Flabby Bastards

Today I went to Selfridges on Oxford Street and bought, amongst other things, a pair of Canali trousers. I noted something quite disturbing while selecting them. For any one specific brand and style, all the prices are identical, regardless of the size. So in other words, I pay the same for my 32 inch waist trousers as does some fat bastard with a 46 inch waist. Although his trousers obviously require more material, more stitching, and of course more work, he is in no way penalised. Such is the case, too, for jackets, shoes, coats, and indeed every other type of garment. Designers have obviously calculated the likely size of the fattest bastard imaginable and used him as their benchmark when pricing labour costs and material. Accordingly, even if someone weighing 40 stone buys a garment, the retailers will still turn a profit. However, because their costs are pitched to cope with the LAZY, FLABBY SHITE, they will make an even greater profit from anyone who buys a smaller garment. This means that I and others of a sensible weight and size are effectively subsidising obesity. We are legitimising flab.

But if our legislators are content with this situation, why let it end there? Why not apply those same principles to the sale of food and other items? In other words, if you can prove that you're physically capable of eating an entire 14lb chicken at a single sitting, it should be sold to you for the same price that someone else, of lesser appetite, pays for a chicken breast. Likewise in a pub. If you are obviously able to handle ten pints of beer without difficulty, you should pay the same for them as someone who buys only two and then collapses. Condoms, sweets, double-glazing - the list of possibilities is fucking endless.

Yes, ridiculous when you think about it, isn't it? In my opinion, therefore, the pricing benchline for clothes should be set to cope with a person whose waist is 32 inches, chest 43 inches, and shoe size 10. These sorts of people (who, co-incidentally, count me amongst their number) should pay just a nominal fee for their clothing. Anyone over those dimensions, however, should accrue proportionately higher charges until it eventually becomes uneconomic for them to go clothes shopping. After all, if you do have a 46 inch waist, what the fuck point is there in wearing stylish clothes in the first place? These people make me want to puke.

Bull

In order to win over meat-eaters to the vegetarian cause, many vegetarian meals are designed to look exactly like their bovine, porcine, and equine counterparts. For example, most veggieburgers have the appearance and texture of beefburgers. Similarly, veggie frankfurters are virtually indistinguishable from the genuine article. They even approximate the taste, unfortunately.

This is all very laudable and no doubt helps ease the transition towards a totally herbivorous lifestyle. Why, though, is all this effort directed solely at proselytising carnivores? Why is nothing done to help those vegetarians - possibly an equal number - who are trying to kick the habit and become meat-eaters?

In my opinion, scientists should direct their attentions towards breeding strains of cattle that look like cucumbers and carrots. Then, aspiring carnivores would feel less guilty and/or nauseous about consuming them. Indeed, as long as the cucumber didn't moo as it was sliced, people probably wouldn't notice the difference. Only when they bit into it would they realise it was meat, and not vegetable, but by then they'd have committed themselves. In time, they would be able to leave such pretence behind and tuck, guiltlessly, into a genuine fillet steak.

Of course, there is always the risk that a specially bred bull-cucumber might get loose, infiltrate the supermarket greengrocery section, and shag a genuine cucumber. If he came from a BSE infected strain, he could pass on the infection. Then people could catch Kreutzfeld-Jacob disease from their salads.

By the same token, however, the existence of bull-cucumbers would be a boon to farmers plagued by trespassers. To frighten off such people, they currently have to put "Beware of the Bull" posters in their fields. But, with the advent of the hybrids, they needn't need go to the expense of having a real bull in the field any more. They could just put a cucumber in there, and no-one would know the difference

Sock Catastrophe

One of my fucking socks has a got a hole in it. This means that, although its fellow sock remains in pristine condition, I'm nevertheless going to have to bin both of them. What a tragic waste - the exact equivalent of the Indian custom of suttee, where an otherwise perfectly serviceable widow is chucked on to the funeral pyre along with her husband's corpse. The only other alternative is to saw off one of my feet, which I'm not prepared to do, because it would then render all my left-shoes redundant.

If both socks were designed to wear out concurrently, this situation would never have arisen, of course. But the fact of the matter is, one of them always goes first. Perhaps, then, rather than selling socks in pairs, stores should sell them in threes, the extra acting as a backup sock, able to be turned inside out, as required, so as to fit either the right or left foot. An additional benefit is that three-legged people, of whom there are a few in the world (and who, because of their scarcity, aren't usually catered for by the international sock conglomerates) would be able to buy matching socks without embarrassment.

Then again, the three-legged people are probably going to start bitching even more than the rest of us when one of their socks develops a hole, because they're now going to have to throw away three socks instead of two. So perhaps a better solution would be to sell socks singly. In any case, when you think about it, the concept of a "pair" of socks is deeply flawed, discriminating as it does against people such as Heather Mills-McCartney, Long John Silver, and, for that matter, anyone who's trodden on a land mine.

All of which makes me wonder about the legitimacy of that chain of stores called "The Sock Shop." If you go into one and try to buy a single sock, they'll often tell you to fuck off. Well fuck them, too. Unless they're prepared to rename themselves "The Socks Shop", they should be forced by Trading Standards only to sell single socks. Otherwise give these arseholes an inch and they'll take a mile.

Blessed Eggs

There is a definite hierarchical structure to eggs. At the very bottom of the rung is the Economy or Value egg - the "trailer trash" of the egg world. At the top is the free-range variety, laid in straw. Indeed, unscrupulous egg counterfeiters will often take lesser eggs and mix straw in with them in an attempt to persuade gullible bunny-huggers that they're "the real thing." Being produced in a barn is therefore clearly seen as a mark of superiority.

I suppose this accounts for Jesus' status. Unlike other, inferior religious figures, He, too, was produced in a barn. Not only that, but He was laid in a straw-filled receptacle as well. Consequently Jesus has much in common with a free-range egg. Except, of course, no-one prays to free-range eggs very much or expects them to forgive many sins.

