What Ho Proles!
Close friends have advised me to issue an apology for my manners of last night. I regret the whole alcohol-fuelled incident and I can only assure you that my liver suffered irreparable damage yesterday on account of the high quality Scottish whisky I expected that most ungrateful of organs to handle. Little did I expect it to scramble my logic after midnight and turn my tone strident; a bit like the cat that got caught under the back wheels of the Bentley last New Years Eve.
But I’ll be damned if I’m going to take it all back! You now see the power of the blog when left in hands unable to cope with the responsibility? This is why we need order, rule, responsibility…
But there I go again.
The guts ache like the furnaces of hell and my ire has already been roused once today, only instead of the state British blogging, it had more to do with yuletide logging.
An appointment at my offices in London kept me away from the Hall for much of the morning but when I returned, every juice of my puritan ancestry flooded my brain at the sight of decorations decking the Hall. I had forgotten that it was the first day of the month when housekeepers lose all sense of reality.
‘Don’t you like it?’ asked Mrs. Priggs, carrying one end of a pine tree that must have once been the pride of a Norwegian fiord. I waited as sixteen feet of trunk, branch, and needle went by before the other end arrived also carried, inexplicably, by Mrs. Priggs.
‘Didn’t I tell you I’d rather deck the Halls with of barrels of explosives?’ I cried to her before I lunged for the nearest piece of tinsel and ran screaming from the house.
I locked myself in the gardener’s shed where I reattached myself to sanity with a quick sip from my hip flask. It gave me time to consider why, in this unchristian age, we still find Christmas so appealing.
On the face of it, red nosed fellows with obesity issues are a matter for television self-help shows and shouldn’t be encouraged to clamber up on rooftops unless it’s for comic effect. In this heightened age of liability, Santa’s more likely to come a cropper, if not by way of the forty foot fall, than in the courts where they’ll strip him of every asset, reindeers included, list him a sex fiend with a fetish for kissing mothers under gaudy plastic trees, and consign him to some program involving care in the community.
Christmas is the most unhappy time of year, when all the usual routines are thrown to the wind in favour of the new world order. Marriages dissolve, addictions form, friendships end, and the world is invaded by poor taste novelty goods and socks you’d be ashamed to wear in public.
It is any wonder that fat old Santa is the Coca Cola Company’s finest creation when children across the globe are being taught that this is the season to demand, demand, demand. Instilled with expectations that the parents cannot hope to match, these little terrorists rule the month.
As I’m sure Perry Como sings somewhere or other: it’s the gut gnawing time of the year.
At the very least, it’s enough to make a man throw a bottle of spirits over the tree and hope the lot catch light. I tired of the charade last year and spent the New Year damning the EU for demanding that all Christmas decorations have to be fire proof. I now insist that Mrs. Priggs buys only the cheapest Chinese tinsel and baubles, which I can be sure will burn quickly and completely without the chance of their setting anything else on alight. Unless you’ve ever lit a streamer made from flash paper, you’ve not celebrated a Mugatroid Christmas.
I finally emerged from the shed when the darkness was beginning to fall. I don’t know how many hours I’d been in there, but a thin layer of snow lay on the ground and the Hall looked temptingly warm. I went inside and discovered that all the preparations were finished. The hall looked festive and the parlour, with the nineteen foot tree, looked every part of a child’s Christmas dream.
Mrs Priggs was hanging the last of the two thousand baubles on the lower branches.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ I told her, ‘I want you to buy thirty one miniatures and hang every one of them from that tree. If I’m going to get through this devilish month in one piece, I’ll have to be professional about this and take my newly found appreciation for alcohol to a new festive level.’
She looked at me with one enormous smile full of evil menace and even viler intentions.
‘Then I’ll be sure to be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas,’ she said. ‘Merry Christmas, Mr. Murgatroid.’
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Friday, December 01, 2006
Why British Bloggers Need Regulation
What Ho Proles!
The metal clacks and grinds of the old manual typewriter have not ceased cutting through my thoughts today. My Man and I are hard at work on the next few chapters of the ever expanding Murgatroid memoirs, though, even as I tell you this, a grim and deeply disturbing part of my conscious mind screams the word ‘LIE’.
The ugly truth is that we’ve not been progressing that well. The marker for forty thousand words lies over the next ridge, but we can’t get there because we keep getting interrupted by monstrous trivialities.
This afternoon, barely had I poured myself a glass of a fine Dalmore 12 year old whisky before the phone began to ring.
‘Tell him I’ve taken a gunshot wound to the gut,’ I shouted, hoping that My Man would field the call. But the damn fool had a finger trapped between the Q and the W and the phone continued to wail like a banshee on the unmarried mother’s winter fuel allowance.
I picked up the Bakelite in no fair mood.
‘I hope you have medical insurance,’ I growled into the mouthpiece.
