Must-watch television for you!

REALLY EXCITING news for you all today. The Red Bladder is soon to have its very own satellite television channel which will be soon be bringing you the very best in entertainment, information and education.

Following on from the huge success of the Red Bladder range of books (see Books I know you will love - 20/11/11) Red Bladder (Holdings) Inc is set to launch Bladder Vision and you are amongst the very first to hear about it.

We won’t be just trotting out the same old parade of dull, and boring repeats. Far from it, we shall be bringing you a wide range of brand-new and original programmes from our very own studios in the heart of the world-famous Salwayash Media Village.

Here is just a sample of the programmes that will very soon be bringing you entertainment, laughter and unequalled knowledge throughout your days and nights.

The Flora and Fauna of Basingstoke. Our natural history film unit has been recording all that happens throughout the year in the rolling acres of the recreation ground. A must-watch for nature lovers.

Who’s in that horse? Giving you the chance to win star prizes if you can work out which world-famous celebrity is in the front and the back of Eric, our pantomime horse.

Professional League KerPlunk. A thrill-a-minute as the nation’s top players battle it out for the top spot in this riveting sport.

The news for Scouts and Guides. Your chance to brush up on the skills you thought you had forgotten as we bring you all the latest national and international news in semaphore.

All boxed up. The laughs, the loves and the dramas as our fly-on-the-wall documentary takes you behind the scenes at Walsall Crematorium.

Bung us another one. Teams of MPs and town councillors from the political parties and the Liberal Democrats guess just what is in the brown envelopes. It might be nothing or it might be £5, £100 or even £500. If they guess right they get to keep it. (Note to contestants - the list of those wishing to compete in this game is now over-subscribed)

So, as you can see, each and every evening is going to be a fun-packed roller coaster ride of merriment and knowledge on the Bladder Vision channel. Watch out for it in your favourite television guide. Watching television was never like this before!

Show her you really love her, The Red Bladder way

NEVER LET IT be said that I am not a romantic man.

Mrs Bladder still talks in hushed tone of some of my more exotic and tenderly thought-out gifts to her over the years. There’s the pink socket spanner set, the tartan ear-muffs and the album of cigarette cards depicting the England cricket XI of 1955 all of which have won a place in her heart.

Despite all that though I still know where the line is and that has just been drawn anew by New York’s Bronx zoo. For the sum of just $10 they will name a Madagascar hissing cockroach for the one you truly love this coming St Valentine‘s Day.

Now I’ve never done a lot of wooing of American women, well, to be perfectly honest, none at all but even I can see the pitfalls in that one.

Is it really the sort of thing that would set their hearts a-flutter? I rather think not.

Waking up on the morning of February 14 in eager anticipation of a bunch of flowers, a box of chocs or the promise of a candle-lit dinner for two only to be faced with “a colourful e-mail certificate announcing that a cockroach has been named in her honour" just might be the precursor of a little marital turbulence, not to say downright discord.

The marketing department down at the zoo keep on trying though "There is no better way to say 'forever' than with the gift of a cockroach” their publicity material assures us. I don’t think so lads, it might have seemed like a good idea down in the pub last night but really that is one that should have been destined for the bin in the harsh light of morning.

To give them their due though they have got a potential winner up their sleeves. As well as the offer of the naming the zoo gift shop is offering
boxes of chocolate replica cockroaches. Now that could be a winner. I wonder if they are available on line and how long delivery would take to Dorset?

Don’t tell the old girl. She could be in for a real treat this year.

The strange case of Saddam's arse

I MUST ADMIT to being among that rather odd segment of society that has never really given a great deal of thought to Saddam Hussein’s buttocks.

As for them being "an item of archaeological, historical, cultural, or religious importance”, well to be perfectly honest that news came as something of a thunderbolt to me.

Of course it is isn’t the former tyrant’s actual flesh I am talking about here. No this concerns a single bronze buttock that formed part of a statue in Baghdad which was knocked down shortly after US troops arrived in the city to depose the blood-thirsty tyrant, formerly known as ‘the West‘s best-friend‘.

Then it seems to have been ‘liberated’ and found its way to Derbyshire, where else? There the local police have become involved and have arrested a man in connection with the rather unsavoury souvenir having been illegally imported, in breach of the 2003 Iraq Sanctions Order. The sort of thing the criminals in USA would describe as “a bum wrap”?

All these new regulations must make life for customs officers interesting, if a little embarrassing, “have you got any drugs, alcohol, tobacco or dictator’s buttocks in your luggage sir?”

The piece of metal involved is some two foot wide so is scarcely the sort of thing that was going to be wrapped in the odd pile of dirty washing in the bottom of a suitcase, was it?

A man is now on bail pending further enquiries. A full sitting may well, or may not, decide the final outcome.

The only way is Eric

MANY OF US will be taken with the idea from that little chap Gove, you know, the one who always looks like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights,
　

As a former leading light in the Fabian Society

Mr Gove, of course, always wears a red tie.

to buy the Queen a new boat on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of her accession to the throne.

It might be better though if all of us were to chip in for the bumper present. £60 million, that’s just about a quid each, no trouble. It might also help to knit us all together as a nation, give us a real sense of community and show the world Britain at its best if we did it in the form of sponsorship. So why don’t we hold the world's biggest ever game of Hide and Seek for a single day in June? The entry fee would just be £1. Who could refuse? Job done, where can we deliver it ma’am?

All work, all shopping and all sporting and social events would have to be banned on the day. We would all be out seeking the ‘hider’ as furiously as we could. So who should he, or she, be. I can think of no one more suited to the task than our fun-loving and hugely popular

Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles.

Now there’s a chap who would stand out in a crowd, or anywhere else come to that. This through-and-through Yorkshire man who, obviously, represents Brentwood in Essex in Parliament could really take all sectors of our community and forge them into a single force with a common purpose and a sense of duty. I can almost see the sword touching his shoulders as I think about it.

Anyway come the day we all have to hide our eyes for a set period of time. A couple of hours should be enough to see him well on his way. Then, at a signal transmitted by, of course, the BBC we all uncover our eyes and start hunting Eric - the search is on.

Of course there are certain places where we might all look for the dear old chap, so to make matters less than glaringly easy he would have to be honour-bound to stay clear of sweet trolleys, fast food outlets, ‘greasy spoon’ cafes and kebab houses. Oh come on Eric. It’s only for one day!

Throughout the land cupboards would be opened, tables peered under and bushes examined, The entire population be engaged in a single task, Find Eric. The spirit of the blitz, Dunkirk and the 1966 World Cup victory would be rekindled, neighbours would be united and whole communities brought together in a single task that would engage us all in a proactive way with just the odd dash of multi-media thrown in for good measure.

Decades from now children will sit on a grandparent’s knee and listen enchanted to tales of the day we all sought Eric. It almost brings tears of pride to my eyes to think about. So come on Britain, let’s all get together and track him down!

It might be small but it is vital!

THERE WAS A time, centuries ago, when our forefathers had the good sense to throw up walls around our towns to keep the barbarians out.

Different times bring different ways and now they are welcomed in with open arms and encouraged to bring their loathsome ways and practices with them.

I suppose that we have become used to having our Town Halls occupied by a bunch of semi-savages who would close every library, flog the contents of the art galleries and museums at the drop of a chain of office and leave our children to cross the roads through heavy traffic completely unprotected. After all, cuts have to be made, sacrifices endured and burdens shouldered. Nothing is sacred, except councillors’ attendance allowances and expenses, of course.

When it comes to sheer, wilful ignorance though the custodians of the premises on our high streets run their brethren on the councils a pretty close second. Take one simple little thing and it really is small, so small that some people miss it completely. The apostrophe, that tiny stroke that can completely change the meaning of a word.

There’s not a lot of them on show these days are there?

Two of our banks bear the names of their founders. Both should have our little chum, neither has. Mind you I suppose that the cost of adding an apostrophe to the fascia of every building, printing it on every pamphlets and sheet of headed note paper would add up to a tiny sum in in ink and paint. I bet there’s a man in both of those banks somewhere who could tell us exactly how much. It’s the sort of thing that bankers love working out - that’s how downright boring they are.

Then there is the chain of chemist’s shops that carries the name of the founder. A Nottingham lad who was probably too busy dreaming up pills, potions and pox-preventatives that he had no time for punctuation. Perhaps we should let that one pass.

So, as ever, on to the supermarkets and there we should all lift a rousing cheer for Sainsbury’s, almost alone in keeping up standards amongst our shopkeepers, costermongers and barrow boys.

Yet amongst all of this lack of appreciation of punctuation and total lack of understanding of our language we have one type of shop that, above all others should be a shining example to all. Bookshops, of course.

