Proportional Representation

Given today’s election results, I find myself – somewhat surprisingly, admittedly – in favour of proportional representation. Not, however, in the crude form as advocated by the Liberals. No, in my opinion, politicians should be prepared to go all the way for their principles.

To this end, I propose maintaining the current constituency-based “first past the post” system but with a few modifications.

Take, for example, a seat where three candidates are standing: Conservative, Liberal, and Labour. The man (or woman – though, frankly, I maintain graves doubts over the wisdom of having given them vote in the first place) getting a majority of the votes would, of course, then be elected. However - and here’s the brilliant bit - it would be administered slightly differently.

Instead of sending the winning candidate to the House of Commons, you’d send just a proportion of him, corresponding to the proportion of the actual vote he received. So if, say, he won with 55 per cent, that’s exactly how much of him you’d return to Westminster, having first removed the superfluous 45 per cent gained by his opponents.

In practice, this would mean lopping his legs off. Or, if he didn’t fancy that, maybe an arm and an arse cheek. Whatever, by implanting this system, you’d guarantee a much higher calibre of politician, because only those willing to sacrifice their limbs and other bits of their body would get in. Who could fail to trust such a an obviously committed person?

I suppose there’s a risk here that, in constituencies fielding large numbers of candidates where the vote is spread evenly, you could end up with a result where the politician in question gets so proportionalised that only his genitals are left. But there have been so many dicks in Parliament in the past, perhaps no-one would notice any qualitative difference.

Garage Attendant

I do hope that, when Jesus eventually makes His second coming, He won’t come back as a garage attendant. If He did, I’m sure that the temptation to change water into Five Star Unleaded would be irresistible. In addition, He’d probably integrate baptism into the drive-through car washing service. Which would be fine if everyone in the car was of the same faith. But what would happen if a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian were travelling together? Bloody religious wars might break out on garage forecourts.

Thinking about it, Jesus’ work at a garage would lead to a whole new form of ministry. Today, if people have a shunt or accidentally scrape another car, they report the fact to an insurance company and have an assessor come along. However, with a Jesus-inspired garage, customers would take their damaged cars to a confessional staffed by a mechanic in overalls and a dog-collar. He would listen to their driving peccadilloes, all told in confidence, give them an estimate on how much absolution would cost - for example, a penance consisting of the recitation of five pages from the Highway Code - and then tell them to come back in three days. When they did come back, however, they’d be told that the penance was now actually 10 pages from the Highway Code, seeing as, in the interim, the mechanic had discovered that the front bumper was having impure thoughts re: a Toyota.

I imagine the concept of Holy Motor Oil would come about, too. People would bring their clapped-out, MOT failures along, hoping for a miracle. They would line up, each partake of the Holy Motor Oil, and recite in turn, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you service me. Only say the Word, and my vehicle shall be healed.”

Actually, this sort of thing would be a boon for dodgy second-hand car dealers. If, shortly after you’d bought your car, its suspension collapsed or a wheel fell off, the dealer could claim it was due to a lack of Faith on your part rather than poor maintenance or shoddy goods on his. He’d say you had it coming because you’d fucked your best friend’s wife, or coveted his ox, or something like that.
The sales of new cars would probably suffer, too. This is because Jesus would go around to breakers’ yards, seek out the compacted lumps of metal, and resurrect them into brand new BMWs and Volvos.

What a cheating cunt.

Caffeine Performance

When a couple return from a first date together, typically, the man will ask the woman, "Do you want to come up for a coffee?" This, of course, is the traditional euphemism for "Do you want to come in for a shag?" There are usually only two possible responses: either (a) "Yes, I'd like to" (ie "I'm gagging for it.") or (b) "Thanks, but it's a bit late, and I'd better be getting back." (ie "I wouldn't let your dick within 50 miles of me.") In both instances, the need to maintain propriety severely restricts the information that can be conveyed, thus leading to possible confusion and/or offence.

In my opinion, therefore, men who buy coffee should first be required by law to declare how good they are in bed. Their points-out-of-ten rating would then determine exactly which variety they'd be allowed to purchase. Eight out of 10 or higher, for example, would give them carte blanche to choose from anything in the shop. Six or 7 out of 10, and they'd be allowed everything but the prestige beans. A score of 5, however, would restrict them to the milder Colombian and Kenyan blends. Anything lower, and they descend into decaffeinated territory and worse. One or 2 out of ten - the premature ejaculators and their ilk - would, appropriately, only be allowed to buy instant coffee.

