Colonel Knowledge: Droppin' it like it's hot

Top 11 of 2011

2011-12-10T12:14:00.003Z

Pip pip, pop pickers!

If there's one thing that sums of the true spirit of Christmas, it's the feverish clicking and tweeting of no-mates types cobbling together their favourite records of the year to the interest of nobody.

Sweep out your cloth ears, get your dancing shoes on and shake like a shitting dog to the Official Top 11 of 2011!

1. Leisure Society - "This Phantom Life" Folk-pop with a comedy guest star in the video.

2. Wombats - "Anti D" Pills, thrills and bellyaching from the newly-converted Liverpudlian synthesiser enthusiasts.

3. Acid House Kings - "Would you say stop?" Indie loveliness from Sweden's perkiest popsters.

4. Jens Lekman - "Waiting for Kirsten" Celebrity stalking meets clunking social comment in this b-side from the King of Pop, as only I call him.

5. Drums - "Money" An austerity anthem from the angular Smiths/Joy Div/Beach Boy New Yorkers.

6. Lykke Li - "Get Some" Raunchy roundheelery from Sweden's premier mascara-loving sex kitten.

7. Cloud Control - "Gold Canary" Australians! Remember, a gold canary is not just for Christmas, it's for life. They don't live that long, though.

8. Beyonce - "Run the World" It's Beyonce with added Major Lazer. That's skill to the power of two!

9. Major Lazer - "Original Don" It's Major Lazor without Beyonce. Still pretty skill though, but.

10. Duck Sauce - "Big Bad Wolf" Worth its place for the video alone, in particular the ping pong ball bit. Mentalists.

11. Lovely Eggs - "Don't look at me (I don't like it)" A deranged Lancastrian woman shouting on about cul-de-sac arms and sausage rolls while her weird bloke ramones away in the background? That's what it's aaaaal aboot!

Keep your wheels spinning and the beavers grinning, pop kids!

Ins and Outs: Christmas 2011

2011-12-06T23:19:00.001Z

Walk out to Winterval, wangheads!

It's merry mother-effing Christmas, isn't it? In this month's star-studded, christmas pudded, Elmer Fudded instalment of Ye Inn's and Outs, we'll see Halle Berry's holly berries, Jools Holland's fruit stollen, Don Dokken's christmas stocking and Max Gradel's dreidel.

If you want to know your pigs in blanket from your pigs in knickers, your Crosby and Bowie from your prozzie off 'Towie', and wish to delineate your Silent Night from your talking shite, then get on your little donkey, honky, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Being well into your old school 'happy hardcore', with a particular soft spot for the work of Tokyo Ghetto Pussy.
Claiming to have met Weird Al Yankovic one time and stating that, to be honest, you didn't find him all that weird.
Always ticking the box on Wikipedia that says "I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional)" because you know your onions, dammit.
Squeezing the cheese over on the Guardian series blog for the latest season of "The Killing" like a big old middle class mimsy.
Attempting to cop off with a one-legged lass by complimenting her on her 'cool crutches'.
While out in town, almost dropping brer smartphone, such is your eagerness to tell the twitterati ALL ABOUT the new suede boots you just purchased, which are officially Just The Thing.
The little animatronic feller in the cobbler's window donning his Santa suit to signal the official beginning of the festive period.
Thinking there is a gap in the market for some entrepreneur to bring back donkey jackets. Just the job for huddling around a brazier, benny hat akimbo, shouting the odds at scabs and blacklegs.
Attempting to entice an apprentice tanning salon professional back to your gaff from Nite Owlz discotheque by bellowing in her ear that you have a signed first edition of Ezra Pound's "Riposte" back there.
Stringing along a dreadful mate that another dreadful mate is a member of the Sealed Knot society then watching both faces in the pub one night when when DM1 askes DM2 is he's "a cavalier or a roundhead."
Buying your Dad Skullflower's "Fucked on a Pile of Corpses" CD for Christmas and telling him "it's a bit like Acker Bilk" when he looks at you in bewilderment.
Jim Carrey, David Narey and General Galtieri getting lairy in the dairy.
Reassuring your lass that she looks attractive in her new spectacles and that you reckon they lend her the sultry air of a young Sourav Ganguly.
Having given the matter lengthy consideration, informing friends and acquaintances in a grave manner that you have concluded that chicken thigh meat is a more tasty option than chicken breast meat.
Passing a happy hour in town, approaching folk in the street, clipboard akimbo, and asking which is their favourite type of bandit; Skoal, BMX or One-armed? Any would-be comedians that answer "Arse" must, of course, be given short shrift and informed that "You CAN'T say that these days".
Thumbing one's nose at Jack Frost by getting in the occasional cheeky round of golf in December.
Reacting to an enquiry regarding putting the heating on with appalled horror, as though it had been suggested that you set fire to fifty pound notes in a bid to keep warm.
Beating the winter weather by bravely pitching up at the pub with corduroys tucked into wellingtons, a fashionable quilted jacket and a Tyrolean hat with a little feather in and that. Lovely stuff.
Feist. Like PJ Harvey ,but a little less hard work. More likely to have a regular leg/bikini line/oxters depilation regime going, one feels.
Referring to any pregnant work colleague who is deemed to be Going On About It to an excessive degree as Madame Ovary.

Out

Lutricia McNeal's malevolent iron jackdaw, pursuing you remorselessly through your dreams.
Attending a burlesque night and being somewhat disgruntled that the dancers are a bit on the chunky side and don't get their nipples out. And getting stared out by tough looking lesbians.
Sponsoring some cunt for not shaving for a month? Fuck. That. Shit.
Listening to your dinner guests outlining their disgust at Greece's outrageous fiscal slackness, chipping in with "And another thing. You drop your hat on the floor with that lot around, you're best advised to kick it to the door".
Mother nature's chickpea. A tasty treat, but the devil itself when it comes to wind the next day.
Informing all and sundry of the fact that you're at home in your ghastly 'PJs', with illustrative comments as to the toasty warmness of the room temperature.
Anyone who buys any of the "Keep calm and carry on/drink tea...etc" franchised shite. You might as well be Gyles Brandreth.
Taking shit back to the shops because "the style's not right." You tried it on and liked it in the changing room, love. £135 or not, you do the crime, you do the time.
Describing anyone who refuses to get overly excited regarding all matters festive as a "Bah Humbug". 1) You mean Scrooge, 2) Fuck off, and 3) Another fuck off.
Announcing on any social networking site that your forthcoming night out will be "a beast." No it won't, it'll be another fruitless and forlorn dash for gash at 2.30am in Romeo & Juliettes followed by a 12-mile and £45 taxi home only to find the kebab shop shut.
Young fellers sporting ironic skinny Christmas jumpers.
Misguided jacomos who insist on drinking wine instead of beer 'as part of me diet', then insisting that you go for a curry at the end of a night out. You haven't thought this through, have you?
Pre-match 'one minute of applause' memorials that are ruined when one numbskull spoils it by not clapping.
Being frankly incapable of crossing a footbridge without hockling into the waters below.
The clumsy knacker who is the first every year to have A Fall as soon as the ground gets the slightest bit slippery.
Phoney Clarkson "One Show" outrage. He's spent an entire being a contrarian cornhole and these shmucks pick on the one time he's not being particularly objectionable. For shame.
Being keen on Pina Colada, yet having a deep-seated aversion to being caught in the rain.
The ubiquity of Andy Townsend. ITV, foreign telly, Premier League HD, wherever football is being televised, the witch-nosed cockney will proffering his bland, insight-free opinions, clad in what always looks like some clothes he found in the dressing room.
The impertinence of the "We won't go until we get some" line in "We wish you a merry Christmas". Like being wassailed by the Bramble brothers.
When you've a drink on board, telling tall stories of your time in the Symbionese Liberation Army back in the seventies, even though the only organisation you joined in that decade was the 'Dennis the Menace Fan Club'.

Ins and Outs: November '11

2011-10-31T18:45:00.001Z

Now then, now then, guys and ghouls! As it happens, it's Halloween and that. It's the time of the year to dress up in frightening clothes and put the willies up someone. Maybe your mother, maybe a small child, it's all good fun on All Hallows Eve, yes?

In other, unrelated news, we mourn the passing of Sir Jimmy "Clunk-Click Jingle Jangle" Savile, the noted disc jockey, philanthropist and corpse-nudger.

Bob your apples, pump up your pumpkins, turn your tricks and give yourself a treat, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Commenting to your dreadful mate that the air seems redolent with the intangible death of summer and the ushering in of autumn's russet finery, to be met with a pointed enquiry as to when exactly you intend approaching the bar with a view to purchasing another round.
Epic sessions on the lash in the aftermath of a local derby triumph.
Monkey laser pistols.
Bivalve molluscs. Tremendous fellows, one and all. Those other molluscs with only one valve are a set of dicks.
Sniffily pooh-poohing the American version of "The Killing", and treating acquaintances who watch it as thick-eared clodhopping unsophisticates.
Shoes shaped like Cornish pasties.
Lana Del Rey. She's skill!
After helping her pop her haemorrhoids back in, asking your favourite wife if this constitutes anal sex, just so as to know where you stand.
Creating your own 'dubstep' remix of popular tunes by cupping the fingers and thumb of one hand over your ear and pressing it on and off the ear in time with the music.
When being told, in full and frank detail, about your female acquaintance's fishy-feet treatment, asking if the smell of fish wasn't a trifle unpleasant. For the fish. Zing!
Benidorm cabaret bars, where Showaddywaddy are followed swiftly by a Lesbian Sex Show. Proper tits, bum, fanny, the lot as well.
Inspector Montalbano. Top baggy-faced, bullet-headed Italian coppering.
Yohan Cabaye.
Hearing about a forthcoming dating show featuring Chris Moyles and Stacey Solomon, then learning that it will only be available via a downmarket satellite channel where you can't inadvertently stumble across it.
Dear Paris Hilton, attempting for a third time to find someone to be her Best Friend Forever, who will be genuine and there for the right reasons. Good luck, Paris!
Feeding tapioca to an okapi at the Topkapi Palace.
1970s truck driver films. Smokey and the Bear, Kris Kristoffersen and aal the lads. Marvellous.
Hanging around your local branch of Comet until the salesman asks if he can help you, then asking which is his favourite PJ: Proby, O'Rourke or Harvey.
Colone Gaddafi. He may have pulled the odd stroke in his time, but nobody rocked the 'co-ordinated autumnally shaded robes' look like old Muammar.
Reckoning you used to be good mates with Suge Knight back in the day and that he's always been a big admirer of the folky stylings of Fairport Convention's Dave Swarbrick. "Babbacombe Lee" being a particular favourite of the erstwhile Death Row recordings mogul.

Out

Scratting around a scrapyard in search of a replacement wing mirror.
Them carpetbagging pricks at Tesco, bumping up the price of a tin of chickpeas to an inflation-busting 77p. Shameful shit.
Those awful Dudley Do-Right "Toms" slip-on shoes that the youngsters wear.
Noel Gallagher apologists, attempting to persuade a fellow that he's done some really good stuff since escaping the sphere of influence of his daft monkey brother. No. He hasn't.
Writing Selwyn Froggatt fan fiction for a non-existent niche market of online 70s shitcom obsessives.
Men who are northwards of 25 years of age sporting those daft 'shitcatcher' trousers with the elasticated cuffs.
Being hit up for sponsor money by tiresome workplace chisellers. Eff off and get some work done, yeah?
Attempting to gain some traction with a hot p. of a. in "Ching-a-Ling" night spotte by asking if she's ever slept with a millionaire, then, when asked if you actually are a millionaire, producing a battered Lotto ticket and purring the word "po-tentially".
Any low-minded slackjaw attempting to mine the merest nugget of suggestive humour from the word "dongle".
The outmoded tradition that decrees that any rugby player who be putting his dick in a princess gets a go at being England captain.
Ed Sheeran. That's what the world needs; a fucking woolly-haired, Lauren Harries-looking shitbird sounding like a milquetoast version of Jamie T. Who was also shite.
Being sent home in disgrace from the Blow Football World Cup after a random drug test reveals traces of Ventolin.
The frustrating propensity of Marks and Spencer corduroy trousers to perish somewhat prematurely 'underneath the arches'.
That string-haired cartoon bitch off of the confused.com adverts.
The haka. If they're going to act the prick like they're Zulus, the opposition should be allowed rifles and bayonets.
Mofos with them great big neon headlamps, who insist on firing them up full beam at every opportunity.
Grown men eagerly discussing Florida Theme Parks I Have Known. Catch yourself on, Ronnie Rollercoaster.
Pandora bracelets. The Panini sticker book of the feminine jewellery world.
Musing sagely that Mario Balotelli has his mohawk shaved into the shape of a necktie so that he can gain admittance to smart nightclubs.
Mockingbirds. Feathery, playa-hating shithouses.

Shameful Twit

2011-08-05T21:18:00.003+01:00

Konichi wa, cornholes.

Two years too late and a dollar short, we have jumped the Twitter bandwagon.

Follow my hashtags and shizzle at http://twitter.com/#!/colknowledge

#spunkdrinkingfestivalyeah?

Ins and Aoûts: August '11

2011-08-05T21:10:00.002+01:00

Alreet, big feet? How's your hammer hanging?

There are no two ways about it, times are growing ever grimmer, yes? Wars, crazed gunmen, famines, Fiona Bruce getting silly-strung, everyone heading towards the poorhouse, poor dear Amy Winehouse having to take an overdose just to give us the relief of a week without that cow Adele atop the charts.

An unpleasant bit of boxed fruit and no error.

However, one strives to see the bluebird in the sky, what? Our cricketists are smashing Johnny Foreigner's pastie right in, the football season is breathing down our necks, there has been the odd sunny day, and the local pub has got a new barmaid.

Who's trending on Twitter, who's befriending Rick Witter? Who's hashtag and who's gashtag? Who's Robert Peston and Who's Chantelle and Preston? None of these questions and more will be answered, now that Ins and Outs am here!

In

Taking a big slug out of your new pint then telling your dreadful mates "That sure spells booze!"
Telling the good lady wife, after she's put in fifteen minutes of earnest toil with her GHDs, that you like her hair, it lends her the look of a younger John Rocha.
The Moray Firth. Best of all the Firths.
Whenever required to fill in a form detailing your occupation, claiming "Socialite" to be your job title.
Tricking out your bicycle with fur around the steering apparatus for a fun 'handlebar moustache'.
Giving black power salutes in Costa Coffee and yelling "Viva la Barista" at the chap behind the counter.
Telling anyone who will listen that you have no time for papists, rapists or Bathing Ape-ists.
Having been rebuffed by those pricks at Rear of the Year, announcing that your hat is still firmly in the ring for Spectacle Wearer of the Year.
Jaegerbomb Crotch.
Maintaining the flimsy pretence that you are a pedal-steel guitar player of high repute and that you played with all the big Nashville names in the past, when they played in London.
Regarding one's co-workers with thinly-veiled scorn, considering them to be a shower of chattering spivs who wouldn't know a decent day's graft if it bit them on the ass.
Rebekah Wade. Morally reprehensible mayhap, but that flame-haired beeyatch got it going on like Donkey Kong!
Using the word mayhap. Want to make something of it?
Pre-season optimism, borne in spite of reason and experience.
Passing on the freshly-minted True Rock Fact that David Lee Roth owns a vineyard and that members of the public can, upon payment of a nominal fee, pick the Grapes of Lee Roth.
Ovals. Most excellent ellipses.
"Kim & Co." The iron horse of the QVC evening schedules.
Reading football websites and being puzzled as to how Armin Van Buuren has ended up managing Chelsea, only to later discover it's some other chap.
The local consulting alehouse psychologist who correctly diagnoses females he encounters as suffering low spirits due to a lack of sexual activity and prescribes a remedial session of what is termed "a bit sorty-ooty", which should literally sort out the problem.
Being on cordial terms with Abrecrombie, but having a towering disdain for Fitch.

Out

Anybody, other than well-wishers at a marathon or 'fun run', who uses the phrase “jog on”.
Lead singers who get the crowd to sing the chorus. They should get their money docked for every line they don't sing.
Birgit Prinz, has-been German lady goal machine that sounds like a Fall song.
Explaining away lengthy kharzy-related absences from your desk by stating you've been in a meeting with Tom Kite.
Vapouring on about the joys of your 'home cinema system'. Essentially, all you're saying is "I love stopping in, watching me big telly, me".
When relating stories involving the antics of your ghastly toddlers, recounting anything they've said with an approximation of their speaking voice.
Spending an anticipation-filled thirty minutes, soft lob akimbo, waiting for the first exposed breasts on the Freeview phonesex channel at half ten.
Fraudulently claiming to be the baddest DJ on two turntables. You are in your hole!
The faux-Basil Brush they have on the Speckled Hen advert bumpers on Dave. The guy's a prick.
Being under the impression that the whole world is enthralled as you recount your latest fabulous eBay bargains.
The persistence shown by deeply unamusing fellows persevering with attempt to tell you joke funnies, despite being given limited encouragement.
The collection of slouching slackjaws and scratters that congregate in supermarket car parks of an evening, revving up their cars and comparing ghastly bodywork modifications.
Daft cows, flicking themselves senseless over glittery vampires.
That "Pranker" thing on BBC3. As gruel goes, that stuff is so thin it's practically a homoepathy remedy.
Replying to Duncan Bannatyne's offer of £30K for information about the chap who threatened his daughter, offering assistance in return for £100K and a 30% share of his daughter, otherwise you're out.
Displaying one's superior artistic discernment by wittily retorting "Foo Fighters? Poo Shiters, more like!" whenever one of your dreadful mates espouses the excellence of the Dave Grohl-fronted grungers.
Refusing an invitation to a friend's birthday celebration by telling them that you're going lamping that night, softening the blow by promising them a rabbit.
Any fool suffering confusion regarding the difference between "awesome" and "quite good".
Archdeacons. Like deacons, but sooooo bitchy.
Nauseating co-habiting couples who have 'Date Nights'. Hanging is too good for them.

Ins and Outs: June '11

2011-05-31T21:48:00.001+01:00

Greetings, citizens of Earth.

What a tumultuous two months have elapsed since last we foregathered, what? The death of Osama, the rebirth of Obama, the non-arrival of the Rapture and the beatification of the Lionel Messiah.

All of this was knocked into a cocked coronet as a nation's red-blooded males took their national pride in hand in red-blooded appreciation of the pert, peachy, pristine perfection of Pippa Middleton's delightful commoner's cornhole. Truly, it shines on us all equally and makes one proud to have the good fortune to be born a British subject.

Look upon her wondrous nates, you foreign dogs, and weep in despair!

Ahem. Anyhow, as summer speeds towards us like a Presidential motorcade, the Committee have pulled an all-nighter in the situation room in order to delineate the Middleton Sisters from the Mitford Sisters, the Sepp Blatters from the green apple splatters, and the N-Dubz from the N-Dumped. Ins and Outs am here!

In

When responding in the negative, rather than simply saying "No", replying with "Far from it".
Having a long-held dream of working in a branch of Prontaprint, but never making any attempt to make it a reality.
On the occasion of an acquaintance preferring to pissfart about with their smartphone While I Am Talking, breaking off one's remarks to serenade them with a scornful "Text the nation, text text the nation!".
Ice Cube.
That Suarez fellow at Liverpool. A little ray of buck-toothed sunshine in a largely forgettable football season.
Solemnly informing your dreadful mates that you will be unavailable this coming Friday as you will be holed up with a supply of Rustler's burgers, peperamis, crystal meth and the complete Sky-Plussed series of BBC3's hilarious Will Mellor vehicle "White Van Man".
Writing a letter to Mark Wahlbergs at Facebook HQ asking if he can design an 'app' or something that filters out your friends' pictures of their revolting children.
Doting on Dollond, hating on Aitchison.
Being genuinely bemused by the popular tv programme franchise "Geordie/Jersey Shore", whose raison d'etre appears to be 'Some dicks in a house, being dicks'.
Refusing to take a blind bit of notice of your lasses new shoes unless she proves she can walk a quarter of a mile in them without having to take them off because they're 'killing' her feet.
Getting into an increasingly acrimonious discussion with the chairperson of the local Neighbourhood Watch committee regarding the respective merits of early 1990s MTV VJs. VJ Marijne owned VJ Simone, even the fool knows that.
Devising a business plan that involves buying up the copyright to the published work of tv chef Fanny Craddock with the intention of getting rich by relaunching and rebranding books and merchandising, purely to gain the notional job description of 'Fanny Magnate'.
Buying a Bulldog puppy with the eventual aim of breeding it with Shih Tzu and creating a daringly-named crossbreed called a Bullshit.
The National Library of Belarus in Minsk. It's skill!
Going to your low tavern of choice and getting the landlord to show the Champions League football with Albanian commentary in preference to ITV's coverage.
Moseying round the aisles of the supermarket with your shades on.
Basing your opinion of the entire Chinese population on their inability to milk a cow correctly.
Successfully convincing a dreadful mate that Rednex Old Pop in an Oak was conceived when their chief songwriter found an out-of-date can of coke inside a tree.
Those two English pretenders to the Golf #1 throne, with nary a major title nor string of kissin' and tellin' porn popsies between them. Yeah, 'nary'.
Being torn as to who is the biggest knacker out of Take That; the one who looks like a slightly gauche Hitler Youth cadet who has been struck by an unaccountable desire to be a milquetoast Elton John, or the tattooed singing chalet-maid Terry Christian-looking chimp-faced one.

Out

Any lowbrowed sort who uses the word "midrift" when, by rights, they should be saying "midriff".
Xenophobes. Fancy being scared of a warrior princess.
Being stuck on a golf course for four hours with a squeaky-voiced little bollix whose conversational obsessions are racist joke funnies and ludicrous conspiracy theories.
The good people at jacamo.co.uk. While their intentions are doubtless admirable, they have only succeeded in coining a new insulting epithet for the overweight, to wit "Hey Jacamo, you are a fat piece of chubby jacamo shit, yeah?". Thanks for that, mam.
Attempting to get a little hang-low/stank interface going on by inquiring of a pretty young thing in "Shizzle-Dizzle's" bar and grill whether she most favours the verse of Siegfried Sassoon or Wilfred Owen.
Clicking on Facebook to find that one of your more low-rent 'friends' has put in a productive late night session 'liking' another twenty or so of those godawful pages affirming such witty aphorisms as "My ex is a slag", "Putting butter on your bread and then eating the bread", "I like getting drunk, me... I know!", "The moment when a reatarded drops their ice cream", "Jeremy Clarkson for PM", "I enjoy kicking homeless cats", "Potay-to! Lol!" and "Frankly, I just don't like black people".
That dreary cow Adele having the number 1 and 2 albums in the chart. It's a fucking disgrace that makes a brother long for the comparative halcyon days of Dido.
The puzzling craze among female types for Spar days. Their range of products and handy locations make them a reliable port of call for last minute grocery shopping, but a whole day there is pushing it a bit, no?
The expression 'putting in a good shift' when applied to footballers. An hour and a half is hardly a gruelling stint in a Chilean sweatshop, yeah?
Cumbrian ponce-rockers Wild Beasts. An It Bites for a generation of Pitchfork-reading knackers, precisely what the doctor didn't order.
Tiger bread. Frankly, the smell writes cheques that the taste can't cash.
Schtupping random fatsoes off of Plenty of Fish. Plenty of Fish and Chips, more like!
The disproportionate voter revolt against the Lib Dems while the job-cutting Tories get off lightly. A little like being called a puff by a ventriloquist and chinning the dummy.
'More money than sense' types clad head-to-toe in Pretty Green shite, achieving the look of a dishevelled, anorak-wearing Herman's Hermits roadie on a budget that would have bought a Savile Row suit and some hand-stitched pointy Italian shoes with change for a pie'n'mash supper left over.
Fetishists and S&M enthusiast couples. You rarely see a slim woman involved in this type of thing.
Ryan Giggs' wife. If she'd cheered her twisty face up now and again, her man might not have been forced, yes forced, to resort to tapping illicit poontang for a bit laugh and carry on.
All this fuss over the death of Jill Scott-Heron. She wasn't even the best one in Steps.
Falsely claiming to have had sight of an e-mail from FIFA bigwig Jack Warner wherein he states "I'll take any motherfucker's money if they giving it away. Sheeeeee-it!" No such e-mail exists.
The East European youth cult of vandalising synagogues while singing the words to the mainstream American R'n'B hit "Beautiful Monster". The rise of these so-called 'Ne-Yo-Nazi' gangs is most disturbing.
The would-be Benny Hills in charge of Badminton, attempting to force female players to wear skirts. We're not all Japanese internet upskirt video enthusiasts, you know?

Shore Losers

2011-05-24T20:56:00.004+01:00

Tonight sees the inaugural, some say premiere episode of MTV's fly-on-a-turd mockumentary "Geordie Shore", a british version of their bafflingly popular "Jersey Shore", given a Tyneside twist.

Like much youth-oriented television these days, the premise of the show is basically 'Get some dicks together in a house. Film them acting like dicks'.

Hilariously, though, the wheeze here is that people are Geordies. I know! It'll just be a scream, won't it? As everyone knows, TV shorthand for somebody from Newcastle = 'thick', 'slatternly', 'drunken', and an extra helping of 'thick'.

Well fuck that shit where it eats. And that's swearing.

If I want to hear gibbering, witless women endlessly discussing shoes, cosmetics and undignified drunken mishaps, I can go to work for that. Equally, if I'm after listening to empty-headed would-be Alpha males lying about their sexual conquests, I go out on the drink with my dreadful mates.

They can stick their scripted reality TV shite where the sun doesn't shine. Like any person with any discernment or taste I won't be watching "Geordie Shore".

I'll be watching old episodes of "Paris Hilton's Best Friend Forever". Proper telly with Reithian values coming out its ears.

I'll bid you a good evening.

Ins and Outs: April '11

2011-04-06T19:28:00.000+01:00

How now, brown cows! Drop your zither and come hither.

Springtime is the thingtime, yeah? The scenery teems with greenery and the Committee are here to vent their spleenery. The Grand National and the Augusta National are hoving into view and it's time to fall under starter's orders and break out the green jackets.

If you need to know who's Red Rum and who's a dead bum, or if you can't tell your Gary Player from your Gary Player-Hater, then wise up suckers, keep your head down, get the bit between your teeth and stay on your feet, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Wearing a fluorescent vest around the town in the hope that a porn actress, seeking a bit of rough for a last minute shoot, might schtupp you in a builders skip.
Telling the wife that her retro Vidal Sassoon french wedge hairdo nicely emphasises her Hapsburg jaw.
Eagerly following Liverpool FC's campaign in this year's Europa UEFA Cup of Shield. It was a footballing white-knuckle ride, no less.
Becoming embroiled in a splenetic slanging match with the lad in JJB Sports regarding whether Allo, Darlin's "Dear Stephen Hawking" is ripped off of Jens Lekman's "Happy birthday, dear Lisa" or not.
The unlikely scenario whereby weather presenter Carol Kirkwood, just as she's about to do her piece to camera, mumbles "actually Sian, I prefer the reverse cowgirl" before smiling at the camera to give viewers a cheery "Gyud mawnin'"
Greeting everyone with "Now then."
Whenever you attend a 'sing song' with your Irish relations, doing a spirited rendition of the "Electric Blue" theme song.
Addressing everyone as "Wor kid".
Sinking a tricky curling five-foot putt for a six, then solemnly informing your playing partners that that was dedicated to the memory of your homie Nate Dogg.
Twisted, the girl band sensation that is set to rock the nation's socks in the forthcoming months of this year.
Confiding in your closest associates that, come the spring, you will be declaring war on crabgrass.
Formulating a business plan for a retail outlet where 19th century French poets can buy all their hair bobbles, necklaces, bracelets and that, which will be called "Baudelaire's Accessories".
Succesfully foxing a dreadful colleague into believing your parents gave you the middle name of Judas "because the old fella was abit of a Satanist back in the day."
Convincing a dreadful mate that the last song John Lennon wrote, just a day before he was shot dead was "Heaven is a Half Pipe", later a hit for OPM.
Drinking wine at the pictures.
Loving the ulna, hating on the radius.
Being on nodding terms with someone with uncannily reliable information regarding betting on USPGA events.
That chap round our way who was reputed to have stolen a job lot of Remembrance poppies. Unfortunately, the police couldn't pin anything on him.
Suggesting to the landlord that he could save a lot of space and effort, and get rid of a load of hairy-faced, stinking undesirables from his pub by taking out the real ale pumps and just keeping a few bottles of Brown Ale or Double Maxim in the fridge.
Getting slightly priapic at the prospect of the forthcoming Totally Transport, a celebration of classic vehicles and trams in sunny Blackpool. G'dang g'dang dang, what?