These temples of literature carry the works of all those authors who have done so much to bring the richness, the variety and the colour of our language to the world. Authors such as Enid Blyton, Barbara Cartland and Jeffrey Archer, those who would die rather than an infinitive split or an apostrophe misplace.

Yet one of these very chains of shops has announced to the world, with a degree of smug satisfaction, that is dropping the little chap from is title. I wandered out and took a look at the premises of the offender.

For a start it has tables piled high with bodice-rippers, adventure yarns that wouldn’t over-tax the brain of an eight year old and the ‘life stories’ of warblers yet to reach the age of 30. Guardian of our culture? Not on first sight it isn’t.

Things don’t get a lot better on the second. The vast majority of these, alleged works of literature carry stickers proclaiming “Three for the price of two”. Now there’s an offer I would find very difficult to take up.

There’s more though, lots more. So desperate are the publishers getting to turn a few bob that they are trying to fob us off with any old re-worked collection of recipes from celebrities that very few of us have ever heard of. My way with haddock and herbs by Radio Basingstoke’s favourite traffic reporter, that sort of thing. Needless to say this shop has got them piled high and they’re not selling them cheap. Obviously optimists if nothing else.

Still, nothing ventured nothing gained so I thought I would chance my arm. “Have you got anything by Chekov?” I asked. “”Don’t think so,” came the reply, “what team does he play for?”

Now, what was I saying about barbarians, apostrophes and the custodians of our language and culture?

Hello, hello, hello and goodbye

WELL, TO SAY that I am staggered is putting it a bit mildly but it begins to appear that our Police Stations are rapidly turning into hot-beds of crime.

Seemingly anything that isn’t actually Superglued to the floor is walking out of the door and swanning off along the high street, never to be seen again.

A Freedom of Information request about the thefts from the Press Association revealed some fairly frightening facts. The Northumberland, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Strathclyde and Essex forces all had cars stolen last year. Now I would have imagined that a ’hot’ cop car might be a bit of a problem to get rid of but, seemingly, not a bit of it. By the look of things they must be in fairly high demand.

Greater Manchester Police managed to ‘lose’ both a patrol car and a £30,000 private car. Reassuringly though the assistant chief officer of the force, Lynne Potts, said that, “we take all such reports seriously and measures are in place to secure property, equipment and vehicles“. Well that is a huge relief then.

It doesn’t stop there though.

Handcuffs, uniforms, speed guns, dogs and even riot shields were lost to the criminal fraternity and all were last seen in police custody, the property that is, not the villains.

There is no end to the cunning and ingenuity of the criminals. They even managed to lift a packet of crumpets from Priory Road nick in Hull, Lancashire police were relieved of a fern and a plastic plant pot and a packet of toilet rolls were ‘liberated’ from a station in West Mercia. It seems that there’s not much that the men with ‘swag’ written on their bags won’t lift, given half the chance.

I must have led a pretty sheltered and naïve life but it had never occurred to me that, were I of a criminal turn of mind and fancied doing a spot of light ‘lifting’, I should wander along to the handiest building under a blue lamp and simply pick up anything that took my fancy. By the look of it thought there are brigands out there who make a fairly comfortable living by doing just that.

Oh well, never mind, we know that it’s happening now so, no doubt, the powers that be will be tightening things up a bit and stemming the flood of property and equipment that is simply walking out of the doors of our police establishments. It does all make me wonder though, just where is anything safe? Now there’s a thought.

SHOPPING IS HELL

I’M NOT a shopkeeper but I come from a nation of them so I know a thing or two about flogging knick-knacks, baubles and other assorted old tat over the counter.
Now if I were running a retail establishment, be it a corner shop with a dead cat gracing the front display window or a whole chain of establishments with music playing so loudly that the customers couldn’t think, yet alone talk, I’d make it as easy as possible for them to part with their money. Doesn’t that make sense? Not in the modern retail experience it doesn’t.
No, these days actually paying for something seems to be made as difficult as possible. A bit of a challenge – just to see that the mugs coming through the doors are worth dealing with. So supermarkets have empty check-outs whilst huge queues build up behind the few tills graced by the presence of those willing and able to scan the groceries from the rapidly-growing lines of trolleys.
Local shops give their customers the chance to practice shouting out ‘hello’ increasingly loudly as they nervously wait to pay for their selected goods and high street stores are as bare of assistants willing to help or take money as the Arctic is of Monkey Puzzle trees. I know. I’ve spent time enough to grow a beard walking about department stores holding a potential purchase on high looking for someone to take my money from behind one the scores of completely empty ‘electronic point-of-sale’ desks.
Sometimes it all makes me wonder why more people don’t simply walk out of the door with their selection without even trying to pay. I know I’ve often thought of it. But I realise, full well, that I am probably being watched over by a CCTV system and that my every move is being noted by a pimply, under-developed and adolescent security guard in a room far from the fray of actual shopping.
If a few more of those spotty Herberts were on the shop floor taking money and watching the customers there would be no need for any electronic surveillance systems - but that is far from the modern way.
To cap it all the worst offenders are usually the larger chains of shops – or retail outlets as we are now expected to call them. Do the bosses of these places ever come down from their ivory towers and try buying something in the bazaars they run? Obviously not or things might change a bit sharpish.
In the meantime the rest of us are left struggling to complete the simple act of making a purchase. Remember that the next time you read about some nabob of the shopping world knocking on about the ‘downturn in trading conditions that we are currently experiencing’. Try taking money off of people matey – you’ll find it works a treat.

Where are all the people?

GAS MANTLE makers, cattle drovers, petrol pump attendants and aircraft canvas dopers are all having a hard time of it finding work these days. But there are jobs that need doing and plenty of people available and willing to jump in and fill the gap, so why isn’t it happening?
I’m not talking about Belgium cricket bat makers, Croatian wrappers of Edinburgh rock or Kenyan kipper smokers here but ordinary, everyday jobs.
I reckon that anyone would be hard-pushed to name a company that couldn’t do with a few extra telephonists. “Can I help you”, sounds so much more friendly and welcoming than, “If you wish to report a fault press one on your keypad”.
Then how about a few park keepers? Perhaps they could prevent our open spaces being a complete no-go area for whole swathes of the population.
From the little I see of shops most of them need a few extra hands on tills. I am heartily tired of trudging round the branches of several leading chains of stores simply trying to find someone, anyone, prepared to take my money. I really did once believe that relieving the customer of his folding stuff was what retailing was all about – not any more it would seem.
Perhaps if a few of these huge concerns concentrated less on cost cutting and instead put a major effort into providing their customers with a half-way decent service they might not need to save money at all. Still I don’t understand these things but it’s a thought – isn’t it?

A new and lovlier you

AT THIS time of year many of you will be turning your thoughts to deeper and more meaningful topics. The idle notions of July and August, flippant months if ever there were ones, have gone to be replaced with the stark realities that face us all as we prepare to stick up yet another calendar.

That one act brings it home to us all - we’re not getting any younger.

Now though, hope is at hand. You may not be able to actually get younger but by using and following The Red Bladder’s new and exciting range of beauty products and tips you will be able to look younger.

The idea struck me a couple of days ago whilst walking my dog, Hector. We were on the side of a steep hill facing south west, the direction from which the wind was howling in a fairly ferocious manner. Then, just to make my cup runneth over, the hail kicked in.

The stones were the size of small marbles and the wind drove them into my face like little bullets. Did Hector shy away, whimper or try to seek shelter? Not a bit of it, he loved every moment of the downpour.

The Hector look that could soon be yours

His coat and complexion are superb. Now you too can have the Hector look which will, soon, be the talk of beauticians, socialites and celebrities from television programmes that you’ve never heard of yet are famous enough to be known by simply their first names.

　

So what you need to start off with is a something abrasive sloshing you in the chops fairly ferociously. I know a man who has got a sand blasting machine and if that doesn’t do the trick then nothing will. All that dead skin, all that grease and grime that day-to-day life leaves on our faces will be gone along with most of those worrying wrinkles.

Ten minutes of that and you’ll look years younger.

Since all of my products will completely natural and free of man-made ingredients they will be collected and packaged entirely by hand, a fact which will, of course, be reflected in the price.

Let’s face it Badger droppings are going to cost you a fair whack wherever you get them from. Yet it does wonders for the tone, the condition and the look of your complexion. Just study Hector’s phizog and remember that he rubs himself in it at every opportunity. So learn the secret of true beauty that only dogs knew until now and plaster yourself in the by-product of old Brock and watch the years drop away.

Then there’s water. Hector is into that in a big way. Needless to say the discerning dog won’t settle for just any old water. No, to have the true Hector look you will need to bathe yourself in the mineral, vitamin and ionised rich waters of the Rivers Brit and Asker. Only these will completely satisfy the demands of those seeking inner and outer perfection.

