Boggartblog

Actresses should be cast in male roles on stage, says the union Equity as it complains about the lack of roles for women in theatre.

Sir Peter Hall’s son, Edward Hall, is in trouble despite his theatrical pedigree. The Hampstead Theatre’s artistic director has encountered his first taste of controversy after being condemned for staging plays that feature predominantly male casts.

Jean Rogers, the former Emmerdale actress, who is now Equity’s vice-president, has come up with an imaginative solution.

She says directors should cast women to play men, in the same way that theatre audiences have come to accept “colour-blind casting”, in which black actors perform roles such as Henry V that were previously the preserve of whites.

Hmmmm

While I can see how Patterson Joseph or Lenny James would be absolutely convincing as Hamlet or Hugh Quarshie as Macbeth, somehow I can't get my head round the idea of Helena Bonham Carter as Stanley Kowalski, with Miranda Hart playing Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

I saw a gobsmacking headline today:

Scottish lecturer found to be 'grandfather of everyone in Britain'

A retired lecturer who took a DNA test to find out where his ancestors came from has been found to be directly descended from the first woman on earth, who lived 190,000 years ago.

Researchers from Britain’s DNA, who carried out the tests, said the result meant that in genetic terms he could be described as the “grandson of Eve, or the grandfather of everyone in Britain”.

They were so surprised by the results that they phoned Mr Kinnaird, a widower who lives in the far north of Scotland, to break the news to him.

Boggart Blog have since tried to contact him but aparently he is on the run from agents of the Child Support Agency. What we would like to know is ... How did he ever find time to do any lecturing?

Read full story

Today as I contemplate the future of boggart Blog or to be more honest copy all our back catalogue onto my computer's hard drive before Populis go Greece, I can only point to to Captain Ranty's blog on who we can trust.

"Inspired by Ms Raccoon I thought I'd have a crack at this unsavoury nut.

Your list, (if you are anything like me), will be shockingly short. That itself is an indictment as to"

Take a look. If the post makes you smile the first comment will make you roar laughing.

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The flight from freedom

I have not watched any of Euro 2012, football is not my thing these days, but I have taken to switching on about 30 minutes after the match was due to end, just for the penalty shootout.

Germany v Italy looks a good bet to go the same way.

The historic meeting between Her Maj and former IRA leader Martin McGuinness earlier today seemed to go well according to television news reports.

Television and video footage can be edited however and what we did not see was the bit where the Queen kneed McGuinness in the bollocks and said, "That's for Uncle Louis, you twat."

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Watching a discussion about Britain's attitude to the EU on Newsnight last night I pricked up my ears when one pro - Fascist superstate integration speaker asked why the British always take such a negative view of the European Union's efforts to destroy national sovereignty and traditional cultures.

"Vy cannot you look at ze possitiv zhings to come out of ze EU," she asked.

The negative things we focus on apparently include the £40 million a day our membership costs us, the single currency shamples, interference in our democratic processes by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, mass immigration from former communist nations with basket case economies, draconian employment laws that discourage firms from hiring because they are not allowed to sack anyone, crazy human rights laws that prevent us from kicking out terrorists who want to kill as many of us as possible, attempt to destroy our financial services industry and really crap cheese.

And the good thing we gained from EU membership to balance all these.

Better food,
Good wine,
Paternity leave,
Cheap flights.

OK, the first two are largely a matter of personal preference and anyway were available before we joined the EU.

Paternity leave? So so, but we got along fine before it became an entitlement.

Cheap flights? OK but it's a bit hypocritical to include this in support of an organisation that wants to shut down the oil industry.

On a serious note, the pro fascist superstate integration brigade always try to make out britain is the only place where there is strong public opposition to a fascist superstate further integration but we should not forget Denmark and Sweden also declined to join the Euro, Angela Merkel is currently resisting pressure for Germany to buy up the debt of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal because here coalition government would fall apart if she gave in, the Dutch elections in September will see s big swing to the right and in France a laft wing "let's get our hands on Germany's dosh" candidate might have won the Presidence but one in 5 voters voted for a nationalist.

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All is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds

I don't have a post today but I guess the nation is in mourning and not reading blogs. I did think of writing a blog on Tony Blair's completely bonkers performance on the Andrew Marr programme yesterday but it is cruel to mock the afflicted.

Blair said "It is inevitable that Britain will join the Euro one day, when the time is right."

Unfortunately Marr did not reply "and when will that be Mr. Blair, when they eventually find those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

An article by Tom Chivers in The Daily Telegraph amused me. Titled Grammar Fascist it deals with that managment-speak so many of us hate. All the usual suspect are pilloried, "leveraging", "thinking outside the box," (which is not actually bad grammar but is so overused it is not even a cliche any more, "going forward", "mainstreaming" and talk of "one trick ponies" and things that do what it says on the box.

