BA's New Tailfin

London Sunset

"Now Bond, Em tells me 'as 'ow you don't seem to 'ave a clue as to what the fuck is going on. Is that right or am I barking up the wrong proverbial?"

"Well that may be ....."

"Don't give me the runaround we need to work togevver and that's about the sum of it isn't it?

"OK" Bond said almost sulkily. He detested Palmer with his barrow boy manner and exquisite suits but give him his due he made the best martini, he'd dissuaded Bond from having his martini stirred, as he usually did, but to have it shaken. Bond could seee the man might have his uses as he luxurated in the martini in the early morning light.

"Now Bond I think we need to get these planes sorted out, what the bollocks was going on there, free with radiation on 'em and we're standing ere with our cock in our hands, clueless."

"Absolutely, but I think I may have a lead with one of the hostesses that I knew a while ago."

"Bond you don't arf put it around, what's 'er name."

"Truffles."

"Truffles? You're having a right giraffe aren't you?

"No I'm not." starting to resent his cockney needling. "Her name is a bit of a handle and too much really; Bathsheba Glenduggan Trahear-Harvey. Truffles pretty much sums her up; can be difficult to find, expensive and men fight over her."

"What and she attracts flies. She's got more names than me family. I wouldn't mind getting astride her and giving her a bit of gallop over the downs."

Bond resented Palmer's interest. Though he discarded women as other men discard a used betting slip, forgetting his brief moment of excitement and the dashed hopes and dreams. Bond was beginning to bridle and began sizing Palmer up. Palmer was lighter but looked pantherishly quick. How would his skills acquired at his dojo fight out aginst Palmer's street fighting from the Bethnal Green back streets?

Palmer with a fighter's instinct picked up on the gleam in Bond's ice-blue eyes and noticed how he balanced his weight as he stood up from the table, casually leaving his martini glass at arm's reach, should it be needed. Palmer realised he only had his whisk at hand, best improvise. he began trying to put distance between himself and Bond.

Bond moved forward in the tango of combat.

The door crashed open and M stormed in with enough force to blow away all the testerone in both the men.

"Stop it now you two fighting cocks. If you can't keep yourself in hand then I'll have to do it. You two will be out in the field. We have a heck of a mess to clear up. They've found traces on a number of aircraft and we've just heard that a Russian politician has been poisioned in Ireland."

"Are you sure that it wasn't something that disagreed with him that he ate?" Bond quipped.

"That'll be funny when you get it right," smirked Palmer.

"It's definately not a dicky oyster or too much Guiness as it bears all the hallmarks of a ledgermain, to throw us off the scent." Said a small, professorial man, blinking behind his owlish spectacles."

"Gentlemen, let me introduce George Smiley."

Alistair Campbell Paragon of the Media

Alistair Campbell says us bloggers should regulate, control ourselves and not act like naughty girls and boys. Send him to Adelaide they need world class spin there.

Reido About Turns

London Sunset

Bond hadn't had a lashing like this since he'd had a tryste with Le Chiffre whipping his testicles with a carpet beater. Still not as bad as getting buggered by Farley-Witless of the Latin VI in the back of the Pavilion during house matches.

"Bond you're starting to lose it. You've barely made an impact on this mission. There's more radiation showing up in London than on a Lake District fell, people are getting tested left, right and centre, John Reid is sooner or later not going to be able to come up with another witless reassurance and soon the reptiles of the press are going to be asking why there are more meetings of Cobra than the Delhi chapter of snake charmers. What the fuck is going on? If you don't get your tuxedoed ass into gear I'm putting Palmer on it. He may be insufferably working class, but he has better suits than you and gets the job done and can crack eggs one-handed. Now get out of here and get something done!"

M relaxed, she always liked to see Bond leave, his arse still had it even if he didn't.

Religious Unanimity

Tarra Pop Picker, Not Arf

Melbourne 1927

Twickenham 2006

Great voice, great style

Here's Fluff rounding up the chart

Pope's Plane Stolen

Grunt

So they say Women use 20,000 words a day and men use 7,000 and what's your point?

The Grauniad wired up two of its journalists, hardly representative really; he doesn't seem to say anything about norks or even ask "If you could take anybody living, dead or undead to the ashes who would you take?" or the "Top five totty in the office?" And she hardly ever mentions shoes or her fat arse. The totals come out about the same, as you'd expect from journalists but my hunch is that that bestselling book is nearer the mark. Grunt.