When you think about it, the reasons behind this should be obvious.

If my policy were to be implemented, the usual to-shag-or-not-to-shag exchange would take on much greater significance, while still remaining within the boundaries of good taste and manners. For instance, the question, "Do you want to come up for a Kwik Save Economy powdered coffee drink?" could be answered with a polite, "No, thank you. I only drink freshly ground Jamaica Supreme." Similarly, someone asking, "Do you want to come up for some Kenko Original? It's indistinguishable from real coffee. I swear to God. I'm begging you to believe me. Please, please, please!", could be responded to with a friendly, "I'm sorry, but I wouldn't drink that WEAK, WISHY-WASHY PISS if you paid me. One gulp, and in a second, it's gone."

On the other hand, “Do you want to come up for a cup or two of Whittard’s Caribbean Mountain?” would undoubtedly bring forth the answer, “God, yes! Oh God! Yes, yes, yes ….. Yeesssssss!”

As you can see, the man is able to convey, not just the fact that he wants a shag, but the exactly quality of the shag that's on offer. For her part, the woman, should she so wish, is able to decline with good grace, explaining exactly why she isn't interested in that shag, yet without giving offence. It's the coffee that she's turning down, not the person.

I suppose in some circumstances, it's conceivable that the coffee could be so good as to surpass the actual sex itself. There are a couple of Jamaican and South American blends that come to mind. The only drawback here, though, would be if the woman accepted the man's invitation to go up for a coffee, drank a cup, had multiple orgasms as a result, and thereafter didn't want any sex. But this needn't be a bad thing. Indeed, a man who got a reputation for giving good coffee would soon be the envy of all others. It would probably push up the price of cafetières, though.

Transforming Transport

During the 18th Century, as evidenced by tales such as Cinderella, people without their own form of transport could, if they had access to a Fairy Godmother, prevail upon her to turn an ordinary pumpkin into a carriage. In this way, they were able to travel inexpensively, and in comfort, to their destination. How fortunate we are that this isn’t the case today.

Why fortunate?

Because while, ideally, a 21st century pumpkin should turn into a Rolls Royce or a Bentley, in actual fact, what with intensive farming methods and the indiscriminate use of organo-phosphate fertilisers, pumpkins aren’t of the quality they once were. So if your Fairy Godmother were to cast a spell on one today, it would probably turn into a Skoda or a Hillman Imp.

Then there are other problems. Because pumpkins would now have the potential - if not in all cases the actual ability - to turn into cars, it would be necessary to MOT them and register each one with the DVLC. Garages wouldn’t be able to cope with the workload. Instead, greengrocers would have to set up their own pumpkin test and registration centres, thus adding enormously to the average family’s weekly shopping bill. (Of course, they could try to defray the cost by establishing second-hand pumpkin dealerships on their premises.)

But it’s the law and order issues that concern me in particular. Having had their pumpkins transformed into performance cars, lager-lout boy racers might drive them to the pub and get horrendously pissed. But what could the police do? If they breathalysed them at, say, 11.30pm and the miscreants tested positive, by the time the officer had got them down to the police station for a verifying blood test, it would be midnight, by which time the enchanted car would probably have turned back into a pumpkin, as they usually do. Result: No evidence, therefore no prosecution.

And what if a policeman pulls over an obviously drunk driver, intending to put the breathalyser bag on him, but that driver says, “Actually officer, this isn’t a car, it’s an enchanted pumpkin”? Yes, it might be a real car. On the other hand, there’s a good chance that the man could actually be telling the truth. And there is no such offence as Drunk In Charge of a Pumpkin.

Of course, this could inspire Gordon Brown and his bunch of control freak scum to table a bill to ensure that such an offence is on the statute books, in order to protect us from reckless, vegetable-driving inebriates. But the next thing you know, they’ll be introducing dozens of other laws, too: Drunk in Charge of a Cucumber, Drunk in Charge of a Cabbage, et cetera, et cetera. Where would it end?

We might end up with a situation where you'd be arrested for being pissed while eating a carrot and banned from eating vegetables for 12 months. The resultant vitamin deficiency would kill you.

