public library in Peterborough amid just such fears.<br /><br />The seven members of the over-50s coffee morning club have met at the library without incident for the last four years, but now 'officials' claim that toddlers who use the building at the same time could be injured by hot coffee.<br /><br />Well, yes, of course they could, but they could also be hit by a block of ice dropped from a passing aeroplane, struck by lighting on the way there, or battered to death by their feckless parents while social services look on.BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-71854981539078698072009-06-30T04:43:00.000-07:002009-06-30T05:18:22.342-07:00Death to Jackson fans<a href="http://orissadiary.com/admin1/images/allnewsimage/13179.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 226px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 151px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://orissadiary.com/admin1/images/allnewsimage/13179.jpg" /></a><br /><div>THE man behind the world's biggest Michael Jackson fan club claims that followers of the star have committed suicide because of his death. Gary Taylor, owner of MJJcommunity.com, said he understood the tragedies had taken place mostly outside the UK, but he believed one might have been British.<br /><br />"I know there has been an increase. I believe the figure may now be 12. I believe there may have been one Briton who has taken their life," he said.<br /><br />Let's hope that there's not a branch of the fan club in Bridgend, or it'll be a bloodbath.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-46221533159435268592009-06-28T04:32:00.000-07:002009-06-28T05:20:13.174-07:00Roll up for the pikeys' picnicPOLICE in Warwickshire, where an illegal gypsy camp sprang up on a Bank Holiday weekend a year ago, decided that they needed to improve relations with 'the travelling community', so they hosted a bash for 400 them at the force headquarters yesterday.<br /><br />There were traditional Roma bands, dancing, bouncy castles, story-telling and food and drink provided for free. A PC PC said: "The party is new and engaging". Yes, I bet the tax-paying, crime-plagued families living next door to the illegal site are delighted about this pikeys' picnic.<br /><br />But it's not just Warwickshire where cops would rather wine and dine disruptive elements than police them. The nutter in charge of North Wales police decided that he needed to 'engage' the area's Polish community and hear from them first hand about how they were 'victims of anti-social behaviour', so set up a £1,000 bash, refreshments laid on, for around 100 people.<br /><br />One small problem - no-one turned up. Amazingly, this was seen as a positive, with Community Officer PC Keith Sinclair claiming: "It's reassuring to know that they have no real concerns."<br /><br />It would be more reassuring if our police had the faintest idea about what concerns the poor bloody taxpayer.BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-51856139432296990992009-06-23T06:57:00.000-07:002009-06-23T07:41:10.197-07:00Feeding the fat cats<a href="http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4407/bunter.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 236px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4407/bunter.jpg" /></a><strong>MORE MPs</strong> with their snouts in the trough, literally this time. Under the Freedom of Information Act, we now have access to the menus in some of the restaurants and bars in the Houses of Parliament showing that MPs are enjoying meals for less than £2 - and all subsidised by the taxpayer.<br /><br />At the Portcullis Cafeteria, roasted red pepper and tomato soup was just 60p, while pasta with mushroom garlic cream was £1.90. At the Terrace Cafeteria, lasagne cost £1.90 while a rump steak dinner was £3.80. Swan and lark terrine was a mere 30p while roast peacock with all the trimmings cost less than a pound. Thirsty MPs - are there are plenty of those - could get a Bell's whisky or a Bombay Sapphire gin for £1.55.<br /><div><div><br /><div></div><div>In fact, in the year 2007-08, the Commons Refreshment department spent £12.6miilion against an income of £7.2million - a subsidy on the part of the poor bloody taxpayer of £4.5million.</div><br /><div></div><div>Now I must confess at this point that I have myself eaten in the Commons and the Lords' dining rooms on several occasions in the past. I've even had more than a few pints in the Terrace Bar, where visitors aren't allowed to order drinks (although the cheapshate MP I was with asked me to pass him some money so he could get the beers in). But I never suspected that I was feasting off the taxes of a poor pensioner. And I bet the bastards claimed for the meals and drinks on expenses as well.</div><br /><div></div><div>I'm not sure that many of us in the private sector still enjoy the luxury of a subsidised canteen, so why should our MPs and Peers who, as we all now know, are on a pretty good whack in the first place? Perhaps the new Speaker might want to turn his attention to this disgusting extravagance as a matter of urgency. Although seeing as he's such an appalling little shit that even his own side refused to back him, I think we might be in for a bit of a wait.