Prams and Pushchairs

I cannot understand why women always insist on pushing their whelps around in public in prams and pushchairs. Apart from the inconvenience they cause to pedestrians and shoppers, it can’t be much fun for the women, either, especially if they have to combine manoeuvring their offspring around with hauling heavy groceries, too. So why can’t they just leave the brats at home for the duration?

Some, I imagine, would argue that it’s because the little bastards might get lonely or injure themselves if left unsupervised. But that’s bollocks. I sometimes injure myself when left unsupervised (only last week, for example, I cut myself on a tin can) but no one is suggesting putting me in some sort of perambulator and wheeling me around a supermarket. How come? I’d be a lot better behaved than most of the horrible kids one sees. I wouldn’t, for instance, keep demanding sweets or ice cream and then go into a screaming, hour-long tantrum if I didn’t get what I wanted. (That said, I would like a high-definition video camera, so it’s possible, I suppose, that I might start throwing a fit if, while wheeling me around PC World, you didn’t buy me one. One never knows.)

No, the only reason I can think of as to why they push the brats around in public is because they’re somehow proud of the things. They therefore want to put them on show and announce their existence to the world. To “share the joy,” if you will. Thankfully, this problem can easily be dealt with.

Henceforth, whenever I see a toddler in a pram, I’ll say to its owner: “Fuck me! That is disgusting! If we were living in Ancient Sparta, that would have been chucked over a cliff by now. What do you think you’re fuckingwell doing inflicting that on innocent members of the public? Have you no thought for anyone but yourself?” I encourage everyone else to follow my example.

Do this enough, and prams and pushchairs will soon disappear from our streets and supermarkets.

Webcams

In 1899, Charles Pathé set up one of those new-fangled motion picture cameras on a busy London street and filmed passers-by. The resulting featurette lasted only 15 minutes (the camera was hand-cranked, so Pathé’s arm would have fallen off had it lasted much longer). Yet, despite its brevity, minimalist plot, and lack of big-name stars, Victorian audiences apparently queued round the block.

In 1972, Andy Warhole tried much the same thing when he filmed the Empire State Building. Unfortunately, popcorn sales for this one didn’t reach expectations. Probably because the whole thing lasted over 24 hours. Twenty-four hours of just the Empire State Building, without even a guest-appearance by King Kong, is perhaps overdoing it, even by “Children in Need” standards.

Which brings me to webcams. Not the ones people use to broadcast themselves shagging over the Internet, but those giving 24-hour coverage of town centres and other nondescript sights. Given that Warhole couldn’t turn the most famous New York landmark into a blockbuster, what, then, is the point of live coverage of, say, the centre of Bootle?

Nothing against Bootle you understand (apart from the fact that it's a shithole and its population mainly retards), it’s just that these things simply strike me as being another example of Internet silliness, of which we already have an abundance. Pathé had the excuse that, back then, motion pictures were truly innovative. And, besides, during those 15 minutes, there was at least the off-chance of seeing a suffragette chaining herself to something or a young Winston Churchill giving you the finger. But live pictures of Bootle, taken from a camera mounted half a mile away? You may as well be looking at a postcard (assuming they actually do postcards of Bootle).

The only webcams that strike me of being any use whatsoever, if only because they’re mounted sufficiently close to the “action” to make out people and features, are found at www.thisislondon.co.uk, and show Soho street scenes. Here, once you’ve located a suitable camera (I suggest the one opposite the Café Nero), you can successfully moon it. Then again, given the slow refresh rate of 60 seconds between pictures, this does entail standing around for at least a minute with your backside exposed. Which, given the proximity of all those gay bars on Old Compton Street, is perhaps not the best idea in the world.

Gorgon

It must be terribly difficult for gorgons to get hair appointments. I'll bet whenever they phone up their local salon, they're invariably told that the stylist is fully booked up for the foreseeable future. Even if, by some miracle, they do manage to make a booking, their problems have only just started.

Someone like Michaeljohn of Albermarle Street, London, for example, is unlikely to want to deal with a gorgon personally, however much money she's got to spend. There's too much risk of being turned into stone if he inadvertently looks her in the face while inquiring after her health, her sex life, or whatever. He'd therefore let one of his lesser-qualified, expendable underlings deal with the appointment. This in itself would undoubtedly result in an inferior hairstyle. You can beat experience, after all.

