Ins and Outs: July '09

Howzat! It's Wimbledon fortnight, what?

Staggering, bleary-eyed, out of the corporate hospitality areas, it is the pleasure of the Ins and Outs Committee to "serve" up another monthly helping of the guide that tells you what's ace and what's a disgrace and differentiates your overhead smash from your big load of gash. Get yourself some new balls, because Ins and Outs am here!!!!!!11!!!!!OHISAY!!!!!

In

When your dreadful mates are debating the relative claims of Messi, Ronaldo and Kaka to the title of best footballer in the world, stubbornly insisting that the true owner of the mantle is, in fact, Bayern Munchen and Germany midfield schemer Bastien Schweinsteiger.
Elena Baltacha. Not very good, but, at least she is descended from one of the Three Wise Men.
Litre bottles of ice-cold Mahou beer.
When responding in the affirmative to any question, doing so with an emphatic "Yes, Sensei!"
Boring the arse off everyone, gibbering on about Spotify.
Claiming that Eggsy from Goldie Lookin' Chain is the son of Viv Stanshall.
Lady Gaga.
Eating nothing but fruit. Gives you a healthy gleam and an excuse for sitting down while ‘going toilet.’
Transformers II. A masterpiece in the same way a chimp shitting the dismembered corpse of Steve Brookstein out of its rancid arse would be a ‘masterpiece’. (This is actually the basis of Simon Cowell’s new TV channel, fact fans.)
Warming to your task.
When attending catholic mass and on instruction from the priest to show a sign of peace to your neighbour, turning around, grabbing the generous hooters of the fruity sort behind you and whispering "You don't get many of them to the pound these days".
At work, answering the phone with an exuberant "Wasssaaap!"
Affecting a mode of dress and personal styling that is partly Rocket from the Crypt, partly Cliff Lazarenko.
Ratting out your crew to the Feds just because you like staying in motels.
On being asked how it's going, shrugging and informing them that "Big shit poppin', little shit stoppin'".
Drunken middle-aged women. I love them all, I love them crazily.
Talking to a bodybuilder in the pub, enquiring if his training regime is linked to the Nietzschean concept of "will to power" only to be told that it's more closely associated with the concept of "being able to knock fuckers out".
V.V.S Laxman, Jeremy Paxman and a mad axeman, defrauding the tax man.
Having a crazy, foolish pipe dream of one day visiting Godalming and going for tea and scones and that.
Awaking, sweating, from a nightmare wherein one is were trapped in room of wall-sized video screen showing a continuous loop of Eamonn Dunphy's face as he achieves orgasm, to a soundtrack of B*Witched's "C'est la Vie".



Out

Being unable to negotiate a busy shopping thoroughfare without being implored by mendicants to contribute towards their Special Brew fighting fund.
Tiresome Jacko-paedo joke funny text pests.
Prior to a much-anticipated night out, telling one's chums that they should wear their wellington boots, as the place will be "knee-deep in clunge".
Log jams. Blackcurrant is much nicer.
The demise of Setanta. Serves them right for showing off on the gee-tar.
Sue Barker’s wardrobe allowance. More ‘Ming’ than ‘Bling’.
Bluffin' with your muffin.
Issuing "come and get me" pleas.
Shameful BBC kow-towing to political correctness meaning they can no longer show Mr Benn walking down Festive Road in his bowler hat in case it offends the Catholics.
Claiming to have an old Triumph Stag that you are in the process of restoring.
Giving up a bases-loaded walk.
The Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Cheer up, you miserable cow.
Becoming embroiled in a splenetic confrontation with an ice cream man following a disagreement regarding whether Keren Woodward or Sara Dallin was the best one in Bananarama.
Skype. Use a proper phone you tightwad.
Kasabian and Kasabian enthusiasts.
Temporarily forgetting that you aren't a rock star and appending a request for "half a dozen bottles of Jack Daniels, forty-eight bottles of Stella, two bowls of blue M&Ms, a selection of fresh fruit and a couple of whores" to your monthly stationery requisition form at work.
Cardamom pods. Fucking wankers.
These so-called Arabian states with their mad mullahs. Fancy being told what to do by a yoghurt!
Waking up with a mouth like a foxes oxter after supping not wisely but too well on the sweet, sweet Tiger beer.
Making the slightly insensitive and wholly inaccurate claim that you "be getting more pussy than Molly Sugden".

Behind the Music #2: Black Sabbath - "Iron Man"

If there's one thing your average rocker hates, it's wasting time. So, whenever John Q. Rockstar has been forced to read a book, either by stentorian schoolmasters or in order to impress a lass, the least he can do is to lift the plot wholesale and make it into a song.

The "novel plot as lyrics" tradition is a long and glorious one that includes The Cure's "Killing an Arab" (Camus' "The Outsider), The Manics "Patrick Bateman" (American Psycho) and 2 Live Crew's "Get me Some Muthafucking Madeleines, Ho" (Proust's "In Search of Lost Time"). However, there is one such song that stands alone, the big daddy, the big cheese, the big bopper of the genre.

The song is "Iron Man" by Black Country bat-munchers Black Sabbath. Ozzie, Geezer, Ricky Villa and aal the lads have taken elements of "The Iron Man", Ted Hughes' story of an alienated ferrous fellow, added a dash of bairn's comic superhero "Iron Man" and just enough original ideas to avoid a troublesome lawsuit and created a "heavy metal" classic.

We all know it, we all love it. But pay close attention, if you will, for one moment to certain key lyrics from said song.

"Heavy boots of lead
fills his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron Man lives again!"

