Miners helmets and beaves

According to Stephen Clarke – author of the ‘Merde’ series – in his latest book ‘1000 Years of Annoying the French’, the wife of the 20th century UK PM Harold Macmillan was a tad eccentric and enjoyed gardening at night wearing a miner’s helmet.

Too late for a ‘heads up’, but this short post gives me an opportunity to rave about a very rare thing – a good TV program.

If you can catch it in BBC iPlayer or something similar, then I can heartily recommend ‘Anvil – the Story of Anvil’ in the BBC4 ‘Storyville’ series.

It told the story of 1980s Canadian hair metal band Anvil’s recent attempts to make a comeback and eclipsed the classic ‘Spinal Tap’ film.

I don’t doubt for a moment that some of it may have been staged, but much of it wasn’t, I’m positive, and had me in stitches when Lips – the lead guitarist and vocalist – was describing the meal rota at the cooked meals suppliers he drives for and almost in tears when the band walked out to a packed house in a Japanese venue after expecting no-one to be there.

Then there was the drummer, Rob Reiner, who, when asked the reason for their current lack of success, said something the lines of ‘I can say it in one word…two words…three words what’s wrong…our management’s no fuckin’ good.’

There was also the inevitable fight between long term members Rob and Lips with Lips sacking Rob and then a tearful making up.

A further, rather surreal delight was Rob’s artwork. Several canvases of street scenes totally empty of people – ‘I like buildings’ – not to mention his painting of a giant sculpture of an anvil in a park which dwarfed the people near it.

Apart from all that, any band who writes lyrics that include the word ‘beaves’ has to be paid some attention…

Anyway, just try and see it – definitely my favourite TV program of the year so far.

Ta DP!

Nicked off Dick Puddlecote’s blog.

Don’t tell him, eh?

For all the EDP stooges

Iain Dale fail

I don’t normally discuss specific blogs – except when I want to point out something positive.

I usually stick to generalisations when I’m criticising them.

However, Iain Dale’s blog seems to be copping some flak recently regarding Mad Nad Dorries, Julie ‘fiddling for a roof’ Kirkbride and now Alan ‘expenses are great, innit’ Duncan.

Tomorrow I am going to be interviewing Alan Duncan for Total Politics. Feel free to suggest questions you’d like me to ask him.

And then the fun starts.

Here’s a selection of the questions I don’t think Dale will be asking Duncan…

Are the flowers planted by Pound Force still in your lawn?

Can he see any conflict between compassionate conservatism as espoused by David Cameron and the values sought by Marc Rich in employees of his oil trading organisation?

Do you regret your remarks about murdering Miss California?!

Why did he act like such a smug cock about his expenses on HIGNFY?

Do you think people believe your tan is real ?

Because she paid her taxes, my mother gets an old age pension of £95 a week. By dint of thrift she has a private income of just under £5,000 a year which means that her pension is clawed back by £45 a month. Why is my mother’s income taxed so that MPs earning £68,000 a year can have free groceries worth £100 a week?

“After your performance on ‘Have I Got News For You’ why do you think that David Cameron has not withdrawn the whip”

Given that pretty well all the questions posed so far severely challenge your morality and your judgement, please can you provide your justification for continuing in office as an MP and Shadow Leader of the House, and one good reason why you should not be voted out at the next election.

Yikes!

Billboard campaign

Many thanks to Dizzy’s blog for showing me this.

The things you see…

I popped into Lidl’s for my monthly shop there  – they sell some excellent cheese, cooked meats and ground coffee, as well as the cheapest coffee filter papers I’ve seen in the UK.

It’s also a great place for varieties of Haribo sweets you can’t seem to find easily anywhere else and also Prosecco.

However, I passed on these:

Boris Johnson and mental illness

A rather unfortunate screen capture and snippage from Boris Johnson’s blog…

I don’t know about depression, but the guy’s certainly got a few sheep loose in the top pasture…

One more blueberry muffin before the revolution!

I’m trying to work out whether this blog – the latte-drinking feminist anti-capitaist one referred to in the last entry here – is serious or satirical.

If it’s serious then I don’t think that we have anything to fear from the far left at least as their concerns seem to be fractured and dispersed beyond all coherence.

If it’s satirical then it’s a work of true genius.

Here’s an extract:

So, last night I found my tiny self at a debate organised by Soundings and Comment Is Free, provocatively titled ‘After New Labour’. I was starving, having been writing all day when I should have been eating lunch, and had just about enough time to pick up the world’s largest blueberry muffin on my way to King’s Place. As I was due to write a piece for the Graun (Pennyred articles commissioned and turned down by Guardian currently stand at 6), I was ushered into a little room containing The Rt Hon Harriet Harman Rt Hon, Madeleine Bunting and someone else who knew them both so was obviously famous, and – me, and my muffin. Dilemma! I have an annoying tendency to shake and fall over when I haven’t eaten. But Harriet Harman was right there! I couldn’t just scoff down a muffin in front of her without even introducing myself – could I? Or could I? In the end I made my excuses and sprinted outside for sugar, cigarettes and other vices, before heading back in to ask cheeky questions and generally have a great deal of fun.

This could have come straight from the pages of the Eye!

Of course, I realise that I could be getting this anti-capitalist feminist lots of hits but the comic rewards are worth it.

Satirical or not, it’s fucking funny and she can certainly write…

Addendum or some such late additional shite:

She should be able to write – she seems to be some sort of celebrated left-wing  journalist.

Real name – Laurie Penny.

Still an amusing blog though – and being a journalist isn’t necessary an aid to credibility…I used to be a freelancer myself at one time.

Man the barristas!

Many thanks to Obnoxio’s blog for bringing this to my attention.

It’s somehow comforting to know that latte is the drink of anti-capitalist feminists, although I reckon we’re in for some serious shit from them if they ever get on the double espressos…

On a slightly more serious note, it would seem that the original author of the blog entry in question is a student and thus her fees are paid, in part, by the capitalist system she dislikes so much…

I wonder how she manages to square that particular circle?