I imagine this must have really pissed off First Century hens who lived in the same barn as the Holy Family. Especially when they, themselves, could easily produce three or four in a single go (on a daily basis, too) whereas Mary only managed the one yield, and that took all of nine months to appear. Yet, ultimately, it was Mary's output that got adored by the Magi, ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, and so on.

The hens must have asked themselves, cluckingly, "What the fuck has Her's got that mine haven't?" (Particularly if they were those high-pedigree Colombian black fantail breed whose eggs, these days, sell for a fortune in Waitrose.) Perhaps this explains the Holy Ghost. Maybe members of the Council of Nicea kept getting attacked by chickens, angry at being excluded from the pantheon. So in order to keep from having their arses pecked every morning and boiled eggs exploding in their faces, these early Church elders invented the concept of the Holy Ghost, depicting Him as a dove. In this way, the hens' grievances were assuaged in that, thereafter, they could plausibly claim, "That lad's really one of ours - a fellow bird."

Cotton Socks

This morning, while walking the dogs, I observed a woman doing likewise with hers. Suddenly, and unknowingly, she dropped one of her leads. Being the gentleman that I am, I picked it up, hailed her, and returned it. At this point she smiled sweetly and said to me, "Bless your little cotton socks."

I, of course, have a number of problems with this. First, my socks, like all proper socks, are woollen. Secondly, they're not little. I have size 10 feet. Thirdly, how come she as (I assume) a layperson takes it upon herself to bless anything of mine, let alone socks? It was therefore the exact equivalent of me going, unbidden, into a Catholic Church and trying to get one of the priest's Custard Creams to transubstantiate.

Then again, maybe she isn't a layperson, and she actually does have the authority to give blessings. In which case, why only my socks and no other item of clothing? This is like the Pope appearing before the crowds in St Peter's Square on a Sunday and intoning, "The blessing of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you always. Just you Franciscans in the corner over there, I mean. The rest of you can all go fuck yourselves."

Similarly, then, by saying "Bless your little cotton socks" to the exclusion of all else, the woman may as well have added, "But I hope your fucking trousers rip, your flies burst, and the sleeves drop off your ill-fitting polyester jacket, you cunt."

What can inspire such unwarranted animosity? Whatever it is, I won't tolerate it. The next time I see her, I'll order the dogs to attack and eat her.

My Breakfast

I have before me an egg. It is poached to Perfection, the lustrous orange of its yolk resplendent against the expansive, blemish-free nullity of the white, like a torrid, late summer sun discharging its radiance through the misty wraith of dawn. Without doubt, my egg is superior to all other eggs hereabouts - the eggy quintessence. Those possessed of lesser eggs must envy me. The problem is, however, save for my part in the poaching process, I can't take much credit for it. I bought this egg in a carton of a dozen from Waitrose, all of which were essentially indistinguishable from one another when viewed from the outside. Therefore I couldn't actually tell whether I'd got a really shit egg or a truly superlative one until each was cracked open.

Surely, this is an iniquitous situation, exactly akin to going to a car showroom where they sell you a car in an unlabelled box, so you don't know whether it's a Ferrari or a Skoda until you've got it home and opened it. Would such a car showroom stay in business for long? I doubt it. Ideally, eggs should be without shells, then you'd be able to gauge their quality at a glance. In fact, in their early stages, eggs are without shells. You can, for example, go to a kosher butcher and buy a chicken - they call it a "boiler" - containing unlaid, shell-less eggs. (And very pleasant they are, too, served up in a soup or stew.)

But, by necessity, an egg develops a shell before being laid. If it didn't, and the hen ejected it as just a liquid mass of yolk and white, the result, when it came to term, would probably be a round, flat chicken. (Unless the hen ejected it into a purpose-built, chicken-shaped mould, of course.) Perhaps, then, we should look to frogs for a solution.

Frogs' eggs, or "spawn" as they're known, are transparent. I've never tried to boil or poach one, but if I ever did, I'd know exactly which to boil or poach simply by looking at it. This would make things a lot easier. So in my opinion, we should breed hybrid chicken/frogs and get our eggs from them. As an added bonus, the hybrid creature would probably produce several hundred eggs each time it laid. On the down-side, we might never get a perfect orange yolk. In a worst case scenario, the yolks would be black, exactly like the yolks in frog spawn. In combination with the white, this would result in grey scrambled eggs and grey omelettes. Just looking at them would undoubtedly fill me with depression and a loathing for life. Every time I cooked an omelette or scrambled eggs, Ingmar Bergman would come into my kitchen and make moody, depressive black and white Swedish language films about me, lamenting the futility of my existence. Consequently, I'd have to take lithium all the time, otherwise I'd attempt suicide with each and every omelette and quiche. Or else I'd try to fuck Liv Ullmann, or she'd try to fuck me, either of which is probably just as bad as suicide. Or a good excuse for it, anyway.

Droit de Seigneur

Last week, thanks to a brief moment of carelessness while climbing over a stile, I managed to tear the pocket of one of my jackets. Normally, I would simply discard the thing and buy a replacement. On this occasion, however, because the jacket in question was purchased some years ago at the now defunct Dunn & Co, and is therefore an historical artefact in its own right, I decided to have it repaired for the benefit of future generations. But whom to entrust with the responsibility of such as weighty task?

It so happens that my local dry-cleaner, an Italian with a highly-desirable daughter (long-legs, "well-stacked", looks to die for) has a sign above his establishment which boasts that, amongst other things, he is capable of "Invisible Repairs". This sounded to be what I was after, so, on Thursday, I handed the jacket over to said dry-cleaner, and asked for it to be both cleaned and restored to its former, pristine, un-torn glory. This morning, after an interval of six days, I retrieved the jacket. And, I have to tell you, he has done an amazing job on it. Indeed, even extremely close up, you can't see the stitching. In fact, the repairs are so invisible that, to the unskilled, intellectually inferior eye, the jacket pocket still looks ripped.

