Category Archives: Ricardo

Joyeux Noel.

16 Thursday Dec 2021

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

From the Pig’s Arm’s European Correspondent Ricardski

Editor’s Note: No vaccinations have been forced upon anyone in this post.

I hope all is well in Australia and Putin isn’t planning to invade.

Ed’s note – no, thankfully not immediately since Tony Abbott shirtfronted him. China, on the other hand is another matter, thanks to Mr Potato Head.

Luckily, the Ukraine has greatly improved its armed forces and military technology though it is not a member of NATO. I think Putin sees Biden as being weaker than Obama.

His absurd argumemt that Ukraine is Russian is liking saying Korea is Japanese. Ironically, millions of Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death in the early-1930s due to that other evil despot Stalin who actually murdered more people than Hitler. Thousands of Ukrainians joined the Waffen-SS in WW2 as they simply wanted to kill Bolseheviks not Jews.

The Baltic States and Poland are understandably nervous though they are all NATO members and the Parachute Regiment plus half the RAF are based in the Baltics.

My ex-next door neighbour’s parents were wealthy Lithuainians until the Soviets stole all their land from them. Her Grandparents spent the rest of their lives in a Gulag.

Meanwhile diplomatic relations between the UK and France are at their lowest point since the Napoleonic Wars. (same here in Australia, Ricardski… ed’s note)

Meanwhile fascism is growing in Hungary of all places as evidenced by the black-shirted buffoons who screamed abuse and monkey noises at England’s black players.

How Democracy Died in Hungary ……

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/13/17823488/hungary-democracy-authoritarianism-trump

All very depressing.

Cheers from the mother country,

Ricardski

Noah’s Ark

15 Monday Jun 2020

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The Abbey Inn – Bramley, Leeds.

Story by Ricardo, the Pig’s Arms Northern England correspondent meteorologist and pet chaser.

Bonsoir,

Awful weather for June. If it rains anymore in our local wood the entire place will soon be swarming with Brazilian mining companies and Greenpeace activists. This biblical rainfall all started when Albert (Editor’s note – Albert is Ricardo’s cat… sorry, Hung, that how he rolls) made his bid for freedom last Wednesday so I’m blaming him. 

After being blamed by everyone here all day (apart from Zellweger) for supposedly letting the Pink Panther escape out of my bathroom window, Renee admitted that she had opened her bedroom window in the middle of the night whilst Albert was (pretending to be) asleep in her room. I wondered why she kept asking me all day whether whoever let Albert escape would be in trouble…. I said of course not, I just want to get him back. 

Meanwhile, like Steve McQueen in Papillon, Albert had shaken off the chains of domestic moggie ennui and was off, walking off into the dawn by stepping out onto the conservatory roof, floating past past the dozy Garden Gnome Guards, then leaping the 2 feet onto the roof of the next door neighbour’s shed and then it was a small leap for catkind and freedom for 4 days after which presumably his rumbling stomach compelled him to hand himself in. Picture a feline version of Steve McQueen in his cell, without a bowl of Purina Gourmet ‘Duck and Pheasant’ catfood (yes, that it what the ungrateful little git eats whilst I have beans on toast) throwing a ping pong ball at the wall in the final scene of The Great Escape.   

Good job he is not a Burmese, Norwegian Forest Cat, Turkish Van, Scottish Fold, Bengal, Russian Blue, Persian or Siamese or else he could report me for racial discrimination. So I’ve treated him to a Union Jack cat collar so am now confidently expecting a tirade of bile from the Japanese half of the household. She did tell me (twice) in all seriousness that I have slanty eyes which I thought was a bit Hitleresque. After the 2nd time, and questioning my Aryan heritage, I have started looking at myself sideways in the mirror which does make shaving and washing my face rather troublesome. But at least my left ear and temple are spotless.   

Clearly inspired by Winston Churchill, Caractacus, Boadicea, King Alfred, Richard the Lionhert, the South Wales Borderers, Lord Nelson, the 11th Hussars and the Duke of Wellington, Zellweger wants, of all things, a Bulldog… This may cause Albert to seize the initiative and open  the window himself in Renee’s bedroom. 

