Gladstone Bag

I watched that documentary about Ronald Reagan this week. Hmm, funny fellow. Anyway, this film featured a bloke whose job it was to persuade American states, counties and towns to name something after the 40th prez. That's his job, can you imagine? And he's not the only one, he was the HEAD of the naming people so he must have underlings.
All of which got me thinking: we don't name things after politicians in the UK, do we? Things are named after Royals (okay, I know that they're head of state like the American presidents but unlike American presidents they're technically politicians) or military leaders from 200 years ago.  I think more things must be named after the Duke of Wellington than anything else (and yes, I know Wellington was PM but surely he's more remembered for Waterloo). This is a country where the only things I can think of named after our greatest leader is a tank and a nodding, monosyllabic insurance bulldog. This is a country where airports are named after selfish singers and alcoholic footballists. How is that allowed to happen?
I think it's time we redressed the balance. For instance, how about the Herbert Asquith public toilets? The Alec Douglas-Home amusement arcade? The Clement Atlee fountain? The Neville Chamberlain airport where everyone steps off a plane saying "I hold in my hand a piece of paper..."? The Ramsay MacDonald dogging spot? I'm sure the ladies out there would love to go for an examination at The Edward Heath Centre for Gynaecological Excellence. How about the James Callaghan Memorial School of Economics? The Margaret Thatcher Museum of Mining? The Gordon Brown Charm School?
Us Brits are missing out here.

Vive la republique!

I love the French. They can keep their frog's legs, Citroens and Sacha Distel, what I love about them is the fire in their belly. If there's something they don't like they take to the streets and shout about it. What do we do in the UK? Sit on our arses and say "Oh well, there's nothing you can do about it. What time's Mock the Week on?" Take this current trouble they're having. I think it's great. Contrast that with the UK petrol blockades of 2000; it lasted all of five days and as soon as a district nurse couldn't complete her rounds and Spar were running out of PG Tips and Utterly Butterly, the whole game was up. I don't know about getting more right wing as I get older, I'm getting more into thinking that it's direct action is what we need. Take to the streets and shout. If the election this year taught us anything it was the level of apathy people have towards politics. We all know that most senior politicians in the main party went to a 'decent' public school and a top university, so what do they know about ordinary lives? They've never led one. And if you take someone like John Prescott, who had worked his way up from humble beginnings, then what lies in store for you is Ian Hislop. Come the revolution...

And while I'm on this theme, I find the furore about the election of Ed Miliband as the Labour leader being the work of Communists aka trade unionists rather bad form. My dad was a trade unionists and someone less likely to be a Communist you could never meet. Not for a man with a mortgage, a car and who used to make sure he took his family on holiday every year. No, Dad didn't believe much in Marxism, what he believed in was fairness. A fair days pay for a fair days work and your employer giving you fair conditions in which to work in. When people say "Oh, it's health and safety gone mad, that is" let me tell you, it wasn't ever thus. You could just ask my dad who watched his finger ends get sliced off in a swinging tailgate of a trailer, or a colleague of his who was killed when a lorry he was attending to rolled on top of him and killed him. I've seen my dad take a camera to work to take pictures of dangerous machinery to stop accidents happening. That to him was what trade unions were about, people together to shout louder than one man on his own. I suppose he was what the TUC would have called a 'moderate'. He hated Arthur Scargill for not holding a ballot for the '84 miner's strike as it completely destroyed the ethos on which trade unions are built: one man, one vote. I've just looked at the National Office of Statistics website which says that about a quarter of the UK working population are members of a union. I'd fancy that the vast majority of those people aren't a bunch of mini Lenins planning to storm the gates of Buckingham Palace, but are just ordinary working people who want to be treated fairly. Power to the people indeed.

Let's have a heated debate!

Do you know what I hate?.......Give up yet? I know that regular readers will know there's loads of things I hate. BUT, listening to the radio an hour or so ago I was throwing things to the sound of, the 'actor', Max Beesley. He was on Richard Bacon's Radio 5 show, a show which was to feature a David Cameron interview later on. Bacon asked Beesley if there was a question he'd like to put to Cameron on Beesley's behalf. The question went something like this: "David, I like your billboards about how you're going to do stuff for the NHS, but please, please can you not raise top line income tax to 50%?" This is Max Beesley who'd, just a few seconds before, been saying how he whoops it up in Los Angeles for six months of the year. So he loves the NHS so much he doesn't see why his uber-rich showbiz mates shouldn't perhaps pay a little bit more to keep it going. It's nice to know where his priorities lay politically. The country's fucked, mortgaged up to the hilt but he doesn't want to see Robbie Williams et al piss off to LA full time. Which would be a shame, wouldn't it? Not.

