Author: Janus

Hey! I'm back ...... and front

Pome: Girl in a dream

It’s alright for you lot just ‘avin’ a larf!
But that’s me in the picture wot ‘Enri ‘as done.
And it’s my dream ‘e painted; you don’t know the ‘alf!
And my name is Angelica Cinnamon Bunn.

You’ll be askin’ me ‘ow all them animals came
To be sniffin’ around in my jungle that night.
Well I’d ‘ad quite a day, as you do in my game,
With a saunter round fur shops in town – my delight!

Then in the arcade stood old ‘Enri. ‘E’d stopped
To admire my sleek outlines, ‘e said with such charm.
When I told ‘im I’d show ‘im some more if ‘e dropped
A few quid in me purse, ‘e just gave me ‘is arm.

It takes a few hours to ‘do justice’, ‘e said,
While I lay in the buff and just studied ‘is cat;
It was stuffed and lay, looking surprised, on the bed –
But ‘e wouldn’t let on ‘ow it ended like that.

That evening ‘e took me to dinner, you see.
And ‘e asked me to sit again soon, s’il vous plait.
Then I told ‘im my dream while ‘e painted; the fee
For the nightmare was double ‘e’d paid for the day.

Dopes

Bus stuck at finish of stage one

Yer gorra laff! Just picture it: a hundred and fifty lads on bikes going like the clappers for 120 miles on Corsica. Then minutes from the finish somebody jams a team-bus on the line. Panic ensues. The finish will now be 300 metres before the line; half the riders get the message and start sprinting; lots of them fall off their bikes; the bus is extracted and the finish line reinstated.

Guess who’s been using up all those illicit drugs since the big clean-up .

Training to be king

Big Ears is showing the way to the British monarchy of the future – in which the Old Values are re-established. Which being interpreted means that Modesty, Thrift and Self-sufficiency are for the plebs; and Conspicuous Consumption returns for the wayward Windsors. Royal trains, royal flights and liveried flunkies are so much nicer, dontchya know?

His mother chooses to travel in less style but he’ll obviously have no truck with that. I can’t wait for his accession, can you?

 

Continue reading “Training to be king”

Fame

A hunter gatherer aims his bow and arrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cherished colleagues are known to deplore the cult of celebrity, particularly when good runners, singers, toadies and assorted prats are awarded Honours for our pains. But soft! What light at yonder window (etc.)? Allegedly it’s all in the genes – the latest and greatest excuse for almost anything you deplore.

So see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23046602  – wherein the evolutionary tale is told.

In the dark ages social status was determined by skill at hunting, shooting and fishing, which explains why the great and good anno 2013 still set store by such qualities.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – again!

Chinese hospitality

I am assured this hotel brochure is not a spoof:

“Getting There:
Our representative will make you wait at the airport. The bus to the hotel
runs along the lake shore. Soon you will feel pleasure in passing water. You
will know that you are getting near the hotel, because you will go round the
bend. The manager will await you in the entrance hall. He always tries to
have intercourse with all new guests.

The hotel:
This is a family hotel, so children are very welcome. We of course are
always pleased to accept adultery. Highly skilled nurses are available in
the evenings to put down your children. Guests are invited to conjugate in
the bar and expose themselves to others. But please note that ladies are not
allowed to have babies in the bar. We organize social games, so no guest is
ever left alone to play with them self.

Continue reading “Chinese hospitality”

Dark forces?

Just 10 days ago, Mrs J and I were shopping quietly as usual. At the checkout the machine said ‘Card cancelled’. (!)

Checkout : Close-up of a teen woman paying with her credit card

Within half an hour we arrived at our local bank. They had no idea it had happened or why but the chip had been deactivated by ‘somebody’ and a new card was duly ordered post haste. I sent a WTF message to the netbank ‘system’ in the hope of enlightenment and received a strange reply, to the effect that the bank had been advised by the Tax Office that I did not have an address in Denmark and that the card had been duly cancelled.

That’s strange because in this police state my address is clearly recorded in the ‘folkeregister’ and accessible to banks and other institutions. And a quick phone call to our friendly local taxman confirmed that the records showed nothing which might have prompted any call to the bank. So now I await the assistance of the bank’s CEO who, I hope, was suitably underwhelmed by my experience and ready to investigate. Not holding my breath.

Toady

Tony Robinson

 

 

 

 

The mysteries of the British honours system usually leave me yawning but this time a particularly unprepossessing, second-rate actor with pretensions to adequacy as a tv presenter caught my eye.

One Tony Robinson, a non-academic dig enthusiast, ever-present at political events and a sycophant of the first water is now to be addressed as ‘sir’. Gawd ‘elp us!

Monroe

No, the other one – of ‘Doctrine’ fame. In short it allowed the good ole boys to stop other kids playing in their own backyards too close to the land of the free. And in the ’80s Sheriff Reagan and Col. Oliver North sent some help to the Contras in Nicaragua, funded by the sale of arms to Iran. And all on the hush-hush too.

 The two canals

So I wonder if there’ll be some behind-the-scenes jiggery-pokery again in Nicaragua now that the pesky Chinese plan to compete with the US-controlled Panama canal by digging a new, much better one? Will the US of A bribe the poor Nicaraguans to reject the project? Has the Pres already told the Chinese to butt out? And will we ever know?