Is it me?

It's a funny thing Christmas. It changes one's perceptions.

I could have sworn our shower cubicle was larger a few weeks ago than it is now...

No more heroes any more - because I'm getting old

Further evidence of getting old - example number 417.

Putting aside the fact that I keep forgetting to blog, which is a sure sign in itself, I have realised I'm on the way out. The reason?

I've come to the conclusion that two of my big heroes should be put out to pasture.

When I was 15 (years not stone - though the two probably coincided) I appeared on Brucie's Big Night (BBN) on London Weekend Television. BBN was an ITV vehicle for Bruce Forsyth who had been lured away from the BBC's Generation Game by pots of cash and the handing over of Saturday night primetime tv.

BBN started at about 7pm and went on until 10. It featured all manner of things Brucie - including gameshow segments - plus guest singers, dancers, comedians and interviewees. It was probably the last example of variety on tv, save for the annual shindig in front of her madge.

For the period of my segment - I was a contestant not a dancer I should point out - I effectively became Bruce's straight man, both on and off camera. Even when the camera wasn't rolling, the audience were, in the aisles - as Bruce was never off duty.

He was also incredibly kind to me off-stage and generous too. I warmed to him greatly and have been a huge fan ever since. Sadly, even I have to admit, his time as a mainstream entertainer may be coming to an end.

He is 81, after all, and has done well to last this long. But his recent performances on Strictly Come Dancing have been bordering on embarrassing. He has slurred his words, mixed up his words and, one can only assume by the quality of it, insisted on writing his own material.

As much as it pains me to say it Bruce old darling, it's time for you to go. Pick up your knighthood on the way out and enjoy your retirement on the fairways - you deserve it.

I was actually on BBN twice: the first time as a regional contestant by phone from the Southern TV studios in Southampton. I won the regional part of the competition to qualify to go up to LWT the following week.

In the preamble to my participation, Brucie asked me what I wanted to do when I grew out, I mean up. I told him I wanted to be a football commentator, and, when prompted, said John Motson was my favourite.

Motty was usurped in my affections a few years later by Barry Davies, but I still remain a fan of his knowledge, if not his nonsensical ramblings. I'm afraid his commentaries are just banal now.

"Well, you have to say," he says excitedly, with that trembling giggle he persists in utilising, "that that has to go down as a save."

Yes John. When the goalkeeper gets a hand to the ball, deflecting it on to the crossbar that generally does go down as a save.

And, it has to be said John, that, at this stage, you're playing your own equivalent of added time at the end of an extraordinary game.

Nurse! Another knighthood over here please and then put Mr Motson to bed.

Mea culpa

I have been taken to task by several people following yesterday's blog - including one of my best mates and my wife!

Mea culpa. I did over-egg the racist line yesterday and that was a mistake on my part. The point I was trying to make is that many newspapers and magazines are fully aware of other people's misdemeanors - no names obviously for legal reasons - but choose to ignore them. Why?

Because it's easier to kick somebody when they're down rather than to be brave, investigate a story properly and break the news themselves, that's why. The fact the people to whom I was referring are white may, or may not be coincidence. And I should have made that clear.

But sod it. I'm not a national newspaper. My blogs tend to be written in a five-minute spell in my lunch-hour. It does not go through a sub-editor nor get passed by a legal team. I speak from the heart so may phrase something a little wildly at times. I'm sorry.

I'm an angry, grumpy malcontent at times and that's what galvanises me to write this rubbish.

And I have, for some time, been appalled by the right-wing media in the US who do not approve of a non-caucasion being the world's #1 golfer. You might think that is ridiculous, but try asking people who work in golf.

It is a minority of the media, but it does prevail. Some things are pushed under the carpet. Woods' infidelity was manna from heaven.

As Michael Gilchrist commented on my post yesterday, Woods SHOULD be ashamed for what he has done. I'm not defending him, I'm just appalled by the attitude of a media which chooses what to and what not to report.

I hope that's clear now. And I also hope to write in a more light-hearted vein the next time I vent my spleen.

Tiger, Tiger taking flight

So now there are seven. Or possibly eight. Nine, if it's true about a fling with a British TV presenter.

I wouldn't dream of defending Tiger Woods' philandering but, even as a journalist, I have a distaste for kicking a guy when he's down. And a professional idealogy of relevance. To do neither you need a certain type of newspaper.

In today's edition of a 'certain newspaper' - I will not give it the oxygen of publicity among my 12 regular followers - it drags out the former fiancé of one of the mistresses.

Naturally, to heighten the dramatic effect of the world number one's fall from grace, businessman Derek Schmidt is billed as "a golf fan who used to idolise Woods".

His ex, Jamie Jungers, was first approached by Woods in 2005, according to the right-wing tabloid.

"He immediately started hitting on her and telling her she was beautiful," said Schmidt, who we can only presume from his intimate knowledge of the events that unfolded, was happy to look on armed only with a pocket tape recorder and a Polaroid camera.

"I was a massive Tiger Woods fan. I had Tiger Woods memorabilia all over my house and even collected Tiger Woods videos," continued Schmidt, who, at his age, really should have had a semblance of a life.

Schmidt added: "I think Tiger is a great competitor on the golf course, but away from it he is a horrible person."

One can only assume he can make that judgment because he spent so much time in the company of Woods. His view couldn't be at all clouded because of the presence of a cheque-book.

Woods is an idiot. He's made monumental errors of judgment in his personal life which will probably affect him and his family for the rest of his life. He's left the family home for privacy apparently - he doesn't deserve sympathy. But he's not a murderer - just a naive fool. He's still a great golfer.

And it begs the question would the same newspaper report with such glee similar philandering by a white golfer who was at the top of the tree? Or maybe a popular white British sportsman with a reputation worse than that of Woods?

They must surely have had the opportunity.

They'd be better off trying to analyse the state of Woods' mind. After all he's married to Elin Nordegren - and have you seen some of those women he's alleged to have been with?

And we always thought Tiger didn't like it in the rough...

Where's me Horlicks?

I'm tired. It's been nearly a week since I last blogged. I'm sorry.

I'm all out of inspiration because, not to put too fine a point on it, I'm shagged out. Our current workload is very heavy and, consequently, I could sleep for England.

Admittedly I've never been the most energetic of individuals - or the fittest; indeed, only last week I got out of breath chewing a toffee - but better men than I would wilt under such circumstances.

Sure there have been some things worth blogging about. Tiger Woods' car crashes for example. The one where he hit the fire hydrant and the extended one involving his 'PR advisors' - and I use the term loosely.

But everybody's done that. I could moan about yesterday's trip to Brighton from Petersfield, which instead of taking around an hour and a quarter, took nearly three hours because of some neanderthal in Worthing rubbing two sticks together to discover fire.

Instead of changing at Havant and then tootling into Brighton on a comfortable Southern train, I changed at Havant. Then Barnham. Then Littlehampton. Then caught a replacement bus to Worthing, where I was joined by a nutter straight out of a Jasper Carrott routine who intermittently shrugged his shoulders with a jerk while shouting "DURRINGTON!" or some other conurbation highlighted by a road sign. And from Worthing I caught my final train into Brighton.