To see some prime examples of this style of talking bollocks you can look at our old post Management Speak We Love To Hate containg the most idiotic examples of the shite people talk when trying to appear "cutting edge."

William Wallace would turn in his grave.

Scots celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, when the forces of Robert the Bruce defeated the army of Edward II in the first war of Scottish independence, have been told by council officials not to carry replica weapons. The decision follows an alleged incident at last year’s rally in which a car on the route was said to have been hit by a shield and a Union flag was burnt.

The annual rally in the small town of Bannockburn outside Stirling involves a short march along a single street to the site of the battle.

In recent years, many of those taking part have worn medieval costumes, complete with swords, axes, daggers and shields. But Stirling council has told the organisers — the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement — that for safety reasons no arms can be carried during the march.

That's almost as sacreligious as closing all the pubs on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, on a Saturday Night, ye kna what ah'm sayin' eh?

Still, an imaginative Scotsman can do a lot of damage with kitchen tools or garden implements. Come to think of it, a lot of medieval weapons were garden implements.

Head Teachers and deputy heads are Nazis. I have know this since my schooldays when I was often blamed and punished for things I did not do simply because I refused to conform.

Head teachers and deputy heads hate individuals who think for themselves. As Hyptatia of Alexandria said: "Always think for yourself. It is better to think and be wrong than not to think but try telling a head teacher that and you are in trouble.

To head teachers there is no difference between education and indoctrination and school is about their career rather than the futures of the young people whose brains are abused throughout their schoolyears.

So the news story of the school that bannede football because it occasionally gets a bit rough is following the rule rather than the exception to it.

Here, courtesy of Huffington Post, are some of the things politically correct school heads have banned and the stupid reasons threy gave for banning them.

@hannahainsworth
Pokemon cards. Apparently kids swapping them encouraged gambling. I think the teachers just wanted to keep them.

@weddingwonders
Our school banned patent shoes in case they reflected our knickers & made the lorry drivers crash.
(Editor's note: My wife's school did that too - one of the joys of a convent education)

@allielee9
My school banned fountain pens for H~&S reasons and hugs because they were "inappropriate ...

@CookieSami
We were banned at primary school from running in the playground. Skipping was allowed though! (H&S reasons!!)

@LucyBannister
My primary school banned running in the playground, children kept falling over, how inconsiderate! # SERIOUSLY!

@Libmoggy
My grammar school banned petticoats. In summer we wore light summer dresses. Dirty old men must have rejoiced

@JAMcFadyen
@HuffPostUKUni Our primary school forbid us from having relationships (boyfriends-girlfriends)- love was too serious affecting school work!!

Well there we have it. Head teachers are all creepy neo - Nazi control freaks (just as all games teachers are sadistic paedophiles except for Miss Bolton who took the girls for gym and netball and was well fit) and should not in any circustances be allowed anywhere near children.

For anybody contemplating a career in petty crime distinguishing marks are a positive disadvantage. Harry Potter, with his zig zag scar, would be a lousy criminal. Goldie with his gold teeth likewise. Birthmarks likewise are a no - no. And anybody who made their living as a theief or mugger would have to be an idiot to get a facial tattoo you might think.

Tattoos are for some a way to express their personality and individuality. They say, "This is who I am." They do not say, "It wasn't me hossifer, I was nowhere near here."

Anyone with any common sense would understand this. Which may lead you to certain conclusions about mugger Ronald Morris Walsh, a 35-year-old homeless man in Orlando, Florida, who was charged with assault for an attack on Milton McKnight on June 13.

Police say Walsh hit McKnight, a disabled man who suffers from cerebral palsy, shoved a cigarette down his throat and took his cash . As a fixture in downtown Orlando for more than 20 years, McKnight is known as an unofficial ambassador who's sold sodas with an upbeat attitude to pedestrians, according to WHP-TV.

Police said Walsh was fairly easy to identify thanks to the third eye tattoo on his forehead.

Eye, eye, eye, We'd like to 'ave a word down at the station my lad

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Having recently take some stick, and even been tagged as a Tory, for my attacks on the hypocrisy and double standards of rich lefties I am wallowing in schadenfreude one more today as news of the involvement in some very dodgy tax avoidance schemes of certain showbiz people who have made a big thing of their left wing, politically correct views.(And it's not just that smug twat Jimmy Carr so let's not put up with the whining lefties making him a scapegoat, loads of them have been at it.)

As I blogged in a post a couple of days ago (Confiscate the right's wealth but not mine says millionaire lefty) those who wring their hands over the plight of the poor or wail and gnash their teeth about the greed of the rich and unfairness of society are not quite so bothered about unfairness or greed when it comes protecting their own rather easy earned cash. In fact they are the first to get their snouts in the trough.