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>I'VE</strong> long argued that when the midle classes rise up against the iron fist of the Nanny State, it won't be ID cards or uncontrolled immigration that channels their rage, but the issue of dustbin collections. Now English Heritage and the <em>Daily Mail</em> seem to have cottoned onto this fact and have launched a 'Not In My Front Yard' campaign, railing against the plethora of plastic bins and boxes now littering our streets.</div><br /><div></div><div>Now it's not much of a problem at Beelzebub Mansions. We just converted a spare stable into mini recycling centre and my man Whittaker drags the containers half a mile down the drive to the road every Sunday evening. But it's the Little People I feel sorry for - those who live in terraces or flats and have a choice of either wheeling their bins through their two-ups, two-downs or permanantly keeping them in the front garden.</div><br /><div></div><div>Given that there's usually an old bath, a decrepit bike and several empty plastic cider bottles already littering their leisure space, the arrival of three, man-size, differently coloured plastic wheelie bins seems an impostition too far, even for the Poveratti.</div><br /><div></div><div><strong>I NEVER</strong> knew that school was such a dangerous place - although we did have our moments when playing Split the Kipper with flick knives we'd smuggled back from a school trip to France. (Along with the porno playing cards, the football match flares and the cans of CS gas.)</div><br /><div></div><div>A survey of 600 teachers has revealed the true extent of the horrors the Health and Safety nutters think that our children face in the playground. Footballs are routinely banned from the premises, as are egg boxes and toilet roll tubes (risk of infection). Sweets are also banned (risk of choking) as is shaving foam (quite bizarrely because of a perceived risk of drowning).</div><br /><div></div><div>A five-page briefing note must be read before Pritt Stick is deployed in the classroom and goggles must be worn if children are going to use that well-known poisonous explosive, Blu Tack. Is it any wonder then that we're producing generations of compo-claiming wimps?</div></div></div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-73933940608842231482009-06-04T13:50:00.000-07:002009-06-04T13:53:27.540-07:00Every little helps democracy<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/370000/images/_371217_sutchmain.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 180px" alt="" src="http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/370000/images/_371217_sutchmain.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong>ONCE UPON</strong> a time, many years ago, I seriously considered standing for election against an arrogant, lazy and corrupt local councillor – a bloke who, amongst other things, refused to vote against the party line when an illegal gypsy camp opened up on the primary school playing field.<br /><br />What put me off in the end was the sheer logistics involved. As an Independent candidate, bereft of the support of a party machine, I’d have had to do everything myself. I’d have had to pay for the leaflets and posters myself, do all the dreadful door-stepping myself, write my own supportive letters in false names to the local press and spread my own, libelous, internet smears against rivals. It was just too much to take on.<br /><br />In the event, the sitting candidate was returned because no-one in that part of town could bring themselves to vote for the Tories while the Liberal candidate was caught in a compromising position with another gentleman on the local park four days before the vote.<br /><br />Now come the next election, whether that be in October or June, the disgraceful trough-snouting of the current incumbents is certain to inspire a wave of white-suited, shining knights in honest armour, eager to turn back the tide of sleaze that has engulfed the present system. But they will all face the same problems I did, only more so in a General Election scenario.<br /><br />But wait, I have an answer – the Tesco Party. Yes, the Tesco Party.<br /><br />Think about it. If the retail giant was to offer every potential Independent candidate the services of its nationwide network, suddenly taking on the big boys would be a distinct possibility. You’d have a least one established base in every constituency, a place to hold meetings and Saturday morning surgeries. You’d have access to advertising expertise, top class designers and the economies of scale offered by volume printing.<br /><br />You’d have Tesco’s massive email database to work with and you’d know the demographics of every potential voter: “Do you have a Clubcard? Ah, yes, Mr Jones. You like Findus Crispy Pancakes, are partial to a can or two of Wife-Beater and you want to send the darkies back where they came from.”<br /><br />It’s so blindingly obvious – and such a massive contribution to the democratic process – that I’m amazed no-one’s thought of it before. I may write to Sir Terry Leahy in the morning. After all, every little helps. Or is that Asda?<br /><br /><strong>I WAS</strong> highly amused that UKIP has demanded a re-run of the European elections because of the way the ballot paper was folded. Apparently, because it is one of the last parties in alphabetical order, its name fell below the crease of the folded ballot paper.</div><br /><div><br />Nigel Farage, the phony who claims to be actively campaigning against our membership of the EU while pocketing around £2million in salary and expenses, said the way the paper was folded made it look as if UKIP was not on the ballot paper at all.