Just Call me Jim.

Then the Beatle’s ‘She’s Leaving Home’ came on the radio. No forget it! It was a moment of Christmas aberration. X Factor is shit and Simon Cowell is an evil character from some Dr Who episode that never got made. Compare the Beatle’s beautiful poignant storytelling with our current Christmas number 1’s, “When we collide we come together. If we don’t we’ll always be apart.” 

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Might I suggest an alternative’

“There are five toes upon my fo-ot. On my foot there are five to-o-oes.” Are my emotions really supposed to be stirred by the dictionary definition of a collision? No. And not because I’m a heartless old geezer, but because it’s meaningless, bloody dribble, that’s why! It’s like the biting satirical comment on English Couch potato life in The Royal Family has been taken to our hearts and we all go ahh as Matt Curdle attempts to inject falsetto emotion into it. OK it’s Cardle and that’s cheap, he’s a lovely guy, but forget it Matt. Look at JLS. Nice enough lads but they can’t even fart without some unseen management’s permission. No, stick to pubs where people spill real beer and girls don’t scream at a glimpse of your left shoulder. Otherwise you’ll have to dance to Darth and The Evil Empire and, like the Queen, never be able to use the toilet again. ‘Come on Barb, get that washing o-on, or you won’t have time to make mi te-e-ea.’ Yeh, that fits too. Ahh.

All Hail Matt the Decorator.

 In the spirit of Radio 4’s Christmas Eve service that I’ve just left I wish to relate unto you that, behold I have spoken too harshly of X Factor in the past and wish to recant my heresy here two fourths. (a half or 0.5 in metric) Christianity, it has to be said, has been orchestrating the run up to 25/12 for the past two thousand years and always managed to get its hits sung on the media, dictated the whole image thing and got us to buy lots of stuff. Cheryl and Simon have only been doing it for ten. But truly I say unto you the reason for my recantation is that Christianity and the X Factor have one good thing in common. They both manage to rocket some unknown, unsuspecting member of the general public, us, into stratospheric stardom in a matter of weeks before their brain can adjust. Unlike most public figures who have sold their life and genitals to get there these individuals still have the mindset of the common man. Or woman. It’s like taking Winston Churchill out of prep school straight into the forefront of the war effort. Hitler, straight from art school would invite him to Berctesgarten to play conkers and Winnie’s vinegar soaked sixer would trounce Big H’s fresh from the tree oner. Zey wut larf at the impossible stupidity of killing millions and destroying vast amounts of civilisation. No, X Factor is only resurrecting the old Jewish tradition of throwing up a King of Kings to take over the Christmas Number 1 spot. All Hail Matt the Decorator. If only the Prime Minister could be voted in in such a fashion. We wouldn’t get David Cameron that’s for sure.

Emigrate.

Do it while you still can! Leave us, get on a plane and go. The Cons are legislating to sell off all our forests, all 680,000 acres. They accept they will probably go to a foreign energy company as renewable fuel, but hey, times are hard. Fifty years ago the Beatles sang about the ‘Tax man’ taxing the air but that was when times were good, now they’d just sell it off because we need a low tax economy to attract high earners. The cons may be against euthanasia but it wouldn’t surprise me if they voted for the compulsory termination of people earning under £4,000pa. 

At art college my tutor used to say you have to learn to sell yourself. I wish back then I’d had the presence of mind to say, “but if I do that what will I have left?”

But still we have the young future generation to milk. While they’re drinking, quote, “8 shots, 2 desperados, a corona and 4 pints of blue...” with pride they’re in no fit state to notice their future going down the pan. Or maybe they’ve realised the game is up and an alcoholic haze is as good a way as any to ignore it. So get out of here now, and send me a Christmas card from Belize.

School's Out Forever.

So a significant number (15% in Nottingham) of eleven year olds have a reading age of seven after six years of schooling, which suggests, if you’re a Guardian reader, they will struggle to keep up with your precocious four year old. It also raises the question, is a command of English and maths important these days. As even graduates end up serving in Waitrose and the till calculates the change, maybe not. So long as your arse is up to seven hours on a checkout chair and you’ve mastered, “have you got a Nectar Card?” you have a career. So long as you’ve mastered one to ten you’re OK with the remote, and if your log onto Facebook is automatic then after that anything near an intelligible word will do. Ditto your mobile. I think that covers all the essentials. There’s actually no need to count beyond ten or master spelling unless you want to use Wikipedia, which is unlikely. There’s no need for grammar because it’s outdated or logical thought because one has one’s emotions to deal with complexity. And then there’s all the special powers and magic that most young people have been introduced to by TV to come to your aid. I mean it would be totally illogical to expend energy on learning stuff that’s not necessary, wouldn’t it? Lets face it schooling was invented to provide workers for the burgeoning industrial revolution. They needed to be able to write acres of plans, reports and count up accounts. They needed to supply the English language to the world. Now we don’t have much industry and computer programs to do the basic necessities, so why have education? Obviously it’s not deemed necessary by its participants and currently crucifying its providers. It’s interesting, at this time of information overload, that we’re feeling it unnecessary to be able to do anything with it.