This followed on from, ugh, David Tennant (I'm getting sick of typing his name now), going on about how he wants everyone to vote Labour in the election. Bear in mind that this was originally said in an interview to a comic. Missing your target there David, I think. In fact, I hate Tennant so much I think I'll do the opposite and vote Tory (Not that it'd make much difference round here. The last Labour MP we had got investigated by the police, got thrown out in the 2001 election and then drank herself to death a few years later).
And Tennant's mate isn't much better, the bloke who writes those lame scripts for the children's TV show has weighed into the debate about who we should all be voting for in 2010. He's weighed into the debate from the side of his LA pool. Well done.

What I'm trying to say is that I hate it when well known people pin their colours to political masts. Just keep acting, making records or whatever, but we're really not interested in your opinions.

Staying on the theme. I saw a teaser trailer for an interview given by Arsenal's short-arsed, annoying-shushing-motion-goal-celebrationer, Andrey Arshavin. Apparently the Russian made clear his displeasure at having to have a UK bank account. Oh, boo-hoo, you live and work here and have to pay UK tax, oh woe is you, sob, wail...

The love that dare not speak its name.

Can I just say that I like Sarah Brown? It seems the press do too, when was the last time you saw a disparaging article about her in the paper? Perhaps that's because the press could never forgive the previous PM's wife for never really letting go of her working class upbringing as she helped herself to any freebie and perk that was going. While Sarah manages to juggle a career, being the PM's wife, running charity dos and being mother to two children, one of whom has a serious medical condition. Not only that but I reckon most blokes fancy her on the sly. I know I do, and not even on the sly, she's all mumsy, like (a bit like Nigella, MILF-tastic). And I reckon she's good in the kitchen too, I must start following her on Twitter, she, ugh, 'tweets' recipes, apparently.

Sarah Brown must be hugely more popular than her husband and it's no wonder he gets her to help out at any public event going. Mind you, having worked in PR she must know all about that stuff, I wish she'd stop him smiling though, it unsettles me. Oh, and she should also stop getting him to comment on the most trivial matters. Do we really need to know his opinion on the deaths of Jade Goody and Michael Jackson?

I reckon she's head and shoulders above that Michelle Obama with her arms on show all the time, desperately showing us she doesn't have bingo wings. Oh, and I'll never forgive her for pushing our lovely Queen around like some doddery old grandma. And as for that Carla Bruni, I don't really buy that. I mean, a giraffe of a supermodel who makes records, married to a midget Harry H Corbett lookalike? I don't think so...

Anyway, big up Sarah Brown. I definitely would.

While I'm kind of on the subject of politics, you know how I hate politicians, but why is it, on the rare occasions I watch Question Time, is Shami Chakrabarti on it? Is she on every week? Mind you, I definitely would. There was also a woman on it called Sarah Teather, she looks like the comedy drummer from Roman Holliday, almost as if her face was being reflected off the back of a spoon. I think I would. Is Question Time supposed to give you the horn? And can you tell I'm not getting any? I'm sure all those hard-working career women would be pleased to read this. It's been a long week...

Who were with in the moonlight?

I don't know which is worse, this or Dollar reforming. Jesus. It almost makes you forgive expenses claims for Kit Kats, tampons and duck islands, doesn't it?

And after all I've said about 80s reunions, I'm going to see OM flamin' D in December. It had better be all pre-1984 stuff.

Bloody Nasty Pricks

I was reading this in the Times yesterday, rather scary, I thought.

I've noticed that the BNP have had a stall on Newark market place now for about the past four Saturdays. On most of the occasions I've spotted them they've been pretty much left to their own devices and nobody appears to be stopping to talk to them. Apart from last Saturday where some old codger had stopped and I could hear him saying "The trouble with these European things is you don't know who you're voting for and you never see them after the election." This worries me, he's exactly the sort of person they'd target. The BNP reps probably tried to sell their party to him as one that puts Britain first and is looking to get out of the EU. They'd have got him, and, as it says in that article, all that's needed is a low turnout and for a few people to vote for them and they're in. When they get MEPs they're entitled to all sorts of subsidies and have to be taken seriously by the media.

I'm torn about the BNP. Obviously I find their views totally abhorrent, but, as a believer in free speech, I think they should be allowed their say, no matter how horrid I find it. And I think that you should always know your enemy.

And Newark's exactly the sort of town where they may get something of a sympathetic ear. There's a huge distribution centre here for Curry's and food factories that both employ a lot of migrant workers. Prime 'they're taking our jobs and driving down wages' territory. And you only need a few fuckwits to get these people elected. I mean, look at last time, they elected Robert Kilroy Silk around here...

Oh Mandy, you came and you left without taking

I don't give a toss about Peter Mandelson or the third Heathrow runway, but who wouldn't find this funny? I bet Gordon Brown's pissing himself. Oh, and I love the way some wag at the BBC's online news service has slowed it down at the end of the clip.