Found in Translation

This morning, while browsing the Internet, I came across the story of this innovative Japanese gadget that, apparently, can translate dog barks. Judging by the examples given, it seems to perform quite well. For example, it's now very easy to differentiate between the yelps for "I want to shit" and "I want to go walkies", amongst other things. The one downside is that the device will only translate into Japanese. One therefore requires the services of an interpreter to fully understand the dog.

This struck me as being rather impractical, though. For those of us in the US and Europe, anyway. Far better, surely, and more cost-effective, simply to buy a Japanese person. Then you can simultaneously teach him both English and the canine arts of, for instance, retrieving a stick and lying down and playing dead. Indeed, given that the Japanese are quite an adaptable, innovative people, I'd imagine that they'd also be able to quickly acquire the skills to bury bones and "heel." And they'd probably be house-trained much faster than a dog, too, and wouldn't be as inclined to attract fleas.

Thinking about it, a Japanese has many other advantages over a dog. Not many burglars are seriously deterred by "Beware of the Dog" warnings. However, a "Beware of the Samurai Warrior" would make them shit themselves, I'm sure. And if you had some serious issues with your neighbours in the adjoining office block, you could just pay for your Japanese to have flying lessons and then, as per his Bushido heritage, crash his aircraft into them. Whereas Al-Quaida had to cough up some $20 billion to achieve a similar effect, your house-trained Japanese would do it for a tin of Pedigree Chum.

Dentures

Of late, doctors have begun to refuse medical treatment to smokers on the grounds that they’re deliberately damaging their own health. I applaud this move. In fact I believe dentists should do similar. After all, other than having had one's teeth accidentally knocked out, there’s absolutely no excuse for wearing dentures. They are simply an indication that the wearer has repeatedly neglected his or her daily oral hygiene duties.

In my opinion, therefore, false teeth should not be available on the National Health. The toothless amongst us should be exposed for the gummy slovens that they actually are and forced either to dine on soup for the rest of their days or pay an extortionate sum for a set of artificial teeth.

A tooth rental scheme is also a possibility, I suppose. It makes quite a bit of sense, actually. After all, teeth are only required for eating; an activity which should take place, at most, three times in a day. Why, then, do denture wearers insist on retaining their teeth for all their waking hours, when for the most part they’re redundant? It's sheer vanity, and I don't believe the State should be expected to subsidise it.

Far better, I think, to hire one's teeth as and when required from some sort of council-administered tooth library. Naturally, there would be a run on teeth round about midday and early evening, so denture renters would have to get used to staggering their meal times. Nevertheless, the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages. For example, it might be possible to choose a set of teeth designed specifically for a particular type of food. So no longer would it be necessary to chew away endlessly on a very tough steak. You'd simply hire a set of dedicated dentures that could cut through it in an instant.

Because we live in an age of air travel, it would be necessary to establish international tooth rental schemes, too. I'd suggest that this be done through the existing international car rental agencies. So upon arriving at the Hertz desk in, say, Los Angeles, you'd give your American Express or Visa number and pick up both a hire car and a set of teeth. International tooth insurance might become a booming industry as a result, creating thousands of jobs in a depressed world.

Some mornings, I really do think I deserve a fucking Nobel Prize for my brilliance.

Trojan

You often hear the expression “He worked like a Trojan.” This is meant to be a good thing, implying that the person being discussed laboured greatly and accomplished much. It suggests, too, that Trojan employment agencies were very busy places and, by contrast, the dole queues in Troy very short. (With an overall DHSS bill the lowest in Antiquity, no doubt.)

When you think about it, however, history shows us that the most successful Trojans were, in fact, the lazy ones. Take, for example, Laomedon, son of King Ilus. When instructed to build walls for his city, he said, “Suck my dick! I will not!” Instead, he employed the gods Poseidon and Apollo to do it for him. In fact, such a good job did these two deities do – far better than Laomedon himself could have managed - that the city was then able to endure several years of siege by the Greeks during the subsequent war. Then, of course, there was Paris. When ordered to go out and fight Achilles to the death, he said, instead, “Fuck that. I can’t be bothered. I'll just shoot him in the heel with an arrow and see what happens.”