I think it is lucky the lockdown did not occur in the middle of winter else I think many people would be suffering mentally. Though not here in Horsforth, this household is mental anyway. Maybe that was what Albert was thinking at 5am last Wednesday as he tippawed onto the roof? 

After root canal therapy and an extraction, then being given an x-ray and being reassured that it is totally safe as the entire dental surgery, sans moi, vacated the building as though Count Dracula had just arrived for an impromptu check up, I shall be quite content if I never see another dentist again. Moments before the extraction I was asked ‘How are you feeling?’ to which my blunt albeit heartfelt response was ‘Pretty shit actually’. I wonder if the executioner asked Guy Fawkes the same bloody stupid question as he walked up the scaffold, who incidentally, broke his own neck to avoid the rest of the barbaric experience. Though, I have to admit, I wasn’t feeling quite that desperate.   

Apparently the rain will stop this evening. I better cancel my canoe. I will double-check as I don’t believe it will be 23 degrees tomorrow. If OK, I’ll pop down tomorrow. Probably best if I come on my own as not sure whether Renee and Zellweger will be able to stay 2 metres apart. Might bring Albert instead now he has discovered the joys of the big wide world outside our house.

Salut !

Ricardo, the Scarlet Pusspernell and 6 tribes of Amazonian Pygmies who have set up camp outside the Abbey Pub.

The Holier than Thou Trinity join forces to defeat the Coronavirus

14 Tuesday Apr 2020

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Drama from Ricardo

Featuring:

  • Bono
  • Sir Bob Geldof
  • Greetin Thunderbird

And a special guest appearance by Nigel Farage

Scene: The Clarence Hotel in Dublin.

Bono is enjoying a beautiful spring day, scrolling on his Samsung tablet whilst sipping a decaf americano in the bar in The Clarence Hotel in Dublin whilst dreaming about investing in more tax-efficient investments in Lithuania, when in walks His Royal Highness Bob Geldof along with Greta Thornberg.

Bob: Oh hi mate! Mornin’ Paul. Fancy bumping into you here. This has made my day. 

Bono: What the feck do you want coming uninvited into my feckin ho—?

Greetin: How dare you? HOW DARE YOU talk to my hero like that. Do you know who you are tal—

Bono: Who the feck is she?   

Bob: Paul, my grand friend, please just calm down. Please. After all the millions of Euros you have spent on this place, and avoided in tax, you don’t want to waste all that money by having a big hissy fit and scaring all your customers and investors away. 

Bono: Okay. What do yer want? I’ll give ye 2 minutes as my Tax Accountants from Malta and the Netherlands are due to arrive soon. And don’t call me Paul. Only my closest friends and my tax advisors are allowed to call me that. No-one else. 

Bob: Okay. Please forgive me. You seem a bit Edgy this beautiful day. Well what do you want me to call you? Adam?  

Bono: Bono.  BONO.  BONO, yer feckin stupid idjit.

Greetin: Bono? What kinda fookeen name is that? 

Bob: I think it’s the name of an ancient Celtic Chieftain from Wexford who saved Ireland in 60AD from being invaded by a legion of Roman Tax Inspectors.

Bono: Jasus, will yer just the feck up you imbecile and get straight to the feckin point? 

Greetin: How dare you? HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO MY FRIEND LIKE THAT? I’ll have you know he once had an audience with the Pope.     

Bono: I don’t care if he’s had an audience with the CEO of the Dutch Ministry of Taxation. He is starting to—

Bob: Okay guys, please calm down. Well, you’ve heard about this coronavirus? Well, I was hop— 

Greetin pipes in giddily: Coronavirus? Hey guys, I remember spending an all expenses paid month in the presidential suite of a 5 start resort on that idyllic little island last year when circumnavigating the Med in my personal, handmade, solid teak, ozone-friendly, zero carbon footprint yacht. Coronavirus is just off Greece and I remember, with a heavy heart, in fact an even heavier heart  than when I read about that poor giraffe being killed in Copenhagen Zoo then chopped up for food for all the zoo’s carnivores in front of a load of Danish school kids, three quarters of my crew abandoning ship as soon as we got to the harbour saying something about they couldn’t stand listening to my drivel any longer. How dare they talk to me like that? How dare they not support my personal crusade to save the world? How dare—

Bono: Who is this fecking idgit you’ve brought along with you? 

