Three strikes and out

Having already threatened Royal Mail with more strikes than a blind baseball player, it seems that postal workers will inevitably strike during the end of this week.  Remarkably, though, these strikes over plans for the modernisation of Royal Mail have garnered about as much sympathy from the general public as a a fat man wedged in the doorway of a McDonald’s would.

Flashbacks to images of firefighters striking outside fire stations provoke memories of nationwide concern and sorrow for these poor over-worked, under-paid heroes who put their lives at risk in order to save the lives of others.  So why this widespread feeling of ennui towards the country’s gallant posties?

Perhaps it’s because they are simultaneously very amusing and tragically stupid.

First of all: amusing.  Every morning, balding middle-aged men can be seen pushing peddle bikes or little trolleys up and down the streets of our towns.  Little blue shorts often reveal spindly, wispy-haired legs vaguely reminiscent of those displayed by Johnny Depp in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Occasionally, they will supplement this already-ridiculous attire with a straight-peaked baseball cap and a Royal Mail fleece.

They look like the kid in Year 10 who’s been taking hormones in order to make the school shot-put team.

Before I last moved house, I used to have a shaved-headed young postman who would strut down our street, iPod earphone trailing from one side of his primitive, neanderthal head, his Royal Mail shirt open, billowing in the breeze, displaying only a Die Hard-style vest beneath it and a few wisps of chest hair.

The kind of man you can’t help but envy; even me, with my hitherto unblemished heterosexual record.

If only all posties were like this, we might care slightly more about their quibbles.

But we don’t.

Quite frankly, every postman in the land could have gone on their round this morning and stuck their wang through the letterbox of every house before ringing the doorbell and yelling, “Special delivery!” and we wouldn’t care any less.

And this is probably due to the immense stupidity behind their logic to strike.  We can only speculate how they arrived at the decision that this was the best way forward:

Union leader A: Royal Mail is a struggling, outdated organisation with increasing competitors in their marketplace.

Union leader B: I suggest that, in order to bring attention to our disagreements with the proposed modernisation plans, we go on strike for several days over a period of a few weeks.

Union leader A: Excellent idea.  This will shatter the already fragile confidence in us of both businesses and the general public…

Union leader B: …leading our major clients, such as Amazon, to farm out their business to some of our biggest competitors…

Union leader A: …which will land the company that we work for in major financial dogshit…

Union leader B: …meaning that we should all be out of jobs by Christmas!

It seems to me that modernisation is not good enough for Royal Mail.  What they need is to be postmodernised.  Let’s have the uniforms designed by Karl Lagerfeld, all delivery vans to have music by Phillip Glass to be blasted from rooftop speakers and a new Royal Mail slogan penned by Umberto Eco.

I personally hope that these strikes continue right the way through the Christmas period, as it will give me a perfect excuse not to sent any cards.

Those new emoticons in full:

Civilians in danger may now text the police for help.  Scotland Yard have requested that anyone texting 999 use the following emoticons to help them try to identify the perpetrator:

: – / He had Bell’s palsy.

0 – ( He was an unhappy cyclops.

: – ,,,) He had a scar down his right cheek.

: – ””) He had a scar down his left cheek.

: – B He had two prominent front teeth.

): -| He had horns like the horns of the devil.

: – ?,, His lip was swollen on the left hand side, causing him to drool out of the right hand side of his mouth.

G: -) He had the letter G balanced on top of his head.

: -) B One of her breasts was slightly larger than the other.

: -))) He had several chins

: -{)> He had a waxed moustache and a small beard beneath his bottom lip.

The King of Plop is back to haunt you

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MICHAEL JACKSON REHEARSE?!

No, of course you wouldn’t.  You’re sane.

During a recent visit to the cinema – a visit that could have bought me a small semi-detached house in Stoke, but did leave me with a pair of free 3D glasses that made me look like a new-age Buddy Holly or a slightly more trendy Brains from Thunderbirds – I witnessed a trailer for a film that promised me one of the most spectacular cinematic events of the year.

The trailer started with the sound of someone clicking their fingers and a ridiculously velvety-toned man announcing that ‘ONE MAN…(click)…HAS TAKEN MUSIC…(click)…TO A NEW LEVEL…’  My first reaction was Fantastic, a Bono biopic.  That must mean he’s died.  My mood darkened, however, when I was left to find out that this was actually a film about the concerts that Michael Jackson was just too dead to perform.

In a ‘two week only’ run (which is more-or-less the usual cinema run for a distinctly average film), MJ fans, friends and victims of abuse can pay extortionate amounts to see footage of The King of Plop (see what I did there?  It’s a poo joke!) practise for his O2 Arena run.  Now, if this is an hour and a half of MJ forgetting his lines, accidentally tripping over whilst trying to moonwalk and occasionally treading on the toe of a dancer, I’ll be there!  However, if it is instead 90 minutes of him standing next to a bald bloke talking about what colours lights they should have then I’d rather watch a child with ADHD overdose on Calpol and beat his head repeatedly against a radiator.

With a swift release of a Best Of straight after Jackson’s own Calpol overdose, the people running his trust have already shown themselves to be very happy to accept the wounded and deranged public’s dollar.  Well, I’ve got one thing to say to these corpse-milking cocksuckers:

You’d better beat it, because you don’t wanna be startin’ somethin’, that, one day in your life, will make YOU regret the way you make me feel.  And I know your attitude towards money – you don’t stop till you get enough.  Now you may say that’s human nature, but there’s another part of me that wants to see blood on the dance floor.  CORPORATE blood.  But hey, let’s not make it a messy killing, like dirty Diana.  I want to hire a smooth criminal.

So, to be clear.  If this is some DVD extra dressed up as the next Casablanca, I want the head of Colombia’s chief exec on a plate.  Simple as ABC.