I could moan about the fact that if I see that Mexican git eulogising about Southern trains on tv again I will throw our youngest child at the set. I could do that, but I won't because it's the kind of inconvenience I imagine commuters put up with on a daily basis.

Nor will I comment on the farce that is Portsmouth Football Club which is in danger of being the longest-running comedy since Leslie Phillips starred in Oops I've Fallen Over and Planted My Head Between the Breasts of the Vicar's Wife, which enjoyed several strong seasons at the Dewsbury Empire. 

I'm too tired for all that. And maybe too old. And maybe even too forgetful.

Nor will I comment on the farce that is Portsmouth Football Club which is in danger of being the longest-running comedy since Leslie Phillips starred in Oops I've Fallen Over and Planted My Head Between the Breasts of the Vicar's Wife, which enjoyed several strong seasons at the Dewsbury Empire.

(Did you see what I did there..?)

You'll be wanting clean towels next!

Another day, another hotel. This time the Novotel at Birmingham Airport.

And if you're ever in the area you could do worse than stay at the Novotel. Or so I'm told anyway. Personally I find it hard to believe you could find worse at £135 a night.

For that I would normally expect at least Sky Sports and hot and cold running housemaids.

Instead what we got was the point where Ryanair meets hotels. If you're not savvy, you'll be charged £2 merely for the privilege of finding out exactly where you need to park.

Having followed the signs to the Novotel we found ourselves on a narrow road confronted by a car-park barrier. We took a ticket - we're not completely devoid of experience in these matters. But then a sign informed us this was the stop-and-drop area only - no overnight parking. Instead it told us to exit the car park and go to car parks 1, 2, or 3.

At the exit barrier inserting the ticket in the relevant slot resulted in us being told we owed £2. That's 200 pennies merely for following instructions and being led on a wild bloody goose chase.

We retraced our tyre tracks to a pay machine in the hope it would validate our ticket. It did and we got out for nothing. But some of our colleagues were not so lucky. There were no instructions anywhere.

The overnight charge in the NCP car park was £19.50. No, you're not seeing things. £19.50. It would have been cheaper to fly to Berne. When we checked in we tried to validate the ticket to get the parking free, but were told it would be just at the reduced rate of £13.50. The guy looked at us as if we should fall at his feet in gratitude.

He then informed us that to actually redeem the ticket to obtain parking at this ludicrously cheap rate we would need to schlep over to the arrivals' hall in the airport itself to get the ticket validated by the NCP office.

I was not amused. I don't like schlepping at the best of times. And, to top it off, all the rooms our group had booked were singles except for ours which was a twin - obviously young Lee and I lost out in the pillow lottery.

But, yes, you guessed it. All the rooms were made up as twins ... except ours. I phoned down and told an incredulous receptionist who sent somebody up straight away to make up the bed.

This, it transpired, involved no more than pulling out a lever, which saw the bed, already dressed, spring out onto the floor. All the young lady needed to do was take two pillows from the cupboard and place them on the bed.

"If they'd told us how simple it was, we would have done it," said Lee to the young lady apologetically.

Her look, as she departed, suggested we were the biggest divas she'd seen since Mariah Carey's entourage made the mistake of thinking the Novotel sounded like a good place to stop over.

The bathroom was brilliantly designed. Full of wonderful flowing curves and big, bold statements. It was obviously a candidate for a National Design Award, for it wasn't made with functionality in mind.

A shallow sink which made it impossible to do anything unless you filled it to the top and wasted water. And the carefully crafted glass shower guard looked very attractive while offering the rest of the bathroom as much protection from splashing water as would a couple of Rizlas.

Removing the plug from the sink gave a waft of disgusting drains and the separate toilet smelt of damp - what sort of damp we never quite established.

I don't have a grudge against the Novotel chain - I've stayed in the ExCeL Novotel on many occasions without a problem - but this was beyond belief for the price.

On the plus side, they did have black pudding for breakfast - a breakfast which cost an additional £14 or so. But by that time I couldn't wait to check out.

Our survey says...

Now I've reached a certain age I judge the standard of a hotel by a number of factors:

• The shower in the room;
• The quality of tea/coffee-making facilities;
• How many toiletries I can pocket; and
• The quality of the black pudding in the 'and breakfast' part of the deal

I've spent the last two nights at a pleasant enough hotel in the West Midlands. However, on neither morning did they give me my requested alarm call.

And on the first morning nobody bothered to advise us we needed a code to exit the car park. But what was worse they claimed to offer a 'full' English breakfast - but the buffet was sans black pudding.

It all seemed so good. I trousered two bars of soap, some shampoo and some moisturiser, wasn't forced to drink de-caf coffee and the shower was hot. But no black pudding?

I'm sorry, but it's a no from me...

Comedians on the road to career change?

Comedians seem to be branching out.

On the way to Birmingham today we passed a coach from a company called A&J Carr and a lorry belonging to Fry Transport.

Now there's a funny thing...

Sorry, what was that?

A funny thing happened to me on the way to ... wherever I was going.

One of my mates, who actually reads this rubbish, suggested I did a blog on the bad manners of people who insist on fiddling with the apps on their iPhone while pretending to be interested in what you are saying.

I would but I didn't catch why it made him so angry. I was too busy texting ...

Yeah, yeah. See ya later.

And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint...

I went down to Portsmouth on Friday to meet up with a few old mates who I hadn’t seen in some time.

I don’t go down to Pompey much now, except to pick up and drop off my son at weekends – and he doesn’t live anywhere near the centre.

But when I do go it all looks so different – it’s hard to believe I lived there for the first 35 years of my life. Very few of my teenage haunts remain, and if they do they tend to have been renamed after a colour and either a fruit or animal of indeterminable origin.

Portsmouth has always been a ‘hard’ city, built as it was on the navy and the sore thumbs of thousands of dockies.

By the way, the phrase ‘chip on the shoulder’ is believed to have originated in Pompey dockyard was back in the 17th century. I’m sure there is a website confirming this etymology somewhere, but I really can’t be arsed to find it.

Anyway I digress. Portsmouth has always been a ‘hard’ city, but I didn’t realise, after living away from it for 11 years just how much of a big Jessie I had become.

This was brought home to me in the early hours of Saturday morning when, after a distinctly average curry, I lost a filling on an After Eight mint. Even soft mints are hard enough to take out a filling in Portsmouth when you’ve spent 11 years living in the semi-rural confines of fluffy Petersfield.

So it was, that this morning I found myself registering with a dentist in fluffy Petersfield – not having bothered in the previous 11 years in protest at the dearth of NHS options.

Those particular chickens came home to roost when I realised what bad condition my molars were in. As the lady dentist leaned over what felt like a chasm in my tooth, she asked her hygienist to prepare some cement.

“How much?” asked the hygienist, presumably of the opinion that I could do with having my entire mouth filled.

“Not a bucketful,” replied the dentist.

