Boggart Blog Select vol 6
Top of page
Last of the Summer Whine
2006-04-18
We hear that some curmudgeonly folk have been writing to the dear old Beeb complaining that Las Of The Summer Wine is past its sell by date. How dare they!
Must all be New Labourites of course, as Blair's shoddy, money grubbing government shuts care homes in order to finance tax credits for the super rich (“look, if you are worth a billion or more we will pay you to come and live in Britain.”) the type of people who write to the BBC, who must all be Blairites as nobody else is sad enough to write to the BBC, are trying to shut down the last rest - home for aged jobbing actors who never worked regularly enough to save for a pension.
And where have these people been for the last twenty years anyway, because its twenty years since a funny joke was heard in the show. And even that was in a scene in the antique shop.
Flogging dead horses, not to mention terminally ill Z - list celebs, is all to common in television but even The Boggart finds the practice of flogging dead actors slightly distasteful.
Most of the cast in LOTSW have difficulty walking now, although in the case of Peter Sallis that might be because he is wearing The Wrong Trousers, while some of the minor role players appear to be in a state of advanced decomposition.
If the production gets any more geriatric I will expect to see Mick Jagger and Keith Richard in cameo parts in trailers for the next series.
Let’s Educate The World - not!
2006-04-13
Little Gordy Brown came up with a great plan to establish himself as an international statesman before snatching the Permiership from his former best pal Little Tony Blair.
“I know,” said little Gordy, “we will end poverty and inequality by using British taxpayers money to build schools in third world countries. That will make the conservatives happy because it will increase competition thus driving prices down, it will make liberals happy because it has the right kind of bleeding heart appeal and it will make old labour happy because it is socialist, internationalist and egalitarian.”
But once again little Gordy found out that Tony had outflanked him. By investing the education money in management consultants for schools Tony had managed to dumb down Britain so much the average third world kid was brighter than the average U.K. University graduate.
"Grrr," said little Gordy as he stomped off to think up another way of trying to outwit his arch enemy.
Obesely Morbid
2006-04-04
Las Vegas's local authority has become the latest in the US to put into service a new super-sized ambulance specially equipped to handle massively overweight patients. The vehicle, developed by the American Medical. Response unit, has a special ramp and a winch that can handle loads of 1,600lb (114 stone). In the past 6 months, AMR has dealt with 75 calls involving patients who weighed at least 600lb.
The obvious solution is tosend a sugeon with the paramedics and take the patients away a bit at a time.
Autocue Con Conspiracy
2006-04-02
A little bit of my bubble of self delusion was shattered last week. Regular readers of Boggart Blog have seen quite a lot of mirthful mileage milked (bloody 'ell, alliteration or what?) from the ineptitude of the new generation of showbiz wannabes who seems to think that simply wannabeeing enthusiastically is enough and any kind of talent is an encumbrance for those hoping to succeed in the world of entertainment.
It was almost too easy for me to get cheap laughs out of satirizing the likes of Davina McColon, Johnny Vaughan (I see your latest vehicle hit a tree before it even got out of the drive Johnny,) Vernon effing Kay and Clare Sweeney while smugly implying that things were much better in the old days. Oh yes, my heroes came up the hard way, they paid their dues on the club circuit and in provincial theatres so they knew better than to sell the audience short by reading their whole act of an autocue... oh yes, these young 'uns don't know they're born...NOT!
It was some big mouth celebrity on Mike Parkinson's radio two show who blew the gaffe on the great conspiracy of silence. Those old timers were a bunch of drunken, lazy, back - stabbing egomaniacs whith more personality disorders than the local psychiatric hospital.
Hancock was a curmudgeonly depressive, Tommy Cooper was a hypochondriac, there were control freaks, screaming queens, wife beaters, and countless drunks, all of them lost in their private hell and relying on overworked prompts, autocues, cue cards or much abused stooges to cover their memory lapses.
Most shocking of all though was to learn that the king of the spontaneous (allegedly) desultory ramble, Frankie Howerd, in his later years could not work without an autocue.
Now I ask you missis, how much effort is it to memorise:
" oooh.... ooh no missis....yeeees, no, oooh....no, don't titter. Titter ye not.... no...its not funny....oooh yes missis"?
"Not a lot" as someone used to say...
Baise- toi M. Chirac
2006-03-28
Jacques Chirac stormed out of an EU Summit in a fit of pique over a fellow Frenchman's decision to speak in English. M Chirac walked out of the meeting as it was being addressed by Ernest-Antoine Selliere, the president of the EU employer's federation. After a brief introduction in French, M Selliere said he would speak in English because it was the international business language.