Of course, gorgon hair, being composed of live snakes, is a problem area in itself. They'd probably go for you if you tried to stuff them into heated rollers. They almost certainly would if you attempted to trim them. So I'd imagine it's necessary to stun each one separately before you can start do anything creative with the hair.

But is it really practical to be that creative with gorgon hair? For instance, you might be able to give her what, initially, looks like a perfect perm. But two hours later, all the stunned snakes are going to start waking up and squirming all over the place, thus destroying all those hours of precision styling. Worse, if you've dyed the hair (some of the black mambas might be going a bit grey, and you want to disguise the fact), the snakes aren't going to recognise one another and will start fighting.

I suppose male gorgons, if there are any, have a better time of it. They can at least apply something thick and gooey to their locks, such as Extra Strength Brylcreem, which will stop the snakes wriggling so much. But bald gorgons are the most fortunate. Except during the initial stages of alopecia, when their hair loss runs all over the house and climbs up curtains.

If I were a gorgon, I wouldn't spend too much time in the countryside. If I lay down in a field for a nap, for instance, I might wake up and find a grass snake trying to fuck my head.

Stones

As everyone knows, gorgons are so hideously ugly that, if people look at them, they're instantly turned into stone. I, however, have exactly the opposite problem to a gorgon: I am so fucking good-looking that, whenever I pass by, any stones in the immediate area are turned instantly into people.

As you can imagine, this causes no end of hassle. Little pebbles, for example, become little people, about two to three inches high. But, unfortunately, they don't then adopt Irish accents and bury pots of gold at the end of rainbows which I can easily dig up to enrich myself, nor do they sit on toadstools and wear pointy hats with bells on the end. No, instead, the vast majority are usually eaten pretty quickly by cats and dogs, or else chased down rabbits holes by ferrets, and therefore, fortunately, the phenomenon goes largely unnoticed.

Not so stone cottages, though. As I walk past, they literally come apart at the seams (which can be particularly embarrassing if their occupants are having a bath or having sex when it happens), and each newly humanized block goes off and hangs around public lavatories in order to be buggered by homosexuals. Hence the term “cottaging.”

As for large masses of stone, such as boulders and mountains, those are transformed into fearsome giants which then attack major population centres. The reason why you never hear about this happening is that the Government imposes a blanket D Notice while it sends out the armed forces to destroy the creatures.

But this is nothing compared to what happens to human-sized stones. These, as you might expect, turn into pretty regular-looking humans. Sadly, however, because their only previous experience was being a stone, which isn't a particularly challenging existence, they have no knowledge or intelligence. (Indeed, they are barely sentient and are classed as plant life by some scientists.) They therefore buy The Daily Mirror and vote Labour. Consequently, every rock in my immediate area risks a return of Gordon Brown in next year's General Election.

What can I do to prevent this happening? I suppose I could endeavour to make myself less attractive. To this end, perhaps I should travel to Ireland and join aerobics and jujitsu classes. Then, pretty soon, like everyone else over there who does that sort of thing, I'll acquire a flabby, 48 inch chest and a humungous arse, and so, hopefully, will no longer be a danger to rocks.

Lycanthrope

Turning into a werewolf is regarded by most people as an embarrassing affliction, akin to herpes or BO. Therefore those with lycanthrope tendencies tend to quickly change the subject if mention of their problem comes up in conversation. However, I believe that they're mistaken. If you think about it, turning into a wolf on a regular basis confers quite a few advantages.

For example, your weekly food bill can be reduced dramatically. This is because instead of having to eat expensive, gourmet meals, you can survive quite contentedly on whoever lives nextdoor. Or, failing that, on a few cans of Pedigree Chum and the occasional Bob Martin tablet. You just turn yourself into a wolf each time you feel hungry.

Actually, I'm surprised that restaurants don't employ werewolves as waiters. If they did, they could bite the customers and transform them into wolves, too. Then the management wouldn't have to serve up anything expensive - just a few helpings of dog food would suffice. As a result, profit margins could be increased dramatically.