This is, needless to say, just the start of things. So keep your eyes open for the new Hector range of beauty products or, better still, visit the Red Bladder Health Spa for a relaxing break which will release your true, inner radiance the natural way. I’m sure you will soon see the sense in it.

After all what could be nicer to hear than "darling, you look lovely, just like a young Labrador"?

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Was it an arch-criminal?

IT WOULD SEEM that down here in Dorset we are finally catching up with the rest of the country.

Sadly armed robbery has reached the area. Not that our blaggers are going for the obvious targets like banks, post offices and building societies. No these lads have shown a bit of imagination and struck where they might well have been least expected.

They’ve stuck-up a chiropodist’s shop. It was in Parkstone, near Poole. Two masked men entered and threatened the receptionist with a gun, they then “pulled her wrist” before making off with “a quantity of money” and then, in the slang of the underworld, rather appropriately, ‘had it away on their toes’.

No one saw the going of them so the police have no idea how they made their getaway.

It’s a rum old do when even the trimmers of toe nails, healers of bunions and inspectors of fallen arches are not safe from armed, marauding gangs as they go about their business. There’s all together too much of this sort of thing going on for my liking.

We have had tractors stolen, whole flocks of sheep rustled and a spate of people riding unlit bikes at night. If things continue like this Dorset in the 21^st century will soon be just like 1920s Chicago. Now nobody wants that, apart from the villains of course, and since they’ve have a vested interest their views can hardly be taken into account.

The rural stuff is alarming,
chiropodists getting held-up at gun point is terrifying. Surely the simple solution is for the Dorset Police put the boot in and re-introduce foot patrols? That should do the trick.

A mountain and growing

IN TAIWAN’S New Tapei City they were having a lot of trouble with dogs fouling the streets. Then the council hit on the sort of wheeze that should be copied around the world.

Now the dog owners are scooping the results of old Fido’s straining up and sticking it in little bags. These are then taken along to the council offices where the donor can swap each bag for a ticket in a lottery.

More than 4,000 locals have signed up for the scheme which offers a prize of Tw$60,000, including gold ingots, for the lucky donor who‘s number comes up in the draw. Since the scheme started in August more than 14,000 bags of dog mess have been left at the local Town Hall.

"The outcome of the campaign beat all our expectations," said Lai Lien-Chueh, of the authority’s environmental protection mob.

Which makes me wonder just how many bags they were expecting? Be difficult to guess before you started I would imagine. Still they are happy with the results so I suppose that it will carry on.

So now, I should think, New Tapei City has got a warehouse, somewhere, rapidly filling up with little bags full of rotting, stinking dog droppings. Is there a market for the stuff? I wouldn’t have thought so.

Perhaps it can all be re-cycled into something useful like political party manifestos, television cookery programmes or tins of lager. No, there’s not a soul would want any more of those knocking about so they may have hit a bit of a problem with that one.

I don’t doubt for an instant that Chinese ingenuity will come up with a solution. Maybe they’ll bombard the mainland with the stuff or send it out in plain brown envelopes to people around the world in a dodge that might make even spam e-mails seem welcome.

Have no doubt about it, they will overcome. I think I might have a go in the draw myself. Oh well, time to take the dog for a walk….

A Cornish rhapsody

IT WAS just over 20 years ago that in her last, desperate attempt to civilise me and make me fit for decent human company that Mrs Bladder insisted that we take a trip to Cornwall. Obviously, she failed.

It was in St Ives that things started to go downhill. We were just moving around as the fancy took us, or rather, her, and hadn’t booked anywhere at all. So we rocked up at this rather nice looking hotel on a Sunday afternoon.

Since it was after lunch it was Mrs B’s turn to drive. I might be uncivilised but I’m not daft. So we pulled into the car park and I nipped into to check on the availability of rooms. Everything was tickety-boo so I took one, did the paperwork and got the key.

I then went outside, collected my beloved and our luggage.

The surprise that that registered on the face of the chap behind the reception desk when he saw me return with a woman didn’t really strike me at the time. It did later.

Come early evening I thought that I would nip down stairs and have a quick loosener whilst Mrs B completed the primping and preening involved before an evening out. I hadn’t been in the bar for 30 seconds when it occurred to me that we had rocked up in either the wrong place or at the wrong time.

The men in the bar, yes they were all men, were very friendly, so friendly that I felt compelled to repeat, several times, in an ever-louder voice, that I was simply waiting for my wife.

None of the chaps actually looked disappointed but several of them were clearly puzzled. We had stumbled into either the only gay hotel in St Ives or one that was holding a gay weekend. I made the drink two to give me the courage necessary to explain to Mrs B what had happened. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew who was going to get the blame for this one!

Eventually she waltzed into the bar, large a life and twice as beautiful and asked for a vodka and tonic. I mumbled that we were going somewhere else, gripped her by the elbow and steered her out of the bar and onto the sea front.

There I explained the situation. I was right, I got the blame.

Anyway we had a rather nice meal with some fairly pleasant wine and she mellowed a bit. So we took a sortie around the place. Rather surprisingly for a Sunday evening a fair few shops were open. So we took a bit of a look around at what was on offer.

There, in the window of a very arty sort of place, I saw it - it was magnificent and I just had to have it as a gift for the old girl to make up for my, largely imagined by her, misdemeanours.

It was a hand-knitted jumper of rather thick wool entirely covered by an illustration of the willow-pattern design.

I’ve always been a mug for willow-pattern crockery so what could look more attractive? I waited and sure enough, her attention was taken elsewhere, I sneaked into the shop and bought the really beautiful item that had so attracted me. I was bubbling with pride and pleasure at my choice of gift and couldn’t look to see the look of sheer rapture cross he face when she opened the bag. I am still waiting.

To be honest I think that she only ever wore it once but she is polite like that. I haven’t seen it in years. I expect that it’s still here somewhere.

Oh well I was young(er) and it was a long time ago. Strangely enough we’ve never been back to St Ives. I expect we might one day.

No, please don't get them out.

AS MY EYES scanned the headline I felt a shiver of horror run the length of my spine, ‘Topless Barber to open in Norwich’ it proclaimed .

The body of the story did slightly allay my worst fears. It seems that there is no need for chaps wanting their locks trimmed up a bit to remover their jackets, shirts and ties before sitting down for the attention of old Sweeney. No, it’s the crimpers that don’t wear anything on the top half. The one worry that remains for me though is that most, if not all, of these crimpers will be women.

I don’t fancy that at all. After all these days there are some pretty hefty wenches roaming the streets. Then most of them seem determined to go for the full Jayne Mansfield look and have what they’ve already got pumped up with a few extra doses of silicone.

I should imagine that something the weight and size of some of them being completely free of restraint and swinging about in close proximity to a chap’s head could constitute a fairly serious Health and Safety hazard.

We are talking about something that could fairly closely resemble a fairly large melon here. So a good couple of kilograms of that sloshing you alongside the bonce would certainly loosen the wax in the ears up a bit!

No, I think I’ll stick with old Sid, him with the Woodbine hanging out of the corner of his mouth, the dead-fly speckled price list on the wall and the ankle-deep hair drift on the floor. It might be a bit old fashioned but it suits me.

What's the Effin joke?

THE PLACE where we live is important to us all. Most of us our proud of our home and are pleased to tell the world where we dwell.

So the residents of a village in Ireland’s County Limerick are hopping mad that Facebook and various maps refuse to acknowledge that their community exists. It would even be possible to say that they are Effin cross about it.

It’s all because of the name, Effin seems to upset or amuse people and they simply can’t see what’s so Effin funny about it.

Named after St Effin the village, with its population of around 1,000 has three pubs and a shop, there is also a creamery where the much-enjoyed Effin cheese is produced. This year they are even producing their own pantomime, inevitably Effin Cinderella.

Effin people are now campaigning to get the social networking giant to acknowledge that their village does exist even if that involves a lot of Effin jokes along the way. I can only wish them all the luck in the Effin world.

The outcome of their battle for recognition is being keenly watched by the residents of Muff in County Donegal.

Gathering winter fuel

I GOT MY Winter Heating Allowance this week. Two hundred (last year it was 250) smackers in the hand, no tax, no questions asked is always welcome but this year it presents me with a bit of a problem.

The thing is. would I get better value for money by using it to pay our gas and electricity bills or should I take the lot out of the bank in fivers and stick them on the fire one-by-one?

The way the price of these essentials if rocketing upwards that’s a pretty close-run call. I expect I learnt how to work it all out in physics once but that was a long time ago and I probably wasn’t listening properly anyway.

Still I’m not the only one with the problem. Over the last few years the number of homes around here having wood burners and solid fuel cookers installed have multiplied hugely. All of which means that the price of logs has followed the other fuels up through the roof. Being a trendy tosser also carries a price, it seems. Still most of the second home owners don’t see much of Dorset during the winter so a lot of them won’t worry, more the pity.

