With Gaddaffi downfall looming, the Hollywood offers start to roll in...

Gaddaffi: "Duck... Soup! (Geddit??? Gaddaffi Duck. Please yourselves...)


As the world waits anxiously for the denouement of the crisis in Libya, Hollywood executives have lost no time in positioning themselves to secure the services of the country's embattled Colonel Muamumumumumwah! Gaddaffi. Fox and Miramax are currently involved in a frantic bidding war to land the controversial totalitarian dictator/unpleasant but ultimately necessary bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism for a new biopic based on the life of the much loved American comedy genius, Groucho Marx.

Groucho: "You'll be hearing from my lawyer just as soon as he's qualified..."

A spokesman for Miramax made it plain how highly coveted the hardman of North African politics is. "First up, it's the hair", Fox production assistant Benzedrine Cliffbalaster told our correspondent. "It's real cinema dynamite. Not many people can train it to do that unruly wavy-even-though-you've-smarmed-it-down-with-brylcreem-and-several-hours-worth-of-combing thing that made Groucho such a unique and iconic screen presence, but we really think we're onto something with Moo-moo-moo-mwah! But it's not just the hair; we reckon the kid can act too. He's funny too and had our emissary in stitches when during our first face to face with him - hell, he even got a few laughs out of the old fingernail pulling routine! If we can just coach him to walk as if he's trying to get under a three foot high pole whilst comically shaking his cigar, we'll have hit cemedy cinema paydirt!"

Gaddaffi Jr.: "Led Zeppo"


But Gaddaffi's son, Seif al-Islam - who, incidentally, is a strong contender to land the role of Zeppo, the legendary fourth Marx Brother in the same production - hinted that the Libyan Leader might be holding out for a higher offer than either of those currently tabled, which might open the way for a shock move into televison. "Dad is highly honoured to have been asked to play the role of Groucho Marx who, even though with a name like that he's almost certainly a Jew, has been a huge favourite of my father, and a very important influence on his life - particularly in the area of foreign policy and cigars. My father knows all the gags - 'I've had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it'; 'There ain't no sanity clause'; 'Love goes out the door when money comes innuendo'; 'you can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead'....no, hang on - that's Laurel & Hardy. Whatever. He can do a great Stan too you know, that bit where he raises his bowler hat and teases the hair up and starts blubbing. Honestly, he's a real scream! But seriously; Dad's also a huge fan of contemporary American small screen dramas such as The Wire, Six Feet Under, The Sopranoes and Madman. You know, much as he'd love to have a crack at playing Groucho, I think deep down he sees himself as a bit more of a Don Draper and we think we're beginning to get the executives at HBO to see things that way too..."

Draper: "I'd rather stay here with all the madmen..."

Bad, bad people on the rise...

There's a knock at the door. It's our neighbour's son, Harry. Hardly recognised him. He used to be such a nice polite young man; you know, just your ordinary, run of the mill angsty teenage kid - skinhead haircut, swastika neck tattoos, bovver boots and a dog-eared copy of 'Mein Kampf' and Skrewdriver LP under each arm. Seems he's fallen in with a bad crowd of late though, or something. Probably just a phase, but unless I'm very much mistaken he's been flirting with extremism - and, judging by the Jesus boots, chunky sweater and ginger sideburns - he seems to have embraced a particularly poisonous brand. Poor parents. Must fair break their hearts. Imagine putting in all that hard work and effort, raising a kid as best you can only to see them grow up to become a liberal democrat.

Indeed, the kindle edition of the Guardian he repeatedly waves under my nose during our fractious exchange, jabbing a grimy-nailed finger at it occasionally for emphasis, is a dead give away - as is the decidedly macro-biotic aroma emanating from his pullover. Sure enough, once he's spent a good quarter of an hour castigating the previous administration for bankrupting the Treasury and embarking on a Churchillian soliloquy about serving the national interest, it becomes evident that he's not only gone lib dem but seems to have headed straight over to the most mentalist margins of the hardest of the hardline deficit reductionistas. I just let him rant on, shuffling nervously in a vain attempt to hide from his vision the antiquated 'Don't blame me, I voted Liberal Democrat' sticker I keep forgetting to scrape off the porch window. In the end, I'm left hoping that the elaborations of a luminous marker on the nearby 'Justice for Blair Peach' poster will provide sufficient distraction - indeed, I find I'm particularly drawn to a rather buxom looking, pink (I'm assuming) peach myself. Tragic case that. Wonder if he's out yet?