Out

Coming to the reluctant and mortifying conclusion that, when sporting a baseball cap, you have come to resemble Tony Pulis.
Anybody who summarises their emotions by adding the suffix '.com' to a word. You are a fucking twat.com
The prospect of witnessing a performance by Beady Eye. Sticking rosary beads into one's jap's eye would be infinitely preferable.
Anybody filling in the religion question on their 2011 census by hilariously claiming to be a "Jedi". A bell end you are.
Overlong pool marathons.
Repeatedly asking a young lady you have just met in "Choo-Choo's Nitespot" if she is 'after some helmet'. If her initial response is in the negative, any subsequent enquiry is likely to meet with similar reluctance.
Celebrity Juice. Everybody involved in this televisual shitfest needs to fuck the fuck off. And that's swearing.
Wayne Rooney. The guy's a pipe.
Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome. Those poor African Pygmy Hedgehogs, it must be awful for them.
The announcement by Turbo B out of Snap that henceforth, when he says that rhythm is a dancer, his degree of seriousness has been downgraded to 'serious as piles'.
Dreadful sows who put that godawful Adele dirge on the pub jukebox.
The Daily Mash. The Daily Gash, more like!!!!11!!SUBONIONSATIRE!1!!!!
Professor Brian Cox. Get a haircut and stop talking like a soppy lass, you doe-eyed knacker.
Coming to the conclusion, despite being a newcomer to the world of motoring, that anyone who drives a 4x4 vehicle is a cunt. A cunt of the first water, too.
Being overtaken with trepidation that the rich seam of comedy gold being mined by the producers of the "Keith, Ian and Andy" F.A. Cup adverts will wear out prior to the big day at Wembley. It's a worry.
Twisty-faced Top Gear types and haulier-than-thou truckers continually bleating about the price of petrol and diesel going up. Just put twenty quid in each time, that way the price doesn't change.
Professional golfers and their continuing efforts to cram ever more sponsors' logos onto a cap. They make about a million quids for four days work as it is, the greedy gets.
The return of the Formula 1 season. If they string that boring load of shite out for any more of the week, they'll be showing the mechanics changing the oil, putting up off-colour calendars and initiating terrified apprentices by smearing grease over their knackers.
Workplace reshuffles that result in a brother ending up in an office trapped amid a shoal of jabbering females of mixed vintages, forced to endure a constant discourse regarding ailments, low-quality television, kids and their propensity to say the darnedest things, diets vs Cakes I Have Known, and make-up.
The big fat egg-on-legs twat who's always first to start gadding about the place in shorts, the minute the sun makes even the most cursory appearance in the springtime sky.

Ins and Outs: February 2011

2011-02-07T22:44:00.002Z

Como estas, cornholios!

2011 is barely off the starting grid and already it's shaping up to be a belter, what? Whether it's the return of the much-missed retro 80s pastime of Unemployment, Davey Cam's Big Load of Shite Society or the anodyne musical stylings of The Script, there can surely never have been a better time to book that one-way weekend break in Bridgend.

Always keen to locate the silver lining amid the gloom, the Ins and Outs Committee have been keeping their noses close to the ground and applying their ears to the grindstone in order to winnow out the brightest from the shitest, the peachy keen from the Robbie Keane and the Bobby Dazzler from the plebby vajazzler.

Stick it, lick it, let's play cricket, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Whenever the subject arises, falsely claiming that the first dance at your wedding was to "Lady Love Your Cunt" by S*M*A*S*H.
Surprising fast food drive thru staff by barking "Cormorants stole my eyes!" into the microphone thing in lieu of a food order.
Signing up to the Dave channel's Twitter feed, then complaining that "It's all bloody retweets!".
Phoning up a plant hire firm and asking how much it is for a lend of a busy Lizzy for the weekend.
Reaching a gentlemen's agreement with your equally bovine, no-pussy-getting mofo mate that if he renounces his claim to Audrey Tautou then you will reluctantly step aside and allow him a free run at Eva Green.
Gazingly longingly at the pickled egg jar in the pub while knowing, in your heart of hearts, that it's never going to happen.
Selenium, Se, 34. Props, Selenium, you'se a playa.
Dr Alimantado's seafood restaurant. They do the best dressed crab in town.
JD Wetherspoon's gourmet burger. As everyone knows, the difference between the gourmet and the food you or I eat rests largely in the addition of an onion ring. The true bon viveur loves an onion ring.
Sian Massey. Phwoar!
The fine wines of the Côtes du Rhone.
Loftily informing anybody who enquires as to your plans for the evening that you will be "catching up with your correspondence", when in reality you will be monging on the internet all night, reaching into your grubby sweat pants at regular intervals to engage in frenzied bouts of self-pollution.
Changing your relationship status on Facebook to "It's Complicated" in order to keep the wife on her toes.
Rastamouse!
Sending ill-advised drunken text messages to The Football League Show in the early hours of a Saturday instructing Lizzie Greenwood-Hughes to "release her twins"
The Kevin Rowland chic of Theis Birk Larsen off of BBC4's "The Killing".
Getting into an intense theological debate regarding the Doctrine of Divine Immutability with the bloke who works in the key-cutting shop.
Effusively praising the good lady wife's new hairdo, telling her it lends her an air of sophistication very much akin to a young Guido Buchwald.
At Chess Club, intimating to one's opponent that their mother suffers from chronic concupiscence, and proffering them your outstretched digits in order that they may receive the olfactory evidence that will lend verisimilitude to your contention.
Despite oft-repeated scare stories of broken arms, reckoning that, if it came down to it, you could chin a swan.

Out

Going on about how great your zumba classes are. It's just doing aerobics to Gloria Estefan b-sides, yeah?
News reports illustrating how the VAT increase will affect society's submerged tenth by telling us how much it will affect the price of a 50" plasma TV. Hardly the stuff to make John Steinbeck weep salty tears, is it?
Torville and Dean. Pearl and Dean. Never Torville and Pearl, though. WHY NOT?
The FA Cup.
Searching every second-hand store in town in a vain attempt to find a raspberry beret.
Buying a three-piece suite from Def Leppard's drummer. There's only one armchair!
Stopping in of a Saturday night with a fridge brimming with Speckled Hen and the entire series of "Eddie Stobart: Trucks and Trailers" Sky-plussed and raring to go.
Anyone that has writing emblazoned across the arse of their jeans in massive white stencilled letters like they've just sat on the road during a hill climb in the Tour de France.
Cock-ends at the match starting a chant on their own, then turning around to look incredulously at the crowd when they don't join in. Who are you, like, Freddy Mercuries at Live Aid, eh?
"The King's Speech". Two hours watching some twat trying not to stutter? There's a party.
The feelings of Liverpool FC supporters on February 1st, somewhat akin to those of a man who has been dumped by Penelope Cruz, then woken groggily the next day in bed next to Hufty.
Red Bull charging almost £1.50 for a little can yet still going with that shit quality jerky animation in their TV adverts.
The producers of BBC3's "Snog, Marry, Avoid", who fecklessly encourage game young gals to wear less make-up and stop showing their knockers off. For shame!
Referring to inexplicably-popular milquetoast crooner Michael Bublé as 'Micky Bubbles' and expecting gales of uproarious laughter at your original joke funny.
The "edgy quips" of the Top Gear bell ends.
Reckoning you can put your hands on a fairly substantial amount of Lapis Lazuli, should the need arise. You can in your hole!
Being overheard by your dreadful mates making a generous closing time offer to a lady of some advanced years to "Gan back to your hoose an' I'll lick you oot".
Still having a nagging suspicion in your mind that Prince William is getting married to that blonde lass who won Big Brother a few years back and was on The Big Breakfast.
That fucking awful Saturday night thing with Paddy "Peter Kay's mate" McGuinness. A sub-Blind Date abomination with the non-thinking person's Vernon Kay? Eff that Ess, it would be preferable to see Martin McGuinness hosting it.
All the fuss about that Wikileaks website. It's shite. Fatchicksinpartyhats.com is much better.

Super Review: "Ice Road Truckers"

2011-01-21T17:53:00.000Z

I fucking hate "Ice Road Truckers", me.

"Oh boo hoo, it's so icy, the road is geet slippy and that, this is the hardest job in the world" etc.

Don't fucking do it, then. You live in America and you've got your HGV licence, get a job in one of the sunny parts of the country. I've seen "Smokey and the Bandit", I know what goes on out there. These whingeing nogoodniks are bleating on about the cold when they could be living high on the hog, elbow out the window, tapping hot hitch-hiker poontang and drinking cold, cold beer out of a long-necked bottle.

Fuck them, fuck the lot of them.

Super Review: "Motley Crue: The Dirt"

2011-01-07T17:49:00.000Z

A trip into the bizarre world of The Motley Crew, a Los Angeles glamour-rock heavy metal combo, famed more for their keen appreciation of Playboy starlets and cocaine than for their music. Which is lucky for them, as their music is fucking awful.

This skilfully edited book teases out the intrepid foursome's varying interpretations of various key stages in the band's career. At different points in the book the reader is given each member's 'back story' as they explain how they made their way from their respective backwaters to being millionaire, drug-taking, groupie-shagging rock behemoth bell ends.

While most people with functioning ears would rather walk a mile in pissy slush than listen to one of Motley Crew's recordings, this book scratches beneath the surface and gives the lowdown on all of the band's tawdriest moments; a unique spin on the concept of 'phone sex', urine fun with Ozzy Osbourne and the less glamorous side of heroin addiction.

Ins and Outs: December 2010

2010-12-03T19:14:00.002Z

Sausage party!

Christmas time is here again, o-u-t spells "out". Conversely, i-n spells "in". Love it or loathe it, Christmas is the time for feigning delight at deeply disappointing gifts, Boxing day defeats in freezing cold north-west shitholes and extra episodes of Eastenders.

In short, a spunk-drinking festival of the first water.

On the flipside, there are some boons, such as a few days off work, a workplace sexual harassment 'Get Out of Jail Free card' in the the form of mistletoe, and the chance to get stuck into the latest hilarious DVD collection from the "Top Gear" team.

Shoot me now.

Ins and Outs am here!

In

Taking one's significant other to one side and breaking it to them as gently possible that the bread out of their bread maker is not "better than you get in the shops". It is, in fact, shite.
Seeing a monk at the bus station, brown robes and Jesus sandals akimbo, with an anorak on over the top.
When watching the news on the pub telly, sagely informing your dreadful mates that it is vital that Our Boys stabilise Helmand Province, in order that the nation's supply of mayonnaise is not disrupted.
A butterfly, drinking buttermilk out of a buttercup.
Having been tasked with identifying departmental efficiency cost savings, stressing in your report the importance of "getting rid of the pimps, the pushers and the prostitutes and then starting all over again clean".
Devendra Banhart.
Finding something pleasing about the fact that, in an age of political spin and media manipulation, Ireland's Prime Minister looks and sounds like a pig farmer.
Andy Carroll. The drink-fuelled violence-indulging, catsuit-loving frontman goes from strength to strength.
Becoming involved in increasingly vitriolic exchanges with the man who comes to sanitise the water cooler at work regarding which of the Watson Twins is better looking. Even the fool on the hill could tell you that it's Chandra.
Being kept awake all night agonising which should come first in your alphabetised CD collection; Yolanda Be Cool or Yo La Tengo?
Chomping on a thoughtful Twix during your tea break and confiding to a colleague that "as an old-school feminist, you are totally against the objectification of women in the media and the pressure it imposes on young woman to pursue an unrealistic, superficial ideal of physical attractiveness." And that, my friends, is why you hope that that fat old cow wins this year's 'X Factor'.
Having supreme confidence that any FIFA man accused of financial impropriety will be thoroughly vindicated by any subsequent inquiry.
Calling up your baby on the telephone, long distance. Although, if the relationship appears to have some longevity, it may prove more cost-effective to invest in a couple of Skype handsets.
Claiming you'll be spending New Year's Eve at Mauro Picotto's villa in Ibiza, kicking it with the jet-setters, go-getters and spread betters, when in reality you will be at home with a litre of blended whisky, eating your own body weight in shortbread.
Silverfish. Not silver, not fish. But they can digest wood. SCREW YOUR RULES!
Tangerines. An oasis of tangy, flavoursome vitamins in an ocean of stodge and chocolate.
Having an oasis in the middle of an ocean. Desert-based oases are so last year, darling.
Enjoying the sobriquet of 'Culture Vulture' amongst your circle of mates, due to retaining in your collection a CD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons that was given away free in the Mail On Sunday five years ago.
Attempting to get into the festive spirit by actively seeking out online pornographic video clips where any female actor is wearing a Santy hat.
Wondering precisely what type of car would the good people at Webuyanycar.com actually pay a hundred grand for; a solid gold time-travelling Delorean with a Blaupunkt, maybe?

Out

Catching a glance at some woman's mobile phone and noticing, with a feeling of horror, that her screensaver picture appears to be a publicity shot of Dermot Murnaghan.
Wildly celebrating after scoring a penalty. Catch yourself on, man. You've done your duty, nothing more, nothing less.
Coves sporting t-shirts with overly-plunging necklines.
Getting fish, chips and mushy peas at the chippy, then forgetting to put the peas on when you get home.
Having an understanding of the political situation in Korea that goes no further than a vague notion that North Koreans eat whippets and South Koreans probably eat poodles.
Making a disproportionate amount of fuss over the (frankly mediocre) home-baked goods you intend bringing in to work.
The ridiculous attachment to Imperial measures that means we insist, in this country, on measuring snow depth and penis length in inches.
Childless adults building an ironic snowman. Have a word with yourself, yes?
Acting like Charlie Bigcock, buying a bottle of the £33.50 champagne in Wetherspoon's. Cheg on, Kieron Dyers, there's a new playa in town.
Getting an outstanding deal on bulk-bought Stilton and having to tell simply everyone about it.
German Christmas traditions. Gingerbread and overpriced hot dogs might be alright for the teutons, but it butters few parsnips in fair Albion. Very few parsnips indeed!
Poirot. The smug fucking two-hours-long, adverts-every-ten-bastard-minutes cock-knocker.
The duck billed platypus. An otter with a duck's beak? You look ridiculous, man.
Less than conscientious work colleagues who go sick with "tinselitis" every December in order to get their Christmas shopping done without squandering a precious day of their holiday entitlement.
Supercilious-looking drivers of 4x4s, some say jeeps, thinking they're such hot shit because they can drive on snowy roads.
Sad-sack couch tetties, planning their Christmas television viewing a month in advance.
Syncing your Twitter account with your Facebook account so you can post fucking boring updates in glorious cross-platform stereo sound. #whatihadformytea
Trudging wearily through brown slush at quarter to seven in the morning.
Telling a lady she has a pretty face is a nice compliment. Proceeding to outline your desire to "lob rope after rope of hot, silky cocksnot" onto said face is Most Definitely Not. Don't spoil it.
The petrified forest. Get some nuts, you woodland wuss.

And Your Bird Can Shop

2010-11-20T13:40:00.003Z

Photoshop shmotoshop.

Today was a momentous day in the worlds of music retailing and high street fashion as budget-conscious clothes shop Peacocks began selling Beatles CDs in a cross-platform marketing venture that will change how we buy music and low-quality garments forever.

Announcing the historic tie-up, Peter Cock, the founder and Managing Director of the down-at-heel clothing chain, was in triumphant mood. "Now, for the first time, our customers will be able to purchase a pair of jeans with all writing on the arse AND pick up a compact disc featuring music originally performed by The Beatles, the greatest band of all time." he told reporters.

"You could say things are 'Getting Better' for our customers!" quipped the shoddily-finished garment magnate.

While critics have been quick to point out that the CDs for sale in Peacocks won't actually feature the actual music of the actual Beatles, their head honcho was quick to defend the store's range, which will retail for £3.99 a pop.

"We're providing a really exciting set of albums here, that will complement any Beatles fan's collection. What serious Beatles enthusiast can live without "Klaus Wunderlich's Beatles Hammond Organ Party", "Pan Pipe Beatles Collection 2", "Motown Sings The Beatles", "Top of the Pops Beatles Fever!", "Blackout Crew: All You Need is Donk", "The Royal Scots Dragoon Pipe Band's Fab Four Selection", "Notorious BIG in the Sky with Diamonds" or "Part Chimp's Braw Beatles Hootenanny"? Eh?"

"Eh?" he continued.

Among customers at the company's flagship store in Warrington, reactions were mixed. Edna Everidge, 67, thought the Beatles CDs were good and that she liked them. "I like them, I think they're good" she told our reporter, and subsequently three shop assistants and another old woman.

Patty Cake, 54, also approved. "I've bought my nephew this "jurt" for his birthday" she said while holding up a garish nylon-cotton top of dubious provenance. "It's a jumper with a shirt sewn into it, hence "jurt", you see? It costs six quid, so if I get one of these CDs, that's a tenner spent, yeah? Job done, simple as, end of." she continued.

However, Roy Balding, 43, was not so keen. "A load of boring old Beatles CDs? That's rubbish! I came here to buy an amusing novelty t-shirt that says "Mr Lazy" and some white sandshoes like a bairn would wear, not to get a poxy CD of "Cheeky Girls Go Moptop". Beatles CDs my right nut!" he gibbered excitedly.

For no other reason than so we could print a picture of her, we asked Jordan "Katie" Price for her opinion, but she wasn't in.

Sexy Katie: Tits, peacock etc

Ins and Outs: November '10

2010-11-06T10:59:00.001Z

Wac-a-day, kiddies! Polly wanna cracker. Ooh, mandingo! Polly want that cracker bad.

The clocks may have gone back, but at Ins'n'Outs Headquarters we're only going forward, like some sort of online shark with the smell of the unorthodox in its nose.

Or something.

Proselytising and breathalysing like Tipsy McStagger meets Jimmy Swaggart, it's time to find out who's Captain Palatick and who's Cash in the Attic, who's Eight Ace and who's Ace of Base, who's stewed to the gills and who's Stuart MacGill.

Charge your glasses, shake your asses, shave your gashes and/or taches, 'cos dem little old Ins and Outs am here!

In

Getting into the music of CJ Bolland relatively late in the day.
Convincing a suggestible public house acquaintance that the DJ and producer Adamski's real name was Adam Ski.
Loving five million hogs, yet conversely, hating on six million dogs.
Having read about some of the daft things that so-called "sufferers" insist on doing, concluding that OCD stands for Obviously a Complete Dick.
Claiming that you used to go dry stone-walling in the Cheviots with Phats out of Phats and Small 'back in the day'.
In Hotsy-Totsy's Nite Spot, attempting to curry favour with a trainee nail technician by telling her that you got your sweater from the new Peacock's in town. Only nine quid, yeah?
Being crestfallen that you were once again overlooked by the Mobo awards shortlisting panel.
The early season form of Gareth Bale. It's always nice to see one of them fellers off of "Planet of the Apes" doing well for themselves.
Instigating a blood feud with the members of a cadet branch of your family following their erroneous claims that HSBC is the best high street bank, when you are staunch followers of the Barclay's cause.
Attempting to set up a Birmingham-based society for ex-patriot American Republicans, to be called, with nauseating inevitability, the Bostin' Tea Party.
Considering yourself a modern-day, five-a-side Platini after you play a through ball with the outside of your foot.
Ruefully wishing that John Selwyn Gummer had gone to your school, 'cos if he had, you'd have called him John Selwyn Bummer. That would have learned him.
Throwing a very swish dinner party incorporating a quick and easy starter you got from Nigella, a funky chicken dish you saw Jamie do, and a Wall's Viennetta for afters.
Asthmatic asiatics, swimming in the Adriatic.
During your monthly meeting to "touch base" with your "bod from Human Resources", asking if they can do anything to get your job title changed from Deputy Co-ordinator (Purchasing) to Funkmaster General (Purchasing).
Eleven labia-licking lesbians lolling luxuriantly by a lake.
The knockabout slapstick stylings of Titus Brambles, good clean fun in an era of weak-mocking foul-mouthery.
While dining at Gordon Ramsay's priciest foodhole, asking the sommelier if you can have blue pop with your turbot fillet.
Having a smartphone full to bursting point with delightful photos of your rabbit Flopsy, your kitten Topsy and your guinea pig Mopsy, and being quite willing and able to talk your girls through them during work time.
Thinking wistfully of the jumbo 'dogs of Prague when handed a soggy Ye Olde Oak effort in a finger bun at a bonfire night spectacular.

Out

Jazzbos with Asbos and Detroiters with goitres.
Bonfire night tubbyboohooing from uptight pet owners who expect the whole world to forego its fireworks just because their dog is a puff.
Loudly proclaiming that your favourite club is a 1-iron. You can barely get an 8-iron fifteen foot above the ground, you bullshitting article!
People who try to convince you to go to Halloween parties on the promise that there will be scantily clad women there. Fuck off! I live in the north-east, where a woman doesn't consider herself correctly attired for the evening unless you can see at least 80% of her knockers and 46% of her arse.
Taking three valuable hours out of your schedule to watch some knacker on BBC4 explaining horror films. Horror films are the province of the heavy metal enthusiast, the piercings-and-tattoos enthusiast and the weirdo. There's your history of horror, less than a minute. Chop chop!
Magic Johnson's magic johnson. Giving someone HIV isn't much of a magic trick.
Sweet peas. Not sweet, not peas. Shit flowers, that's what they should call them.
Twisty-faced office workers, always boodyhoodying about the lighting and their chairs, as though they were being forced to work at gunpoint in one of the less salubrious Chilean copper mines.
Constantly scanning and re-scanning your Freeview box in the hope of discovering ever more specialist 'telephone masturbation' channels.
Going on about the latest episode of "Downton Abbey". F that S! I'd rather watch fucking "Down's Syndrome Abbey"! And I wouldn't even watch that, because it sounds like it would be distasteful and exploitative.
Steveland Bruce and his raggle-taggle band of cocknockers, bottlers and shithouses.
Viewers of ITV's popular "X Factor" programme. Also, those who consider that not watching the show somehow makes them Umberto effing Eco. A plague on both your houses, yeah?
Attempting to deploy Brian Eno's "Music for Airports" as sexy time 'make-out' music.
Prating dullards with their odious comparisons between Wayne Rooney's wages and those of a soldier.
Rooney has scored 26 goals for his country. Between the combined strength of the Army, they can't muster a single England goal between them. You do the math!
Having a dodgy knee.
Bleating on about the americanisation of Halloween like some jaundiced Peter Kays. Yes, some manky old turnips with candles in and bobbing for apples was the apogee of olde English culture, wasn't it?
Proudly telling anyone who'll listen that you consider yourself to be a Blodwyn Pig connoisseur.
Smokers obstructing public house doorways. Begone, foul-smelling scapegrace and let the gentlefolk past!
Claiming that you've just got back from the Commonwealth Games, where you were meant to be representing England in the skeet-shooting, except you had the squits the whole time.
Feeling obliged to point out that it has never been suggested that Magic Johnson ever infected anybody with HIV.

Ins and Outs: Octoberwe'en Special*

2010-10-11T23:20:00.002+01:00

*Nothing special

Here we are again then, what? It's hard to believe that this time tomorrow we shall be into October, the tenth month of the year. How time flies.

Ahem.

Anyhoo, better late than never, as necrophiliacs are wont to opine. Let's get crackin' with the knackin' in this season of ghosts, ghouls and Hassan Kachlouls. It's time to sort out the roman candles from the roman sandals, the catherine wheels from the Catherine Tates and the jack o'lanterns from the Esther Rantzens. Hermans and Morticias, Ins and Outs am here!

In

Bricks and mortar. Pestle and mortar. Never bricks and pestle, though. WHY NOT?
Chirping up "Most of my heroes never appeared on no stamp" at the slightest opportunity, until it is pointed out that your number one hero is her majesty The Queen, who you think is a marvellous woman.
On entering Djingo Django's niterie, ensuring you remove your cable stitch arran sweater so you feel the benefit on the way home.
Daniel Bozhkov.
Harbouring grave concerns that when those Chilean miners emerge from the ground that they may have mutated into morlocks.
Referring to any older bloke wearing big gold-rimmed spectacles as "Frank Butcher".
After enduring Debbie the Thomas Cook rep outline the various events to enhance your holiday in Lloret de Mar for a small additional consideration (including the medieval banquet, the trip to the lace making factory and an evening with the Fabulous Drifters doing all their old Motown hits), piping up to ask where was the best place to lay your hands on some 'mucky pictures'.
The golden apple of eternal desire.
Knowing several of Hungary's leading anti-semites and maintaining that, once you get them off the subject of the global zionist conspiracy, they're actually Bloody Good Blokes.
Loving Bootsie, but having naught but contempt for Snudge. Snudge can eat a dick.
Modish New York-based rap combo Das Racist.
Pushing pineapples, shaking trees.
Shooting the breeze with your bros on the stoop, 40s and blunts akimbo, discussing the latest edition of "Peter Andre: The Next Chapter".
Declining invitations to fancy dress Hallowe'en parties with a slight shudder and a disdainful muttered "FTS".
During an alehouse discussion of the latest Politically Correct outrage, giving your gullible mate a brief recap of the (wholly fictional) case of the drug dealer who was prosecuted by Trading Standards for selling cannabis resin using prohibited imperial measures such as quarter ounces and 1/8th ounces.
The scope for light-hearted badinage provided by the fact that one of your dreadful mates is stepping out with an older lady who, by all accounts, is a "squirter" when roused to the heights of passion.
Skilfully negotiating difficult bunker shots out of wet sand.
The good people at Go Compare. They can screen as many annoying, Absolutely-plagiarising adverts as they want, they saved this soul brother a cool 15 notes on his home insurance. Props!
Cheik Tiote.
Sagely deciding that once the Euromillions jackpot reaches £90m plus, it has at last become worth winning.
Craig Levein, dourly choosing not only to park the bus, but to clamp all of its wheels, then fill the bus with quick-drying cement, then burying the bus under a millions tons of girders. And not playing with any forwards.

Out

Voguish internet pop group OK Go. They should spend more time trying to write some tunes and less time titting about with wacky videos, yeah?
Getting into a street-based slanging match with the lady from the tanning salon regarding which Miliband brother is hotter. It's Ed, of course.
Having sleepless nights fretting about whether Blanket Jackson's stated ambition to be a film producer and director will ultimately work out for him.
Becoming disproportionately excited at the prospect of a new Wetherspoon's pub opening nearby.
Using the dread phrase "To cut a long story short". Never mind cutting it short, don't tell it.
Jogging types going on and on about "sports massages". Have a fucking hot bath, rub on some liniment and get over yourself, Yifter the shifter.
Enduring a cramped bus journey to work every day, cheek-by-jowl with a hundred or so Farming students, all yacking away interminably about alcopops, mobile phone contracts and crop rotation.
Getting a job that almost entirely involves accessing various computer systems, analysing the data therein before updating your findings on another system, then grumbling every day that you "don't like this modern technology". Here's a thought, Wat Tyler. I don't enjoy the smell of animal shit. THAT'S WHY I'VE NEVER WENT FOR A FUCKING JOB CLEANING THE CAGES AT A ZOO, YOU OLD CUNT.
Radical fundamentalists. Radical? It's not 1994 any more, old horse. Call yourself Sick Fundamentalists or To Die For Fundamentalists, yeah?
Nigel de Jong. A fucking knacker.
Fannying on elaborately decorating cupcakes.
Foodie types "re-discovering" the joys of such proletarian foodstuffs as tripe, scouse, scrag end and that. They're shite.
"Ask Rhod Gilbert". They should have asked him to be funny.
Banksy's "subversive" Simpsons titles sequence. Why are people still paying this tiresome Rik-the-student cornhole coin of the realm for his rubbish?
Sir Alan, Lord of Sugar. Just because his contestants have been selectively edited to appear at their maximum level of bellenditude, he's still a hairy-faced little spiv who makes money by humiliating members of the public.
Greedy-guts hotel patrons, queueing up at the restaurant at 7am for their all-you-can-conceivably-eat all-inclusive three course breakfast.
Paul Gauguin. Yes, some bonny paintings, that's a known fact, but one raises a disapproving eyebrow at his penchant for schtupping 13 year old lassies. Hang your post-impressionist, primitivist paedo head in shame, Paulie!
Middle-aged men who tell you, with a sombre tone in their voice, that they were rather disappointed with the new Debenhams store in town, having hoped it would feature rather more household items rather than specialising largely on clothing.
Anybody using a lift for a downstairs journey of less than four floors.
When relaxing in the lounge area at Pussy Galore's gentleman's club, putting the issue of whether you would like a lap dance onto the back burner, while you and your lady friend thrash out the thorny matter of whether you should opt for a Crag Hopper rucksack or one made by The North Face.