Bob: Sorry Bono. Greta gets a bit carried away at times. She can’t help it, its hardwired into her DNA. She’s Swedish. You know what they’re like as a nation for being hot-blooded, passionate and volatile. Just look at the cars they make. Volvo. Saab. These car marques just ooze hot-tempered Vikings which are liable to go completely and utterly berserk at the drop of a cow-horned helmet. But she’s a good kid. She is singlehandedly fighting to stop climate change. Without people like Greta, we’ll all be bollixed in 10 years’ time.         

Bored witless already, Bono goes back to scrolling on his Samsung tablet when, with an  eruption that would send shivers down the spine of Mount Vesuvius, he exclaims lamentably: Aaarrrgghh Nooooooo. Holy Feckin Tax Havens. Feck and bollix. Footfall in Lithuanian shopping malls has just collapsed all due to this fecking virus.  

Bob sycophantically: Ah, that’s grand Bono as it happily brings me to my request for a tiny, little favour from your truly awesome, philanthropic good self, if you could be so kind as to listen to my humble request.

Bono absentmindedly: First Georgia, then Crimea, then East Ukraine and now a shopping mall in some one horse town in Lithuania.  I bet feckin Putin and his FSB stooges are behind all this. 

Bob: Bono? Sir?

Bono: What were you saying? Sir? Are you now being a smartarse? 

Greetin piously: How dare you? HOW DARE YOU address my climate changing comrade in arms like this? He has a knighthood from the Queen of England. Unlike you. So show Sir Bob some respect.

Bono lurches forward belligerently onto the edge of his 19th century Chesterfield armchair (which, according to the furniture salesman, once comforted the weary buttocks of the great Oscar Wilde) like a demented Irish Wolfhound upon being informed that it resembles a more stupid and shaggy version of Scooby Doo: I would never accept a feckin knighthood from that tax dodging, blood sucking, millionaire parasite. I have my principles and would never betray my working class roots. And as for you yer—      

Bob goes down on bended knees: Dear, dear Bono, please, please, please hear me out. I beg of you. I want to launch a global appeal to raise money to buy protective equipment for all NHS members and I was looking to see if you could make the first donation so we could buy some much needed equipment for all the under-resourced nurses and doctors.  

Bono: INXS? I didn’t realise they were all qualified doctors. Surely they must be loaded if they are all GPs and I bet they all live in Elizabeth Bay. So those tight gets can put their hands into their own pockets and buy their own equipment, as far as I’m concerned.  

Bob: Bono, no— 

Greetin excitedly: Bononos! I came across them on my recent, eco-friendly tour of Central Africa sponsored by Rio Tinto. I stayed in some great 5 star hotels. Though I had to pay for the hotels’ spas and all my evening meals but luckily I was able to use my new American Express Black Card. Did you know— 

Bob: Greta. Shush, please. The NHS is the beleaguered National Health Service in the UK. Plus I would like to raise money for the HSE in Ireland.  

Bono: Right, if yer promise to bugga off within the next 5 minutes. I’ll donate €500 to this noble cause. But on condition that it is called The One BONO is stronger than COVID 19 Trust and it has to be set up in Switzerland.    

Bob: Well, I was humbly hoping that you could donate a bit more than that.  €1 million maybe?

Bono: Look things are a bit tight at the moment. You know all the slums in the banlieue of Paris, full of the downtrodden masses who have been trampled on, chewed up and spat out by the elitist French Establishment under Macron? These lost souls are my brothers. Every moment of every day I feel their pain in La Place de Clichy. I hear their cries of anguish in Grigny. The constant gnashing of teeth in Seine Saint Denis. (Bono starts sobbing whilst mournfully thumping his heart. Meanwhile, Greetin starts asking a drinks waiter how big the Clarence Hotel’s penthouse suite is and could she stay in it for free otherwise she’ll organise a student demo outside the front entrance before the week is out). 