Had I not, at that moment, had a young lady poking around in my oral cavity, I would have assuaged my natural curiosity by asking if there were only two quantities of cement which could be prepared: a bucketful, and not…

However, as the aforementioned young lady was, at that very moment, poking around inside my cavity with a sharp implement I’m sure I last saw in a tableau on board HMS Victory, I decided against imparting a remark which might have been interpreted as sarcastic.

Having not visited a dentist for more than a dozen years, it was amazing how familiar the sights, smells, and sensations felt. It might well have been yesterday that I last had weapons of mandible destruction wielded in my mouth. The scrapings, the sound … it was all so familiar.

What was hugely different was the fact that as I departed my new chamber of horrors of choice I was clutching a bill which amounted to a three-figure sum. And to get full value from it I have to return next Monday for more of the same.

Folks, as the great Pam Ayres once opined, I wish I’d looked after me teeth…

Moss comment is hard to swallow

I see model Kate Moss is in trouble again after saying she lives by a slogan which encourages people with anorexia not to eat.

In an interview with fashion news website WWD, Moss said one of her mottoes was: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

Well, I've never been skinny, but I've seen those poor little kids in Africa and I would imagine they'd all swap their lives for a regular supply of lemon meringue pie or chocolate profiteroles.

What a shame she no longer goes out with Pete Doherty - two people have never been so deserving of each other.

It's good, but it's not right...

You have to give spammers credit for trying, but the least they could do is aim for a degree of verisimilitude.

The email I have just received purported to come from HM Revenue & Customs and told me I was due to receive a sum of £218.50 in a tax refound.

To compound the error, the email address to which I was supposed to send all my bank details was Refound-tax@online.hrmc.gov.uk.

To be fair I suppose English might not be their first language, but given the standards we witness these days, who's to know for certain?

Are they taking the pizza?

On Friday evening I was lucky enough to accompany my wife as she helped take a school trip to London to see Terry Pratchett's Nation at the National Theatre.

She works at a prep school in Surrey, so I suppose I should not have been at all surprised that when we stopped for a bite to eat at Pizza Express, the most popular choice among the kids was the Padana: a pizza with goat's cheese, caramelised onions and spinach.

But I still choked on my sun-ripened tomatoes when the order went in. No pepperoni for them. And not one of them asked for tomato ketchup...

Bless.

More moans about reality TV

I'm really losing the will to live. This morning, over breakfast, bloody GMtv was talking about X Factor and I'm a Non-Entity...

For God's sake, is there nothing else happening in the world that's more important than that shallow pile of *****?

And before you tell me I can always turn it off. I can't; I'm outvoted.

BTW I believe the big-breasted bimbo, Katie Price, is in the jungle. Didn't she do one of these dreadful programmes before and found herself a husband? Anybody would think she was looking for another man or something.

Perhaps Ant and/or Dec are starting a new vehicle: I'm a vacuous bint who flaunts her t*ts and am in need of more publicity and another husband to show off, so get me in there...

I don't know about X Factor, I think hundreds of people have, not just X.

The times they are-a-changing...

Amid all the offers of drugs to improve my sexual performance and Russian women desperate to ‘meet man lik you’, my email occasionally offers sage advice from people I’ve actually agreed to hear from.

Despite, at 46, being too old to learn, I keep being told by all around me that ‘you’re never too old to learn’.

Hence, I recently joined the social networking crowd with a Twitter account (www.twitter.com/Bunkybowers) and a Facebook page.

And, thanks to people out there who know things I couldn’t possibly hope to understand, I’ve even managed to set my blog up to post automatically to Twitter and Facebook as soon as something appears.

OK, so it’s not rocket science – but it might as well be for all I knew about it before reading the ‘how to’ pages on the interwebby thing.

But the great thing about web-based activities and computer software, I’ve discovered, is how much you can learn simply by getting and ‘having a go’. If you get it wrong, things don’t crash around your feet – you simply start again and learn from the errors.

The modern age is great for that, because working in Photoshop or Illustrator, designing websites, or using social network tools is a world away from the industries I knew as a lad.

Born and bred in Portsmouth, many of my contemporaries went to work in the Naval Dockyard as apprentices. And I’m bloody sure on their first day they weren’t told by the gaffer “just go and try to fit those rivets into the side of the Ark Royal – you’ll soon get the hang of it”. Or “take this screwdriver and try to rewire that nuclear missile launcher – you can’t do any harm”.

They had years of extensive training. With many of the 21st century industries being in the ‘virtual world’ it is much easier to be self-taught, which also means there are areas where the ‘expertise’ is likely to be lacking a little something.

Most people, like me, get by. I’m no expert. But I know enough now on lots of things to be able to hold my own – a habit I first developed as a teenager, though it was frowned upon by polite society in the 70s.

Traditional industries – and by ‘traditional’ I mean stuff before computers took over the world and sent Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to save us all – don’t allow for a ‘little knowledge’ and require a lot of training and tuition.

This was brought home to me in spades earlier in the week when, as a parent of a prospective student, I was shown around the chemistry department of the University of Sheffield.

My chemistry knowledge is very limited, as I took the subject for only one year at school. And my place in dunces’ corner was confirmed when we arrived at the department and I thought the periodic table on the wall in reception was the seating plan for a lecture theatre…

But my complete ignorance was brought home during the tour when Dr Jim Thomas, one of the members of staff tasked with dragging round idiots such as I, spouted forth in one of the laboratories about the machinery doing ‘some of the basics of chemistry’.

From what I understood - and it wasn't much - it took something, smashed it to pieces, and then tried to discover its constituent parts. I wanted to know why it smashed up whatever it was that it smashed up in the first place. I’m sure there was a damned good reason but I know not what it is.

But for the most part my lack of basic knowledge meant Jim’s words made the same sound as those of the teacher in the TV Charlie Brown cartoons: “Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa.”

It’s a good job the self-taught philosophy doesn’t apply in those labs, otherwise I get the feeling parts of the University of Sheffield might have been relocated to Barnsley and other areas of south Yorkshire some time ago.

"Sum up the game for us Jon..."

If you read my ramblings last week about my one-man campaign to correct the misuse of the English language by the nation’s football commentators – or even if you didn’t – you will be interested to note that I’m also now taking issue with their numeracy.

Jon Roder, commentating on Reading v Ipswich for the BBC’s Football League Show, made the point that as Reading had scored only two goals at home all season, Simon Church’s equaliser for the Royals had increased their home goals’ total by 33 per cent.

Given they had only scored two goals before it should surely have occurred to him that any increase in goals scored, by the very nature of football, was never going to be less than 50 per cent.

On the plus side he didn’t insist that the ball was prodded in from “distance”.

It's not so grim oop north...

So then, I'm back from Sheffield - and I was right: it was a real shock to the system.

But not in the way I imagined. I was hugely impressed by both Sheffield the city and the University of Sheffield.

My last visit to Sheffield was around 20 years ago, maybe more - and my recollections were not good. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a sh*thole!

I was expecting boarded up mills and steelworks. But it was nothing of the sort. Maybe Mrs Thatcher was right in shutting down all the indigenous industries of the north ... no of course she wasn't.

