Friday 28 November 2008

The Blair Ditch Project


Thanks to Boris, this bugger retires today.

"The Scotland Yard head told London mayor Boris Johnson he had never been distracted by any of the controversies surrounding him.

Sir Ian said he will be "fully exonerated" by an investigation into how contracts worth several million pounds were handed to a close friend.
"

Needless to say, this has cost us several hundred thousand pounds, what with his pension-pot top-ups and paying off his full contract. Why is it that a chief plod is offered such a bullet-proof contract? Don't tell me that you couldn't attract the right calibre without such a contract - it's the top job, for Christ's sake! This woeful excuse for a straight copper has behaved shamefully in his post, has been proved dishonest at worst or incompetent at best, yet walks away with all the wonga. Furthermore, he has presided over a Met where a chancer like Tarique Ghaffur can negotiate a million-pound settlement for a cooked-up racism case, instead of being reduced to the ranks and sent to Neasden to do some community policing, which is what should have happened to the lying swine.

And his parting shot - authorising a squad of 9 (nine!) anti-terrorism officers to the home of a front-bench MP, respected on both sides of the house, to do a lot of what's-all-this-ing in every drawer, cupboard, nook and cranny, when the MP in question has done no more than behave as all opposition members are expected to behave, and as all journalists do, be they good, bad, or Robert Peston.

And it is apparent that the Speaker, that illiterate numptie Gorbals Mick, approved the charade. He should be encouraged to visit his study in his plush quarters, with a deep fried mars bar and a revolver, and contemplate his position.

Irate Idle

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Husband of the Year Awards

In 5th place, someone who for some reason reminded me of the Tuscan on his grant-maintained European farm. But those must be a couple of his maiden aunts in the cage; certainly not the fragrant Tuscana, pbuh. But he could've made them walk, so no podium place for him.


In 4th: this put me in mind of the idle bro at Glasto. But bicycles DO get nicked, he's given her a mat to kip on, and he's sharing his water. So no medal for him either.


Bronze: this is more like it.


Silver: terrific! But he blew it by holding her hand, the soppy fool.


GOLD: Unbeatable. The insouciance of the hand in pocket and drag on the fag are nice touches. Those Albanians are gallant gentlemen.

Monday 24 November 2008

Idle's Do-it-Yourself Adage Kit

Using the following three photographs, competitors are invited to come up with an adage, phrase, or aphorism pertinent to the current economic climate. First Prize: a VAT holiday for two in 2015.




Thursday 20 November 2008

Loathsome Disingenuous Trollop

This isn't really a caption competition, but by all means caption it if you like. The reason for the photo was that her dress struck me as being utterly absurd. She looks like a flowerpot man. A neck like a rugby player's thigh with a tiny head stuck on as an afterthought.

This woman would be lucky to be the chairperson of a lesbian outreach group, were it not for her Ugandan activities with Ed Balls, and her consequent inner-circle status with McBust. I hate the very sight of her, safe in the knowledge that she holds me and folk like me in contempt. She is incapable of a statement that is not phrased in biased terms, and I require better from a minister of the Crown. Her reaction to the (mirabile dictu!) Cameron decision to give up on his hopeless duplication of Labour spending plans was a classic of its type: “Unlike the Conservatives, we refuse to abandon people in tough times. The British economy needs a shot in the arm, not a slap in the face.”

Wednesday 19 November 2008

An Old Tale, Refurbished For Our Times

The Prime Minister was visiting a primary school. One class was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked the PM if he would like to lead the discussion on the word 'tragedy'. So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a 'tragedy'. A little boy stood up and offered: 'If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him,that would be a tragedy'. 'No, said Brown - that would be an accident.' A little girl raised her hand: 'If a school bus carrying fifty children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy.' 'I'm afraid not', explained Brown - 'that's what we would call a great loss'. The room went silent. No other children volunteered. The PM searched the room. 'Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?' Finally, at the back of the room, little Johnny raised his hand...In a quiet voice he said: 'If a plane carrying you and Mr. Darling was struck by a 'friendly fire' missile & blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy. ''Fantastic!' exclaimed Brown. 'That's right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?'' 'Well,' says Johnny 'it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be a fucking accident either'