Bono as he gently places his hands on the heads of Bob and Greetin: So I urge you both to reflect for a moment on their lamentable plight, as they struggle to survive life’s vicissitudes from one day to the next, in a society that just doesn’t care, for a moment as I pray for my banlieue brothers. 

Bob: So what is the relevance fo this to my humble request? 

Bono: Just give me a moment whilst I compose myself after thinking about those poor wretches who are cruelly kicked in the guts every day by the blood-sucking millionaires residing in the 16th arrondissement. These outcasts of Paris, who have risked everything for a better life in the land of Equalité, Liberté and Fraternité, from places as diverse as Chad, Mali, Algeria, Syria and presumably Lancashire, live in absolute squalor. Poor sanitation, sub-standard housing, rampant crime, no jobs, drug addictions. The list just goes on and on and it stabs me in the heart just thinking about it. (A tear falls from Bono’s eye like water dripping from a rusty gutter) Do you know it’s common for a family of 6 to share a tiny, cramped, one bedroom flat. It’s’ heart breaking. Ah, and I’ve just bought a 72 bedroom chateau, 32 kilometres away and it’s cost me a bloody fortune. €14.23 million yet it needs a new roof. That will set me back another €175,000. Have you ever had to deal with French tradesmen? Bloody nightmare.

Bob: Shouldn’t the survey have picked up the extensive roof repairs?

Bono: Do you think anyone in their right mind was going to pay €738 for a survey? They obviously thought being a supposed ‘rosbif’, that they could pull the wool over my eyes. Fools.

And you should see how much I have to pay each year in taxe fonciére and taxe d’habitation.

Habitat and Brazil.

Lebanon Pine Tree – build up this bit

Bono: Why should I support all the hospitals in the UK and Ireland? What about all the starving kids in Africa ? (Bono starts a slow clap as though he was at a Leonard Cohen concert) Do you know that every time I clap my hands, a starving kid in Africa dies of malnutrition?

Greetin: Well stop fookeen clapping then.     

Greetin is saved from instant defenestration by her beeping mobile as Bob and Bono are mesmerised by the siren-like cackling on Greetin’s mobile.

Greetin talking excitedly: Oh, hi honey bun. You light up my life just by texting me. How are you baby? How are your boys? And is Harry being a good lad? 

(More cackling on her mobile). What, he still does everything you tell him to, even telling his Grandma to get knotted! That’s wicked.  

(Mirthlike cackling on her mobile) like an obedient little puppy. Hey, that’s awesome. 

(More cackling). But don’t give him too hard a time as I do think you were expecting a bit too much when you demanded that he tell his Granny to ‘go kiss my ginger ass’.  But you must be so happy. 

(Agitated cackling on her mobile). WHAT?? You have to give back your £4 million pound little cottage? And after all that hard work you spent doing it up? 

(Contemptuous cackling). A decrepit old dump built in 1801. I agree, why couldn’t they get you a brand new, 5 bedroom condo overlooking Canary Wharf and within spitting distance of the US and Canadian Embassies? 

(Empathic cackling)  How dare she? HOW DARE SHE throw you out of your marital home, a struggling family with two unemployed and aimless parents. Who does she think she is: the Queen of England?  (more agitated cackling) 

An exasperated Bob: Greta, have you finished yet talking to that self-obsessed, self-promoting bimbo?

(Loud cackling ‘I heard that, asshole’ with a not particularly welcoming invitation to the ‘Judas-like, Fenian stooge of the British Establishment’ to kiss the aforesaid cackler’s ass).   

Greetin: Bob, please, how dare you? HOW DARE YOU listen in to my private conversation? Megs is calling me from Los Angeles despite being destitute and unemployed with a royally unemployable husband in tow. And now the parsimonious President Trump has refused to give them a bodyguard even though she appeared in Suits and she once wrote a letter to Hillary Clinton.

(Annoyed cackling questioning what is going on and why Greetin isn’t giving her, her full, undivided attention when she is speaking)   

Greetin: Sorry babe. Please forgive me. 

(Irate cackling). I agree with you, the Brits have absolutely no class or manners. Though he says he’s Irish. 