Such is the shortage of suitable burning material that I often have trouble finding a suitable stick to throw in to the river so that my dog, the not-quite-brave-yet Hector, can fish them out again. He doesn’t care how cold it is, in he goes, out he comes and then pleads to be allowed back in again. The boy’s a fool but I am very fond of him.

All we can do is to keep our fingers crossed that we don’t get another cold winter. So far things are looking a bit on the sunny side of downright miserable but there’s plenty of time for that all to change.

If things do get really bad a lot of our fellow citizens are going to find themselves with serious problems on their hands. I suppose the only comfort they will be able to take will be from knowing that they are contributing to the fund that gives the senior executives of the power companies the bonuses that should lift them just above the bread line. It never happened when we had gas and electricity boards but this poverty in the boardroom lark is something they will all have to get used to.

None of which helps me reach a conclusion about the quandary I am faced with - I know, I’ll take some of it out, get stuck into a few glasses of wallop and see if the solution hits me. I expect the answer will appear through the bottom of my glass, it often does.

Me a dictator? No thanks

DO YOU KNOW, I reckon that it must be blooming hard work being a dictator.

Like a lot of other callings I don’t believe that the job is half of what it is cracked up to be. Oh it must be right-as-pie when you’re clicking your fingers and sending minions here, there and everywhere to carry out your merest whim but in the evening you would still probably get brought down to earth with one heck of a bump once you got home.

“It’s all very well for you swanning around your palace issuing orders, having your opponents put to death and threatening war on everyone in sight but what do you think I’ve been doing all day?” Would probably be the usual start of it.

Once Mrs Dictator had drawn breath it would carry on, along the lines that most in the profession would be well-used to hearing. “Buying shoes, that’s what. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone trying to find a nice pair of sling-backs just so that I can look nice when you hold another one of your victory parades. Do I get any thanks for it though? No, not a word. It’s all enemies of the state, treacherous running dogs and enemies of the people with you isn’t it? That’s all you ever think about.”

There would then follow a short run-down of all the other dictator’s wives and how their husbands have more thought and consideration than you could possibly muster in a month‘s torturing, repressing and indoctrinating.

By this time, of course, you might have poured yourself a drink, taken the riding boots and spurs off and replaced them with a comfy pair of slippers, sat in your favourite armchair and set the television warming up so that you could catch the two hour exert of your latest great address to the nation but still the tirade would continue.

That’s what you would probably get every single evening. The car that took you home might be bomb and bullet proof but your ears wouldn’t be. One clap of your hands and guards would come rushing, prepared even to rid you of your tormentor but you, the bravest of the brave, the slayer of state enemies and the guardian of all the peoples would be terrified to even lift your hands let along clap them together.

‘No man is a dictator in his own home’ could well be the motto of the club that all the tyrants belong to, the one that you might never be allowed to attend because of the drink, the women of easy virtue and the fact that your shirts would get really crumpled and need extra ironing.

No, I don’t think dictating is for me. By the sound of it it might well be a dog’s life.

A stiff is not just for Christmas

WE MAY WELL be approaching, what many would describe as, ‘the season to be jolly’ but for plenty of people out there the outlook of Christmas heralds a period of untold miserly.

For many if goes far beyond Great Uncle Bert hogging the best armchair, fast asleep with a steady stream of saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth and soaking into the napkin which, inexplicably, is still tucked into his collar at eight o’clock in the evening.

We’ve all got relatives like that. The ones that emit a regular gust of flatulence so foul that the room has to be cleared for ten minutes whilst the guilty party sleeps on oblivious of the mayhem he is creating and reminding everyone that, once again, the cabbage and the sprouts were, perhaps, a trifle over-cooked.

There is worse. Have you ever considered what you might do with a dead body should the need arise in-between the Christmas cake and the last bottle of British Sherry-Type Wine being cracked open with a great reluctance?

It does happen you know. It might be simply the passing of time, it could be the weight of all that stodge laying on the chest like a brick or it could even be over-excitement at the prospect of seeing the 1974 edition of the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special yet again but there are those that don’t make it through to the morning walk and the cold Turkey and pickles lunch of Boxing Day.

So just what do you do with the body whilst the party keeps going at full tilt?

The obvious answer it is to stick it in the corner covered with the remains of all the festive wrapping paper, there again it could always be left in place and used a sort of dummy hand in the game of musical chairs or, for the utterly tasteless, it could be pressed into service as an indoor climbing frame for the children.

None of which is the ideal solution. So I’ve done a bit of research to save you the trouble, should the need arise.

It seems there is a whole battalion of men sitting soberly at home awaiting just such an event.

I speak, of course, of that unrecognised band of heroes, the ever-present yet never wanted undertakers throughout our land. The men in black who never chuckle or smile yet are always to be there when we need them.

It seems that they have their chaps on-call throughout the holiday period sitting waiting for a phone message, never letting a drop cross their lips or a smile lift the corner of them, ready to do the necessary carting away, should the need arise.

Well there’s a cheery way to spend the festivities if ever there was one. Still I suppose that we should be grateful that they are there and hope desperately that we never get to see them.

With those uplifting thoughts I shall get on with mending the fairy for the top of the tree, the bits have been laying on my desk for more than ten months and I’ve run out of excuses. It just never stops round here, you know.

Books I know you will love

SO YOU GOT caught as well? Some super smart salesman managed to load you up with one of those computers that have no keyboard?

You tried it for a day or two and then got tired of watching smutty videos, playing childish games and taking photographs of the family with a thing the size of a phone book? Don’t worry help is at hand.

Now you can use it for reading a book. Not just any book but one from the new Red Bladder Publishing (a wholly owned subsidiary of Red Bladder (Holdings) Inc) list of carefully selected works which are guaranteed to be amusing, entertaining and informative. In fact everything you ever wanted and more from a publisher you know you can trust.

To start the ball rolling our editors have hand-picked a dozen of the finest, most entertaining and gripping titles to be published this century. So dust off that white elephant, plug it in, fire it up and be prepared for hours of pleasure with a Red Bladder book, chosen just for you.

Here is our Winter list which contains something for absolutely everyone:

The complete railway timetable of Chile (Summer edition) Volume 1

The Youth Hostels of the Isle of Man

A sociological study of the impact of industrialisation on the bone rendering trade 1782-1825

A pound of sprouts Ma’am? by Norman Truscone, the autobiography of the greengrocer the Royal family prefers.

Differential calculus for dummies.

The trial of Trevor Beavis. A serial parking offender is finally brought to justice.

The encyclopaedia of the fine wines of Derbyshire.

When Adolf met Blondi. The heart-warming tale of one dictator and his dog.

The complete guide to gurning for ladies.

Whose trousers are these? A lavishly-illustrated, fun quiz book for all the family

Celebrities and their wallpaper. See exactly what your favourite star has hanging on his, or her, wall.

My way with a bat by Jack Fluger. This, often shocking, memoir blows the lid off the sin-soaked world of minor counties 2^nd XI cricketing life.

All titles come at the eye-wateringly attractive price of just £49.99 and carry our usual two hour money back guarantee of your complete satisfaction.

Why delay? Download today.

Do you itch at all?

IT MUST be heartbreaking to get an e-mail from a loved one saying “Missing you loads. PS I’ve got a dose of clap and so have you”.
There’s not a lot of romance in that is there? Scarcely hearts and flowers is it? A suitable replacement for a box of chocolates? Hardly, I would have thought.
Believe it or not this sort of rather terse and, frankly, shocking missive is one that the Brazilian Health Ministry is currently promoting among the citizens of the country where the nuts come from.
The samba-loving bureaucrats have set-up a web site that allows the love-struck of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre to send the one they are besotted with the, some might say needlessly terse, message, “Hi! I don't know if this is the best way to tell you, but I've learned that I have an STD”.
STD, of course, has nothing to do with the telephone system of the nation that gave the world the Cha-cha-cha but refers to a sexually transmitted disease. Just the sort of thing that you’d want to find in your in-box on a wet Thursday morning. More so since the accompanying illustration shows a young man lying about in his underpants.
Now I had always imagined that Johnny Gaucho oozed romance in the same sort of way that Carmen Miranda oozed rhythm. She also a head covered in bananas and pineapples, no I don’t know why, but that’s got nothing to do with this.
It seem though he doesn’t. He is awfully good at the wooing and that sort of malarkey but isn’t really up to it when it comes to sharing a few home truths. So the government is stepping in to help him along.
To put a little sugar on this rather bitter pill the e-mail does add, by way of an afterthought really, that the recipient ought to see a doctor.
Say what you like but I really don’t see that as a recipe for a lasting relationship. Honestly it isn’t the sort of message that I can see a happy couple taking out of their souvenir box to show their friends and family at their Golden Wedding celebrations. But I’m not Brazilian, so what would I know about it?