The stink of hypocrisy is often repulsive but when caused by self - righteous leftys wallowing in their own mire it can be remarkably satisfying to the nostrils.

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Intellectuals Despise The Masses

Journalist, Carol Midgley, has written a book for children entitled,"My Family and other Freaks".

The book is the anguished musings of a pre-teen child who suffers abject mortification anytime any of her family breathe by the sound of things.

In the children's section of the paper today Mrs Midgely writes a light hearted guide for children to present to their parents to help said parents avoid being soooo embarrassing, outling potential embarrassments and the effect on the child.

These include not using hip language; not dancing, ever, never mind at weddings; not dressing inappropriately for ones age.

The one that caught my eye was "... and never say to your eldest, 'How's my big boy/girl today?' This could a) make them vomit and b) make them want to leave home."

Really Carol? Is that all I have to do to ensure BBC is asking to borrow a suitcase?

Hmmm, if you'll excuse me I just have to go and find out how my big boy is today....

The Politically Correct lunacy that is poisoning our society has at last gone too far in the education system in attacking the customs and values that Britishness is built on. Our children are being brainwashed with wussiness. Here's an example of how:

A Primary school has banned football after children were alleged to be copying 'overzealous tackles' from Euro 2012.

Playing football at break-time has been forbidden to stop fights and teachers at staff at Hall Road Primary, in Orchard Park, Hull have asked the boys to play skipping games and outdoor chess instead.

Deputy head teacher Kristina Frary said the ban was needed to prevent injuries and allow staff to get on with teaching.

She said: "Passions are running high, especially with the Euro 2012 football tournament. Potentially, that's why children are wound-up.

"We have had a sequence of fall-outs and they were all centred around football.

Fallings out in the playground as a primary school? And this never happened before Euro 2012 started? Amazing. Well of course the laws of politically correct control freakery demand that is there is anything that offers the slightest excuse for banning an activity kids enjoy then that activity must be banned.

I hate to think what the shrinking violets of Hall Road Primary staffroom would have made of the robust tackles that were standard in Rugby games at my old school. Boys do not need televised football tournaments to encourage them to be enthusiastic about sports that involve physical contact, it's in our nature. And all efforts to change human nature are doomed to end in catastrophe.

We must ban schoolteachers from having any contact with schoolchildren until they have worked for at least ten years in a factory or on a building site. That should be long enough for even the most wussy to learn a little about reality.

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In her column in The Guardian today, hand wringer and bleeding heart in chief Polly Toynbee, the multimillionairess who lives in a mansion in West London and has holiday homes in Cornwall and Tuscany wrote:

To end this impasse [ in the Euro zone ], let us tap Europe's vast wealth. Faced with a crisis almost as grave as war, social democrats must act in concert to end the toxic policies of austerity. [ ... ]

Abolishing tax havens, co-ordinating fair tax instead of destructive competition, ending secrecy of wealth and property ownership: politically hard decisions are easier if social democrats can inspire people with the value of standing together, not falling apart.

Knowing something of how tax efficiently Polly, and her employers Guardian Media, use tax havens to protect their vast wealth from the attentions of the taxman I had to reply thus:

So when you, dear Pol, and all the other obscenely wealthy left wing elitists put your spare homes on the market and maybe even sell your main home, the London mansion and trade down to a modest two bed apartment, what do you think will happen to property prices in Tuscany, The Dordogne, Cornwall and the fashionable suburbs of London.

Same goes for art treaures and antiques and shares in all those ethical investments when the elitist left all dissolve their trust funds.

I'm not holding my breath waithing for it to happen of course.

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Not being a religious type I have little sympathy for Dr. Richard Scott, the Christian GP recently bollocked by the General Medical Council after he told a patient that praying for recovery might help him get better. OK, OK, I know prayer was the first therapeutic intervention allowed by Christian doctrine and the Christian church has been at the honourable forefront of healing ever since rioting Christians burned down the great library of Alexandria and destroyed the knowledge gathered by the Greeks, Egyptians, Persians and Assyrians. Many treatments right up to the 20th century involved getting the patient to pray for their own recovery.

But for a Doctor, and especially one paid by us impoverished taxpayers, starts prescribing prayer, he is well out of order.

Now I don't know about you but although I respect peoples' right to follow their preferred religion when I go to the Doctor I want drugs, powrerful ones that will sell for £15 a tablet on any streetcorner in Accrington. If my doctor advised me to pray for recoverey it would be he who needed divine intervention - to extract his sphagmanometer from his rectum.

The theory that we are running out of time running has been put forward by researchers from two Spanish universities trying to explain why the universe appeared to be spreading continuously and accelerating.