After a lengthy deliberation on Nick Clegg's current initiatives to put an end to century's of racism and the difficulties of getting the banks to lend to small black businesses "...frankly, they just don't *want* to work, some of them..." he finally gets to the point. Which is, basically, you know, am I interested in joining in on any of the Big Society initiatives that are going to be starting up in the neighbourhood shortly? And can he consider me to be sufficiently won over as to be one of his Champions?

It's hard to know what to do in these situations, isn't it? I mean, part of me just wants to nut him one and ask him to bring his pal Vince over for some of the same. Incidentally, and straying from the point at hand briefly if I may, is ours the only home in the United Kingdom in which 'laying a Vince' is a long-acknowledged euphemism for a particularly extensive bowel movement? I sincerely hope not. Anyway, as I say, the initial response is the desire to deploy blood curdling violence, but then the fruits of all those hours of zen meditation and mindfulness mantras kick in and I am able to take a more enlightened and karmically beneficial position. So, in the end it was all agreed. I start on Tuesday. A full weekly wash, polish and valet service for Vince Cable's government limo. Four hours a week, with time off for good behaviour. Still, could have been worse; Danny Alexander has a pathological fear of body hair, apparently...

xxx
Bob

Kate Bush to follow Director's Cut with album of duets...

Bush: "Still traumatised by swan incident..."


Kate Bush fans still revelling in the news of a new album of reworked classics from the diminutive pop genius have a further treat in store. Kate's website has just revealed that she'll be releasing another album hot on its heels; this time a collection of her old songs sung with an unlikely assortment of guest artistes. The most headline grabbing of these has to be the new version of 'Don't give up', the poignant tribute to those affected by mass unemployment she originally recorded with Peter Gabriel in the 1980s.

Never an artist to shy away from controversy, there will nevertheless be many an eyebrow raised by the prospect of the eccentric pop diva performing a heartrending song about the travails of the jobless with the current Business Secretary, Vince Cable. "I know a lot of people will be wondering what a divine chanteuse like Kate is doing warbling away about the homeless with a slimy Tory troll like me, but if they think that's bad, they've obviously not heard her version of 'The man with the child in his eyes' with Michael Gove", said a clearly exuberant, and possibly medicated Cable. "It's really clever of Kate to turn the song into a sly kind of gay anthem with a really astonishing performance from Michael. How a repressed, former public schoolboy like the Education Secretary is able to draw a deeply moving portrait in song of a man in love with another, younger chap I'll never know. He takes to a sequinned frock like a duck to water too - or should that be a ducky?' smirked the Twickenham MP whilst tucking heartily into a generous carving of braised swan.

Cable: "Day -oh..."


'Obviously, unlike many of my cabinet colleagues, I have a bit of previous show business experience to back me up. Last Christmas I appeared on a celebrity dance show and I've always seen myself as being as much a song and dance man as an expert on macro-economics policy and how to kick start the UK economy by depriving as many people as possible of work and reducing their disposable incomes. Why, after a hard day dismantling the welfare state and inflicting a package of unprecedentedly savage cuts that will disproportionately disadvantage the poor, the sick and those least able to defend themselves and set the cause of progressive politics back several generations, I like nothing better than to dress up as Leni Riefenstahl and belt out a few Harry Bellafonte numbers washed down with several crates of Mackesons. Day-oh...me say day mer say day me say day-oh....daylight come and me want come home..."

Gove: "Who? EMA..."


Other treats in store for the public include a new version of 'Them Heavy People' featuring tory grandee and gourmandising heavyweight Nicholas Soames. "We were hoping to use Cyril Smith, but sadly he passed away while I was still working on the backing track - it can take me decades just to get the drum sound right..." said a clearly distraught Kate. "Mind you, his rotting Liberal corpse could probably have held a tune better than old fatty Soames, anyday..." However, reports suggest that the sessions for the new LP didn't go completely smoothly. "Yes, Kate had a few problems when she was recording a new version of 'Wuthering Heights' with Nick Clegg", a studio technician was able to tell us. "Firstly he insisted on playing the part of Cathy, even though, to all intents and purposes, he's a man and the vocal part is well outside his range. Then he insisted on Kate incorporating a lengthy coda to the song which would give him a platform to spout off about why we should adopt the additional vote for several minutes over a really over the top prog rock guitar solo. When Kate refused, he threatened to leave and go and form a government with Stevie Nicks instead. It was terrible. Completely over the top and what's more, you'll never get strong, single party government again. Kate said it's a wonder she was able to stay in the same room as him without stamping his nuts off - although, I've heard that this is a common reaction from people who've spent any serious amount of time with the man..."

Siffre: "Get back to ruining the country you Tory scumbags..."