On the social side, lycanthropy is a positive boon. Conventional, non-metamorphosising humans have to keep themselves entertained in a number of bizarre, expensive ways. Going to the cinema, attending sports events, watching television, and travelling to exotic destinations, for instance. But if you turn into a werewolf, you can keep yourself inexpensively entertained all evening simply by retrieving thrown sticks, chewing on slippers, and chasing postmen.

On the other hand, there are a few downsides to lycanthropy, I suppose. Those who remember the 1939 film, "The Wolfman" may be aware that, because of 1940s' censorship restrictions, certain scenes had to be cut. I refer, of course, to those depicting Lon Chaney pissing against lamp posts, licking his balls, shagging stray dogs in the middle of the street, and being pursued by a council-employed "pooper-scooper". Nor was there any mention of the fact that he had to wear a flea collar almost permanently. Perhaps these omissions will be rectified in the remake, starring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, which is due to open in November.

Whatever, all in all, being a werewolf is generally a good thing.

The King's Head

Many of us have drunk in pubs called The King’s Head or The Queen’s Arms. But have we ever given any thought as to why they're so named? This question occurred to me this morning, so I went to Hertford Library’s local history section to do a little research. My results are, I think, quite interesting and reveal that, until just a few centuries ago, all pubs were in fact required by law to call themselves after a monarch or nobleman's bodily part.

This was all well and good for such places as The Duke's Head, The Prince's Knee, and The Queen's Arms. The yeomanry of Olde England drank ale to their hearts' content in these inns, and helped enrich their local economies as a result. Unfortunately, not all pubs were so blessed. In particular, establishments like The King's Cock and The Queen's Tits.

The main problem here was the painted sign outside. Every inn in the land had to have one in order that the illiterates, who then made up the majority of the population, could identify where they were getting pissed, so that their designated postillions would know exactly where to pick them up afterwards. But this caused the sign painters no end of grief. How were they expected to paint an accurate representation of the monarch's member or mamilla? Unless the regent in question had previously moonlighted in the area as a flasher or strippagram, obviously no-one had ever beheld the sight.

At first, therefore, they would request a private audience with the King or Queen. Once they'd been ushered into the royal presence, the monarch would say, “Arise, my good sir. Is there some way we may assist you?” At which point, the sign painter invariably answered, “Yes. Can I see you cock?” Or “Show us your tits, please.”

After the first couple of dozen executions, the remaining sign painters realised that it maybe wasn't a particularly good idea to ask such direct questions. So they settled on what they imagined was an acceptable alternative: They painted pictures of their own cocks, instead, on the assumption that these would be more or less identical to the royal organ. Unfortunately, it was rarely so.

Artists all have small cocks. It's a well-known fact. So pubs throughout the land started displaying signs that were largely blank, except for a little picture of the teensiest, most flaccid looking pink, wiggly thing in one corner. Naturally enough, when word got through to the Palace, the monarch - who usually prided himself on being well-hung - flew into a rage and ordered troops to destroy the offending inns and beat up their regulars. Vast areas of the country were subjected to reigns of terror.

After a while, pissed off landlords came up with another solution: They ordered the sign painters to use shire horses and elephants as their models. Thereupon, hostelries the length and breadth of England sprouted signs with pictures of penises the length and breadth of England. They were really humungous. They made the royalty in neighbouring countries quite jealous.

The reigning monarchs were, of course, delighted. Many a King's Cock played host to the royal family for the weekend. The village in which the pub was located benefited enormously from the royal patronage. All was sweetness and light. But disaster was not far off.

One day, Anne Boleyn was visiting England, on holiday from France. She chanced to stop off at a King's Cock near Dorset. On seeing the sign, she exclaimed, “Fuck me! King Henry's hung like a fucking wildebeest!” Thereupon she resolved to have him for herself.

Well, we all know what happened next. Anne Boleyn went to the royal court, said to Henry VIII, “I want to suck your massive, throbbing cock till it bursts, then I want you to fuck me with it”, and pleaded with him to marry her. Naturally enough, Henry was quite charmed by this and got a raging hard on. So he decided to divorce his Queen, Katharine of Aragon, and marry Anne. This caused the reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Protestant work ethic.

