I Wanted Butterflies and Got Moths

Hello,
When I took to this gardening racket last June I entertained high hopes of attracting all sorts of wildlife to my corner of the city centre. Nothing too large like an elephant which would be more hassle than it's worth. No offence to elephants I'm a big fan but face it a couple of them charging around the city would be mayhem. I was hoping for something more like birds, bees and butterflies.

I'm pleased to say the bee count is high -good old bees! You have to hand it to the bees they've got the planet by the balls. One big mass bee suicide and we've had it. Hence why we should all plant more bee friendly flowers and the like, lest we make our buzzing overlords angry. I risked a few petunias this year but cunningly planted only red ones which bees can't see apparently so at least when the bee triggered apocalypse happens it won't be my fault. Oh and no smart arse comments about me letting the cat out the bag and angering the bees with my petunia confession. They won't read it. Bees recognise no human languages, considering themselves too lofty for such rot and having once leafed through The Da Vinci Code I can't help but think they might be on to something.

The bird count is much the same as it always was a million pigeons, too bloody many of those evil gull things, not enough sparrows and the odd starling. The butterflies remain elusive unlike moths who are appearing in such numbers that the Daily Mail is bound to start getting uppity. Just wait till one of them gets done for benefit fraud or converts to Islam. We shall never hear the bloody end of it.

I was out doing a spot of watering at Wilson Street when what can only be described as a battalion of moths enveloped me in a cloud of really boring wings. As attacks go it lacked the air of meance required to make make it even slightly frightening. I couldn't help but sneer at these beige flappers even when the attack was at it's peak. Until I remembered they eat clothes and got off my mark sharpish before their attentions left me nude.

I admit I'm a bit shallow but I just can't get very excited about flying halfwits of the sort of colour my mother paints her house. Horrid pale slurries that they call 'mink' and 'mushroom' on colour charts. Yuck! Give me a nice jolly red anyday.

As I hadn't knowingly planted anything that moths are into I was baffled by their interest in my patch. In fact it hadn't even occured to me that they were into plants, I thought it was all clothes and lightbulbs in the moth community. One minute I was happily watering my seedlings the next I had a face full of disgruntled moths trying to debag me in the street. Anyone who has read Decline and Fall will know what havoc can be wrought on a person by a public debagging. No one ever believes you haven't done it purpose.

I did think the explanation may lie with the supernatural but it turns out the wretched things are mad for chives. What seems to have happened is that they've been hanging round my chives getting up to God knows what and been startled by a sudden drenching from my watering can and attempted a strip attack. Freaks.

Still none of this explains the lack of butterfly action. I've done everything possible to lure the little dandies but they remain elusive. I've racked my brains but I really don't think there was anything else I could have done which calls for a scapegoat. The question is should I blame Gordon Brown, Fred Goodwin or the PC brigade. Answers please.

Cheerio

All Hail Frankie Boyle

Hello,
Obviously it has come to my attention that Michael Jackson has pegged it and whilst I was never a fan and remain somewhat bewildered by the massive media overreaction even I felt pity for him. Ending up as he did weighing a pathetic eight stone, bald and drug addled. In a sane world everyone around him who allowed him, evidently a severely mentally ill individual, get into such a state would be jailed or shot or both. Then again in a sane world he wouldn't have been half as rich or famous as he was and I daresay a lot happier.

Still for those who've had quite enough of this manufactured outpouring of grief and I exclude long term Michael Jackson fans from this as opposed to the hearse chasers here is the column that got Frankie Boyle the mutually agreed bullet from the Daily Record. It's a chucklesome antidote as these things go.

We can also learn a lesson from the example set down by Mr Clairwil who has barely moved in his entire life and as far as I can tell eats pasta, owns a fine head of hair, reads, sleeps, watches TV and little else. Like a non-racist Queen Mum without the hat collection. In contrast Michael Jackson worked flat out from an early age, ate fuck all, danced, made mediocre records as soundtracks to naff videos. Yesterday Mr Clairwil reached the grand old age of 51 and look at poor old Michael Jackson dead at 50 with not a hair on his head.