Their observations of supernovae, or exploding stars, found the movement of light indicated they were moving faster than those nearer to the centre of the universe.

But the scientists claimed the accepted theory of an opposite force to gravity, known as dark energy, was wrong, and said the reality was that the moon is made of cheese the growth of the universe was slowing.

Professor Jose Senovilla, Marc Mars and Raul Vera from the University of the Basque Country and the University of Salamanca havedone some equations using numbers they made up and "proved" the deceleration of time was so gradual, it was imperceptible to humans. (read full story) Is that an admission that scientists are not human?

Their proposal, published in the journal Physical Review D, claimed dark energy does not exist and that time was winding down to the point when it would finally grind to a halt long after the planet ceased to exist.

Boggart Blog can confirm these guys are talking bollocks. We know that time has already stopped. The Euro zone debt crisis just goes round and round like Groundhog Day, civilisation is hurting backwards towards Paleolithic chaos and the seconnd half of a Euro 2012 match between Ruritania and Slobbovia showed us all what it is like to face eternity.

A chap from Norfolk auctioned off space on his bum in aid of St Helena Hospice.

Jack Gargrave started off with the phrase, "I love...." and asked bidders to complete the sentence, just like those competition tie breakers.

The winning bid was "I love the pedestrianisation of Norwich City centre." which Jack duly had tattooed on one cheek.

They got all that on one cheek, that must be some arse on the boy.

Contrary to the assertions of our critics we at Boggart Blog are not anti - science. We are only against the kind of science sponsored by big business and the Thought Police. Thus we question the kind of crap that suggests "scientists" have learned something about human psycology by force feeding lard to mice or have discovered the meaning of life by doing some equations.

It is surprising how often mice figure in the kind of science we slam. Food figures quite a lot too, especially when we report on the kind of science that says a grain of salt is enough to kill ten adults, that alcohol is so dangerous even simply walking past a pub can result in addiction, the tiniest sip of a fizzy drink will cause us to bloat up into 99 stone blobs and that anything we enjoy is bad for us.

We like the kind of science that tells us moderate alcohol consumption prolongs life, that steaks, burgers, bacon sandwiches and pies are good for us, that salt is an esential nutrient without which we would die and that any research that involves lots of statistics is a load of bollocks.

The Dean of St. Onan's College, Oxford has challenged us in this, saying, "You can't have science without statistics; if the statistics are left out all you end up with is the truth."

Quite. Do you recall how science fascists and food fascists have been telling us for years chocolate is bad for us. This is in spite of numerous independent reports showing that chocolate is in fact good for us. They lied.

Researchers at Monash University have now shown conclusively that chocolate is good for us. It's the polyphenols that are beneficial so obviously the higher the chocolate content of your confection of choice, the more polyphenols you are getting per ounce.

Some researchers in the past have acknowledged that chocolate is good for reducing blood pressure and cutting the risk of heart attacks but have ben very puritanical about it and insisted that only one million pert cent pure dark chocolate counts.

Wrong. Dark Chocolate is better but if you find it a bit too strong ordinary Dairy Milk, while not as good, will do (make sure it is proper chocolate though and not that chocolate flavoured sugar crap from America.

OK, so having helped you reclaim beer, wine, salt, red meat and slobbing out (very good for destressing) we are now liberating your chocolate.

Duffy's Red Star Chocolate is hand made (? - we thought it grew on trees) in Lincolnshire.

Meanwhile in New Zealand another team of researchers have founf The Miracle Molecule In Beer that fights fat and keeps you fit.

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Yet another funeral yesterday at the village church. A lovely old lady who had lived in the village all her life, Mum, Grandma, Great - Grandma.

First the hearse drew up outside the church.

Then a black stretch limo disgorged the immediate family.

This was followed by a black 4x4 with more junior members of the family.

The black 4x4 was flying two Engerland flags from its rear windows in support of our boys at Europe 2012.

Bad taste or what.

They weren't even at half mast.

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Michael Ruse's solicitor says his client "needs help with regards to thinking skills."

He had good reason to say so.

The 21-year-old was convicted of assault this week after he celebrated getting away with the crime by boasting about it on his Facebook page, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Ruse, of Leigh Park, was on trial for attacking his friend's father with a baseball bat and a baton. Reports say Ruse thought he was off the hook as police had not been in touch so flushed with stupidity success he shared his experience with the world via Facebook.

After describing the crime, "I done the bloke over with a baseball bat," he wrote "Yeah I think I get [sic] away with it tbh [to be honest] x," according to the Daily Mail.

Six people "liked" the update, but one so-called friend saw the statement and printed out the text as evidence for prosecutors, in effect forcing Ruse to change his plea from not guilty to guilty.