</div><br /><div><br />I’d make two points. Wouldn’t the idiot be better waiting for the result before demanding a re-run of an election in which his party allegedly stands a good chance of beating Labour into fourth place? And secondly, are we really sure that people who can’t manage to unfold a piece of paper should have the vote in the first place?</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-39013090941974907002009-05-16T10:28:00.000-07:002009-05-16T10:29:56.978-07:00Pornography or porticos: the class divide<strong>THERE’S </strong>a definite class war element to this row about MPs’ expenses. While it’s quite clear that each and every one of them is on the fiddle, I just find it heartening that the Tory fiddles have a touch of class that the Labour fiddles can’t match.<br /><br />The Labour cheats claim for TV porno channels, disposable nappies, bath plugs and Kit Kats. The Tory blaggers go for portico erection, swimming pool maintenance, moat clearing and tennis court repairs.<br /><br />You have to say, if you’re going to get your collar felt for thieving from the public purse, it might as well be for having your chandeliers hung (Sir Michael Spicer, Conservative, Worcestershire West), rather than for buying two Scotch eggs and a packet of mini pork pies (Derek Wyatt, Labour, Sittingbourne and Sheppey).<br /><br />Meanwhile the real winners in this affair, UKIP and the BNP, rub their hands and look forward to next month’s Euro elections. And that, my friends, is where the real damage has been done. This isn’t just about snouts in the trough; it’s about a complete collapse of confidence in Parliament, and the subsequent meltdown of the mainstream parties.<br /><br />Extremism is about to rule. The sad thing is, they haven’t even had to kick down the door. It’s been left off the latch for them.BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-27415803152492503162009-05-16T04:34:00.000-07:002009-05-16T04:37:06.689-07:00Don't blame me when there are polar bears drowning in the duck pond<a href="http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:KAA2et3ymg1YhM:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_K_3jgRj_Rj4/SBqS189wKOI/AAAAAAAAAh8/FbHOOpow_So/s400/Bring%2BYour%2BOwn%2BBag%2BGreen%2BLogo.bmp"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 104px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 104px" alt="" src="http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:KAA2et3ymg1YhM:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_K_3jgRj_Rj4/SBqS189wKOI/AAAAAAAAAh8/FbHOOpow_So/s400/Bring%2BYour%2BOwn%2BBag%2BGreen%2BLogo.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong>I ONCE</strong> got trapped in the ‘Green Checkout’ at Waitrose. I had a hundred quid’s worth of shopping on the conveyor belt and when I asked for some carrier bags I was told that they didn’t have any - this was the checkout for people who had their own Bags For Life. </div><div><br />“OK”, I said. “Can you ask the next checkout girl to pass you some bags so I have something to put my shopping in?”</div><div><br />Err, no, they couldn’t. This was the Green Checkout, and therefore I couldn’t have any carrier bags. So I did what any normal person would do and walked off, leaving a pile of shopping for them to clear while the queue of smarmy, self-satisfied, middle class yoghurt-knitters tutted into their hessian tote bags.</div><div><br />For some reason (I believe it might be an attempt to regulate my Chardonnay consumption) Mrs Beelzebub this week decided to order online and have the shopping delivered, rather than trek the 10 miles to the supermarket. So the Waitrose van turned up this morning, as promised, and decanted £70 worth of shopping in an astonishing TEN bags – three of them heavy-duty affairs and the other seven fancy plastic efforts. One bag had a single bottle of wine in it (see what I mean?); another contained just a small box of tea bags.</div><div><br />Ten bags. Ten effing bags. I asked the driver if he wanted to hang on a minute while I unpacked the shopping so he could have them back. Not allowed, apparently. I had to keep them. </div><div><br />Well thank you, Waitrose, with your shiny green credentials. I shall now have to fire up the 4x4 and take this excess baggage to the tip, so don’t come crying to me when there are polar bears drowning in the duck pond.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-57008680258546559072009-05-09T03:53:00.001-07:002009-05-09T05:41:32.913-07:00So this Madeleine McCann thing ...<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yri01ol16xs/SgVi9tnqUSI/AAAAAAAAABI/ohDI1eHcxqo/s1600-h/gerrymccann.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333778146047709474" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 180px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yri01ol16xs/SgVi9tnqUSI/AAAAAAAAABI/ohDI1eHcxqo/s200/gerrymccann.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yri01ol16xs/SgVi1mncNgI/AAAAAAAAABA/pk2_YKVq2JM/s1600-h/gerrymccannn.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333778006728783362" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 169px" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yri01ol16xs/SgVi1mncNgI/AAAAAAAAABA/pk2_YKVq2JM/s200/gerrymccannn.