(Highly agitated cackling) Yeah, they’re not much better despite their nicer accents. WHAAT? Holy Celsius. You have to pay back the £2.4 million you spent on renovating the cottage? All of it? 

(Panic-stricken cackling) What? You are no longer eligible for funding from the British taxpayers and no further series of Suits are planned? 

(Hysterical cackling) I know, hun, I’m with you sister. I cried my eyes out too when you were interviewed on TV by those evil bastard British tabloid journalists and all you did was opine that you were ‘surviving not thriving’ in your taxpayer funded, £4 million, little, 200 year old hovel. 

(Lawsuit-threatening cackling). I know. I cannot believe they have taken your hard-earned royal title away from you. These disrespectful fookeen Brits don’t recognise Hollywood royalty when they see it. I know a good lawyer in Malmo if you need one. Just look at what he did for Tiger Woods’ ex-wife. 

(Disinterested and disingenuous cackling). Oh me?? Yes, I’m fine thanks. Thanks for caring about me. 

(Utterly disinterested and thoroughly bored mini-cackling) I’m stopping in the Coronarvirus Hotel in Dublin (Bono apoplectically drops his coffee cup) Yes, I know. Funny name for a hotel. May explain why it is empty. 

(Eruption of interested cackling). WOW! Vanity Fair and Vogue want us together on the front covers of their June issues and they will fly me First Class to New York tomorrow? Fantastic. 

(Serious cackling) But why can’t I be in the foreground for one of the photo shoots? 

(Blunt, take no shit cackling). OK, everyone knows that you are a raving beauty and yes, I know that the key to your path for eternal self-enlightenment has always been ‘I want thus I get’. 

(Persuasive, ‘win-win’ cackling) Okay, if you promise to organise free trips to NASA and Disneyworld Florida then I’ll be happy to sit in the background on the photo shoots. But, and please don’t take this the wrong way hun, I’m only trying to help, but I really don’t think ‘I want thus I get’ would be a great brand name for your new range of women’s clothing (cackler hanks up). Hmm, I think she listened to me this time. Oh, how on earth could I survive without 5G? It’s a godsend and—.        

Bono and Bob in unison like a pissed off Foster and Allen: Have you finally finished? Can we continue? How about you switch your phone off?

Greetin: How dare—

Bob: Greta. Be quiet. Get an Apple. 

Bob on a roll: Could you at least spare us €825,000?   

Slaine Castle 

At this point, in strolls Nigel Farage. 

Nigel loudly and ebulliently breezes through the lobby: Bonjour mes amis. Or should I say Achtung Baby? (Nigel laughs manically)

Bob: Oh, no. Not that fooker. 

Nigel: Love your hotel Bozo, old boy. Looks amazing. Did you name it after the Duke of Clarence perchance? You clearly have a head for spotting an opportunity and turning a profit. I wish I could say that I was an entrepreneur. I love your music and was wondering when Clannad were thinking of getting back into the recording studio.      

Ricardo in Training

16 Tuesday Jul 2019

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London and North England Rail – LNER Tanks

Dear Pig’s Argonauts,

Here is a whistle-stop tour of my recent, wondrous experience of travelling with the intrepid LNER from Leeds to London and back; bearing in mind they now have new trains from japan which they boast with unadulterated hubris are ‘much more reliable’.

Both trains were cancelled. 

So instead of getting the 1015 train to London I had to get the 1045 and I also lost my seat reservation. Not sure whether I was being singled out for punishment by the LNER Customer Relations Praetorian Guard or whether everyone else on the Phantom had lost their seat reservations. 

I ventured to ask a member of staff at Leeds Station why the 1015 train had been cancelled and was illuminatingly told, and this would never have occurred to my train of thought in a million years, that ‘there was a problem with the train’ ….

…as opposed to a problem with the cross-channel ferries. 

I could have walked along the entire Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostock and I would have remained none the wiser. 

I did ask if he could be a bit more specific and helpfully gave him a few signals…

  • The train had been hit by lightning?
  • The train had been derailed by a jumbo-sized leaf on the tracks?
  • Roadworks on the M25?
  • Headbutted by a galloping, kamikaze Friesian cow?
  • The driver had decided to hand in his notice at 1014?
  • Apaches? 