To achieve this sort of restoration requires both expertise and a smidgen of genius. I'll bet that my dry cleaner includes royalty amongst his clientele. Specifically, he works for emperors. The reason I'm pretty sure of this is because emperors tend to wear magic clothes that can only be seen by really intelligent people. To thick people, like those in the famous Hans Christian Andersen tale, the clothes are invisible.

Unfortunately, emperors have to take these thick people into account because they comprise the majority of the population. This means that, whenever an emperor accidentally tears his magic clothing, he can't have it repaired conventionally. If he ripped, say, the seat of his pants and had normal, "visible repairs" done, to the intellectually disadvantaged, it would look as if someone had simply sewn a square of fabric on to his bare arse. Consequently, he goes for "invisible repairs", as carried out by my dry-cleaner, which blend in with the surrounding material.

But why should my dry-cleaner decide that my clothes were fit for invisible repairs, too? There can only be one answer: He reckons that I am of royal blood. Next time I see him, therefore, I shall claim droit de seigneur and take the opportunity to give his daughter a fucking good seeing-to.

Exterminate Feral Youth

History has shown us that it's very dangerous to upset the natural ecological balance. For example, when the Chinese virtually exterminated their native starlings back in the 1960s, all sorts of nasty insects and pests - creatures that would otherwise have been eaten by the starlings - became rampant and destroyed crops, leading to famine. Similarly, unless Scottish deer are periodically culled and turned into Waitrose Venison Burgers, it's been proved that they breed at an exponential rate and destroy their own habitat.

With this in mind, in my opinion we should re-examine the ways in which the Welfare State deals with retired people. In days goneby, of course, old hags were simply cast out by their families on account of their being too smelly and toothless. As a result, said hags were forced, by necessity, to build gingerbread houses in the middle of forests, wear black, pointy hats, and eat children. Today, however, these same people receive pensions and, in many cases, are housed and fed by local authorities. They therefore no longer have proper incentives to eat children. Consequently we are now suffering a plague of FUCKING WORTHLESS YOUTH.

Look at any town or city. It's impossible to walk down the street without encountering at least a couple of dozen of these spotty, long-haired, incomrehensible, manner-less, hood-wearing, lager-swilling, McDonald's chewing little SHITS.

Restore the natural balance, say I. Empty the old people's homes. Eventually the pensioners' instinct will assert itself once more and they will return to their natural forest habitat and Youth-predatory activities. In fact it might be an idea, at first, to supply them with custom-made witch costumes and enchanted houses just in case - like today's Eskimos who've lost their igloo-building skills - they've temporarily forgotten the modus operandi. Then again, they may have to dramatically re-think the way in which they go about entrapping Youth. In the days of Hansel and Gretel, it was enough to build a moderately sized cottage out of gingerbread bricks and equip it with liquorice doorknockers. The filthy, disgusting, verminous children would succumb to their own greed and could then be lured inside with relative ease and quickly cooked. Today, though, it would probably be necessary to build somewhat more substantial structures using "brand name" and "designer" ingredients, otherwise the cretinous modern Youth, whose existence is effectively defined by this kind of crap, simply wouldn't be interested. So, for example, you might need to create the external walls from Pepsi Max cans adorned with Ecstasy tablets, while the doors and their adornments would have to be made from a mixture of Chicken McNuggets and M&Ms. And so on - the whole lot sponsored by Reebok or Adidas.

Whatever, with the geriatrics released back into the wild once more, the numbers of FUCKING YOUTHS would quickly plummet. Thus England would once again become a green and pleasant land.

Re-Animator

At 10.30 am I went to the doctor for my annual, pre-Xmas cholesterol test. Hopefully, when the results come through, my cholesterol will prove to be of the same high-quality that it always has been. If so, and there's a surplus, I may even donate some of the extra to those unfortunates who have less than me. (I've always been rather thoughtful in this respect.)

Anyhow, while waiting to have my blood extracted, I took the opportunity to read some of the notices posted up on the surgery walls. Curiously, one was for a local undertaker. Thinking about it, isn't this being rather defeatist? After all, if, say, a whorehouse were to plaster its walls with adverts for VD clinics, or a restaurant displayed a stomach-pump and a range of indigestion remedies on its menu, your probable first reaction would be to have serious doubts about the quality of what was on offer.

But a more worrying possibility now occurs to me. Suppose it's actually a reciprocal arrangement, and the undertaker has adverts up for the local doctor? The clear implication of this is that death is not necessarily the end, and that something can, in fact, be done about it. What sort of doctor can bring corpses back to life, though? As far as I'm aware, not even BUPA offer this sort of thing (or if they do, it's not included in the £65 monthly tariff that I currently pay). The matter must therefore be investigated further. Accordingly, the next time there's a violent thunderstorm, I'll nip round to the surgery and take a peek in through the window. If I see a hunchback in there and, in the background, hear maniacal cries of "It's alive! It's alive! IT'S ALIVE!" then my worst suspicions will be confirmed. In the meantime, perhaps I should offer to equip all the local villagers with flaming torches just to be on the safe side.

My Evening Meal

There are two ways to make felafel. There is the wrong way, and there is my way. Here is my way:
Ingredients:

1 x cup of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight (Don't use the tinned variety, for fuck's sake, and resist any urge to cook the soaked chickpeas beforehand - they must be used "raw".)
A fistful of fresh parsley, finely chopped with a mezza luna or similar
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 tsp cumin
2 tsp cayenne pepper
6 tbsp chickpea flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tsp baking soda
Pan of vegetable oil

Method:

Put the chickpeas into a food-processor, together with the parsley, garlic, onion, cumin, cayenne, salt, baking soda, and pepper. Process, but not until pureed or anything like that, or you will regret it. (Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.) You want a sort of granular consistency. Once this is done, put into a bowl, add the chickpea flour, and stir thoroughly. When you have, place the mixture into a fridge for about an hour. This done, roll out the mixture into balls, each about the size of a ping-pong ball. Then fry in a pan of hot oil at least three inches deep, about half a dozen at a time. When they're cooking properly, they'll bob to the surface. Leave to fry until brown, then place onto kitchen rolls so as to soak up any excess fat. Eat in pitta bread, with salad, tahine, and chilli sauce.