Heavy boots of lead, sir? Doesn't being constructed from iron make you feel tough and intimidating enough? Surely the potential victims of an iron man would be filled with plenty of dread even if he was barefoot. Why not go the whole hog and don the weighty bomber jacket of titanium and the hefty knuckledusters of brass? A person of a more psychoanalytical bent than I might suggest that old Iron Man is over-compensating for some other form of inadequacy, with his big, intimidating metal boots.

Could it be that the big, aggressive avenging man-machine can't get his tiny little metal winky up? Iron Man? Soft Cock, more like!

"Nobody wants him
They just turn their heads"

A feeling not unfamiliar to anyone who has seen the lights come on at Buffalo Joe's or similar late night gin parlour, having singularly failed to get a grip of anyone. One can understand Iron Man's chagrin at his predicament. However, you, like I, would not resort to the heavy lead boot course of action. Possibly you would roll your eyes and mutter uncomplimentary remarks regarding the opposite sex, before adjourning to the kebab shop.

Any passer-by observing your demeanour and pondering "Is he alive or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?" would probably conclude that yes, he is alive and the thoughts within his head seem to be focused mainly on the prospect of extra onions and chilli sauce, and maybe one off the wrist when he gets home. Not a notion of "vengeance from the grave" nor the merest hint of killing the people he once saved.

"Now the time is here
for Iron Man to spread fear
Vengeance from the grave
Kills the people he once saved"

Clearly, Iron Man feels he has a grievance against humanity. He did, after all, travel through time to try to save mankind, and with what reward? To be turned to steel (in a great magnetic field, no less) and generally ignored, left to rust in a corner, unwanted and unloved. A situation guaranteed to cause the iron to enter the soul, yes?

However, what it boils down to is this: Iron Man, we accept we were wrong to neglect you. You made great sacrifices on our behalf and it was remiss of us treat you so badly. But come on now, play the game, there's a good chap. Nobody deserves a right shoeing from someone with iron legs and feet clad in heavy leaden
boots.

That's just nasty.

Behind the Music #1: Deacon Blue - "Dignity"

A new regular feature on the 'blog, we take you beyond the surface of popular music chart-toppers and let you in on what's really shaking.




Deacon Blue, what? Back in the eighties we all knew them, we all loved them, with their scotch blue-eyed soul anthems and that. There was gap-toothed crooner Ricky Ross, the cute little woman and, erm, some other fellers who stood at the back.

What times to be alive.

Their masterpiece, the crowning jewel in their bejewelled crown is of course their 1987 flop, 1988 hit and 1994 so-so selling single "Dignity". In this song, singer Ross tells us about a Glaswegian Council worker who "harbours" a dream of one day owning a dinghy, which he intends to call "Dignity". Said purchase is apparently to be funded by "the money in his kitty".

The "ship called Dignity" this fellow intends to buy is often seen as representing a metaphor for the dignity of manual labour and the song is seen as a rallying cry of the working class who, in 1987, were getting rather the thin end of things, courtesy of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Party.

Now this is all will and grace, but to this reporter the whole story smells a bit fishy. For a start, who dreams about buying a fucking dinghy? No-one, that's who.

Secondly, dinghies aren't that expensive to buy anyway, just supposing this bluff, contrary Council employee did have such a dream. This website has a nice one for under four hundred quid. Twenty years ago they'd have been even cheaper. Now, if this grumpy old bugger, in a forty year working career hadn't been able to scrape together, let us say, two hundred quid, then my monkey's uncle is a Dutchman.

Shit or get off the pot, Jock. Go buy your dinghy if you're going to.

However, since the point remains that nobody dreams of owning a dinghy, the possibility exists that the real-life Waste Management professional was, in the Caledonian manner, ripping the pish out of the eager-eyed, gap-toothed faux-soul singer. Spinning him a yarn, if you will.

One imagines him getting a good old laugh every time the song is played on the radio, which in Scotland is probably about three times a day. You can picture Big Jock and his little mate Wee Tam, sitting around smoking a relaxing Regal and listening to the radio, on company time of course, and on comes Ricky and the gang.

BJ: Och, it's mah pal Ricky and his wee song aboot the dinghy, the noo!
WT: Yon daft laddie with the front teeth that werenie getting oan with each other?
BJ: Aye, that fucking wee radge. Ah got him guid and proper there, eh boy? Swallowed the bloody lot, he did, the floppy-haired young loon. Ship called dignity? In a bonobo's bawbag, more like!
WT: Good one, big man? Shall we be shootin' up this bonny wee batch of skag the noo?

And so the day wears on.

Ladies and gentlemen, I commend to you "Ship Called Dignity" by The Deacon Blues. God bless her and all who sail in her.

Ins and Outs: June '09

Hey you! Martial arts fan. Do you know your Kim Kashardian from your him from Kasabian? Can you successfully tell your Claire Grogan from your Piers Morgan? Your Andres Iniesta from your back issues of "Fiesta"?

In your hole you can.

You struggle to end up facing the right way on the toilet and well you know it. Fortunately, the Committee of the nitty-gritty that look pretty in the city will divert you from the Way of the Fool and put you squarely on the Road to Wellville.

L and G, Ins and Outs am here!