Operation Cack-Handed

The new operation in Iraq is called Operation Sinbad. OK.

Sperm Is A Sub's Dream

Sometimes after wading through acres of rebarbative, redundant, alliterative dross a sub-editor is given a story on which they can work their own little brand of magic and obsession with getting unsuitable images and suggestions into print. The Times story about Danish sperm donations swims into view as one today,

I'll just quote

The Vikings are coming

As sperm donations slow to a trickle, Denmark has become the sperm powerhouse of Europe

In the same way that some nations have oil fields or bread mountains, Denmark boasts an ever-growing sperm lake.

Fertilitetsklinikken Trianglen, north of Copenhagen, is one of these. In the hallway there is a chandelier of sperm-shaped bulbs;

“This place used to be filled with Siemens,” he says. What? “Siemens, the electronic company, had its offices here.”

Followed by a flood of sperm allusions

If you click on the drawing and you see a sperm you're pregnant

Listen to this You Authoritarian Bastards

I don't really have to say anything do I? isn't it so evidently over the top, an unwarranted intrusion into our rights and freedoms. CCTV has had a very limited success so how is listening to us in the streets going to help.

Cue Reido, wheel him out there. " Blah very necessary, safeguards in abundance, riding tide of terror and criminality, Blah Blah, i'm not here to provoke more fear (be scared, be very scared).


Next they'll be barcoding us; oh they are, of course.

Am I surprised that the UK is regarded as an endemic surveillance society (November 25 06) and ranked 33 out of 36, that's 1 place above Singapore and Russia and two above Malaysia and China. We're in good company then.

Ahab Ahoy

Whosoever of ye that raises me the white-headed whale with a wrinkled shirt and a crooked helmet; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale of English cricket, with the bequiffed Pieterson, the twitchy Harmison and the King of Spain--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this 24 pack of Foster's, my boys!

"Huzza! huzza!" cried the cricketers, as with swinging boxes they hailed the act of putting the tinnies in the cooler.

"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ponting, as he threw down his pads: "a white whale.
Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out."

All this while Gilcristego, Warnoo, and Queelee had looked on with even more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the wrinkled shirt and crooked helmet they had started as if each was separately touched by some specific recollection.

Depths of the Web

An occasional series that plumbs the depths of the Web and prompts the question why?

Ponting Fails

Ponting fails as a captain and as a human being. His hubristic decision to bat again will meet its nemesis. It's typical of his pouting inferiority that he seeks to grind England into the dust of the Gabba. Why is he so scared? Why is he so unsure of himself and his bunch of cricketers that he thinks he needs at least 500 runs to protect himself from England. This man is so scared and unsure of himself that he has begun to behave like some sort of cricketing Darth Vader, "This has been a great day for the Empire," wheeze, cough, splutter and pout at anybody who might threaten you. A good leader doesn't inspire resistance in his opposition, if he had enforced the follow on and probably bowled out England then it would have been job done, but his bullying tactics will inspire a greater resistance from England and this match will end up drawn and the Runting will sit there with egg on his face pouting like a spoilt four year old.

London Sunset

Bond looked into the cold, calculating eyes of M and he felt a shock as he saw something he had never seen in the eyes of M before: fear. He was perturbed but he mastered himself and settled back into the deep luxuriant leather of the chair, waiting for M to unfold the next chapter in his life.

"Bond this is urgent, you may not have known as you were out on that mission in Australia but we've had some developments here in London that we're quite worried about..."

Bond's mind slipped away for a couple of seconds to the land of awful lager and national obsession with "Barbies" and badly cooked meat. That chef at one barbie had ruined his chateaubriand, but one swift chop to his throat had underlined the error of his mistake. Bond looked forward to his work unfolding over the next few weeks as the Australian cricket team subsided into a well-organized barmaid pestering, kangaroo tampering malstrom of press speculation. if that didn't secure the Ashes then he'd have to go back and break that fat blond man's wrists and maybe put a bullet from his PPK through the forehead of that awful strutting dwarf.

"Bond." M's voice cut through Bond's revery like a laser.

"Yes M, I'm listening."