Result:

My felafel is so fucking good that, when I fart afterwards, it no longer sounds like a fart. Instead, it sounds like Placido Domingo singing De' miei bollenti spiriti from La Traviata. Which, of course, is a bit hard on Placido Domingo when he does sing De' miei bollenti spiriti from La Traviata because members of the audience are likely to say "Do you mind!?", "Can someone open a fucking window, please?", and "Fuck me! What a stench!" But that's a small price to pay for having my arse play classical music. My only regret is that I have just one arsehole, rather than two, so I can only enjoy it in mono, and not stereo. Additionally, the sound can be a bit hissy, I suppose, but I'm soon going to have Dolby-B noise reduction fitted to my arse to deal with this problem. Such, anyway, is the Perfection of My Evening Meal.

A Spider in my Shower

This morning I washed a spider down the plughole while taking a shower. Again.

I'm averaging about three kills a week now. It's not that I go into the shower with the deliberate intention of drowning a spider (Hygena and Dolphin would presumably sell bathroom suites with integral arachnids for people who actually wanted to slake their bloods lusts in this way). They just happen to be collateral damage, much like Afghan wedding guests and Dresden civilians. Consequently, though I can publicly regret the loss of life, I feel no real guilt or sense of responsibility for it.

It does occur to me, however, that something more sinister could be going on here. A few months ago, it would only take a couple of seconds for the average spider to be swept away. Now, though, they appear to be becoming increasingly more resilient. Today's, for example, inclusive of legs, was about four inches across. He was therefore able to grip the edges of the plughole for a good one and a half minutes before succumbing to the flow of the water and the suds from my up-market triple-milled soap and the residue from my lime and mint hair conditioner.

I am suddenly reminded of the film, "Zulu." As you may recall, when Cetshwayo's warriors began their attack on Rorke's Drift, they initially probed its defences by deliberately sacrificing their first wave of troops. Only when they'd worked where the British guns were, and their firepower, did they commit the bulk of their army to the attack. So exactly the same scenario could well be playing itself out in my bathroom: the first spiders were merely the expendable foot-soldiers of a spider "impi", testing the efficacy of my shower. But when they have, that's when the main attack could arrive.

So what do I do when three thousand spiders suddenly come at me at once? Stanley Baker and Michael Caine would up-end wagons and surround the shower with oxen. The trouble is, an ox in my shower would probably be even more of a problem to dislodge than a spider. You can't readily force oxen down the plughole, even if you use the power jet on them. They just sit there and moo, blocking the outlet completely. Or worse, they deposit large ox pats all over your bathroom floor and shag female oxes.

I really can't be having this. Especially as, given today's atmosphere of anti-militarism, there's virtually no chance of me getting a Victoria Cross out of it. In future, therefore, I may well take all my showers at the gym. Then it becomes someone else's problem.

Planning Permission

This morning I went to the gym again. Not, however, to lose unsightly blubber or anything like that. No, I only go in order to maintain my existing, magnificently honed physique. That's to say, I don't want to pile on extra muscle, but nor do I wish to risk being on the receiving end of kicked sand on beaches. Looking at the other people there, I daresay most have the same motives as myself. But there are, of course, some others who want to either lose a few stone in weight or, in a handful of instances, totally transform their appearance through bodybuilding.

It's this latter group that causes me concern. In particular, a delightful girl called Christine. In my opinion, she doesn't actually need much work doing, but nevertheless appears to be pumping iron to excess. To what end, then? The thing is, if you want to totally transform, for example, your house - build an extension, say, add a minaret with integral muezzin, or perform a loft conversion - you are first obliged to apply to the council for planning permission. This has to be made public, with the plans and, often, an artist's impression of the desired end-result available in the council offices for scrutiny. That way, if anyone in the area has specific objections, he can write in and demand that the plans be either scrapped or modified.

In my opinion, the same rules and regulations should apply to those who go to gyms. In other words, prior to signing up, you should inform the council of your plans and post an artist's impression of what you intend to look like at the end of your course of training. So if, for instance, Christine intends to carry out a religious conversion and become a burqa-clad Muslim with the muscles of a She Hulk, she'd first have to alert the council. Then I and others would have an opportunity to object or file counter proposals. So I might say, OK with a religious conversion, but to Reform Judaism, not Islam; the bust is nice as it is, so don't overdo it with the bench press and, yes, the arse does need a little work, so more effort with the leg raises, please. And finally, the hair looks better up, not down. Then we'd end up with a woman who was perfectly acceptable to all right-thinking people.

Of course, I'm sure some dickheads will totally ignore the regulations and carry out the work regardless, hoping no-one will notice. But in just the same way as someone who, without permission, converts his outside lavatory into a pagan temple with a pyramid of human skulls outside can be forced to turn it back to the way it originally was, anyone who bypasses the council and transforms himself from a 20 stone tub of lard into a Daniel Craig lookalike should be force-fed, foie gras-style, until he returns to his original shape. Only if he goes through the proper channels should the work be permitted. The rules are there for a reason.


Yes to the plans on the left, no to those on the right

BNP

Whenever I walk the dogs, the cocker spaniel always chooses to shit and piss directly opposite a particular, otherwise unremarkable house at the end of the road. As this has been the case for several years I paid it no need and attributed the habit to mere cussedness on the dog's part. I have learnt today, however, that the house's owner is on the BNP membership list which was recently published on the Internet. I wonder, then, if this really is a mere co-incidence?

Climate Change

In common with many people, I tend to dress according to the prevailing weather. So when it's hot and sunny outside, I will wear lightweight trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. Conversely, if, like today, it's freezing and pissing it down, my clothes tend to reflect that fact by being heavier and thereby better able to afford protection against dampness and colder temperatures. Thinking about it, however, this is rather an arse-about-tit way of going about things.

Why should I have to modify my wardrobe to take account of the weather? Why, for a change, can't the weather alter itself to take account of what I'm wearing?

