Frightening Lack Of Imagination And Merit.
The scariest thing about Blair’s meritocracy was the distinct lack of merit, just as scary, Brown’s new vision for Britain lacks imagination as well as continuing the lack of merit. Consider the complete and utter lack of imagination shown by that vital cog in the machine of Government, the Ministry Of Dishing Out Important Sounding But Ultimately Meaningless (DOISBUM) job titles. We were totally underwhelmed to learn this week the government’s chief scientific advisor has the DOISBUM job title of The Chief Scientist.
The job of chief scientist was created during the foot and mouth disease outbreak a few years back. Would a chief vet not have been more appropriate? Amazingly, we begin to realise that a job created to provide support for ministers during a crisis in agriculture has now expanded and the job holder not only pokes his nose into agricultural matters but advises on heath and wellness, computers and electronic technology, microbiology and for all we know rocket science.
Its bad enough that ministers and civil servants don’t know what “science” means but while taunting the boy-scientists who do science scientifically over the past few months I have learned that scientists don’t either. You can’t DO science, it is an abstract generalised term covering a wide range of specialities.
So Chief Scientist is a meaningless and dull title for one of those jobs governments create now and again to reward people who have covered their arse for them. The job holder does nothing and is not even required to turn up very often. If we must employ such people, what is wrong with those grand old titles for officers of the government like Red Dragon Pursuant, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary or Master of the Rolls? Even the more modern Paymaster General (who was not actually responsible for paying for anything, not even his own drinks, sounds impressive compared with The Chief Scientist.
We must remember though the job of The Chief Scientist is nothing to do with knowledge or experimentation and everything to do with giving the government teflon shoulders so that none of the shit they help drug manufacturers and food processing companies shovel into us actually sticks to our elected representatives.
So what would be an appropriately traditional sounding title for such a function.
The Lord High Poisoner,
Magister Emeritus to the Court of St Fabricius,
Darth Vader?

I sometimes leave comments on an American satirical news blog that specialises in stories political and business corruption and malfeasance (I love that word..) They occasionally link to Boggart Blog if the story might appeal to readers in America. The name of the blog is Crooks and Liars.
I mention this only so that if you stumble across one of my links you will not think I’m taking you to the official Labour Party web site.

new humour every day from Boggart Blog

Whenever people at the budget end of advertising get hold of the idea they are only one step down the creativity ladder from writers, film directors and artists you can bet we are in for a set of adverts that get right up your nose. I mean, the Guinness ads are one thing, each is a mini art house movie in its own right, but soap powder ads, adverts for financial investment brokers and CILLIT EFFING BANG are more likely to put you right off buying the product.

The latest ads to irritate me are, yes you guessed it, the Phones 4u ads that pop up on television every five minutes featuring a parade of freaks and grotesques who couldn't find their arse with both hands, enthusing about their mobile phones.

The message those ad agency types with their Portakabin University degrees in creativity with Origami studies want us to get is "Even if you are a freak or a grotesque who cannot find his / her arse with both hands, Phones 4u have a phone for you.

The message we actually get is "the people at Phones 4u are a bunch of bastards.

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A plan to downgrade pigeon racing from an official sport has met stiff opposition. The Government’s suggestion that pigeon racing is a business and must pay business taxes would, according to pigeon fanciers, be a death knell for their favourite leisure pursuit (not to mention the favourite leisure pursuit of Mr. Gingernuts, the tom-cat down the street.)
To help you judge the merits of both sides of this case Boggart Blog sent an investigative reporter to talk to veteran racing pigeon Percy Feathers and rising star Jason Woodcock.

BB:
Guys, thank you for agreeing to talk to us.
Percy:
An honour and a privilege Dave.
Jason:
Yeah, fanks for the bung.
BB:
So, let’s cut to the chase, is pigeon racing really a sport?
Percy:
Well it were in my day David, we did it for the thrill not the rewards, oh yes young pigeons, church steeples for markers, watch out for the electricity pylons. Yes, nobody did it for the rewards, not that there were many. Eight ounces of birdseed a week, that was the maximum wage. Bonus for winning was a handful of worms. But we would have raced for nothing.
Jason:
Pafetic. Me trainer just bought a new Merc to drive me to races.
Percy:
No, no, no lad. That’s not what the game is about. Its about wanting to be the best bird in the air.
BB:
Would you agree Jason, what is the game about to you?
Jason:
Its the money.
BB:
No limos in your day Percy?
Percy:
Limousines are for funerals. And pigeons didn’t have funerals, we ended up in pies. We were happy to travel to the race in a wicker basket on a goods train. Special diets, personal trainers, penthouse apartment lofts, these young ‘uns don’t know they’re born.
Jason:
That is well out of order Percy. At the end of the day it comes down to times. And your times were crap, the best bird in your era was twenty five percent slower than what I am.
BB:
And to what do attribute that overall improvement in performance Jason.
Jason:
Television, sponsorship, celebrity status. Its the money
Percy:
Well times have improved but at what cost? Where is the Corinthian spirit, the sense of honour and fair play, do todays’ pigeons have the respect of the community.
Jason:
Me girlfriend just had breast implants.
BB:
So I’m getting a picture here, Percy for you it was not the winning but the taking part and Jason, for you...
Jason:
Its the money.
Percy:
We may of got paid birdseed but we was know and respected. Even now when I fly through town people will shout “There goes Percy Feathers, good luck Percy, mind how you go lad. When people give you that much love, you owe it to them not to rub their noses in your droppings. When he rides through town in a gilded cage in his fancy car people just spit and say “Flash bastard.”
BB:
I think there is a little bitterness there Percy. Are you envious of Jason?
Jason:
Its the money.