In

Spending a sunny Sunday afternoon indoors, watching YouTube clips of "The Hit Man and Her".
Feeling optimistic that the weather may soon be sufficiently temperate to allow one to eschew the winceyette nightclothes.
Making numerous references to "cojones", pronouncing it "coe-jones" rather than the more orthodox "coe-ho-nays".
Armand Van Helden.
Including several dubious claims in your business promotional literature, notably that your products are "hotter than a set of twin babies, in the back of a Mercedes, when the temperature's up in the mid-80s".
Five on the top, three on the back and sides.
Describing your state of pre-match tension as feeling "like a cat shitting hot tin bricks".
In the pub after five-a-side, assuring your companion that "dear boy, you marshaled the back line like a young Klaus Augenthaler".
Colonel Mike Bumgarner.
Golfing while wearing shorts. Yes, one may look like Don Estelle, but the absence of bawbag stickiness is a positive boon.
Feeling chipper all day after being told by a colleague that your new tie makes you look a little like the Rt Hon Michael Ancram.
Between you and your beloved, always coyly referring to anal sex as "the road less travelled".
Intimating that a dreadful mate's anecdote is failing to grip by humming a few bars of "Go tell it on the mountain" under one's breath, gradually increasing the volume until their final lame payoff is met with an Otis Redding-style roar.
Eating plenty of fish.
Listening to Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" in the back of a Hummer with a plumber and a drummer.
Addressing tradesmen and shop proprietors as "My good man".
On being asked by one of your younger acquaintances if you like Holly Oakes, smilingly informing them that you've never met the lass.
Being laid low by hubris.
Always rooting for the Crimson Haybaler on "Wacky Races". That Peter Perfect can stick his cock'n'balls-shaped car where the sun don't shine.
The Western Lowland Gorilla, or to use the scientific name Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla.


Out

Misguided schmucks suffering from Betty Wright/Jean Knight confusion.
Putting out piss and calling it shit.
Being unable to decide who is the better Ranks; Cutty or Shabba.
Forever going on about your impending Hoseasons boating holiday in Belgium.
Petr Cech's sweaty neck. It's that daft hat.
Anybody who imagines they are being amusing by using the word "simples".
The Phil Brown Karaoke Roadshow.
Loafers, Harry Ramps and assorted methylated spirit enthusiasts, taking up bench space required by real people.
Attempting to engage the fellow who has come to collect your electoral form in a debate over the relative merits of French and English mustard, but suspecting he's not really arsed.
Whoopi Goldberg's sense of trepidation as Patrick Swayze's health worsens.
"Robbo" Robson's 'blog on the BBC website. Now, the Committee know low-quality bloggage like the back of their collective hand, but that cornhole takes the biscuit. And not a very good biscuit. A Lidl own-brand Rich Tea, maybe. That's been dipped in dog shit.
Scratching a thoughtful groin while half-heartedly wondering if they still make "Pop Tarts".
Regretfully informing a close friend that you won't be able to make the christening of their first-born after all, as you have just taken delivery of "Weapons of Ass Destruction 3" on Blu-Ray and, consequently, won't be venturing out much this month.
Swine Flu. Shite Flu, more like!
Impertinent journalists, sticking their neb into the financial affairs of hard-working public servants, who do a marvellous job.
Meeting the vicar in the street and replying, perhaps a little too candidly, to his request as to your well-being "Shee-it, Reverend. I'm sweating like a fat dog's balls, here."
That whole Susan Boyle shiznit. Ugly chicks singing show tunes? Two words, my friend: Amateur Dramatics. Two more: Drag Artistes.
Being on increasingly strong medication "for your nerves" as a direct result of the break-up of Peter and Katie's marriage.
Parachute payments. The greedy sods are claiming for parachutes as well, are they? (Basil Brush writes: "Boom boom!")
Any use of the word "holibobs" when referring to one's vacation plans.

Ins and Outs: May '09

Greetings, fellow revolutionaries.

Today marks the first of May, the traditional day to celebrate our eternal struggle against the capitalist oppressors and their bourgeoisie running dogs.

The Committee of Investigation into Matters Counter-Revolutionary and Unorthodox is pleased to publish its latest bulletin that will enable hard-working bolshevik families to delineate between the Trotsky and the Notsky, the Putin and the Putain, the SS-20 and the Matchbox 20.

Let us paint our collective farms red, drink potato vodka until we go blind and never mind the balalaikas, because Ins and Outs am here!!!!!!11!!!CCCP!!!!


In

Conducting all of one's romantic endeavours with the breezy insouciance of a young Barry Bulsara.
After a dreadful mate has finished a lengthy and tedious story about a disagreement with the council regarding the rateable value of his house, putting down your pint, gripping his elbow and saying "I'd take a bullet for you, buddy. Just say the word."
Entering DFS, summoning a furniture professional and attempting to negotiate the purchase of "a big orange settee, like the one on 'The Wire'".
Holding a cigarette in an effeminate, affected manner.
Getting into a furious shouting match with the bloke mending your exhaust in Kwik Fit over whether John Stuart Mill or Henry Havelock Ellis was the original father of eugenics.
Explaining one's absence from the local pub by claiming that you have become a Pentecostal Evangelist.
Lime and Orange Tic Tacs. Ideal for Glaswegians to share.
The Sarah Sze show at the Baltic. It's cush!
No matter how inappropriate the circumstances, whenever one is introduced to a woman breathily intoning "A bee-yootiful name for a bee-yootiful lady" a la Julio Iglesias.
Loving Gog, hating on Magog.
Convincing your hipster acquaintances that dubstep hotshot Benga is the American actor Ben Gazzara recording under a pseudonym.
Expressing agreement by exclaiming "I can dig it!" in the manner of a 1960s American father.
Spending a super Bank Holiday Monday with a chum, riding the Saltburn Tramway and drinking ginger beer.
Spending forty days and forty nights in solitude, looking deep within one's soul, yet still being unable to decide which would be the more amusing t-shirt to buy: "Boobies make me smile" or "Feck: Irish Connection".
Cobalt Chloride. I'll tell you what, I love that shade of blue.
When it aal kicks off in the pub, cowering in the corner, mopping a fevered brow with a handkerchief, complaining that "this is like being in some frightful Danny Dyer movie".
Eschewing a trip to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate the birthday of a close friend in favour of a night in watching a week's worth of Sky-plussed "Katie and Peter - the next chapter: Stateside".
Pooh-poohing all this politically-correct Inuit nonsense. They're eskimos, they live in igloos, they catch fish out of holes in the ice and they talk like Little Plum out of The Beano. Any fool could tell you that.
Asking a skinhead in the street if his life is just the same as Russell Crowe's in Romper Stomper and if not, why not?
Starting a Facebook Group called My First Bang, naming and shaming the lass that just laid there like a corpse while you stabbed around in vain looking for the landing pad.