Now, however, it seems a splendid city. Much has been done to it and I felt much safer walking around it yesterday than I do when I return to my home city of Portsmouth.

While that is a sad indictment on poor old Pompey, it's also a compliment to the former steel city. James, my eldest step-son, was also hugely impressed. He may even choose to study there.

If I had to live in a northern city - heaven forbid - I could certainly do much worse than choose Sheffield. The only problem I had with it - speaking as a chap of some girth - is those seven bloody hills!

A step into the unknown

For more than 46 years I have lived within 20 miles of the south coast - for two-thirds of that time within half-a-mile of the sea as the crow flies.

To me, the area known as 'the north' has always been a mystical land filled with giants, damsels in distress, dragons, whippets, cloth caps and blokes who wear cap-sleeve T-shirts in February.

I am the archetypical 'soft southern shite'. I'm happy drinking pear cider, wouldn't attempt anything hotter than a chicken madras, and always make sure I wrap up warm as soon as the leaves start to fall from the trees. Even a genealogical study fails to turn up any of my ancestors who lived north of 'the smoke'.

Any visits to 'the north' were brought about by watching football (often when younger); out of necessity with work (occasional); and the odd - and I use the term advisedly - weekend away at some tourist trap (seldom).

I once went to York for the weekend with my first wife and can recall being completely underwhelmed by the Jarvik Viking Museum - it was more than 20 years ago and must have improved otherwise it wouldn't still be there. I think some of the displays were made by the original invaders.

I do quite like Oxford, though it is only those of us who live in the deep south who would ever consider Oxford as 'north'. Inspector Morse was based in Oxford, of course, and I can recall him saying that he once visited 'somewhere' and "further north than that I have no desire to go".

It tickled me then and it would tickle me again now if only I could remember where the 'somewhere' was.

Anyway, I digress. The reason I write of 'the north' is that I am going there today, with our eldest, who has an interview with Sheffield University tomorrow.

Sheffield, of course, likes to compare itself with Rome, both being built upon seven hills. From what I can recall from previous visits that's the only similarity - I can't imagine the Full Monty being remade in Rome for the Italian market.

Nor, when travelling to Rome, do you have to pass Luton, Milton Keynes and Nottingham to get there.

Rome has the Colosseum; Sheffield the Meadowhall shopping centre. Rome is full of beautiful women in designer clothing; the north is full of hoodied chavs - though to be fair so is most of England these days.

I'm a great believer that devolution should not have stopped with Wales and Scotland. The Midlands and the North should have been next to be given independence, with only the south - and maybe, at a push, the south-east - being retained as England.

Cornwall, as we know, has long harboured a desire to be an independent state and it should be given that right along with anything west of Fareham. Likewise Suffolk and Norfolk where there are several million people and only about five surnames.

You may have summised I'm not looking forward to my trip north. I'm approaching it with the same trepidation that Capt Scott and his team had when attempting to travel to the South Pole. I'm expecting the same desolation and temperature.

But most of all I'm worried that James, coming up 18, might actually like it and choose to continue his education in the city's university. That would require further visits ... and I'm not sure I could survive the culture shock.

*For fellow sufferers, might I take the liberty of offering up a recommended read... Up North by Charles Jennings. A fellow southern Jessie goes in search of the real 'north'.

Hello, my name's Jules and this is my friend Sandy...

"'Ere, Mister 'Orne..."

I’m a big fan of BBC Radio 7, the DAB station which outputs a load of vintage radio comedy shows.

I’m also keen on the 6.30pm comedy slot on BBC Radio 4, but in recent weeks the contrast between the two has been palpable.

Take Tuesday’s Radio 4 output – Too Much Information – and the 8am slot this morning on Radio 7, Round the Horne.

The latter episode was 42 years old and still makes me chortle; the former, which claims to be a comedy based in a tourist information office, simply made me shake my head in disbelief. I’ve heard funnier news bulletins.

What is it that commissioning editors look for currently in new shows? One would hope it was humour, but that clearly is no longer a pre-requisite.

Shows of the quality of Round the Horne would, quite simply, never be given the go-ahead in the BBC of the 21st century. It’s far too concerned with being politically correct, and inoffensive – the BBC’s ‘fun police’ are the broadcasting equivalent of the health and safety executive.

Round the Horne is too near the knuckle; too dangerous; too camp; just too damned funny.

Take this morning’s episode. Kenneth Horne is a special agent and catches Robin Day trying to climb the BBC’s equivalent of the Berlin Wall.

“I’m trying to defect over the wall,” explains Bill Pertwee as Day.

“Well,” says Horne, slowly,, in that wonderful deep brown voice, “it’s a clever trick if you can do it.”

It requires the art of innuendo – and it is an art in its highest form – and, in the listener, a decent command of the English language.

Perhaps that’s the answer. The general population is no longer able to appreciate clever or subtle humour so we get programmes devoid of any form of it.

Too many of today’s shows pander to the lowest common denominator. And I’m not saying that because I’m in my 40s. I can see why the younger generation would like things like We Are Klang. I’ve laughed at it myself, despite the fact it’s not aimed at the likes of me.

But the BBC wouldn’t let Round the Horne through these days for myriad reasons, not least for fear sketches like Jules and Sandy might offend homosexuals or that minors might be corrupted by the cordwanglings of Rambling Syd Rumpo.

Rambing Syd was completely inoffensive; it’s only in the mind of the listener that it becomes suggestive. A classic example of the British love of innuendo.

And as for Jules and Sandy, Kenneth Williams was as camp as a row of tents in real life and if he had no problems playing the part why should people be offended by hearing it?

Indeed one of the biggest Round the Horne fans I know is a gay woman. She loves it. And she’s quite keen on Round the Horne… did you see what I did there?

The gist of what I’m trying to say is that anybody out there with a modicum of comedic writing skill should be haranguing the BBC with anything they’ve penned. And anybody with an interest in enjoying comedy should be haranguing the BBC to commission some decent stuff without running it past the fun police first.

It's shocking to think that had the current climate been prevailing 30, 40 and 50 years ago we would never have had Round the Horne, Are You Being Served, It Ain't 'Alf Hot Mum, Til Death Us Do Part, The Goon Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus and many other great comedy shows.

It doesn't bear thinking about.


*And if you’re really interested in following my advice, the controller of BBC comedy commissioning is Cheryl Taylor (http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/network/genres/comedy.shtml)

Grammar pedantry part 432

I've always looked at the BBC as the last bastion of the English language.

But I've now decided the British Broadcasting Corporation is just as poor as everywhere else in retaining a semblance of correct usage. Eric Partridge must be turning in his grave.

The past few days have really been the final straw for me.

Radio 4's Today programme has fallen into the trap of scripting its newsreaders to say "try and" instead of the invariably correct "try to...". And they persist in using "due to" instead of "owing to" or "because of" when not modifying a noun.

Football commentators appear to be a breed apart when it comes to bastardising the English language. In the past few days alone I have heard them say "he shot from range" and "he shot from distance". No shit Sherlock.