MORE great humour every day from Boggart Blog

Labour's mystery donor, David Abrahams, at one time harboured ambitions to become an MP for the labour party. At his selection hearing in Richmond he knocked five years off his age and introduced his wife and son to the selection committee, despite the fact that he had neither. Those who know him have described him as "eccentric, reclusive and something of a fantasist" and also "a bit of a Walter Mitty".
So let's re-cap, He tells lies, deliberately misleads people, is out of touch with the people, is a bit batty and lives in a fantasy world. Would fit right into the Cabinet I would have thought.

No wonder scientists keep coming up with those whacky and zany reports that give Boggart Blog so much material. We noticed this on a newsblog today.

Scientists have discovered that excessive drinking can shrink the brain. A study of 1,839 volunteers found that the more people drank, the more their brain volume decreased. The American Academy of Neurology study also found that drinking had a bigger impact on the brains of women than men.

How does this explain the campaign against bacon butties, the hazardous drinking shock and all the rest?
We guess the people working on those were all taking part in this study and so were rat arsed all the time they were doing their experiments

Last week Dave called for a return to strict uniform policy in school, with blazer, shirt and tie being the norm, as part of the Conservatives efforts to improve discipline and standards in schools.
This week Anthony Buckland, marketing director for Price & Buckland, school uniform suppliers, reports that schools are turning away from the sweatshirt as a uniform item and are choosing blazers instead, which he claims is a choice driven by pupils. He then goes on to explain that blazers have changed from the good old barrathea days when your blazer lasted as long as you still fit into it-ish and never saw a drycleaner from one stage of education to the next.
Blazers are now made from low cost, machine washable materials and are "virtually bulllet proof" Mr. Buckland explained.
He anticipates a further increase in sales when they can come up with a design that is virtually bully proof and are looking into supplying a virtually knife proof blazer to certain inner city schools.

Perry's Uniform, a rather more up market supplier of school uniforms has also seen an increase in sales. The company's blazers are made with 90% wool and cost £69. "Definitely not the sort of garment to use as a goal post in the playground," said the MD of the company. Well that explains the lack of scoring ability in our young footballers then, they don't recognise a set of goalposts when they see them.

The Parkinson show last night was a reprise of all the great musical moments of the host’s thirty five years fronting a television chat show.
Featured performers included Sammy Davis Jnr. Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Mel Torme, Oscar Petersen, Fred Astaire, Dean Martin, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Luciano Pavarotti and Bing Crosby.

I have to say it proved, if there was any doubt, what an awesome broadcaster the man is. Who else would all those dead showbiz luminaries people turn up for?

If you are a regular reader of BoggartBlog you will know that I have certain reservations about technology.(Can't do all the clever stuff like Ian and BBC but you could have a look at Love, Death and Japanese Technology posted back in August/September to get my feelings on this.)
Well for all those similar souls who find it completely baffling as to why anyone would discuss their personal affairs on a mobile phone in the middle of Sainsbury's, or on public transport, or whilst in conversation with somebody face to face, there is now a wonderful new device which emits a short burst of radio waves which disrupt mobile phone signals in the immediate vicinity.
Unfortunately these small, discreet zappers are illegal in this country, they might disrupt communications for the emergency services is the excuse they use... where have I heard that before?
However they are available if you know the right person, know what I mean?
If anyone out there knows the right person

I WANT ONE AND I WANT ONE NOW.

More Great Humour every day from Boggart Blog

When Leif Ersland wanted to return a nail gun he had borrowed, he sent the owner a text message saying “the gun is on the cabin steps.” Unfortunatley he typed the wrong phone number – and the recipient of the message called the police. Officers turned up at Mr Ersland’s home while he was out and spent 45 minutes interrogating his flatmate about whether he was a terrorist trying to set up a gun deal or had enemies. They left when the mix-up was explained.

Lief should thank his lucky stars he was in Finland. In Britain people have been shot in the head for less.