The fact that it doesn't is, in my opinion, due entirely to the pernicious influence of the Abrahamic, monotheist religions of Judaism, Christianity and, more latterly, Islam.

Back in Ancient times, when everyone had a pantheon of gods for each and every purpose, things were a lot more efficient, of course. If, for example, I was a Greek who'd bought a heavyweight, water-proof tunic which I wanted to wear that day in order to demonstrate my taste and sense of style, I'd simply pray to the relevant god in the morning and the requisite weather would be delivered within the hour. (Or failing that, inscribing "Ganymede is a cunt" on the back of the garment normally provoked the Greek rain god into sending a deluge.) Or if someone else wanted to show off his new, lightweight "breathable" cuirass, he'd pray to Helios and have the sun god shine rays upon him. And so on.

Given this state of affairs, it wasn't uncommon back then to see people within the same, small area, or even within the same room, tracked by their own personal rain clouds, sunbeams, blizzards, or whatever, all corresponding to whatever it was they were wearing. And, as an added bonus, it made the jobs of Ancient Greek meteorologists that much easier: In order to give a fairly accurate forecast, all they had to do was find out what the best-selling items in the Ancient Athenian equivalent of Top Shop were on any given day.

Unfortunately, all this changed with the advent of monotheism and the redundancy of multiple gods. The Ancients Israelites soon discovered that "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" also meant "Thou shalt have no other weather except a uniform, rather hot, arid climate." It made no difference if you bought snow boots and a kagool and prayed for a blizzard - nothing much happened, climatewise. (Unless you were an Arctic-dwelling Israelite. But, then again, you were still buggered if you then prayed for temperatures of 140 degrees.) Which is why desert dwellers all now wear much the same sort of garments and why Bedouin versions of magazines such as GQ and Vogue are all so dull and uninspiring. We now suffer from "one size fits all" climatic conditions to match our "one size fits all" god, with geography and season now being the only determining factors.

But do we have to put up with this? I don't. I shall become a Hindu. They have several thousand deities. Amongst them I should be able to find gods and goddesses who correspond to my each and every item of apparel, even unto my socks and condoms. Therefore "Kal ka din aap kay leay achha ho."

My Evening Meal

This evening, round about 6.00 pm, my doorbell rang. I opened it to find Claudia Schiffer, Greta Scacchi, and Isabella Rosselini standing outside. "Joe," they said as one, "you are the only one who is MAN enough satisfy our sexual urges. Please, take us now, either singly or in combination, and fulfil our carnal desires. We will feel incomplete as women until you do." "Sorry ladies," I said. "On any other occasion, I would be happy to. However, tonight, I have more important things to do. I must away and prepare My Evening Meal." Then I shut the door on them.

Indeed, My Evening Meal was far more satisfying than any combination of women could ever be. First, I took a steak of yellowfin tuna. Next, I melted butter in a frying pan, and added - in exactly the right proportions - ginger, pepper, salt, garlic, lemon juice, and a pinch of mixed herbs. Then I pan-fried the steak for just over a minute each side until cooked to perfection. (The mistake that most cooks make with tuna is to overdo it. But it should actually be medium rare.) Finally, I served it up with new potatoes and asparagus.

The result, thanks to my skilful combination of herbs and spices, and my immaculately timed cooking, was sheer perfection. Which is always the case with My Evening Meal.

Walking the Dogs

I include this (not particularly good) entry quite simply because it's taken me several hours to work out how to insert YouTube videos into this blog. Anyhow, herein are the dogs:

Insult

In my opinion, the expression "To add insult to injury" is a fucking stupid one. Anyone who uses it should therefore be given a good kicking. For example, if I kick someone's head in, nut him, punch him, and finally empty a dustbin bag full of fish heads and offal all over him, I don't then say, "Oh, by the way, I feel it incumbent upon myself at this present juncture in time to apprise you of the fact that you are, as far as I and many others are concerned, a total cunt." I don't add insult to the injury. Nor, indeed, does anyone else. What actually happens is that you say, "Oi! Cunt!", or whatever, first of all. Only then do you kick his fucking head in. So basically, what's happening is that you're adding injury to insult, in far greater proportion. Not vice-versa. This being the case, the expression ought to be "To add injury to insult." I trust this helps clarify matters.

Buoyancy

According to the experts, one drowns in sorrow, sinks in despair, and wallows in self-pity. This goes to show that self-pity, though obviously viscous in nature, like mud, is, however, demonstrably more buoyant than despair and sorrow.

As we know from the work of Archimedes, a floating object displaces its own weight in fluid. Therefore, the fact that things invariably sink in pools of sorrow and despair (you never see frogs or hippopotamuses floating on the top of them, for instance) means that the specific densities of both sorrow and despair are incredibly low. Consequently, should you fall in, you'll find it incredibly difficult to get out again. The very worst thing you can do in this instance is think to yourself, "Fuck! This is always happening to me! It's not fucking fair! Life has got a downer on me!" The self-pity will increase your density to such an extent that you'll quickly sink and stick to the bottom. A better method is to think, "Oh woe is me! I am lost to the world! Never again shall they see one of my ilk!" If you're lucky, the resulting sorrow will decrease your density such that it equalises with that of the surrounding sorrow, and you'll achieve neutral buoyancy. Consequently, you should then be able to paddle to the surface, albeit with a certain amount of effort. Of course, company chairmen, politicians, and such should avoid walking too close to deep stretches of sorrow and despair altogether. This is because they're already weighed down with responsibilities. Therefore, once in, they'd never get out

Minotaur Menace

One of my near neighbours, a tall, willowy brunette woman farmer, has two main claims to fame. The first is her herd of Fresian cattle, which have won several national and international gold medals. Her second claim to fame is the fact that she's a lesbian. As far as I'm aware, she hasn't won any gold medals for this (yet) but, for a lesbian, she has done something pretty amazing, all the same: She has become pregnant.

