Another ‘at the front’ stunt.

Did you know that if Flying Officer Willy Wales was killed when on one of his ‘freebee’ helicopter jaunts, and his brother, the ‘ginger spare’, died under the wheels of a taxi outside ‘Boujis’ when legless, their uncle, ‘Air Miles’ Andy, would be next in line for the throne ?  Which means that Fergie’s daughter, bug-eyed Beatrice, would one day be Queen.

Blimey ! If that doesn’t convert you to the republican cause, nothing will.

It’s nice to see that the latest bit of royal ‘heroics’ is being shown up by the press for what it is … A bloody expensive PR stunt ! Not quite as elaborate as Machine Gun Harry ‘fighting’ the Taliban, but equally as nauseating.

Usually when these two arrogant young arseholes have been ’sticking their fingers up’ to the rest of us and getting a ‘bad press’, some toady at ‘Buck House’ rushes them off for a ’photo opportunity’ at a cancer ward, or has them cuddling an African orphan for the camera, but now it seems that they are to be portrayed as gallant young ‘Galahads’.

Well as Abraham Lincoln once said … “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”  … so let us hope that he was right and that more and more people in this country will see the truth behind these ’stunts’.

After a very short training course Willy’s dad presented him with his pilot’s ‘wings’. I wonder if his Grandma will have the nerve to pin a medal on him …

… for his ’service’ in Afghanistan ?

I can’t wait for The Turner Prize.

A New York Times critic commented that so called artist Martin Creed was … 

…  “a very late conceptualist with no bias against objects, and a devotee of the rarefied art-in-the-street tendency of situationism whose favourite situation seems to be the white cube of a gallery”.

Well he would say that, wouldn’t he, as the ‘art’ in question was two videos in which a person walked in front of a camera trained on an empty white wall and floor, and then threw up before walking away.

Now we are to be treated to a new ‘work’ by Creed to be ‘exhibited’ at Tate Britain which will have a group of athletes running around the Duveen Gallery. He ‘created’ a similar ‘masterpiece’ in Italy where his creations were described in an exhibition brochure as … 

… “a metaphor for the capacity to build art out of nothing or the sisyphean struggle of life” … ”offering an obscure metaphor of today’s looming paranoia and  existentialism” …  ”at the same time an ascetic gesture of disarming
simplicity and an ironic invitation to re-imagine a new destiny”.

It is a little known fact that runners sometimes have to perform their ’bodily functions’ while taking part in a race. Not a pretty sight   but perhaps it is to Mr. Creed and his defeca… dedicated followers. So after pools of vomit, who knows what we might expect to see on the floor of the Duveen Gallery ?

My guess is that it will be a small ’something’ that will truly represent the artistic talent …

… of this master of the minimalist ‘metaphor’.  

Just follow the signs.

Not much time for blogging this week as I’ve been having a few computer problems and some tasks are taking a lot longer to perform than usual.

Wednesday was Saint George’s Day, and being the patriot that I am, I buggered off to France for the day to do some shopping.

(click on all images to enlarge)

The day did not start well, for as I arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal and  pulled into the auto check-in lane I was ‘blinded’ by a huge shower of seagull shit hitting the windscreen of my car. In fact the whole front of the vehicle looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of whitewash all over it. Still, it gave the security guard a good laugh as he checked the car for explosives.

The weather was bloody awful with fog on the motorway between Coquelles and Boulogne, but I wasn’t there for the weather, I was there to load up with French goodies, which despite the fall in the value of the pound are still a ‘good buy’.

I drove back to Le Tunnel sous La Manche in the pissing rain (Well at least it washed off the seagull crap), and was astonished to find the approach roads and the terminal itself almost deserted. Even the McDonald’s ‘Quick’ take-away was closed.  “Sacre Bléu” ! … Do you suppose that the French really eat ‘Le Grand Mac’ ?

After having my car checked again for explosives; this time by a cute little douanier mademoiselle, I proceeded to the UK ‘frontier’, which although still in France is now part of the new United Kingdom Border Agency, which as far as I could tell just means new uniforms and new signs. All the cars were queueing at the sign under the green arrow on the right hand side of the booth where passports are checked. The sign had the usual blue EU flag on it with the words UK and EU citizens. To the left of the booth was another green arrow, but no sign. The only car at that window had a Swiss registration number plate.