In other reasons to be cheerful Steven Wells is dead. Suddenly the world feels better written. If I'm not mistaken there might be a little less badly punctuated, manufactured adolescent petulance in the air. Like a eunuch in a harem he saw it done, knew how it should be done but had neither the balls or talent to do it himself. A dreadful music writer who couldn't handle anything that didn't square with his dogmatic outlook. A sort of lefty Littlejohn for people at the masturbation stage, a manky old man who hung about kiddie rag lest his lack of talent get him laughed out a wage on a grown up publication. Another grotesque off the list. Reading 'Susan' Wells attempt at teenage rage was like being encountered by an eighty year old at a bus stop who raises her skirt to display crotchless panties and begs you to admit she's still got 'it'. Oh and while I'm at it 'Susan' Wells. He can take that attempt at solidarity with the ladies and shove it up his arse -we've got more than enough tits of our own without men trying to frame us for shit writing. Tosser.

Cheerio

Down With the Botherers.

Hello,
Has a festival of slow witted intolerance commenced without me being informed this year? I merely ask because our local knuckledraggers seem to have been rather vocal of late.

On Saturday we had our Republican and Orange chums beg the question who should be put up against a wall and shot first and leave me scratching my head. I am of course referring to the Armed Forces Day debacle on Saturday. It could and should have been a perfectly ordinary, straightforward military service. Instead we have in the Orange corner we have soap dodgers mooing witlessly at the Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy not because he's a useless careerist little nit but because he's a Catholic. Not to be outdone the Green corner mooed witlessly at the army for being British in Britain, motivated no doubt by a desire to provoke the Orangers to attack so they can go up the road whining about British persecution.

Would it be asking too much of both sides to reflect on the tolerance shown to them during their repellent marches by the appalled, inconvenienced and intimidated public and consider returning the favour once in a while? It's not like the rest of us don't want to chop them into little pieces before hurling them into remote landfill sites it's just that we were born and brought up as opposed to shat out and dragged down which helps with restraint. Do not even start me on their post Old Firm match antics which prove beyond all reasonable doubt that both evolution and intelligent design are bunk. Someone should organise a literacy campaign as a matter of urgency.

Moving on the owner of The Pakistani Cafe has taken the unusual step of rolling up to work in a stab proof vest owing to a collection of sub normal halwifts taking exception to his cafe. I must declare an interest here in that I'm a big fan of The Pakistani, the food is fantastic, the prices are dirt cheap and it's a nice, relaxed place to while away an hour with the paper and a cup of chai.
Reading the report in the record the trouble appears to have started when a customer took exception to the presence of a book by Salman Rushdie amongst the reading material provided for customers. I must confess I prefer a bit of P.G Wodehouse myself, if I were the customer I'd just have ignored the books I didn't like and made do with Chat or Women's Realm rather than kicking up a stupid fuss over nothing.

Anyway it all seems to have got out of hand and now the youths have got the hump because the cafe owner plays a bit of music and serves alcohol which, unless the Taliban have been elected behind my back is perfectly acceptable in these parts. To my mind it's way more acceptable than this latter day bunch of Carry Nation's threatening to petrol bomb the cafe, smashing windows and sticking their beaks into other folks business. Who appointed these wankers as the south side's moral guardians? They can't be allowed to get the upper hand, let them win once and before we know it no-one will be allowed to do anything except break windows and hurl petrol bombs if their disgraceful conduct is anything to go by.

Still every cloud has a silver lining, it's not often one gets to stand up to the scum of the earth, show a bit of solidarity with a man in trouble whilst eating like a king on a beggars wages. To that end I recommend everyone make a point of dropping into The Pakistani Cafe for a cup of chai and a bite to eat as often as they possibly can not only to thwart the puritans but because it's a bloody fine establishment and I don't want our Mr Sharif drowning in a sea of stupidity.

Cheerio

P.S The Karachi omelette is a triumph.

Fun with DNA

Hello,

Ma and Pa recently purchased some DNA tests in the vain hope of finding some explanation for how we all came to be here. I didn't get a chance to go through the results with a fine toothed comb but here's the terrible truth from my initial glance.