Every shot is from range or distance; what actually needs to be determined is whether it's short range or from long distance. Even better why not try informing us of an estimate of the distance in, say, yards ... that seems as good a measurement as anything else.

And to top it off, when Robin van Persie skewed his shot wide of the post in Saturday's clash with Spurs, the commentator pointed out that the Dutch striker had missed by "...a margin". Sorry but I thought that was, in sporting parlance, a 'given'.

Of course he missed by a margin - and it's your role to tell us just how much of a margin it was.

This footie-speak is becoming anathema to me now and will soon result in something being hurled at the tv in the same way I previously launched a keyboard at the radio during my days on the sportsdesk one Saturday, when, for the umpteenth time that season, the local radio commentator claimed the ball had gone "straight into the goalkeeper's midrift".

Heaven help us...

That's odd

The great thing about wearing boots to work, as the weather gets colder, is that you can wear odd socks and nobody is any the wiser.

Unless of course you're stupid enough to write about it...

I'm going on strike

I’ve been a card-carrying member of various unions since the age of 13.

I’m a great supporter of my fellow workers. Or, as my Tory friends call me, a communist.

So today, I’m prepared to support the postal workers in their strike by refusing to deliver to my neighbours all the mail which gets erroneously posted through our letterbox – including yesterday, worryingly, a chequebook.

Maybe if they were more efficient and learned to tell one number from another they’d get more public support.

It’s just a thought comrades…

For Sale: One soul in return for a decent holiday

I'm an atheist - but I'm starting to believe in a superior being.

That would be a superior being who held grudges against non-believers. And I believe the Christian version of this deity shows suggestions of a vengeful side.

Isn't there something in the Bible, maybe in one of the letters to Corinthian Casuals - who amazingly still play in Ryman League division one south more than 2,000 years later - about 'you will believe in me or I shall come unto thee with a red-hot poker and some snakes and do some nasty stuff on you ass'... (all in a Samuel L Jackson voice I would imagine).

Anyway, I digress. I'm starting to feel I'm being singled out for somebody's sadistic amusement. Somebody out for revenge over something I've done previously ... like not believing.

I've considered other possibilities. I'm also a staunch anti-fascist, an anti-monarchist, and have sung songs about Southampton supporters scrabbling around in refuse looking for supper; but I'm not sure any of these groups wield sufficient influence as to conjure up illness at will.

I realise the Royal Family are pretty powerful, but what with having idiot sons who say bankers bonuses are "minute" I think they have more than enough problems, without concerning themselves with a fat bloke in Hampshire who thinks the £41.5m taxpayers spent on the Royals in 2008 was a tad excessive in a desperate economic climate.

No, I'm pretty sure it's one of His minions who's got it in for me and mine.

The evidence is pretty damning. In August, having saved up for a year, we were all set to go on a family holiday until I was diagnosed with cellulitis, 24 hours before we were due to fly.

Having recouped around 95 per cent of our outlay through the insurance, we decided to go away in the October half-term instead. But prices were even higher than in the summer so we settled instead for me having the week off and doing day trips out.

This time, it was our youngest, Ben, who was struck ill. With a heavy cold which completely debilitated him, he spent most of the week in bed and we spent most of the week within a short distance to make sure he was OK. And as a contingency plan, one of our cats was given an abscess just as a precaution.

Gone were the planned days out in Dorset, London and France. Instead, the furthest we went was to Portsmouth, 18 miles away, where my beloved insisted on taking me to the top of the Spinnaker Tower - a prospect which, given my fear of heights, was as welcome as an evening in the company of Nick Griffin and his close family.

The fact that, once there, I really enjoyed the experience, was one in the eye for whoever's attempting to ruin any time I have to myself.

I will not get a proper 'holiday' in 2009. And given my stance on religion I have to take it on the chin. But what about my wife and kids?

I'm not sure they're all atheists. And while Jackie (Mrs B) is definitely anti-fascist she's very pro-monarchy - which leads to some interesting 'discussions' in our house. So I think she's been a little hard done by.

So let me make this clear now. In order to ensure a decent family holiday in 2010 I am prepared to make a pact with the Devil. Or the other fella. Just as long as they promise to leave us alone in future.

Read all about it!

I'm 46 years old. No spring chicken. And until Tuesday, October 27, 2009, I'd never done a paper round.

When I was a kid I never felt the need to go out and earn pennies as my only hobby was football and my pocket money covered that. I didn't go in for designer clothes, or buy lots of albums - I taped my mates' instead - nor did I have a girlfriend until later when I found somebody who also liked football.

So why, you may ask, did I do a paper round today? And whether you asked or not I'm going to elucidate.

Our youngest, Ben, aged 14, has a paper round. He delivers the Petersfield Messenger - a free paper the sort with which I'm sure you're all familiar - to around 120 homes in our area. The Messenger carries everything you need to know about press releases issued by local community groups and the odd big news story lifted from other organs.

For carrying around half-a-ton of newspapers and walking the best part of a mile-and-a-half, young Ben brings home something around £7, give or take a few pence determined by the number of inserts included - they're the things that fall out on the mat and go in the bin first.

It's under minimum wage, given the time it takes him, but of course minimum wage doesn't apply to kids under the age of 18. They have a special Government-approved Far East Nike shoe worker rate of £3.57 per hour, which is good preparation for when they go out and get a real job and find themselves exploited by management. I'm sure it counts as a Government-backed education initiative.

Anyway, despite the fact I've got on my high horse on several occasions when Ben has returned home soaked to the skin, over the fact I believe it's hardly worth the effort and "I'd rather just give him the bloody money for cleaning my car", he insists on carrying on, bless him.

Until today that is. Today, he's not very well at all. Ben is a very athletic kid. He runs for the local athletics club and is as fit as a butcher's dog. But today he hardly had the energy to lift his spoon to his mouth over breakfast.

Knowing that one of the boys in his football team had been diagnosed with swine flu - and being a bloke who always naturally thinks a sniffle is the first sign of the onset of Asian flu - I wanted to keep close tabs on him and take him to the doctors.

His mother being the nursing equivalent of Genghis Khan - I discovered that myself in the summer when I was diagnosed with an illness which necessitated the loss of our summer holiday - dismissed my fears and decided we'd do part of his paper round for him. And it wasn't the royal we. It was 'we' as in me and her. 'Me' as in the bloke who's taken a week off to spend time relaxing with wife and family.

And so it was, that on a day's holiday and after 46 years of contended idleness in the realm of newspaper delivery I this morning found myself carrying an armful of free newspapers around one of the more affluent parts of Petersfield.

Some of these houses had substantial drives and, after completing my part of my wife's deal with her youngest, I had worked up quite a sweat. It was clear to see why I had eschewed the opportunity to deliver newspapers for the best part of five decades - it takes effort.

And it wasn't without incident. At one house, where the letterbox was at the foot of the door, I bent down to insert the paper only for the door to open and for a middle-aged lady to be confronted by a 23-stone bloke blocking out what should, by rights, have been substantial amounts of autumnal sunshine.