Naturally enough, there is some speculation as to exactly how conception could have occurred. The fact that she isn't a virgin (she became a lesbian only comparatively recently, maybe as some sort of career move, having previously had a string of men friends) means that the Holy Spirit probably can't be blamed on this occasion. Neither have any of her exes been observed popping in for a quick shag. Which only leaves artificial insemination. This worries me. Why?

Because, being a prize-winning cattle breeder, she's accustomed to keeping a fridge full of bull semen, ready and waiting for those moments when she gets an urge to suddenly pop down to the cattle sheds and make one of her cows pregnant. Suppose, though, that she kept the syringe for self-insemination in the same fridge as that for the cows? Isn't there a danger that, mistakenly, she might have given herself the wrong one? If so, and the pregnancy goes to term, the result may well be a minotaur - a creature with the body of a man but the head and tail of a bull.

The problem with a minotaur - even one with an award-winning pedigree - is that you've got to keep it in a specially built labyrinth and feed seven men and seven women to it on an annual basis. If you don't, there's a risk that it will don one of its aforementioned gold medals, put on a Barry White album, and start hanging around cattle sheds, making suggestive, lewd remarks to cows. And if it doesn't get anywhere doing this, it will go on to your lawn, chew your grass, and deposits vast quantities of minotaur shit over the whole area.

Or there's a worse possibility. Instead of having the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull, it could have the body of a woman and the head and tail of a cow. Then especially if it has particularly big, globular tits people might try to milk it. In my experience, if you go up to a woman with a bucket and start squeezing her tits over it for no apparent reason, she gets rather stroppy. A female minotaur would no doubt get even stroppier and gore you for your trouble.

But there's an even worse possibility. Suppose the cows were mistakenly injected with human semen? The result would be a creature with the body of a bull or cow, no tail worth speaking of, but the head, brain, and vocal chords of a human. It would probably make hyper-critical remarks about the quality of your grass as it grazed in your field, comparing it unfavourably to the grass in the rival farmer's field, saying his is greener. And whenever you milked it, it would complain about your technique, saying that you milked too quickly or that your milking stool was very small and unimpressive compared to other farmers' milking stools. Even if you countered by saying it's not how big your milking stool is, it's what you do with it that really matters, people would still laugh at you. You'd be totally humiliated, either way.

I imagine all this explains why, whenever anyone has a minotaur, he usually gets a Greek in to come and kill it. I shall advise my neighbour to do likewise.

Freaks

You often hear newspaper and television reports of people who, in the middle of going about their everyday business, are suddenly afflicted by a powerful wind that seems to spring up out of nowhere. One minute the weather is sunny and serene, the next, roof tiles are blowing off, trees are falling over and crushing cars, and teenage daughters are sucked up and deposited in places inhabited by off-key Munchkins. Then, a few seconds later, it's all over.

Afterwards, these same people invariably start bitching about the whole thing and the damage that's been caused, usually describing the event as a "freak hurricane." But why such a disparaging adjective? Are they trying to say that they'd rather it had been a physically perfect, regular hurricane, of the type that lasts, not seconds, but several days, and can wipe out entire cities, like Katrina almost did to New Orleans?

The stupid wankers don't know how lucky they've been.

And another thing: The word "freak" is offensive to those who don't fit society's stereotype of normality and good looks. It's therefore exactly akin to pointing at groups of midgets and bearded ladies and shouting, "Fuck off and die, you sodding genetically aberrant cunts!" Even if the midgets and bearded ladies are knocking off your roof tiles or pushing trees over on to cars, you shouldn't say this sort of thing because, not only is it plain rude, there's also no telling where it could end.

After all, if you are going to start laying the blame for your destroyed roof and car on adults of restricted grown and overly hirsute women, where do you draw the line? Four foot? Four foot five? Why not five foot 3, then? Before we know it, gangs of neo-Nazis are going to be hanging people like Ronnie Corbett and Tom Cruise from lamp posts and sticking placards with the words "Tree Uprooting Bitch" around the necks of women whose only crime is not to have waxed their upper lips properly.

I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned, the whole, sordid business makes me want to fucking puke.

Typical Munchkins

My Anti-Perspirant

I use Arrid Extra-Dry antiperspirant FOR MEN. I emphasise the "FOR MEN" bit because so, too, does the antiperspirant. Indeed, the words are printed in 72 point bold uppercase. This is no doubt in order to differentiate the product from effeminate rivals such as Right Guard. Here, the "for men" is displayed in tiny type, almost as an afterthought. (In fact, it probably is an afterthought. People who use this stuff are, in actual fact, most probably pillow biters. It's just that you can't easily advertise a deodorant as being "for arse bandits only", however much you'd like to.)

Anyway, it occurred to me as I sprayed my under-arm areas this morning that, although the can was at room temperature, the spray came out feeling very cold, almost exactly as if it had been chilled. But how could this be achieved without the use of complicated, miniaturized refrigeration technology? I decided that an investigation was in order. But before I could progress with this, my thoughts suddenly drifted back to other conundrums (conundra?) in my life. In particular, to Signal Toothpaste.

One of the main selling points of Signal, as you may recall, was that it was one of the first toothpastes to incorporate stripes. In my primary school days, there was much discussion as to how they accomplished this. The consensus, even amongst my teachers, was that the manufacturers first produced a quarter inch diameter line of pure white toothpaste into which they drilled four grooves, which afterwards were filled with a red toothpaste mixture. Thereafter, the individual, ensemble lines were fed, laboriously, into separate metal tubes.

This was a satisfactory explanation for some. But it was not in my nature to accept such simplistic orthodoxy. So, heretic that I was, I performed my own, independent investigation. Accordingly, I took a razor blade to a tube of Signal and sliced it apart. It turned out that both my teachers and my classmates had been wrong. In fact, the tube contained two separate reservoirs of toothpaste: one of red, one of white, both of which fed into an elaborate nozzle arrangement, resulting, when squeezed, in the aforementioned stripey effect.