Sadly, things didn't go too well thereafter. On the wedding night, Henry VIII stripped off and revealed his erect member to his new Queen. She was most unimpressed. Compared to the painted sign she’d seen in Dorset, it was as nothing. “You are fucking tiny!” she exclaimed. "I have seen bigger things chewing holes in a lettuce leaf!" Consummation of the marriage was an embarrassing affair, and the King never forgot this insult. Indeed, soon after his Queen gave birth to the future Elizabeth I, Henry flew into a small cock-induced rage, complained that it had been big beforehand but, because of Anne's witchcraft, it was now much diminished, and so charged her with high treason and had her executed at the Tower of London.

So as this sort of thing could never happen again, Queen Mary decreed that all pubs called The King's Cock should henceforth rename themselves The Red Lion or The Slug and Lettuce, or something equally innocuous. Likewise all the other silly sounding places, like The Queen's Clit, The Duke's Scrotum, and The Prince's Rather Loose Bowel Movement. At a stroke, much of England's heritage disappeared.

Anyhow, after this, never let it be said that you don't learn something of value when you read this Journal.

Fight

Because I’m not a member of the Working Class, I don’t do prole things such as attend football matches or go to rowdy, down-market nightclubs. Consequently my opportunities for getting into a decent fight are rather limited. This seems most unfair. Where is it written that it's perfectly acceptable for me to punch a pre-match Arsenal fan or head-but a Plaistow resident in an East End dive, but I mustn't do similar at, say, Wimbledon or Le Gavroche?

What we must do is change attitudes here. Part of the problem at up-market events such as tennis matches is, I feel, that there are no clear demarcation lines drawn between the various fans. So, for example, it could be that an Andy Murray supporter actually does want to give an Andy Roddick supporter a good kicking, and vice-versa, but neither can easily identify who's who in order to do so.

To rectify matters here, individual tennis players should be made to wear special, unique colours. Likewise their supporters. And, as at football matches, rival supporters should be kept in different parts of the ground, facing one another. In this way true enmity could develop. Cliff Richards could be brought on, too. But instead of singing "Congratulations", or similar garbage, he should be encouraged to direct a barrage of "You're going home in a fucking wooden box!" at Murray’s supporters opposite. Maybe Katherine Jenkins could be booked to respond in kind with "Shit on Roddick, shit on Roddick today!" for the opposition.

As a result, after the match, the cucumber sandwich tents and the strawberries and cream tents would become scenes of unparalleled savagery, as rival supporters glassed one another with Champagne flutes and rammed strawberry pummets into each other’s faces. Police would have to be brought in with water canons to disperse the mobs. The whole thing would become so much more exciting.

There's opportunity for violent rivalry at up-market restaurants, as well. Everyone knows that vegetarians are unnatural degenerates, but no-one does anything about it. But if, say, Le Gavroche were to pen off a Vegetarians Only area, the morally-sound carnivores would then know their enemy. So, come the end of the evening, post coffee and Cognac, you'd be able to set upon the vegetarians, or wait for them to finish and beat them up outside.

Or better still, different restaurants could have gangs affiliated to them. Then the Le Gavroche Stanley Knife Gang could arrange to have fights with L'Escargot Cut Throat Razor Firm. Better yet, both could forget their differences for the evening, team up, and go and kick the shit out of everyone eating at Quo Vadis.

In this way, my life would become a tad more colourful.

Heat

I do not like excessive heat, such at today's. It displeases me. Out of context, anyway. In context, however, it's fine. When I was at the Victoria Falls, for example, the temperature was much as it is here, now, in Bumble's Green. But that's what you expect in that part of the world. Just as you expect crocodiles, too, and so don't grumble overly if one emerges from a river and eats your children. Whereas, if a crocodile were to emerge from the River Lee and and started eating people's children, I'm sure everyone would start bitching about it. Context again. So what I'm saying, basically, is that, just as man-eating crocodiles are fine for Rhodesia, but not for here, temperatures in the 90s should confine themselves to Rhodesia, as well.

Given the extremes I'm currently experiencing, therefore, I'm having to sit in the garden, dressed only in shorts. Fortunately, I am possessed of the sort of body that can be displayed without embarrassment. Still, I don't like the idea of giving the women of the area a “free show”, as it were. But what can be done?