Ins and Outs: September '10

2010-09-06T21:09:00.003+01:00

Good morning, children, it's September and we're going back to school like Hassan Kachloul. Sit down and face the front 'cos we be teaching like Doctor Beeching and we got education like Roy Castle had dedication. It's time to hit the books, crooks, as we show you who got Key Skills and who got no frills, who's Ivy League and who's Ivy Tilsley, who's off to Oxbridge and who's off to Poxbridge.

Snatch up your satchels, pick up your pencils and let the cane take the strain, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

The return of the wide, stretchy headband, a female accessory largely confined for the last twenty years to European pornographic films.
Thinking sad thoughts while chopping onions in the belief that the two will cancel each other out, with a tear-free countenance the end product.
Being genuinely enthused by the purchase of a new blue belt.
Becoming embroiled in a tumultuous discussion with a jobbing swineherd regarding which CC is the better; Sabathia or Peniston.
The many fine products to be found in Asda's "Smart Price" range.
Donning a hair shirt and wandering in the desert for forty days and forty nights, living solely on locusts, returning with the new-found conviction that, yes, I enjoy the music of Mumford and Sons, and the devil take anyone who has a problem with this.
Having a great fondness for fire but, conversely, no love at all for brimstone.
When expressing distaste that would previously have merited a response of "It's shite!", instead opining in a condescending manner, that "I don't care for it".
The novels of Tim Willocks.
Wondering in an idle moment where one might purchase that white stuff they smear on the inside of an empty shop's windows to obscure the view within.
Mount Parnassus in Greece. It's bliddy great, man!
Witton Gilbert. Sounds like it could be the name of an early American humorist, actually a village in Durham.
Upon espying an undignified drunken individual in the street or in a low tavern, quietly singing the chorus to Sade's "Smooth Operator".
Jon Lajoie.
Massive lorries.
A simple repast of fresh baguette, brie and a cheeky Chablis.
Receiving a terse e-mail from those pricks in Human Resources about the job advert you drafted specifying that any prospective Administrative Assistant will ideally be "a lady in the street and a freak in the bed".
During a boring meeting, in the event of somebody happening to say "Let's move on", coming right back at them with "Cos it's time to groove on!".
Getting into the barber's chair and producing a picture of Joleon Lescott and asking for a haircut like his.
Weeping salty tears of regret at the passing of GMTV but being broad-minded enough to give "Daybreak" a fair crack of the breakfast television whip.
Being nice as pie when confronted by a dreadful mate's new lady friend, but at a later date confiding to a trusted associate that you suspect she has polished more helmets than the kitman of the Dallas Cowboys.

Out

Having an inexplicable mental short-circuit that, when talking to new parents, causes you to mix up the expressions "rug rat" and "cunt turd".
William Hague's unconvincing "I love shagging lasses, me. Right up the fanny" shtick
Leaving the handbrake on when moving away. What a chump!
Aston Villa FC. The last time the wheels came off that quickly with a Randy Lerner in charge was during "Confessions of a Driving Instructor".
The sad realisation that people you have previously regarded as friends are now espousing the virtues of listening to the music of Biffy Clyro. For shame.
Sky Sports News vanishing from our Freeview screens. Rupert Murdoch, hang your money-grubbing wrinkly old bollock of a head in shame!
That cunt off the BT adverts with his poxy football poetry.
Swanning into the pub in your expensive new sunglasses, to be told by the barmaid that they make you look like a paedophile.
Foolish women of Coventry who misunderstand the concept of cat litter.
Harry Hi-Fi banging on about which NAD amp and sub-woofer he's just bought. So what? You're only going to play U2, Simple Minds and The Nits on it.
Workplace biscuit-based overexcitability.
"Robson Green's Extreme Fishing". He never showed his strange-accented, shortarsed face when Moaty was on the prowl, the little fucking karaoke-singing dwarf.
That William Hague-looking little ginger bollix on the adverts for The Sun.
Sunday lunchtime tall tales regarding the previous evening's romantic liaisons that invariably end with the lady involved receiving "a moothful of Bulletproof Monk".
Radio 4. A load of lah-de-dah ponces in John Lennon glasses talking out their holes.
Golf buggy users. A certain indicator of the proper knacker.
The Man, shaking down and fitting up Paris Hilton again, trying to break her like a beautiful sex-video butterfly on a wheel.
The News of the World, getting up in Rooney's shit when he's got an England match to play. Time was, a man's use of dollymops was a private matter.
Spending one's Saturday evenings surrounded by bearded Wishbone Ash and Director's Bitter enthusiasts and wondering where the good times went.
Umbro and all their works. Execrable.

Ins and Aoûts

2010-08-02T06:40:00.002+01:00

How now, brown cows!

It's your boy, back on the track with a sack full of crack. Listen up, bone-strokers and boloney-smokers, we about to take you downtown for the lowdown on what's going down. If you absolutely, positively have to know what's minty and what's shinty, who got game and who got lame and who's straight west-coasting and who's beans-on-toasting, then keep your peepers peeled, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Attempting to gain a little traction in Djingo Djangos Niterie by bellowing in the ear of an apprentice hair stylist that you were one of the principal architects of the Maastricht Treaty.
Telling the GLW her new asymmetric fringe suits her perfectly, in fact she looks like nothing less than a young Ezra Pound.
Mahindra Satyam. That's the stuff to give 'em!
Loving DJ Luck, hating on MC Neat.
Wondering why can't your dream of Terry Venables being torn to pieces by wild horses come true.
Having been subjected to your dreadful mate's Foo Fighters CDs, concluding that Kurt Cobain shot the wrong member of Nirvana.
Playing the big man
Laying the blame on the world's woes - such as terrorism, the global financial crisis and 'roided-up bouncers acting like Rambo - squarely on Hootie and the Blowfish
Nick Cave.
Getting a warm glow of nostalgia when remembering Brian Jacks' squat thrust technique on "Superstars".
Boasting that you used to go drinking with Fab 5 Freddy.
The rappers in their hummers listening to the Mamas and the Papas.
Claiming that you've been researching your family tree and that it turns out you're descended directly from the leading family in the Assyrian Empire circa 1110 BC. Fancy that.
On being panhandled by chuggers and vagrants on the High Street, snarling "23! Skidoo wit' ya" at them out of the side on one's mouth.
Planning to sneak a kazoo into forthcoming Premier League fixtures.
Employing 60s stoner speak in the workplace; "Don't bogart all the staples, dude!"
Having a good old blether with the telesales professional who is attempting to steer you towards a new gas supplier and attempting to ascertain their views as to which is their favourite album by The Cure.
Telling your mates that your boy Flavor Flav once sent you a postcard from Corfu that was inscribed with the message "My ouzo weighs a ton!"
Threatening to confiscate your granny's corticosteroid tablets that she takes for her asthma, "in case you start shooting people like that Rothbury feller".
Getting into a foul-tempered verbal altercation with the Chairman of the local Rotary Club over who was the best leading character in "Julie Bravo", despite the fact that everyone knows that Jean Darblay was way better than Kate Longton.

Out

British wine. Shite.
Telling all and sundry about the fabulous time you had at T in the Park, stuck in a field full of flag-waving scotch pissheids, watching Kate Nash from a distance of about 200 yards. Sounds amaaayzing.
Lee Nelson's Well Good Show. No good show, more like.
An office full of fat cows yakking on and on about the Slimming World "syn" values of various foodstuffs.
Believing it to be an acceptable chat-up line, when asked by a female shop assistant if there is anything else she can help with, by insisting loudly that she describes the smell of her vagina.
The unlikely scenario whereby Toto Coelo of "I Eat Cannibals" fame are retrospectively inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Anyone who gives themselves a funny/cutesy pretend middle name on their Facebook profile.
Reflecting that you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. Unless you're Brad Pitt, of course, who did choose his family, but didn't choose his "Friends".
Banning the Burqa. Won't somebody think of the Ninjas?
Buying a quiche from Asdas because it's reduced from two quids to 83p, then getting home and finding you've been charged the full price anyway. And the quiche turns out to be shite. Cock-suckers!
Overweight females labouring under the impression that carrying a little bottle of water and swinging your arms a bit while you walk transforms a gentle stroll into a miraculous fat-burning workout.
Reporting you coke dealer to Nicky Campbell on "Watchdog" after that last gram you bought give you the squits something rotten.
Thinking you is some hot shit because you've got the same model putter as Corey Pavin.
While drinking in town, aggressively hailing any young fellers wearing waistcoats and/or flat caps as "How, Mumford!"
Touchscreen mobile phones. Two hands bad, one hand good.
The defamation of Strickland Propane.
The Nazi-gold-hoarding, cuckoo-munching Swiss government turning a blind eye to Roman Polanski's dubious past. There's a fucking surprise. Fritzl would have probably got away with a caution over there.
Being thoroughly unimpressed on being told how painful it is getting a foot tattoo and cheerfully informing the brave lady that "At least you'll have common feet for the rest of your life though, eh?"
Firmly believing that by referring to oneself as SLOG ("Single, Living on Ginsters") on a dating website, you'll be fighting off the poontang with a shitty stick
Making your friend's kid cry at their garden party/barbecue by bellowing "It's a paddling pool not a piddling pool" into his stupid, crestfallen face.

Legend!

2010-07-17T11:49:00.003+01:00

"Raoul Moat is a Legend"

Greetings, carbon-based life forms. That Facebook is a rum old business, what? All manner of half-wits poking you, telling the world what they had for their tea and joining groups where they can convene with like-minded empty vessels and pour out their ill-informed opinions into the ether.

The most noticeable recent manifestation of this has been the infamous "Raoul Moat is a Legend and that" page, where tards and retards came together to debate the whys and wherefores of the demise of the Rothbury Rambo in an air of cool-headed, rational reflection.

Of course, the page has disappeared now, The Powers That Be pressuring the intelligent, articulate founder into closing it down. And yet, the group's core message was correct. There is a legend. Here at last, we unveil The Legend of Raoul Moat.

"In the year of our Lord, 1973, by the banks of the Tyne river, to Mr and Mrs Moat there was born a bouncing, ginger-headed baby boy, who they named Raoul. Over the years the young Raoul grew to be a fine, strong man.

He subjected his body to great privations and undertook a punishing course of disciplined self-improvement, utilising a great many instruments of resistance as well as free weights. Also, he would inject his self with shitloads of steroids.

Eventually he had built a fearsome body that inspired fear in the hearts of men and lust in the gashes of orange-skinned ladies throughout the Tyne Side area. It was time to take his rightful place as The Gate Keeper, the Man of the Door. Raoul was guardian at the portal to the finest nightclubs in Newcastle. Wherever young folk wishing to cause "bother" would appear, whenever miscreants intending to dance to pop music while wearing training shoes should turn up, any time purveyors of narcotics supplied by a trade rival attempt to gain entry, Raoul would prevail.

They'd be slung out on their hint-ends and pummelled on the cobbles by the superlative custodian. His was a simple motto; "If you want to fuck on, you can fuck off".

Away from his noble labours, Moaty would attend to his many female concubines. Mighty were his appetites and many were his conquests, and so it came to pass that Raoul sired many offspring by a great number of boilers.

Ultimately though, he met The One. His Eve, his Salome, his soul mate. When he met Samantha, it was time for Raoul to put aside all other women and dedicate himself to the love of his life. Happily, Samantha returned his love, a child was born, and, for a time, Life was Good.

Into this promised land came bad men. The Coppas saw all that Raoul had worked for and achieved, and great was their envy. The Coppas vowed to persecute Raoul with all their might, to destroy his family, his livelihood, his sanity. To this end, they would continually arrest him when complaints were made that he had chinned some young 'un, had battered some lass or, fatefully, that he had Brayed a Bairn.

Found guilty in the white man's court, Raoul was sentenced to imprisonment. Worse still, Samantha left him, claiming, unreasonably, that she was now afraid of a steroid abusing, child-hitting jailbird.

Oh, disloyal woman. Truly you are the heir to Eden's serpent, yeah?

At last, Moaty was to be freed from his captivity. On the eve of his release, the faithless Samantha informed him that she was laying down with a member of the constabulary. His beloved, his one and only, was betraying him with one of his merciless tormentors.

The whoo-ah was shagging a Coppa! Probably sucking him off as well.

Great was the wrath of Raoul. Upon his release he obtained some shooters from his trusted aides. He confronted his enemies like any true avenging angel, by hiding outside the house for an hour or so, then bursting in and shooting their defenceless bodies. Samantha was left wounded, but the Coppa was slain. Although he wasn't dressed like a Coppa, more like Ralph Macchio in the 1984 feature film "The Karate Kid".

Stopping briefly to compose a forty-page letter full of self-pitying justifications and unhinged bluster, Raoul hit the road and made good his escape.

His thirst for vengeance still unquenched, Raoul sought out a more worthy adversary to test his battle skills. So he pulled up his car alongside a stationary police car and shot the unsuspecting, unarmed Coppa in the face.

Truly, Moaty was a mighty warrior.

Having stopped to gather supplies, Raoul headed to his childhood happy place, the scenic Northumberland village of Roathebury. With his knowledge of the terrain, his arsenal of powerful weaponry, and the smokies and battered sausages he had liberated from a Seaton Delaval chip shop, he was dug in for a long campaign.

For four days and four nights, the massed hordes of the Coppas could not track down Raoul. They found his car, but still they could not find him. They found his tent, but still he could not be located. They found one of his mobile phones, but still Moaty evaded their pursuit.

Finally, on Friday, the day of atonement arrived. Raoul made his presence known and took on the combined forces of Coppas, Bizzies and Filth. He calmly faced them down, aiming his weapon at himself and asking only for some water. At his encampment by the river, Raoul held his foes at bay.

From his Newcastle homeland, an emissary arrived with aid. His old friend from his time in the Bigg Market, Lord Gazza of Dunston brought him provisions and equipment. Had Gazza managed to get through with his bread, fowl and ale, Raoul may have gained the strength to go on. Had he clad himself in the proferred big jacket and gone for a bit fishing with Gazza, maybe he would have gained the peace of mind to surrender himself to his fate.

Alas, no. The Coppas intercepted Gazza and would not let him through, claiming that he was "aal pissed up, and that".

On a rain-soaked riverbank in the middle of the night, with his final hope gone, and his persecutors approaching ever closer trying to tazer his arse, Raoul acted for the last time and blew his brains out.

The People's child-hitting, domestic violence murderer of Hearts was dead.

And yet, his legacy lives on. Wherever an inadequate sociopath is engaging in 'roid-assisted bodybuilding, any time a mildly intoxicated young feller is being set about by bullet-headed thugs in bomber jackets outside a club, whenever a slack-jawed shaven ape is braying the shite out of his lass, wherever absolute fuckwits congregate on the internet to spew their ignorant, bile-filled opinions, then the legend of Raoul Moat lives on forever.

Here endeth the Legend of Raoul Moat."

Behind the Music #8: Steve Earle - "The Galway Girl"

2010-06-28T12:22:00.003+01:00

Top o' the morning to you, my fine feline friends.

How 'bout that England team, what? A shower of knackers, every man jack of them. I was recently vacationing in sunny Spain and had the misfortune to watch an England game in an Irish bar. The crowd was an odd mix of red-shirted Englanders and Irish people. As the evening wore on, the former became more and more dejected while the latter struggled manfully not to laugh out loud in their faces.

Following the game there was a "turn" onstage, a cheeky chap with a guitar, fairly easygoing singalong stuff, not too bad all told. However, he was to be mere background to an enlightening lecture I was receiving at the bar regarding "The English" and how they were today basically degenerate chav savages (or "chavages" as I interjected). One of the problems with the English, it seems, is their ignorance of their culture.

At this point, brer singer struck up the opening to "The Galway Girl". Now, you know as well as I do that this song was written by the American singer/heroin enthusiast Steve Earle. Not so my Irish culture vulture. According to him it was written and recorded by the Irish group The Saw Doctors (a sort of Happy Shopper version of The Levellers, if you can imagine such a thing). Furthermore, this folk-rock classic is a wonderful celebration of all that is good and great about the Irish Republic today.

Now, I am not a fighting man, so I didn't put my Guinness-swilling interlocutor straight. I enjoy arguing in pubs with men of low breeding as much as anyone else, but I also enjoy having all my teeth, so I did what any decent fellow would do, namely resolved to compose an overly-long deconstruction of the song "The Galway Girl" and put it on the internet. That'll learn him.

Firstly, as we have mentioned, this song was written by an American. There are few things in life as stomach-churning as an American attempting to show how down with the "Ould Country" they are, blethering away about "the craic" and fondly recalling pints of green beer they have drank during St Patrick's Day parades. "The Galway Girl" is, on first listening, the musical equivalent of such suckholing.

Take the opening lines:

"Well, I took a stroll on the old long walk
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay
I met a little girl and we stopped to talk
Of a fine soft day -I-ay-I-ay"

Bitch please, what is all this "day I-ay I-ay" shit? You'll be wearing clogs and drinking from a tankard next, yeah?

Anyhow, to cut to the chase, he meets this girl who has black hair and blue eyes. They go for a walk, round the Salthill Prom, no less. Nice work there, shoehorning in a reference to a local attraction, bit of an authentic touch. Inevitably, with it being Ireland, the weather soon takes a turn for the worse.

"We were halfway there when the rain came down
Of a day -I-ay-I-ay
And she asked me up to her flat downtown
Of a fine soft day -I-ay-I-ay"

Ignoring the "I-ays" for now, let us pause to consider this lovely Irish colleen that we're getting all misty-eyed and dewy-decimal about. He's know her five minutes and she's already taking him back to her flat. Scarcely the actions of a virtuous, wholesome ribs-and-cabbage-cooking Ballykissangel type of lassie. In fact, let us not mince our words here, she sounds like a roundheels, some say hoor.

You may think that we are leaping to conclusions here and that they just went to her flat for a cup of coffee and a game of Connect 4. No they didn't. American singer-songwriters don't write songs about meeting an Irish girl and playing board games with her. This fellow is a rock star and rock stars are only interested in one thing; the sweet, sweet poontang. Essentially, the message of this song is "Hey guys, let me tell you about the fine piece of ass I nailed in Ireland when I was over there. Bitch was sweeeeet!"

Also, your rock star is a depraved, debauched character. Where you or I, having the good fortune to meet an Irish lass of such relaxed morals, would be content with some fairly straightforward sexual coupling, missionary position with the lights off, no talking, your Yankee doodle rocker is not going to be happy with such vanilla fare.

"And I ask you, friend, what's a fella to do
'Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue
So I took her hand and I gave her a twirl
And I lost my heart to a Galway girl"

Your American is a straight-talking, literal sort of a fellow. When he says he gave her a twirl, he means exactly that. He stuck a Cadbury's "Twirl" chocolate bar in her ass while he was riding her. That's exactly what he did. Then got her to eat it, I expect, the filthy bugger.

You may think I am reading between the lines a little too much here and seeing things that aren't there. Possibly it is I who am the filthy depraved one and not Steven Earle. Not so.

Steve Earle was interviewed by Hot Press, the Irish music paper, before the release of his 2000 album "Transcendental Blue", which features this song. When asked about what he most enjoyed when touring Europe, he replied "Oh my gaaad, I just love the candy bars you get in Britain and Ireland. Jeez man, they're great. Star Bars, Picnics, Lion Bars, it's all good, dude. I gotta tell you though, man, the Cadbury's Twirl, that's my favourite. I love them. And I like to stick them in a chick's ass when I'm hitting her up from the back." (My italics)

That interview isn't available anywhere online, but it definitely did happen. I wouldn't lie to you.

So there we have it. "The Galway Girl". Not by the Saw Doctors. Not a feelgood celebration of a vibrant, modern Ireland. It's a feelgood celebration of rich Americans coming to Ireland and banging skanky Irish whores while inserting confectionery into their anuses.

I'll bid you a good day, so I will.

"Oof!"

Ins and Outs: June '10 - World Cup Special*

2010-06-06T15:44:00.002+01:00

*Not that special.

Hey there, sports fans!

The world is girding its loins for the start of the Association Soccerball World Cup of Sport and this time it's in Africa. Whether it's Cassius Clay getting busy with the rope-a-dope, Matt Damon winning the ruggerbugger World Cup or the great Rwandan three-legged race meeting of 1994, the continent of Africa is synonymous with premier sporting events and this one is sure to be no different.

Assuming that the world's football supporters aren't all killed by machete-wielding township gangs or syringe-toting Aids-riddled crack whores, that is. Or beaten to death in custody by sadistic apartheid-era riot police.

Anyhow, let us put aside such mongering of doom and concentrate on delineating the Basile Boli from the Basil D'Oliveira, the Man City from the Sun City and the Tino Asprilla from the SWAPO guerilla.

Ladies and gentlemen of the rainbow nation, Ins and Outs am here!

In

Like-for-like replacements.
Biting the bullet and informing one's friends that, having considered the matter from all angles, you quite like the Black-Eyed Peas and think that some of their songs are alright.
Making a mental note not to the give the taxi driver any backchat next weekend.
Harry "Choo Choo" Romero, wearing a sombrero and eating an "Aero".
Being firmly of the opinion that "King of my Castle" is the Wamdue Project's best song.
Looking at the World Cup fixtures and drooling like a dog at the prospect of ten consecutive days of three games a day.
Cheering oneself up with a quick look at the daft bands on the bill at the Download Festival. Who to see; Cancer Bats or Three Inches of Blood?
Shrugging off a plea for alms from a street mendicant by telling them "Sorry mate, but I need my money for drink, same as yourself".
Cooking sausages on the grill, then taking them outdoors to eat. The sausages aren't burned and the whole neighbourhood doesn't have to smell them.
Mr Sheen, who remains friendly and approachable, despite being rightly lauded for his ability to shine umpteen things clean.
Re-discovering how good The Pogues were.
On being asked whether you've read any Terry Pratchett, replying that it all seems "a bit hobgoblin for me".
Purchasing a t-shirt emblazoned with the legend "I am the Stig". That shirt doesn't just let the world know that you are a humorous, cultured fellow, it's also a guaranteed Fanny Magnet, my friend.
On the occasion of any would-be Paul Gambaccini telling you the Amazing Rock Fact that Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who did surfing, calmly informing them that i) Everyone knows that and ii) They were called the BEACH Boys, yeah, not the fucking Surfer Boys.
Hotfooting it down the pound shop and blowing one's entire pay packet on England shit to wear and adorn one's personal quarters, vehicle and workplace.
Making a big fuss over the wife when she comes home from the hairdressers, telling her she's the absolute spit of Wim Kieft.
Loving Bell, loving Biv, but hating Devoe. Devoe can eat a dick.
Confidently assuring all and sundry that this will be the tournament where "Basti" Schweinsteiger comes of age as the world's leading footballer.
Molybdenum. Mo, 42. A good metal.
Ledley King, a modern day, non-turps-nudging Paul McGrath.

Out

Advertisers using happy-clappy footage of African children playing football in an attempt sell us all manner of shit and shinola.
Plan B. On balance, hearing Mel B, Turbo B and Jazzy B collaborating on a version of "Honey to the Bee" would "be" preferable.
Any use of the despicable portmanteau word "confuzzled".
Ian Wright hawking his gurning mutton to any World Cup-themed advertiser willing to pay him. The failed-in-international-football knacker.
Women who think of themselves as "sassy". Everyone else thinks of you as "a pain in the hole".
The legions of teenaged mid-shelf pornography enthusiasts who are being deprived of Danny Dyer's relationship guidance thanks to Political Correctness Gone Mad.
Arriva Buses and their timetable overhaul that has turned a twenty minute bus journey into a gruelling thirty-five minute whistle stop tour of Northumberland's grimmest outposts. Progress indeed.
Tedious co-workers, with their full and frank discussions regarding the contestants on the previous evening's gripping episode of "Britain's Got Talents".
Mr Muscle. He doesn't love the jobs you hate at all, the lying shithouse. He hates them as well.
Justin Bieber. The soppy little wassock needs a haircut, toot sweet.
The powerful fug one encounters when entering a beer festival for the first time as the combined miasma of warm, hoppy ale mingles with the stench of several hundred overweight, unwashed science fiction afficianados and notebook-wielding CAMRAmen, all with bits of pie in their unkempt beards.
Ill-informed knackers who claim they are unaware of half of the countries competing in the World Cup. "NEW Zealand? I've never even heard of Zealand!"
The Ivory Coast, kidding themselves that Drogba will be able to play despite a broken arm. They appear to be confusing playing football in the World Cup with playing drums in a Def Leppard tribute band.
Deluded gutbuckets who feel that not only is it important that they sample each of the latest Walker's Crisps flavours, but that they share an in-depth breakdown of their findings with acquaintances.
Jingoism. Some of my best friends are jingos, leave them alone.
Going to Oberammergau for a relaxing weekend break and being unable to get down the street to the pub for hordes of gawking slackjaws watching some fucking Punch & Judy show.
Paying five large for a music magazine that informs you that The Beatles and Bob Dylan were really good (who knew?) and comes with a free CD that you'll listen to once at the very most.
The Common Eland. Big, fat ungainly sods, put to shame by the far more shapely Springbok.
Informing your mates in the pub, with disconcerting frankness, that you spent the earlier part of the day "Washing mah smalls and shaving mah balls".
Spreading the unfounded rumour that the World Cup opening ceremony will feature Winnie Mandela bending a free-kick through a flaming car tyre.

Glunts

2010-05-27T23:18:00.004+01:00

I don't like the TV programme "Glee". There, I've said it.

I grew up in the eighties and I remember "Fame". Dreadful old bilge it was, too. That curly-headed fellow on the piano, the feisty plain lass, the one who was good at dancing and the black chap with the big pipe on him, we all knew them, we all loved them.

Anyhoo, despite being godawful stageschool guff, in "Fame" they did actually write original songs that went on to become real-life chart hits.

What were they thinking, the stupid 80s knackers? They should have simply finished each episode with a piss-weak karaoke/X-Factor singalong version of some old pish like REO Speedwagons or Lionel Richie.

Now, I'm sure "Glee" aficionados, or "Gleedophiles" as I believe they refer to themselves, will say the whole thing is delightfully tongue-in-cheek and works on many levels. Doubtless it is both post-modern and gloriously camp.

No it isn't. It's shit.

"Camp", along with the dread phrase "guilty pleasure" is usually the last resort of people who should know better defending the indefensible. "Ah well, the gays like it, therefore it's rilly rilly good, see?"

No, I don't see. Despite the fact that we live in a mainly tolerant and liberal society where gay people can freely express themselves in any way they wish, where there are bars, clubs, rugby teams, newspapers especially devoted to them and where mainstream culture has never been so welcoming towards and, indeed, influenced by gay people, some misguided individuals still choose to risk getting a criminal record or the threat of physical violence by cruising grubby public toilets with the intention of acting as fellators and/or fellatees.

Not everything associated with gay people is automatically a good thing.

"Glee" is a combination of nauseating teenage schmaltz and bad music. Also, the show is primarily responsible for exhuming and rehabilitating of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, the global anthem of the tard and the retard.

In summary, then, fuck "Glee", fuck it in its saccharine, faux-amateur caterwauling ass.

And that's swearing.

British People in Hot Weather

2010-05-21T20:43:00.003+01:00

Phew, what a scorcher, yeah?

Yes, yes y'all, it's that time of year again. Summer's here and the time is right, for sour-faced blogging in the steet.

Eeeh, isn't it great? The lovely warm weather and that? Frankly, no, it isn't great. Far from it. It is, in fact, shite.

Firstly, if you work indoors, you will probably be too hot. Also, if your co-workers are, how shall I put it, a load of stupid cows, there will be no end of petty squabbling vis-a-vis air-conditioning, desk fans, open windows, all that shit. There will also be one pain in the hole bitch who insists on wearing a big jumper on the hottest day of the year, all the while insisting that the room is cold and must be kept airtight at all times.

Then of course there are the fat-headed conversations one is forced to listen to. It may help to while away the time if you award yourself a "spotter's badge" every time you hear one of the following:

* It's too hot to be stuck indoors in this heat!

* We should have ice creams, yeah?

* They should let us take our computers outside to work!

* If it goes above a certain temperature in here they have to let us go home. It's Health and Safety!

* Honestly, I think I'm, like, totally going to pass out!

* Hey, I wish I was in a beer garden, me!

* Eeeh, me clopper's foaming like bottled Bass!

To be honest, you might not hear that last one.

However, the most common fantasy does seem to be the wish to be transported to that most English idyll, the beer garden.

F. that S.

In fact, fuck that shit and come in its face. Beer gardens are rubbish. The chance to gulp down rapidly-warming lager while being pestered by wasps as somebody's dreadful children run amok is not this Edwardian chimney sweep's idea of a good time.