Not at an earth-shattering discovery, I agree, but to my five year old mind, this was on a par with Galileo proving the heliocentric nature of the solar system in the face of opposition from the established religious and scientific hierarchy. Thus was my childhood over. At that instant, I had become, not just a man, but a Renaissance Man.

So, should I now do the same with Arrid Extra-Dry and take a hacksaw to it? Much as I'd like to, my enthusiasm is stilled somewhat by a warning on the bottom of the can advising me that, if I cut into or puncture it, it will explode. Are they serious, or as they just bullshitting me, worried that I'll discover their secrets and disprove some long-standing, divinely inspired theory, along the lines of God being present in each can of Arrid, personally cooling the spray with his holy breath?

Again, I feel as did Galileo. In Galileo's day, of course, telescopes were used solely for spying on the woman in the house opposite as she gave herself a sponge bath, soaping her pendulous breasts with hot, steaming water. Lest people attempted to contradict Holy Writ with the things, the Holy Inquisition insisted that telescope shops labelled their products with warnings such as "If you point this at the sky, your cock will drop off" and "God will give you venereal disease if you attempt to observe the satellites of Jupiter using this device." Just like Arrid do with their "do not puncture this can or your house will be destroyed" warning.

Most people heeded them. But Galileo scoffed in the face of such admonitions and revealed the nature of the universe. On consideration, following his example, I think I will scoff, too. I shall saw the can in half. And if I discover that God isn't in the can, and the freezing effect is actually produced by a little refrigerator powered by a mouse on a treadmill, I will publish my findings. Even if the Holy Inqusition threaten me with imprisonment or torture on the rack, I will not recant. Unlike that poof Galileo. I bet Galileo used Right Guard. This accounts for his wimpishness. What a twat.

On Toast

I have just enjoyed a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast in a cafe just off Baker Street. Not my usual breakfast, by any means, but a bit of variety is welcome now and then. Indeed, at some time in the future I may become even more adventurous and have, for example, beans on toast or poached eggs toast or creamed mushrooms on toast.

Whatever, this has given me pause for thought. The "on toast" element has, anyway. What would my reaction be if, instead of being served scrambled eggs on toast, I were to receive toast on scrambled eggs? Or toast on beans? And so forth. In other words, could I live with myself if the make-up of the meal were to be effectively reversed?

It's a weighty matter, because the order in which things are constituted can often be of considerable significance. Think, for instance, of Stratford-on-Avon - a very pleasant, inoffensive little town. Yet when, during the floods of last year, it effectively became Avon-on-Stratford, everyone started bitching about the fact. There was a similar reaction back in 1953 when, after a tidal surge, Bexhill on Sea, to all intents and purposes, became Sea on Bexhill. Indeed, some people are still whining about it to this day.

Of course, some blame global warming. They say that the reason for the river/Stratford and sea/Bexhill role reversals is because of increasing levels of CO² in the atmosphere. What's more, they claim, as industrial nations pump out yet more of the stuff, there'll be far worse to come.

An interesting theory, but is there any real science behind it? Going back to my breakfast, you'd have thought that, if a relatively large place like Stratford were susceptible to climate change, then a little plate of scrambled eggs on toast ought to be even more predisposed to suffer the ill-effects of rising CO². Yet (and there were at least 20 diners in the cafe) not once did I see any of the breakfasts doing a sudden back-flip and becoming toast on beans or any such variation thereof. So-called "global warming" is therefore a load of crap pseudo-science. Or is it ....?

What if, instead of toast on beans being a symptom of global warming, it were actually a cause? But because no-one ever gets served toast on beans, our climate remains relatively benign. If someone does, though? If I now go back to the cafe and specifically order toast on scrambled eggs? You think I wouldn't dare? Well fuck you. If, in the next few hours, the polar ice caps melt and the world drowns, you'll know who to blame.

An image of Armageddon?

An Unpleasant Visit to the Supermarket

Early this morning I popped down to Waitrose to get some tuna, new potatoes, green vegetables, wine, and other necessaries for tonight's culinary Act of Creation. Surprisingly for a Tuesday morning, the place was heaving. And it was made even worse by all those fucking pushchairs.

I can't abide it when women insist on pushing these things around in supermarkets. If they genuinely feel a need to wheel their brats around in public places, why don't they just mount them on roller skates, instead? Then there'd be less congestion. I can see where all this will eventually lead if we let them get away with it. In a few years' time when, Brave New World-style, scientists have invented artificial wombs for those who are too lazy to be pregnant for nine months, women will start mounting these on wheels, as well, and pushing them around supermarkets. What with the pushchairs, too, and pensioners on zimmer frames, there'll be total gridlock in the aisles.

In fact, I can see an even bleaker future: Women will start pushing empty artificial wombs around supermarkets in order to advertise their availability, their fecundity, and their desire to procreate. As a result, they'll be pursued by ardent men carrying buckets full of sticky cum. Inevitably, during some of the courtship rituals, some of it will get spilled, so shopping will become a very sticky, messy experience indeed.

I suppose the conventional means of pair-bonding will go out of the window. Instead, women will be attracted to the man who's got the best-looking bucket, irrespective of his intellect or his own looks. Which means that bucket manufacturers will effectively determine the destiny of humanity. And as bucket manufacturers tend to be Working Class Sun readers, they'll sell their best buckets only to fellow members of the Working Class. So within a generation, all humanity could become Working Class. What a sad finalé for our species. In order to avoid this nightmare scenario, I demand that pushchairs be banned from supermarkets.

Pectoral Publicity

I spent much of this morning's gym session staring at Christine's tits. My reasons for doing this were twofold. Firstly, they're of such a size and shape that it's extremely difficult not to have them in your field of view at some time or other during a typical workout. Secondly, it occurred to me that she's passing up what could be an excellent money-making opportunity. I shall explain.