At last they are starting to understand that to anyone except another Frenchman their language when spoken sounds like a cat throwing up a furball.
Half a shag?
2006-03-24
An Italian sexologist has found that couples who have television in their bedrooms have sex half as often as those who do not, from an average ofeight time a month to four. For the over 50s, the figure fell from seven to 1.5 times a month. Serenella Salomoni's researchers questioned 523 Italian couples.
Only a scientists could produce statistics that suggest people have been having half a shag.
Enough to Drive You Up The Great Wall
2006-03-16
China again topped the world list of road deaths and accidents last year, with nearly 99,000 people killed in 450,000 accidents. China's roads havelong been the deadliest in the world, largely as a result of drivers who switch lanes without signalling, ignore traffic lights, speed down the wrong side of the road or even throw their vehicles into reverse when they have missed a highway exit.
All pretty standard manouvres...
Of course with 9 million bicycles in Peking all you need is a couple of London minicab drivers.
Da-da da-da, da-da da-da, da-da da-da, da-da da-da Islam
2006-03-07
Batman has a new foe: Osama bin Laden. Plans to pit the caped crusader against the leader of Al-Qa'ida were unveiled at a comic book convention in
California by Frank Miller, America's best-known graphic novel writer. His latest book, which he is half way through drawing and writing, will be
called Holy Terror: Batman! And will feature a Bin Laden led terrorist attack on Gotham City.
Naturally the Wahabist puritan is offended by the suspect nature of the relationship shared by Batman and Robin. What beats me though is why it has taken him so long to target Gotham City
Holy Batshit Batman
You Live; You Die. And In Between You May As Well Have A Ciggy.
2006-02-25
The comment used in the title was made by a drinker in a West Gorton Working Men's Club on hearing that parliament had voted for a total ban on smoking in public places. West Gorton in Manchester is right in the heart of Shameless country. One wonders if the gentle and heartwarming tales of Frank Gallagher, his dysfunctional family and their bizarre friends will do for tourism in...
read full post You Live, You Die
Head Girl
2006-02-12
News item of the week had to be the story of a Haitian woman who was stopped by customs and immigration officials at Miami when an airport security scanner showed she had a human head in hand luggage she intended to take onto the aircraft.
The woman told security officers the head was needed for voodoo magic to ward off evil spirits. A spokesman said "incidents like this serve to remind us there are a lot of strange people out there."
Now with such a gift for understatement he really should be British. Travelling around with a dead head in your overnight bag is more than strange, its effing insane.
Pissed as a Thrush
2006-02-10
Scientists who conducted tests on 40 songbirds found dead in Vienna, capital of Austria say they didn't die of bird flu as first feared, but slammed into windows after becoming drunk from eating fermented berries. The birds had livers so diseased "they were like chronic alcoholics".
I'm glad I read this news, I have been wondering why the birds in my garden were all singing "My Way" out of tune and yelling "drink", "feck" at regular intervals.
RELATED POSTS:
Cluedo: It Was The Drunken Elk In The Orchard
Rat Arsed Badger badgers are stubborn and incredibly strong creatures. So what do you do when you meet one that has been on the bevvy?
Groundhog Day2006-02-09
Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who fans say is never wrong, last week predicted six more weeks of winter in the US, matching the forecast of meteorologists. According to legend, as seen in the film Groundhog Day, when the groundhog emerges from hibernation on 2 February and sees his
shadow, it means six more weeks of winter. If he does not see his shadow, spring is near.
This is all very good for the tourist trade but Boggart Blog, the blog that asks the difficult questions wants to know how groundhogs are supposed to know a shadow from a damp patch on the ground?
Keep asking this question until you get it right
Holy Shit
2006-02-06
One of my fave TV programmes at the moment is The Poo Lady, Gillian McKeith, who scours the land looking for fat unhealthy people, studies their turds and tells them when they are going to die.
Las week her show, properly called "You Are What You Eat" featured a vicar who liked his two fishes cooked in batter and accompanied by a large portion of chips, mushy peas and five slices of bread and butter. Followed by a cake. Also figuring in Rev. Nosher's diet were pizzas, Chinese takeaways and dozens of offertory cream cakes baked by the sexually frustrated ladies of the Womens' Institute. (More tea Vicar, it will help the little blue pill go down.) There was slice upon slice of toast and marmalade, toast and jam and what looked suspiciously like Dairylea on toast which I thought was only eaten by students. And Pork Pies galore of course, in both the real and metaphorical sense as the man deluded himself about the amount he was scoffing.