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>MUCH EXCITEMENT</strong> this week as Maddy's parents release a picture of her as she would look now, two years after her disappearance from a Portugese holiday apartment while they were on the piss with their friends in a nearby tapas bar. <div><div><br /><div></div><div>Which makes me think: how long are they going to keep this up? If their strategy of keeping the story in the public eye continues, we can expect similar updated pictures every couple of years. What happens in 2021 when she would have been 18? An appearance on Page 3 of <em>The Sun</em>? A topless photoshoot in <em>Nuts</em>? The mind boggles.</div><br /><div></div><div>And meanwhile a new suspect emerges, a gippo market trader identified by a photofit sketch in a <em>Channel 4</em> documentary. I publish the picture above, with no comment at all about the one alongside it.</div><div></div></div></div></div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-60774607022623914792009-05-04T08:08:00.000-07:002009-05-04T08:13:02.971-07:00More than a pinch of Salt<a href="http://www.borsonline.hu/hirek/20090428/1240920791.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.borsonline.hu/hirek/20090428/1240920791.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong>POKING FUN</strong> at the Poveratti becomes increasingly difficult as certain members of the underclass seek to outdo themselves as far as terminal stupidity is concerned.<br /><br />These drooling shitbags can usually be found within the pages of Closer magazine, a publication which seems to have cornered the market in benefits barmpots. First they brought us the clinically obese Chawner family, featuring that fat lass off the <em>X Factor</em>, who were whining about having to feed themselves on a mere £22,000 a year in state aid. Now we have the even thicker (and fatter) Leanne Salt, the single mother of eight-month-old triplets, who happily admits that she feeds her babies junk food and let’s them drink wine “because they like it”.<br /><br />Leanne, 24 years old and weighing in at 29 stones, "triggered outrage" when she revealed she let the triplets try McDonald’s, fish and chips, Wotsits and microwave ready-meals. And Hobnobs.<br /></div><br /><div>Her mother said: “When they are hungry it’s easier to put something in the microwave because Leanne can't move with the three of them. They get Bernard Matthews’ turkey roast, roast beef, chicken. They like it all liquidised.<br /></div><br /><div>“I once did pasta and they wanted it, so I chewed it like a mother bird and gave it to them. They loved it - and had two bowls. It was the same with fish and chips - I chewed it for them because it was a bit hard.”<br /></div><br /><div>She added: “I don't see the harm - I did it to my own children.”</div><br /><div></div><div>Hmm, one of whom is the child that turned out to be 29-stone Leanne then? The mind boggles.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-11652475210713505902009-04-29T10:34:00.000-07:002009-04-29T11:22:49.678-07:00You say tomayto...<a href="http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:AYLD46s9q33DIM:http://outofthegarden.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/tomato-sandwich1.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 122px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 124px" alt="" src="http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:AYLD46s9q33DIM:http://outofthegarden.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/tomato-sandwich1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>WITH SUMMER approaching, one of the delights of the dog-shit picnic (i.e. one on the local park) is the soggy tomato sandwich. This delicacy, which sets out from your home full of firm, plump hope first thing in the morning, disintegrates into a damp mush by lunchtime and, in my view, is all the better for it.</div><div></div><br /><div>Talk to any chef and they'll bang on about flavour and texture. Well, a soft tomato sandwich coupled with the harsh bite of a packet of cheese and onion crisps is just a marriage made in taste heaven. The warm wet, the salty snap ... Heston Blumenthal, eat your heart out. (And he probably will.)</div><div></div><br /><div>Sadly, there seems to be nothing in this life that can't be 'improved' by some interfering bastard or another. Now Tesco claim to have developed the world's first non-soggy tomatoes and expect to have them on sale by the end of the week at 99p for four.</div><br /><div></div><div>"Tomatoes can be tricky to chop and a squirt of juice can easily end up on the kitchen wall or over your shirt," says a Tesco spokesweasel. "The non-leaking variety will stop that problem but without the tomato losing any of its taste."</div><br /><div></div><div>Have you ever heard such crap in your life? How many times has your day been ruined by a squirting tomato? Never, right?</div><br /><div></div><div>This is just genetic and social engineering. It's pathetic. Leave my soggy sandwiches alone, you fruit Nazis.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-39296061294737636552009-04-23T12:46:00.000-07:002009-04-23T13:07:05.857-07:00Piling into the decrepit crush<a href="http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5413/pensioner.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 225px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5413/pensioner.