Out

Getting your arsehole bleached as "you don't like the way that it looks".
Mooching around Greenwoods, looking for a shirt that is "the type of thing Nick Cave might wear".
Spending an evening in various pubs recounting Great Bowel Movements I Have Known.
Blokey rock stars who look like they go drinking with Johnny Vegas.
Careering towards the poorhouse due to the exorbitant cost of inkjet printer ink.
Coprolites. That shit is old, dude.
Opining that the corpulent fellow eagerly troughing a cheese'n'onion slice at the bus stop is probably not a John Smedley knitwear connoisseur.
Attempting to impress the girl selling shots in "Liquid / Envy" by claiming that you used to be a competition standard Kendo practitioner back in the day.
Pot Noodles!!! In doner kebab flavour!!!! Just fuck off.
Getting laid less often than the pitch at Wembley.
Attempting to pay for one's social club beverage by means of a spirited rendition of "The Girl from Ipanema" rather than the £1.21 requested.
Returning from a weekend grief tourism break complaining that Auschwitz is getting very touristy these days, although, thankfully, Treblinka still retains its palpable air of menace and deeply affecting emotional resonance.
Attending All Tomorrow's Parties with your lass, only to fall out with her after she spent all of Friday night flirting with the drummer out of The Jesus Lizard and Saturday night getting spitroasted off of two of Antipop Consortium.
Realizing that the most pleasure you get from your nether regions these days is having a good scratch of them on the sofa.
Those peculiar woollen "jockey style" hats that the young people insist on wearing, even indoors.
Slack-jawed shaven apes, loudly debating the merits and demerits of various performance sports cars while riding the bus home from work.
Foxes. Get out my bins, you furry ginger bollix!
Claiming to be "passionate" about food. That's "greedy" then.
Twenty-five years on, still harbouring suspicions that Ecaterina Szabo was robbed and that queer goings-on led to Mary Lou Retton winning the gold.
Being pleased and surprised that the hospital are going to give you a trophy on account of your muscles, only to have it explained that you are suffering from muscular atrophy.

"I make that booze o'clock, chaps!"

Easter Rantin' #2 - Old is the New Young

Old People, living high on the hog, courtesy of your and my tax dollars.

As a wee small boy, I occasionally thought it was big and clever to cheek my elders. Not so much my parents and their generation, but Old People. However, it was soon brought to my attention, via a combined course of Good Hidings and school history lessons, that our senior citizens deserved our respect.

This was the generation that had fought in one, maybe two World Wars. Like on the telly and that. They defeated National Socialism, ended the holocaust and endured their lasses getting drilled left, right and centre by candybar-toting American servicemen.

Let us Never Forget the Sacrifices They Made.

That type of thing. Thus it went along, a generation of slackers grew up with a definite reverence for those who gave so much that we would be free. Quite right too.

However, it now strikes me that we are approaching the year 2010, where there will be Old Aged Pensioners who were born after the Second World War. This is quite a different kettle of OAP fish.

This is the generation that grew up in an era of free love, LSD, stack heels and mod/rocker violence. A generation that titted around in the seventies with their big hair, outsized collars and garish wallpaper. A generation that voted Thatcher and gleefully butchered the industries of mass employment while selling this country's infrastructure, utility supplies, water supplies, building societies, council houses, anything that wasn't tied down in Stock Market flotations for a few greasy quid to spend on Phil Collins CDs.

Quite frankly, this is a generation that can Fuck Right Off. And that's swearing.

Yet these grasping grannies and grandpas are sucking ever more cold hard cash from the nation's exhausted, dry teats.

They're getting free bus travel anywhere in the country, free swimming, free cash to spend on heating their houses in the winter.

I repeat, this is a generation that has had money flowing like water. If these greedy old bollixes haven't scraped up enough money over the years to see them alright, then frankly, fuck 'em.

These silver-haired shitehawks spend their days buying scratchcards and writing angry missives to their newspaper of choice about "how savers are the real victims of this recession".

Yes, it's all about the savers, apparently. Forget the poor people with bairns to feed who find that the price of basic foodstuffs has doubled. Put the plight of people losing their jobs and their homes to one side, here is the real tragedy. The poor savers, with their bungalow already paid off and a hundred grand in the bank, ARE ONLY EARNING 1 PER CENT ON THEIR SAVINGS!!! Sort it out Gordon Browns, these ould knackers with their spare capital doing nothing aren't earning enough free money from it. Cancel that overseas aid, we've got a humanitarian disaster on the home front.

Of course, with the way demographics are, the government can't afford to alienate these people, their votes are too important. However, I'm not the government and I can well afford to alienate them.

Firstly, fuck off until half-nine with your bus pass. Some of us have to get to work. That copy of The Metro is for people interest in Twitter and Lindsey Lohan and that, so gertcha! And you can go and tickle if you think you're getting my seat when it's busy. Have a lie-in, why don't you?