Roll on the Autumn.

Top 5 "First Hot Weather of the Year" Things

1. Acres of exposed pasty flesh on show.
2. The profusion of vile blue inky daubs on aforementioned A of EPS.
3. The submerged tenth and their penchant for deeply unstylish leisure wear, as purchased from Messrs Lonsdale, McKenzie, Henley and Everlast.
4. The affront to one's olfactory senses when strolling through the estate and every other shmuck has oozed out into their garden and is gleefully incinerating low quality hamburgers and slurping down canned lager.
5. The sight of slack-jawed fatsos sitting on their front steps, just soaking up the sun, sweating away like a fat dog's balls.

Ins and Outs: May '10 - Election Special*

2010-05-06T11:21:00.004+01:00

*Not that special.

Hush up!

It's time again to don a brightly-coloured rosette and bellow witlessly about a subject well beyond your understanding. However, before the World Cup starts, we have a General Election to get through.

How is the man on the Clapham Omnibus in the street to know who to vote for? In these times of spin doctors and four non-blondes, what's a floating undecided to do? Well, pull up a safe seat, help yourself to beer and sandwiches and the most select of all committees will help you differentiate the Bullingdon Club from a bull in a china shop, Conservative Future from Keisha and Mutya, Big Society from a big load of shite.

People of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Ins and Outs am here!

In

Replying to Monday morning workplace enquiries as to your weekend activities by muttering "Tapping ass" and refusing to elaborate further.
Getting hopped up on sloe gin and making out that you shot and ate a pygmy on a trip to Burundi "back in the day".
Resolving to vote in the election this time around purely because you've heard there's a smart lass works at the local polling station.
Attempting to grow a thin, waxed moustache after the style of Kevin Rowlands.
Pitching up at the newsagents to pay the papers bill (Telegraph, Spectator and Naughty 40s) and getting into a right old tizz with the biddy behind the counter who insists on spouting the purest tommyrot in claiming that Grandaddy are, like, sooo much better than Wilco, the wizened old whore.
A hotch-potch. The best kind of potch.
Preferring the work of New Order to that of Joy Division.
Sky Sports News gamely filling their time with news from the county cricket scene, despite nobody, including the participants and spectators, being interested.
Butting in to a discussion on electoral reform and asking what system they employ in Italy because "they have some seriously tidy boilers in parliament over there".
The glorious tradition of the short-arse full-back a la Bixente Lizarazu.
At the conclusion of a job interview, when asked if you have any questions, demanding to know which 1980s movie babe the panel would rather shtupp; Beverley D'angelo or Kelly LeBrock.
Rory McIlroy. A few more good rounds of golf and he'll be able to spend the rest of his twenties up to his nuts in porn starlet guts in a swimming pool full of money.
The almost lost art of the sing-song.
Making a sweet dollar as a business consultant by going into workplaces, firing any blokes with ponytails and/or facial piercings and telling the remaining staff they need to work a bit harder.
Maintaining an admirable stoicism despite being plagued by troublesome haemorhhoids.
Telling the good lady wife that the new top she has bought for going on holiday definitely lends her an air of a young Heike Drechsler that really gets you going.
Referring to anything that is of excellent quality as being 'weapons-grade', eg "I was in Powerhouse the other night for the 'Mr Tight Buns' contest and, I tell you, it was full of weapons-grade cock in there".
Having a sticker on your toolbox that says "No tools are kept in here overnight".
Great Ormond Street Hospital. They should call it Bloody Great Ormond Street Hospital!
Thoughtful friends who, having been to see "Iron Man 2" at the pictures, give you a comprehensive rundown of the film's highlights and urge you in no uncertain terms to go and see it.

Out

Anybody using the word "fooked". The faux-swearing solution of the fool.
Dreadful mates attempting to put the bite on a brother and hit him up for sponsor money. H the R, jack, and don't come back!
Scouring the fleshpots of Soi Cowboy to find the tidiest ladyboy in your price range, only to spend the entire evening boring the arse off him/her discussing the music of Slayer and the guitar set-up favoured by lead axeman Kerry King.
Claiming the place you live "has its own micro climate". Fuck off with that shit; sometimes it rains on you, sometimes it don't. And vice versa.
Having policies made out of planks, who are you like, Huckleberry effing Finn?
Log flumes. In fact, all flumes, period.
David Cameron's informal smart casual wear. Wear a tie, man, you're a politican not a member of fucking Coldplay.
Curry strength preference machismo.
Caravan enthusiasts. Two words, my chemical-toilet-trading friend; Easy Jet.
Office politics. Like normal politics but even more boring and with a greater emphasis on dumbass bitches moaning about flexi time.
The fool who prefaces his rotten anecdotes with "This is a funny story" or "You'll like this one".
Whitehall mandarins. Not as sweet and juicy as the far superior Westminster satsumas.
The paintings of Jack Vettriano. Fit only for use as cover illustrations for Mills and Boon novels.
The pompitous of love. Shite.
Telling anyone who will listen that, on polling day, you'll be straight down the local primary school to make your selection and then stick it in the box. "And then I'll vote in the election, eh? Eh?". People love a paedophilia joke funny in the midst of a General Election, yeah?
Political Satire. Normally either weak sub-Two Ronnies rubbish or some herbert in a suit reading out something an MP has said and pulling a face at the end.
The affected mock-folkie singing of matey boy out of The Decemberists. What a waste of raggle-taggle rations.
Pixie Lott and Pol Pot gorging on Aeroflot hotpot.
Dudley Do-Rights exhorting everyone to vote in order to defeat the BNP. For all they know, they may be persuading an idle BNP supporter to get off their hintend and vote. After all, most racists do seem to be big fat lazy sods.
Going ski-ing in Scotland. One suspects there won't be the exotic apres-ski ambience in the bar afterwards when surrounded by redheaded fellows drinking pints of "heavy" or Tennants and discussing the recent performances of Kilmarnock and Greenock Morton.

Ins and Outs: April '10

2010-04-01T19:30:00.003+01:00

Runners and riders, slippers and sliders, hangers and gliders, put your palms in the air and shout "Chocadooby!", for Easter time is upon us.

For forty days and almost as many nights, the Ins and Outs Committee have been hatching, batching and finally despatching the latest choc-ful guide to determine the Double Decker from the Carol Decker, the Galaxy Counter from the dastardly bounder and the Turkish Delight from the big load of shite.

Stop being cross and open your eggs, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Gabbling enthusiastically to your mate Debs about the new Selfridges in Town, that is full to bursting with outfits that are Simply To Die For.
Sourly acknowledging that you're a complicated man, who no one understands but your woman.
On the occasion of one of your golfing partners hitting their ball into a water hazard, bellowing enthusiastically "Riverside, motherfuckah!"
Nurturing a long-term grudge against some prick from Boxercise class following a disagreement regarding the best one out of Animal Collective. Even the fool knows that Panda Bear totally owns Geologist, right?
Engaging in a challenging, thought-provoking debate on the nature of evil with the select group of thinkers who have joined the Facebook group "Time to string up the sick paedo f**Ks".
While completing your year-end appraisal at work, listing next year's objectives as "Mo' cars, mo' hos, mo' clothes, mo' blow".
Intoxicated alehouse film buffs who tell you that you ought to watch "that V for Viennetta" as it's a right good show.
Refusing to ever answer the front door on the grounds that anyone who knows you will phone anyway.
Concluding your closing remarks to the interview panel with the somewhat cocksure claim that you are "bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher. In other words, sucker, there is no other."
Having been shown cameraphone pictures of a dreadful mate's new mountain bike, glaring disdainfully at his gut and telling him he'd do better to spend more time riding it and less time taking pictures of the fucker.
Nobby Solano's hobby: Meccano.
Making out that you served a term in office as the Mayor of Hillingdon "back in the day".
Rolling like a 90s G, claiming that the ladies be constantly beeping you on your pager.
Going hiking in the Lakes with Method Man out of Wu-Tang Clan and reminding him to "bring the motherfucking rucksack".
Asking an acquaintance about their studies/work project/hopes and dreams, letting them chunter on for about five minutes, then grinning vacantly and telling them it "sounds canny".
Acting as a sort of agony uncle stroke relationship counsellor to the younger members of your set, who are blissfully unaware that your sage advice has been lifted wholesale from gangsta rap albums and 70s blaxploitation films.
Mistaking an escaped boxing glove-wearing kangaroo for a mouse, with hilarious consequences.
Pinning the blame for disappointing fourth-quarter results squarely on the failure of your corner boys to rotate the stash houses often enough, with the resultant confiscation of the package by the five-oh the inevitable outcome.
Baguettes.
Buttoning up one's greatcoat all the way to the chin, after the fashion of the Hussars.
Pontius Pilate. Yes, there was that hand-washing bidness, but people forget the good things he did; developing a series of stretching movements that improve balance and posture; inventing the small flame that keeps a gas boiler working and pioneering the fashion for short-sleeved white shirts with epaulettes. Quite a guy.

Out

Part-time workers. Lazy fucks.
Having been talked into attending an Emergency Services Personnel Club Night at "Bojangles" nite spot on the premise that it's "guaranteed waal-to-waal dorty lasses", spending the entire evening making uncomfortable small-talk with a lady policeman with a face like Karel Poborsky and eventually leaving alone, having failed to secure even a solitary top or finger.
Anybody attending a concert by a "tribute band". You're worse than Space Hitler.
The misguided Talk Sport executive who pitched a soccer talk-in show to station bosses that was to be co-hosted by Phil Thompson and Terry Venables.
Heinz Big Soup. Shit soup more like!
Shameless. "Bread" for a generation of slack-jawed sexting shitbirds.
Chaps going to the pictures by themselves. Surely New Liebour have a "Weirdo Tsar" or similar to get these fellers on a register of some sort?
The squat bald chap who stands at the bus stop wearing a long black leather trenchcoat and ninja-style headgear. A putz of the first water.
Having a real good chinwag regarding the respective plus points of Bombardier and London's Pride with a cove who looks like one of the Dubliners.
Gathering your management team together, telling them that they're not just employees, they're more like members of the family before explaining that, unfortunately, times are hard and one person must be made redundant, before pointing at each of them in turn while sing-songing "Ibble, obble, black bobble, ibble, obble, out!" and breaking it to the unlucky soul that their ass is, regrettably, grass.
Messing wit' Andy Carroll's woman.
Claiming that the mind is the body's largest erogenous zone. No, man, it's the cock and balls.
Pitching up at the lingerie section at M&S and telling them, with a slight leer, that you want to buy a freudian slip for the wife, like your mam used to wear.
Taking an unseemly delight in scum-on-scum gaolhouse rucks.
Joining in with pub conversations regarding Salmon I Have Caught, when the nearest you ever got to landing one was buyng a rock salmon supper from the chipper of a Friday.
Kasparov's Nimzo-Indian defence in game 10 against Kramnik in 1995. That shit was weak, Garry lad.
Being asked to leave the Rotary Club fundraising dinner after a heated discussion with the local Chief Elk who be talking some pure BS, saying that TLC were better than Destinys Child. Damn.
The clerical worker who suffers stationery/stationary confusion. They'll go nowhere.
Squeezin' and a cheesin' over old pictures of your locality. Eeeh look, some of the buildings are different, but some of them, mark you, some of them, are still much the same. Who'd have fucking guessed?

Ins and Outs: March '10

2010-03-01T22:08:00.002Z

Howdy-doody, my maple-syrup-loving lumberjack chums!

The Ins and Outs Committee have spent the last few weeks glued to the dizzying spectacle of the Winter Olympics in Canada.

Anybody who isn't enthralled at the prospect of staying up all night to watch a bunch of posho poseurs, Scandanavian stringbeans and and moosefucking mounties titting about in the freezing cold must be severely lacking in sporting blood. So join us in getting all luged up, then bobbing and a-slaying our way through the snow to decide who makes the podium and who languishes in odium.

Triple your axel, slapshot your puck and give it some big air, because Ins and Outs am here!!!!

In

Trying to impress a nail technician in Wetherspoons by claiming to be an influential lay member of the General Synod.
Regina Spektor.
Tim Burton. The feller needs to get a proper haircut and stop making bairns films for goths.
The Cambrian Visitor Centre at Oswestry. Makes Walter Disney's place in Florida look like a two-bit dog-and-pony show in comparison.
Having the same thing for lunch every day.
Tex-Mex sex text pests.
Daggering.
Being a big fan of toing, yet strangely indifferent towards froing.
Telling your equally feather-brained workmates that you've been off your food since you heard about Cheryl and Ashley, you're that cut up about it.
Making the extra man count by moving the ball about quickly.
Alvaro Arbeloa and Yannick Noah, buying a hover mower in Goa.
Despite knowing the square root of bugger all about the game, making authoritative remarks regarding "slow ball", "going through the phases" and "the gain line" when the Six Nations is on in the pub.
Being so middle-class that towards the end of weekly marital relations, you get the balsamic vinegar strokes.
Sipping an occasional thoughtful bottle of Netto strawberry milkshake.
Simone de Beauvoir. Always nicely turned out, she was.
Scandalising your bloke-rock enthusiast mates with the shocking assertion that R Kelly's "Ignition" is superior to the entire output of Oasis. And Kasabian.
Claiming to own the same make and model of shotgun as Ted Nugent.
Knowing where you can get a city centre pint for £1.59.
Dining out on your entirely fictitious story of how you once appeared on the lacklustre early 90s Bruce Forsyth gameshow "Takeover Bid".
Telling all and sundry about the cheese sandwich you just had, emphasising, in a faux-American accent, the fact that it contained "Red Lay-cester" cheese.

Out

On receiving a heavier than expected rates demand and finding the domestic coffers rather shallow, suggesting to the GLW that she might consider hitting the streets and turning some motherfucking tricks with her bitch ass.
"Ice Road Truckers" Yorkie-munching fucks should get a job driving somewhere sunny or shut they yap.
Putting on side by boasting about how you go drinking with a couple of ex jockeys, one of whom once rode one of Piggott's mounts.
Making a bold, clear and uncompromising statement about yourself by commissioning the manufacture of a pair of car registration plates incorporating the Playboy Bunny logo.
At the Captain's Sherry Morning at your local country club, bellowing "Man, this club is well full of grims, innit?" into the ear of your dreadful mate.
Tracing one's family tree. End of the day, they're all some dead motherfuckers now. Who cares?
Two greying late thirties fellers, sagely discussing the relative merits of Superdry and North Face waterproof jackets over pints of overpriced Peroni.
Having to be physically restrained from stoving in the head of some cracker ass fool who be claiming that The Beezer was, like, soooo much better than The Topper.
Misguided "Frankenstein" scientists, cross-breeding a Fox with an Otter and creating an Oxter.
Home brew bores who tell you how their latest batch didn't taste that great, then adding with a slight chuckle "It does the job, though!"
Any fool who thinks a piebald horse is one with a "shaven haven".
Being collared by some boring bollix in the pub hellbent on telling you in pitiless detail about his latest football accumulator and how it went awry.
Andrea Dworkins. They should get her on that Gok's show for a makeover. That might cheer her up, if she wasn't dead.
Breathlessly telling the girls about the two holidays you've got booked; a week potholing in the Peak District, then five days cornholing in Cornwall.
Reckoning you'd probably be pretty good at glass-blowing if you ever tried it.
Drunkenly attempting to make conversation with an intelligent woman and ending up telling her that your favourite philosopher is Jacques Cousteau.
Whenever the subject arises, constantly chirping up that you "divvent like that fancy Starbucks shite, I just like normal coffee, me" as though your lack of interest in or knowledge of voguish coffee solutions is some notable badge of merit.
Folk who really should go for a pint with their work colleagues, for whom their interminable tales of workplace woes may hold the slightest interest.
Boy George returning his hyperactive lizard to the pet store, asking, with sickening inevitability, if it can be exchanged for a calmer chameleon.
Applying for a Crisis Loan at the nash and putting on the form that you blew all your dough on chronic and hos, when it was actually spent on baccy, Ruddles County and World of Warcraft shit.

Ins and Outs: February 2010

2010-01-31T18:51:00.004Z

The Committee in session

Happy New Year, yeah?

2010, what? I predict another fun-filled twelvemonth of warm, temperate weather, continued economic prosperity and The Sugababes fielding an unchanged lineup.

As we stride forth into a brave new world, who can we turn to keep us apprised whether something is bright and breezy or trite and cheesy, who is bringing da ruckus and who is thick as fuckus?

It's the Ins and Outs Committee, that's who? Don't you even know that? Wrap yourself up well in your overcoat of orthodoxy, your Wellingtons of well-being and your snood of savoir-faire, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Those neckerchief/scarf deals that ladies who work in banks and travel agents often wear.
When asked by the GLW if you approve of her new hair do, replying "Of course, my dear. In fact, you resemble nothing less than a young Mordechai Richler".
After listening to your mate spend twenty minutes outlining mournfully that after eleven years of marriage, his missus had found a fancy man and moved out, clasping him firmly on the shoulder and saying sympathetically, "I know, I know. And on top of that, they reckon at least five pubs a day throughout the country are closing".
Getting into a foul-tempered slanging match with a fellow competition angler regarding which is better; Horslips or Planxty.
Addressing any young fellers one encounters in the street and on the shop floor as "N-Dubz".
Serendipity. The bestest dipity there is.
Hoping against hope that this will be the year you catch the eye of the judging panel of Rear of the Year.
On being told by your significant other what you're having for tea, replying, Big Bopper style, "You KNOW what I like!"
Spending a long, cold, sleepless night searching one's soul yet still being unable to decide which one you'd rather do, Daisy Duke or Wonder Woman?
Major Lazer!
After a testing early morning bathroom visit, concluding ruefully that last night's Mexicana pizza should, in hindsight, have been the less fiery Bolognese option.
Harbouring a foolish, quixotic dream that one day you'll frolic gaily at Goodyear Heights in Akron, Ohio.
Pretentious Tosh, Peter's slightly effete son.
Meeting the girls of a Saturday morning for some shoe shopping, a cheeky mochaccino and a discussion regarding the relative merits of the cast members of "Glee".
Digging Hardcastle, being bummed out by McCormick.
As a well-upholstered fellow, being firmly of the opinion that Ancelotti is sartorially far superior to Mancini.
Confiding to the counter staff in the 24-hour takeaway that you're edging towards a chicken kebab but are seeking assurance that all the chicken meat is cruelty-free.
Telling people you own a vintage Pontiac Firebird that you keep in a lock-up garage somewhere, convincing nobody.
Being on nodding terms with a couple of roofers.
Spending a weekend locked down alone in the house, with a cupboard full of Bombay Bad Boys, several litres of banana milkshake and a DVD box set of "Boon".

Out

Trudging wearily through snedge.
The accumulated sleck and grease on the poles you hold onto as you wait to get off the bus.
Winter sports.
Drinking too much premium strength imported lager and becoming convinced that Martin Amis is robbing all your best ideas, then hopping into a taxi to Soho to try and kick his head in.
Making the somewhat vainglorious claim that "If a bee had knees, they would look like me".
That cock-knocker did the song about reality show types getting "stars in their eyes". You don't see much of him these days, do you?
"Don't stop believing" by Journey. The ironic soft-rock anthem of a nation of bell ends.
Adult-oriented film presentations whose credibility is compromised by the costume department's use of deeply unconvincing nurse uniforms.
Folk who should know better attempting to tell a brother that the band Placebo have any place in a decent society.
Golf buggy users. If golf is too strenuous for you it's time to take to the bath-chair, pops.
The feelings of deep self-loathing induced by having to use the expression "close of business" in a workplace e-mail.
Online poker enthusiasts, thinking they are some hotshot cybernaut Las Vegas whizzkid, when in fact they're every bit as tragic as those baccy-stained betting shop habitués, except without the ample access to free pens.
Glass-backed workplace shithouses, constantly tubbyboohooing about their chairs and wanting a "special mouse".
Faffing on.
Shooting rubber bands at the stars. Excluding the Sun, the nearest star is 4.24 light years away. Honey child, it ain't going to happen.
The Great Ziggurat of Ur. It's okay, but great?
Attempt to pitch a little woo towards a young lady in Tingle-Tangles Nite Spot, only for her and her awful mates to spend the entire evening sucking in their guts and second chins and posing, rictus grins akimbo, for one another's impromptu photo shoots.
Going to an art gallery, finding that the walls are covered with portraits of freckled redheaded women with disturbing, gurning expressions before realising, with tedious inevitability, that you are attending the Catherine Tate Modern.
Sucker-ass fools who suffer from formerly/formally confusion.
Taxpayers Alliance types whose belief is constantly beggared by the fact that a council occasionally wastes a quid or two. Dude, there was a bloke who used to live near me and he was shagging his Alsatian. That's the type of thing that beggars belief, not some civil servants getting a booze-up at Christmas.

Ins and Outs: December 2009

2009-12-01T23:22:00.004Z

Christmas: Six chipolatas disappointing

Wassail, chickabidees, wassail!

Christmas has literally come early this year! And, very much like the phenomenon of premature ejaculation, the Ins and Outs Committee will leave you with the same sense of feeling unsatisfied and, at the same time, somehow violated.

Get your stockings out, bite into a tangerine and spill your nuts in front of a roaring fire, at Christmas, 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Underlining your claim to have Inca ancestry by wearing a tartan travel rug and bowler hat to the pub.
Claiming to be unsettled by a wholly imagined 'strangeness in the air'.
When in a meeting about information technology strategy and implementation, choosing your moment to parrot "Garbage in, garbage out!", then looking around the table with a shit eating, triumphant grin as though you've just come up with a bon mot of startling originality.
Zaytoven. His beats be tighter than a gnats chuff.
Feigning a lack of interest in "I'm a Celebrity" when in reality you record Dave Berry's trenchant analysis on "This Morning" .
Preparing for an evening tapping fine ass in town by spending an hour meditating in the lotus position repeating the mantra "Hound dog gonna eat that pussy" in a resonant Leonard Cohen voice.
Rustu Recber, rollerblading in Reykjavik with Royksopp.
The Elin Nordegren rescue wood. This year's must-have Xmas gift for the lady golfer.
Getting into a protracted doorstep discussion of Cartesian dualism with the lady who has come to collect the Avon catalogue.
Dabbing one's fevered brow with a handkerchief and informing the boss that you need to go home early, as "all this inky-fingered bean-countery enervates me sorely, old top".
Playing some wistful bluesy harmonica while engaged in a lengthy session on the toilet.
Chorizo. Spicy Spanish splendour.
Confiding to friends that it "churned you right up" watching that poor Katie Price having to eat kangaroo arseholes every night on "Jungley".
Wondering exactly when standing around in the cold eating German food and overpriced olives became synonymous with Christmas.
Being genuinely impressed by someone who is wearing clothing from M &S' Collezione range, being strictly an Autograph/Blue Harbour man yourself.
On matters tinned pie, slowly coming to the conclusion, following years of scepticism, that Fray Bentos is indeed the superior of Prince's.
Assuring the good lady wife that her new Touche Eclat concealer lends her the sultry, sophisticated sheen of a young Candy Darling.
While having a slow afternoon at work, having a bit tamper and changing the company's hold music to "Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Judging a book by its cover. It's a good way to judge a book, particularly as details of the author and title are contained there.
Just before everyone is about to tuck into a groaning plate of turkey, trimmings et al, making a prating little speech about those people in Cumbria with no homes, the starving marvins, all that, effectively ruining the meal for all concerned. You can get a lot more roasties this way!

Out

The ablative absolute in Latin. WTF?
Anybody over the age of eighteen indulging in the consumption of "Monster Munch" corn snacks.
Loving The Range, hating on Bruce Hornsby.
The Limpopo River. To quote Wikipedia, the waters of the Limpopo are sluggish and salty. What a fucking liberty, the salty, sluggish shower of shit!
The appalling prospect of your lass returning from a "pre-Crimbo shopping trip with her friend Debbie", pissed up on chardonnay, maxed-out credit card akimbo, face caked in complimentary makeover cosmetics like a tinsel-bucket-chucking employee of the Billy Smart organisation.
Slacked-jawed gawkers who pitch up to see their town's Christmas lights being turned on. Not for nothing, but they're going to be there for a month, you know?
Claiming to be a big noise on the Allotment Growers Committee. Whoop de whoop!
Following cold drinks having been taken, attempting to get your drinking buddies to join you in massacring the town's Huguenots, but, heeding the counsels of cooler heads, deciding to go for some chips instead.
Spending a small fortune on a conservatory. Why not just sit in your fucking sitting room, yeah?
Whenever grown-ups are attempting to discuss the world economic crisis, desperately attempting to shoehorn your dreadful "Dubai now, pay later" joke funny into the conversation.
Having a keen interest in the industrial history of former coalmining communities. Pictures of chaps with smuts on their faces, massive banners, stories of folk getting suffocated and brass bands. There's a party.
That whole string bag of assorted nuts/effing about with nutcrackers palaver. Get a big bag of KPs. You do the cost-benefit analysis!
Club sandwiches. Fancy putting a chocolate biscuit in a sandwich. The dirty beggars.
Going to the supermarket and getting a trolley with one wheel which seems to have a mind of its own. Honestly, what's that all about?
Claiming that you intend to "catch" a "movie". No, you're going "watching" a "film"!
Abu Hamza and Tony Danza asking Yahoo! Answers about the theme from "Bonanza".
Having run out of small talk after about fifteen seconds, asking people what their favourite letter of the Greek alphabet is.
Getting an advent calendar for your dog.
Any fooling be wishing he was back in Carrickfergus. Frankly, it ain't all that.
Seaweed and ginkgo biloba-munching health food enthusiasts. You not heard of carrots, like?

Nation's Idiots to have "Nothing to Talk About"

2009-11-24T20:45:00.005Z

Experts have warned that Britain's idiots could be left with literally nothing to talk about as early as this weekend following the dual demises of TV's Jedward and Jordan. Since the eviction of Dubliner twins John and Edward Grimes and the withdrawal from the jungle of large-breasted void Katie Price, it is feared that drooling, asinine viewers of ITV's "X Factor" and "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" will simply run out of fatuous booby-babble regarding their favourite shows.

For weeks now, offices and saloon bars across the land have echoed with the empty-headed tittle-tattle of mean-spirited ninnies of both sexes, eagerly discussing how much they hope "them twins" and "that Jordan" meet with a timely comeuppance.

"With the departure of both of their betes-noir in rapid succession, there is a yawning chasm where previously reality-show enthusiasts would project all of their ill-willed negativity towards people younger, richer and more attractive than themselves" commented pop psychologist Dr Carl Rackemann.

Although many fans of the successful karaoke show will find some relief in discussing the less controversial vocal stylings of remaining X-Factor contestants such as The Lass, The Geordie One and One of The Others, it is thought that many erstwhile Jedward-haters will find themselves unable to re-engage with the show and will be reduced to blowing saliva bubbles out of their gaping bovine maws or simply gawping at the wall in front of them through vacant, unseeing eyes.

Elsewhere, with the dramatic departure of permatanned pneumatic renaissance woman Katie Jordans, millions of celebrity-insect-eating-humiliation enthusiasts will be forced to subsist on a diet of non-entities about whom they have no strong feelings making the best of things and rubbing along together in an air of strained, unconvincing camaraderie.

In an attempt to gauge the mood of the country's morons, we asked the first people we found in the street eating Gregg's pasties for their thoughts. "At first, I wanted nothing more in life than for Jordan to get evicted off of 'Jungle-y'" wheezed one tracksuit-clad bloater. "Now though, since she's left it, I just feel a yawning sense of emptiness inside, as though I'm being crushed under an inexorable landslide of monumental, soul-destroying existential angst, yeah?" continued the tattooed shaven ape of indeterminate gender.

However, it wasn't all doom and gloom on the nation's high streets. Shop assistant Jan Tearson, 22, was still managing to remain optimistic. "Oh my God, I was like sooo glad when Jedward got kicked off of X-Factor, right, but then I was like kind of sad, know what I mean? Like I had nothing left in my empty, pathetic existence. But like I'm now so over that, yeah, and I hope that all their hair falls out or they get scabies or they're like in a car crash or something. Yeah, I hope they die in a mangled mess of twisted metal debris, the cunts. They were rubbish".

Peter Kay to Unveil "New Material"

2009-11-16T20:18:00.007Z

Some old rope, yesterday

The nation's favourite rotund Lancastrian funnyman is set to unleash an avalanche of laughter this winter, with speculation rampant that he has, at long last, been working on some new material. Sources close to the roly-poly comic have refused to confirm the scope or nature of the new material, which is set to be unveiled at next month's Royal Variety Performance, a mere five years after the last confirmed sighting of a piece of fresh comedic gold in the Bolton gag-merchant's live routine. The comic will also announce details of a live stand-up tour on this Friday's "Chris Moyles Tabloid Breasts Appreciation Breakfast Show" on Radio 1.