Turns out they did. It was a journalist from the local rag who wanted to break up all their endless advertisements for patio doors, second hand prams, and part-exchanged Fiats with an opinion piece about blogs and blogging. And given I was the most famous denizen of the web to be found in C---- N----, they no doubt thought they’d pester me about this story that’s already being hacked to pieces around the blogosphere about Tim Toulmin of the Press Complaints Commission who has been bending everybody’s ear about regulating the British blogosphere.
What, asked the local hack, is my opinion?
Well, I took a sip of the whisky, not able to restrain myself another moment given I get the shakes whenever I forego wine with lunch, and I told him quite unequivocally that I was all for imposing a bit of martial law on these blogging types. These underfed half-human cyborgs need some regulation before they transform completely into a single unholy organism of memes and foul mouthed rants.
It appears to me that the whole thing has become overrun by overly sentimental types. North, South, East, and West: bloggers come streaming like barbarian hoards hot with opinion pieces in four hundred words or less. Well, no more, I say. The internet was created by an Englishman and a double-barrelled Englishman at that. I don’t know the chap but I’d guess that if you asked him, Tim Berners-Lee would say that he created the internet in order to further the great English qualities of respect, balance, good manners, and dare one add, a proper regard for the law.
The problem with these blogs, as they stand, is that too many people are born missing the vital fleshy organ that goes between the brain and the fingers. It’s that magical piece of wise meat that tells you whether you’re making any damn sense. 'A Tory is born not made', runs the old axiom and it is true because it is precisely this Tory flap of skin that’s missing from your average Lib Dem and is found in excess in many UKIP candidates.
What we need is an etiquette for the British part of the web that keeps these unsound sorts in their place and makes sure that the rest of us collectively keep in step and present a united front to the world that so wants to crush our spirits. I keep saying I’ll do a blog roundup one of these days, and when I do, you’ll see the sort of hard nosed, spit on your shoes journalism I want to champion. The rest of them can climb into the handcart to hell and I’ll be more than happy to help push it down the slippery slope.
‘Are you sure you want to go into print with this stuff?’ asked the journo when I’d finished my speech. I looked to my hand and realised the glass was empty. The damn cad must have been at the malt even as I was doing his job for him.
‘You bacchanal devil!’ I cried, throwing down the phone and ripping the cabling from the wall.
I turned to My Man who had finally managed to unwedge his finger without having to saw through the bone.
‘Onward,’ I cried, picking up the riding crop. ’We hit 40,000 words today and we won’t even be stopping for the devil himself!’
The metal clacks and grinds of the old manual typewriter have not ceased cutting through my thoughts today. My Man and I are hard at work on the next few chapters of the ever expanding Murgatroid memoirs, though, even as I tell you this, a grim and deeply disturbing part of my conscious mind screams the word ‘LIE’.
The ugly truth is that we’ve not been progressing that well. The marker for forty thousand words lies over the next ridge, but we can’t get there because we keep getting interrupted by monstrous trivialities.
This afternoon, barely had I poured myself a glass of a fine Dalmore 12 year old whisky before the phone began to ring.
‘Tell him I’ve taken a gunshot wound to the gut,’ I shouted, hoping that My Man would field the call. But the damn fool had a finger trapped between the Q and the W and the phone continued to wail like a banshee on the unmarried mother’s winter fuel allowance.
I picked up the Bakelite in no fair mood.
‘I hope you have medical insurance,’ I growled into the mouthpiece.
Turns out they did. It was a journalist from the local rag who wanted to break up all their endless advertisements for patio doors, second hand prams, and part-exchanged Fiats with an opinion piece about blogs and blogging. And given I was the most famous denizen of the web to be found in C---- N----, they no doubt thought they’d pester me about this story that’s already being hacked to pieces around the blogosphere about Tim Toulmin of the Press Complaints Commission who has been bending everybody’s ear about regulating the British blogosphere.
What, asked the local hack, is my opinion?
Well, I took a sip of the whisky, not able to restrain myself another moment given I get the shakes whenever I forego wine with lunch, and I told him quite unequivocally that I was all for imposing a bit of martial law on these blogging types. These underfed half-human cyborgs need some regulation before they transform completely into a single unholy organism of memes and foul mouthed rants.
It appears to me that the whole thing has become overrun by overly sentimental types. North, South, East, and West: bloggers come streaming like barbarian hoards hot with opinion pieces in four hundred words or less. Well, no more, I say. The internet was created by an Englishman and a double-barrelled Englishman at that. I don’t know the chap but I’d guess that if you asked him, Tim Berners-Lee would say that he created the internet in order to further the great English qualities of respect, balance, good manners, and dare one add, a proper regard for the law.
The problem with these blogs, as they stand, is that too many people are born missing the vital fleshy organ that goes between the brain and the fingers. It’s that magical piece of wise meat that tells you whether you’re making any damn sense. 'A Tory is born not made', runs the old axiom and it is true because it is precisely this Tory flap of skin that’s missing from your average Lib Dem and is found in excess in many UKIP candidates.