Secondly, stop fucking whingeing about your pension. I remember proper poor pensioners from the eighties, war heroes and that, living on cat food and chopping sticks for the fire in their back yard. You fuckers do all right, get your hand out our pockets, gramps.

Thirdly, clean yourself up, you stink of piss! Cos they do, don't they? Eh? The old people, with their beige clothes and that, they STINK. OF. URINE. Aaaah, eat that observation, oldsters, you've been, like, totally merked, punked and pwned! EPIC FALE!


Hasta la easter, creature features!

Easter Rantin' #1 - Re: 'cession

Swab the decks, sex pests! The Colonel's here and he's street tuff.

If I had a quid for every person who sashayed up to my chaise longue, disturbed my rest and asked me "Ahoyhoy, old horse, what's going on with this recession and that? What's the dillio there, eh, jackson?" I would probably have about four quid. Enough for fish and chips. Nice.

Unfortunately, I don't get paid for being bothered by assholes, so I'll give you the lowdown here, save y'all interrupting my chillaxing time, capiche?

Well, first of all, there was the boom times. Remember them? Great weren't they? You and I, Average Joe and Josephine Sweatsock, continued to receive our normal wages while the only people making £££££s were the dregs of society; estate agents, solicitors, greasy-haired fat-tie-wearing soccer players, people in the cocaine distribution and retail industry, investment bankers. Cunts, basically.

Now, all of the money has gone. The bankers and the estate agents gave it to the cocaine chaps who, as any drugs Tsar could tell you, "used it to fund terrorism, the sex slave trade and stoving in the heads of puppies and ickle kittens with a spade".

Now, I have older friends who grew up in the eighties, when they used to have hard times. People had to duck, and to a lesser extent, dive to keep body and soul together. They would live on free school dinners, buy second hand clothes and wear two jumpers in the house to keep warm. And you know what, despite the poverty and the deprivations, life was pretty good in those days.

I joke of course, it was shite. Being poor is shite. And being poor is what people have gotten out of the habit of. Today's less well-off want regular top-ups on their mobiles, they want a muscular array of Sky channels, they want Nike Air Max trainers and they are quite prepared to get a credit card to pay for these things.

Except, now they won't get them. Worse still, we're all going to have to pay those debts back, because the people who lent us the money have spunked it all up the wall.

In times of stress, the English will stand shoulder-to-shoulder and search for somebody to blame. The obvious choice in this case is "the politicians". It is all too simple to deride politicians, local and national, as foolish, incompetent nitwits.

You will often see industrialists and business types tucking their thumbs into the armholes of their waistcoats and sounding off about Government Interference, Quangos and all manner of pettifogging bureaucracy "gone mad".

These pragmatic, hard-headed captains of industry are constantly bemoaning the fact that the government is wasting the Corporation Tax they haven't been able to evade on wasteful public servants and cap-in-hand scroungers and panhandlers.

They pour scorn on well-meaning do-gooder politicians, who don't know what it's like in the "real world", where our tycoons put their hard heads and balls of steel on the line in order to "create the wealth". If only you would be guided by us, by the markets, by the hard-headed, cigar chomping tax avoiding entrepreneurs and high-fliers, things might get done properly, they imply.

However, dear reader, because you see things with a keener eye than the putz or the fool, you, as I have done, will say "Stop right now, thank you very much, Mister Bidnessman, but wasn't it you and your stripey-shirt-and-braces wearing cunt mates that got us in this pickle?"
That'll stop him in his tracks.

Furthermore, these champagne-guzzling corporate cornholes don't have as many calls on their time as politicians. Unlike politicians, they don't have to run schools and hospitals, the scheduling of refuse collection and public transport matters not a jot to them. All they have to do is Keep On Making Money. From a position of strength, mark you. From a position of Having Loads of Money in the Fucking First Place. One job they have, just keep on grinding the nose of the worker into the dust and selling him ringtones and home insurance and wood flooring and expensive kitchenware and god knows what other shite.

And they failed to do it. They dropped the ball. They fucked up. The Porsche-driving, expense account lap dance receiving cokehead cunts.

Yet still you see them, blithely lecturing all and sundry about tightening belts and fiscal prudence on Newsnight and on Andrew Marr's Show. and Partyland TV and Babestation as well, probably.

Fuckers.

Ins and Outs: April '09

Coucou, mon petite salopes! How the dirk-diggling hell are you?

The Ins and Outs Committtee have finished their deliberations, some say ablutions, a little early this month. As a consequence, peel your earballs back, strain your gorges and gulp down a massive helping of the guide that tells your Barack Obamas from your hoochie mamas, your Lethal Bizzle from your bull's pizzle and your Paperback Writer from your pay-per-view skinflicks.

Come Stevie Gs and New Jack Hustlers, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!