Comedy fans were understandably delighted at the momentous news, with fans of ultra-short-term northern nostalgia breaking down in the street and weeping tears of slack-jawed mirth at the memory of the comedian's incisive analysis of the quiz show "Bullseye" and his extended riffs on something slightly foolish his mother had said to him when he was eight.

The new material will be eagerly anticipated across the length and breadth of the country, as speculation raged in the nation's workplaces.

"I hope he says some funny things about the programme "3-2-1", with Ted Rogers and Dusty Bin", 47 year old clerical assistant Connie Plank, of Rochdale, told our reporter. "What was that all about, eh?".

However, plasterer Dave David, 24, of Hunslet was hoping for "Mock incredulous pronunciation of some fancy dan foodstuff, possibly as delivered by one of Peter's daft uncles at a family gathering or something. Maybe couscous. Yeah, I'd like to hear Peter Kay repeatedly saying the word "Cous! Cous!" in the style of a bemused older man. He should do that. I would definitely pay as much as 25 quid for a ticket if I thought he would be saying "Cous? Cous?" over and over again. I mean, couscous, what's that all about, eh?"

However, not everyone was as enthusiastic at the prospect of fresh joke funnies from the porridge-skinned end-of-the-pier entertainer. Simon Joyliss, of online comedy site notcomdotcom, feels that the public's tastes may have changed in the time that Kay has been busy re-hashing and reheating his stage act into three separate autobiographies. "With the credit crunch and the worrying rise of extremist political parties, people want edgier comedians who are performing riskier, harder-hitting material than Peter Kay. Comedians like Frankie Boyle, digging up thirty-year old Barbara Streisand jokes in order to insult a 20 year old woman on a topical news quiz, or Jimmy Carr, doing updated Bob Monkhouse gags with a bit of gratuitous swearing thrown in. That's the type of thing today's zeitgeistlisters want."

When asked to confirm the rumours surrounding his much-vaunted new material, Kay was remaining tight-lipped, pausing briefly to inform our reporter "Hey son, I want twenty grand before I talk to youse cunts. I'm only doing Moyles' show so that they give me a prime slot on Children in Need. "

"Garlic! Bread!"

Ins and Outs: November '09

2009-11-01T21:38:00.003Z

Oy oy, saveloy! How's it growing?

By which, the Committee means to say "Happy Halloween/Bonfire Night and that!". Truly, this is the most wondrous time of the year, where students, horror film enthusiasts, goths and other miscellaneous wazzocks get to tit around with costumes, make-up and pumpkins and insert fireworks into cat rectums. Marvellous.

Whatever happened to bobbing for apples, eh? That's what we used to do "back in the day". Shite, it was.

Pigeonholing the tiresome nostalgia for the moment, it's time to deploy the countdown that lets you tell the difference between the pumpkin and the blumpkin, the Catherine wheel and the Catherine Tate and the Michael Myers and the Michael McIntyre.

Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and ghoulies, Ins and Outs am here!

In

On spotting anybody drinking an Irish whiskey/cream-based liqueur, bursting into an impromptu chorus of "All that she wants, is another Bailey's, oh-oh-oh!"
Loving Phats, hating Small.
When entertaining the GLW to anniversary cocktails in the Savoy's Palm Room, sidling up to the pianist, sticking a tenner in his top pocket and asking if he could run through DJ Assault's "Ass and Titties" as it was 'Your Song'.
Having two or three classic, 'signature' items in your wardrobe which, if you layer and accessorise, are timeless.
Telling your grandchildren that you used to play Timpani in the Joe Loss Orchestra, despite the fact that a) this impresses them not one jot and b) it's Some Bull Shit.
Engaging in a lengthy SMS-based correspondence with the girl from the 24 hour garage regarding who is hotter: Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich.
The Superior Colliculus. It's mint!
The old boy on the bus with spectacles whose arms cling to his head a good two inches above the ears.
The banjo-pickin' stylings of Marcy Marxer and Cathy Fink.
Explaining to your boss that the reason that ever so important work thing hasn't been done is because you've been "busier than Lagos airport, yeah?"
Writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg, together with a request for a couple of risque Polaroids.
New Jersey. There should be more states named after knitwear purchases.
Killing a marmoset with a teaspoon, boiled egg style. Just to see what it would feel like to kill a tiny, furry man, the size of your hand.
Grimly chronicling on Facebook the time you get up every single morning, as if even one person in this world gave the merest hint of a rat's ass.
Being firmly of the opinion that the preparation and consumption of food by fairly repellent members of the public is not necessarily something that needs to be televised.
Asda Smart Price mushy peas. Yummlicious!
Mercilessly taunting a fellow about still living at home with his parents, only for him to remind you that he's 8 years old.
Getting a fishtank built from bulletproof glass, in case some mope tries to wack your guppies.
Shankill Butchers. Quality cuts of meat at a price that can't be beat!
Harbouring grave concerns that poor Katie Price is about to have her heart broken again. Bear up, our Kate, oh do bear up.

Out

The sudden crop of "Question Time" connoisseurs with their hitherto hidden expertise regarding the format and ethos of the show.
Failing to convince the bloke delivering you a skip that Sartre's theory of existentialism was nothing more than solipsistic pre-reflective consciousness.
Making a big show of repairing pitch marks on the rare occasion you find the green with a full-blooded iron shot.
Committing the textbook novice drinker's error of mixing the grape with the grain with the crystal meth.
Halloween fancy dress fuckology.
Initiating intimacy by cordially inviting your lass to "put yourself on the hot spot".
Jamie T. Jamie S.H.I.T. more like!!!!!!!111!!IEHEISSHIT!!!!!
Blokes taking a "bag for life" to the supermarket. You big jessie.
Low quality shower-head replacements.
Ballroom dancing. No amount of East European prostitutes and actors from Holby City will disguise the fact that it's shit.
DJ Hero. Bloody hell.
Describing the bloke in the local dry cleaners as a "Major League ass hole".
Crafting Hour on QVC. The most banal, godawful tat you will ever see offered for sale.
Becoming embroiled in a vitriolic flame war on Twitter with Noam Chomsky regarding the relative merits of the Pozidrive and the Phillips screwdriver.
Tedious co-workers who insist on delivering a lengthy and voluble review of every single dreadful ITV programme they have watched the previous evening.
That hairy seven foot tall boxer. Looks like a bloody gorilla he does, and that's swearing.
Constructing an eight-foot papier mache model of the head of Nicholas Witchell and fucking it in the ear.
Thinking you are such hot shit just because you buy red onions instead of normal ones.
"Sex on Fire", sixty weeks in the charts. Who the cornholing hell is going out and buying it, sixty weeks later?
Loose Chippings. The gravel whores!

Ins and Outs: October '09

2009-10-04T13:38:00.001+01:00

Wu-Tang!

The IOC, in the place to be. Gonna give it to ya, time to deliver to ya, raw like cocaine straight from Bolivia.

Ahem. Some young shaver must have been interfering with the wireless, putting on Radio 1 Extra's Light Programme. Don't touch that dial.

Word up, canines, it's time to get schooled in what's cool and who's a tool, what's giggity-giggity and who got no diggity. Throw yo set in the air and shake your derriere, because, lords and ladies, Ins and Outs am heeeeerrrrre!

In

Occasionally stepping out your front door for a few pints and to get some ess on your aitch ell rather than tubby boohooing about which twat on Mock the Week is the unfunniest.
The unlikely scenario of Richard Thompson stumbling on stage to headline the Cambridge Folk Festival and introducing the opening song by telling the audience "this song is about leaving your missus to spend six months banging she-males in Thailand, it's called '25 years stabbing round the same hole'."
Vladivostok. The best vostok of all.
Complimenting your good lady wife on the fetching new mascara she got from Virgin Vie, telling her she's the spitting double of a young Charlie Magri.
Nate Dogg.
In a low tavern, sidling up to "Dogfighting Dave" and asking him if he can get you a Kennel Club registered Borzoi pup.
Any politician proposing the introduction of Camp Gitmo style torture for anyone caught using the word "diary" as a verb.
In the event of unorthodox behaviour by a companion (howking their guts up outside the pub, shanking their golf ball into some trees) bellowing witlessly "There's an app for that!" into their disgruntled face.
The novels of George P. Pelecanos.
Proclaiming that you be "lovin' kaolin but hatin' morphine" before excusing yourself and hotfooting it to the lavatory, clutching your stomach.
Concluding the tale of how you pulled the lass from the kebab shop while voguing in "Dizzle-Dazzles" nitespot by sagely informing your audience that "there ain't no off switch on a fanny magnet".
Spending some Friday night quality time alone with a couple of bottles of fruity Muscadet, a shoal of mussels and an entire sky-plussed series of "Don't Tell the Bride".
(Falsely) claiming that "they call me Masai Mara, 'cos I got so much game".
Polish chicks. G'dang g'dang g'dansk!
Spending a long, lonely sleepless night wondering whether the UK Speed Garage scene will ever return to its former prominence.
When asked by a dreadful mate why the long face, swilling the remnants of your pint around and ruefully remarking that what with the punk ass bitches and suck ass niggaz, you were seriously considering getting out of the game.
When reminded that you are not a player in South Central, rather you work as a minor functionary in the Town Hall's Planning Department, cheering up and getting a round in.
The Alimentary Canal. Very picturesque at this time of year.
Asking the barber to leave it long at the back, "a bit like Günter Netzer, you know?"
Bismuth. An excellent metal.
Fooling people that you're dealing drugs by standing round on a street corner in a beanie hat and an outsized white t-shirt, occasionally shaking hands with passers-by.

Out

Anybody over 14 who plays "Guitar Hero". The "bairns computer game plastic guitar toy" solution of the fool.
Making out that you used to be a well-known face on the Northern Soul scene, back in the day ktf.
On being introduced to a dreadful mate's new bit of stuff, taking a step back, eyeing her up and down as though you're admiring a freshly creosoted new fence, before unwisely opining that "she's got a bit of an arse on her."
Finding that the sight of people eating crisps is growing increasingly repugnant.
Tim Krul and Ja Rule playing pool, looking too cool for school.
Thinking that your relationship with your 13-year-old daughter has improved multifold since she added you as a friend on Facebook before logging on one day and discovering she has "become a fan of rough sex."
The Hunkpapa tribe. They ain't hunky, they is minging.
Eyes too far apart.
Boring the hole off all and sundry about the fabulous bargains you picked up on your trip to Costco.
On the serendipitous occasion of copping off with and being subsequently fellated by, a girl named Denise, texting everyone on your sim card the slightly self-congratulory message "DIRTY DENISE DIRTIED HER KNEES!!!!!"
Claiming to be an authority on Sumerian mythology, when really you wouldn't know sun god Utu from Harry "Choo Choo" Romero.
Pretty much anyone who hasn't taken Holy Orders using the word "bless".
Pusillanimous five-a-side goalkeepers.
The BIG OPINIONS of Messrs Venables, Wright and Redknapp in The Sun.
Men that eat jam. Catch yourself on, Billy Bunters, it's a female preserve.
Gavin from Autoglass. Yow-yow cock-knocker.
Telling people that you like to watch the first few episodes of "X-Factors", because the Hilarious Spectacle of seeing carefully selected footage of lads with bad haircuts, chunky unco-ordinated girl bands, daft old biddies and the mentally ill singing poorly simply Never Gets Old.
Inadvertently putting your foot in it due to suffering IVF/UVF confusion.
Shuddering at the prospect of being ostracised. Imagine having the end of your old chap bitten by an ostrich. Ouch!
Hans Blix and his missing Twix.
Stuck-up, nose-in-the-air beeyatches who think their shit don't stink. Your shit does stink, actually. It stinks of shit!

Ins and Outs: September '09

2009-09-02T22:03:00.001+01:00

It's September, folks, and that means it's time to go back to school, fool!

If you need to know your A* score from your G-Star Raw, your logarithms from your biorhythms, your protractor from your X-Factor, your National Curriculum from your Bristol Funicular, then walk, don't run, and assemble in the main hall, because Ins and Outs am here!

In

Bringing a little East End style gaiety to everyday life by adding the word "Well" to any "Out of Order" signs one encounters.
Always referring to St John's Ambulance staff as "sinjen's ambulance" people.
Ladies darts teams that contain one scrawny wife who looks like Nicky Wire.
Letting out an extended "sheeeeeeeee-it" as an errant four iron shot spirals off towards the shelter of the trees.
Ginger lasses' wispy muff hair
Getting into a furious slanging match with a member of the Big Issue sales team regarding the relative merits of Warp records artistes Plone and Autechre.
Nostalgically remembering the heyday of "happy slapping".
Telling the bloke behind the counter at the Chinese takeaway that, with the prices they charge, they ought to be able to afford a larger telly than the small-assed effort they've got up on a bracket there.
Loving croques madame, hating croques monsieur.
Slowpoke Rodriguez. That brother knew how to chillax to the max.
Burly girls eating Viennese Whirls.
Being unable to go on your best mate's stag weekend due to having spent all your spare cash on Lladro ladies.
Harbouring grave concerns that Katie Price's new kickboxing beau is a Thoroughly Bad Lot.
On the occasion of a pal purchasing a rusting Hyundai Pony, clapping them solemnly on the shoulder and telling them "My friend, that's not just a car, that's a vaginal lodestone, right there!"
When your lass gets back from the spray-tanning parlour, telling her how fabulous she looks - "Like a young J.M. Coetzee".
Being frankly uninterested in anything anyone ever tells you.
Phagocytes. They're skill!
Having a matey drunken conversation with the taxi driver about the wild, albeit invented, times you have had while fishing for chub in Southern Ireland.
Scratching one's head ruefully as things go wrong.
The Brandenburg Gate. A big old gate made of pink and yellow cake? Yum yum!

Out

We Are Klang. You Are Cunts, more like.
KFC Hot Rods. You'd be as well off dipping your knackers in batter, deep-frying them and eating them off a stick.
Slow play. It annoys.
Football clubs conducting multi-million pound deals by desperately titting around with fax machines minutes before the transfer deadline.
The perplexing amount of young fellers wearing t-shirts declaring their love of the Japanese prefecture of Osaka.
People who worship The Stig. Grab what dignity you can scrape off the floor and fuck off to Goa.
Drunkenly informing a bubble-permed blonde girl in "Screwers" brasserie and grill that you "serve it raw and uncut. Respect it or reject it!"
The song of the lark. A din.
Grow-your-own Gretas thinking that putting aside half their garden to attempt to cultivate 1/4 size marrows (not that any cunt likes marrows) will turn them into a latterday Felicity Kendalls, getting them the chap interest to match.
The so-called Championship. They're all shite!
Earthy sorts, obviously new to the internet, who "add" you on Facebook and proceed to send you every hoax security alert and mawkish chain-letter going, then attempt to get you to join highbrow groups such as "I'll level with you, I just don't like blacks" and "Let's go round to a peados house and shit him right up!".
That blonde brummie cow with the teeth,off of the bank advert.
A girlfriend with glaucoma. It's quite serious.
Anyone making unwelcome noises about the advanced state of their Christmas preparations.
Grown adults stuffing their faces with jumbo bags of Haribo jellied sweets.
At the supermarket checkout, some hairy-chinned old OAP beeyatch poking you upside the ass with they trolley. Ho, you need to back the fuck up and wait your turn.
Camping enthusiasts.
Thinking that the fact that you won't be watching "The X-Factor" makes you some sort of latter-day Bernard Levin.
When inscribing greeting cards, fancying that a paucity of imagination can be counterbalanced by a surfeit of exclamation marks. "Have a good one!!!!!!!" indeed.
Being only too willing to launch into a lengthy narrative when asked, purely out of politeness, how the job is going.

Behind the Music #7: Village People - "YMCA"

2009-08-17T07:40:00.001+01:00

Hey, music lover, how the jumping jehosophat are you doing?

You may have noticed a not unbecoming gravity in my demeanour today. That's because I have my serious head on. It seems the previous soaraway installment in this series has kicked up a controversial stink. Feathers have been ruffled, umbrage taken and brickbats, erm, batted.

The charge is a serious one: that of homophobia. In cocking a playful snook at REM and REM enthusiasts, it seems as though your correspondent appears to be implying that being gay is A Bad Thing and that the gays are to be shunned and derided.

This is not the case. I love the gays, me, although I wouldn't want one marrying my daughter.

Unless it was a lady gay, or "lesbian", as they call them. Then they could have a civil partnership, no problems there.

Indeed, one of my all-time musical heroes was a gay man. That man was the motorcyclist from The Village People.

The Village People are probably the biggest thing to hit the music world since the demise of The Beatles.

In the 1970s, you could ask any healthy young boy, with red blood coursing through his veins, what he wanted to grow up to be, and without exception the answer would come back "A member of the Village People".

The German sextet were the ultimate embodiment of healthy manhood and right-thinking notions of masculinity. The cowboy, the construction worker, the so-called native american, the cop and the soldier were, of course, all perfectly respectable role models for any young laddie, but the cool guy, the real deal, the big cheese was, of course, the motorbike enthusiast.

Men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him.

As a teenager growing up in the, erm, early 90s when they re-released a lot of their music, I, like most of my peers, wanted to be the mustachioed biker from the VPs, as we called them. His stylish leather cap and impressive curved facial hair gave him a rugged, masculine look that all of us young shavers could only dream of.

Truly, a man with a soup-strainer like that one would have hot chicks hanging off him like fruitbats, we surmised.

Imagine then, our surprise, when it emerged that he was, in fact, a gay man. Surely everyone of a certain age remembers where they were when they first heard that "the one with the tache" out of the Village People was gay? It was our generation's moon landing or JFK assassination.

First it had been George Michael, then it was Stevie G from Boyzone, and now the motorcycle guy from the Peeps, as we were now calling them. Where would it end?

They say there's nowt so queer as folk, but, right then, it seemed that the world of pop was every bit as "queer" as its bearded, jumper-wearing musical counterpart.

We were once again allowed to use the word "queer", incidentally, thanks to the sterling reclamation work of Peter Tatchell and his Outrage brethren.

Props, Pete!

However, this was still a challenging issue for a confused youngster growing up in the North-East of England in the 1990s, which was still very much a repressed, backwards place in those days, full of outmoded attitudes, flagrant prejudice and disapproving attitudes towards pastel-coloured shirts.

In the end, it was the band's music that won the day. Of all the classics in the Village People canon, the classicalest of them all is "YMCA". We all know it, we all love it. Essentially, the song is a paean to the simple pleasures of going to the local YMCA and hanging out with all the boys.

Now, in my younger days, I enjoyed nothing more than doing just that very thing. There was indeed a YMCA in our local town, where, in addition to hanging out with all the boys, one could play Table Tennis and Snooker.

Also, soft drinks, crisps and sweets were available.

While this mid-teen disco doctor wasn't especially keen on riding motorcycles or engaging in healthy homosexual practices with a like-minded consenting partner, I was keen as mustard on ping-pong. Sheeeit, back in the day I was all about the ping AND the pong. Topspin serves, backhand cutspin returns, towering forehand winner, snug-fitting Fred Perry polo shirts, I was down with that shit like a mother-fucker.

It was the Village People's espousal of the beautiful game that removed the scales from my prejudiced eyes and enabled me to see the light and let in the sunshine. If the five remaining members of the band were fine with the fact that one of their group had chosen a different path to them, then why should anybody else worry about it?

Some things, like table tennis and, to a lesser extent, snooker, are important. Other things, like sexual preferences, aren't.

It was the simple poetry of this 1978 disco pop chart-topper that enabled this dimpled rubber paddle-wielding pop kid become a tolerant, enlightened individual who sees that all people are equal and special, regardless as to their sexuality, colour or creed.

As the lads themselves would have put it "You can do whatever you feel".

Peace and love to all y'all, whether you're gay, straight, bisexual, trangender, a pub man, a club man, a jet black guy with a hip hi-fi, a white cool cat in a trilby hat or if you're just into having someone piss on you.

It's all golden.

Behind the Music #6: REM - "Everybody Hurts"

2009-08-06T21:09:00.004+01:00

At the back end of the 1980s, no band rocked the party harder than R.E.M.

Darlings of gossip columnists and paparazzos the world over, the band's four members, Mike Stipe, Peter "truck of fuck" Buck, Bill Berry and The Specky One, were rarely pictured without a Playmate or Baywatch babe on their arm, a cold drink in their hand or some stank on their hang-low.

The hard-rocking Paris, Texas four-piece formed in 1986, initially calling themselves Radical Ecstasy Motherfuckers. A pragmatic change of name later, they released their debut single 1987's "It's the End of the World as we Know it (And shit, yeah?)" to rave reviews and sold-out shows all across America. The band's mixture of feelgood heavy hits and hell-raising antics ensured they were never out of the headlines wherever they went.

The lads followed up their chart-topping breakthrough hit with a string of good-time fratboy anthems that rocked colleges from USC to NYU. Tunes such as "Stand", "Shiny Happy People", "Orange Crush" and "Hats off to Keggers and Boobies!" were the soundtrack to a million pantie raids, toga parties and initiation ceremony buggeries across the nation's campuses.

However, all was not well within the REM camp, as the cycle of constant touring took its toll. Stipe was so off his box he shaved his head, painted his face blue and talked nothing but shit. Buck was arrested for Air Rage after threatening to chop an air hostesses' hands off, The Specky One continued to persevere with a haircut that gave him the look of an embittered lesbian version of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

As with all American morality pieces, the party eventually had to stop. With the arrival of the 1990s, a wind of change was blowing across the land. Gone were the bacchanalian excesses of the eighties, the new decade was all about responsibility, pretending to care about the environment, kissing Clinton ass, getting in touch with one's feelings and generally acting the Dudley Do-Right.

Sensing that this was not the time for songs to "get butt naked and fuck" to, REM set about writing the ultimate song to "sit around wearing round glasses, pretending to be into poetry and that, tubbyboohooing about how you're so sensitive and how come you don't get no chicks" to.

That song was "Everybody Hurts".

With its minor chord piano backing and hypnotic, twinkling guitar line supporting Stipe's plaintive yet reassuring vocals, this is a song that was custom-built to be played to massive crowds of lighter-wielding, doe-eyed festival-going beardie weirdies and perpetual student types. But it is in the words that the song's deep emotional resonance lies.

The lyrics to the band's emo masterpiece are deceptively simple. The casual observer could easily dismiss them as trite, mawkish shite, but they would be wrong to do that. For, while on the surface the lyrics may seem to be a load of self-help jibber-jabber lifted straight from a Samaritans leaflet, there is a message of hope within that has touched the hearts, minds and oxters of a generation of gloomy Guses and moaning Minnies.

"Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on
Everybody hurts. You are not alone"

Truly, if ever a maudlin, whiny rocker ever said a mouthful, then old laughing boy Stipey was that rocker. Because, underneath it all, boiling it down to brass tacks, it's true, isn't it?

Everybody hurts.

Everybody cries.

Everybody who's a LASS or a QUEER, that is.

So, yeah, hold on. Hold on to your "Friends" box set. Hold on to your man-bag, your Chuck Palahaniuk novels, your Hello Kitty nick-nacks, your his 'n' hers bath towels, your war stories from "Glasto" and "Burning Man", your scented joss candles and your fucking REM albums.

Hold on tightly to them, I hope you choke on the bastards.

Your sort make me sick to the bottom of my gorge. Fuck you and goodnight!

Ins and Aoûts: August '09

2009-08-01T13:36:00.003+01:00

G'day cobbers, how 'bout this heat, eh?

As the clashes for Angela's ashes rage in balmy Birmingham, the Ins and Outs Committee have been cracking open a cold shrimp, tossing some tinnies on the barbie, making ill-judged remarks about the "abboes" and generally having a bonzer old time.

Slap on some sunscreen and get down to the creek for a dip into the hotlist that discriminates between didgeridoos and didgeridon'ts, kookaburras and Middlesbroughs, Shane Warnes and Shayne Wards, Ayers Rock and Pam Ayres' cock.

Tickle it you drongos, Ins and Outs am here!!!!!!!87!!!!!!

In

Initiating marital relations by waving one's old chap around and singing "It's Howdy Doody time! It's Howdy Doody time!"
Applying for the post of Emeritus Professor of Divinity at Caius College, Cambridge as the skip hire company has made your job part time.
Asking the barber to give you a marcel wave, "...just like dear Nancy Mitford"
Joe Tex. That brother knew his bidness all right.
Giving credit where credit is due. This handy little truism could have saved the world a whole lot of fiscal turmoil, no?
Having a soft spot for Dinamo Zagreb.
Pooh-poohing the veracity of any alleged swine flu sufferer who doesn't go on to die.
40 frankfurters for two quid large? Got to like them numbers.
Post-horseracing aled-up ladies, fascinators akimbo.
Michael Owen's sparkling pre-season form. It really is a pleasure to see the mealy-mouthed, monotone little cunt back among the goals.
Leaving a greeting message on your work voicemail that informs out-of-hours callers that you are "in Miami, bitch!"
Hors d'oeuvre. The best type of d'oeuvre, bar none.
Joba Chamberlain.
Coves meandering around the supermarket holding the basket in the crook of their arm. That ain't a good look.
Twisted Sister playing pissed-up Twister with Mr Mister in a pub in Bicester
Telling rambers by the side of a canal that the blackberries they are picking are legally the property of the crown and as such the thieving cunts may as well be fucking the queen in the arse with a dildo.
Steven Gerrard's brief. He chinned the feller!
Using the word "carambola" as a mild hispanic-type profanity, while knowing it's actually a type of fruit.
Loving diastole, but hating on systole.
Idly wondering whether Andrew Sachs' fruity grand-daughter has been reduced to providing half 'n' halfs for walking-around money yet.

Out

Trying to impress a real dolly bird in Wetherspoon's by claiming to be a kitchen fitter 'of international renown', only to have a dreadful mate sell you down the river by revealing you're nothing but an insurance clerk.
Getting all excited about seeing "Bruno". Just re-watch "Ali G" or "Borat" and imagine him saying it in a "1970s comedy puff" voice.
Making efforts to close legal loopholes. Where do these do-gooders think we're going to keep our legal loops, eh?
Any man using the term "lol". Get a bloody grip.
Bell-end-nosed big screen unfunnyman Owen Wilson.
Re-using a plate and getting toast crumbs on the untoasted bread of one's new sandwich.
Scalene triangles. They rubbish.
Acting in a shifty manner when the Betterware catalogue man calls, as though you had a flighty camisole-clad lady hiding in your broom cupboard.
Shitake mushrooms. There's a clue in the name, mate.
Old, fat childless twats who ride Harley Davidsons round Suffolk.
Pookiesnackenburger.
Strange folk who write odd comments in library books.
Eating pineapple rings when you haven't had gammon for your tea.
Casting aspersions. Although, in fairness, there is little else one can do with an aspersion.
Shooting a chap through his dome simply for wearing a kerchief of the wrong colour.
The Carthaginians. Elephant-riding shitbirds.
Damon Runyon and Vashti Bunyon, chopping onions and listening to Todd Rundgren.
Asking the barber to see if he can give you the look of "a slightly posher Tinchy Stryder".
Demigods. You ain't no half a god, you chump. That was just a lie your slut of a mother told you.
On the whiteboard at work, enumerating the day's key objectives as: "1. Get my drink on. 2. Get my smoke on. 3. Go home wit', something to poke on."

Behind the Music #5

2009-07-27T21:23:00.002+01:00

Greetings, pop-pickers.

Since beginning this series of essays, to give a little insight and background detail in an attempt to broaden and deepen the reader's listening pleasures, there have been several naysayers, scrimshankers and quibblers getting up in my ass and generally messin' with my shit.

In essence, their beef is this: Where is the love, dawg?

Enough with the negativity, can't you bring us some news we can use? Turn us on to some of the good stuff, instead of hatin' on well-meaning acoustic guitar-toting singer-songwriters who really meant no harm.

Okay then, bitches, get your laughing holes round this bad boy. A tale of tragedy and despair. A tune to which you will try in vain to stop your toe tapping. An ultra-modern melding of town and country, of America and Europe, of beer and tabs.

That song is, of course "Cotton Eye Joe" by Rednex.

Rednex - Cotton Eyed Joe
Uploaded by valentin73 - Watch more music videos, in HD!

If history is to remember the year 1994 for anything, it will be as the year Swedish country-popsters Rednex took over the world with their banjo-spangled dancefloor chart-topper. From Britain to Australia to America to Latvia, we all knew it, we all loved it.