"We have a problem, an ex KGB operative has just died in hospital, the press thinks he was poisoned, they had an idea it was Thallium, we fed them that one but now it's got out that Polonium 210 was involved. At the moment they're considering it was used as a poison. We're sitting on the brighter of these reptiles, the ones that have made the connection...

"That Polonium 210 can be used as a trigger for a nuclear device, " Bond snapped out, remembering his time in Iran looking for the Polonium labs.

"Precisely Bond. What we have here is not someone who was poisoned by the FSB, a bunch of bungling, vodka swilling amateurs.."

"That's right not a patch on the KGB, remember dear sweet Rosa, M. Such a shame I had to kill her, such a terrible taste in shoes though."

"Bond, can I pull you away from your erotic revery, I know she was your favourite lover.."

"How do you know that M?"

"Never mind Bond, we were a little worried once that you might defect. But let's get back to the matter in hand."

"We have someone who has died of radiation poisoning in London. Radiation from a known nuclear device trigger. A restaurant where he ate, an hotel and his house are glowing. He died because he was in contact with for however a brief a time the trigger device of a bomb. We don't know who he was helping to build it, if that were the case, he may have stumbled onto it, we don't know. But give him his due he kept schtum right to the end, except for a couple of his emigre friends. we have most of them. Though one did surface at a press conference this afternoon but he was raving too much and everyone thought he was mad. We have him under lock and key at Medway. You also know Cobra has met, about the bomb not the death, and is understandably concerned, we don't want to evacuate London but if you don't come up with the goods in 72 hours, we're going to have to. God help us but our offices are in Cardiff. So if you can expedite this..."

"Absolutely M." He felt a tightening in his groin as he anticipated the climax of the assignment.

Bush Clemency

Alright Luv What About the VAT

"As Tessa steps into the ring, she looks a little nervous, obviously expecting a lot of heavy punishment."

Round One!

thanks to Beau Bo D'Or

Book Choice

SHOCK HORROR

The Name's James

Dr No From Russia with Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man with the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill Golden Eye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.

A 23-year-old James Bond fan, David Fearn, of Walsall, has changed his name to the above. He could have just changed it to Oddjob Fearn. You can call me Aragorn Glimmerdawn.

Is That Smoke?

What a C**t

Another tale of newspaper management losing their sense of humour in their constant striving for excellence. The Press Gazette carries the story of two subs at the South China Morning Post sacked for putting together a traditional leaving frontpage. Head Humourless Hack, Mark Clifford, took exception to the use of C**t in a headline and sacked the subs. In a rare moment of unanimity in a newsroom the assorted journos have signed a no-confidence motion in Clifford. Clifford says in an explanatory email that "We must strive for excellence in everything." Well it looks to me to be an excellent leaving front page. And "There is no room here for people who flout journalistic ethics of fairness and accuracy." Well, not knowing Niall Fraser it's difficult to say whether it is accurate and fair or not. However, I have built up a certain idea of what Clifford is.

***********************************

Nice intro and true

"Irreverent [check that] farewell front pages are as much a part of journalistic culture as messy desks [check] and bad pay [check]."

Oh and crap management [check]. I must be a real journo. Hurrah and now off to the pub.

$1.3M to Stop Cyclists

New York City has spent $1.3M in its attempts to stop the Critical Mass cycle rides that take place once a month for about two hours. The mass is a unorganized bunch of cyclists who get together and just ride around. But in the last few years they have been harassed consistently by New York's finest with helicopters, paddy vans, goons on scooters and violent intimidatory policing in an attempt to wipe cyclists off the roads of New York. Go on Mayor Bloomberg keep spending all that money to stop cyclists cycling. On yer bike Bloomberg.

Check out Christopher Hitchens on Bloomberg's New York in his book Love, Poverty and War

Grab these Grannies

These two master criminals are being sough by the British Transport Police, they were seen leaving with high speed zimmer frames, later found burnt out.

The two grey-haired ladies, thought to be in their 70s, are seen on CCTV picking up a bag left on a Metro platform in Sunderland.
They can be seen cackling and rifling through the bag as they shuffle along the station platform and head for the door.
They later handed the bag into police - without the wallet that was inside.