The wires are humming

A US SAILOR meets a Japanese girl. So what do they do?
Sing to each other in Italian, of course. Well what else would you expect?
In a nutshell that’s Madame Butterfly for you, leaving out the beautiful music and a plot that will forever leave you loathing the very name Pinkerton – the smug, self-satisfied git who does the poor girl terrible wrong.
So I was a bit surprised to see that a company from somewhere east of Norwich has named their latest mobile phone the Puccini, after the man who gave us the opera and a few other corkers as well.
Is the ringtone One fine day or The humming chorus? Is the wallpaper a view of Yokohama harbour? I rather doubt it, so why the name?
Perhaps someone in the hierarchy of LG has a particular fondness for the works of the great man from the land of ice cream and wine in straw-covered bottles or, there again, perhaps this is the first in a series of telephones to be named after the composers of operas.
The Wagner, the Verdi or the Bellini have a certain, forgive me, ring about them but heaven help us if the chap who gives the phones their names is a particular fan of the work Hansel and Gretel. Getting the name Engelbert Humperdinck on the box of a small, even if very clever, bit of electronic kit might prove a bit of a problem.

Women - they'll never understand

AFTER A lifetime of painstaking research, study and investigation I have finally solved one of the greatest mysteries known to man. That is the ways in which the workings of men’s and women’s minds work.

To put it bluntly women just don’t understand the value we men place on an old, possibly well-worn and rather battered pullover. They simply haven’t got a clue about the deep devotion a chap can feel for one of his favourite woolies.

They would throw out, without a moment’s thought, or even consideration, a chap’s oldest friend. I know I’ve had it happen to me.

Some 25 years ago I bought a spectacular number in a High Street chain’s sale, I don’t believe in promoting brands on here so I shall simply refer to the shop in question as Marks and Spencer.

Anyway this little beauty had a sort of variegated look to it with bands of red, green and grey patterning. Because of the red and green I always referred to it as my Christmas Pullover, that’s how important they are to me - I give my favourites clothing names. It was magnificent and after getting on for 20 years it was starting to get bedded down as a comfortable and familiar part of my life.

Then is vanished. Come April the winter wear went away and the summer wear came out and I bade my dear old chum farewell for a few month’s well-earned rest, on his part anyway, I’ve always thought of pullovers as masculine objects, after all why should the women have it all, they’ve got the ships and boats and that should be quite enough for any gender.

Come late October and back out came the winter wear, my Christmas Pullover was not amongst it.

Needless to say I kicked up a bit of a fuss about the missing friend, as you would.

What did I get in way of a reply? “Oh, that old rag, I’ve thrown that out - you looked like a tramp in it” As you can understand I was near-incandescent with rage. My best jumper, after years of good and faithful service cast aside like the wrapping off a box of inferior Lithuanian chocolates.

To say we had words about it would be putting it a bit too strongly, after all I know which side my bread is buttered on but I certainty made my displeasure known.

Women, they just don’t understand, do they?

The sands of Dorset

“Dorset – it’s wonderful” says the banner on a web site extolling the virtues of visiting my home county above a photograph of a couple of Bedouins riding their camels over a vast sand dune.
It looks more like a recruiting poster for the Foreign Legion or the artwork for the front of a packet of dates but it’s pushing Dorset nonetheless.
So it’s hardly surprising that the Arabs are getting their revenge by using an image of Durdle Door, the limestone arch in Lulworth Cove, to advertise the joys of visiting and living on the Gulf. Well, to be fair, if you saw a photograph of one of Dorset’s most famous beauty spots wouldn’t you instantly think about heading off for The Cove Rotana Resort in Ras Al Khaimah? I know I would.
There have been complaints, of course, about misrepresentation but there are always going to be those who carp on about accuracy and telling the whole story. Of course they don’t realise what it’s really all about.
Little do they know the close affinity that the sons of Dorset feel for the Arab World. It all goes back to the days of TE Lawrence, the little fellow with the specs and the funny habits who ran amok around the Middle East during the First World War.
In later life he lived not a good old-fashioned spit away from the famous tourist-trap and used to tear around the locality on his noisy, smelly and powerful Norton motor bike. It was at that time that Swanage seriously considered getting twinned with Qatar – a natural match if ever there was one.
So come on all you knockers – do a bit of research. Dorset will always be emotionally tied to the lands of deserts, the Red Shadow and Aladdin. In just the same way any true son of Allah will never, ever be deprived of his cream tea, his pint of Badger and his love of the poetry of Thomas Hardy.
I just wish people would find out all of the facts before they start moaning, I really do.

Now play quietly children!

I AM NOT a great fan of noise. In fact I downright hate it. Unless’ of course, I am making it, in which case it is perfectly acceptable.

One of the noises that does give me sheer pleasure though is that of children playing. The sounds of laughter and excitement that come from a school playground I have always found rather cheering.

A neighbour of the Lantau International School in Hong Kong, a primary institute in a rural setting, would disagree with me, rather strongly it seems.

Back in 2008 there was a complaint about the noise made by the 4-10 year-old children during their break periods. An investigation found the sound level in the complainant’s house to be 62 decibels when the standard set is 60. Hardly an ear-shattering difference I would have thought.

Anyway the local court saw things in a different way and ordered the school to keep the noise to an acceptable level. A touch on the Canute side of things many might think but an order is an order.

One thing led to another and just this week the school has appealed on the, rather convincing, grounds that keeping children quiet during their play periods is like trying to stop the wind blowing. Since children's right to engage in play and recreational activities are enshrined in international conventions the school couldn’t even prevent their youngsters from going out to play.

So basically they were stuck. The children could shout but not too loudly or the sky would fall in.

Judge Thomas Au was having none of it though. He ruled that the limit must remain and any contraventions would result in absolutely stonking fines being dished out on a daily basis.

However he did, in a fit of generosity, limit the hours during which the noise abatement order operates to those between 7am and 11pm. So the pupils can go as crazy as they like in the middle of the night! Could anyone ask for fairer than that?

That’s how it stands. One neighbour living near a school, which has been there for a good many years, doesn’t like noise. The school cannot stop the children making it. A bit petty to involve the entire majesty of a High Court I would have thought but that’s what has happened.

Does “the law is an ass” translate easily into Chinese I wonder?

Don't try it on here

IT COULD WELL be that Diane Taylor of Harlow was trying it on when she claimed that the bottle of whisky she wanted to buy in her local One Stop shop was for her son.

The assistant’s suspicions were aroused when she was unable to provide satisfactory proof of age showing her date of birth. The sale was refused. Then again Mrs Taylor is 91 years old so perhaps didn‘t anticipate having to prove she is over 18.

Not her pension card, not her bus pass or blood donor card, not even the fact that she has a pacemaker fitted would satisfy the shop assistant that she really is old enough to buy alcohol.

A spokesman for One Stop explained the situation, “although we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused, staff at the store are required to ask all customers for ID as a condition of its licence to sell alcohol.”
Were that true of course all would be well. They have to be satisfied that the purchaser is above the age of 18 years old. A different thing completely.

I don’t fully understand the working of judge’s or magistrate’s mind but I reckon it’s a fairly safe bet that a bus pass and a 91 year-old face and body would pass even the most rigorous test of ‘reasonableness’.

It could we be that the young lady behind the till was simply ‘obeying orders’, an ominous phrase if ever there was one, but surely things are coming to a pretty pass when a lady of Mrs Taylor’s age is refused service on those ridiculous grounds.

There was a supermarket in the region where I do my really serious troughing that used to ask every single customer attempting to buy booze if they could confirm that they were over 18 but that caused such an outcry that they soon put a stop to that wheeze.

No we don’t want 15 and 16 year-olds reeling about our streets smashed out of their rather low-browed heads on the other hand we don’t want our citizens at the other end of the age scale penalised by some petty and officious ruling dreamed up by a man with the imagination and originality of a week-old flounder laying on a fishmonger’s slab.

Perhaps a bit of common sense is called for in all of this. Clearly not a quality rated very highly by One Stop when it comes to making appointments.

A crap experiment

IT WAS the dream of the alchemists for centuries, turning a base metal into gold.

So Paul Moran of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland was in good, if scientifically dubious, company when he set about his series of experiments.

He felt convinced that he could turn his own excrement into gold and set about doing so in his Derring Park flat. A good trick if he could pull it off. Sadly he couldn’t, much to his surprise and the annoyance of his neighbours and the fire brigade.

His methodology involved subjecting the unsavoury product of previous meals to extreme heat on an electric fire. No, I have got no idea what was going on his mind when he dreamt that one up!