In

Pitching amorous woo to a classy young lady in a fashionable cocktail bar whilst energetically rubbing ointment into an angry red rash on your shin.
Invited to a Saturday evening supper party given by some rather particular people, asking if you can have yours on a tray as Wigan v Stoke is on Football First.
Chattering classes. Far less energetic than step classes, basically you just pitch up in a leotard and blether on about local schools and fair trade coffee.
Should any acquaintance be unwary enough as to begin a sentence with the words "You know what it is?" immediately jumping down their throat with "I'm just street tuff!"
Don Diablo. The sikkest beats in the bidness.
Spending the entire sixty minute session with one's therapist discussing the lifeand times of Jade Goody, including a thorough exploration of your concerns for "those beautiful boys".
Dedicating every day to becoming more like Timo Glock in every way.
Regaling all and sundry with tales from your (imagined) time as a member of the Eight Tray Gangster Crips in the late 1980s.
Torquemada. Yes he was a trifle over-zealous with his Inquisition, but people forget the 50-odd years of good service he gave the church before the Great Terror. A little balance, people, yeah?
Stopping in of a Saturday night, listening to Snoop Dogg and playing Freecell. That's livin', alright!
Andrew Graham-Dixon.
Eagerly anticipating seeing the reformed Wonder Stuff on their next tour. Some naysayers might suggest that going to see a band who were frankly fucking shit twenty years ago having failed to discover anything contemporary to spend your hard-earned on is a slightly pitiful state of affairs, but what do they know, eh? They'll be playing "Size of a Cow" and everything!
Knowing one's onions.
Morris Dancing. Yes, it gets a bad press, but once you're out on the town in the get-up you'll be beating off the boole with a shitty stick. Which, handily, you will be carrying anyway.
Bladder wrack. The finest wrack there is.
Spending an evening earnestly debating which is better, White Lies or White Denim, before concluding that Whitesnake is the best.
At the barber's, asking this month for a slight look of Will Sergeant, around the time of the release of "Ocean Rain".
Good old fashioned British fish'n'chips. It's great!
On being chided for your lack of interest in your lasses new hairdo, explaining that you've been racking your brain to remember which one of the Tweenies it makes her look like.
Discussing your concerns regarding the Dodgers bullpen in the forthcoming season with a council litter removal operative while he's getting bubble gum off his claw-stick picker-upper thing.


Out

Telling lies about Vernon Kay.
The Jetsons. Really poor.
Using sex as a weapon. Don't use sex, use a TEC-9 semi-automatic submachine gun or a ninja death star.
Visiting the zoo and offering one of the keepers £200 for "five minutes alone in a room with a penguin and a cricket bat".
Vast warehouses full of unsold Walker's Big Dogs Cock, Monkey's Bawbag and Builders Arsecrack flavoured crisps, or whatever they are.
Have-nots. What a bunch of knackers. Haves like totally own you.
Getting a free credit report from Experian. Shite. No wonder they're free.
Anthrax. Whatever happened to that, eh? Used to be all the rage at the turn of the century.
Werther's Originals. The twinkling-eyed grandfather toffee sweet solution of the fool.
While being fellated, making disapproving, critical whimpering sounds like Brian Sewell.
Staying awake wondering about the slight difference in meaning between "distrust" and "mistrust".
Ethelred the Unready. He's had all day to get ready and he KNEW the taxi was coming for half seven, but no, he's rushing around drying his hair at the last minute again. Typical!
Relating every aspect of your weekend musical break in London in pitiless detail, including the vital information that Gareth Gates remains "a lovely young lad" and that the bacon was "stringy".
Making it clear to all and sundry that you are opposed to paedophilia by joining a different hand-wringing/vigilantism-endorsing Facebook group each and every day. If that doesn't make all of our bairns safer, it's hard to imagine what will.
Turning up at the Mobile Breast Screening Unit in the health centre car park carrying a bag of popcorn and asking the lady in charge what time the film starts.
Entering a social club concert room, during the bingo, striding confidently to the bar and asking for a Harvey Wallbanger.
Hammerhead sharks. Your head looks like a hammer, you dick!
Greedy fatcat bankers. If the government can't stop their big pensions, they should at least make sure they don't get any free EEC butter.
Fern Britton's decision to leave the "This Morning" sofa. Quite frankly, it was a surprise she could get up off of it, the FAT COW.
Chauvinism, in any of its guises.

Ins and Outs: March '09

Carry go bring come, sports fans! How the heck is it hanging?

Spring has sprung and the Ins and Outs Committee, fine chaps who all know their Dornier Dos from their Dornier Don'ts, have been flicking to kick like nobody's bidness and are coming atcha like a bull at a gate.

No doubt you are all agog and magog, desperate to learn what's foxy and what's knoxy, who's got moxie and who got the poxy, so we'll say no more about it other than to inform your ass that Ins and Outs am here!!!!!!!11!!!!


In

Opening one's heart to Our Lord Jesus and the boundless love he has for all of us.
Adopting the apparel and footwear of the skateboarding enthusiast, while in reality you wouldn't even know how to switch one on.
Referring to any acquaintance who is your junior in years as "Young Jeezy".
Pretending to be your tough cousin from the city by wearing a bowler hat and long sweater and talking like a 1930s gangster.
Affecting the look of a 1970s kidnapper.
The Politburo. The best buro, bar none.
Whenever mentioning one's mother, always referring to her as "The Duchess" while adopting a faux-cockney accent.
Cocking a snook. One of the few uses for snooks, these days.
The return of Starsailor to our hearts and stereograms. The world may be in financial meltdown, the environment on its last legs and the price of a pint on the rise again, but thank the ever-merciful Lord that at long last that lank-haired, moosey-faced caterwauling cunt and his cronies are back to rock our world with their overblown, maudlin dadrock shite.
Spending a fortnight holed-up in a motel while the heat dies down.
Having sausages for your tea.
Doing the Stanky Legg.
Having an invigorating conversation regarding the novels of Milan Kundera with the dental hygienist, who had hitherto restricted her remarks to the advisability of regular brushing and registering disapproval of the notion of black coffee.
Constructing a life-sized clay model of A.A. Gill and worshipping it as a deity.
Writing to the Home Secretary, asking to be considered for the post of Drugs Czar when it next comes up, citing the fact that you've read that Howard Marks book and also own a furry Russian hat.
Slicing an avocado.
Eschewing the delights of a friday night in town in favour of an evening with a Sven Hassel and a few cans of Kestrel.
Harbouring grave concerns regarding the impetuous Romano's future career once T.J. Hooker has retired.
Slow days a work where you principal output has been adding "going with sailors" to the Interests section of your Facebook profile.
Telling a simple-hearted lass at work that Davis Love III is a lesser-known Shakespeare play.
When asked how it's going, shrugging one's shoulders and replying "Sturm and drang, mate. Sturm and drang".