What we need is an etiquette for the British part of the web that keeps these unsound sorts in their place and makes sure that the rest of us collectively keep in step and present a united front to the world that so wants to crush our spirits. I keep saying I’ll do a blog roundup one of these days, and when I do, you’ll see the sort of hard nosed, spit on your shoes journalism I want to champion. The rest of them can climb into the handcart to hell and I’ll be more than happy to help push it down the slippery slope.
‘Are you sure you want to go into print with this stuff?’ asked the journo when I’d finished my speech. I looked to my hand and realised the glass was empty. The damn cad must have been at the malt even as I was doing his job for him.
‘You bacchanal devil!’ I cried, throwing down the phone and ripping the cabling from the wall.
I turned to My Man who had finally managed to unwedge his finger without having to saw through the bone.
‘Onward,’ I cried, picking up the riding crop. ’We hit 40,000 words today and we won’t even be stopping for the devil himself!’
Monday, November 27, 2006
New Week, Old Problems
What Ho Proles!
I awoke this morning to find a bright blue sky above the Hall and Larry Harris sleeping off a drunken stew at the foot of the stairs. As McDuff says: ‘Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ’Tis hard to reconcile’. Once we managed to wake him up, Larry was dropping large hints about it being so nice down here that he fancied staying for the week. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that I simply have neither the time nor the room and that I had to get back to work on my memoirs… It took some organising, but things are now settled down. The next instalment will be up as soon as My Man gets around to typing it up. At the moment, he’s had to nip to London. Once Larry fell asleep again, helped no doubt by the extra large whisky I poured him at lunchtime, we bundled him into the Bentley and had My Man drive him to London.
Before I go, I must say a few words about D.W.D (or David Cameron as you lot are more likely to know him). I hear that he’s about to win some award for Parliamentarian of the Year. I say this with a certain heavy heart. Had I been in the chamber, I’m sure it would have been more of a contest. I’m still waiting to give my maiden speech, which I’ve now been working on for the last three years. The subject is a defence of the Union titled, ‘Scotland’s No France’. Had he heard it, D.W.D. might not have won. Or if he had, he might have stayed in the country to receive his damn award, instead of clearing off to Iraq. I wouldn’t mind but he’s playing Lawrence of Arabia when he should be giving a speech at the CBI. What rot!
I’m not ashamed to say that I’m an old fashioned Tory, who believes in the might of British industry. You can’t go gallivanting off, leaving your deputy to go blab about green taxes with the big fish of the nation’s commerce. These are men who appreciate large rivets, heavy iron girders, and thick deep foundations. Tony Blair managed to throw a few words like ‘investment’ and ‘profitability’ about for them, and D.W.D. should have made time to spin a yarn about the same. The next thing you’ll know, he’ll be announcing that the party has changed our policies on ties, tweed, or the right of every Englishman to defend his castle with artillery.
Anon.
I awoke this morning to find a bright blue sky above the Hall and Larry Harris sleeping off a drunken stew at the foot of the stairs. As McDuff says: ‘Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ’Tis hard to reconcile’. Once we managed to wake him up, Larry was dropping large hints about it being so nice down here that he fancied staying for the week. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that I simply have neither the time nor the room and that I had to get back to work on my memoirs… It took some organising, but things are now settled down. The next instalment will be up as soon as My Man gets around to typing it up. At the moment, he’s had to nip to London. Once Larry fell asleep again, helped no doubt by the extra large whisky I poured him at lunchtime, we bundled him into the Bentley and had My Man drive him to London.
Before I go, I must say a few words about D.W.D (or David Cameron as you lot are more likely to know him). I hear that he’s about to win some award for Parliamentarian of the Year. I say this with a certain heavy heart. Had I been in the chamber, I’m sure it would have been more of a contest. I’m still waiting to give my maiden speech, which I’ve now been working on for the last three years. The subject is a defence of the Union titled, ‘Scotland’s No France’. Had he heard it, D.W.D. might not have won. Or if he had, he might have stayed in the country to receive his damn award, instead of clearing off to Iraq. I wouldn’t mind but he’s playing Lawrence of Arabia when he should be giving a speech at the CBI. What rot!
I’m not ashamed to say that I’m an old fashioned Tory, who believes in the might of British industry. You can’t go gallivanting off, leaving your deputy to go blab about green taxes with the big fish of the nation’s commerce. These are men who appreciate large rivets, heavy iron girders, and thick deep foundations. Tony Blair managed to throw a few words like ‘investment’ and ‘profitability’ about for them, and D.W.D. should have made time to spin a yarn about the same. The next thing you’ll know, he’ll be announcing that the party has changed our policies on ties, tweed, or the right of every Englishman to defend his castle with artillery.
Anon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