I suppose someone could invent the counterpart of one of those Calor gas-powered patio heaters that pubs use outside in winter. Except it would have a refrigeration mechanism inside, instead, and therefore be a patio cooler, effective over a radius of about six feet. Then again, the disadvantage of having one of these is that it might encourage smokers to come into my garden and congregate underneath in a huddled mass, exhaling their pollutants, getting pissed on cheap lager, and shagging themselves silly. Or worse, it might encourage immigrant crocodiles to emerge from the River Lee in order to more efficiently cool themselves. (Or, if they were male and female, they might shag themselves silly as well.)

I'm sure the crocodiles would eat all the lager lout smokers but, still, they're not something I'd want in my garden. Slugs and snails are fucking bad enough. At least they can be dealt with by pouring salt on them. A crocodile probably wouldn't react in the same way, though. Which is why, when you see one of those Tarzan films where he's fighting with a crocodile in a river, he always uses a knife to kill it, and never bothers trying a bag of Saxa.

My Teeth (2)

I spent much of this morning counting my pearly-white teeth. It appears that I have 29 of them, with no significant gaps. The left hand side of my mouth has more teeth than the right hand side, however. Hitherto, I had tended to chew using this right hand set but, on reflection, have decided that this is obviously a very inefficient use of my mouth. I therefore now intend to start chewing primarily on the left hand side, as the greater of number of teeth will obviously make eating a lot faster and more satisfying.

In my opinion, food packaging should be labelled with an indication of how long the contents will take to eat for any given number of teeth. This would work in a similar way to microwave cooking instructions. For instance, just as a 750 Watt oven might be described as taking three minutes to cook a particular dish and a 650 Watt oven four minutes, so 15 teeth (assuming you eat using just one side of your mouth) might take, in total, two minutes to chew the food as opposed to two and a half if you only have 12.

Indeed, further to this, I feel we should redefine the concept of “fast” food. Rather than being a description of the speed of its cooking, it should refer, instead, to the speed of eating. Some sort of legal upper limit should be imposed, too, for safety reasons, constantly monitored by kitchen and restaurant-mounted closed circuit television cameras and GATSOs. This is because, if you ate too fast while consuming something slippery or irregularly shaped, you could slide off it and accidentally chew off the arm of someone sitting next to you. Accordingly, if people exceeded these speed limits, Food Police should be empowered to hand out on-the-spot penalties. Those miscreants who accrued more than 12 penalty points during any given period would be banned from eating for a period not exceeding 6 months. Persistent offendors should be banned from having teeth altogether.

In this way, eating would once again become a refined, civilized activity.

Tourette's Syndrome

One of the more disturbing aspects of Tourette's Syndrome, at least as far as onlookers are concerned, is that, for no apparent reason and out of nowhere, the sufferer can come out with a string of obscenities and swearwords, aimed at no-one in particular. So, for example, he'll be sitting next to you on the train or bus and then, all of a sudden, will loudly shout "Fuck! Cunt! Shit", and so forth. Naturally enough, this can be most off-putting for many people. I am able, however, to offer a simple, low-cost solution:

Everyone who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome should have a mobile phone permanently affixed to his or her ear when out in public. Then, people will simply assume that all their obscenities are directed at the person on the other end of the line and therefore think no more of it. Indeed, they might even join in.

That said, what happens when a Tourette’s suffer actually is talking to a total cunt over the phone? Does he suddenly moderate his language and change his “fucks” and “wankers” into “fiddle-de-dees” and “twits”? And, for that matter, what of those of us of normal mental balance who just happen to be having a telephone conversation with a complete arsehole and are therefore compelled to use the requisite swear words? Witnessing this, some people might jump to the wrong conclusion and assume we’re suffering from Tourette's. (This is especially a risk if you have one of those poofy hands-free mobiles which are concealed in the pocket.) What to do?

I'd say that, if, like me, you routinely have to talk to lots of total cunts and wankers, you should cut your losses. In other words, before every telephone call, you should sit on park bench or a seat in a railway station, down a can of Tennent's Super or similar, and shout, "I'm going to fuck you sister, you cunt bastard!" at everyone who passes by. Then, your subsequent expletive-filled telephone conversation will go unremarked. Indeed, some people may even feel sorry for you and, if you've got a polystyrene cup and a dog to hand, donate a couple of quid, which would help defray the cost of both the call and the line rental.