She screamed the scream of a middle-class home owner about to find themselves coshed over the bonce by an East End rough with a broken nose and a selection of cauliflower organs. The situation was not helped by me naturally reaching out to reassure her that she had not wandered into a scene from The Ladykillers.

Realising she was not in danger, as I had neither the energy nor the inclination to cuff her with a dozen copies of the Petersfield Messenger, she soon gathered herself and started apologising to me. To me, would you believe. Here was I, standing at the top of her drive inserting what was left of a small sapling through her letterbox, uninvited, and she was apologising to ME.

So I started telling her not to apologise and started to apologise myself. While all this was going on it took all her husband's efforts not to roll around the floor with his legs flailing wildly, so much was he laughing.

I must have been stood for the best part of two minutes talking to this poor lady, and her husband said not a word. He was too busy wiping the tears from his eyes.

Fortunately I did not come into contact with another human being as I dread to think what effect it might have had on an individual of a delicate constitution.

But as I finished the act of losing my delivery virginity I stood in awe of those boys and girls around the country who deliver papers every day - I assume there are some, somewhere, like milkmen and the bloke who sharpens knives on a grinder at the front of his bike.

Having folded the newspaper into a thinner package for easy insertion (no jokes please) I was still struggling to make a clean delivery without catching on the myriad styles of letterboxes - I didn't realise there were such a variety available.

And as I failed once again and turned a copy of the Petersfield Messenger into an origami piano accordion I realised what an art delivering papers is. I can't get 16 pages and a couple of takeaway menus through a letter box - how the hell do these kids get on with the Sunday Times?

I think we should be told...

PS In theory I'm on holiday all week, so if I don't blog regularly please accept my apologies now...

Griffin-watch part two

Apparently last night's Question Time was the third most-watched programme of the day.

It came in behind BBC1’s EastEnders, which had 8.7m (39.6 per cent of the viewing public) between 7.30pm and 8pm, and ITV1’s Coronation Street, which had 8m (32.5 per cent) between 8.30pm and 9pm.

So more people were interested in learning about the progress of Killer Tony and Maria's engagement and dozens of Cockneys yelling "you slag!", than the policies of the BNP.

And we wonder why the guy got elected. This country...

I was heartened though by a guy in the QT audience who was interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme this morning - although I didn't agree with his opinion that Nick Griffin should not have been allowed on.

He added that the upside to giving Griffin the oxygen of publicity was that the very people likely to vote for him were unlikely to be watching a programme of the calibre of Question Time. They were, he said, "more likely to be watching X Factor".

There's a man after my own heart.

Only in America

An early contender for news story of the day.

http://tinyurl.com/yldjpct

"A Minnesota man has been sentenced for driving his La-Z-Boy chair on a public street while drunk." You can be sure this has a happy ending... :)

Ooo, Ooo, there he is!

We live in a society in which the accusation of racism is often levelled at the police.

That's why I was disturbed by BBC's Question Time last night. Despite constant denials that the police force is 'inherently racist' thousands of constables were out in support of BNP leader Nick Griffin outside Television Centre.

Unashamedly they were still in uniform. And some even took to the skys in a helicopter to get a glimpse of Griffin. So interested were they that they hung around until well after everybody else had gone home.

Now that's far more worrying than Griffin...

Mmmm...

Just had a coronation chicken baguette.

Whose idea was it to first put sultanas with chicken? Genius? Madness? Mad genius?

What freedom?

Apparently, journalists in the UK enjoy less press freedom than those in 19 other countries including Estonia, Malta, Latvia and Lithuania, according to a survey released yesterday.

I find that bloody disgraceful and

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Give 'Nasty Nick' his platform

I wholeheartedly support the BBC’s stance on allowing the BNP’s Nick Griffin to appear on today’s Question Time.

People have voted for this man and his party and while the majority of us may find his policies abhorrent and his followers odious, in a country which is supposed to believe in free speech, there is no room for censoring politics.

Cabinet minister Peter Hain has done himself little credit when referring to other parties as ‘democratic’. This IS democracy in action, as repulsive as it may be.

Griffin is a Euro MP. People voted for him – albeit people with the IQ of a whelk. His voice should be heard. To keep him off the programme would simply give him something else to bleat about, only on this occasion his stance would not be quite so ill-informed.

Let’s hear what he has to say. Then let everybody see what a foul, bigoted, narrow-minded individual he is. Albeit a reasonably articulate foul, bigoted, narrow-minded individual.

Personally I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t thrown anything at the telly since the closing credits of X Factor went up.

Check out Newsarse’s take on Question Time here "BNP supporters to overcome fear of ’speaking picture box"

Bin and done

Parents often chastise their children when they show little work ethic with the threat that “if you don’t start getting better marks you’ll end up working as a dustman”.

This is seen as a pejorative statement for dustmen – or refuse collection executives as they are now often known – are regarded as the lowest of the low, unintelligent and low-paid. Hence when people find out that they don’t actually work for minimum wage there is an outcry about their salaries.

Well let me tell you now, dustmen are worth every penny of their salary – and more.

I have written before of the terrors of my walk to work and this morning I discovered myself gaining on a refuse lorry. This in itself is not unusual it happens every Thursday. But today I was downwind. Even at 100 yards and closing I was gagging. The smell was awful. It permeated my soul and clogged my throat. I wanted to eat an Airwick.

Fortunately the lorry turned down a side road as I got to within 50 yards and, in an effort to get to some untainted air, I increased my pace – though falling short of actually jogging of course.

If these guys can work all day with that stench in their nostrils they are better men than I and deserve all the pounds sterling they get.

Their salary should be docked only for unnecessarily loud voices – which seem also to be a prerequisite for the job – and the use of discarded cuddly toys as ineffective bull bars on the front of their vehicles. They’re not going to cushion the impact of anything.

Perhaps they’re not so bright after all.

Masterchef spin-off to hit screens over Halloween

Terry Wogan knows the popular cooking contest Masterchef by the name ‘Mastershout’.

It’s an accurate reflection, particularly of the way 45-year-old Cockney barrow-boy-turned-pillock Greg Wallace behaves.

We’d all like to be able to taste wonderful food for a living – and have a girlfriend 17 years younger come to think of it – but there’s no need to keep yelling everything in an attempt to remind us of how lucky he is.

“Cooking DOES NOT GET any tougher than this,” he bellows at the beginning of every episode.

It doesn’t get any more irritating either Greg. The chefs are hugely talented and even a culinary klutz such as your correspondent has learned something from catching the odd show while SWMBO tunes in.

But I end up just wanting to punch the guy. I’m sure his girlfriend – who is 17 years his junior by the way (wasn’t sure I made that clear earlier) – loves him dearly. But we know he’s not kind to animals because he invariably skins them and chucks them in a pot. And on that basis, I’m out.

And to make things worse we’re apparently going to see more of him as a spin-off show will hit our screens over Halloween weekend.