SkyNews Takes Rape Seriously

SkyNews starts an interview about the Police's date rape drug report, titled Sorry Luv it was the Lager, one exchange with the policeman and then to Lisa Longstaff, spokeswoman for Women Against Rape, who is then promptly cut short mid answer as Sky has run out of time. Now that's taking it seriously.

A Pint of Over Extended Metaphor My Good Man

"Cast yourself adrift with this fruity and malty,red brown bittersweet beer. "

"so easy to drink it will fool all but the crustiest of sea dogs."

"a fantastic wheat beer that will hole any passing thirst"


OK, that's full steam ahead with your Fleet of Beers, gedditt. And then there are Concept Beers. A concept too far surely, but here goes...

Full Steam Ahead,

Engine Room, is a doozy,

"Deep below decks lies the heart of the ship, smoothly powering everthing on board. Like the engine room that has power to spare sitting at the heart of this beer, smoorhly (sic) letting the flavours push forwards onto the tongu (sic), sweetness and bitterness aloke (sic) slip from this bright amber beer and leave a delightful bittersweet wake. (sick)"

Check out the site if you're not too queasy already.

Wise Words, Very Wise Words

A question to Dirty Pockets Atherton,

What would you do if you won the toss in Brisbane next week?
Bob Whitter, WorthingMA:

I would look at the pitch, call over Nasser Hussain and ask him what he would do, then do the opposite.

I can still remember sitting in front of my computer, ostensibly working, but watching the cricket and hearing that Nasser had won the toss and decided to bowl. What! and we lost the whole series in the first morning basically.

Bollocks He Talks

"No other religion has started with a belief in in fictional characters."

Christopher Morgan

Religious Expert

Heard on SkyNews in a debate on whether Jedi is a religion (all us Jedi already know it is, you can feel it) .

The Bravest of the Brave

I support you totally. Women protesters against sharia law rape cases.The judges are even worse than dilapitated, sexist British judges.

Ashes-to-Ashes

The boys are getting tense. The dull clashing of Foster's cans outside our hotel windows are preventing sleep for most our party except Pieterboy, who muttered something about it reminding him of a storm lashing the roof of his corrugated hut back in Africa. Strange boy but he's pretty ebullient about his ton the other day. I said to him and he laconically replied "What's ebullient?"

The boys don't seem to be taking it too badly that Stresscothick went doolally and had to be sent back to blighty in a straightjacket, ranting about the kangaroos in his box. Surely the prospect of three months in the sun and more totty than you shake your bat at must cheer up a chap.

Monty seems to be keeping his spirits up but seems to have too many posters of shagger Warne on his hotel room walls. I caught him the other day mimicking Warne's appeals in his mirror.

Flinty has taken to watching the sun going down from our team balcony, dodging the occasional Foster's can, empty, and floaters, half-eaten, muttering about the going down of the sun on a golden generation.

Still one has to keep one's spirits up and I've been reinforcing the boxes and thigh pads, maybe i'll start on the helmets tomorrow.

An Uncomfortable Morning

Does Phil look a little distrait, lacking a certain easiness? He's certainly sending out the wrong vibrations.

The Queen has a Nice Muff

"Is that Stoat Maam?"

Japan Threatened by 18 Inch Wave

The world trembled as an 18" wave hit northern Japan. Stay tuned for the next non-news story.

Queen's Speech

My government and I......terrorism and yet more terrorism...not our fault...blah...blah...be scared be very scared...ID cards...loss of liberties....yet more personal freedom taken away....be worried about crime....we're fucking tough on crime...more asbos, superasbos, family asbos...nuclear power, nuclear weapons more we want more....and Tone didn't sell peerages and he didn't lie about the WMDs, so I commend this attempt to be scaremongers and cynical politicking to the house.....right phil we're orf.

Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck

Fuck, Trescothick is coming back from Australia, Fuck. What is a stress related illness? But I suppose those smelly Australians might pick up on his illness and be rather uncouth about it. In an exclusive survey to hackery the overwhelming majority, 54% want him to be sent to work down the mines, that's stress you whinger. While a sizable minority, 33%, want him sent to Helmand Province to destress there. And for 21% of the poll want him working as a conductor on the Taunton- Bath bus route. Sounds like he has shell shock; take him round the back of the pavilion and have him shot, damnit.