On Pa's side the paternal line is a 50-50 split between Celtic and Norse Viking, the maternal line can be traced back to Dordogne about 20,000 years or so ago and hit the UK around 12,000 years ago. Apparently Marie Antionette came from the same folk which I have decided explains my long standing horror of the French Revolution and love of self-indulgent treats. I have never dyed a sheep to match one of my outfits but I'd be fibbing if I said the idea didn't appeal to me.



The origins of mummy's father are something of a mystery and as there are no surviving male offspring to test will unfortunately remain so. I never laid eyes on the man but mummy reckons he 'looked a bit Jewish' which doesn't really help us much at all. All I can tell you is that he lived under an assumed name his whole life, worked for Rolls Royce and had a cousin with a false nose who ruled a barbers shop.



Happily ma's maternal line presents no such problems. The test reveals that they rolled up in Georgia from the Middle East about 25,000 years ago, ate goats and had awful bother with bears. At some time unspecified they seem to have scattered over Europe, though 1% of Native American share the same mtDNA.

I had hoped for a bit of Persian or Japanese blood but all in all I'm rather tickled by my origins.

Cheerio

It Just Sort of Spiralled.....

Hello,
If you were any sort of company as a child you are likely to recall an episode where you told a small buck-passing fib to get yourself out of hot water with your parents. Only to find it getting out of hand as your parents attempt to take matters further by bawling at one of your friends or worse involving their parents. That is of course where it get's tricky and ever more elaborate tales are required to put them off the scent. I have a vague memory of fitting up a friend over the discovery of 20 Benson and Hedges in my bedroom only to have the bitch refuse to take the rap.

I am not of course for a moment implying that the Belgian teenager with the tattooed face is pulling a similar fast one but you have to wonder. It is, I suppose entirely possible to walk into a tattoo parlour ask to have three stars etched onto your face, fall asleep and find the tattooist has added an extra fifty three stars. It's just that the tattoo artists explanation for it sounds more plausible 'She agreed, but when her father saw it, the trouble started'. Her credibility is also undermined by the correlation between facial tattoos and lunacy.

Still you have to feel for the girl. Not only is she stuck with that monstrosity on her face but her parents have gone legal with the whole thing. I think the only sensible moves left to her are to flee the family home, plead temporary insanity or blame the paranormal.

Cheerio

Madness, Racists, BNP

Hello,
As you might be aware two racist MEPs were elected to the European Parliament last week. You certainly will be aware if you read Comment is Free -they're obsessed. For me it reached the stage where if I couldn't see a new BNP article I felt unsettled, like I'd put my pants on back to front but not realised the cause of my unease until I was at the bus stop on my way to work.

Anyway on the plus side it has provided an opportunity for the Guardian reading BNP members to put across their point of view. Truly the world has gone mad! Guardian reading BNP voters. I can scarcely credit it myself but there it is. If you struggle to imagine such a creature, chippy call centre manager on a race rant about sums it up.

Truly they are a strange breed. If you ask the perfectly reasonable question is the BNP racist? they start waving the Black Police Association around like it's a talisman to ward off enquiring liberal spirits. I refrain from commenting on CIF for fear of getting any more drawn into to it but I must confess the BNP can't be racist because the Black Police Association is racist line of argument did tempt me to intervene. To me it's perfectly simple, of course the Black Police Association is racist. For heaven's sake the name alone is a dead giveaway. The members are police officers, of course they're racists.

Mind you I'm baffled by the BNP belief that the answer to the question is the BNP racist depends on whether or not some black police officers are racist. Has a racism quota been introduced behind my back? We may be a small island but surely there must be room for the BNP and the BPA to be racist at the same time. Bloody hell! We are in a sorry state if even our professional racists can't live together harmoniously. Still perhaps the problem between our warring racists arises from the fact that the BPA allows any police officer from any ethnic background to join whereas the BNP's constitution forbids anyone who isn't white joining. There vis also the small but important point that the BPA do not demand removal of rights for whites. In contrast the BNP believe in rights for whites and whites alone in common with every other white racist on the planet. In other words the BNP is racist whereas the BPA do not have racist agenda.

If the racist BNP fans aren't waving the BPA in the air, they're complaining that no one wants to debate their policies. Naturally this provokes someone to read their manifesto and try to debate them on policy only for them to act like their maiden aunt has farted with what Kenneth Williams once described, as alarming ferocity, during a lull in conversation as they frantically try to change the subject, lest anyone should be coarse enough to mention auntie's dirty interjection.