Judge Ian Pearson was unsympathetic to Ruse's reckless status update.

"You pleaded guilty part way through the trial only really because you were stupid enough to put on Facebook what amounted to a full confession," Pearson said. Seems about par for the course with your averasge facebook user.

Stories of people bragging about their crimes on Facebook are coming up frequently. Is social nmetworking becoming a force for law and order we wonder, of are Facebook users just getting thicker.

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I don't know how I became a member of Linked In, the social network where profesional people post ludicrously inflated career resumees in the hope of getting sexual proposals from similar deluded fools young professional people.

I never asked to be a member. I never signed up. I'm not young, But I found myself a member somehow.

This did not bother me, they only sent me messages when people I'd never heard of became friends or "joined my network" as they say on Linked In. So I did not delete my profile.

Then today Linked In started to harrass me. Or to be exact they sent me a question. It was:

What do successful people do before breakfast?

How the effing hell would I know? Get out of bed? Read the paper? Look in their mirror and shout "I'm a Tiger?" Have a dump? There's just no right answer.

Wannabe writer Ray Dolin decided to launch his literary career by writing a book called The Kindness Of America based on his experiences as a peniless hitch hiker trying to hitch hike his way across the USA (reports don't tell us whether he plucked his eyebrows on the way) and the acts of kindness be would surely receive from total strangers.

About half way through his coast to coast jouney Dolin was standing by US Interstate Highway 2 in Montana trying to catch a ride when a man drove up, rolled down his window, shot him and drove off, The Valley County Sheriff's Office reports.

Mr Dolin had approached the truck thinking the driver was offering him a ride, the sheriff said.

The unfortunate hitch hiker flagged down a passer-by and was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. A nurse said on behalf of Mr. Dolin that he was not taking calls or accepting gifts, flowers, snacks or other acts of kindness from stangers.

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York is rapidly acquiring a reputation as one of the world's leading politically correct fascists. He introduced the Orwellian offence of Thought Crime to the New York City statute book when he passed a law that made it illegal to carry doughnuts into a children's playground because people in possession of doughnuts might think about eating a doughnut in front of the precious little darlings thus encouraging them to think eating a doughnut is OK and setting them on the slippery slope to junk food addiction and early death.

Bloomberg did not stop there however. So obessive is his control freakery that not only did he ban smoking in al public spaces he also tried to ban New Yorkers for smoking in their own homes. Why not just ban the sale of cigarettes? you might well ask. Actually that would be unconstitutional.

New Yorkers have been under attack from Bloomberg's Thought Police for a long time now but at last they have a champion, a man willing to defend their right to eat kak, smoke poisonous weed and drink fizzy da - glo coloured drinks against the dark forces of political correctness. Not Superman, not Batman, but London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Mr Johnson who has been in New York to promote his new book on London, was appearing on The Daily Show when he was asked by host Jon Stewart about Mayor Bloomberg's plans to ban the sale of sweetened fizzy drinks larger than sixteen ounces at restaurants, cinemas and sports venues.

Mr Johnson said: "What I will say is that refugees from the soda tyranny of New York City will have sanctuary in London."

"I don't want to sound jingoistic, but if you do wish to come and drink soda from a 16 ounce pot, come to London. Bring your huddled masses yearning to break free."

We're not sure what Madam Liberty, standing sential over New York harbour, the portal to the Land Of The Free would have though of the quotation but she is French so she was probably puffing on a Gauloise and drinking wine as she waited between courses of saturated fat laden food.

See video of Boris on The Daily Show

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Chris Grayling, the employment minister, has set up a Myth Busters Challenge Panel to crack down on the "amount of nonsense talked by Health and Safety jobsworths."

Mr. Grayling has several examples of over zealous Health and Safety officials' decisions, such as the villagers in Coton, Derbyshire, who were told a stuctural engineer would have to survey all the lampposts before they could put up hanging baskets. Or a mother told to remove a childs swing she had erected on her allotment. Or a village fete told to carry out a risk assessment before it could serve hot drinks.

Now a risk assessment is really quite simple, you look at the activity you wish to take place and then you think of the things that could go wrong. So serving hot drinks at the village fete for instance, well there would be tea urns requiring electricity or gas to heat the water, so you've got a couple of hazards there. They'd have to be sited on a safe, level, stable surface. Any cables would have to be short enough not to cause a tripping risk or else suitably contained to prevent same. Then there's the fact that the tea urns will be hot to touch, burn risk there. The danger of splashes of hot liquid or even spillages, especiallly with those careless members of the public walking about in crowded spaces and on uneven terrain...its all common sense really.