Out

Bringing one's daughter to the slaughter. Iron Maiden, hang your hard rock heads in shame.
Coves and covesses with acoustic guitars. Did John Logie Bear invent electricity for naught?
[citation needed]
The unemployed. The trouble with these layabouts is they don't WANT to work.
Attempting to gain some insight into life during the second world war by discussing it with your grandfather, only for him to mainly just go on about "all the Land Girl pussy he nailed".
Capuchin monkeys. They're dicks.
Being devastated to learn that your collection of 7" EPs originally given away with issues of "Sounds" aren't worth enough to fund an early retirement.
Claiming that your great-uncle represented Belgium in the 4 x 400m relay in the 1948 Olympics. Did he bollocks.
In-depth Sunday lunchtime public house debriefs on the previous night's exploits with the girl you met in Buffalo Joe's, especially the particularly unnecessary information that you "left her back end looking like a howked-out kiwi fruit".
The unpleasant fat kid that gets on the bus every morning.
Organising a coup d'etat in a Central African republic "for a bit laugh and carry on".
Going on and on about how good your expensive sandwich was.
People who put Queen on the jukebox in the pub. They be needing a kick upside the cock.
"The Metro" newspaper. Basically, a right-wing version of the Daily Mail, fleshed out with non-stories that mention Facebook or Twitter.
Attempting to obtain drink after hours on the grounds that you are "too legit to quit".
Calzone. The Italian restaurant choice of the fool.
Waking to discover that you have washed down your post-cold-drinks supper with 10% of a bottle of Staropramen, rendering the remainder undrinkable.
Stray elbows. They should be rounded up and put in the elbow pound.
Gibbering excitedly about obtaining tickets for rock festivals. Three days in a clarty tent, drinking cider from plastic bottles and watching the Foo Fighters? F that S. F it squarely in the A!

Ins and Outs: February 2009

"The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows
The government is corrupt
And we're all so many drunks
With the radio on and the curtains drawn".

Not my words, the words of erstwhile Canadian glumsters Godspeed and the Black Emperors. But are they correct and has the arse fallen out of our world? Should we just stuff our fat maws with cake and wait for the inevitable, sorry end?

Or, in sharp contradistinction, are they talking out their hole? Maybe that Obama fellow can save the world and have us whooping and ticker-taping like billy-o by summer.

This is all "bigger-picture" stuff, way beyond the ken of the bons viveurs, cultural commentators and First Ministers of minutiae who comprise the I&OC.

In summary, Ins and Outs am here!



In

In homage to Sid James, wearing a trilby hat indoors.
Between supper courses, picking your back molars with an ebony tooth-pick whilst recounting an amusing story about Virginia Woolf's sister Tillie and the nephew of King Leopold of Belgium.
Claiming to be a Monster Trucks aficionado, going to all the meetings and that, when in reality, your interest is, at best, tepid.
Crying at the bus stop.
Spending one's entire life regarding everything and everyone around you with ill-concealed contempt.
Using the French salutation "Coucou!" instead of "hello".
Spending a Saturday afternoon having a good old muddle round the shops with your sister, with a view to buying a nice top to go with your black trousers.
Nytol.
When drinking in low-rent establishments (Bigg Market, social clubs, that type of thing), passing a pleasant hour or so spotting Lasses Who Look Like Bez.
Swedish disco-baggy pop scamps The Tough Alliance.
Claiming to be unaffected by the financial downturn because "after all, people will always want abortions".
Eating Roquefort, wearing Rockports.
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
Claiming to have been in the thick of it when the balloon went up in Phnom Penh in '79, despite being clearly no older than 28.
Reluctantly declaring that from next Monday, you will no longer be keeping it crunk.
The Swiss cantons Glarus, Schaffhausen and Zug. They're ace!
Knowing a darling little place in town where the crêpes are simply To Die For.
The sumptuous arrangement of exquisite classical marble busts and fine silken drapes found in the windows of licensed slot machine/amusement arcades.
Scientology. It sounds canny.
Engaging in a fairly one-sided discussion of the poems of Friedrich Schiller with the woman in the dry cleaners, who, frankly, would rather get back to studying photos of Kate Garraway's arse cellulite in her chat magazine.