Anyway, much to the surprise of the would-be scientist, the material he was working on burst into flames. Well I, for one, have learnt at least something from Paul’s efforts. The ensuing blaze did £3,000 of damage to his home and led to some considerable inconvenience to the other residents.

For his troubles the seeker-after-truth was hauled up before the bench and charged with arson and endangering the lives of others. Presumably in order to get back to his valuable researches as quickly as possible the defendant pleaded guilty.

Well he will have to wait a while before making his final break through. First he has got to serve three months in the quad and then a further year on licence. And all in the name of truth.

The judge did have the good grace to tell Paul that “it was an interesting experiment to fulfil the alchemist’s dream”. Do Judges in Northern Ireland get out a lot, I wonder?

To be honest my sympathies tend towards the failed scientific researcher. Perhaps he should have tried his experiment the other way round. After all whole battalions of bankers have turned good money into crap, more ‘celebrity’ chefs than you shake a toilet roll at regularly turn perfectly good ingredients in to it and just about every politician who ever lived has turned promises and pledges into it.

Is it possible that the door has been slammed on the wrong man?

One of our bridges is missing!

IN FARAWAY Western Pennsylvania the Coverts Crossing Bridge in North Beaver Township has long been a source of worry to local residents. Many claimed that it was haunted by the ghosts of people who met their deaths on, or near, it.

Step forward the brothers Benjamin and Alexander Jones. Together they solved the problem and exorcised all the ghosts and the problems they brought with them. They stole the bridge, cut it up and flogged the bits, all 15½ tons of them, to a scrap metal merchant.

For their troubles they received $5,000. The bridge was valued at $100,000.

It was owned by New Castle Developments, none of their employees had driven across it for some time and only one local resident found it strange that a whole bridge some 50ft long and 20ft wide had vanished. This must, indeed, must be a rather sleepy part of the world.

Anyway the worried local resident reported the matter to the authorities and an employee of the scrap dealer, known locally as a recycler, contacted the police when Alexander Jones, obviously not the strongest rivet in the structure, showed him a photograph of the original bridge, taken on his mobile phone.

The brothers had used a blow torch to cup up the metal bridge which they had then transported, bit by bit, to the yard of the recycling company. A rather Herculean task I would imagine.

Anyway the sons-of-fun in the local Police Department have now charged the pair with criminal mischief, theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy. I suppose it could be said that they threw the bridge at them! It seems likely that the pair will be handed a lengthy span in the nick for their troubles. To them it must now truly be the Bridge of Sighs.

Now where have they all gone?

WE ALL see a few things come and go during our lives. In an idle moment I thought a few things that you seldom see these days.

Light Programme, John Collier – the window to watch, F W Woolworth, Hoola Hoops, Uncle Mac, dripping on toast, cap guns, bulls’ eyes, the Corona man, Pye records, skiffle, policemen’s striped-armbands, Worthington E, Dan Dare, Big L, ‘DA’ haircuts, Players’ Weights in packets of five, Saturday morning pictures, bomb sites, the 11+, Eddy Calvert, channel 9, Beatles’ wigs, the Seebacrascope, farthings, Luncheon Vouchers, Coronation mugs, Riley cars, Davey Crocket hats, woollen swimming costumes, Cyril Lord carpets, ‘Marples must go’ car stickers, Outspan oranges, Telstar, warming-up the television, soap-box carts, Conway Stewart pens, Rinso, Jet Morgan, Billy Two Rivers, coffee bars, school ties, Purchase Tax, smog, Dividend tea, ‘Kiss-me-quick’ hats, broadsheet local newspapers, Archie Andrews, bus conductors, leather straps to open and close train windows, World Cup Willie, fish shop crackling, Box Brownie cameras, the Skylon, money back on empty lemonade bottles, a penny for the Guy, toy soldiers made of lead, mangles, the hand jive, sack dresses. making a metal name-plate on a railway station, Bob-a-Job week, Horace Batchelor’s Infra-Draw method, Drip-Dry shirts, call-up papers, Cherry B, telegram boys, Mock Turtle soup, playing conkers, Bob Steel, Fancy Smith, Jock Weir and Bert Lynch, speak-your-weight machines, Saturday Club, the Epilogue, “I’ll give it five”, the Tett offensive, the Hungarian uprising, light and bitter, National Benzol, Cy Grant, Mrs Dale’s Diary, Canasta, Eldorado ice-cream, driving gloves, Colonel Nasser, “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” Workers’ Playtime, ‘Play in a day’ with Bert Weedon, tooth cleaning powder, Lobby Ludd, Cyprus sherry, sugar sanwiches, “You’ll wonder where the yellow went”, Cocoa the clown, Asian flu, AA men with motor bikes and sidecars, Brumus, Bob Martin’s conditioning powders, money in the Christmas pudding, milk carton dispensing machines, Selective Employment Tax, the Air Ministry roof.

Sheer unbridled lust! In Hampshire?

I REALLY would never have thought that the elderly of Portsmouth were in need of sex education. Well the local council thought that they were.

So to ensure that the over 60s of the city were getting, as it were, a fair crack of the whip Portsmouth City Council laid on a free workshop (proof of age and residency required) telling the bus pass owners exactly how to get their knees trembling again. The release didn‘t actually mention if there were to be any demonstrations so I should imagine not.

Strangely enough the session was to be entitled Generation Sex, not a description I would have thought appropriate for huge numbers of those of my age, we passed that on to younger ones long ago.

The answer to many an elderly maiden’s prayers was to be held by one Scott Deacon who came out with the memorable quote, ''it is all about practising and negotiating safer sex“.

Negotiating safer sex Mr Deacon? Now what exactly would that entail?

Now several of my chums served in the Navy and they assure me that

Portsmouth was once legendary for the negotiations that went on regarding that very topic along the streets and alleyways around the harbour a few years ago although it seems that Jolly Jack didn’t give two hoots if it was safe or even downright lethal.

I hope that Mr Deacon wasn’t implying that these negotiations might be of a commercial nature. I’m sure he wasn’t but what he did mean I really can’t imagine.

The bumf from the Town Hall didn’t shed much light on things really. “
''As part of this year's 60+ festival, a free workshop is being run aimed at exploring the realities of sex in the 21st century. Frank, fun and factual, Generation Sex is an informal interactive session designed to inform older residents about the truth of sex in later years. Any questions you have will be answered honestly to help you get the most out of your sex life.''

I have a sneaking suspicion that out Mr Deacon is not over 60 himself. If he were he would realise that the most pressing questions cannot really be answered and certainly not but someone who spouts trendy marketing-type clichés at the drop of a pair of elasticated knickers.

Anyway Portsmouth’s elderly goats and nymphet’s yawned, scratched themselves and carried on as normal. The whole session, enlightening though I am certain it would have been, was cancelled due to lack of support. Who might have worn that I really can’t say but life goes on. Even for the over 60s in Portsmouth!

La Bladder Rouge rejoint la légion

AFTER ALL the disappointments of the Rugby World Cup I have decided to take drastic action and have a complete change of life.

I am going to enlist in the French Foreign Legion.

It’s not as difficult as you might imagine. In fact you can do it on line at www.legion-recrute.com . You could have knocked me down with a jar of pickled eggs when I discovered that. I had thought it would be difficult.

Not at all these days, it has become an almost respectable occupation. You even have to provide a from of ID at your initial interview, I shall show them my bus pass - that should do the trick. Of course you have to learn the old lingo a bit sharpish but that will be no problem since je parlez le France like un native - de Barnsley.

I can see me now in the white trousers and blue tunic with the handkerchief on the back of my kepi blowing gently in the breeze. What a dash I shall cut riding my camel along a sand dune - rather reminiscent of the illustration on the front of a packet of dates I should think.

Like many former readers of the Eagle I know pretty much all there is to know about the legion. Not for nothing did I study the exploits of Sergeant Luck and Corporal Bimberg. When I tell the officer interviewer that and then casually throw in that I own several Edith Piaf records I shall be before you can say “allez Bladder”.

Of course it won’t all be glamour and posing for photographs. Sacrifices will have to be made. After all I should imagine that finding a decent pint of Palmers IPA in the vicinity of the training camp at Castelnaudary might be a problem as will be keeping up with the latest cricket scores although I’m sure arrangements can be made for that sort of thing.

So it’s the channel tunnel and a life of Gallic military chic for me before the week is out. That is, of course, provided Mrs Bladder lets me!

What a (fiscal) drag

I REALLY can’t come to grips with this quantitive easing lark.

As far as I can see someone, and we know who, wants a bit more cash so they just make it up, electronically print a bit more sort of thing, is that it?