But the new album has not been greeted with universal pleasure. Former pop star Labi Siffre was one of a large number of musicians to express incredulity at members of the Coalition taking time out from their parliamentary business to record with an airy-voiced songstress. "I know they've used the extreme economic circumstances to do pretty much as they damn well please regardless of any democratic mandate, but this is a step too far," opined the smooth-voiced seventies star. "Why can't they leave the showbiz alone for a minute and get on with bringing the country to its knees ??"

Hear hear!

Osborne defends increase in gender inequality under Coalition...

Chancellor George Osborne today insisted that the Coalition government will not be swayed from an ecomomic programme which some commentators have claimed lays more of the burden of debt repayment on the shoulders of women.


Women: can't live wiv 'em...

Speaking to a group of business leaders in the midlands, the Chancellor hit back at critics who say that women are being unfairly taxed and especially targeted by cuts to the welfare budget. "True, in my great-grandmother's day, a woman was more than happy to stay at home, raise a large family and act as unpaid skivvy to her poorly paid and often aggressively misogynistic husband. But times have moved on and I like to believe that we live in slightly more civilized times. Nowadays, there are a lot more amusements around the home for the genteel lady of leisure - the internet has opened up whole new areas of entertainment for those who choose not to go to work - online gambling, Mum'snet, soft core pornography - these are all luxuries that would be the envy of our ancestors."

Warming to his theme, the Chancellor upbraided those who accused him of a regressive attack on the economic advancement of women over the past century. "Come on, let's face it, work isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it? You'd think that these ladies would be pleased as punch to have the opportunity to lounge around all day watching re-runs of the Jeremy Kyle show in saucy lingerie and a fetching little faux fox fur stole with a sobranie cocktail in one hand and a marguerita in the other; every so often raiding the Terry's All Gold and engaging in a little harmless flirtation with the DHL delivery man. I know I would. And the shoes - couldn't you just *die* for the opportunity to spend all day trying on your vast collection of preposterously high heeled shoes, perhaps even staging an imaginary gymkhana with all those L.K. Bennet boxes and then having a 'private moment' with Jilly Cooper's Riders. I know plenty of chaps in the cabinet who'd give their eye's teeth for the opportunity to sashay around all day in a skin-tight leopard skin number trying out sling-backs instead of putting in long hours in trying to take Britain's public services back into the 19th Century. You know, some of these women don't know they're born!"


Simon Hughes: Rexless Eric

The Chancellor's line was echoed by Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes. Addressing a Gay Pride rally in Nuneaton, to rousing cheers, Hughes asked the assembled crowd,

Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?

Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?

Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you're with them, you're always at ease.

Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?

The case continues...

xxx
Bob

Coalition will draft in badgers to break strikes...

Prime minister David Cameron today announced shock new plans to use teams of badgers to cover vital public services in the event of predicted industrial action in the wake of last week's spending review. Speaking on BBC Breakfast News, Mr. Cameron said, "obviously, in normal times, I'd just have them culled and fed to the local hunt as an example to the rest of you - fouling up our lovely rolling lawns as they do and keeping the kids awake with their hideous wails and mating calls. But these aren't normal times - as, indeed, a cursory glance at the make of the cabinet should tell you. Badgers are cheap, reliable and, from certain angles and in a darkened room, tolerably attractive; certainly an improvement on Danny Alexander, that's fo' sho! I know I'd rather have one driving me to hospital, fetching an errant kitten down from a tree or inadvertently turning off my life support machine than some east European gypsy or Pole - anyday! And let's be quite clear about this: blib-blubblib-blub-blib-blooobb-blloobb-bloooobbbb..."

But the move has attracted wipespread criticism, most notably from animal welfare groups. "Mr. Cameron's move is clearly a slickly presented attempt to disguise wholesale changes to the rural demographic which add up to little less than a programme of ethnic cleansing in the shires. They tried it before in the 80s and 90s with the fox population and look what happened there; millions of foxes migrating down south desperately trying to find work that wasn't there and ending up living a life of vagrancy and scavenging for scraps with only the occasional opportunity to nip off the ears of unattended youngsters to redeem the misery. Mr. Cameron says he has the interests of the public at heart, but how would *he* like it if a bunch of masked thugs were to come round to his gaffe, bellow abuse in his ear through a loud hailer for 45 minutes before daubing the legend "Badger baiting wanker paedophile" on the windshield of his mini metro??" said a spokesperson.

But sources close to the government insist the coalition will remain firm on this issue. "We won't be budging on the badgers", said some Liberal Democrat or other. Some of these badgers are on a whole raft of handouts that would, quite frankly, astound the average hard-working taxpayer. Job seekers allowance, housing benefit, disability, winter fuel allowance - you know, some of them think they're entitled to the whole sett."

xxx
Bob

B.S. I love you...