So presumably Mr. Graylings myth busting panel will be looking at these decisions and then telling the organisers to put up a notice that hanging flower baskets off lamp posts, swinging on swings, and carrying cups of hot liquid about in crowded places are all dangerous activities and it's up to each individual to carry out there own personal risk assessment and not to blame somebody else if it all goes wrong....

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So Spain was bankrupt. Between a loonytoons green energy policy that paid wind turbine owners for the electricity not generated while the wind was not blowing and solar panel owners foreectricity not generated while the sun was not shining (e.g. at night); a property bubble that saw banks lending money on properties built on toxic waste dumps, areas where motorways and shopping centres were planned within a few years or even on land that did not exist or was under the sea; the usual problems associated with outsourcing work to India and China and general incompetence they were up shit creek. What little money the Spanish government had, it had used to bail out the Spanish banks.

Spain was so up shit creek in fact that the traditional place for governments to raise money to fund their incompetence, the bond market, was closed to the Spanish. Nobody would take their IOUs.

The Spanish Banks were helpful however and bought up lots of government debt with the bailout money the government had loaned them. So helpful were they in fact that they ran out of bail out money. The Spanish bankers asked the EU Financial Stability Fund (the F-U) for a bail out. Instead of saying F U the E U was eager to help and offered a loan of 80 billion Euros.

Unfortunately the E U F U only had 400 billion Euros to work with and had already given 420 billion Euros of that to Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Malta and Cyprus they were up shit creek too.

"We will help out," said the EUFU boys but we will have to borrow some money from the bond markets. When the bond traders heard who the E U F U boys wanted the money for they fell about laughing.

Undeterred the E U F U went to other European governments but they either fell about laughing or they had no money either.

There was only one remaining option. The E U F U would have to borrow money from the lender of last resort to save the Spanish banks.

And who is the lender of last resort?

The Spanish banks.

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Humour and Satire

Cast your mind back twelve months and note how things change. Last year we were bathed in sunshine whilst the Canadian GP start was delayed for several hours due to torrential rain. Jensen Button had problems in the pits but came through from last to overtake a spinning Seb Vettel on the final lap and take the chequered flag.

And this year? Europe is experiencing deluges of biblical proportions, the men's final in Paris having to be finished off today, whilst several other sporting events have been delayed, postponed, or abandoned.

But in Canada it was beautiful. Jensen Button also suffered a reverse in his fortunes, not exactly starting from pole but finishing way down near the back of the grid. What a shame he seems to be so unflappable, a prize opportunity for a major strop having passed him by....

Last year Lewis Hamilton was showing how a strop should be done, seeking out Christian Horner to see if there was any chance of a seat in this year's car. He was politely turned down and I should think he's quite glad now, Red Bull are no longer the dominant force they were last year and Lewis claimed his first victory of the season, emerging from his second stop almost 10 seconds behind the one stopping leaders, but sailing majestically past them as their tyres began to fade.

Felipe Massa started well but then slipped down the field and Schumi recorded yet another DNF, despite his mechanics using the highly technical measure of bashing his rear wing with their fists in an effort to free his jammed DRS. I used to work for a chap whose favoured course of action when faced with anything mechanical was to hit it with a hammer. If he wasn't dead I'd be thinking he'd got a new job working for Mercedes.

Grosjean hauled his Lotus into second place and I can't see it being long before one or other of their drivers takes the chequered flag, and Sergio Perez had another excellent drive to take third, both of these drivers passing Vettel and Alonso in the closing laps.

All in all a good race with plenty of action, which is more than can be said for Monaco where the most exciting thing to happen was Martin Brundle being bundled into the swimming pool of the Red Bull yacht by Christian Horner as he interviewed race winner Mark Webber...

I've never understood how people who think they are rational and logical can be so utterly lacking in the sense of humour department that they are irrational about it. The person I am talking about here is little Vicky Coren, TV presenter, poker player and trustafarian.

For some reason the producers had this humourless lady on Have I Got News For You over the weekend. For most of the programme she sat there looking demure and contributing little lest her words should provide the other team with a tell.

When an item about the Euro 2012 Psychic Pig that will predict match results came up however Vikki threw a mini hissy fit and started trying to insist that the pig is not psychic. Like the psychic Octopus at the 2010 World Cup the animal is not really psychic but is bribed with snacks to choose one item or another. But we're all in on the joke.

This harmless bit of fun seemed to upset Vicky just as any mention of psychics, UFOs, ghosts or anything a bit supernatural winds up a lot of commenters on certain blogs. Nyeagh, you don't believe in UFOs do you, little green men and all that? they sneer. As a matter of fact I do because I've seen two. They were exactly what it says on the box, unidetified (and unidentifiable ) flying objects, probably some atmospheric phenomenon but I have no way of knowing. See I'm the rational one, the rational geeks who deny the evidence of their own eyes are crazy.

