First off, just want to say congrats to Captain America and his official photographer J who have just taken delivery of a beautiful baby daughter. Well done, good work.
Anyway, on the train into work this morning we were entertained by a group of travelling musicians made up of gay New Zealanders. I know they were gay New Zealanders because they had on T-shirts emblazoned with the legend "I am a gay New Zealander". What is the collective noun for a group of gay New Zealanders I wonder?. Kiwi fruits would be my guess.
Once at my place of work I was chatting with a Swiss colleague just back from vacation. "How was your holiday?" I asked. "Oh I have been to Hell and back" he replied. "Oh dear" says I. Twigging that I did not understand aforementioned Swiss colleague proceeded to tell me that Hell is actually a delightful little place just down the A3 and which boasts some fine tufaceaous limestone grottoes (me neither). Oh how we laughed at my ignorance. He stopped laughing when I asked if he had seen the England-Switzerland game last night and has been blanking me ever since. 3-1 to England in case you missed it.
Going slightly off theme for a moment; another colleague asked me this morning if I liked football. I said I did. "Isn`t that Wayne Rooney a pig. With his pregnant wife and prostitutes" she said with some venom. "Why did you ask me if I liked football?. What the hell has that got to do with football" I replied. She is also blanking me now. And, yes there is more, last night the wife was watching the game with me and suddenly made what I can only assume she thought was an incisive footie related comment. "Oh it`s rare to see two handsome goalkeepers isn`t it?". What!!!.I refused to dignify the comment with an answer but 5 minutes later I found myself considering the relative merits of both keepers as lovers and potential fathers. What the hell!!!! I had been enjoying a simple game of footie on the telly and now I had to avert my eyes from all further camera shots that involved the keepers in case I had unmanly thoughts. This meant I missed the last three goals. That’s another innocent pleasure down the swanny. I am starting to realise that women may approach the beautiful game from a totally different standpoint.
Ok, now back on track again. Living on a hill in Switzerland I often come across amusing things that foreign people say and do. There is the Blumen Eck, not a drinking club for ex-pat Yorkshire men but rather a fragrant flower emporium on the street corner. Likewise, Pfister is a Swiss furniture store and not a niche market sex club.
A local restaurant will invite you to sample the appetisingly named Tageshit (daily special) and when asking for your breakfast cereal never, ever confuse Müesli with Müüsli. Both sound pretty much identical to the untrained ear but former is the crunchy alpen-like cereal while the latter is a small mouse and, while also crunchy, is something of an acquired taste. If you are in a Swiss bar and some drunk turns to you and your mates and says "chuntsch!", do not take offence, he is not looking for a fight but rather enquiring if you want to come with him to a party?
Only yesterday I read a story about how a local Swiss village plans to use the heat generated from a crematorium to heat the next door old folks home. I bet you could cut the atmosphere with a knife in that old folks home at the moment as they eye each other up wondering who will be providing the hot water next week. It also throws up all sorts of questions, not the least of which is what will happen when they need to crank up the thermostat during the long winter months?. Will some of the old birds be "encouraged" on their way in order to meet demand? They must be living in fear of news of an increase in the winter fuel allowance. Aren`t foreigners funny.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Friday 3 September 2010
An Hommage to Fromage
Here is a letter I have sent to all of the contenders for the Labour Party leadership. I know you are all as enthralled as I am about the future direction of the Labour movement.
Dear Labour Party Leadership Candidates
I live on a mountain in the Alps and I am strangely, and vaguely erotically, excited by the current scuffle for the Labour leadership.
I want to share with you a dream I had last night. Well, right after my favourite bit involving Cheryl Cole, a gym slip and warm custard, the spectre of a floating voter appeared and revealed to me the top ten policy commandments. Unfortunately, that is what eating cheesey wotsits after the watershed does to you at my age. So, here are the top ten policy commandments the floating voter said that you should adopt if you want to win instant popularity and become the next Prime Minister.
1. Slap a massive tax the agoraphobic to plug the fiscal deficit. Nothing against them personally, but it would be simple and cheap to collect as you just know they`ll be home, and they are not likely to come out on a protest march. For similar reasons a tax should be considered on the claustrophobic and the clinically obese as. Even if they tried to avoid the tax and do a runner, the latter would never make it past the end of the sofa before collapsing in a puffing, sweaty heap and the former aren`t likely to go underground to avoid the tax. Brilliant!
2. Do not bother with upgrading Trident. Lets face it, nobody is actually going to think that you are a cheapskate in their final, terror filled, pant soilingly awful milliseconds on the planet because you vapourised them with last season`s ICBM. Spend the dosh elsewhere, say on schools, healthcare or ex-pats living in Switzerland.
3. Legalise drugs and set up free dispensing clinics with health checks. It would stop the junkies biffing old ladies for their pensions every Thursday or taking a dump on your new Axminster shag pile after they have stolen your flat screen TV. The drug gangs would simply go off in a sulk, they do that. Most drug dealers are Lib Dems. We could even pay malodourous third world farmers to produce the stuff, thus depriving those foreign johnnies of a major source of terror funding. Is this really such a crazy cheese inspired idea?
4. Let local people vote directly on local issues. I know, I know. You are uneasy about the idea of the great unwashed actually making any decisions, it is a bit scary, and of course those fizzing little balls of hate from the shouty crackers brigade would ooze out from under their Daily Mails, but at least no one could blame the government when it all goes tits up. Maybe, just maybe, it might encourage people to get involved in politics.
5. Make Aston Villa illegal- I hate them and it would really piss off the Prime Minister. Ok, so that was one I made up. Be nice. Mr Cameron had his "hug a hoodie" campaign, why not take it a step further with a "cuddle a currency trader", "blow a banker" or a "tenedrise a traffic warden" campaign?