All that has helped me understand perhaps just one thing in my research to trace the causes of my isolation: I now realise the point at which I became aware of class distinction, of differences between people which were nothing to do with age or size, aware in fact of the class war, which is not an outdated concept, as those of the upper classes who are not competely dim would con everyone else into believeing it is. The class war is being fought as viciously and destructively of human spirit as it has ever been in England: I was born on my side, and I cannot and will not desert...

B.S. Johnson, Trawl

The horror,the horror...

Awaking from my annual winter slumbers, I discover with some alarm and (I'm guessing at the meaning of the word here) alacrity that not only is the country about to go to the polls but it's also looking a racing certainty that the next PM will in all likelihood be a Tory.

In fairness, there will be a certain degree of novelty in the country being governed once more by a chinless public school toff, I suppose - and, to give the man his due, David Cameron does do a remarkable impersonation of a 1951 vintage Henry the Green Engine:




Cameron



Henry the G.E.

Should come in handy that - the ability to locomote speedily away from those angry mobs of peasantry after you've just closed down all their schools and hospitals in order to subsidise tax breaks for your old chums from Eton. That's right, Dave/Henry will be the envy of *all* the other engines: Gordon the Grumpy Bastard, Clegg the Champion Centre Party Choo-choo Train, Nigel the Farrageously Ferocious Freight, Wyn Jones the Steam, Alex the Flying Salmond (crikey - Salmond really does look more like something from Rev Awdry than a human being....) and who can forget every young boy's favourite lovable steam engine? Nick Griffin: the Fat Nazi Cunt.

Still, it's not all doom and gloom is it? (Well, the election's not 'tll Thursday, so there's still time to join a 20 month waiting list for treatment on the NHS) Another ray of light amidst the dying light; I recently became the proud owner of an iPOd touch.

They're astonishingly clever devices,aren't they? Not only are they an absolute boom to the serious scholar - I've loaded mine up with the complete works of Shakespeare, the Dickens collection, 101 classic novels, the casebook of Sherlock Holmes and six years worth of Knave back issues and it's barely even half full! it aslo croretcs lal yuor splelign msikates for yuo so you snot gave to ketp gong balcony on yuorslef all teh tmie to ptu thnigs rghit - ist fnastatic!!!!
But seriously - I thoroughly recommend them to all my reader.

Oh well, I suppose I'd better get back on the campaign trail. Only 4 more days to stop Cameron. This is serious stuff. How am I going to be able to lurk around outside the convent school gates all day once he's closed them all down??

Onward and upward....


Xxx
Bob

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thatcher...

I don't want to sound like one of those "Is it just me, or is everything shit now and weren't things much better in the 1970s" Stuart Maconie/Danny Baker types, but...well, it's kind of true isn't it? Up to a point at any rate. It can surely be no accident that things started to take a severe turn for the worse around 1979. Just when things had been looking up too - children, don't believe all you hear about The Winter of Discontent. It wasn't *so* bad. And there weren't *really* rats - and anyway, even if there had been, they'd have been *much* better than horrible, synthetic, antibiotic-resistant *modern* rats...

Yes, 1979 was pretty much the fulcrum year, really. The best of the post-punk stuff had pretty much been done by then. We still had Concorde. Arsenal beat Manchester United in the Cup Final. You still needed to be vaguely literate in order to be able to read the NME. And then Thatcher came along and ruined *everything*.

Perhaps I've missed somthing and have been doing the woman (she was, I've been assured, a woman after all it seems...) a great disservice, but without overstating the case too much, she is surely the most repellent creature ever to have stalked the planet and has been exclusively responsible for *every* *single* *evil* in the world. *Ever*. Has she not? And Pinochet. And if you don't believe me, compare the world as it is now with the way it was then. For instance, had you been foolish (or drunk enough) to want to experience the England cricket team spinelessly capitulating to India (or indeed any other former colony without the good manners to remember that we taught them the bloody game in the first place, didn't we?), you'd have had to do so by tuning your crude (probably Pifco-made) transistor radio to Short Wave and hearing the dulcet tones of John Arlott ebbing and flowing like a Lee Scratch Perry dub effect all the way from the subcontinent. At three o'clock in the morning. And if you turned the volume right up and pressed your ears vigorously into the speaker grille, you might even be able to make out the occasional word he was saying. Of course, *nowadays* the whole humiliation is beamed out in deafening quadrophonic sound with high definition and stats and reverse camera angles/slo-mo fan zone alternative commentary at the delicate impress of a digit. That's why they call it digital, you see. So there you are - if you wanted to follow the cricket nowadays, you wouldn't have been able to miss a thing. Some improvement.