‘This is your pilot speaking: we have missed our turning.’

By the time I leave the house, scrape the ice off my car, turn the engine on and drive to the end of the road, several things have normally gone through my mind:

Did I lock the front door?  Did I shut the downstairs windows?  Did I leave the TV on standby?  Did I lock the understairs cupboard to make sure nobody could escape?

Now, if I can make all of these mistakes within five minutes of leaving the house, why should we complain if a couple of pilots flying a plane carrying 144 passengers make a similar mistake?  Think of all the responsibilities that must befuddle the poor minds of the brave men and women who pilot these planes week in, week out.

Apparently, the pilots of the Airbus flight from San Diego to Minneapolis were having an argument when they realised that they had overshot their airport by 150 miles.  We can only speculate what this argument could have been about between these two (let’s be honest) men who (probably) lived together:

Pilot A: Did we put the latch down on the door when we left?

Pilot B: We?  I think you were last out of the house…

A: Perhaps I was, but don’t you think it’s about time you started taking some responsibility for the maintenance of the place?

B: Oh really.  Well I’m not the one who allows the girl I’m shagging to stay over five nights of the week without contributing anything to the utility bills.  A bit rich, don’t you think, considering she seems to have some kind of obsession with THE SHOWER!

A: Oh yeah?  I think someone’s a little bit jealous of the action I’m getting!

B: I hardly think so.  After all, I’m the reason she takes so long in the shower…

A: Oh my God…

B: I’m sorry, I’ve been meaning to tell you…

A: No, it’s not that…

B: Well?  What is it, then?

A: We’re in Mexico!

But let’s just assume that this quarrel was about the most serious thing imaginable.  Let’s say that it defied belief.  Let’s say that one of the pilots had just advocated that John & Edward are better than The Beatles.  This does not explain the fact that the plane in question managed to travel one hundred and fifty miles before they turned the thing around.

What took so long?

Could they not find a convenient place to turn around?  Were they waiting until they came to a roundabout?  This is the aeronautical equivalent of leaving your house to pick up a paper from the cornershop and, four hours later, finding yourself at Land’s End holding only a compass and some Kendal Mint Cake.

If this is the level of aptitude of some of our pilots, we will have no choice but to introduce sat nav for planes.

‘At the cumulonimbus shaped like George Washington’s nose… turn right.’

Berlusconi set to appear on Loose Women

After the runaway success of last night’s Question Time, Mark Thompson has announced that every BBC show must feature ’at least one bigot’.

This new announcement clears the way for the controversial, yet popular, racist Anton du Beke to remain on Strictly Come Dancing.  Other notable names rumoured to be involved in the scheme are the controversial, yet unpopular, Ron Atkinson who will be joining the Match of the Day team, whilst ITV are following suit by appointing Silvio Berlusconi as a panelist on Loose Women.

The edict comes after record numbers tuned in to watch a Question Time special in which members of the general public and fellow politicians were invited to a televised ‘roasting’ of BNP leader, and hateful racist, Nick Griffin.

Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson claimed that the inclusion of Griffin on the panel had been ‘a bloody success’ and that his appearance had only served to allow the British public to form their own opinions on ‘that complete prat’.  Furthermore, the success of the programme had led the BBC to believe that ‘at least one bigot’ should be included in every show.  Thompson told the BBC, ‘It obviously makes great viewing, and it allows us to see what utter morons they all are.’

Griffin to mime Question Time

Question Time fans are in uproar today after it was announced that BNP leader and national figure of absolute fucking hatred will be miming parts of his performance tonight.

Just hours before the BBC’s flagship news programme was due to go out live, Griffin confessed that he found the stress of performing live ‘too much’ and that he would be miming to parts of the programme.

It is believed that the pre-recorded lines include ‘If you’ll just let me finish…’, ‘They come over here…’ and ‘Holocaust?  What holocaust?’

Does a griffin shit in the woods? No, it does it live on TV.

“When a bear shits in the forest, does it scream?”

If this were the first question put to BNP leader Nick Griffin during tonight’s Question Time, he may well get an indication of exactly how seriously he is treated by this country as a whole.

This morning’s media has been saturated with coverage of Griffin’s impending BBC bout.  Such is the level of hysteria and fervour that the show is currently receiving a build-up more frenzied than a Mayweather/Hatton clash.

If I tune in at 10.30 tonight and find that the brilliant and demure Dimbleby has been replaced by John Rawling and Steve Bunce, I will not be surprised.

Whether or not you believe that Griffin is deserving of a place on the QT panel, the controversial run-up to the programme has been a welcome and timely reminder of one thing…

Question Time is the most exciting, dramatic and bloodthirsty reality TV programme in existence.  Bar none.

On Saturday, X Factor could feature a scene in which Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh clash so badly over Jonathan & Edward that they both strip off, oil up, and wrestle whilst Dannii and Cheryl tug at their glistening arms, screeching, “Leave it; it’s not worth it!” (a scene that Cheryl may well have enacted several times before on a Friday night in Newcastle).  But this I know for certain: no amount of flying fists and dislodged pearly-white enamels would match the drama, tension and raw excitement that will be created live tonight by three white middle-aged men and two female Brits of foreign descent.

There will be no melodramatic theme music played over close-ups of Chris Huhne standing with his arms folded; no overly-posed shots of Jack Straw walking towards the camera, pouting; no sweeping shot of Baroness Warsi standing, side-on, in front of a raging furnace.

What will happen, though, is a leader of the country’s most repugnant, hateful, spiteful party will make an ass of himself on live television and will do himself far more damage than good.  If the Beeb had not allowed him on the show tonight, he would not have been able to commit this fantastic act of live self-harm.

From tonight onwards, the saying will be changed to: “Do griffins shit live on TV?”