It's Supervision but not as We Know it Jim

KIRK: Spock can we zoom in more, all I can see are two dots, one seems to be moving up and down a lot.

SPOCK: Affirmative captain one is exhibiting a lot of vertical movement.

BONES: Jim, can't we do something!! Can't we stop this?

SPOCK: Doctor it's beyond our capabilities.

KIRK: Why has one of the dots stopped moving?

Paedophile paranoia reaches new proportions as the government is urged to use Paedo Wars technology.

Junkies Score Win

So that's £750,000 divided by 197 that works out at £3,807.10 each;that's quite a lot of smack.

Be Scared, Very Scared

Radio Five November 9 2006 a risk analyst says yes it really is very dangerous to be in London now. No really it is believe me, there are a lot of bad people out there.

Remember the Queen's Speech is coming up and the government really needs to scare us so we bend over, get shafted and lose what few liberties we have, all so they can protect us, to keep us safe.

"Let me take away your freedoms so I can protect them."

"Can I see them?"

"No, I have to keep them very safe."

The risk analyst continues with the piece of advice that we can all help the government next time there is an act of terrorism by not being surprised. So remember DON'T be surprised. We should make our own terrorism plans as well. Don't ask me.

Also we mustn't fall into the trap of thinking that the government's actions have led to these acts of terrorism and people planning to be terrorists because then we would have fallen prey to the Terrorists subtle Psychological War ploy. So if you think that; you've been gulled by Them, the threats to our freedoms. Those freedoms that are being locked up right now.

The Taleban Have Gone, No Really

"We have removed the Taleban in Afghanistan."

Tone at his November Press Conference

November 6 2006

"These soldiers have experienced 141 fire fights in 4 days."

Channel4 News

November 13 2006

Tone's Legacy

Home Sec goes Cold Turkey

Against a backdrop of protests from Human Rights organizations the Home Secretary is being made to go cold turkey. He is being deprived of the use of any knee-jerk, hard-man, hammer of the wrondoers, bashamuslim solutions. He will be held for 14 days until he is clean and is able to come up coherent policies rather than playing to the gallery.

Dessy Clears the Final Hurdle

Desert Orchid jumps the final hurdle, clearing it with his old style and lands in heaven. Thanks Dessie for the winnings and for the fun. In later life after his jumping days were over he opened a number of Post Offices; must have been difficult tearing out the stamps with those hooves.

NNNNNEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

Mike Newell Apologises to Lady Ref

Sorry Luv

Passing the Time in Sunderland

Man injured by launching firework from his bottom

Sunderland, need I say any more.

Remember

Photo courtesy of Andrew Dunn

Red poppy, white poppy it doesn't matter really except to remember that if you're standing in a trench with a lot of other chaps and some jolly chap with nice shiny boots, a big moustache and heaps of gold braid comes along and tells you to walk towards the Germans, shoot the fucker in the head and declare a workers republic.

Just Say Yes to Fairtrade

Photo Catherine Giayvia

Secret policemen to sniff out dinner party cocaine takers in the Sunday Times

"In a warning to the estimated 250,000 people who are believed to use the drug as a “recreation” each weekend, Blair said: “People seem to think the price of a wrap of cocaine is 50 quid, but the cost is misery on estates here and a trail of blood back to Colombia. "

Commissioner Plod has a point here. What we need is Fairtrade to start producing cocaine, cannabis and E with maybe a lot of opium thrown in. Then we can all snort away between courses with a guilt free conscience, knowing that our money is going directly to small scale Colombian producers. In fact if we legalized heroin we wouldn't have any problems in Afghanistan, they wouldn't attack us, we'd just have to build roads and stuff, to quote Phil Tuffnell, "Happy Days." The whole operation would demonstrate the trickle-down effect, everybody would get rich and before we know the Taleban's Poppy PLC will be on the FTSE 100 and soon it'll be hitting new highs. It'll just be like the new mega-casinos distributing wealth and well-being to everybody. What's more we would be able to deal in arms guilt free if Fairtrade began to produce its own cluster bombs and Kalashnikovs.

Gasbag

A bag full of gas on Sky News

Sharia Already

Headline in the Evening No Standards

BLAIR'S

MUSLIM

GUARD

IS

AXED

Sharia law so soon or is Blunkett back in the seat of power?