A sophisticated form of cooking the books then really? Or what the coppers, in their rather quaint way, might describe as ‘issuing a false instrument’. So our last two chancellors would have had the collars felt if they had been a bit lower down the scale and more like the rest of us?

I suppose it’s a good wheeze if you can get away with it and there’s every sign that the last Chancellor of the (not quite enough) Exchequer and this one will on a scale that would have made even Robert Maxwell blush.

Now I don’t claim to understand economics, if needed my bank manager will provide a reference to my incompetence, but isn’t this all getting a bit like a game of Monopoly played with those Bank of Funland notes we used to get in our Christmas stockings before we grew into Dansette gramophones?

So really you don’t have to know all that much to be big cheese in the financial world then? You just have to have the bare-faced cheek to try it on and a total lack of shame when telling the world that what you have done is not crooked but for the greater good of us all?

Well if that’s all there is to it I think I’ll have a bash. Anyone know where I’m likely to get the biggest bonus?

We've all done it!

MY THOUGHTS today are with an unfortunate man from my home county of Dorset.

This truly is a tale that could have happened to any of us.

The poor chap, he has not been named, had a few in his local, as lots of us do, walked home, yes I’m still with that one, along a railway line, I can see that, and then fell of the track, easily done after a few, and had to be rescued by the lifeboat.

At this point I begin to share his feelings of embarrassment and shame.

It seems he landed on his back in the shallow waters of Poole Harbour and was unable to get up again. Come on now! We’ve all been there.

He was able to use his mobile phone, dial 999 and get through to the coastguards.

Officers spoke to him for some 45 minutes whilst a rescue helicopter and a lifeboat were launched to search for the, by now, I should imagine, rapidly sobering, unfortunate. "He was slurring very badly so it was difficult to understand what he was saying”. Said a spokesman for the coastguard.

"He had been walking along the railway line towards Bournemouth and all he knew was that he had fallen off the track. He was not injured but he was in shallow water and was able to breath. It sounded like he was in the bath as we could hear water lapping."

This morning I should imagine the poor chap is feeling mortified.

Just to heap more shame on the man’s, already bowed, head the coastguard official added a final thrust,
"He was about as drunk as you could get so we're not sure how long he had been in the water."

So what started off as a steady totter home from the boozer soon turned into a major search and rescue operation.

I must admit to having one huge question I would like to ask our friend, “Are you married and, if so, how the hell did you explain that one away?” I suspect I’ll never know but I can’t help wondering.

PHEW IT'S A SCORCHER - AND THAT'S OFFICIAL

WELL WHO’D a-dreamt it eh? Here we are in October and the sun is shining out of the sky like a demented furnace in the heavens and the temperatures are reaching the sort of numbers that not so long ago the England cricket XI could only have dreamed of totting up between them.

There is talk of little else, “we’ll pay for this before long, just you mark my words” say the rather pessimistic old grouches as a bit of a change from benefit scroungers, bogus asylum seekers and travellers who seem to do very little of it.

“With climate change coming we can expect this every year” the bearded members of CAMRA who Morris dance, weave corn dollies and seem to live on a diet more suitable for a farmyard full of livestock tell us as they cast around for the nearest lay line.

Of course the lads and lasses down at the Metrological Office on the edge of darkness, well Devon, expect to take all the credit and be hailed as the heroes of the nation just because they spend minutes gleefully telling us what we could easily learn in seconds by simply looking out of the window. There’s very little low pressure in Exeter at the moment and they’re lapping each moment of their triumph up like dogs with a plate of pig’s tripe.

Of course it won’t last. Come about Thursday and I expect it will be back to the usual doom and gloom and not a single bikini-clad model across the front on any of the tabloid papers. Sprits will be lower along with the air pressure and a general depression will settle well and truly over the nation.

Then it will be autumn gales, early frosts and a realisation by pensioners that they are not going to get nearly as much Heating Allowance as they had been expecting. There will be letters to the posher papers, just you wait and see the elderly will rise up and, well, probably, yawn.

Business as usual then. I reckon the weather has all been laid on as a bit of a stunt by David Cameron and his band of merry men. Kept the Conservative Party Conference in the background hasn’t it? Thanks for that sunshine, at least thanks for that!

THE COPERNICUS OF DORSET

I DID a bit of star gazing last night and a very emotional experience I found it.

I was sitting outside the front of a favourite watering hole with an old chum of mine who was on a flying visit from, of all places, Cornwall. It was pitch dark and the stars shone like fairy lights on a Christmas pudding.

As you do on these occasions I wondered aloud “Is that bright star up there” pointing to the west “Venus?” “I’m not sure” replied the man who spent a working life ensuring that tens of millions of quid’s worth of ships, that we all paid for, got to the place they intended, “it’s either that or Sirius, the dog star”. I thought all sailors knew about these things. Obviously they don’t any more or my pal would have gone round the world bashing into all sorts of things.

He then pointed out a few other points of interest. The big dipper, the plough the North Star and so on. I could never find any of them again but it passed a few minutes.

He then went on to tell me that our bright, unidentified mystery object would be on the move, even as we watched. So we waited and watched. How else would you pass a few minutes observing heavenly bodies shifting themselves about the infinite firmament than by lubricating yourself? So we did.

Sure enough he was right. What was above a telephone line was now below. We had another one to celebrate the cleverness of our new-found celestial friend.

Sirius, I am reliably informed, is the brightest star in the Orion galaxy, yes I thought they both were cars too! Amazing what you can learn over a few pints. This best bitter is amazingly educational stuff, they should give it to A-level students, I expect they do though these days.

We also spotted a couple of bright lights moving across the skies. I was rather proud of myself when I correctly managed to identify them as aircraft nipping in and out of Exeter airport.

Believe it or nor our wives were completely unmoved by the emotional experience we had just enjoyed. That’s the trouble with women, they have no sense of the infinite, no appreciation of the majesty of the swirling mass of bodies that whiz around above our heads each and every night and no soul for communing with our brother planets dancing through eternity.

No, with them it’s “well if you two are going to stand there all night getting drunk and staring at nothing I’m going inside to get my coat”. No sensitivity at all that’s them. Oh well I’ll have another try one day. Perhaps I should get a telescope, that’ll cheer the old girl up no end!

Excuse me - where am I?

THEY TAKE their rugby pretty seriously in South Africa and it takes lot to keep a true Springbok fan away from his heroes when they take to the field.

So Michael and Sunette Adendorff booked a trip to see their favourite team play at the world cup. They booked a hotel in Eastbourne, a suburb of Wellington, and set off for the team’s opening match against Wales on Sunday.

On arrival in the town their satellite navigation system was unable to locate the Majestic Hotel, where they were booked in. So they did the logical thing and sought local knowledge. It was when they asked for directions in a shop that they realised, with, I imagine, some horror, their mistake.

They were in the wrong Eastbourne. Instead of being in New Zealand they were on the south coast of England, in Sussex.

As poor navigation goes that one is just about as bad as it could possibly be. They were out by some 11,800 miles. Instead of balmy Pacific breezes they got a blast of vapour rub-laden wind from the town centre, laced with overtones of Horlicks. They were in the town that seldom wakes where the men are regarded as dashing young blades if they go to a tea dance without wearing spats and the women stop their teeth chattering by holding the glass beside their bed more tightly.

I very much doubt the Adendorffs could even have gone to a local bop and joined in the Gentleman’s Excuse Me haka. Bops are not really something that Eastbourne does, well not the one in Sussex.

They did get to see the match on a television in a pub. There’s a daring departure for Eastbourne.

Anyway our couple have now booked tickets to their intended destination and should be there for this weekend’s South Africa - Fiji match. Let’s hope they make it. Are there any other Eastbournes around the world I wonder?

They saw what?

CAN YOU believe it? Two young boys have been traumatised, possibly psychologically scarred for life. by the sight that greeted them when walking around the harbour in Ilfracombe in Devon.

The lads were taking a stroll with their father, David Copp, along the working quay of the harbour admiring the boats when they were forced to look at a disgusting sight - dead fish and crabs.

Naturally enough Mr Copp took grave exception to this and pursued the matter with the harbourmaster. He obviously wanted to know why holidaymakers should be compelled to view such a gruesome sight.

Difficult though it might be to believe the harbourmaster, Rob Lawson, failed to see the point of the complaint. He took the attitude that dead fish are what is normally seen around a working harbour.

Is it any wonder that our tourist industry is suffering when there are attitudes like that around? Does Disneyland leave dead fish rotting around their theme park for the visitors to contend with ? I doubt it.

Why can’t these people understand that the comfort, sensibilities and convenience of holidaymakers are all that count for anything in this land of ours? Without them where should we be? Back in the Middle Ages, that’s where.

Mr Copp himself summed the whole matter up when he told the local press. “it’s not the sort of thing you want to see on holiday, there was a real stench. My children were quite distressed by it. These people should be a bit more considerate to the holidaymakers."