It did not take the blessed Gillian long to get down to the jobbie of analysing the pastor's plops. Wearing an expression that ought to have said the stink was purgatory had it not been the same face she wears when confronted by cute children and small, furry animals she concluded the featured faeces had the consistency a chocolate mousse though the colour was quite good.
Too much information you might think.
Well so did I but I have to tell you there is nothing in The Bible that forbids a man of God from parading his poo on TV.
Paris or Pratt's Bottom (celebrity television )
by ianrthorpe
2006-01-31
Celebrity air - head Paris Hilton thinks she need not care whether London, Dublin or "somewhere" is the capital of Britain because she is rich. Well OK, when you are seriously rich I suppose you can pay people to know stuff for you, but that kind of takes the fun out of it to my mind. I like knowing stuff.
Chantelle, non - Celebrity winner of Celebrity Big Brother (how's that for post modern irony) is with the Paris Hilton school of thought. She neither knows nor cares where big, important places are - and why should she as the only place outside Essex she is ever likely to go involves getting a taxi to "the place of the big silver bird" and being transported in its belly to the Costa Essexa.
Apart from single figure IQs these two young women have only one other thing in common (unless there is a high class brothel called Chantelle in Paris,) an inflated sense of entitlement. The attitude seems to go "I didn't ask to be born, so now I am here you all have a duty to keep me entertained. I wonder if either of them realise how many happy hours can be spent looking at an Atlas?
Slightly more scary than the people who demand to be entertained however are those who demand the right to try and entertain us all. Michael Barrymore demands just that as fresh from his Big Brother debacle he touts for a television comeback in which he plans to front a revamped Strike It Smutty in his own very imitable way. (Blueprint for a perfect Barrymore impersonation: Build a career on mimicking the Monty
Python silly walk, spend a decade popping in and out of the closet like a Liberal Democrat on speed, have a year long and very public breakdown, do shitloads of self-pity as long suffering wife cracks up for real and then fuck off to New Zealand until you think the media have forgotten about the stiff in the swimming pool: is this the kind of person we would invite into our living rooms?
Well the TV company responsible for Ready Steady Cook, Wifeswap and Holiday Showdown think it is as they are taking the come-back idea seriously.
To be fair, Barrymore's blubbering and bitching on Celebrity Big Brother was only slightly less embarrassing that George Galloway being a cat or Pete Burns being.... well, Pete Burns but as for a TV comeback? I'd rather see Chantelle hosting Mastermind.
It Pays To Know Where You Are
by ian R Thorpe
2006-01-25
A current British Airways advertising campaign, which I noticed in today's paper made me look twice. It featured a map of South America, showing Dubai on the coast of Brazil. This is obviously a cunning ploy by the national airline to attract business from the American government.
Geography has never been one of the major strengths of the U.S. education system. People have long argued that Christopher Columbus (or Cristobal Colon if we are being picky) should not be credited as the discoverer of America as he did not know where he was (and Amerigo Vespucci did?) Not knowing where one is quickly came to be the status quo among influential Americans, thus you will find most of Kansas City in the state of Missouri and likewise Virginia City in Montana while the city of Washington missed its related state by the width of the continent. No wonder the current President can't find fairly big countries on the world map. Mind, he did recently reveal he has difficulty finding his way out of the room he is in, but Dubya's grasp of who he is seems shaky so knowing where he is might be expecting too much.
All of this gives the world cause for hope of course. If people can be led to believe Dubai is in South America they could equally be convinced that Iran is in Antarctica and spend a few years running round the frozen waste shooting insurgent penguins of mass destruction.
Lib Dems Shoot Themselves In The Dog
by Ian R Thorpe
2006-01-23
Its a long time since we had a good sex scandal involving a Liberal politician and then what do you know? Two come along together.
Latest smack in the face with a big dead fish for the party that would like to see itself as "the natural party of opposition is the Mark Oaten "rent boy" scandal. A single mention of rent boys and poof, both Mr Oaten's and the party's credibility is up in smoke (and the Boggart is once again shown to be not above stealing old Kenneth Williams jokes.) Don't you love the tabloids' choice of language though? Not homosexual lover, not kamp* paramour but rent - boy with all its implicit sleazy allusions to spotty adolescents in baseball caps and back alleys in Soho. Oaten's alleged lover is a twenty three year old man who allegedly advertised himself on the net as available for sex at a rate of £80 per session. Someone savvy enough, if there is any substance in the allegations, to know the real value of an illicit affair with an up-and-coming (unfortunate phrase in the context perhaps) politician, even one of the Liberal Democrat persuasion.
Mark Oaten is surely finished. Few people care much that he is gay, more care that he carried on a gay relationship while presenting himself as a staid, heterosexual family man thus revealing himself as a hypocrite but everybody should care that he was a big enough fool to think he could get away with it, after all this is no trivial matter like for example committing the nation to an illegal war.