… I wasn’t exactly asking for a tannoy announcement from the Fat Controller but he remained steadfast with the most resolute of customer-assassin, one-man Rorke’s Drift stands (I looked carefully all around me but, alas, I was not inspired to mutter the immortal line ‘Zulus sir, thousands of ‘em’), and he doggedly declined to give me any further details upon pain of death by a thousand Assegais or 2,000 redundant seat reservation tickets.  

By the time I arrived at Kings Cross the whole train was livid but luckily I was able to get to the office on time as the Northern Tube Line was slightly more reliable than LNER so at least LNER didn’t derail my presentation. It just meant I could only have a banana for lunch though this did have some benefits as I could do with losing a few kilos and I did not break my cracked molar which had recently been the unwitting object of Dr. Mengele-like dental surgery.  

I sailed through my presentation then we all flew back to King still cross only to find the 1703 train had gone out in sympathy with the 1015 from Leeds and had also been cancelled so we eventually got onto the 1733 but this was clearly less sympathetic with the 1015 as it was a mere 15 minutes late in departing (having been told initially by the Fat Controller that it had also been cancelled). 

The Fat Controller was clearly having the time of his life causing utter chaos and mayhem by announcing multiple train cancellations from Kings Absolutelybloodyfedup then deciding some were only a few minutes late e.g. to Birmingham New Street, whilst others were now back on time e.g. to Cambridge, whilst some were cancelled without a shadow of a doubt e.g. to York, Harrogate and Edinburgh: all the while totally mystified passengers swayed bewilderingly from one platform to another like rudderless vessels in a transatlantic hurricane. On that note, transatlantic hurricanes were about the ONLY reason NOT used as an excuse for any cancelled or late-running trains that evening.  

Being of ineluctably non-riff raff stock, and hence of a polite disposition, I naively let about 13,651 other passengers pile onto the train before me. I again lost my seat reservation, which led to much gnashing of teeth, which in turn exacerbated the ever-widening chasm in my cracked molar and, to raise customer getstuffedicity to new peaks enjoyed previously only by Greek Gods and Ryanair, the customer-centric LNER Company Pitbull who purported to be the Service Manager on the 1733 train from Kings Incandescentwithrage to Leeds refused, whilst smiting me down with her Medusa-like gaze, to upgrade me to First Class so I was unable to sit with my colleagues who had somehow purloined First Class seats in the Zeus and Dionysus Carriage, but I did at least console myself by having the somewhat less supine pleasure of standing all the way to Stevenage in the Plebeian Carriage as there were no seats left in this modern day chariot of the Gods.  I did have a nice chat with Caractacus and Boadicea about how superior 2,000 year old Roman roads in Britain are compared to 12 year old railway tracks, until they alighted (LNER speak for opened the door and got out) at Colchester.

And there was no hot food. 

Or bananas. Hot or cold, Puerto Rican or Colombian, yellow or green, ripe or rancid. 

Not even one putrid, over-priced banana. Maybe there is a national banana shortage due to Brexit. 

So, you may ask yourself rhetorically, what exactly is the point of a Catering Carriage on a train that has no food unless the crew have decided that all the passengers are clinically obese so must embark forthwith on an 8 hour (8 hours and 15 minutes to be precise), zero-calorie crash diet? Even Tantalus would have been gorging on the Grapes of Wrath by this microwaveable, culinary debacle. A tannoy announcement from Polly Pitbull, who did not mince her words, or beefsteak for that matter, gave me a hint

‘Would all the tight, fat bastards who are sat in First Class but do not have First Class Ticket please squeeze your fuckingg big fat lying arses  into the Plebeian carriages’   

I managed to get home before midnight so at least the train turn into a pumpkin. But if it had, at least I would have had something to eat. 

I know this sounds harsh but I possibly may not rate this epic journey as a first class customer experience. Next time it might be quicker if I travel with Thomas the Tank Engine. Or Pegasus. 

Later that evening I saw a LNER post on Facebook boasting about how much more reliable their trains are now… so at least they do have a sense of humour… I was so impressed that I decided to comment on their post but for some reason they declined to reply. 