How true. It’s about time that the fisherman of England learned where their true responsibilities lie. They might think that it is towards their families and providing for them the best that they can, clearly that is a mistaken view.

It takes a brave soul, such as David Copp, to point out that nothing on this earth is more important than the enjoyment of holidaymakers. Let us hope that his understandable attitude results in appropriate action being taken. All of our thoughts must, at this distressing time, be with the poor lads and hoping that they soon recover from this horrific experience. I doubt they’ll ever eat fish fingers again!

I think our policemen are wonderful

NOW THERE are those that think of Dorset as a rural backwater where not much modern goes on.

Well when it comes to crime busting let me assure you that the lads and lasses of the Dorset Police Service are up there with the best of them. Every technological tool available is brought into use and they have even developed many of their own weapons in their constant battle against the forces of darkness.

(photograph by Ivan St Pierre of Chideock)

So what about that little beauty? I’ll lay a fair amount that the New York Police Department haven’t got anything like that! Oh no, Dorset leads today - the world follows tomorrow.

This state-of-the-art bit of kit is used by the Flaying Squad and any offender going against the grain of law and order will be in for a harrowing time from them. They don’t spend their time ploughing through sheaves of documents and furrowing their brows. No, they get on with rounding up the black sheep of our society.

They glean information from a wide variety of sources they have cultivated and then harvest the reapists and the other ne’er-do-wells with barley time for a cup of tea and a slice of cake back in the canteen.

So be warned all you footpads, villains and scoundrels here in Dorset we are up to your tricks and have the tools to bring you to book. Our wheels of justice may turn slowly but they surely do turn and grind exceeding small.

Mountain climbing? The perfect place!

IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT, if you will, that you are the coach of an Olympic team of athletes and are looking for a place suitable for a spot of high altitude training. What is the one country in the world you would discount immediately?

That’s the one that is soon going to be touting for exactly that business. Yes Holland is up for it and not only training. The nation that thinks flat is fun will also be wooing skiers, bobsleigh teams and mountaineers.

As I write, in utter disbelief and amazement, plans are well underway for the building of a 2,000m high mountain slap bang in the land that stretches right to a distant horizon in every direction.

The whole scheme is the idea of Thijs Connived a former athlete and a regular contributor to the newspaper De Pers. He has already interested building companies, engineers and, probably most importantly, a fair few money men to join a consortium which is well advanced with plans for a mountain providing such traditional Dutch features as hairpin bends on mountain roads, ski slopes and bobsleigh runs and cliffs for mountain climbers to hone their skills on.

Such is the enthusiasm for this rather bizarre project that the administration of
Flevoland province, where the mountain is planned, are carrying out a full feasibility project.

If our Thijs has his way the new feature for the map makers to come to terms with will be up and standing by 2018.

The man certainly has imagination. I’ve heard that faith can move mountains, let’s see if it can build them as well!

The bladder rocks

IT'S NO GOOD – I just can't keep up with these youngsters.

Over the weekend we had an unexpected visit from my little sister. In a period of just 48 hours she, her partner along with my youngest daughter and her boy friend just about managed to see me off. It is a long time since I have spent a weekend 'on the scene'.

I am an old age pensioner. I shouldn't be bopping around to a rock and roll band at gone midnight, make it two nights on the trot and I start looking round corners for the Grim Reaper.

Let's go, the young crowd suggested, to that pub that has live music on Friday nights. So at a time when I would normally be sticking my teeth in a glass, warming up the milk for my Horlicks and applying a last layer of vapour rub to my chest we set off into the night.

It came a bit of a shock to see that the band and half of the audience were dressed as pirates. I felt a bit left out and rather wished that I had brought along an eye-patch, wooden leg or parrot so that I could have blended in just that little bit better. Still I got with it as best as I could.

Little sister and her partner soon started throwing herself about like a couple of demented puppets only to be joined by youngest daughter and her boy friend.

Now you expect that sort of behaviour from youngsters but a woman on the cusp of her bus pass and a respected position in a society some hundreds of miles away? I can only blame the sea air and an infusion of decent beer which a girl I remember as having pig-tails, a Girl Guides uniform and a pen-friend in New Zealand had no trouble at all quaffing by the pint at a rate that would have made a sailor on shore leave blush.

So I joined in. The quaffing at first and then the dancing. It's amazing the effect that a drop of Palmers IPA can have on you!

We finally got home at 2.00AM. I managed to lay in until 5.30!

Come Saturday night and it all started again!

“Aha” I thought “we'll go and watch the carnival and then slope off home for an early night. Not a bit of it.

When the parade ended and bed called it was pointed out that there was a band performing a gig in the street starting at nine. So what do you do to kill an hour or so in Bridport of a Saturday evening? I suggested a pub, one in a back street that the holidaymakers wouldn't find. So off we trotted and started the old quaffing lark all over again.

We did get to see the band. Blow me down there, up on the stage, large as life and watched by thousands my sister and I spotted our cousin performing. That called for a drink at the very least.

He's not our age but not far off so if he can manage it so can we, so we tried again.

The performance ended at close to 11:00 so that the residents of the town centre could get a bit of sleep. Could I expect any in the near future? Not a chance; the boozers were still open for trade.

Off to the Tiger we marched and managed to be the last out. Bits an pieces led to another 2:00AM turn in. Sheer laziness kept me in bed till six in the morning.

Sunday lunchtime little sister and partner breezed off rather like a hurricane must do once it has done all the damage and wrought all the havoc it can manage.

Mrs Bladder and I did manage to cope with a couple of restorative snifters in the vicinity of the harbour last night but we did think that the dog deserved a decent walk so we did it, simply for his sake. We're like that, thoughful to the last. For the sake of his hound he lay down his liver.

Now there's talk of doing it all again in a few weeks time!

Funnily enough I'm looking forward to it enormously!

They'll get up your nose!

IN MY CONSTANT search for a route to a fortune and filling my waking hours I have come up with an scheme that is a sure fire winner. I am going to develop my own range of perfumes.

These will be the ones that the women who really want to worm their way into a man’s affections will buy and wear. The very ones that will send us chaps wild with passion, desire and sheer, unbridled lust.

So forget all your fancy, flowery pongs these will the aromas that men really appreciate.

There will be hot, newly-laid tar, freshly mown grass and roasting coffee beans. Well they all do it for me and were Mrs Bladder to walk about the house drenched in those whiffs I would be on her like a ravaging animal.

All this was set-off, just this morning, by my smelling one of the finest stenches known to man - wet dog. If I can bottle that I shall be on the sure-fire path to millions.

There is nothing like walking my little chum Hector in the rain, watching him roll about in a few stray bits of badger droppings, carouse around in clumps of wet ferns and then taking in the whole olfactory delight of the lot in the enclosed space of a car.

Women of the world, take my tip, that is a smell that men would slay enemies, fight beasts and assemble flat-packed furniture to get the merest whiff of. There is nothing like it when it comes to sheer sensual pleasure.

Better still it won’t cost the earth. I don’t want to fleece the gullible I simply want to please humanity and make a few bob on the side. What could be fairer than that?

So girls, start thinking about your Christmas list and stick The Red Bladder’s selection box of erotic perfumes at the top. You will never regret it and your men folk will be eternally grateful.

Hey nonny noo

DO YOU know, when it comes down to it, I would as soon suck on a used corn plaster as have anything to do with Morris Dancing.

Sticks clashing, bells a-tinkling and over-grown, often bearded, twerps in a state of arrested adolescence prancing about like a bunch of fairies on a Christmas cake. Why do we allow it on our streets?

Have the authorities no fire hoses, no electric cattle prods or bull whips to clear the louts away?

Mind you if they did that then the practitioners of this demonic art would probably dash into the pubs and make the places uninhabitable for the honest, down-to-earth boozer who is usually to be found in such places.

And it’s in the inns and taverns that these yahoos come into their own. “A pint in a handle please landlord” they will demand rather in the style of the NATO forces requesting permission to fly through Libyan air space.

What the hell difference does it make what sort of glass you drink your beer out of? It’s what in it that counts not what it goes in. The people who can’t see that should not be allowed out on their own. They are not fit for decent company.

All this is brought about by the news that a town, I won’t embarrass the respectable residents by naming it, is to host these people for a week.

Can you imagine that? A week of Morris Dancing - it would drive me to defect to Serbia, Liberia or Borneo, in fact anywhere where the two dreaded words had never been heard in the same sentence.

Our cousins over the sea would describe a Morris Dancing Festival as a ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ and that is exactly what it is. So if they propose doing it your street act now and get it stopped. No come to think of it don’t - they might just move on to my neck of the woods.

You keep them - thank you very much.