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><strong>I HAVE</strong> kept you informed before about my travails in supermarkets, Tesco being the worst culprits when it comes to upsetting the equilibrium. Now those posh buggers at Waitrose have come up with yet another way to enrage the passing shopper.<br /><br />When you now pay your bill (and after the headmistress behind the till has frowned at you for asking for plastic bags as if you were about to drown a polar bear in the car park), they give you a little green tiddleywink. And, on the way out, you have a choice of three boxes, all representing a charity, in which to deposit your token. I presume, although I haven’t checked, that Waitrose then gives some part of its massive profits to the charity with the most tokens.<br /><br />The problem with this is that it gives old people yet another reason to get in the way of the modern, younger, time-pressed shopper. Not content with forgetting that they have to pay until all their shopping has gone through the checkout and has been laboriously packed, and then taking an age to find their purse, and paying the correct amount in cash down to the painstakingly counted-our coppers, and pausing to discuss the weather and that hairy woman on <em>Britain’s Got Talent</em> with the Nazi on the till, they now pitch up at the box in the exit where they have to vote with their tiddleywink.<br /><br />And they stop, and they fumble for their glasses, and they read the short description of each charity carefully, then they have to go for a wee, then they’ve forgotten what they read, so have to read it all again. And they still can’t make up their minds about who to vote for. And suddenly there’s dozens of them milling about in your path.<br /><br />And meanwhile normal people pile their brimming trolleys into this decrepit crush like pissed-up Scousers at Hillsborough. (Have you noticed that when the media asks Liverpool fans where they were on the fateful day, not one of them admits to being “at the back of the Leppings Lane End, pushing”?)<br /><br />It’s carnage: another stupid complication in what should be a stress-free experience. The only consolation for me is that out of the three charities nominated (some homeless handout nonsense, a cat charity, and the Army Benevolent Fund), our brave boys were winning by a mile … even if I did have to tread on some 90-year-old corns to cast my vote.</div></div></div></div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-91723152043979416112009-04-16T08:05:00.000-07:002009-04-16T08:19:11.027-07:00The Metropolitan Police: Another apology<a href="http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6455/articlestk.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6455/articlestk.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>THANKS TO the <em>Daily Mail</em>, we now know all we need to know about Nicky Fisher, the woman hit by a TSG Sergeant at the G20 demonstrations.<br /><br />She was apparently "shouting and swearing at the sergeant", has "faced shoplifting allegations in the past", is now "negotiating a lucrative newspaper deal through her agent Max Clifford" and "wants £50,000 for her story".<br /><br />She lives with her dog Poppy and her boyfriend "in a rundown basement flat of a Victorian house facing a council estate in Brighton", of which "the front door is adorned with an anti-fur slogan and a 2003 Glastonbury Festival sticker". Furthermore, her boyfriend is "an overweight young man in an England football shirt".<br /><br />Finally, while she has lived in the flat for around ten years, "she did not appear to have a full-time job".<br /><br />Now we know all this, and we chuck in the fact that she's probably a vegetarian as well, I think we can all agree that she got what was coming to her.<br /><br />Good evening, all.</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-40456428879467250742009-04-13T08:51:00.000-07:002009-04-13T08:59:13.898-07:00Breaker, breaker. Put the hammer down ...<a href="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n49/n247282.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 242px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 388px" alt="" src="http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n49/n247282.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong>I’M QUITE</strong> confident that I have been advancing the argument that lorry drivers were responsible for 99 per cent of the murders of young women in this country long before Jeremy Clarkson got himself into trouble for suggesting the same on an edition of <em>Top Gear</em>.<br /><br />It is therefore encouraging to learn that I was right all along. Right, that is, if we accept the American model.<br /><br />According to the FBI, they have a remarkable 200 truck drivers listed as probable murderers, many of them being suspected serial killers, and that truck driving is by far and away the profession of choice for men who enjoy killing women as a hobby.<br /><br />Altogether now: “Kill a whore, change gear, kill a whore, wield ball-pein hammer, change gear, kill a whore, wear upside down V-neck jumper as underwear, change gear, kill a whore …” </div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-77187429597863810512009-04-13T08:42:00.000-07:002009-04-14T08:57:46.796-07:00The Metropolitan Police: An apology<strong>IT HAS</strong> come to my attention that Mr Ian Tomlinson, the citizen described as an “innocent bystander” in a previous post on this message board, was actually nothing of the sort.