It’s called MasterShrek and it's designed to find the best ogre, in the same way Masterchef finds the best chef. Obviously there will be a culinary element to the show, otherwise Wallace wouldn't be involved.

Contestants must prepare their finest ogre cuisine, with such delights as eyeballs and worms being used as ingredients. That leads nicely on to the second challenge which is attempting to eat the dishes they've prepared without being ill.

It's amazing what the commissioning editors at the BBC will allow through these days. I mean, where the hell did they get that idea from...

Me, myself and some other guy

For the second time in a little over a year I have been the victim of identity theft.

Thankfully, first my bank, and, more recently, my credit-card company, have reacted swiftly to the change in purchasing habits and have nipped it in the bud.

But I am puzzled. Who the hell would want to steal my identity? I mean look at me...

Little wonder the bank were able to spot it so quickly if some guy was walking round buying designer clothes dressed as a 23-stone, middle-aged man.

It makes me soooooooo angry

X Factor apparently got a record 14.8 million viewers last night – am I the only person in the country who detests this sort of show?

I can honestly say I’ve never watched a whole episode of X Factor, Britain’s Got Chavs, Pop Idol, How Do We Solve a Problem Like Maria?, I’m a Pillock Get Me Out of Here, or Big Brother.

Nor do I watch Come Dine With Me, How Shit is your House?, Wife Swap, Holiday Showdown, Honey I Should Have Shown the Kids Some Discipline or any of the myriad ‘reality’ tv shows the current channels seem intent on shoving down our throats.

They don’t need to shove them down my throat, as they already make me vomit.

On the occasions I have been forced – generally by She Who Must Be Obeyed or one of the kids – to endure five or 10 minutes of society’s flotsam and jetsam, I’ve generally had to leave the room to prevent myself launching into a foul-mouth tirade or throwing an expensive nick-nack through the screen of a not-inexpensive television set.

Andy Warhol obviously foresaw the parlous state of tv in the 21st century when he said: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

The trouble is, people aren’t even that ambitious. They’re quite happy to be seen on tv for just fleeting moment. With numerous video recording devices, and YouTube and Facebook upon which to publish them, an appearance of just a few seconds can be preserved for ever and regurgitated whenever the individual wants to make people think “what a knob!”

What will these people do with these clips? Will they really sit their grandchildren down on their knee in 50 years time and say “look at this Kylie, this is Grandad on Britain’s Got Talent; wasn’t I a complete ****?”

Yes Grandad. Yes you were. And there are thousands like you; and millions more who perpetuate the myth that it’s good to be a **** by watching you and laughing at your lack of intelligence.

One can only hope there is an afterlife and that when we arrive there St Peter tops up the number of such shows we have watched during our lifetime, calculates the hours of precious life we have wasted and punches us in the face once for every hour needlessly lost.

And I hope he’s got an arm like Mike Tyson’s…

I just wouldn't let it lie...

Football fans have today been reeling in shock after Spurs manager Harry Redknapp displayed some humility during a press conference.

The inappropriately named ‘Appy ‘Arry, who has previously attempted to rewrite history by claiming to have discovered penicillin and been the first man on the moon, this week claimed to have been the best manager in the history of Portsmouth Football Club.

Though neither his wife Sandra nor son Jamie have publicly derided the family’s patriarch for his dubious claim, privately they are believed to be ‘ROTFL’ according to a text message sent to one of Redknapp’s tame Fleet Street sycophants.

A family source confirmed: “Everybody is starting to believe Harry may be down to the bare bones mentally. Some of the stuff he’s coming out with is ridiculous. Bob Jackson, of course, took Pompey to two back-to-back league titles without the aid of a sugar daddy pumping millions into the club.

“And Jack Tinn managed Pompey to a cup final victory in 1939 against the best team in England – not the second-best team in Wales.”

Redknapp has also this week claimed to have tried to save crisis club Portsmouth by introducing rich friends – believed to be stationery magnates; suggested he went to Spurs merely so Portsmouth could claim compensation from the White Hart Lane club; blamed the south-coast club’s demise on its former owner Sacha Gaydamak; and that he expects a warm reception from Pompey fans.

However, in a remarkable turnaround apparently inspired by watching an old episode of the Lone Ranger, in which a native American claimed that “white man speak with forked tongue” Redknapp* chose to come clean in this morning’s press conference.

“Actually I deserve all the abuse they will heap on me,” said an unusually coy Redknapp.

“I promised them I wouldn’t go to Southampton – then I did. I then said I was ‘Pompey till I died’ – then a week later went to Tottenham. And then I said I wouldn’t go back to Fratton Park for any of their players because that would be ungracious – and then I signed Defoe, Crouch and Krancjar.

“Basically I’m the most duplicitous man in English football and that’s quite an achievement ferrshure. After all I once claimed Yoshi Kawaguchi had the best distribution I’d ever seen when he signed for Portsmouth and then, after he was a huge flop, denied ever having seen him play and claimed no knowledge of him before his signing.

“I even tried to blame poor old Sacha Gaydamak for Pompey’s financial plight when it was me what spent all the money including giving £50k-a-week contracts to players what didn’t even play more than a dozen times for the club.

“But that’s me all over…”

Redknapp, whose face appeared more paper cut-out mask than normal, was then bundled off the stage by large minders to be replaced by a twitching lookalike.

Responding to a question about one of his back-room staff, the new Redknapp said: “Kevin who? Kevin Bond? Never ‘eard of ‘im mate. You must be confusing me wiv somebody else. Anyway, did I ever tell you how I mediated in the Cuban Missile Crisis…”

*A man wearing a paper Harry Redknapp mask has been arrested by police and will be charged with flagrant honesty. Around 50,000 Portsmouth residents are believed to be prepared to stand bail

Is it me?

When I was a youngster programmes like Dr Who, Star Trek and Lost in Space convinced impressionable youngsters that we would be invaded by an army of alien machines who would colonise earth by use of mind-control devices.

Forty years later, and travelling to London on a commuter special - the 7.45am Petersfield to London Waterloo - yesterday I realised that day had come to pass.

Everybody, other than your correspondent, was being fed mind-control instructions from a hand-held device called a Blackberry. It really was like a scene out of a cheap 60s' sci-fi drama.

It appeared to me that nobody in the carriage was resorting to the traditional commuter-travel standby of a national newspaper, or the latest pot-boiler from Jackie Collins. Admittedly I had on my MP3 player, listening to Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent - after all it wouldn't do to engage in conversation with other species - but at least I was aware there were other people around.

For everybody else the entire world was contained in a small metallic box only slightly larger than the average wallet and subsequently the panacea for all ills was displayed on a LCD screen smaller than a credit card.

Thousands of years of evolution - all for this. What are these people doing? Twittering? Blogging even? Are they labouring under the illusion there are people out there who really give a toss about what they think? Who'd be stupid enough to believe that...?

My incredulity was only heightened when I alighted at Waterloo and took the Northern Line to Leicester Square and then the Picadilly Line to King's Cross St Pancras - I'm nothing if not thorough when it comes to setting a scene.