While visiting Uganda as part of what could be a final shufty round her Commonwealth (it used to be her Empire but hey, easy come,easy go) Our Sovereign Lady (God Bless Her) visited a hospital and refuge for children with AIDS.
The visit has been described by some hard-nosed royal watchers as a cynical attempt to win back for the Monarch some of the public affection that was given to Princess Di.
If there is any truth in this it is unfortunate that QEII does not have the same deft touch with public relations as her late daughter-in-law enjoyed. Boggart Blog’s invisible news hound Soft Mick was eavesdropping on the ceremony in which The Queen met some of the children.

QEII: Hello, and what is your name?
African Child 1: M’bula ma’am
QEII: What a lovely name. I’m the Queen. What brings
you here today?
AC1: I have AIDS and my family are all dead ma’am.
QEII: Really, that’s very interesting. Will you be
joining in the dancing later. I love to watch
children dancing.
(moves on)
QEII: Hello, and what is your name?
African Child 2: Nkosi ma’am
QEII: What a lovely name. I’m the Queen. What brings
you here today?
AC2: I have AIDS and my family are all dead ma’am.
QEII: Really, that’s very interesting. Will you be
joining in the dancing later. I love to watch
children dancing.
(moves on)
QEII: Hello, and what is your name?
African Child 3: Abubakar ma’am
QEII: What a lovely name. I’m the Queen. What brings you here today.......

Well what else can one say in the circumstances.

Marks & Spencer is putting J-cup bras on sale for the first time as customers demand larger sizes. The chain is trialling the garments on the internet before deciding whether to put them in the shop. Its largest cup size was previously a G, but M&S said there was a demand for the new, bigger garments.

The story reminds me of when my wife took me and my credit card shopping one day. While I was waiting for Teri to try on some dresses I heards an assistant on the corsetry counter say to a customer "you need a mark F madam."
"And what is a Mark F?" the customer asked.
"Next size up from a marquee," the assistant said.

Today's post was kindly supplied by our "Old ones are the best" department.

More great humour every day from Boggart Blog.

One of the last bastions of male supremacy is the Magic Circle, that exclusive boys club for stage and end-of-the-pier magicians. Few women have ever been admitted and one of the leading women at present, the excellent prestidigitator Faye Presto is a transsexual.
Traditionally, the woman’s role is showbiz magic has been to lift heavy boxes, wear scanty clothes, pose, grin, get cut in half and disappear.
One woman who has been trying to get into the magic circle for years complains “people just assume I’m the glamorous assistant. Its kind of sexist, the girls do all the work while the magician just waves his wand.”
And when she puts it like that, you understand magic is just a metaphor for the reproductive process.

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The print and broadcast media have been awash with that picture of Tutankhamun. Boggart Blog sent one of our supernatural staff members and managed to actually get a comment from the 3000 years dead Pharoah. Here then are the first words ever spoken to the modern media by an ancient Egyptian monarch.

Where's my moisturiser? Who's got my fucking moisturiser?

MORe great humour every day from Boggart Blog.

Fair play to Internet entrepreneurs, they will tackle anything if there is a modest profit to be made. The latest commercial enterprise to be taken online is Artificial Insemination By Turkey Baster. Ladies wanting to make babies who either shun relationship commitments, have no partner or one who fires blanks can now buy fresh live sperm online. Just logging to the website of a fertilisation agency and a specially trained operative fed on a diet of oysters and girlie mags will immediately knock one off the wrist to order.
The product is then delivered to the purchasers door by express courier ready for the turkey baster to do the business.
There are a number of obvious problems here. Firstly what are the neighbours going to say when they see the Sperms Are Us van roll up at the door?
The others, much more serious, are mostly to do with screening samples for HIV and other blood borne diseases. Apparently the agencies involved in the trade are unregulated.
Considering this cavalier attitude to the health of clients, these firms charge a pretty, if somewhat sticky, penny for their services.
For around £400 registration fee clients get a “free” month in which they can have as much sperm as they can handle without paying another penny. After that, and bear in mind here the very small window of fertility a human female has in a month, every shot costs another £150.
Then there are the problems with the choice of father for the spawn of such soulless copulation. A database exists we are told, which contains the names, physical characteristics and personal details of the donors.
One donor describes himself as a tall, well proportioned single white male (strange, he didn’t mention GSOH. They’re all supposed to have GSOH.) lists his leisure pursuits as music, theatre, literature, philosophy (yeah right) and keeping fit. Surprisingly because it is quite significant, he does not mention he is a total wanker.
With the world overpopulated by 30% are we not insane to tolerate such businesses? We have a perfectly adequate (and much more enjoyable) way of making babies. The fact that we are 30% overpopulated is proof it is highly efficient. If that does not work for you, count your blessings, do you know how much it costs to raise a child these days? And it does not stop when they reach eighteen (he said ruefully, contemplating the money about to be spent on Miss 29.
If after reading all this you are still desperate for a family but can't be arsed starting the kids off properly, you could avail yourself of Boggart Blog’s new reader service, Rent-a-Toddler. You hire from us a two year old for a few days. If that does not remove your rose tinted glasses, you deserve all you are going to get.