6. Tax- Come on chaps, tax doesn`t have to be taxing. Bin it and start again. A wealth tax not inheritance tax- excluding ex-pats natch - a national, county and local tax set up bringing flexibility and direct accountability to areas to do as they think best.
7. Decriminalise prostitution. The spectre was quite adamant that we have to accept that, after several thousand years and Ms Harriet Harman, it ain`t going away anytime soon, so why not at least give the gals protection from pugnacious punters and pimps, and allow them to receive health care and help?. Again, what am I thinking, it`s wotsit inspired madness, quite bonkers.
8. Execute all children. Sorry, educate all children. Teaching not targets, local schools for local kids, top terms for top teachers, pride in performance, tough on stuff and any other poor quality semi-alliteration you can come up with. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to sort this all out. They do it in Switzerland.
9. Implement radical environmental policies: I have to admit that I didn`t pay attention to this bit, it`s all dippy hippy speak to me, but I think it went something like: off shore wind and wave farms..blah blah.. Charles and Camilla to be mulched and made into Duchy Originals…blah blah…nuclear power…blah blah… Jeremy Clarkson adapted to run on legume fumes…blah blah, …this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands,-- this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. Sorry, that was the cheesey wotsits repeating on me again.
10. I only have a vague recollection of No 10, as I suspect do you as the days and weeks pass by. If you ever want to see the inside of No 10 Downing Street again it`s gonna take balls. (The author would like to point out that this does not constitute an endorsement of any particular candidate, particularly Mr E Balls)
Good luck to all the candidates whoever you are.
Best Regards
Dear Labour Party Leadership Candidates
I live on a mountain in the Alps and I am strangely, and vaguely erotically, excited by the current scuffle for the Labour leadership.
I want to share with you a dream I had last night. Well, right after my favourite bit involving Cheryl Cole, a gym slip and warm custard, the spectre of a floating voter appeared and revealed to me the top ten policy commandments. Unfortunately, that is what eating cheesey wotsits after the watershed does to you at my age. So, here are the top ten policy commandments the floating voter said that you should adopt if you want to win instant popularity and become the next Prime Minister.
1. Slap a massive tax the agoraphobic to plug the fiscal deficit. Nothing against them personally, but it would be simple and cheap to collect as you just know they`ll be home, and they are not likely to come out on a protest march. For similar reasons a tax should be considered on the claustrophobic and the clinically obese as. Even if they tried to avoid the tax and do a runner, the latter would never make it past the end of the sofa before collapsing in a puffing, sweaty heap and the former aren`t likely to go underground to avoid the tax. Brilliant!
2. Do not bother with upgrading Trident. Lets face it, nobody is actually going to think that you are a cheapskate in their final, terror filled, pant soilingly awful milliseconds on the planet because you vapourised them with last season`s ICBM. Spend the dosh elsewhere, say on schools, healthcare or ex-pats living in Switzerland.
3. Legalise drugs and set up free dispensing clinics with health checks. It would stop the junkies biffing old ladies for their pensions every Thursday or taking a dump on your new Axminster shag pile after they have stolen your flat screen TV. The drug gangs would simply go off in a sulk, they do that. Most drug dealers are Lib Dems. We could even pay malodourous third world farmers to produce the stuff, thus depriving those foreign johnnies of a major source of terror funding. Is this really such a crazy cheese inspired idea?
4. Let local people vote directly on local issues. I know, I know. You are uneasy about the idea of the great unwashed actually making any decisions, it is a bit scary, and of course those fizzing little balls of hate from the shouty crackers brigade would ooze out from under their Daily Mails, but at least no one could blame the government when it all goes tits up. Maybe, just maybe, it might encourage people to get involved in politics.
5. Make Aston Villa illegal- I hate them and it would really piss off the Prime Minister. Ok, so that was one I made up. Be nice. Mr Cameron had his "hug a hoodie" campaign, why not take it a step further with a "cuddle a currency trader", "blow a banker" or a "tenedrise a traffic warden" campaign?
6. Tax- Come on chaps, tax doesn`t have to be taxing. Bin it and start again. A wealth tax not inheritance tax- excluding ex-pats natch - a national, county and local tax set up bringing flexibility and direct accountability to areas to do as they think best.
7. Decriminalise prostitution. The spectre was quite adamant that we have to accept that, after several thousand years and Ms Harriet Harman, it ain`t going away anytime soon, so why not at least give the gals protection from pugnacious punters and pimps, and allow them to receive health care and help?. Again, what am I thinking, it`s wotsit inspired madness, quite bonkers.
8. Execute all children. Sorry, educate all children. Teaching not targets, local schools for local kids, top terms for top teachers, pride in performance, tough on stuff and any other poor quality semi-alliteration you can come up with. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to sort this all out. They do it in Switzerland.
9. Implement radical environmental policies: I have to admit that I didn`t pay attention to this bit, it`s all dippy hippy speak to me, but I think it went something like: off shore wind and wave farms..blah blah.. Charles and Camilla to be mulched and made into Duchy Originals…blah blah…nuclear power…blah blah… Jeremy Clarkson adapted to run on legume fumes…blah blah, …this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands,-- this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. Sorry, that was the cheesey wotsits repeating on me again.
10. I only have a vague recollection of No 10, as I suspect do you as the days and weeks pass by. If you ever want to see the inside of No 10 Downing Street again it`s gonna take balls. (The author would like to point out that this does not constitute an endorsement of any particular candidate, particularly Mr E Balls)
Good luck to all the candidates whoever you are.
Best Regards
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