<br /><br />According to the forces of law and order, and their willing servants in the national press, he was in fact a shiftless alcoholic who had been living apart from his “loving” family for the past nine years. He was homeless, eking out an existence in sheltered housing and shop doorways, regularly took drugs, was obviously a paedophile and probably a terrorist.<br /><br />He therefore obviously deserved to die. Keep calm and carry on.<br /><br />EDIT: And meanwhile this big bastard needs sorting out (3.10 onwards).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V23PGWd46MM&feature=channel_page">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V23PGWd46MM&feature=channel_page</a>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-39750244200002957192009-04-08T10:29:00.000-07:002009-04-10T05:26:14.876-07:00They might have uniforms, but they're still thugs<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01380/Untitled-2_1380699c.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 460px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 288px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01380/Untitled-2_1380699c.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div>FROM THE sublime to the ridiculous ... the Met have been caught red-handed probably contributing to the death of an innocent passer-by during the G20 non-riots, while police in Scotland have been told that they mustn't finish the sentences of people with a stutter in case it offends them.<br /><br />Other nuggets in the 140-page diversity handbook issued to the Porridge Cops include not leaning on someone's wheelchair, not chewing gum while speaking to the deaf (and even I can see the sense in that) and accepting that it's OK to "wear clothing and accessories of any gender in public as long as the genitals are covered." (I think that's what they call the Kilt Clause.)<br /><br />It was a shame that newspaper-seller Ian Tomlinson wasn't stuttering or obviously deaf or wearing a kilt when he wandered into the crowds of G20 demonstrators on his way home from work last week. His only crime was to have his hands in his pockets while failing to move swiftly enough away from the police dog snapping at his heels. (Although I do suspect that he might not have been the full shilling.)<br /><br />But that was no excuse for a uniformed thug to baton him across the back of his legs and then launch him face-first onto the pavement. If you didn't know by now, Mr Tomlinson died of a heart attack minutes later.<br /><br />Contributing to this disgrace is the fact that the Dibble on duty had deliberately obscured their identification numbers on their uniforms. Now I quite understand why they might not want to wear name badges, but unidentifiable numbers? I'm afraid that stinks to high heaven.<br /><br />Any football fan knows all too well the abuse that is meted out to ordinary people doing ordinary things by the hyped-up Bovril Brigade enjoying their Saturday overtime. We also know that the only difference between us and them is that they're allowed to wear armour and use weapons. That apart, we're all just lads up for a scrap.<br /><br />This time though, they've gone too far. It can't be that hard to identify the cop responsible for this cowardly attack. I hope his eventual fate reminds his colleagues that the general public isn't just fodder for their bullying entertainment.</div></div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-55923331116871016862009-04-08T10:06:00.000-07:002009-04-08T10:16:18.833-07:00The prodigal returns<a href="http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1336/foxhunting.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 208px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/1336/foxhunting.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong>AMID THE</strong> driving winds and hailstones of last night, there comes a knock at the door of Beelzebub Mansions. A bedraggled figure lurks on the doorstep, clad only in a ‘Jade RIP’ T-shirt and a pair of floral, knee-length shorts. It’s only my man Whittaker, back from his self-imposed round-the-world exile.<br /><br />(You may recall that he fled the country in shame shortly after the hunting ban was introduced when he turned up for his first ‘drag’ hunt wearing lipstick and high heels.)<br /><br />He is somewhat sheepish. Is there, perhaps, a position still available for a Gentleman’s Gentleman?<br /><br />I update him on the credit crunch, the financial crisis, and the fact that Mrs B is currently preparing a nourishing grey squirrel casserole as we speak. But my heart isn’t in it. I point him towards the stables and tell him he’s welcome to huddle down amidst the straw and the livestock.<br /><br />To be honest, I’m very aware that it’s Easter weekend and the Christmas Stilton still lurks at the back of the fridge. Someone is going to have to evict the blue-veined bastard, and that someone isn't me …</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-66083310430128995472009-04-04T03:48:00.000-07:002009-04-04T13:30:15.900-07:00Goodbye reality<a href="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45634000/jpg/_45634360_jadetshirts_466pa.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 466px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45634000/jpg/_45634360_jadetshirts_466pa.