Although the French frontier police expect British drivers to be sitting on the right hand side of their cars and direct them to a convenient widow, when my turn came at our own border control I had to get out of the car in the rain, and walk around it to hand my passport to the immigration official. I remarked that … “It would have been easier for me (and the other drivers of British cars) if I could have pulled in at the left hand window” … “Why didn’t you ? ” he asked “My mate is sitting there doing nothing” … “Because the sign directed me here” I replied almost adding .. “you stupid sod”. He looked bemused.

It seems incredible that he hadn’t wondered why there was such a long line of cars waiting to be checked by him while ‘his mate’ only had to check the passports of the occupants of the only non-European Union vehicle to be seen.

Blimey ! …With people like him guarding out borders; what must it be like …

…   at Heathrow’s Terminal Five ? 

Watch the Olympics ? “I’d sooner run a mile!”

I see that a lady with the good old German name of Mikitenko won yesterday’s London Marathon, and some old boy who is supposed to be 101 years old completed the course, although some reporters believe that he is only ninetyfour. Perhaps he was spurred on by the spears of those Masai warriors, even if the blades of these deadly weapons were sheathed for the sake of ‘elf and safety’.

I must say that I admire all those thousands of people who take part in this and other similar events to raise money for charity, although I have never been able to understand what motivates the likes of Ms. Mikitenko.

Running has always been an anathema to me ever since my schooldays, when dressed in vest and shorts, I was forced to run around the small park adjacent to my school in all kinds of weather, encouraged by the bullying shouts of some warmly dressed teacher. I was similarly attired a few years later when running through the villages and countryside near my RAF training camp. It always gave the locals a good laugh to see a bunch of sweating young men ‘pounding’ along the high street wearing baggy shorts and with heavy black hobnailed boots at the end of their skinny white legs.

Whenever I go for a walk along the seashore near my home, I am usually passed by panting people who look like they are about to drop dead from exhaustion or a heart attack at any moment, and I wonder why they torture themselves in such a way ? Pushing yourself to this sort of limit seems such a weird thing to do.

I did once know a ‘top class’ athlete, who ran for Great Britain alongside such ‘greats’ as Chris Chatterway and Roger Bannister (the 1st man to run the ‘4 minute mile’). I shared an RAF billet with this bloke, and he was seriously ‘weird’. When he wasn’t sleeping in his stinking bed he was running. He seemed to live in smelly sweat stained tracksuits, apart from when he went on leave wearing his Great Britain team blazer. He hardly ever spoke to anyone and avoided contact with us ‘lesser mortals’, who were enjoying ourselves with the then normal pursuits of smoking, drinking and chasing young women, while he was running along the muddy country lanes, stopwatch in hand, pursuing some new record or other. He was totally dedicated and totally bonkers !

I am sure that I am not in the minority in this country when I say that I couldn’t care less if one person can run faster than another, and yet it has been estimated that £20 billion could be spent on the 2012 London Olympics. Much of this money will come from the National Lottery which means that many charities will lose out. It makes me angry to think that so much money can be wasted when so much is needed by so many ‘good causes’.

Wouldn’t it be nice if just 5% of that £20 billion could be diverted to all those charities featured in the London Marathon, so that next year all those ’fun runners’ would be able to stay at home and put their feet up …

…     just like me !  
 

A spluttering symbol.

Did you ever see such an undignified shambles as that ridiculous Olympic flame procession through London on Sunday.

We had cops on bikes (and then not on bikes) escorting the flame, we had ‘bobbies’ loosing their helmets as usual, we had riot officers trying to look less threatening by wearing ’soft’ caps, and in the middle of this lot we had a group of Chinese ‘robots’ in blue tracksuits surrounding the person carrying the torch.

No one seemed to be in charge and the Chinese ‘goon squad’ looked like they were about to leap into some ‘kung-fu’ style action at any moment. Probably aimed at the police.

Cameramen, photographers and protesters alike were sent flying as this messy mob jogged and scuffled it’s way through all the chaos towards Downing Street where Gordon Brown, looking lost as usual, greeted the torch, accompanied by Tessa Jowell disguised as a bag lady. How the world must have been impressed !

Yesterday the bloody torch reached Paris surrounded by those ever friendly officers of the CRS plus a hundred ‘gendarmes’ on rollerblades and half the city’s firemen. I was a bit puzzled by the ‘firemen’. Perhaps they thought that the blue tracksuits were a fire hazard, as so much Chinese manufactured crap is.

I was, however, a bit disappointed in the Parisien protesters. They put on a much better show in 1789.