There were literally hundreds of country-based euro-dance records released in the early 1990s, including The Grid's "Swamp Thing", 2 Cowboys' "Everybody Gonfi-Gon" and, erm, many, many more. None, however, had the emotional resonance and tear-jerking gravitas of "Cotton Eye Joe".

The narrator tells us how his life and romantic ambitions have been thwarted by the titular anti-hero. Our troubled storyteller has been doomed to eternal solitude by the dastardly Cotton Eye Joe. Were it not for his malign influence, our man tells us, he would have been married "a long time ago".

"He came to town like a mid-winter storm,
riding through the fields so handsome and strong.
His eyes was his tools and his smile was his gun
But all he had come for was having some fun"

The songwriter, Sven Rednek, displays extreme lyrical dexterity here. The character sketch of Joe is simply and economically drawn, yet the simile "his smile was his gun" hints at the malevolence beneath the surface.

It got worse.

"He brought disaster wherever he went
The hearts of the girls was to Hell, broken, sent
They all ran away so nobody would know
and left only men 'cos of Cotton-Eye Joe"

Say it ain't so, Joe. Disaster! Girls going to Hell! Our boy Sven getting no stank on his hang-low!

That ain't right.

The mysterious Joe, and his cotton-based eyes, moved on, his origin and his intended destination shrouded in secrecy now and for ever more.

"Where did you come from? Where did you go? Where did you come from, Cotton Eye Joe?"

One fears we shall never know...

Behind the Music #4: Del Amitri - "Nothing Ever Happens"

2009-07-13T21:47:00.003+01:00

It's 1990, the dawning of the last decade of the second millennium. As humankind hurtles blissfully towards a future world of spacesuits and jetpacks, computerised collective consciousness and BSB squarials, music was splintering and expanding into ever more diverse, spaced-out diaspora.

From acid house to acid jazz, from gabba to Shabba and right back to Abba, 1990 was a time of dizzying variety and invention.

However, in Scotland they said "Fuck that shit, it's plodding guitar-based balladry or nothing for us, the noo!"

Nobody did plodding like Del Amitri. Del Amitri, real name Derek Amitri, is a Glasgow-born singer-songwriter who was born in 1964 at the age of 42, at which he has remained ever since. In 1990 our Derek was about to release his meisterwerk, his tour de force, his piece de ass. 1990 was the year that "Nothing Ever Happens" happened.

While we all know the song, we all love the song, it seems that relatively few of us bought the record. The single peaked in the UK charts at number 11, a disappointing placing for a song that all serious music historians classify as one of the most important "Dreary Scotch Rock Ballads of the Early 1990s".

The construction of the song is deceptively simple. Against an insistent, monotonous guitar line the singer recites a litany of dull events going on in the world, given added piquancy by the fact that they are delivered a boring balladeer voice, before delivering the killer-punch knockout blow of a chorus that tells us that "Nothing ever happens".

The juxtaposition of tedious content with a message that is at once hackneyed and tiresome is stunning in its effectiveness.

Take this little lyrical nugget, as our Decka casts a wistful eye over the humdrum lives of the Little People who aren't even in a band.

"Gentlemen time please, you know we can't serve anymore
Now the traffic lights change to stop, when there's nothing to go
And by five o'clock everything's dead
And every third car is a cab
And ignorant people sleep in their beds
Like the doped white mice in the college lab"

Ah, the poor, foolish wage slaves, going to work like brainwashed, unthinking zombies. If only they knew how to strum a guitar and churn out third-rate teenage poetry, they'd see what was REALLY going on in our world.

Later on our latter-day Woody Guthrie rails against those enemies of progress; Consumerism, Capitalism and, erm, people who write to "Points of View".

"Bill hoardings advertise products that nobody needs
While angry from Manchester writes to complain about
All the repeats on T.V.
And computer terminals report some gains
On the values of copper and tin
While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs
For the price of a hospital wing."

Oh, the humanity! Those American Businessmen, eh? Coming over here and buying up all the Van Goghs instead of funding the British national health service.

Hang your cigar-chomping heads in shame, the lot of you!

As a casual parting shot, the whole problem of bigotry and racial intolerance is summarily dealt with by laughing boy, who opines:

"Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
They'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock
And we'll all go along like before."

Man alive, this hairy-faced cock-knocker has some brass neck, no? As if his lumbering little smugfest of a song wasn't far enough up itself, he's throwing in portentous allusions to the holocaust now, just to show what a deep-thinkin' man he is.

Fuck you, Derek, and fuck your song. Fuck it in the ass.

And that's swearing.

Behind the Music #3: Squeeze - "Up the Junction"

2009-07-06T21:11:00.001+01:00

Cockney pub-rockers Squeeze: Everybody knows them, everybody loves them. From whey-faced girly-voiced smack enthusiast Glenn Tilbrook to oleaginous, twitching boogie-woogie keyboard wizard Jools Holland, this was, and indeed is, a band with star quality coursing through their veins where you or I have to make do with blood.

"Up the Junction", a number 2 chart-topper from 1979 is the band's signature anthem. The song takes its title from the 1960s book/play/film of the same name. A winning mix of mawkish self-pity and cloying sentimentality has seen the song become a firm favourite among Squeeze fans and normal people alike.

The lyrics tell of a doomed love affair between a drunken waster and, let us not be coy here, a harlot, some say roundheels, who hails from the salubrious Clapham area in South London. Our hero tells us of the initial stages of this romance:

"Out on a windy common, that night I've not forgotten.
When she dealt out the rations, with some or other passions.
I said 'you are a lady', 'Perhaps', she said, 'I may be'."

Firstly, while I'm no Emily Post, I would dispute that a young woman who is giving up the sweet, sweet poontang on a windy common can rightly have any claim to being a lady. She's a whore, fellows, a WHORE, I tell you.

Secondly, young Chris Difford, the lyricist here, is really reaching to accommodate these rhymes, no? "When she dealt out the rations, with some or other passions"?

Bitch, pur-leez! Some or other passions? That shit is weak.

Moving the story on, the dewy-eyed youngsters set up home in an idyllic lovenest.

"We moved into a basement, with thoughts of our engagement.
We stayed in by the telly, although the room was smelly."

Turning a blind eye for the moment to the rather unorthodox basement/engagement rhyming scheme, it sounds rather blissful, doesn't it? Old Dog's mess and his slut, stopping in their stinking basement gawping at the gogglebox instead of putting the hoover round and maybe getting busy with the Febreze or the Airwick.

Still, our hero lands himself a job, working with Stanley, eleven hour shifts, a nice little earner, no doubt. Does his lass follow suit, maybe bump up their income so they can move somewhere a bit nicer, possibly?

Does she heck as like. She reverts to the only skill she's ever shown, namely getting schtupped. She gets herself pregnant.

"She said she'd seen a doctor and nothing now could stop her."

It is probably at this point where our narrator was cursing the tactical error in shacking up in a basement. One can't "accidentally" push one's knocked up girlfriend down the stairs in a basement, can one? His lass was dead right, nothing now could stop her. Young feller-me-lad, doing the square thing by our Nell, kept grafting away, saving the princely sum of a tenner a week throughout the winter, a nice little nest-egg for when the baby arrives, you'd have thought.

Not so, apparently.

"When the time was ready, we had to sell the telly.
Late evenings by the fire, with little kicks inside her."

It isn't clear why the television had to go. They had, after all, been paying the rent and the bills and saving a tenner a week with just the one income, which would be remaining unchanged. Maybe it was just a whim of the hormonally volatile distaff half, who knows?

We are slammed immediately into the here and the now with the next development.

"This morning at 4.50, I took her rather nifty
Down to an incubator, where thirty minutes later
She gave birth to a daughter, within a year a walker"

Again, a couple of queries. One, did you really bring her to an incubator? Did you bollocks, you took her to the maternity ward. You were telling fibs to make it rhyme, weren't you? Bad boy.

Two, within a year a walker? What day is this? Who's the president? The poor bairn was only born this morning, old horse. Talk sense, won't you?

Actually, he's completely lost the plot, timeline-wise, now.

"Now she's two years older, her mother's with a soldier
She left me when my drinking, became a proper stinging"

Told you the girl was a roundheels. Frankly, the excuse about his drinking becoming a proper stinging is not only nonsense but it doesn't even rhyme. She was just desperate for a new bone to gnaw on, so to speak. Muggins is left to rue his complicity in the break up and remember happier times.

"The devil came and took me, from bar to street to bookie
No more nights by the telly, no more nights nappies smelling"

It would seem our friend has been hitting the bottle like it owes him money. He's forgotten that he sold his television set and he's getting nostalgic for the delicate aroma of babyshit-stinking nappies. His friends would do well to advise him to take more water with it.

True to form, our protagonist signs off with a dollop of negativity and another godawful attempt at a rhyme.

"And so it's my assumption, I'm really up the junction".

There we are, then. "Up the Junction" - a heartfelt perfect pop ballad or some ham-fisted melodramatic bad teen poetry? The choice, dear reader, is yours...

But it's the second one. That's the right answer.

Peace.

Ins and Outs: July '09

2009-07-04T16:57:00.003+01:00

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 trapped in a room of wall-sized video screens showing a continuous loop of Eamonn Dunphy's leering 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"

2009-06-29T22:22:00.004+01:00

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"

2009-06-22T12:52:00.002+01:00

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

2009-06-03T22:54:00.003+01:00

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

2009-05-01T00:30:00.003+01:00

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

2009-04-08T21:08:00.003+01:00

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

2009-04-08T20:47:00.005+01:00

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

2009-03-30T20:19:00.001+01:00

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

2009-03-07T13:10:00.001Z

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

2009-02-03T19:20:00.003Z

"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

2009-01-11T14:06:00.002Z

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.

Ins and Outs: December 2008

2008-12-01T23:54:00.001Z

I believe it was William Shakespeare, in his seminal work "A Christmas Carol" who said "You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas your arse".

Wise sentiments indeed. Christmas is, unless you are a child or afflicted with water on the brain, a right royal pain in the hole.

Still, as long as there is strong drink, the prospect of inappropriate Christmas Eve touching and the dearest of festive countdowns, it may just be possible to salvage something from the wreckage.

Charge your glasses, kiss your lasses and smother your nuts in molasses, for, lo! the Christmas Ins and Outs am here!

In

Claiming to have a mate who saw active service as part of a Bosnian death squad and declaring him to be a "bloody good bloke, actually".
Saying the most banal of things, such as 'I think I will take a shit', in the style of Alec Guinness in well known bairn's fillum 'Star Wars'
Watching 'Loose Women' and reckoning you'd stand a chance with at least three of them.
Habituating down-at-heel watering spots frequented by cow-punchers, minge-munchers and liquid-lunchers.
The good people at Cancer Research and Barnardo's, catering to the nation's disposable pen and refuse sack needs in these trying fiscal times.
Turning up drunk, claiming to have been "getting busy with the fizzy".
Capering with delight.
Solemnly confiding to close friends and family that you will have no truck with the remainder of "X Factor" since they got rid of that "sort with the big cahoonas".
Generous teenage mums who dump a baby in a phonebox near Christmas, enabling hospital staff to give it a festive name such as Robin or Eve and providing TV and print journalists with a heart-warming Christmas story which doesn't take them too far from a pub.
Pairing a button-down collared shirt with a round-necked sweater.
Stockpiling carrier bags ahead of the awful day when those pricks at Asdas try to chisel you out of 5 pence a pop for them.
A Christmas list that asks for "a kite, Beano and Oor Wullie annuals, remote control car, Humbrol paints and an eighth of Moroccan hashish".
Telling a lass in a bar that you were once in Heartbeat and revealing exclusively that Nick Berry was "a bit stand-offish".
Sour-facedly turning down invitations to four, count 'em, four Christmas "dos".
A propos nothing, prefacing one's remarks with the phrase "As Minister Farrakhan says..."
Spending the entire holiday period holed up in one's home, surviving only on Dundee cake and Advocaat.
Being frankly unable to muster much optimism regarding Co Stompe's prospects in the forthcoming Darts world championship.
Vapouring on airily about the ski-ing at Chamonix despite your experience of mountain sports extending as far as sliding down pit heaps in a black bin bag.
Repairing to one's study with a large balloon of fine old armagnac and the new "Man About the House" DVD box set.

Out

Any reference to the time you spent behind bars, wearing a ballgown and a blonde wig and peddling your tush to your cellmate and protector, a white supremacist skinhead named Eric.
Worse yet, any mention of the fact you were only serving a 28 day sentence for poll tax non-payment.
Woolworths. No more piss covered fingers grasping for the pick 'n' mix as if getting a heroin fix.
Sporting on the green.
Any foo' who be saying "Don't Stand Me Down" is a better album than "Searching for the Young Soul Rebels". They trippin'.
Waggishly referring to the Queen's Speech as The Regina Monologue. Repeatedly.
Sick sex sects that slay six.
"Embedding disabled by request".
That telly advert with the dispiriting version of "From me to you" on it.
Momo Sissoko dissing Moloko.
Mistakenly presuming that what your work colleagues really, really want is a daily progress report vis a vis your Christmas shopping, decorations, trees, lights, cards et al.
Spending a valuable couple of hours of one's life sifting through the festive television schedules and picking out likely looking shows, all the while knowing in your heart of hearts that you will be out drinking.
Those little pots of yoghurt that are supposed to stop your turds from stinking. No dam' good.
Tiresome salad-dodgers relating the unexpected news that their Wii Fit reckons they should lose weight. Surely a mirror would have been a cheaper, yet similarly accurate diagnostic tool?
Anyone wearing those spoddy mountaineer type trainers rather than the fine products of Messrs Adidas and Nike.
Constantly adjusting your tie and jerking your neck like an ill-at-ease member of the "Ready Steady Go" audience.
Earthy Christmas dinner table references to sprouts and their effect on the digestive system. Keep it clean, there's a love.
Naked calendars. Put it away, you fat biffer.
The Wise Man who brought gold to the manger after the three of them had agreed not to spend too much on their gift for the saviour. Flash prick.
Going on and on about your Gap Year Travels. You had the shits, got fucked on a beach, saw some sunsets and your feet hurt. We get the picture.

Happy hanukkah, suckas!

Ins and Outs: November '08

2008-11-09T14:16:00.003Z

Here we are then, Remembrance Sunday, what? A time for giving, a time for getting, a time for forgiving, not forgetting.

Now, there is always a lot of finger-pointing, harrumphing and recriminating around this time of year, much of it to do with wearing a poppy and how much or how little we honour our war dead and surviving ex-servicemen and women.

I don't know about you, but I'm damn sure my dear old grandfather, who died in the war, would not give a tinker's cuss about people wearing poppies and that. From what I have learned about the man, he was rather more upset about being ordered by Hitler to commit suicide.

Still, on this day of days, what better way of differentiating between wearing your poppy with pride and getting stroppy and snide? If you want to know who's laying wreaths and who's laying cables, if you can't tell your Anzacs from your Aztecs, your Somme from your Josh Homme, your Ruperts Brookes from your Garth Crooks, then fear not, my pretty, because Ins and Outs am here!

In

Whiling away tedious bus journeys by silently assessing and awarding marks out of ten to the various old blokes' ears, giving bonus points for particularly thick, dangling lobes.
Insects. Head, thorax, abomen? Marvellous!
Making thinly-veiled references to the (entirely fictional) time you spent as a member of the Tonton Macoute.
Joey Barton. The nation's favourite footballerer puts his demons behind him and hits the goal trail. Play up, Joey!
In this era of crunched credit, the pleasing rush of cloth-eared types eager to fork over 45 large to see the remnants of Oasis going through the motions at minor football stadia.
Flight of the Conchords.
Engaging in a foul-tempered argument regarding Heike Drechsler and whether she was on performance-enhancing drugs while in her prime.
Mitosis
Having a lively, informed discussion regarding the music of Ornette Coleman with a fellow attendee at your Drink Driving Rehabilitation Course.
Attempting to outfox the grasping energy companies by wearing a big Russian hat around the house to keep warm.
Rejecting the offer of an end-of-date coffee on the grounds that you want to be home in time for "Vinnie Jones' Toughest Cops".
On the occasion of a fat person going past, turning to your dreadful mate and observing sententiously "The pleasures of the table have taken a heavy toll on that one."
Secretly longing for a renaissance in the position of inside-forward in professional Association Soccer.
Barack Obama, Lewis Hamilton, Theo Walcott: the same barber? Very straight fringes, what?
Having a sound knowledge of the lyrics to Gala's 1996 hit "Freed from Desire".
Adopting the mode of dress and mannerisms of Peregrine Worsthorne.
Spending your precious spare time stopping up til three in the morning watching Boney M videos on YouTube.
Going on "Dragons Den" to try to get money to open a chain of jewish theme pubs called, with crushing inevitably, Bar Mitzvah.
Joe Calzaghe. He's nails!
Attempting to swear less often and using "dagnabbit" as a replacement.

Out

Any foo' pronounces the word "something" like it got a "k" on the end.
Charlie out of "Charlie and Lola". The guy's a pussy.
Echinoderms. Shithouses!
Workplace toilet miscreants. Never mind being Al Gore, just flush the bloody thing.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. What happened to that, then, eh?
Mr Kipling's French Fancies. Too effeminate by far.
Meiosis.
Aunt Bessie, of ready-made Yorkshire Pudding fame. If she didn't spend so much time painting her nails, smoking cigarettes and going with sailors, she'd have time to make proper puds.
Claiming to have been into the Satanic Sluts aaages before they got popular.
Mermaids. Got no vagina and you wear your hair draped over your breasts? You ain't gonna get you a man like that, honey child.
Oafishly claiming to have spent the preceding evening "Knocking the LINING outta that pusseh!"
White-water rafting.
The ideal of returning to a pre-industrial agrarian society. Not gonna happen, wurzel-munchers.
Sarah Palins. Eighteen month tops before she's hawking her moth-eaten mutton in "Playboy".
Standing up for your love rights. Siddoon!
Laughing boy Lou Reed and his shiny shiny, shiny boots of leather. We get the picture, Lou, they're shiny, yeah?
Smokers of roll-up cigarettes.
Concluding the "Education and Qualifications" section of one's CV with the phrase "I consider myself to be one low-temperature motherfucker".
The Uzi 9mm submachine gun. Nine millimetres? I'm not Action Man, you know?
Chicken satay sticks. A waste of bleddy time.

Bonus Beats:

I Smell a Rat!

2008-10-31T18:34:00.003Z

It is always the intention of this proud organ that we treat everyone with respect and even-handed justice.

In the matter of the Radio 2 telephone call scandal that is rocking our nation to its core, it is possible that the casual reader may have inferred that blame lies firmly and squarely in the lap of the two sniggering, well-paid celebrities leaving offensive messages on an old man's answering machine.

A vapid and fatuous conclusion to come to. What are you, some kind of Dail Mail reader, eh?

To keep it real and simultaneously boil it down to brass tacks, then.

First of all, this is the grand daughter in question.

Now, I realise that the good people reading this are not the readership of "Nut" or "Zoo" magazine. However, I put it to you, sir, and even you, madam, that if you had schtupped the young lady pictured above, you would be letting EVERYBODY know.

You'd be on the phone to your dreadful mates, you'd have updated your Face Book status, contacted the local press, the whole shebang. Don't deny it, I know what you're like, you filthy pig.

Indeed, I would probably have investigated the feasability of having the salient information inscribed on one of those billowy advertisements that light aircraft used to drag behind them in comic strips in "The Beano".

Among gentlemen of the world such as we, Brand's indiscretion is surely pardonable, if not particularly becoming.

There has been a lot of Tommy and an equal amount of rot spoken about the so-called "victim" in this affair. To wit, national treasure Andrew Sachs.

Much play has been made of the fact that the silver-haired old dear is almost 80 years of age, as though this somehow makes the whole affair infinitely more terrible.

Well, forgive me if my views are those of a hidebound old fogey, but surely in the whole arena of "fucked-granddaughter-disclosure" phone calls, older is better, no?

Would these politically-correct Guardianistas prefer it had Brand been intimate with the granddaughter of some sprightly young fellow in his early forties? Is this the society we live in today?

They should bring back National socialism. I'd gladly pull the lever myself.

A final thought on Anthony Sachs. It is all too easy to bandy around terms like "respected actor" and "legend of tv comedy", but what is this towering legacy based upon?

Playing a comedy foreign waiter in a sitcom OVER THIRTY YEARS AGO, that's what. What has he done for us since then?

I can sum it up in one word for you: Jack Shit.

Some voiceover work, a couple of tiny film roles and a few plays.

Well, far be it from the likes of me to moralise, but if that's all he's been doing for the last thirty years, the least he could have done was take more of an interest in his lickle granddaughter. Maybe if he'd played more of an active role in his family life, she wouldn't be cavorting around on stage in fetish gear, performing unnatural lesbotic acts with pros in low budget movies, getting scuttled by harry rampesque funnymen and generally acting like a painted harlot, some say WHORE.

There we are then. I've said my piece, I'll bid you a good evening and a merry hallow's eve.

RB: Original Prankster

2008-10-31T18:22:00.003Z

Russell Brands!

Russell Brands!

Russell!

Brands!

Russellbrands!

Whether you love him or think he's an over-rated squeaky-voiced cornhole, you literally can't ignore him.

Regardless of whether you think he's really, like, funny and that or think he should stick to hanging out the back of impressionable, star-struck young lassies, then gibbering excitedly about it in his shit stand-up act, you can't deny that the fellow ruffles feathers wherever he goes.

What is less well-known is that, prior to Manuel-gate, Brands, 33, has a long and inglorious record of playing off-colour tricks on minor celebrities.

Indeed, it is often said of crafty-combing, tight-trouser enthusiast Brands that he is never happier than when unleashing some sub-Beadle lo-jinks on an unsuspecting member of the showbidness fraternity.

Today, we list them so that you, the reader, can attempt to fathom the mindset of the man they're all calling "that fucking knacker with the hair".

Top Ten Russell Brand Pranks am here!

10. Ordered loads of pizzas to be delivered to the house of Eagle-Eye Cherry.

9. Left a message on Ken Dodd's answerphone informing him that his father's pet dog had choked to death on a jam butty.

8. Punched the former bassist from These Animal Men quite hard on the upper arm, reportedly "getting me right on my BCG scar".

7. Hockled on Peter Snow's Airedale terrier.

6. Pestered Kate McCann for her phone number at a "Find Maddie" press conference, then put the word around that he had gotten his "tops and fingers" off of her.

5. Really shitted up Jilly Cooper's gravel driveway by doing handbrake turns and "doughnuts" in his Subaru Impreza.

4. Got Bob "the cat" Bevan all hepped up on milk stout and made him dance for coins in front of jeering Soho clubmen.

3. Every single day for a year after she had her baby, texted the single word "Thunderthighs" to brave olympian pants-shitter Paula Radcliffe.

2. Duped Dexter Fletcher into believing they were bringing back "Press Gang" for an adult audience and he'd get to do Julia Sawalha on screen.

1. Pissed the words "Wrinkley Titts" into the snow outside the home of "Calendar Girls" actress Celia Imrie.

Russell Brands. Tchah!

Ins and Octs: Outober '08

2008-10-04T12:00:00.005+01:00

You want examples of things that are "In" and that are "Out"? Well, dang it, I'll try to find you some and I'll bring 'em to ya!

A little American political "humor" for y'all there. In stark contrast to such colonial cornholery, the meetings of the Committee are, if anything, reminiscent of the Ancient Roman Senate, where Cicero and Luca Brasi would trade witticisms across the floor. This way alone can one differentiate the Gangsta Style from the Rob Styles, the Sonny Liston from the Sunny D, the John McClane from the John McCain.

Ready for the floor and in town to get down, lads and lassies, get out your seats 'cos Ins and Outs am here!

In

Chilling out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school.
Tight orange vests. Hello boys!
Kneading your ballsack, knocking back Prozac.
Laughing uncontrollably when presented with a photograph of somebody's new baby or significant other.
Branding any of your dreadful mates with fingernails that aren't cut right down to the quick as "Flo Jo".
Having a full and frank exchange of views regarding the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern with the young lass at the grooming parlour who shampoos your Bichon Frisé.
Accepting with good grace that the Lord, in his wisdom, has rather put you behind the 8 ball when it comes to looks.
Giving colleagues and acquaintances the impression that you are a crazy, "out there" sort of a chap by stating your intention to go out for "a pint... ...or ten!!!"
Ice cream. Yummy!
Unplugging the phone, uncorking a decent Malbec, lighting a fat old cuban and settling down to an evening watching an entire week's supply of Sky-Plussed "Sexcetera".
Anything that has been remixed by Soulwax.
Taking a certain grim satisfaction in rejecting Facebook friend requests from shithouses.
Prolific, yet intermittent, use of the phrase "Usually drink, usually darnce, usually bubble!" in a fake B-Boy accent.
ClO- (aq) + 2 H+ (aq) + 2 I- (aq) ---> I2 (aq) + Cl- (aq) + H2O (l)
The pleasing post-credit crunch prospect of Jeep-driving property developer dilettantes being left potless.
Counting the days until the next issue of "OK" magazine hits the news stands as you are worried sick about the state of Jordan and Peter's marriage.
Ageing pub doley types, pairing their raggedy old suit with the latest white Lonsdale daps for an elegant yet sporty look.
Larger ladies who proudly thumb their noses against society's narrow-minded prejudice against exposing vast areas of fat back flesh.
Going for a coffee enema and asking the woman to put two sugars in it.
Telling your elderly grandparents that they have to rewind the film they've just watched on their new DVD player all the way back to the start.

Out

Being written out of the will.
Any gentleman who, despite the experience of thirty summers on this earth, chooses to appear in public clad in a t-shirt bearing the legend "G Star Raw".
Referring to your car as "the old jalopy"
The X Factor. Karaoke for cunts. Karaoke, then.
Ill-advisedly purchasing a CD from pan-pipe toting faux-Peruvian Inca types on the High Street.
Haberdashery. The worst kind of dashery.
Inviting your mates back to your bothy for some nourishing stovies and neeps, before remembering that you aren't a scotch shepherd and, moreover, you are currently residing at the YMCA.
Maxillary palps.
Glassy-eyed fellows, shopping on a Saturday with their lasses, while wearing an ironic Mr Men t-shirt. Mister Pussywhipped, more like!
Laborious conversations regarding the paucity of televisual entertainment on a Tuesday evening. Here's a suggestion from left-field: Don't watch the cornholing telly every bastern night.
Home-made pornography. Has anybody ever sat back and watched one, critical faculties akimbo, and concluded "Yes, that's some good work right there. Mother, the red tube!"?
Bandy-legged busty bints bingeing on brisket and Bacardi Breezers in a Bristol brasserie.
Armchair food critics, whose breezy opinions on the merits and demerits of the TV master chefs are only slightly undermined by never having tasted a morsel of their food.
Any single thing whatsoever to do with Hal O' Ween, or Guy Fawkes Night, as our stateside cousins style it.
Playing "air guitar", ironically or not, to soft rock. The province of the "necktie-as-rambo-headband-at-wedding-do" type of wassock.
Dishevelled public transport users, prone to soliloquising.
Complaining to anyone who will listen that "I ain't no gynaecologist, but I work with a load of cunts".
The novels of George Eliot. A lass could have written them!
Getting all foamy at the gash at the prospect of eating a "Wispa" or some other re-launched confectionery product. It's only a chocolate bar, pet.
Notoriously slippery prison issue soap. They should install wall-mounted liquid soap dispensers in the showers instead. Far more sanitary.

I Pee Freely

2008-10-03T20:03:00.007+01:00

Holler atcha, homes, it's your boy. You good? Splendid. I currently have water on the brain, so I have to pass it on to you, so to speak. Today's posting is brought to you by the letter "P" and the number "5".

It is an undeniable fact of life that, when drinking heavily in public houses, you will eventually need to pass water, hopefully in the confines of the lavatory.

If you are a member of the distaff side of the species, this will take the form of a minor jamboree with one or more of your closest friends. Once ensconced in the smallest room, you will re-apply cosmetics, replenish your drinks from the Roller Cola bottle of bacardi in your handbag, bitch about the fat arses and loose morals of the other members of your party and, time permitting, even have a wee. A pleasant and fruitful interlude in the evening.

However, the male is a solitary, roaming creature, unwilling to share this private moment with even his closest bosom companion. He goes it alone on matters micturational and any expedition to the WC is therefore a solitary venture.

Notwithstanding this pioneer spirit, it is still vital that your compadres are kept fully informed of your movements. There is always the chance the unscrupulous round-buyer will attempt to lighten his fiscal outlay by claiming that he thought you had gone home. Thus you must tell your friends of your plans to visit the gents.