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2117/jadetaper.png"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 57px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2117/jadetaper.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>AS I write, the <em>Sky News</em> helicopter clatters high above Jade Goody's funeral cortege as it makes its four-hour journey through London. The event is being covered live.</div><br /><div></div><div>Chavs step out of the doorways of Pound Shops to throw flowers onto the bonnet of the hearse. Grubby tramps on their benches tip their bottles of plastic cider in respect. Someone has sent a floral display that spells out the immortal words 'East Angular'. Another is in the shape of a Marmite jar (you either love it or hate it).</div><br /><div></div><div>I shall now light my Jade Memorial candle. I may later pop out for a kebab. With poppadoms.</div><br /><div></div><div>She truly was the Poveratti's Princess.</div></div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-26843144962031526432009-04-01T12:51:00.000-07:002009-04-01T12:57:36.742-07:00The bane of the bongo-banging benefits bandits<a href="http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7114/carefulnow.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 243px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 181px" alt="" src="http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7114/carefulnow.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>SO WHAT was that all about then? I’m all for people being allowed to protest against the government, but I’d be happier if they actually had a sensible, single cause in mind.<br /><br />The shower of soap-dodgers (and you’ll never see those words in the same sentence again) who turned up in the City of London today were such a confused bunch of lentil-eating loons that it’s hard to find any sympathy for them.<br /><br />What do we want? Jobs, Justice, Climate, No to Nuclear, No to Globalisation, Republicans ‘R Us, Kill Clarkson, No to Heathrow Runway 3, Stop the War, No More Smoking Beagles, Calm Down and Carry On, Meat is Murder, Shoot the Fox-Hunters, End Capitalism … the capitalism that pays for your education and your dole money? Are you sure?<br /><br />It was an endless jumble of knee-jerk, Leftie bollocks. And can you imagine the smell? It was 18 degrees in central London and the aroma of patchouli oil, skunk and hand-knotted sweaters, all tinged with a whiff of damp lurcher, must have been horrendous.<br /><br />And full marks to the corkscrew-haired Tarquins and their crusty mates for trashing the Royal Bank of Scotland building. That’s the RBS which is now owned by the taxpayer. And guess who will pick up the bill for the damages? Yep, the taxpayer.<br /><br />Of course, the government could easily have avoided any of this nonsense with a single stroke of the pen. Once they knew when the demo was planned for, they should have just changed the signing-on day of every unemployed, bongo-banging benefits bandit to April 1st and the problem would have been solved.<br /><br />Oh for the days of proper demonstrations, like when the Countryside Alliance came to town, got truncheoned by the Met Police, but still found time to pick up their own litter and replant most of the bedding plants in Hyde Park.<br /><br />And all this just because The Queen wouldn’t lower the flag on Buckingham Palace when Jade died …</div>BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17099936.post-7522726217718026112009-03-28T07:54:00.000-07:002009-03-28T09:09:09.586-07:00Whither now, dear Bazza?<a href="http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1704/keyboardr.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/1704/keyboardr.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong>THE FINANCIAL</strong> crisis gripping the regional newspaper industry means that I have finally lost my last paying customer. It's been a good innings so I'm not complaining, but where now for Mr Beelzebub?<br /><br />I won't miss the Wednesday night slog, with 900 words to turn out (and occasionally churn out) between the end of <em>Coronation Street</em> and the midnight hour. And I won't miss writing for other people's newspapers. When I was an editor I could say more or less what I wanted in my own newspaper, as long as I was prepared to defend myself in court and on the streets. When you're submitting stuff to other editors, you naturally pull back a bit.<br /><br />Maybe that's the answer. Freed from worrying about what other editors have to print, I can now be more potty-mouthed and more offensive than ever. And if you don't like it, don't come here.<br /><br />Hmm, I'll mull it over for a while. Maybe a daily blog is the answer - although if the half a million of you who have visited this site had chucked in a penny a time, I'd be more amenable to banging on.<br /><br />In the meantime, here's the last newspaper column, as it appeared in the <em>York Press</em> under the name of Mike Bentley.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br /><strong>I THINK</strong> it was the East German Stazi who were the most successful when it came to persuading children to inform on their parents. Now, inspired by these secret policemen, some of our schools are now in the same game, urging their Kindergarten Quisling pupils to go home and pester their mothers and fathers into adopting a healthier lifestyle.