The party may recover from the demise of a leadership contender because the party is not responsible for his sex life and it is not as though he shot anybody's dog.
*KAMP, original version of camp, was an acronym written on police charge sheets when homosexuality was still a crime. It stands for Known As Male Prostitute.
There's a moose loose about this hoose
by Ian R Thorpe
2006-01-21
News From America.
------------------
A man who tried to kill a mouse by throwing it on a pile of burning leaves got a shock when the mouse ran back into his house and set it alight. Luciano Mares, 81 of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, said the fire destroyed all the contents of his home.
I remember that mouse, he used to work in Hollywood - as comic partner to a really stupid cat. Oh well I guess the cat died so he found a stupid old guy.
Welcome Back Osama
by Ian R Thorpe
2006-01-20
It's kind of nice to see old Osama back on our screens. We all thought he had gone for good but just like Bruce Forsyth, when we think he has gone for good he reappears. And if we are honest I think a lot of us harbour a slight affection for him, mostly because of his ability to make Dubya look like an idiot. Well that, and the fact that because of childhood memories most of us Brits have a soft spot for eccentric headgear and dodgy beards. Remember Ali Bongo?
Now I have a theory (wild applause greets this news of another of my conspiracy theories) that Brucie and Osama have a little more in common than their indestructibility. Both have worked in pantomime, Bruce in many parts and Osama specialising in being a truly scary Abenazer in Aladdin. Think about it, the hat, the beard. Abenazer could have been based on Osama's Dad.
The name Bin Laden may inspire fear in the hearts of Americans but us Brits, raised on the Christmas pantomime, can never take threats to destroy western civilisation seriously when they are made by a wild eyed guy in a silly hat.
Pantomime villains are a special breed of men, it takes years of working in provincial theatres in front of audiences consisting of a bus load of schoolkids who would rather be down the arcade scoring some Es and a few old age pensioners tripping out on mint imperials to hone the comic skills needed. Pantomime villains are Dick Dastardly, Wile E. Coyote and The Phantom of the Opera rolled into one.
Osama might have been better advised to relaunch his career as a media celeb with a few pastiche reality shows (Celebrity Big Brother, Celebrity Pop Idol, Celebrity Love Island - well maybe not that one but you get the idea) Pantomime is for the skilled practitioner only. How can an amateur like OBL compete with the likes of Simon Callow and Sir Ian (Gandalf) McEllen?
But if he is intent on pursuing this comeback perhaps it is time for me to re-release my 2001 record The Osama Song. It should have been Christmas No. 1 that year but thanks to a cock up in the PR department it was only heard in a few pubs around Accrington. It goes like this...
Come Mr. Taliban, hand over Osama
Americans can't get to sleep at night
We don't want to live in this Afghan panorama
but he gave the west a nasty fright
Catchy eh?
So are you ready kids?
"I wonder where that naughty Osama is?"
"He's behind you!"
"Oh no he isn't."
"Oh yes he is."
A Sign of Success?
by Ian R Thorpe
2006-01-18
A human resources firm in China says it will only hire candidates born in the Asian zodiac's year of the dog, believing they are most suited to its needs. The Cinhese are great believers in the supernatural and he lunar-calendar astrology used in China, counts the coming year, beginning 29 January, as a dog year. The Asian zodiac assigns a different animal to each year in a 12-year-cycle, each of which is credited with different personality traits.
Could this system be applied to western human resources departments? Well the people who make John West tinned foods could refuse to hire people who aren't born under Pisces or Cancer. Daytime T.V. media correspondents might best be chosen from among only Scorpios, Lawyers would have to show they were Librans and people in the water industry would obviously be Aquarians. After that it gets quite difficult. But the system could extend beyond the workplace. How about a rule that members of the Fathers For Justice group have to be born under the sign of Leo?
Throw Another Roo On The Barbie
by ianrthorpe
2006-01-16
Australians could soon be tossing a chunk of australus on the barbecue,because of plans to rename kangaroo meat and divorce it from its cuddly Skippy image. A food magazine hit on the idea of organising an international competition to come up with a euphemism - akin to beef for cow and venison for deer - to make kangaroo more palatable. Among the suggestions received were kangasaurus,marsupan, roadkill and jumpmeat. Mel Nathan, editor of the magazine Food Companion International said that"australus" sounded dignified and linked the meat with its country of provenance.
"Wotcha say Skip? You don't care what they call you, its still effing hot on that barbie?"
THERE IS MORE TO BE ADDED ON THIS PAGE
|