In constructing this argument, I'm trying to think of areas where I might have to concede that, yes, love or loathe her, in all fairness I have to hold my hands up and admit that, yes, much as it pains me to say so, she did at least... I dunno....make the trains run on time or something. But no, she didn't even manage that. Trains were shit then, for sure. But they're shittier now. And more expensive. And Richard Branson's involved somewhere along the (excuse the pun) line, isn't he? I rest my case. Radio 1 is rubbish - so much so that even Radio *2* is *much* *much* better now. Now that would never have happened in the seventies, would it? John Peel's gone (killed whilst on an innocent walking holiday in South America, by Thatch, obviously. And Pinochet - did you not know that? I told you she was evil. And him.) Arlott? Gone. The mines? Long gone the way of those endless Laurel & Hardy and Norman Wisdom re-runs. One off talent and exemplary professional Chippy Brady has made way for Samir Nasri - a player as erratic as he is overpaid and a man with so much class he saw fit to trip up Newcastle's Joey Barton for no apparent reason, off the ball and in a manner that can only be described as 'like a lickle gurl'. The most challenging aspect of the modern day NME is distinguishing between the adverts and the advertorials. Gone are the Special A.K.A. to be replaced by some gurning, brushed-down-by-your-mum-bog-brush-hair-styled young simpletons whose idea of radical pop engagement is fondling their charity labrador puppy stuffed toys and stuttering over their autocued monosyllabes. And all the while, that sleek, white arrow stands proud but disused, on permanent display outside the service hangar.

And don't get me started on Blair...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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A Little Bit of Politics...

Now that I'm an internationally recognised* Glam Icon, I have to be a bit careful about what I say. Gone are the days when I could, for instance, fire off an expletive-ridden tirade against a fellow-blogger with more hits but demonstrably less talent than me, or freely direct my ire at Heads of State/Religious figure heads/celebrity charity ballroom dancing competition contestants or Sian Williams with no fear of the impact of my words on prospective consumers of my wares But now I have to think before I speak. The impact an ill-advised outburst aimed at a national treasure or harmless TV weather person could have on my career,is impossible to guage. For instance, sales went through the roof after I lambasted BBC weatherman Daniel Corbett for a poorly selected tie/shirt combo (not to mention an irksome over precision in the diction department) but fell when I had a go at Tanny Grey Thompson.

In short, if I feel the urge to call the Archbishop of Canterbury a poncified God-bothering, mincing, shoddily-mitred old Poove, I have to be very, very careful now to make sure that I do so in a reasoned and balanced way, and not leave myself open to allegations of religious intolerance and/or homophobia. In the case of the Archbish., this is usually achieved quite simply by adding the phrase, 'on the other hand, if his holiness were the head of a different faith, he could have my hands chopped off for dressing like this, so I suppose he's not all that bad...and, yes, at a slightly jauntier angle, I suppose the mitre could be quite fetching..."

But, with politicians, it's not always quite so simple, which is why I've been reluctant until now to pass any commment on the forthcoming Mayoral election in London. Yet, with less than two weeks until polling....no, hang on, that's a gravy stain on the ballot card...cripes, with barely two *days* left until polling day....at least, I *hope* it's a gravy stain...I felt it imperative to air my tuppon'orth ahead of the contest.

Call me an old fuddy duddy, but I prefered the gentler pace of politics in the pre-media age. Time was when politicians like Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain could settle their differences in an amicable and civilised way, perhaps even sharing a glass of bandy and a cigar as they mulled over the important issues of the day. No need for harsh words or petty posturing. If things got heated, a quick round or two of gin rummy or a best of three bout of greased arm wrestling would decide the issue and the loser would take it on the chin and that would be the end of the matter and, likely as not, we'd be at war with Schleswig-Holstein.

Of course nowadays, anyone unfortunate enough to have stumbled across a political debate could be forgiven for believeing that they were watching a particularly grisly episode of the Jeremy Kyle Show. If Ken isn't calling Boris a spatula brained oaf with the breath of a cankered border collie on a diet of St. Agur and pickled herring, then Boris is calling Ken a Jew-hating commie windbag with a face like a bag of spanners and the sex drive of a badly pummelled amoeba that's just run a double marathon....and that's before they've had a chance to say a word about the one who openly admits to being a pansy!

So, how do I think it will go? Well, right now, it's too close to call, but my money's on

* a chap from Interpol accosted me just the other day and said, are you Robert Swipe? If so, I must caution you that anything you say that you later rely on in court will be taken as evidence...


L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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