Out

Spending valuable time worrying whether the plural of "milf" should, in fact, be "milves".
Derby day Pre-Match Tension.
Being transfixed by the stark, austere beauty of a snow-coated winter landscape. "Ooh, look at me, I'm all sensitive, squeezing the cheese over a bit snedge and trees and that".
Claiming to be enjoying a healthy fruit-filled smoothie at work, when really you're swigging strawberry Angel Delight from a big glass.
Top Shop crop tops.
Having given up drinking for a month, joining pointless Facebook groups to save at-risk pubs, ignoring the irony inherent in such behaviour.
Getting shirty.
Bringing your own cue to the pub to play pool.
Cup-a-soup. The mug-based soup solution of the fool.
Miserly casanovas constantly making rueful comparisons between the cost of drinks, meals, gifts etc for their current paramour and the competitive tariffs of the bar girls from that holiday they had in Bangkok.
The Great Auk. It isn't great. It's shite.
The price of bread these days. Eeeh, it's a ruddy disgrace.
Reckoning that "Puppetry of the Penis" is a better show than "The Vagina Monologues" on the basis that, with the former, you at least get to see them.
Receiving an e-mail from a former female who's now a shemale.
At a critical juncture in a romantic encounter, breathily intoning "Okay toots, make like Elbow and throw those curtains wide".
Having several recipes that utilise aubergine and being only too prepared to talk at length about them.
Beginning most of your sentences with the words "I think" when there is nothing about you that suggests that you do it well.
Loudly complaining to your friend that that bloke across the way has been staring at you all night, mentally undressing you, before having it pointed out that you are currently working as a pole dancer.
Asking the barber for a haircut that will lend you an air of "someone out of The Animal Collective".


"Have fun with it" corner:
GYBE - Dead Flag Blues

Ins and Outs: January '09

What what, polyglots! A new year is here and the Ins & Outs Committee have been straining every nerve and tightening every sinew in order to pop out their latest vernacular spectacular.

In these fiscally straitened times who can you turn to delineate the hotties from the notties, the Xavi from the Zavvi and your Pinter from your Pinder, why of course it's the countdown of the baggy-trousered misanthropist that will meet you after school and beat you like gorilla.

Hold on to your mousemats, cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Sending an e-mail with the subject "fried beans" solely for the simple pleasure of reading the title of any responses.
Supping Irn Bru the day after a long and trying evening of cold drinks. If anyone knows hangover remedies it's the Scodge.
On a street full of cold, irritable people in a hurry to get somewhere, strolling around like you own the fucking place.
Discussing modern neurology with the bloke in the chip shop, with particular reference to the relative merits of positive emission tomography, magnetoencephalography and stereotaxic surgery, whilst he gives your saveloy a couple more minutes "...to be on the safe side, like".
When asked to complete a character reference by the potential employers of a former colleague, endorse it with the solitary phrase "The guy's a pipe" and return it by first post.
Using the phrase "not by a long chalk" whenever replying in the negative.
On espying some tracksuited lowlife or Harold Ramp having an intoxicated conversation with himself, observing to one's companions "Probably an Oxford man".
Pick-a-nick baskets. Yum yum!
Having noticed that the approaching bus is not the one you wish to board, extravagantly stepping back from the road and markedly looking away, in the style of a West Indian number 11 batsman letting one go outside off-stump.
Knowing where one can procure Tayto crisps.
When answering one's mobile phone, bellowing "Ooh eez zeese?" in the manner of an irate Olivier Bernard.
Telling tales out of school.
Foppishly inspecting the raiments of a dreadful mate and declaring their shirt to be "a little busy".
Social club drinking. 1.15 Large for a bottle of sweet, sweet LCL and darts on the big screen? Marvellous.
Telling your lass that her new specs give her a look of Chief Buthelezi that really gets you going.
The 1994 dancefloor filler "Everybody Gonfi-Gon" by 2 Cowboys. It's skill!
Spending an afternoon that your employer would have preferred to have involved real, productive work compiling a comprehensive comparative analysis of Girls Aloud and The Spice Girls, with graphs and everything.
Purchasing a large bottle of Britney Spears perfume for three quid from TJ Hughes. A little brackish at first, but surprisingly palatable if you add lemonade.
Crampons.
Being torn whether to go with Lorraine Kelly's "January Five-Veg Flab Fighter" diet, as advertised in "Now" magazine or the "Take a Break" endorsed Claudia Winkelman "Smoothie-cise" toning regime. It's a worry.



Out

Folk who should know better wearing those frightful nordic tasselled woolly hats.
Anybody appending a chuckling "for my sins" after vouchsafing their occupation, sporting team of choice etc.
Getting into a furious row with the chairman of the Chess Club over who was the best one out of The So Solid Crew. That prick was "this close" to getting a knight up his oxter, the way he was disrespecting Megaman.
Guy Browning's "How to" column. What a fucking cock-knocker.
Bitches, be they male or female, who prove themselves unable to hang with the streets. No use to man nor beast.
Eucryl Smoker's Tooth Powder. As useless today as it ever was.
Badgering an acquaintance for details of his romantic date like you're Jeremy Paxman, repeatedly asking "Did you schtupp her or what?"
Local bands. If they were any good they'd be called "bands".
Being chided by local toughs for the pointiness of one's shoes.
Going on interminably about the larks to be had with the Wii you got at Christmas. Maybe Father Christmas will bring you some Dignity next time, what?
Getting the Observer Effect confused with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. What a chump!
Giving a running commentary on how each development in the day's football affects your fixed-odds coupon.
Hockling at non-existent bar-room spitoons.
According to Wikipedia, "Male lions often lead their social groups jointly with one or more of their brothers. To ensure loyalty, the male co-leaders will "strengthen the bonds by often having sex with each other." What's wrong with a game of golf and a few pints?
Implausibly claiming that "they call me Kookaburra, 'cos the merry, merry king of the bush is me".
Football Focus. In this age of Sky Sports News and moody internet soccer videos who wants to watch a load of black and white montage shit with a Snow Patrol soundtrack? Nobody, that's who.
Claiming to have spent time working on the bins.
Pretty much anyone using the word "detox".
Claiming to have an eating disorder. In most cases the disorder is that of being a Greedy Fatso.
Being slightly crestfallen on being told that your new sweater, far from making you look like a young feller in one of them NME bands, gives you a resemblance to a tubbier, ubbier Colin Montgomery.