Given all of this, it really makes you wonder what would have happened if only the lazy Trojans had prevailed throughout. Had they said, for example, “Kiss my arse. I'm not dragging that fucking massive wooden horse inside. It can stay outside the fucking walls as far as I’m concerned.” How differently history might have turned out.

I imagine Troy would have endured, and Aeneas wouldn't have gone on to help found Rome. Thus we would have been spared Heinz Spaghetti, polenta, and Fiats. Also, the best-selling condom in America would probably be called a Greek, rather than a Trojan, thus forcing prostitutes who engage in anal sex to find another term for what they’re offering.

Milk Maids

According to Wikipedia, on this day in 1878, milk was first delivered in bottles. Before this, customers were supplied on a personal basis by wandering milk maids.

As you can see from the accompanying illustration, milk maids all wore yokes across their shoulders, from each end of which hung a milk churn. The modus operandi was relatively simple: At roughly the same time each day, customers would pour their Cornflakes into a bowl, or their tea into a cup, and then wait until the milkmaid arrived to fill them up.

Traditionally, a milk maid’s right-hand churn contained full fat milk, while the left was filled with skimmed. Of course, this meant that if you wanted semi-skimmed or UHT, you were a bit fucked. Unless, of course, the milk maid herself was lactating and could produce to order from her left or right breast. Most couldn’t, however (the best they could manage was a sort of homgeonized goo), which is presumably why milk maids gave way to home-delivered milk bottles.

Notwithstanding this, I imagine that January 11, 1878 must have come as quite a shock to many full-fat and skimmed aficionados. Expecting the usual comely, smiling wench to come by, many were dismayed by the arrival of a hairy-arsed milk man, even if he was able to offer greater choice and could diversify into butter, orange juice, and bread deliveries. This is because, back then (and even today, to some extent, if all those Internet porn sites are to be believed) men customarily fantasized about milk maids. Consequently their only alternative was to give up on milk altogether and switch to soya, or else start fantasizing about the milk man, instead. Many did. This is how come we can accurately date the advent of homosexuality to this day in 1878, too.

Another problem with milk bottles was that they were responsible for an upsurge in burglaries. If you forgot to cancel your milk, it was obvious you were away from the accumulation of unused bottles outside your door, so robbers would know it was safe to ransack the place. And while, beforehand, it was equally obvious that you were away when half a dozen unused milk maids starting piling up outside your front door, thieves were far less likely to break in because the presence of the wenches would act as a reliable deterrent.

Especially if they were lactating UHT.

Gravitational Anomaly

My post-Christmas weight, according to my brother’s Cadmore End-based bathroom scales, was an enviable 12 stone and 3 lbs, exactly the same as my pre-Christmas weight registered here at home back on December 23. Imagine my surprise, then, when, for the first time this year, I stood again on my own hi-tech “speak your weight” Tanita bathroom scales and they declared, somewhat derisively, “Your weight is 12 stone and 10 lbs. You have increased in weight by 7lbs.”

What the fuck?

There can be only one logical explanation: Obviously, between December 23 and today, the force of gravity in Hertfordshire has become slightly greater than that in Buckinghamshire - specifically, by 0.024 per cent – thus skewing the results. And gravity, as we know, is a product of mass (put simply, the heavier a thing is, the more gravitational attraction it exerts) which means that, in just 10 days, some phenomenon has occurred to make Hertfordshire heavier than Buckinghamshire. But what?

I think I have the answer. If you carry out demographic surveys of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire you’ll find that, per square yard, the former, unfortunately, has more Working Class people in it. And what do Working Class people typically do over the Christmas period? They pig out on cheap lager and disgusting, fatty foods such as KFC Bargain Buckets and Deep Pan pizzas, that’s what. Consequently, their already burgeoning beer-guts and backsides become even flabbier than normal. The aggregate of the increase concentrated in the one county causes that county to exert more gravitational force. QED. Hence this morning’s Tanita tragedy.

So what can be done? One solution, I suppose, is to herd a given percentage of the Working Class into rockets and blast them off into geostationary orbit above Hertfordshire, from where their mass will help counteract that of their Earth-based counterparts. But that’s an expensive option, which could later impact itself on my Council Tax. So a more cost-effective alternative might be simply to deport them to other counties, such as Essex and Surrey.

Of course, this then means that Essex and Surrey will become commensurately heavier. However, that’s a small price to pay for ensuring the accuracy of my bathroom scales.

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.