Ricardo

Not Exactly the Tooth Fairy

22 Wednesday May 2019

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Ouch !

Story by Ricardo (with a lot of sympathy from Emmjay)

Root bleedin’ canal therapy….  prompts an impassioned search for the magic elixir pour les dents…..

Fookeen Aida… 

Good evening, 

I have used your utterly brilliant GC Tooth Mousse for many years. I should be a sales rep for GC Tooth Mousse as I keep telling everybody about its amazing qualities and have even quixotically given away some of my tubes. 

I no longer shoot through the ceiling like a heat-seeking missile every time my Dental Hygienist touches a once-sensitive tooth and believe the enamel on my teeth is now as strong as Kevlar. Even Count Dracula would be impressed.  

Sadly, I have almost run out of my final tube and, even more sadly, it would appear all good things must come to an end as, whilst I was recently experiencing the unbridled joy of root canal therapy for the first time, my Dentist informed me that his practice no longer stocks your wonderful GC Tooth Mousse as apparently I was the only person who ever purchased it (this does at least confirm the stereotype of parsimonious Yorkshire folk even in the ostentatiously affluent metropolis of Leeds). So he recommended I order some online from Amazon instead. 

Metaphorically this felt like a kick in the teeth and I deemed it to be a toothless response coming from a member of the dental profession.

But after much gnashing of teeth, which I suspect is unlikely to do them any good, I acted upon his advice and placed an order via Amazon. Lamentably the tooth mousse has apparently fallen into a cavity, or the River Amazon, whilst in transit. Perhaps somewhere in the UK, a delivery driver is currently admiring his new spearmint flavoured, bulletproof teeth. Amazon are at least refunding me the £13 but I would much rather have the Tooth Mousse. 

I have tried looking elsewhere and everywhere but to no avail. Even Boots the Chemist don’t stock it. I am not a dentist so I wondered if I could please possibly order some Mint flavoured Tooth Mousse directly from yourselves? 

I would be very grateful if this could be possible and I would be happy to buy a 10 pack as I’ll probably give half of them away. I would be most grateful for a fairly swift response as I have been summoned to see my Dental Hygienist again in June and my Dentist who wants to decide whether the tooth in which he seemingly drilled for oil whilst performing root canal therapy, now needs to be extracted.  

Thank you very much,

….after 90 minutes of attacking me with a miniature jackhammer (I was having flashbacks of the scene when Laurence Olivier as Dr Mengele is torturing Dustbin Geroffmann) he told me the tooth is cracked under the gumline so needs to be extracted. 

Eee baa gum – which sounds infinitely preferable to having my tooth drilled non-stop for 50 minutes.

So I told Dr Mengele to fill it instead and I’ll take my chances as it does not hurt and I am paying over £40 per month for my fookeen useless, drop dead Denplan dental insurance policy which conveniently does not cover dental implants unless a tooth is hit by lightning, is kidnapped by Al Qaida, or gets knocked out in a car accident or sporting injury so I have taken up MMA, ice hockey, karate, Formula One, horse riding, tae kwon do, hurling, rugby league, water polo, Bulgarian freestyle wrestling, lacrosse, boxing, dwarf throwing and rugby union for 5 hours each day…   

Rinse……. repeat……

We’re on the road to nowhere

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

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Nelson 3

 

 Nelson (the cat) gives his SatNav a spray….

The route guidance is not quick enough in cities. Having gone around Rouen and back out the way we came in during rush hour I would gladly settle for the most sensible route rather than the supposedly fastest route. The voice command would be even more useful it if came equipped with a loudspeaker which could blare out ‘Je suis desolé Madame mais Monsier Garmin est perdu’ every time an irate French motorist in Rouen honked their horns and shouted abuse at us. Or maybe they were still upset about Brexit?
According to the traffic assistance, as we joined a rapidly growing line of idle cars, campervans, coaches, trucks and lorries, there were no delays on the A10 at Chatellrault in France on Monday, insisting this was the fastest route despite the fact that there had been a huge accident involving 5 lorries. With Asterixesque good fortune, we were able to turn off the slip road and, you may call me old-fashioned, used a humble Michelin road map to find a better route to Tours. We passed stationary traffic on the A10 going back miles.