On the Underground there was every living cliche you could think of:

• the broad-shouldered rugby-playing ex-public schoolboy, now city trader, in his £600 suit and £300 shoes with his hair slicked back completely using enough oil to provide the annual gross domestic product for a small third world country;
• the overweight teenage mum resplendent with huge hoop earrings and complete with pushchair and small child, still stuffing her face with a family-size bag of Doritos despite the fact her leggings were screaming "enough already!" (she may have been Jewish as well...);
• the poor Asian student for whom carrying his textbooks in a rucksack automatically marked him out as a terrorist suspect to almost everybody in the carriage;
• the power-hungry, 40-something single-woman, dressed to kill and with a tongue to match - after all being rude to people is the only way to get on in a male-dominated society;
• the 'trendy young guys' who dress to give the impression they're at the cutting edge of fashion and may even be a rock star you haven't heard of, and who think they look really cool in their retro gear, whereas anybody over the age of 30 will tell you they look a 'knob!';
• the commuting banker, in three-piece Savile Row suit, with a rolled-up copy of the FT under one arm and a brolly in his other hand, despite the fact it's the warmest October day since the dinosaurs keeled over;
• the fat, long-haired, unshaven Motorhead t-shirt-wearing 30-year-old on his way to a Dungeons & Dragons convention in a dark room in Soho - this was not me by the way: I do not possess a Motorhead t-shirt;
• the knuckle-dragging, tattooed skinhead sporting a BNP badge and making snide comments about anybody "who shouldn't be in this country";
• the impeccably dressed gay, with his designer glasses and £500 man bag;
• the painter and decorator in paint-splashed overalls who takes great delight in brushing up against anybody in an expensive suit or anybody with impressive breasts;
• a middle-aged Japanese tourist who sees nothing wrong in wearing a 3/4-length denim jacket, with tracksuit trousers and a Van Heusen shirt...

I could go on, but suffice to say that's the last time I attend a public transport users action group meeting...

Credit where credit's due

Pompey chief executive Peter Storrie has come under increasing pressure recently as details of the club’s debt were made public.

The former West Ham and Notts County supremo – who, it is alleged by the Mail’s Charlie Sale began his career in football by selling bibs and cones to Harry Redknapp – earns a seven-figure salary, the largest for a chief exec in the Premiership.

And some Pompey fans are, justifiably in my view, questioning how he can be held up as a white knight over his ‘introduction’ of the new owners, when, in his role, he clearly presided over the mounting debt.

If Marks & Spencer was on the verge of administration and its chief executive Stuart Rose came out and said “Well it was what the board wanted so I went along with it – but it’s not my fault” do we really think he would be held blameless? Bloody right he wouldn’t. He’d be out on his ear before you could say “This is not just any old sacking this is a Marks & Spencer sacking”.

Surely as chief executive Storrie is culpable? After all he – we have to assume – could see the problems mounting. If he didn’t realise the problem he should be sacked. If he did see and did not approve of the policy of over-spending why did he not simply resign and blow the whistle on it? Protecting that seven-figure salary we must assume.

I would have given him far more credit if he’d quit a long time ago and at least alerted everybody to what was happening. Instead he sat back raking in the greenbacks and told us for months on end there wasn’t a problem, until one day he changed his mind and said, actually it is quite bad here…

He has to be given huge credit for one thing, however: not many chief executives in football get their club’s owners on an eight-week sale-or-return basis.

Let’s hope the same agreement is in place for the current incumbent in case he proves faulty as well.

"Marge, you're as beautiful as Princess Leia and as smart as Yoda"

For the first time - no honestly - I may have to buy Playboy.

Apparently the next edition features Marge Simpson. It's not that I will get off on naked cartoon figures - that's yet to be tested and I would imagine Marge doesn't get her kit off - it's just that I am a massive Simpsons fans and the incongruity of it appeals to me.

That and I'm a sucker for anything Simpsons; I recently broke my Homer Simpson - "Mmmm...beer!" - bottle opener and I'm still distraught.

We also have a Marge wine-bottle stopper, a Homer Simpson magic 8-ball, eight DVD box sets, a Simpsons clock, Simpsons Cluedo - I can't stand the game but I love the little characters - Simpsons chess (it makes losing to a child much more fun), numerous books, wisdom of Homer socks and two cats called Marge and Lisa.

She who must be obeyed thinks I'm obsessed and 'sad', but surely it's an understandable obsession given that it is quite plainly the best television series ever - and don't just take my word for it, Time magazine said so as well.

I wonder if Matt Groening ever realised what he would spawn when he first drew Homer and Bart?

Football in disarray - Pompey hope to benefit

The future of the Football Association is today in doubt after its 'fit and proper person' test failed FIFA's 'fit and proper fit and proper persons' test.

A spokesman for FIFA said: "The Football Asscoiation's 'fit and proper person' test was found not to be fit for the purpose intended and will therefore have to be shelved until the media furore surrounding it dies down and we can quietly resurrect it without anybody noticing.

"This has serious implications for football because it's not right that people are able to point out the shortcomings of the sport's national governing bodies. It is not an easy task keeping football's elite from mixing with the smaller clubs and becoming tainted.

"It has therefore become necessary to ensure clubs deemed 'unsuitable' for inclusion in the top leagues are forced to endure humilation at the hands of 'unfit' owners. This is the reason Sulaiman al Fahim was allowed to take over at Portsmouth and presumably why Ken Bates is still allowed anywhere near the game.

"This at least explains why the FA's 'fit and proper person' test is the worthless piece of s**t it is, but we can not stand by and allow somebody to leak it to the press for all to see."

The remarkable admission by the sport's governing body comes after the official FA Fit and Proper Person Test document was leaked to a small homeless boy rooting around in bins in Soho Square.

You can now see for yourself just how poor the document is as we have reproduced the form in its entirety below:

How would you describe yourself?


 Rich


 Super-rich


 Mega-rich


 Walter Mitty


Are you now or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation or worn a France shirt with the name Platini on the back?

 Yes


 No


 Who’s Platini?


Have you ever invited Sepp Blatter to dinner?

 Yes


 No


 Who?


Do you have a big luxury yacht on to which you could invite Lord Triesman and his fellow FA members?

 Yes


 No


 Who?


Are you now or have you ever been Michael Knighton?

 Yes


 No


 Who?


Do you promise to raise fans’expectations up to fever pitch before letting them down with a lack of funds / business acumen / intelligence? (Do not delete which not applicable as they all are)

 Yes


 No


 What’s acumen…?


Who will you appoint as manager?

 A messiah loved by the fans but with no managerial experience


 A big-name manager who’s in it only for the cash


 A big-name player to whom this will be a first managerial position


 A good young manager from the lower divisions about whom nobody knows anything and will be sacked before he gets a chance to turn things around


 The cheap option


 Harry Redknapp

I (the undersigned) appreciate that all the information given above is completely irrelevant providing I promise to maintain the status quo within the Premiership ( or the EPL as it is known in corporate circles), promise never to speak out of turn and to ensure small clubs are never given the opportunity to establish themselves at the top level.