Gary Barlow.

Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary   Barlow. Last night Mothermouse and me had our Take That night watching the DVD of their Circus show in Wembley Stadium. Snow, fire, wine, the two hunky ones, the little one and Gary. And a thirty foot elephant and a hundred circus performers and eighty five thousand people and Gary. Totally amazing. Get it for Christmas. When cynicism ravages the land like some bestial banker beast, to see a hundred and seventy arms (2 x 85,000) raised in, “You and me we can light up the world, we can ride on a star….” was wonderful. I mean the technical cynic would say the human body has no mechanism for emitting photons and a star is far too hot to sit on and they’d be right but that’s not the point. It seems to me Take That are the only credible pop act with experience of being over thirty and proof that maturity continues to occur after eighteen, whereas Dappy of Ndubz proves not much occurs before that, but that everyone loves a wanker. Blokes like him because it would be like competing with a malodorous dumpster, and girls like him because there’s SO MUCH they could improve on to make him into a regular human being. Take it from me though girls; intelligence, awareness and charm are extremely difficult traits to imbue. Unlike Gary who is wonderfully gifted in all departments. But I’m still not sure about Robbie.

Thank you Misstequilashots.

This is misstequilashots review for a BlackBerry 8520 Sim-Free Mobile Phone - Black on Amazon.

“just bought this phone and it has come really quickley but no where did it mention before i bought it did it say it was locked to t mobile and i am on orange so not impressed on that but on the other hand i am impressed with how fast its come!!”

I can’t help seeing an Essex couple foxtrotting around a dance floor in a one two, reverse, three four, twirl etc elegant seamless flow, a form of stream of consciousness writing I’d never seen before. And true enough Wikipedia’s list of authors in this category are all male so misstequilashots maybe the very first female. I’m guessing her first novel might begin like this.

“once upon a well last Wednesday if I’m honest which I am most of the time except with Darrel who is a shit not that I don’t like him on a certain level if you know what I mean but don’t tell him that or was it Tuesday Tiddles got a bit run over just a leg not the whole squashy thing but thinking about it it was right what I wrote before Wednesday not before Wednesday that’s silly I’m writing this now so I had to take Tiddles to the vets which closes early on Wednesdays so I was all flustered well you would be with his leg all bent where it shouldn’t be and that reminded me of Animal Hospital on TV where they tied a squirrel to a plank to help it get better like a splint but I’m not good with knots so used gopher tape which is a very silly name for tape unless they used it originally for taping gophers to a plank to get better and possibly why it didn’t work with Tiddles who died. the end.”

Butt butted from Behind.

Well the farm was under eight inches of snow today, a veritable Christmas card. I could just imagine baby Jesus in with the sheep and goats. And thanks to the snow no shit shovelling, it seems to magically absorb shit like cat litter. But the needs of the other end never stop so silage all round. As I noticed silage goes mouldy in its compressed state I teased it out into a wonderfully light soufflé of candyfloss and filled the cow racks. Though delighted the cows demolished it in minutes so back to piling it high. On to the sheep. Now sheep tend to stand and look at me like I’m a Church of England choir master or, if I make advances, run around in panic like a group of Cheltenham spinsters on holiday in San Fransisco. Except in this case for one that I later learned was a French Charollais, very friendly and intelligent looking for a sheep. He followed me around eager for a pat and a chat as I filled their rack. Obviously sheep can’t smile but I sensed in his face an affable knowing camaraderie. I carried on teasing the silage into their rack. Until that is I was violently butt butted from behind, the bastard! I turned to see the same affable expression. Chris later apologised for not telling me the reason why one sheep was different from the rest and why I shouldn’t turn my back on it. It was a Charollais ram in with the ewes and it was shag time in sheep land. So it wasn’t friendly camaraderie it was French for, “Zea is no room pour vu wis my ladies, you filty English scum.” I tell you, never trust the French.