It's terribly unfair. I'd love to debate many BNP policies but they won't answer a single question I ask. It's not just me other's have questioned them on their manifesto pledges and they can't answer. Look at this CIF thread and work your way forward. Even articulate, intelligent BNP supporters can't answer reasonable questions, answers to which would trip off the tongue of any normal party loyalist. It's tempting to assert they can't answer because they're stupid but I rather fancy it's because they are the racist totalitarians we always knew they were. They really are too dishonest and cowardly to stand for election on their true principles. I'm sorry but not even that pathetic left-right mish mash of a manifesto convinces me that they're anything other than lunatic racists who'd happily wreck the economy and every other institution in this nation in pursuit of a white UK. Whatever your views on immigration levels that is something we could all do without.

Cheerio

Puzzled

'Prisons are bursting at the seams, while crime rates appear to be falling. It doesn't make sense'

Hello,
I hate to come over all law and order on you all but is it possible that criminals being locked up might have something to do with crime rates falling? I came across the puzzling styatement above whilst pootling about the Guardian website.

I daresay it's all a bit of a short term fix, as far as I can tell prison appears to be a bit of a failure most of the time as a deterrent, a punishment or as a means of rehabilitation. Still it's encouraging stuff, all we need to do now is address the misuse of the prison system as a dumping ground for the mentally ill, the high rates of illiteracy, rampant prison drug abuse, overcrowding, gang violence and general mayhem that passes for prison life and make prison more effective. Unless of course there is some value in allowing violent, drug addled nutters to meet lots of other violent drug addled nutters from all over the country and carry on pretty much as they do outside.

Toodles

Window Dressing Gone Wrong!

Hello,

I see someone else has fled the cabinet, no doubt by the time I complete this post someone else will be jumping ship. I am troubled by the departure of Caroline Flint, though because it put's me in the position of siding with Brown.

Ms Flint reckons that Gordon Brown has treated her as 'female window dressing'. I don't like to defend sexism or tokenism of that sort but in all seriousness what else was he meant to do with her? Let's face it she's easy on the eye but based her performance to date has hardly set the heather alight. Anyway why is ok for her to do a bit of modelling in the Sunday papers, when a male politician would be a laughing stock if he did likewise? She can hardly moan about being treated like eye candy if that's how she chooses to present herself.

It's also something of a worry that it took her so long to notice she was being treated as 'window dressing'. Only last month she was telling The Observer that she hadn't experienced any sexism in politics since being elected in 1997. Either Brown had one of his hitherto unknown 'window dressing' fits a fortnight a go or Ms Flint is one dim bint. Odder still last night she claimed she was staying in government because she was 'very proud to be a part of Gordon Brown's government'.

Today she announced she was giving up flicking through Grazia magazine behind a desk or whatever it is she's being doing since 1997. I'm sure it is mere coincidence that this happened after Brown failed to offer her a full cabinet role. Good God that whiny ten year old on Britain's Got Talent showed more dignity in the face of disappointment.

I've no doubt being female in that den of overgrown schoolboys is a trial at times. It wouldn't surprise me at all to hear female MPs are discriminated against. What a shame the 'Blair Babes' were ever mooted as an answer -a gaggle of girlies so witless I change sex just looking at them such is my desire to escape from any club they're members of.

I just hope the female electorate in Ms Flints constituency will remember her cynical use of feminism for her own careerist ends come the general election. I'm sure the job centre will appreciate a bit of fortnightly window dressing.

I'm no fan of Brown and hsave never voted Labour in my puff, nor can I forsee any circumstances when I will but having seen the poor quality of the Labour rebels, I rather unexpectedly find myself feeling rather sorry for Brown. I would have thought he deserved at least a measure of loyalty for allowing these mediocrities to remain in high office. Instead he finds himself stabbed in the back by people far worse than he's ever been. I'd have more respect for them if they'd done something constructive to improve things or stuck with the trainwreck to the bitter end because every last one of them is complicit. They've had ample opportunity to get rid of Brown, yet only acted when they were in the shit over expenses or denied a promotion. That speaks volumes. Brown's alright when he's feathering their nests no matter what he does to the electorate. What a repulsive bunch of chancers.