As with most male behaviours, there is a tiresome, blokeish procedure to follow. In this case, we shall refer to it simply as the "Pub Post-Pint Piss Progression". The five pees, if you will. Utter the relevant phrase to one of your dreadful mates as you depart for each "comfort break".

P1 - "I'm going for a piss"
P2 - "I'm going for a piss, out me cock"
P3 - "I'm going for a piss, out the end of me cock"
P4 - "I'm going for a massive piss, out the end of me cock"
P5 - "I'm going for a massive piss, out the end of me massive cock" (A little boastful, but we've all had a drink by this point)
P6 - There is no P6. What are you, some sort of lass or a heem? Eh?

Eh?

The five Ps. Learn them and stay safe.

Now, if you'll pardon the vulgarism, it's time for this gaucho to piss on the campfire and hit the trail.

Ins and Outs: September '08

2008-08-31T17:24:00.008+01:00

As unquenchable as the Olympic flame, as enduring as the Herpes simplex virus, we bid a warm welcome to an old huckleberry friend as the dearest of lifestyle solutions returns in a new revitalised, re-modelled guise with added zeitgeists!

Ladies and laddies, mammies and daddies, Ins and Outs am here!

Referring to one of your dreadful mates who has unwisely opted to appear in public wearing an item of camouflage gear or any quasi-military apparel, as "Dead Man's Shoes".

Despite all evidence to the contrary, believing deep down that most stress/depression/mental illness/all that could easily be remedied by a few pints and a good ride.

Knowing a good field for mushroom picking.

Arriving at work in a foul temper.

Andrea Dworkin. A tireless crusader against the evils of pornography, despite being the mutant progeny of a dwarf and a munchkin.

Positing a theorem that could revolutionise the way physicists understand the behaviour of leptons, then realising that it's shite.

Bandying around tiresome poker terms, despite having the merest knowledge of, and indeed interest in, the game.

Being a bit handy with a sand wedge.

Turning up to your grandfather's funeral wearing a balaclava and sunglasses.

Argentinians.

Replying to enquiries as to how you are with a cheerful "Box fresh. Pure box fresh."

Brendan Foster's oxters.

Being of the mind that a favourable critical re-appraisal of the work of Boney M is long overdue.

Having a rather intense conversation regarding the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder with a tattooed cove in a sleeveless Wolfsbane t-shirt while waiting for the dog-fighting to start.

A winsome octogenarian nostagically recalling to his extended family over Sunday dinner that "It was your grandmother's gargantuan tits that first attracted me to her, you know?"

A clip off the legs just in front of square for a comfortable three.

When being asked what the problem is by your Doctor, pull your best Jimmy Cagney face and in a strong New Yoik accent tell her "Lady......it's my Johnson."

Holding AND giving, but, crucially, doing it at the right time.

After a particularly facile or pointless query or remark from a companion, giving a weary sigh and saying "It's a worry". (For best results pronounce "worry" as though it rhymes with "quarry".)

Sitting out in the sun with a big old jolt of heroin surging round the body. First rate.

Out

Any numbskull suffering from possum/opossum confusion.

Andrei Arshavin's auntie's arsecress.

When visiting a sophisticated gentlemen's club, jokily refusing the girls' offers of a dance by saying "Sorry, I've got two left feet". Every Single Time. They love that.Brian Barwick's stupid fucking pudgy face.

Erwin Rommel's grandstanding tactics in WW II. There's no "push on to Arras" in "Team", you know?

Having a deep-seated fear of flying. Puff!

Men under fifty wearing "magnetic" copper bracelets. The pseudo-medical wristwear of the fool, my friend.

Sagely advising a friend to formalise their relationship with a female friend by urging him to "Hit it. Hit it like it owes you money".

Middle-aged ladies who have no qualms about giving a brother the full, unexpurgated inside skinny on the gyp they suffer with their feet in warm weather.

Amateur Mike Mechanics who know how cars work when all you really need is where the petrol & windscreen washer go. Those supermodels hanging out in the pits at Silverstone are banging the drivers mate, not the Kevin Websters topping up the brake fluid and adjusting the carb.

The hoi polloi in their Gio Goi.

Feather-brained acquaintances who find the concept of leaving a brother alone to enjoy his pint without having a camera in his face all too difficult to comprehend.

Coves riding a titchy fold-up cycle around the city, wearing the full cycling shorts and helmet caboodle.

Somehow convincing yourself that there is a long-standing tradition that if you see a dwarf, you should go up and rub their head for good luck. With disastrous consequences.

Longhairs.

Harridans and do-gooders getting all het up about Gary Glitters. Yes, yes, the unsavoury pictures and the vile crimes against innocent children, but "Leader of the Gang", eh? There's a tune you can hum.

Paying a visit to the ruins of Castle Acre Priory, near Swaffham. It's shite.

Horror movie enthusiasts. The film genre preference of the weirdo, the nonce and the online gamer.

Young shavers in the employ of a firm of funeral directors, attempting to spruce up their rather sedate work attire with the addition of a baseball cap emblazoned with the slogan "No Fat Chicks!"

Inebriated bar-room debates over the burning issue of who was better: Baltimora or Falco.

Scoop!

2008-06-16T23:00:00.002+01:00

June 2006: This august journal

"In

Any enterprising zookeeper who gambles on games on the basis of dressing two chimps in the colours of the competing teams and backing the teams whose chimp is first to fling its shit around."

June 2008: International Herald Tribune

"ANIMAL KNOCKOUT: It's all over for Germany — if you believe the animals at the zoo in the city of Chemnitz, Germany.
Baileys, a Goeldi's monkey, has picked host Austria to beat Germany in its final Group B match on Monday. That outcome would consign the former champions to their third straight first round exit.
The monkey chose between raisins representing Germany and Austria. Scientific it isn't, but Baileys' fellow zoo dwellers have a 2-0 record so far.
Leon the porcupine correctly picked a German win over Poland, while an Arctic fox forecast Thursday's loss to Croatia."

As the respected author, journalist and political analyst Richard Littlejohns would have it, "You couldn't make it up!"

Group D

2008-06-13T13:23:00.004+01:00

Group D

Greece
Russia
Spain
Sweden

The quiet one.

Greece

Surprise winners last time make a return to major competition, having missed out on qualification for the last World Cup. Lacking the element of surprise, having a difficult group and an ageing squad, it would appear that the odds are against the moussaka-munchers having to fork out for new crockery in 2008.

Five Famous Belgians

Alexander the Great - Ancient Greek king who was descended from a long line of top blokes. His father was Alexander the Skill, his grandfather, Alexander the Lush and his "great"-grandfather was, of course, Alexander the Fucking Gent. One of the good guys.

Plato - philosopher, mathematician and all-round brainbox from the olden days. Hung around with Socrates and Aristotle, coming up with doctrines and playing pool. Also invented the Platonic relationships, wherein a woman who doesn't want to have sex with you can borrow money off of you and generally moan about stuff. You can also watch "Friends" with her.

The Duke of Edinburgh - not a scotch, as the title implies, actually a consort/husband of the Queen of England, Elizabeth II:Electric Boogaloo. Has now been married to the boot-faced old sourpuss for over sixty years, so fair play to him for that, although there were rumours that he was banging bitches by the dozen back in the day behind our glorious monarch's back, possibly while she was out at the bingo. As well as his numerous charitable works, Phillip is best known for his small-minded, prejudiced bigotry with regard to people from other nations and his casual use of insulting epithets for those that cross his path.
(Thank you, Mr Pot - Glass-house Stone-throwing Ed).

Zeus - the king of the ancient Greek gods and therefore the best and most holy of their deities and the one that all Greek people want to be most like. Spent most of his time playing away from home, shagging young laddies and getting women pregnant. A notable progeny of such an affair was Perseus, whose mother, Danae, is said to have conceived after being visited by Zeus, who materialised as a shower of gold from a cloud. Brushing aside Danae's rather floral interpretation, it seems most likely that Zeus deposited his seed in the normal way then concluded the proceedings by hosing her down with his sticky golden god-piss. The dorty bastard.

Archimedes - another famous mathematician. They loved their hard sums, the Ancient Greeks. They must have had some great scores on "Countdown" in them days. Archimedes is best known for the store whereby he discovered the principle of displacement when he got into the bath and a load of water overflowed. He then ran naked through the streets shouting "Eureka!". What is less well-known is that his wife called him a "Fucking twat!" for ruining the bathroom carpet and a little old lady called him a "Pervert!" for running past her with his lad out.

Showreel Shorthand

Charisteas getting the winner in 2004, some coves smashing plates and that, John Travolta giving it laldy.

Russia

Fortuitous qualifiers after bottling it against Israel only to profit from Steve McClaren's brand of ginger uselessness. Their efforts will be hampered by the fact that their best player, Arshavin, is suspended for two games. Having played in numerous tournaments as the USSR, and English pundits constantly referring to them as "the Russians" it is good to see David Pleat now refers to the Russian team as "the Soviets", the muddle-headed old kerb-crawler.

Five Famous Belgians

Stalin - man of Steel and leader of the USSR during World War II. Played a key role in the military defeat of Hitler, then set about his work of killing jews with an even greater ruthlessness and efficacy. A bad egg.

Rasputin - mad monk and lover of the Russian Queen. Reportedly Russia's greatest love machine. Following an attempted assassination by poisoning, his enemies eventually shot him until he was dead. Which is the correct amount of shooting to do when killing somebody. Oh, those Russians...

Yuri Gagarin - cosmonaut, first man in space. Unlike the American space missions, Gagarin did not stop off at the moon for a game of golf and a picnic, he just flew around for a bit, possibly mooning out the rear window of the spaceship and flicking the Vs at Mars.

Boris Yeltsin - pisspot politician. Ousted the progressive, liberal Gorbachev by making him appear in front of the nation having just escaped from a military coup, still with drool hanging out the side of his mouth and wearing a scruffy old jumper with all egg down the front. Yeltsin took over the presidency of Russia and embarked on a twenty year drinking binge. The ongoing conflict with Chechnya reportedly started after a drunken Yeltsin appeared on Chechen TV and offered the whole nation outside, slurring "Come on then, you wankers, I'll tek the fucking lot of you". Another diplomatic row was sparked when, on visiting Buckingham Palace, an intoxicated Yeltsin requested that the Queen should "get her rat out", while making a suggestive "jiggy jiggy" gesture. In summary, vodka.

t.A.T.u. - teenage lesbian lust! Or rather not. Despite the heavy lesbian overtones in their pop smash "All the things she said" that caused moral panic and outrage among tabloid newspapers, the girls, Lena and Yulia, are not, in fact, in the lesbians. The group later finished third in the Eurovision Song Contest and also recorded an ace version of "How Soon is Now" by The Smiths.

Showreel Shorthand

Oleg Blokhin's square heed, That 4-3 game against Belgium, Van Basten's volley, tanks rolling past the Kremlin, Rooney's daft tackle on the plastic pitch.

Spain

Perennial achievers of the "perennial underachievers" tag. Can this be the year the paella-munchers finally cast off the tag of "perennial underachievers" and become "achievers"? Hmm, the jury is still out on that one. At least they have finally kicked Raul's arse to the kerb, the Real Madrid striker, while seeming a nice enough chap, never gave the impression that he was the man to cast off the... (Fuck off - Perennial Underachieving Ed)

Five Famous Belgians

Don Quixote - Fictional eponymous hero of Miguel Cervantes novel, this lovable old barmpot had the queer notion that he was a knight so bold from days of old and went off to save damsels and have adventures. In the days before "political correctness gone mad" it was generally considered a good thing to write novels where the mentally ill are mocked and bully-ragged for the entertainment of the public. Today we just have "Big Brother". Right, kids?

Phillip II of Spain - War-mongering King of Spain who got his nose bloodied and his arse kicked by Frannie Drake when he tried to start bother off the south coast of England with his so-called Armada (trans. rubbish navy). Our man Drake was busy playing a frame of bowls at his local alley when the news came that the Armada had been sighted in the vicinity. With "admiral" coolness, he finished his pint, completed his game, which included four strikes and three spares, changed out of his mod-father style bowling footwear and trotted off to give Johnny Foreigner a proper licking. A beaten man, Phillip slunk off to pick on someone his own size, starting a war with France.

Pablo Picasso - Twentieth Century painter and sculptor who, according to art historian Jonathan Richman, used to go down town and pick up girls without being called an asshole. However, british expert Adam Ant makes a more outlandish claim, namely that Picasso regularly visited the Planet of the Apes. Perhaps he used to pick up female chimps on his many visits to the fictional simian-ruled world. The dirty monkey-fucking porvort. Anyhoo, his "Guernica" was well regarded by those in the know, so hats off to the old boy.

Julio Iglesias - super-smooth crooning star and ladies man. A promising goalkeeper in his youth, the teenage Iglesias vied for a place in the same Real Madrid youth team as Pope John Paul II (see Poland). Eventually, a car crash and a three-year lay-off, convinced him that his future lay with the production of sickly-sweet, oleaginous love ballads and banging hot chicks rather than Association Football. A global heart-throb throughout the seventies and eighties, Iglesias is reputed to have slept with over three thousand women, as mentioned in his autobiography "I shagged over three thousand women, me! How you like them apples, Nastase, eh?"

Seve Ballesteros - golfing genius of the 1970s and 80s. First came to widespread attention when winning the 1979 British Open, with his trademark blend of wild driving and miraculous recovery shots. Always a favourite with crowds in Britain and Europe for his cavalier playing style, cheeky smile, the natty way he filled a Slazenger pullover and, most notably, the way he would regularly shit up the Yanks in the Ryder Cup. He stuck it right up them!

Showreel Shorthand

Arconada spilling the ball in 1984, Arconada spilling it against Norn Ireland in '82, Butragueno storing five against Denmark in '86, some dark horses.

Sweden

Will be in the unfamiliar position of attending a major tournament and not having a dull draw with England as part of their schedule. Sure to pose a threat to any defence with their strike partnership of mercurial Juventus goal-getter Ibrahamovic and ageless Old Firm legend Larsson. A little simple fun will no doubt be had by TVcameramen by picking out fresh-faced, pneumatic blondes in the crowd, possibly clad in tight yellow t-shirts, their firm scandinavian breasts jiggling prettily as they writhe in ecstasy, breathy words of nordic delight escaping their perfect ruby lips... Sorry, drifted off a bit there.

Five Famous Belgians

Abba - quintessential Scandinavian perfect pop quartet. Who can forget their Eurovision winning performance of "Waterloo", as they effortlessly combined a potted biography of M. Bonaparte with a whizz-bang pop sensibility and some hotpants. While we all have our favourite member of Abba, this correspondent was always a big fan of the blonde one. Giddy up, what? Benny, I think his name was.

Alfred Nobel - chemist, inventor and founder of high-falutin' awards ceremony. Having made an absolute fortune inventing dynamite and gelignite, our hero decides he wants a better legacy than as the brains behind some of the most dangerous explosives known to humanity. Leaves part of his vast fortune to setting up awards for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Literature and Peace. Initially quite a prestigious award, today's metrosexual society now ranks an NME Brats Award or a Heat Magazine "Minger of the Year" title as a more noteworthy accomplishment.

Jens Lekman - musician and godlike genius. Despite the similarity of his name to that of tousle-haired Germany and Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann, Lekman is in fact a singer-songwriter with no known feud with long-time rival Oliver Kahn. All nonsense aside, if you take one thing from this cornucopia of cock that you are reading, seek out and listen to the great man's music. He is skill.

Bjorn Borg - the Red Rum of tennis. Seemingly won Wimbledon every year in the late seventies and early eighties. Ok, he "only" won it five times. Had a laid-back, cool playing style that was in marked contrast to the fiery, temperamental game played by long-time rivals Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. Possibly this is down to his reserved, northern-european personality, maybe it's because he didn't do as much coke as them. Who can say? His autobiography "My Life and Game" sheds little light on the number of women he schtupped. Disappointing.

Sven Goran Eriksson - unpopular football manager. The former manager of England became increasingly unloved by the tabloid press and ill-informed football supporters for his disgraceful record of qualifying for every major tournament and usually getting to the quarter-final and his associated crime of being A Foreigner. Once a proud John Bull Englishman was appointed to the job, the national team went on to unparalleled success, qualifying from an easy group at a canter and entering Euro 2008 as firm favourites.
Hang on, that didn't happen! The Sun and The Mirror must have been wrong! Eriksson met with the same relatively success away from the pitch, bedding a bevy of borderline boilers such as fellow Swede Ulrika Jonsson, Faria Alam and long-standing blind-eye-turner Morticia Dallaglio.

Showreel Shorthand

Fatty Brolin lashing home in 1992, Pele and co. doing them 5-2 in '58, Ravelli's mad post-shootout face in 1994, two blondes jumping up and down in the crowd.

Johnny Two-Feathers' Verdict

This update has been delayed by Mr Two-Feathers recent hospitalisation for a "stress-related illness".

(makes drinky-drinky gesture).

Johnny wishes to place on record his thanks to his family and friends and also the staff at Um Priory Medicine Lodge.

Um journey of many steps can only begin once a brave admits there is um problem. With this in mind, Johnny sees Spain as nation on path to recovery. For too long reliant on um crutch that was Raul, the Spanish can now forge um new trail with Torres and Villa up front. As for rest of group, rattlesnake does not return to bite squatting squaw twice on same spot. Greece will do fuck all. With regard to Sweden or Russia, they will both no doubt be some dull old prairie-shit.

Have you got any fire-water on you? Johnny Two-Feathers is how you say, gasping for um shot of the good stuff. I can give you land if you want it, or um share in um Casino that is coining it in? Come on, paleface, do not hold out on a brave, I'm jonesing here, capiche?

Ah, that is hitting um spot! Spain and Russia to go through. Now get off my reservation!

Ins and Outs: June '08

2008-06-08T13:15:00.003+01:00

Hola, muchachos!

As you are no doubt painfully aware, the Euro 2008 Futbol Gala Tournament has pulled up to our collective bumper, with it's euro-house "dance" music pumping from its stereo and a whiff of garlic in its wake.

What better way to maintain a stolid British isolationist stance than a hardline reactionary manifesto handed down by a cabal of bloodstained refuseniks, nationalists and bunco-steerers, or The Ins and Outs Committee, to give them their correct title.

Stick this up your junta, Monsieur Delors, you can straighten our bananas when you pry them from our cold, dead hands.

Ins and Outs am here!

In

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej. A fan of Hardcore Rap, he always includes respect to
Dr Dre in his State Address to Parliament.
On being asked to do the slightest bit thing, replying "No way. Jose!" in a vehement Rab C Nesbitt style accent.
Donning your best suit and shiniest shoes to attend the "black parade".
Grinning vacantly at people and informing them, a propos nothing, "Ah'm just doing my own dang!"
Taking risks by cooking and eating chicken meat long past its sell-by date. Sometimes you've got to live on the edge.
Turning up late then claiming to have been "sitting in the back seat, kissing and a-hugging with Fred"
Anything that has been remixed by Van She.
In a Gorbals four-ale bar, loudly asking the barman "Here, mate? Do Scotch transvestites wear trouser suits then, or what?"
Leopard-skin dungarees. This season's must-have item.
Making a silent vow to oneself to use more tarragon in the kitchen.
Laying the blame, not on the sunshine or good times, not even the boogie, but squarely at the door of the Special Brew.
Using the Beano cartoon "Little Plum" as your primary source of reference on the cultural mores of the Native American tribes.
Pitching up at antenatal classes while not being pregnant, just because you like the music and doing breathing exercises.
Affecting the mode of dress of a 1950s birdwatcher; shorts, hiking boots and field-glasses akimbo.
Getting into an unseemly brawl with the pizza delivery man over which was better, "Falcon Crest" or "Dynasty".
Embarking on a spiritual quest, a voyage of discovery, if you will, wandering alone in the desert, taking psychoactive mushrooms and that, then returning home thinking that you really fancy getting a Daihatsu Sirion.
Avoiding deranged females like the plague.
Amusingly referring to to Cock-a-leekie soup as "Leaky Cock soup". Sophisticated!
Shots that hit the bar.
Claiming to be able to dismantle and re-assemble an SA-80 Assault Rifle in under a minute when, in fact, you wouldn't even have a clue how to switch one on.

Out

Bhutan's King Ugyen Wanschuck. The mofo digs Mariah Carey!
Sporting a short sleeve shirt/tie combo. The office attire of the fool.
Ersatz blob machine erectile dysfunction solutions. "Golden Root" my oxter!
The Mississippi Delta. Fucking shit.
Breezily excusing any workplace underperformance by explaining that you have been "hittin' it from behind" all night.
Dancing with tears in your eyes. You'll look a prize chump.
Alway making specific reference to the fact that your pork chop or chicken breast was prepared using a George Foreman grill, like this makes the least bit fucking difference.
Drafting a job advertisement for a senior management post stating that the ideal candidate will be "a lady in the street but a freak in the bed". It's not the 1980s, fellers.
Woefully short approach putts from just off the green.
Tipping your head right back and desperately chugging on your can of soft drink to get the last few drops from it. Have a bit of dignity, there's a good chap.
Wolf Blass wine. Regardless of quality, he sounds like a war criminal or a wrestler, not a vintner.
The tendency among sufferers of colitis to believe that people want in-depth accounts of the symptoms and treatments associated with this unfortunate condition.
Proudly informing people that you have every episode of "The Prisoner" on DVD as though this makes you a notable collector in the same league as Nelson A Rockefellers.
Getting over-excited about the dressing gowns when staying at an hotel.
Telling anyone who will listen that you don't believe in office romances, when they all know you work in a slaughterhouse.
Gleeful tabloid reporting of prison-based nonce-bashing.
Any local band type musician wearing a waistcoat.
Fuel protesters.
Buttonholing a brother in the pub and vapouring on about some Facebook group of which you're a member. F that S, F it in the ass!
The Parable of the Talents. One of the disciples should have telt him. "Jesus, I'm loving your work, bro, but that's a shit parable, my friend."

Group C

2008-06-05T22:52:00.004+01:00

Group C

France
Italy
Netherlands
Romania

Die gruppe des todes!

France

Frenchmen! In shorts! A terrifying prospect, I'm sure you will agree. With his onion breath and wandering hands, Jean-Pierre Frenchman is a fearsome foe. Boasting a galaxy of stars such as Thierry Henry, Franck Ribery and Lilian Thuram, the gallic masters would be among the favourites to claim the title, were it not for the Group Of DEATH! factor. It is far from overstating the case to suggest that the three best teams in the competition are to be found in group C. Add to this the fact that England will not be in attendance and only then can one fully comprehend the folly in allowing not one, but two, nations of mountain-dwelling, feather-hat wearing, Nazi-collaborating, cake-for-breakfast munching nations of footballing dunderheads to host the tournament.

Five Famous Belgians

Serge Gainsbourg - frog-faced, pint-sized pervert of pop. Despite having the appearance of something that should be sporting among the lilypads, mateyboy managed to "collaborate" (schtupp) many of the world's most beautiful and desirable women throughout the sixties and seventies, all the while getting them to sing his innuendo-laden pop ditties about oral sex, incest, puppy-squeezing and hitting it from behind. He was quite a guy!

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - another sawn-off porvort. A nineteenth century artist cove, Mother Nature had not smiled on our Henri. The top half of his body was normal-sized, his legs were teeny-tiny and apparently he had a huge schlong. Actually, put like that, it doesn't sound too bad a deal. Anyhoo, the Wee Man, as Ally McCoist would no doubt have referred to him, spent most of his working life painting the portraits of prossies in Montmartre, then getting drunk and shagging them of a night time.

Napoleon Bonaparte - another great Frenchman who was diminuitive in stature. As one of the last people to find out that it was raining, Bonaparte made up his short-arsedness by ruthlessly acquiring power, eventually winding up as Emperor of France. Much like England's Steve McClaren, a disastrous campaign in Russia sowed the seeds of his destruction. However, it is unlikely that the Battle of Borodino took place on a plastic pitch, soaked to saturation point by a frankly crooked groundsman.

Antoine de Caunes - suave, leering television presenter. Hosted Channel 4's flagship european cultural show "Eurotrash" on British TV. This most important of late 20th century programmes was instrumental in giving British audiences exposure to the brightest and best in continental arts and media. Especially that blonde lass who died because her tits were so big.

Pepe le Pew - fictional animated amorous skunk. A frustrated lover, his unfortunate aroma constantly thwarted his attempted romantic liaisons, which for some reason were usually with black cats who'd had an imbroglio with some white paint. Some critics would have it that this american cartoon unfairly depicted the french, all of them, as malodorous, incorrigible sex pests. A completely untrue national stereotype which our comprehensive sample here has shown to be utterly without foundation.

Showreel Shorthand

Battiston getting his head taken off, Platini doing the biz in '84, Deschamps getting the cup in 1998, Zidane howking his guts up before beating England from the spot, Zizou sticking the nut on Materazzi.

Italy

The World Champions will be looking forward to playing France again, having faced them in the final in Germany 2006, they were drawn against them in qualifying for this tournament, before meeting up again in the tournament proper. Italy have been rocked by the last-minute injury of inspirational defender Fabio Cannavaro, but will probably kick and scrape their way through to the final like they normally do.

Five Famous Belgians

Benito Mussolini - baldy-heided fascist Italian premier and one of the leaders of the World War II Axis Powers, where he was known as The Shit One. As if being a fascist wasn't bad enough, he was also a known railway enthusiast. Fittingly, he was executed outside a petrol station. Watch your back, Gordon Browns!

Leonardo da Vinci - quite simply, an absolute genius. As an artist, he painted the most famous picture, like, ever: La Gioconda (or The Mona Lisa as you plebs probably call it). In addition to his painting, he was also a scientist, engineer, sculptor, mathematician and anatomist. He must have been beating the ladies off with a shitty stick, yes? Well no, actually. He was in fact a gay man. Conclusive proof therefore, that all gays are better and cleverer than straight people. A bit of a turn up for the books, eh? Still, you live and you learn, what?

Michelangelo - another renaissance man, a contemporary and rival to da Vinci. His most famous works include the statue "David", who is clearly no Toulouse-Lautrec when it comes to filling a pair of Y-fronts, if you catch my drift, and the painting job he did on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. A bit overly-ornate, if you ask me, what's wrong with a simple white emulsion, eh? Another gay, of course. Not for him the distractions of going down the hippodrome to watch the Polish Dance, he was too busy getting some fit young twink to sit for him while he got that sculpture just right. Fair play to him.

Gino Ginelli - another creative genius was 1980s fictional ice cream designer Gino Ginelli. His groundbreaking, delicious flavours included Mint Chocky-Cheep, Toffee-Foodgee and Tutti Frutti What a Cutie. Marvellous stuff and a bit of Peter Kay style nostalgia-as-comedy-replacement for the slackjaws among you. Italian verve indeed!

Michael Corleone - fictional war hero turned gangland overlord. Took over the family bidness after concluding a meeting with trade rival Sillozzo by placing a bullet through his skull, then offing his bent pig mate. His wife was a bit of a pain in the arse, mind.

Showreel Shorthand

Kicking lumps out the Koreans in 1966, getting a shoe-ing off of Brazil in 1970, Paolo Rossi's hat-trick and Tardelli's mad face in 1982, Baggio's poor penalty in 1994, Materazzi discussing Zidane's family in 2006.

Netherlands

Pornography, prostitution, drugs, pint after golden pint of beautiful lager. That's the type of thing that a down-market, gutter weblog may witter on about when mentioning the Netherlands, but not this clean-living bachelor boy. Oh no. Moving on to the Dutch football team, Marco van Basten seems to have forged a decent enough team spirit among what is traditionally the bitchiest collection of back-biting, preening, self-regarding egomaniacs outside the cast of "Sex in the City", eh ladies? PS I know it's "Sex and the City". The loss of Ryan Babel may prove a loss to the Hollandaise, but there are still bags of goals in their side and if Arjen Robben can re-discover his best form they could potentially do very well.

Five Famous Belgians

Vincent Van Gogh - prominent 19th century artist who love colour and who let it show. His artistic prowess was all the more remarkable given the fact that he was blind, having cut off one of his eyes one night while hepped up on absinthe following a tiff with his lass.

MC Miker G and DJ Sven - genius 1980s songwriting and performing duo who shot to fame with their seminal hip hop pop classic "Holiday Rap" wherein they informed us of their impending travel plans, stating their intent to "ring-rang-a-dong for a holiday". Forget your MC Hammers and your Vanilla Icecubes, this is the true voice of the ghetto.

William III of England - not actually English. A dutch fellow, formerly known as Prince of Orange, he won the English, Scottish and Irish crowns and is surprisingly popular with certain elements in the latter two countries, where coves dressed as Be-Ro men wear orange sashes in his honour and parade past Catholic people, playing flute music. Unorthodox.