I never mention flying saucers or little green men. If I'd seen a National Express bus loaded with little green window lickers on its way to a nerds convention that is what I'd say I saw.

For the rest of the HIGNFY program Miss Coren kept banging on about the pig not being psychic, eventually prompting the guest host, gorgeous Kirsty, to use the F word. It's always quite sexy when someone as lovely as Kirsty talks dirty so that was OK.

What is it FFS with these people who are so bothered about making us all behave in what they think is a rational way that they forget how irrational one has to be to miss the joke when sometimes we just pretend to believe in ghosts, UFOs, out of body experiences and psychic pigs. for the sake of some light hearted banter.

Get a life Victoria.

Some of Boggart Blog's more scientifically minded readers used to get a bit tetchy when we blogged about the experiments carried on at the particle accelerator at CERN or "The Large Hardon Collider," as we called it. Science fans never like anyone taking the piss out of science which is all the more reason to do it.

In fact Boggart Blog is always right, even if we are not trying to be right, and it turns out The Large Hardon Collider is a far more appropriate name than any of the official ones.

A new novel written by a retired CERN physicist claims to lift the lid on the organisation's geeky image of acne sufferers with bad dress sense and personal hygiene issues obsessing about theories that even the people who thought of them don't understand, to reveal an altogether more glamorous lifestyle of wild nights, passionate love affairs and round the cock clock partying.

"Catalysed Fusion" is described by its author Francis Farley as a "true-to-life fantasy woven around particle physics research and set in 1980s Geneva – "the city where nations meet and particles collide".

Science fans have been quick to point out that this lurid tale of lust among the leptons is in fact a novel and therefore fiction. Prof. Farley however insists it is based on real life events and only the names have been changed to protect the adulterous. And he's a scientst so we have to believe him don't we?

How strange though that scientists are trying to devalue the best bit of PR they have had in decades. Are they afraid the novel will enable even politicians to understand why the reports of all their projects end with the words, "More research is needed."

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It has been well reported that Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers in the Coalition government will boycott the Euro 2012 football extravaganza in protest at the racism displayed bt fans in the host nations, Poland and Ukraine.

It has been less well reported that the boycott will be lifted if England make it through to the quarter finals.

So now we know that there is nothing more important than combatting racism , right. Unless of course it involves giving struggling politicians a photo opportunity and a chance to bask in reflected glory.

Barack Obama can't open his mouth these days without something stupid falling out. The truth is it was always thus of course but enough people were mesmerised by the colour of his skin thay hailed his every banality and idiocy as the wise words of a genius and branded those who commented on his fuckwittery as racists.

This would only have been the case is people had been saying he was a fuckwit because he is black. But no, he's a fuckwith because he has no class, no manners, a single figure IQ and he's an egomanical narcissist, none of which qualities are exclusive to those with dark skin.

The lastest example of Obama's stupidity to go viral on the internet is a remark he made at a $35,000 a plate fund raising dinner. Addressing diners he criticised the greed of the rich and then went on to castigate the 10% of the population who pay 86% of all income tax for not paying their fair share and cheating the 20% who pay no income tax at all.

Having already alienated Amertica's black and Hispanic voters by failing to keep campaign promises and over his (belated) support for same sex marriage, alienated middle income liberals over his failure to provide free healthcare and shut down the oil and coal industries and now done his best to piss off the wealthy liberals he must rely on for campaign funding he has just about managed to bite everyhand that fed him in 2008.

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We normally do not award more than one stupid criminal of the week accolade but this was too goo to miss.

Dylan Edward Contreras. 19, was arrested for providing false information about his identity after an encounter with Twin Falls police.

Having ben pulled over for a traffic offence Contreras tried to escape a fine by giving a false identity. Unfortunately for him an observant oficer noticed he had his real name tattooed on his arm.

He was arrested and a computer check revealed outstanding arrest warants for three different offences.

It should have been the sexiest heist ever. Instead, a bikini robbery worth $200,000 turned into a farce.

At about 5:30am Sunday morning, police in Tustin, a suburb of Los Angeles noticed a suspicious white van outside a warehouse and saw that the warehouse fence had been cut open.

Eight hoodlums in their mid-20s and 30s had cut gaping holes in the warehouse front doors and threw as many designer label bikinis as they could into plasyic bin bags.

Two of the gand had stayed outside as lookouts in a separate vehicle but they fell asleep and did not notice police squad cars arriving with sirens off.

After noticing the police presence the robbers dumped the loot, jumped back in the van and took off on the 405 freeway. When the police gave chase the robbers reportedly jumped out of the moving vehicle and ran off on foot in an attempt to escape. Against a highly tuned police car on an interstate freeway even Usian Bolt would not have stood a chance.