When you descend into the London Underground system on the escalator, you'll note that the walls are adorned with various adverts. This makes perfect sense, as people tend to stare, fixedly, at these walls as they grip the hand-rail. Maybe they're not paying active attention, but they probably take the message in subliminally, nonetheless, and so then go out and buy burgers, ISAs, or have abortions, and whatever else it is that the ad has directed them to do. Similarly, the platforms themselves carry adverts. So, as you stand there waiting to board a train, or to throw yourself under it, you can keep up to date on the latest in cameras, bank loans, make-up, and so forth. Indeed, one poster boasts, "100,000 people will look at this space today. Shouldn't your customers be amongst them?"

Why, then, doesn't Christine take advantage of the fact that people tend to stare a lot at her chest? Maybe not 100,000 people a day, but several dozen, at least, and all of them in the upper income brackets. Given this, I'm sure companies like Barclay's or The Royal Bank of Scotland would be happy to advertise their services across Christine's boobs, as they could confidently expect positive customer conversion of upwards of 10 per cent from such ads. Indeed, when she slims down and it gets a bit more pert, I'm pretty certain there'd be scope for selling advertising space on her arse, too. The sky is the limit, as they say (or maybe her arse, thighs, and stomach, anyway).

The only disadvantage I can see is that, because staring, fixedly, at women's tits will now become socially acceptable, they might have to come up with something new that can be regarded as unacceptable. So I might be looking, intently, at a regular billboard ad for, for example, fixed mortgages or holidays in Tenerife, when, suddenly, some woman from Saatchi & Saatchi or Ernst & Rubicon will slap me across the face and shout, "Are you some sort of fucking pervert or something?" before running off in a huff.

Pectoral Publicity

Transexual

Before he's allowed to go "all the way" and have his dick turned inside out and converted into a vagina, every would-be transsexual has first to live as a woman for about two years in order to prove to doctors that he's not simply taking the piss. In practice, this means going around publicly in women's clothes and makeup and calling himself Yvonne instead of Frank.

Sadly, however, in most cases the pre-op version looks about as convincing as one of those toasted cheese sandwiches they sell on e-Bay that's supposed to be the spitting image of the Virgin Mary (and post-op usually isn't much better, either, but that's by the bye). This transitional phase must therefore be quite humiliating for all concerned.

Fortunately I have a solution. In my opinion, the would-be transsexual should first convert to Islam and call himself Fareed or similar. Then, like most Western converts do these days, he should dress like a Slough minicab driver, complete with jalabiyah, head-doily, and worry-beads. Whatever it takes to "walk the talk", as it were. Only then should he broach the subject of his gender confusion with the doctor. But here's where the benefits of the conversion kick in: He can now live his pre-op two years as a Muslim woman, call himself Fareedah, and so dress in an all-enveloping burqah and anqibah. Consequently, no-one will ever know what a total wanker he looks like. And if, even after the surgery, like many post-op transsexuals, he still resembles an all-in wrestler in drag, he can continue to wear the face-covering anqibah, thus preserving his secret.

I suppose one drawback here is that if too many converts undergo implausible-looking sex changes and wear anqibat as a result, many Muslims are going to start thinking twice about Muhammad's injunction to spread the faith to the unbelievers, lest they inadvertently end up marrying some proselytized "cock in a frock." For much the same reason, they may even start to debate the wisdom of their women covering up in the first place. Indeed, it might only be a matter of time (and a few too many misplaced gropings resulting in a dick and two balls rather than what they expected) before they start insisting that their women reveal all, just to be on the safe side.

To this end, some Imam will probably find a Qur'anic verse which he'll interpret as meaning that, henceforth, all Muslim women should go around publicly in a basque and fishnet stockings, flaunting as much flesh as possible (Which isn't impossible, given that all religious texts are rather like Mongolian restaurants, in that you can usually pretty much create what you want from any combination of what's on offer).

Which will be a great shame. Despite what Jack Straw may think, a great many Muslim females actually are doing us a favour by remaining veiled. And not a few Muslim men would benefit from it, too.

House Hunting

For the past month or so, I have been engaged in an activity generally described as "house-hunting." Why it's so described has always been a mystery to me, however. There's no heroism or danger involved. It's not as if you actually track the house, carefully examining the ground for its spoors. Nor do you don a red jacket and, mounted on a steed, chase it with hounds.
No. The dull reality is that, in the company of an estate agent, you simply turn up at a specified address at a pre-arranged time, look the place over, and, if you like it, buy it. Or if you don't, you don't. In this respect, therefore, it's got about as much to do with hunting as has going into Waitrose and buying a pound of mince. (Except in the case of Waitrose mince, there's at least a minimal amount of risk involved, in that you might end up with something that will you give you an obscure CJD variant.)

Anyhow, I looked at several places. Almost without exception, none was worthy to house me. The so-called "much sought-after location" would turn out to be the sort of location you'd only really seek after if the alternative were some sort of inner city estate populated by hoodies. The kitchen, described as "modern fitted" in the literature, would, on inspection, prove to "modern", only in the sense that D. H. Lawrence is classed as a modern author, and "fitted", only in the sense that a size 3 foot can be fitted into a size 13 shoe.

I can understand, now, why birds bypass estate agents completely and build their own houses; why you don't see signs saying "For sale: Purpose-built nest; would suit single starling or family of finches". But because I'm not a bird, I can't build a nest. And because I'm not Working Class, I can't build a house, either. What I shall do, therefore, is stay put. After all, I have decided I rather like my current location: a sort of oasis of sophistication located just outside Hertford. I am happy here.

Looking ahead, though, I might at some stage encourage some birds to build me a house. It's occurred to me that the only reason birds routinely build nests out of twigs is that they don't know any better. They're generally hatched in a nest made out of twigs, so twigs are the only building material with which they're familiar. If a bird were to be brought up on a building site, on the other hand, it would quickly latch on to the concept of construction techniques using bricks and mortar. Unfortunately, a small starling or a sparrow would only be able to manage something along the lines of a Legoland house or a Barrat Home. I will therefore incubate an ostrich and set the chick down in one of the nearby building sites. Then, when it has built me a four-bedroom detached house, I will displace it, cuckoo-like, and move in. I may even serve its meat up as part of one of my Evening Meals, together with a piquant sauce.