Raymond van Barneveld - the greatest ever sportsman to come from the Netherlands. A world champion darts player in both of the beautiful game's competing tournaments, "Barney" as his army of adoring fans know him, has been the only player to consistently challenge the unrivalled dominance of the world's number one, Phil "the Power" Taylor, an Englishman.

Van der Valk - tousle-haired fictional TV detective. The series of the same name is fondly remembered for its stirring, evocative theme tune. After which, most people turned off after about ten minutes because it was so bliddy boring.

Showreel Shorthand

Johann Cruyff, turns akimbo, litter on the pitch in Argentina '78, Van Basten thumping that volley in Euro '88, Koeman dinking it past Seaman, Shearer, Gazza, Sheringham et al showing them how to play in '96, various penalty shootout disasters, a training ground bust-up.

Romania

Gypsies, vampires, orphans. That's Romania. Despite being widely written off as makeweights in the Gruppo del Morte, it is worth remembering that Romania topped their qualifying group ahead of the Netherlands. Although, it would be understandable were one not to remember that. I just found it out by cribbing from the BBC's guide to Euro 2008. Fuck it, they aren't going to qualify, are they?

Five Famous Belgians

Count Dracula - vampire. Fictional, but where there's smoke, there's fire, no? Unless you count dry ice machines. Which were invented after the smoke/fire cliche was coined. Anyhoo, this Count Dracula, who did exist, used to spend his evenings sucking on the neck of young women, dressed mainly in black, didn't like sunshine and stayed indoors all day. Possibly a fore-runner of today's "Emo" kids, right Daily Mail readers?

Nicolae Ceauşescu - former Communist leader of the country and all-round bad egg. Executed by a firing squad following a popular revolt as communism was collapsing all over Eastern Europe. George Bush (the first one) liked him though, so there you are.

Elena Ceauşescu - wife of Nicolae and even more of a knacker than him. Lived in a palace and owned over 20,000 pairs of shoes and got her husband to give her a phoney-baloney government job, which she did badly. Supposedly cheated in her exams and faked her qualifications, like a communist harridan version of Jeffrey Archer. Not a big hit with John Q. Average-Romanian.

Nadia Comăneci - teenage gymnast of the 1970s and 80s. As Everybody knows, the so-called sport of gymnastics is actually a front for paedophiles to get together and exchange pictures and films while peering intently at some waiflike 12 year old lassie doing the splits in a see-through leotard. That said, our Nadia was ruddy marvellous in this most noble of sports, achieving the first perfect 10 score ever recorded during the Montreal Olympics in 1976.

Ilie Nastase - archetypal 70s tennis professional. Won 88 tennis titles but is probably better known for his claim that he had shagged over 2,500 women. This claim was made in his 2005 autobiography "Ilie Nastase: I've shagged over 2,500 women, me. No hoonds, either."

Showreel Shorthand

Gheorghe Hagi pinging them in at USA '94, Phil Neville dropping a bollock in Euro
2000, some bats.

Johnny Two-Feathers' Verdict

Um group of death. Heap bad medicine. Bad medicine is what I need. Spent last night on fire-water, got um splitting headache like um scalped paleface. Not really arsed about football. Will plump for Italy and France. Fuck King Billy. Ooh, um bastern heed is nipping. Do you have um Resolve, paleface?

Group B

2008-06-02T21:42:00.003+01:00

Group B

Austria
Croatia
Germany
Poland

Don't mention the war!

Austria

The second of the host nations has an even weaker team than Switzerland. An assortment of mulleted no-marks that are so clueless there were petitions in favour of withdrawing from the tournament rather than showing themselves up in front of Europe.

Five Famous Belgians

Adolf Hitler - mono-bollocked Nazi war-mongerer and reportedly a touch anti-semitic. Not much cop as a painter either.

Josef Fritzel - another wrong 'un. Imprisoned his daughter for over twenty years, raping her and fathering seven children with her. After her escape, claimed he had planned on releasing her soon as he no longer fancied her. That's alright, then.

Rosemarie Fritzel - wife of Josef and either an inhuman monster compliant with the crimes of her husband, or Europe's Daftest Cunt. Trips to Asda must have been a strange affair; "Josef, why are you buying all of these rusks for?" "Erm, I have been smoking joints late and I get the munchies, you know? A ha ha!" "Oh, ja, that makes sense when you explain it like that."

Falco - eighties pop star who scored a worldwide hit with his 1986 smash hit "Rock me Amadeus". Died in 1998 after being hit by a bus. It's not known if he was a heavy smoker or not.

Kurt Waldheim - distinguished Austrian diplomat and politican who served as President from 1986 to 1992. It probably comes as no surprise to learn that he served as a Nazi officer during the Second World War. Honestly, what are this lot like?

Showreel Shorthand

Disgruntled Algerians annoyed by the "Anschluss" World Cup '82 fixture against West Germany, Hans Krankl doing something or other, that cove in the Benny hat from The Faeroe Islands, footage of "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound of Music.

Croatia
Fresh from ruining the summer for English lager enthusiasts and vendors of England-related tat, Slaven Bilic's gingham army make the short trip to Austria with their best side since the 1998 World Cup semi-finalists.

Five Famous Belgians

Goran Ivanisevic - beanpole mentalist tennis player. Good serve on him

Arkan - Some say warlord, others say war criminal. Either way, he killed a lot of chaps.

Monica Seles - grunting, stab-victim female tennis player.

Gavrilo Princip - political activist and hothead. Started World War I by assassinating Franz Ferdinand. If only somebody would shoot fucking Coldplay!

Tito - Communist President of Yugoslavia for about fifty years or something. One of the few Croatians to oppose the Nazis during WWII and, more importantly, kept the Yugoslavian nation together, thus giving the UK a sporting chance in the Eurovision Song Contest without all these moon-man countries voting for each other's rotten songs. Really, who can tell one of these countries from the other? Not me!

Showreel Shorthand
Bilic getting sent off versus France, Paul Robinson letting it bobble over his foot, Scott Carson letting it slip under his body, an ethnic cleansing.

Germany

What to say about Germany without descending into hackneyed cliches and national stereotypes? You can never write them off, as they play with ruthless efficiency while looking determined and well-organised. Towels on sun loungers, bombed chip shops et cetera, et cetera. Basically, after a creditable performance at World Cup 2006, they'll almost certainly get to the semi-finals here and could very well win the tournament.

Five Famous Belgians

Oskar Schindler - businessman and Dudley Do-right, saved a bunch of Jews in WWII by building a massive wooden boat or something. I didn't watch the film. A 1993 film I did see, however, is Body of Evidence. It's great, you see Madonna's tits, bum, fanny, the lot. Recommended!

Ludwig van Beethoven - possibly the greatest composer of classical music, like, ever. All the more remarkable given the fact that he was deaf, having cut off his ear when pissed up on absinthe after his lass chucked him.

Michael Schenker - hard rock guitarist, regarded by most as the natural successor to Beethoven. Has thrilled millions of rock fans across the globe with his balls-out brand of widdly-widdly guitar based rock. Rock!

Nico - glacially beatiful model and part-time singer with the Velvet Underground. Probably slept with more musicians than she had hot dinners. Having sampled the creative hothouse environment of Warhol's Factory, what could be a more fitting destination than a bedsit in Salford, shacked up with John Cooper Clarke, taking loads of smack? Died in Ibiza after falling off her bike.

Martin Luther - olden days churchy-type, famous for inventing the Protestant religion and encouraging people to burn down the homes of Jews. His most notable speech contained the oft-repeated "I have a dream" quotation, said dream consisting of a version of christianity with none of that shit about divorce and celibacy for priests, and the smell of burning synagogues on the morning breeze.

Showreel Shorthand

Geoff Hurst lashing home the fourth goal, Gerd Muller and his stumpy legs, Andy Moeller looking cunty after winning the penalties in '96, Lothar Matthaus looking strident in '90

Poland

Poles! They're everywhere these days, aren't they? Whether they're working damn hard on our building sites, administer sordid, dispassionate handjobs in squalid backstreet massage parlours, appearing in jokes by deceased funnyman Rodney Dangerfield or selling overpriced, fatty meat products on our high streets, you can't move without bumping into our Polack cousins. But what of their footballers? Well, despite being depleted by Germany nicking all their best players, they have qualified for their second consecutive major tournament. British observers may be most familiar with hun-baiting "Holy Goalie" Artur Boruc, infamous for crossing himself in a provocative manner in front of Rangers supporters and sporting a t-shirt with the slogan "Archbishop Rowan Williams can suck my fat cock".

Five Famous Belgians

Pope John Paul II - The original holy goalie, the former pontiff was a teenage apprentice at Real Madrid, before abandoning the game to try his hand at saving souls, not goals. Reportedly very good at handling crosses etc etc...

Lech Walesa - former trade union leader turned politician. His Solidarity union was a major thorn in the side of Poland's communist government, with their demands for legalised trade unions, greater social freedoms, free elections and longer tea breaks and soft toilet paper for shipyard workers. Was the custodian of one of Eastern Europe's finest moustaches, a luxuriant walrus-type effort.

Nicolaus Copernicus - astronomer from the 1400s who first scientifically showed that the sun is the centre of the solar system, not the earth, like the fools in the Church thought. A clever cove. Coincidentally, an answer on the quiz machine in the pub the other night, hence his inclusion here.

Marie Curie - double Nobel Prize winning scientist, famed for discovering two elements, polonium and radium, although it is probable that her husband Pierre Curie did most of the actual work, with Marie most likely limited to making cups of tea and writing down measurements on a clipboard. As well as her scientific achievements, Curie was a renowned slag, sleeping with married men and generally putting it about like a tupenny whore.

Ray Manzarek - keyboard wizard of Polish descent, Manzarek's tinklings are the sole saving grace of indulgent, overblown LA rock bores The Doors. Manzarek also managed to keep his cock in his pants while onstage, unlike the band's long-haired scruffy herbert frontman Jim Morrison.

Showreel Shorthand

Jan Tomaszewski keeping England at bay in '73, Lineker sticking a hat-trick past them in '86, Hitler invading in '39.

Johnny Two-Feathers' Verdict

Um heap tight group. Much history between rival tribes. Bad medicine ahoy. At end of um day, heap foolishness to write off Germans. Proud braves have they. Croatia may just have too much in um locker for Poland. Austria will stink up um tournament like buffalo shit on um moccasin.

Kemo Sabe!

Euro 2008

2008-05-31T18:19:00.006+01:00

Good greeting tides, sports fans.

As I'm sure you're all aware, the summer's sporting highlight is but days away. That's right, sixteen of Europe's finest footballing nations will come together in the soccer hotbeds of Switzerland and Austria (me neither) to compete for the UEFA European Championship 2008.

Normally, the world's favourite team England would be red-hot favourites to take home the trophy to put alongside their vast collection of World Cup. However, due to a combination of plastic pitches, UEFA skullduggery, brolly-wielding shitehawks and players from Aston Villa, the dearest of national sides will not be competing this time.

Fortunately, from a street-cleaning perspective, the Scotch army of red-headed incontinents won't be making the journey either.

This leaves, you, the hapless, parochial unsophisticate in the ways of the continental game, scratching your head, gaping maw a-dribbling, wondering "Who the blinking flip are aal these foreigners, eh? I've never heard of any of them, me"

Well calm your tears, my young fool. I am here to walk you through the whole process and explain it to you so even you can grasp it.

To assist me in this task, I have enlisted the assistance of my trusty Native American spirit guide Johnny Two Feathers.

"How"

With the mystical powers and traditional wisdom of the elders of his tribe and a fluent knowledge of the game picked up through a life-long subscription to "Shoot" magazine, our red-skinned chum will bring insights from across the Atlantic.

Pre-amble aside, let's get down and get with it, by looking first, as is traditional, at Group A.

Group A

2008-05-31T18:00:00.002+01:00

The A-Team(s)

Group A

Czech Republic
Portugal
Switzerland
Turkey

Czech Republic

One-time inheritors of Spain's eternal "dark horse" mantle, an ageing side seems to have missed its best chance of glory. Again likely to go with the tried and trusted strike partnership of nine-foot bald giant Jan Koller and five-foot beaver-faced simpleton and Dave Hill lookalike Milan Baros.

Five famous Belgians: (A small cultural snapshot of eminent countrymen of the brave boys)

Thomas Skurahvy - gangling centre-forward and inventor of the mullet.
Vaclav Havel - so-so playright turned eminent velvet revolution politico.
Jarmila Kratotchvilova - bewildering manbird steroid-rumour athlete
Franza Kafka - half-author, half-cockroach
Eva Herzigova - massive-knockered Wonderbra model. Giddy up!

Showreel Shorthand (spotters guide to the clips they show on telly ALL THE BLIDDY TIME)

Panenka's chip penalty, Poborsky's chip in Euro '96

Portugal

The fortuitous two-time spot-kick conquerors of England will be looking to win the tournament this time around, led by their main man and hottest property in football, Cristiano Ronaldo. Loathe him or despise him, you can't deny that the winking, twinkling, greasy-mopped wide-man is playing out of his skin at the moment. Dame Fortune also seems to be smiling on him, as he got away with a shocking shootout miss in the recent Champions League final thanks to the slapstick stylings of John "JT" Terry. The spawny cunt.

Five famous Belgians:

Baruch Spinoza - pointy-heided philosopher and ethicist
Tony Ferrino - singing sensation and ladies man
Eusebio - stumpy footballer of African origin
Ferdinand Magellan - olden days explorer, think Ellen MacArthur with more mates
Teresa Heinz Kerry - tidy wife of horse-faced US Presidential loser.

Showreel Shorthand

Eusebio banging them in against the Koreans, Butch Wilkins and all that at WC '82, Carvalho and Rooney baal-stamping, Ronaldo winking v England, crying like an iddy-biddy girl v France.

Switzerland

Co-hosts Switzerland will be hoping against hope to avoid embarrassing themselves and praying that they can scrape through their fairly easy qualifying group. Watch out for dodgy penalties and opposition sendings off galore as UEFA attempt to ensure that Swiss faces remain egg-free. The dull Swiss have NO players of note and frankly, are taking up a precious finals place that could much better be filled by a team with a richer footballing tradition, such as England, to choose an example entirely at random.

Five famous Belgians: Erm, hang on... just off to Wikipedia.

Right ye are, here we go.

Le Corbusier - Nazi collaborating architect
Sepp Blatter - football visionary and stranger to any form of corruption
Roger Federerer - useful tennis player and owner of whitest blazer since Alec Guinness
Theodor Tobler - triangular chocolate pioneer, inventor of unpopular airport staple "Toblerone" bars
Jean-Pierre Nazigold - prominent wartime financier.

Showreel Shorthand

Drawing 1-1 with England at Euro '96, Tits McCoist scoring a pointless effort, kung-fu fighting with Turkey in a play-off.

Turkey

From across the Bosporus come the Turks, former international whipping boys come good, and ready to kick lumps out of anything that moves or ping the ball around like a Happy Shopper Brazil, depending on how the mood takes them. Much will depend on the form of pint-sized Newcastle United schemer Emre, a player who embodies the schizophrenic nature of his nation's side. Hopefully, their clash with the Swiss should see a decent tear-up if nothing else.

Five famous Belgians: Bloody hell, even thinner gruel here.

Croesus - moneybags monarch from back in the BC era
Ali Osman - fictional prossie-banging cafe owner in Eastenders
The Barbarossa Brothers - naval commanders cum musical hall act
Erkan Mustafa - child actor who played fictional overweight schoolboy, Ro-Land off of "Grange Hill"
Jean-Pierre Turkishdelight - jelly-filled chocolate pioneer, inventor of erm, "Turkish Delight".

Showreel Shorthand

England "stuffing" them 8-0 back in the day, getting to semi-final in WC 2002, kung-fu fighting vs Switzerland.

Johnny Two-Feathers' Verdict

The weakest of um groups. Switzerland, hoarder of the white man's gold, have much bad medicine to atone for and qualifying may prove heap big ask. Czech Republic grow long in tooth and have many old braves, happy hunting ground is next stop for them. Portugal and Turkey to progress to um quarter-finals.

Peace.

Ins and Outs: May '08

2008-05-10T12:28:00.002+01:00

Come ye pleasure seekers, new seekers, Mr Majeikas, Flame Trees of Thikas, gather round and listen up good.

The Ins and Outs Committee are fresh back from a bracing holiday in Skegpool-by-the-bye and have a bulging case of soiled wisdom and crumpled insight to bung into your whirling twin-tubs.

If you wish to know your Kire te Kanawa from your Louis Donowa, what's skill and what's trill, who rocks da bells and whose cock it smells, then follow your nose this-a-way, cos those sunburned, candy floss-chomping Ins and Outs am here!

In

When having to make introductions, always always introducing the person in question as "my brother Tom Hagen".
Having a nice roast dinner on a Sunday, the leftover meat cold with pickles on Monday and shoving any remaining roast potatoes up your arse on a Tuesday.
Going up to every fat lass one encounters and asking when the baby's due and isn't being pregnant awful in this heat?
Referring to anybody with the merest hint of a long face or an unhappy countenance as Cheerful Charlie Chester.
Nodding along appreciatively to the music of Leonard Cohen, all the while musing "I bet he got a lot of fanny back in the day".
Visiting Blackpool and eschewing the titty bars and rollercoasters for an afternoon of wurlitzer music with a load of biddies. Marvellous.
Any girl with 9/10 pants and a very big bra.
At the first sign of any tiresome conversation tending to drift towards confectionery of the past or children's TV in days of yore, rising swiftly to one's feet, telling those present "Fuck 'Spangles', fuck 'Chorlton and the Wheelies' and fuck you!" before leaving in a marked manner.
The euro dance musical stylings of Kraak and Smaak. Sikk beatz!
Visiting a local hardware store and attempting to purchase Elbow Grease.
Getting your hands on a pair of Red or Dead Lolitas for a song. A song, I tell you!
Agonising for ages over whether to buy a t-shirt with the legend "Body of a God - Shame it's Buddha!!!1!", before concluding that it would indeed be a sin to miss out on such a mirthsome garment.
Hitting the pin.
Lesbians. Fair play to them.
Drinking cut-price Cheeky Vimto in a social clubs and bellowing along drunkenly to Petula Clark's "Downtown".
The flügelhorn. Brass at its best.
Due to workplace relocations, no longer having one's eye caught by numerous photographs of a colleague's frightful children.
As a would-be humorous story concludes in stony silence, solicitously patting the failed raconteur on the shoulder and encouraging them to take a good swig of beer.
Serving your guests mixers created in the Soda Stream machine rather than their expensive brand name counterparts. They'll never know the difference!
Round-heeled ladies excusing an uncharacteristic lowering of their standards with the words "There was no-one else out and I had shaved my legs"

Out

Omnibus journeys in the company of the lower orders that resemble "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with wardrobe by Lonsdale.
Female co-workers who constantly have the air of being about to launch into a story about something darling that their cat did.
Any grown-up eating Haribo sweets. You fucking knacker.
Screaming "Hit it, wind! Hit it, wind!" on a perfectly calm day, as an overhit 9 iron flies over the green.
Constantly folding and twirling your hands like you're a fucking Bond villain revealing your heinous schemes.
Interminable discussions regarding exactly how many free minutes and text you receive per month and the fiscal requirements for said service.
Constructing an improvised warm weather back-scratching device with the aid of several drinking straws and a plastic chip fork.
Preparing snacks to be enjoyed later while watching some eagerly awaited television programme.
Portly schoolchildren noisily eating crisps on the bus to school.
Sending an alcohol-fuelled SMS, offering a female acquaintance the opportunity to have her "pastie smashed off". This approach is not exactly one from the Fitzwilliam Darcy playbook.
At the opticians, asking the assistant if these frames make you look "like a paedo. 'Cos I'm not one, right!"
Stopping in of a friday night playing low quality word games on Facebook. Mother, the warm bath and razorblades!
Trying to "big up" welsh chanteuse Duffy as the second coming of Dusty Springfield when she clearly sounds more like Lulu.
Austrians. Rum coves, that's all I'm saying.
Breaking out the vest tops and short trousers at the first sign of the sun getting its hat on.
Anybody under forty who is member of the National Trust or who enjoys visiting old churches. Personally, I would be informing the compilers of the Sex Offenders Register.
The fact that, due to Political Correctness, you can't even refer to "Political Correctness Gone Mad" these days. You have to refer to this very real state of affairs as "Political Correctness with Mental Health Issues".
Asking the server at a down-at-heel pizza shop if you can get a 14" Mexican Meat Feast Special, but with pimento chillis rather than bell peppers.
Bullfinches. Fat-faced fucks.
Pronouncing the tasty foodstuff "tongue" as "tong", like some sort of 1960s kitchen sink drama Lancastrian.

Hats off to Jando for her words of encouragement and, more importantly, contribution towards this months bunfest. Peace!

Radio Head

2008-04-24T19:10:00.001+01:00

Now, I'm sure you have trenchant opinions regarding people who constantly plug their tiresome radio programmes, rightly regarding them as a blight and a menace.

Indulge me if you will for the following snippet, some say excerpt from the other week. Picture the scene: We are approaching the end of a harum-scarum two hours of high octane beat pop and top-notch small talk. However, if we eschew the news broadcast we can still squeeze in one more eight-minute guitar instrumental.

Why not simply precis the latest headlines and plough on with the strumming and drumming fun?

Because of the modern tendency towards flippancy, that's a why. The result, some distasteful "joke funnies" and one chap almost having a seizure.

Be careful out there, folks

Radio Therapy

2008-04-10T23:19:00.002+01:00

Alreet, big feet?

The latest installment in the continuing saga of the Unknown Pleasures chronicles am here!

http://www.humyo.com/F/1246043-131842615

Le Menu

Handsome Boy Modelling School - Rock 'n' Roll Could Never Hip Hop Like This
Fridge - Comets
Flowered Up - It's On
The Fiery Furnaces - Egyptian Grammar
Boris - Woman On The Screen
We Are The Physics - You Can Do Athletics
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Face Like Summer
The Unit Ama - Plastic Bertrand
Wubble-U - Petal
The Albany - So Long/Too Long
Oneida - The Adversary
Jens Lekman - Julie
Stephen Fretwell - William Shatner's Dog
Lambchop - New Cobweb Summer
SL2 - On A Ragga Tip
Kling Klang - Heavydale
Death in Vegas - Aisha
The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You
The Smiths - I Want The One I Can't Have
British Sea Power - Canvey Island
DJ Funk - There's some hoes in this house
Bright Eyes - Weather Reports
The Ramones - Judy's A Punk

All told, some fractured opinions on life and the universe and a rather spicy mix to this week's musical smorgasbord.

Have fun with it!

Ins and Outs: April '08

2008-04-09T18:54:00.002+01:00

Phew, what a scorcher, eh? How 'bout this heat?

If there's one thing, I say one thing, that can take one's mind off the infernal hot weather we're enduring in this warmed globey spring, it's the rundown that makes Heston put his gun down and sorts the Ben Hur from the Ben Dir and the Planet of the Apes from the Planet of the Chimp's Cock.

Fresh from the cold, dead hands of the Committee, Ins and Outs am here!!!

In

Idling your way round the stalls at the WI sale and discovering a jar labelled 'Betty's Motherfucking Damson jam.'
Watching old VHS recordings of Robot Wars to get you in the mood for a night out. "Come on, Hypnodisc!".
Almost going to a beer festival.
Having hoes in different area codes, with the exception of 01302. Not for nothing but thems is mooses in Doncaster.
In pubs, axing trendy young things whether they prefer "Midsomer Murders" to "My Family", and offering to fight them whatever the answer.
The Pleistocene epoch. It was skill.
Hittin' it, then quittin' it.
Finally kicking Alan Smith's sorry peroxide ass to the curb.
Pilchards. Good eating at a price that's right.
Taking one's sweetheart for a picnic lunch, then later reciting "Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar" to her as she pulls you off.
Drunkenly arguing that Salt 'n' Pepa are the best band ever. A claim far less risible than your opponent's position that it is in fact Oasis.
Loudly declaring anything that meets with one's disapproval to be "Total BS!" in the style of an American sports DJ.
Secretly reckoning that today's pop chanteuses such as Leona Lewis, Duffy, Alicia Keys and that fat ginger simply can't hold a candle to Bonnie Tyler.
Intently discussing the music of Howe Gelb over a cheeky glass of Barolo with the woman who calls round to collect your local election poll registration form.
Jarmila Kratochvilova's Lyle & Scott pullovers.
Realizing that, after all these years, you don't actually like pork pies.
Sternly ignoring requests and invitiations for shite quizzes and that on Facebook.Letting the ball do the work.
Drawing a work colleague to one side and gently requesting that they bear with you if your behaviour is a little odd, but your period is late, while being unmistakeably of the male gender.
Entering a pub that is waal to waal boule and telling your mate "There's some hoes in this house!"

Out

Replacing the lyrics of popular songs with the words "Get your gash out" and singing them with great gusto in a dreadful nightclub.
Having a pot to piss in. Frankly, a regular toilet is infinitely preferable.
Loganberries. Fucking wankers.
Anyone using "project manage" as a verb.
Those excruciating "comedy banter" bits on "Top Gear", as the presenters mug their way through the clumsy dialogue leading to the next video clip, while surrounded by grinning fuckheads in Next sweaters and rugby shirts.
Gaining a reputation as a "chubby chaser", leading to your dreadful mates claiming that every well-covered female the group encounters in town is of "your stamp".
Which, in turn, leads to said DMs miming the act of vigorously rubber-stamping an imaginary document whenever a larger lady passes by.
Leaving putts short. Poltroon!
Scuffling on the cobbles after a disagreement regarding the relative merits of the Ogg Vorbis and MP3 sound file formats.
In the event of your chosen football team stringing two passes together, claiming it is "Sambah sockah!" in a harsh, ratboy accent.
Shadrach and Meshach, alway bitching about poor Abednego ahind his back, saying he had a stupid name.
Forty quid for a polo shirt? FTS!
Still filling in a pools coupon in this era of Irish Lottos, online poker and cock-fighting.
Setting up a complicated system of hydroponic equipment and lighting and heating apparatus just to grow strawberries.
Middle-aged knackers attempting the latest dance craze "Jumpstyling".
Worrying that your foes may be correct regarding the deficiencies of your Tiger style kung fu and that, as they have pointed out, it is defeat for which you must prepare.
Moping round the kitchen, "plastic apron with amusing breasts motif" akimbo, scratching yourself with your big spatula, rueing the non-arrival of barbecue season.
Being unnervingly well-informed regarding which female celebrities are "in the lesbians".
Muttering "off the pigs" whenever The Bill or Crimewatch appears on telly.
Harrumphing about doley and scroungers. Signing on the nash isn't as glamorous as it looks.

Bonus "Out": Blogger.com - Fucking useless cunting website. And that's swearing.

Plasterer's Radio

2008-03-20T17:26:00.003Z

"I hope they play British Sea Power!"

More tunes and Thom Rot for you in this week's edition of that dearest of radio institutions "Unknown Pleasures".

http://www.humyo.com/F/122205155

Playlist

Daft Punk - Robot Rock (Soulwax Remix)
Battles - Dance
Art Brut - Bang, Bang, Rock 'n' Roll
Pussy Galore - Dick Johnson
Teenage Fanclub - Ain't That Enough
The Albany - Secrets of the Night
Grand Puba - Let's Go (CK's nee-swearing Radio Edit)
Tom Waits - 16 Shells From A 30.6
Julian Cope - Out of my mind on Dope and Speed
Masters of the Obvious - Rot, Rot, Rot
Herman Dúne - Seven Cities
Von Vox Braun - Lord of Pesetas
Shane McGowan/Pogues - Cracklin' Rosie
The Hidden Cameras - In The Union of Wine
Tyranosaurus Rex - The Woodland Bop
Pelle Carlberg - I Touched You At The Soundcheck
The Smiths - The Boy With The Thorn in his Side
Sugarettes - Rain or Shine
The Flaming Lips - It Overtakes Me
Low - Canada
Young Marble Giants - Choci Loni
Feiet - 1,2,3,4 (My Gay Husband Remix)
Field Music - Tell Me, Keep Me
Link Wray - Hand-clapper
Lee Hazlewood - Hello Satdee Morning
Ben Folds Five - Kate
PP Arnold - Everything's Gonna Be Alright
British bloody Sea Power - Everybody Must Be Saved

Have fun with it!

Wanksy III

2008-03-12T19:00:00.003Z

"The Subjugation of the Proletariat in the Age of the Neo-Con"