Let's have a heated debate!

I know Mr FC has already blogged about Question Time, but fuck it.
I don't regularly watch it, but while listening to Radcliffe and Maconie last night, they said Will Young was going to be on it, so I thought I'd give it a go when I got in.
Billy Connolly once said that the desire to be a politician should automatically bar you from ever being one. Something I agree strongly with. I hate all politicians (except Ken Clarke).
The thing is with QT is that it's just a fancier Mrs Merton Heated Debate. A heated debate with cocks. I think they should just do a Harry Hill and have a great big fight.
Let's look at last night's line-up (we'll come back to Young later):

Geoff Hoon - Goverment mouthpiece. Obviously briefed for hours beforehand by a team of people. Nottingham MP who was recently banned from attending the Latitude Festival. Cock.

Theresa May - Conservative mouthpiece. There solely to argue with Hoon. A career politician of the worst kind. Minge.

Nigel Farage - Oh dear, where to start? UKIP leader. A man who not only looks like a penis but talks like one too. Has an annoying habit of laughing at his own putdowns while playing to the crowd. There to argue with Hoon and May. Arsehole.

Shami Chakrabarti - Head honcho of pressure group Liberty. FC's said it all. But I think I would she'll, no doubt, be glad to hear. There to argue with anyone she bloody well likes 'because that's what living in a democracy's all about, right'? Every time I watch QT, she seems to be on it. Mong.

Now, Mr Will Young. Whoever thought he'd make a good choice for that show needs sacking. I gather they do it to go after ver kids. Well perhaps they should have got her off the Ting Tings or Dizzee Rascal to do it because Young appeals to...oh, I don't know, does Young appeal to anyone? What's going on with that chin? You could get pickles out of a jar with that monster.
All his answers started with "Mmm...now...yes...err...", which left Chakrabarti with golden opportunities to come in and start shouting about what she thought. Which she was loving. And to justify it she was saying stuff like "Well, I agree with Will on that point, but..."
And I'm surprised you didn't hear me laughing at your house when Will came out with this little corker: "This whole snow business makes me so angry!" There's no business like snow business, clearly.

I won't tune in again in a hurry. Mind you, Monty Don's on next week, so the curiosity of seeing how his stroke's affected him might get me to have a gawp.

Oh, and yesterday I had the highest number of returning visitors ever to this blog. Thank you, I love you all.

What a cu...

I see that Robert Kilroy-Silk is appearing in this year's I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!
Now, Mr Kilroy-Silk, as I'm sure you're aware, is an elected MEP. He's an MEP 'representing' the East Midlands i.e. where I live. He was elected in 2004 whilst a member of the UK Independence Party; a party who were supposed to be against Britain's membership of the EU and, as such, against any sort of involvement in British affairs by a parliament based in Belgium. Apparently they stood for election to the European parliament in order to destroy it from the inside.
Well, these days Mr Kilroy-Silk turns up once a month to vote. If you don't turn up to vote, you don't get paid. So, as a public servant, claiming tax payers money, he turns up, votes and sods off again. That's really destroying the European parliament and sticking it to those on the Brussels gravy train, isn't it? Not.
I wish he'd go to Brussels to sort out some kind of EU funding for the dualling of the A46 between Newark and the other side of Nottingham. Oh no, how silly of me , he's currently eating insects on a vacuous 'reality' show with a load of other fuckwits.

While he was on the 2004 election campaign, Kilroy-Silk came to Newark to drum up support. I happened to be in town that day myself, a Tuesday afternoon, as I recall. I saw him and his hanger-on (a man so useless that he hadn't bothered to do any research as to when the market days in the town were, so his man would have found a huge increase in the amount of flesh he could have pressed. Which, in turn, Lead to Kilroy-Silk booming at him "Where are all the people!?"), they approached me, Kilroy-Silk with his arm outstretched ready to shake my hand. I carried on walking towards him, and didn't make any eye contact with him at all. Still with his arm outstretched he said to me "May I introduce myself...", now, I'm not usually rude, but I knew who the twat was and just carried on walking. I was quite proud of myself that day. I hope I never clap eyes on the oily, tanned, xenophobic, controlling turd again.

Dum-di--dum...

...la-di-da...oh, hello there, you've just caught me deep in thought. I was thinking that how is it, as a British tax payer, I'm having to fork out to help some greedy bastards who put their money into Icelandic bank accounts? You see, I'm only a humble factory worker, but I was always told that high financial returns usually involve some sort of high financial risk. Now I may be very old-fashioned, but I thought it would have been the Icelandic government's job to sort this mess. Perhaps they're too busy planning on how to start another war over fish, or working out how to charge even more for a bottle of beer.

As you were.