Berliner Zeitung gets it right


Monday 17 November 2008

Saturday 15 November 2008

Every Genius Guitarist Needs a Good Stick-Man

Our resident obituarist is en route to his Tuscan retreat to check if the beast has burned down the barn and eaten all the egg-laying chickens. So, in his absence:


Mitch Mitchell (left) RIP

Is Hey Joe the best ever debut single? Idle votes AYE. Can you come up with a better one?

Sunday 9 November 2008

Friday 7 November 2008

Next Time, Hank.......

... I'll take the photos and YOU can let the fucking bear out.









Wednesday 5 November 2008

Credit Where Credit is Due


If you lined up all the presidential hopefuls of two years ago, and arranged them in order of ideology, McCain would have appeared right in the middle, and Obama so far to the left, he was in another room; segregated, as it were. Hilary Clinton would have been one spot from McCain, to his left, or at his side (now THAT would have been a crazy VP pick, after Obama had ignored her).

So I ought to feel that my horse didn't come in. Yet I don't. I am content. McCain's choice of Palin achieved the rare double of throwing his experience argument out of the window, whilst at the same time encouraging independent voters to walk away from him. And Hilary? That smug sense of entitlement was probably the most unattractive single thing in this two-year election affair. If there was a whiff of racism in the whole process, it came from the Clintons, not the Republicans. Enuff said.

Of course, there is no reason to go bananas. “This is the most meaningful thing that has ever happened”, says Oprah Winfrey. Calm down, dear, you've overdone the slimming pills, and you are looking at America and the world through a prism of slavery, disgruntlement, and affirmative action. You could only make a bigger twerp of yourself by getting onto a stage and shouting "Payback Time!"

And there is the small matter of Obama's complete lack of experience in running anything, apart from the Harvard Law Review. You have to be slightly worried about someone whose achievements have been to get other people to vote for him, without any track record of improving their lot in life. With this election, he has taken that "risen without trace" ability to its apogee, which means that we are no longer talking about him as a "community organiser" aka race-based careerist, but as a national figure who got the Hispanics, the Jews, the patrician New Englanders and plenty of po' white folk to vote for him.

Idle likes a bit of oratory, and admires those who attempt to make a silk purse from a sow's ear with their rhetoric, even in the manner of a Kinnock or a Galloway. But where they stopped far short of any meaningful achievement, Obama has succeeded. I reckon he did this because he didn't get angry. Passionate, certainly, but persuasively consensus-building rather than narrow and chippy. The Right might very well find his policies distastefully socialist - there was no manifesto, so we'll have to wait and see - but they clearly didn't get scared by him.

I doubt he'll be a very poor president, and he's been wise to manage expectations lower, starting with his acceptance speech last night - "it may take more than one term to get there" (Where? Why, THERE, of course!). An unspecified point on the map that has everything to do with mood and temperature, and nothing to do with a measurable improvement in the lives of American citizens.

There was nothing "Audacious" about his Hope, in truth. There were enough intelligent and high-achieving blacks in the Republican ranks, notably Rice and Powell, to suggest that the way was clear for an attempt at the summit. The Democrats' problem was they always seemed to promote black racist firebrands or dodgy pastors like Jesse Jackson. The history of black mayors in Democrat cities was often depressingly sub-Saharan with tales of embezzlement, sexual voraciousness and contempt for the voter. They needed to find someone of above-average intelligence with a credible message for all America, and to produce him when the incumbent party was most vulnerable. This, they achieved. They didn't stop to think much about policy, it seems, which may be no bad thing. The last lot demonstrated that arriving in the White House with too long a wish-list doesn't necessarily make for good government.

It is undoubtedly something, for a black guy with a young family to get the keys to the motor after 43 middle-aged white men have had them. But we only care about his competence, and everyone knows he'll be an improvement on the last middle-aged white man.