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I was reading last night while the X factor was on, so no background. Donesn’t spoil the joke though.
A barrage of booing caught my attention and I looked at the television. It was in response to a row between the judges after Simon Cowell had slagged somebody off.
Silencing the others, Cowell announced, “I think I speak for the nation on this...”

So does Simon Cowell speak for the nation on the subject of musical taste.

Two words! Mister fucking Blobby.

Is there (or has there ever been?) a woman in your office or workplace, local pub or social circle, referred to as the local bike because “everybody could ride her?”
It’s a simple pun on a colloquial expression, you would think nobody would need it explained. In the context of a court case heard this week however it underlines the concern fatsally, myself and many readers have expressed about falling standards of literacy and language skills, the state of education and the increasing tendency to have only a literal understanding of things, without comprehending the spectrum of meanings and inflections.
The case I refer to concerned a man found guilty of having sex with a bicycle.

Unfortunately the report did not tell us whether the bike was a consenting partner.

Those scientists are at it again. They now claim that the only way to solve the dietary shortcomings of the population is to use genetically modified crops to provide us with the nutrients we don't get in our chosen diet.
Apparently barely a quarter of adults consumes the recommended daily amounts of omega 3 fatty acids which are mainly found in oily fish; salmon, mackeral, tuna, sardines.
However I think the scientists have made a critical error in attributing this shortfall in our inability to source oily fish for our diets, rather than it being a conscious choice of "I don't much care for fish."
They've also overlooked the important matter of if a person dislikes fish and refuses to eat it, yet the nutrients in it are vital for healthy bodies and brains, then surely that person is not one of the 'fittest' who will pass on their genes to ensure the continued development of the human race.

MORE GREAT HUMOUR EVERY DAY FROM BOGGART BLOG
In the future will we see a society of morons who make no personal choices whatsoever and by eating and drinking the modifed food provided by the research laboritries live to be 126 with an increased IQ of 81, whilst all of the people capable of choice drink, smoke and eat themselves to an early grave just out of spite.
Or perhaps we can lock all the scientists up in their research laboritries and force them to eat and/or smoke their own research papers whilst recording the effects on their physical and mental health.
Perhaps all scientists involved in this kind of research need to have a health warning tatooed on their heads.
Science Can Seriously Damage Your Sanity!

Someone who remembered last week's effusive post on the Stephen Poliakoff television drama Joe's Palace asked what I thought of this weeks Poliakoff play Keeping Mary, as I had not commented.

Well I've been busy this week and so, having recorded the play, only got round to watching it last night (my way of saying "I'm not a celebrity and I'm not watching this shite)
Anyway, Keeping Mary. Well the script and production quality were excellent as we would expect.
Maggie Smith was at her incomparable best and was supported by superb performances from the cast.
But there was one big questionmark. Can David Walliams act.

Unable to make our minds up we asked around and the answer we received was....

COMPUTER SAYS NOoo

Oh how times change. Many are the stories of students, young men and,quite possibly, women who have fallen asleep on the bus or the train, usually after a heavy nights drinking admittedly, but sometimes from an accumulation of hard work and stress. In all the stories I have heard the person in question is politely woken by the conductor/driver and told that they have to get off now as they are at the terminus, whereupon the sleepy individuals stagger off into the night to look for another bus/ train/taxi to take them back to where they ought to be.
No longer so in these days of heightened awareness to potential terrorist attacks. A young man became unconscious on his way home from work and was found slumped in his seat clutching his backpack when the bus reached the terminus. The driver immediately assumed the man must be a suspicious character as he had a back pack and the police were called.
The police tried to rouse the man, who, unbeknownst to them was actually diabetic and had succumbed to a hypoglycaemic attack, didn't respond so they zapped him twice with a taser gun, slapped a pair of handcuffs on him and chucked him in the back of a police van.
When he came round, handcuffed, in the back of a moving van the poor man thought he had been kidnapped, until the police explained he had been arrested as a suspected terrorist.
I wonder if anyone can show me the training manual that says if a suspect is resisting arrest by lying slumped and practically comatose then you need to subdue him by use of taser? It's no wonder the countries jails are overflowing if people are being arrested for having a backpack and and being unresponsive, that takes in at least 70% of the 15-25 age group male population.
I suppose the chap should think himself lucky the officers weren't armed or else it could have been another case of Bang, Bang, You're Dead, Seven Bullets In your Head.

First blog for a while from the Special Correspondents desk. But worth waiting for. Actually we might have to sack