Apparently the torch relay was introduced at Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics, which was described at the time as … “a Nazi party rally disguised as a sporting event” … and … George Orwell once said … “International sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred” …

… and old George knew a thing or two.

Credit card crooks.

Just when I’ve decided to book a holiday in France the bloody pound takes a dive against the euro. Still never mind, I think, perhaps rates will improve by the time I go at the end of next month.

So I pay my deposit to the French company from which I am renting an apartment. I use their on line reservation service and pay by credit card. They confirm that all is well.

The next day I review my credit card statement on line and see that my account shows a sum of £297 but the debit has been marked ‘Declined - Invalid’.

I check my booking via the French company’s website. It shows that I have paid my deposit.

Five days later a new debit appears on my credit card statement for £302 … £5 more.

I know that £5 ($10) is not a lot of money and that this could just be a simple ‘glitch’ in the system, but I suspect that those thieving bastards are up to their usual tricks, and that this ‘euro exchange rate delay’ is being used to fleece credit card users of millions.

I wonder if my ‘flexible friend’ is flexible enough to …

… stick up some banker’s fat arse ? 

They’ll ban winking next.

Harriet Harman came in for a lot of ‘flak’ this week when she turned up on the streets of south London looking like she expected to be hit by the real thing as she toured the area wearing a ‘Met vest’, the standard body armour worn by officers of London’s police force service.

Now I doubt if the politically correct Ms. Harmanperson was in much physical danger from the people of Peckham, but she was in great danger of being called “love”, “dear” or “darling” if she came into contact with Peckham’s most famous resident, ‘Del Boy’ or one of his mates.

How would the poor dear have coped should she have been subjected to such “insulting language”? …  for it seems that she has decided that the days of calling women “love” and “darling” are gone, and in the case of employees, such as bar staff, who have to listen to what is described as ”sexist banter” … Well ! Yes you guessed it. They should receive … Compensation ! … which is strange as I must have been asked … “What can I get you, love?” … thousands of times by pub barmaids.

I know that foreign visitors to this country find being called “luv” or “loov” (if oop north) a bit strange, but along with “mate”, “guv” and even “cock” it’s just a friendly working class form of address, and one that I’ve used all my life without anyone ever taking offence. I suppose that it’s a bit like an American calling me “buddy” or calling a strange woman ”honey”, and black “dudes” calling each other “bro”.

I remember that Horsey Anne was once addressed as “love” by one of us ’peasants’ and retorted … “I’m not a ‘love’ … I’m Your Royal Highness”, and anyone of us who objects can do the same, so why all the fuss ?

Now our Harriet is not only the Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham, but also Leader of the House of Commons, Lord (shouldn’t that be Lady) Privy Seal and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, but she introduced all this ’sexist banter’ cobblers in her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, which makes me wonder …  Why isn’t there a  …

…   Minister For Men And Inequalities ? 

“What bloody deadline ?”

Why is it that in this country nearly every major building project either fails to be ready on time or cannot function properly when it does open.

The latest cock-up is of course Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. I won’t go into detail as you will all have already read plenty about it over the past couple of days.

In recent years we have seen a number of fiascos including Wembley Stadium, The Dome, The British Library etc. etc. … which makes me wonder …

Was it always so ?  …

“Don’t worry your Druidship. The henge is only a couple of stones short, and there’s always next year’s solstice to look forward to”…  or  … 

“Sorry Hadrian, old cock, but you’ll have to put up with all those blue painted buggers crossing the border for a bit longer as the gates for the wall don’t quite fit”… or …

“I know that the tower is not exactly white William, but those stupid Saxons won’t notice anyway ?”  … or …

“So we are running a bit late bishop, but then it’s a long way to Canterbury and we’ve only got one horse and cart”…  or  …

“Tis true, Mr Shakespeare, that we hath forgotten to finish ye thatched roof on ye theatre , so let us pray that it doth not pissith down on ye opening night”… or …

“What’s that Albert ? …  There is plenty of glass, but they’ve run out of putty. We are not amused”.

It’s now four years until London hosts the multi-billion pound 2012 Olympic Games, so Seb Coe and his mates have plenty of time to pocket their hard earned cash and ensure that all will be ready on time, but don’t be surprised if you see some bloke in a hard hat standing in the middle of a muddy field and hear those familiar words …

… “Opening when ? … No chance guv ! … Where do you think you are ? …

…     bleeding Beijing ?”