Cheerio

A Question for Jim Devine

Hello,
I was out on one of my strolls round yon internet when I dropped in to the excellent SNP Tactical Voting blog and came across this article regarding Jim Devine MP and his mysterious tradesmen which points out an inconsistency in Mr Devine's fantastic tale of men in pubs and woodworking publicans. I must say it's all most unfortunate.

However what caught my eye was a comment left by an anonymous poster, who really should have put their name to it so that we could all have bought them pints and patted them on the back. I'm slightly peeved at myself for not thinking of it first, all I can say in my defence was that I was too busy laughing at Jimmy boy's preposterous tale. Anyway anonymous asks an excellent question and one which I think we'd all like an answer to

'Re his other scam--the £2000 plus for electrical work to his London flat. I know that he met a man in a pub who carried out the work then slipped a dodgy invoice under his door. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? He couldn't have sent a cheque since the address on the invoice didn't exist. So did he go back to the same pub and pay the man in used fivers? I haven't heard his account of how he paid the bill---can anyone enlighten me?'

Taking into account Jim's piss poor excuses to date I have no doubt the answer will involve a magic cow named Henry, The A Team, a very large magnet and a golden unicorn. To be fair that would be more credible than anything he's come up with thus far.

I am mad with curiosity now as to how the bill was paid. I mean if he sent a cheque it would have been returned or have remained uncashed. Did the mysterious electrician come to collect payment or did Jim have to visit his business premises which appear to be a pub? Only two men know the answer and as one of them is either dead or up north we shall have to ask Jim. Happily Jim is a pretty open sort of guy and lists a whopping FIVE ways to contact him on his website. Not only that he's friendly too and is quite clear that we should not hesitate to contact him if he can be of assistance. Good old Jim!

So join me in asking Jim the all important questions -how was the bill paid and can your mate Tom O'Donnelly reccommend a good plasterer?

Cheerio

Back To Earth!

Hello,
Off my tits as I am on two weeks of lovely medication I am feeling somewhat better then when I last blogged. So much so that I've declared war in defence of my garden. The student led destruction of my garden continues unabated, a fridge, kitchen unit, drawers and umpteen bags of rubbish have now been dumped atop my poor plants and seedlings.

It's hard to say exactly what ended my state of defeat, prescription drugs were part of it but the outrage of some of my neighbours at the state of my garden spurred me and them into action. I spent the afternoon fighting off flies and transferring the rubbish on the path in to the empty bins. I then agreed with my neighbours to write to environmental health, all the local property managers and local councillors about the frightful state of the place. After all that I felt I couldn't really tell my neighbours that I had in fact abandoned the garden -not when they were being so complimentary about my begonias. I'm off to the garden centre in the morning for summer bedding, a selection of self seeders and something thorny -let them try to pull that out.

Elsewhere I see the government has descended into farce. That said am I alone in thinking Gordon Brown would be as well staying in the top job until the election? Everywhere I go on the internet people are demanding he resigns. I honestly can't see the point, I very much doubt he's significantly worse than anyone else in the Labour Party. What difference will a new face make at this late stage? Everyone knows the tories are getting in at the next election no matter what happens, who cares who leads the Labour Party into defeat?

The tories though, it's a sobering prospect. I remember them last time. It was grim. Bearing in mind I was a mere child for most of it and I must confess I did enjoy the miners strike but other than that my memories consist of absurdly high interest rates, my parents being skint, my dad on the dole for six months, Thatcher cheating the Brighton bomb and an education that would insult the intelligence of a dead dog. Mind you if it wasn't for the tories we'd never have had the experience of a Religious Studies essay being confiscated by the police at our school. Apparently the police reckoned the essay was promoting homosexuality, happily the essay got off due to lack of evidence and was returned to it's somewhat surprised author who co-incidentally was the first woman I ever slept with.

As far as I can tell we'll merely be exchanging being fucked over by people with mortgages for being shafted by folk with moats. Anyone fancy joining me in a nice Passport to Pimlico style uprising?

Cheerio

UPDATE: In addition to the above my garden is now home to what I thought was a dead body until it asked me what I was looking at and called me a cunt.