<br /><br />“Please Daddy, don’t smoke that cigarette.” “No, Mummy, put the Chardonnay down.” It must be a nightmare, being nagged by your own offspring in what was once the comfort of your own home. No wonder digging an extra cellar appears to be an attractive pastime for hen-pecked middle class dads.<br /><br />And it’s not going to stop there. The most alarming story of the week revealed that an army of snoopers is being recruited by the government to ‘nag’ colleagues, family, friends and neighbours into leading a healthier life. These so-called “public health mentors” will be enlisted by the NHS to offer on-the-spot advice to people whom they judge to be smoking, drinking, or eating to excess.<br /><br />So eating a third fried breakfast of the week in the works canteen, having “one for the road” in the local after work, or smoking too many fags while waiting for the bus will lead to the office sneak sidling up to you and whispering a health warning in your ear: “You don’t want to be doing that …”<br /><br />And what if you ignore these warnings? What then? Does the sneak then shop you to social services, who will come round and take your children away? Are you hauled before the Health Courts and fined or imprisoned?<br /><br />The government thinks this initiative will help to cut NHS costs. I do hope they’ve factored in the increased number of office sneaks who will be presenting themselves in A&E with broken noses.<br /><br /><strong>IT’S TIME</strong> to come clean. My name isn’t really Mike Bentley and I’m not just a mere newspaper hack. I’m actually a field officer in the government’s top secret Department of Misinformation. Sorry about that.<br /><br />This is how it works. Fifteen long years ago, when the NuLabour project was first conceived, the shape-shifting lizards behind the grand scheme recognised that the Great British Public might not be entirely amenable to being treated like lab rats in this social engineering experiment and would need some kind of outlet for their anger. They therefore proposed to install supposedly dissident columnists on newspapers across the land through whom readers could vent their bile. Spleen Diffuser Agents (Grade 2) is our civil service name. Smoke and mirrors is our game.<br /><br />(Littlejohn is one of ours, as is Rod Liddle. Not Jon Gaunt though; he failed the entrance exam.)<br /><br />You see, while we were wibbling on about minor scandals, the major outrages were going on behind your back. While we were moaning about a family of fat people getting £20,000 a year in benefits because they were too lazy to work, hundreds of MPs were pocketing that amount and more by fiddling their expenses – all by the book of course.<br /><br />While we were complaining about our imaginary relatives being left on trolleys in hospital corridors, the reality of the situation was over a thousand patients dying in one hospital alone because target-chasing managers refused to employ enough staff to clean the excrement off their charges.<br /><br />While we were shaking our heads at a 27-year-old reality TV ‘star’ selling the rights to her own death for £700,000, a dodgy 50-year-old failed banker was using public money to fund a pension of that amount for every year until he keels over – not to mention a £3million lump sum.<br /><br />And it worked, brilliantly, for many years. Good God, they even managed to drag the country into two pointless foreign wars without widespread revolt. People were more concerned with the rumours we were spreading about them being fined for putting the wrong kind of cardboard in their recycling bins, or how some anonymous school somewhere down south had re-written the words to <em>Baa Baa Black Sheep</em>.<br /><br />But now it’s over. The bubble has burst. The bright shiny people of the Blah years have been reduced to malodorous, shuffling hulks, made stupid by lies and staggering from crisis to meltdown like zombies who’ve lost their sat navs. The project has failed and chaos reigns.<br /><br />Our elected representatives seem to be institutionally corrupt, indulging in morally fraudulent expenses claims to an extent that would have Mr Plod feeling collars in any branch of commerce.<br /><br />The nation faces financial ruin, lulled into a spending frenzy by an unsustainable property bubble. And while hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs, the public sector keeps on recruiting – and handing out pay increases.<br /><br />The education system is a farce, where every child gets a full set of A-levels before going on to university still unable to read and write properly, and where their main ambition is to emulate a dead reality TV star who was famous for being famous.<br /><br />We’ve surrendered any kind of control of our borders as far as illegal immigration is concerned, yet we’re about to force British citizens to fill out a form consisting of 53 intrusive questions before allowing them to leave the country. It’s now illegal to tell a joke about homosexuals, but extremist Muslim preachers can call for gays to be stoned to death and no-one blinks. And, in a final sign of the collapse of our civilisation, Pot Noodle have launched a Donner Kebab flavour.<br /><br />So my work here is done. I’m being relocated to teach Advanced Spokeweasel on a politics course at a polytechnic down south. That’s all. Over and out.<br /><br />Pip pip!BarryBeelzebubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06219060559539915981noreply@blogger.com32