Not surprisingly, the six dicks were all arrested and hauled back to where the sleepyhead lookouts were waiting, already cuffed.

A lawyer acting for the gang said they were not very experienced at robbery and the theft had been the idea of the gang's two female members, Guillermina Ventura-Moran, (33) and Norma Yaneli Sanchez, (26). The crime had been planned while all the gang members were attending a pool party the previous night.

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Where's Shaun Of The Dead When We Need Him? The Case Of The Miami Zombie could come straight out of a schlock horror movie. Or it could if it wasn't true.

The 'Miami Zombie' case has gone viral on the internet, sparking a rash of reported Zombie attacks and stories about a 'zombie apocalypse' and real zombies.

Everyone on our planet (and probably a few others) must by now have heard about the 'Miami Zombie Cannibal' Rudy Eugene, eating the face of of homeless man, Ronald Poppo. Even after being shot, Eugene growled at the police officer sent to arrect him and went back to ripping Poppo's face off! Eugene finally succumbed after taking several bullets, but did not die until he had finished eating Poppo's entire face.

The echoes of films and television shows like Dawn Of The Dead, 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead are all too clear.

Another story broke yesterday, again in the USA. A 21-year-old student at the University of Maryland, Alexander Kinyua, ate the heart and part of the brain of his roommate, Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie after stabbing him to death. Police and college oficials discovered more of the cannibal's dinner deceased in different locations around the campus.

Several other stories, most much less intense than the Miami and Maryland cases, have come to light recently. In California, a man bit the nose off of his cousin. Back in Miami, a man got irate at being put into a police car and bashed his head inside the car until he was bloody and then spit the blood at the officer. That officer showed admirable restraint not shooting the guy. In New Jersey, a man named Wayne Carter stabbed himself over 50 times, yanked off pieces of his intestines and threw them at police!

So what is behind these cases of irrational violence? The buzz online suggests many people believe it could be some kind of a virus causing the attacks, some saying it actually turns people into zombies. Clearly these folk think The Walking Dead is a reality show.

For years, the subject of a zombie apocalypse has been a huge thing online. Hundreds, if not thousands, of websites are dedicated to praising zombies, offering instructions on how to fight zombies, protecting yourself from zombies and probably even dating zombies. There's even a bullet guaranteed to kill zombies called Zombie Max. On Facebook and YouTube, a lot of users seem to believe that governments are hiding something. People who have used 'bath salts', the drug that police say the Miami Zombie was on, insist there is no way anyone would react to it like that o is there something more sinister than bad drugs here? Maybe something as sinister as a zombie apocalypse?

Well if you fancy your chances of running for the hills with Christopher Ecclestone or the gorgeous Naomie Harris, write your name, email address and mobile phone number on a twenty pound note and send it to us.

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Having endured one of the wettest Aprils and most of Mays since the last really wet April and May, our brief foray into summer has brought a new threat to mankind, or little-old-lady-kind to be more precise.

For the second time in the space of two weeks a little-old-lady enjoying the warm weather has been trapped inside the frame of her deckchair when the fabric ripped and the deckchairs swallowed them whole.

In the first instance, in Sweden, the 84 year old l-o-l was trapped for two days before neighbours rescued her from her balcony where she had been sunbathing, before her usually placid and trusted deckchair turned on her, ripping its fabric and entangling its owner in its wooden frame.

In the latest incident, worryingly much closer to home in Scarborough, an 83 year old l-o-l was trapped for six hours in an identical attack by her deckchair before being rescued by the fire service.

The government has issued a statement asking everybody to be wary around deckchairs, especially those of more mature years, be that the deckchair or the member of the public.

An official stated, " Obviously this is a very worrying trend, although you can sympathise with the deckchairs, they do get bored with all that time on their hands as they loll about in sheds and storecupboards during the winter months and extended periods of bad weather. Hopefully if the public are vigilant such attacks can be avoided, but anyone noticing a deckchair behaving in a suspicious manner should contact the police who will ensure that the offending deckchair is humanely destroyed."

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As Britain goes jubilee crazy our newsdesk has picked up the story of an Accringon man who has sold his two children into slavery to buy bunting for his house.

Mr. Alf Slackbotham of Slagside Avenue told reporters, "I love my children but I love my country more. Selling the kids into slavery may seem an extreme way of showing my loyalty to the monarchy but since the brickworks cloes I've been unemployed so the kids are better off with a family that can afford to own them. Where they are going they will have a dry cellar to sleep in and three meals a week.

Well off people don't realise how tough it is for working class parents these days. But we must maintain standards and put our nation first. As Wilfred Owen wrote,"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," Which means "We're dying for some sweets, or something like that."

"Worth every child," says Alf as he shows off his bunting.

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