Despite only updating the map 3 weeks earlier, it did not recognise the road to the port in Zeebrugge (in the darkest depths of the urban Jungle that is Flanders) instead insisting we were driving through a field during which we saw some of the weirdest looking farm animals that I have ever seen such as the Renault Vache, 2CheVre, Citroen Cheval and Peugeot Cochon. It then, with an insouciant Gallic shrug (despite our being marooned in Belgium), stopped working altogether. Perhaps it had calculated that it had already completed 35 hours work that week in France? Having decided that I may not wish to experience the delights of travelling the fastest route from Amiens to Bruges via Xanadu, Yellowstone Park or Zululand, next time I will buy a Tom Tom. Alas, this Garmin Sat Nav is to road guidance what Inspector Clousseau was to detective work.

Garmin may try to sue me for this review but they will have to find me first in which case they had better not use one of their Sat Navs.

ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE: A Monument to Humanity’s Capacity for Cruelty

24 Friday Jul 2015

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Oradour Sur Glane France abc

Story by Ricardo

The martyr village in France where time has stood still since 10th June 1944

Each year thousands of British tourists eagerly flock to the serene and picturesque heart of France via Limoges Airport yet many are blissfully unaware of the site of the Nazis’ most evil, cowardly and barbaric atrocity in France which lies just a few kilometres away.

So why is so little known about Oradour-sur-Glane yet far more people know about Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam and the work camp at Auschwitz?

Is there a sting in the tail?

Are a people haunted by guilt?

Oradour-sur-Glane is a tranquil village in the rural département of the Haute-Vienne: an area of natural, rugged beauty resembling a Gallic Peak District. An area famed for its cattle, hunting and porcelain, where eagles glide majestically through the sky and wild boar and deer live in the forests. An area where the locals are proud to call themselves ‘paysans’.

The Allies had successfully landed in Normandy several days before so the villagers may have already been looking forward to the ineluctable defeat of the heinous Nazi regime and a post-war return to a life of liberty, equality, fraternity.

Then the Waffen-SS came.

This village had probably existed in harmony with nature for hundreds of years until 10th June 1944 when a unit of Der Fuhrer Regiment: 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich descended upon the village like a pack of wild dogs or rabid Alsatians.

No-one really knows why the SS decided to destroy this village and murder all its inhabitants. It was not known for harbouring the French Resistance or hiding caches of weapons. One story was that a German officer who supposedly escaped from the French Resistance told his superiors that they intended to burn him alive hence the SS wanted to seek retribution amongst the local population (a common practice within the German Army in both WW1 and WW2).

The SS rounded up all the males in the village and split them into small groups. They then shot them in the legs so they could not escape but would not die. They were then covered in kindling and set alight. The women and children were all herded into the village church where the Priest bravely tried to save them; telling the SS that the Catholic Church was a house of God and that these were innocent civilians who had harmed no-one.

Their response was to shoot him before barricading all the women and children inside the church before throwing phosphorous grenades inside: burning everyone alive.

One woman managed to survive by crawling out of a window and hiding in the fields until nightfall. A total of 642 innocent civilians were murdered that day including 247 children; the youngest victim being just 10 months old.

Only the men who had left early that morning to work in the fields had survived.

As a final insult, the SS buried what remained of the bodies in a mass grave.

The remains of the village rest as the French Resistance found them the next day. Charles de Gaulle insisted that nothing be touched. After 71 years, the Doctor’s car still stands idle, gently rusting away, next to the door of the house of the patient he was tending on that apocalyptic day.

The remains of a baby’s pram still lie near the altar of the church.

Bullet holes still pock-mark the walls of the church.

There is an eerie silence in the ruined village as though the local birds know to keep away.

Walking round the graveyard is a more harrowing experience as you pass one mass grave after another showing the enamel portraits of several generations of the same family butchered on the same day.

So what could drive someone to burn alive a 10 month baby?

Why would anyone want to kill an unarmed woman or child?

Could this type of atrocity still happen today?

Have humans learned any lessons from Oradour-sur-Glane?

Rwanda, Srebrenica, 9/11, 7/7, ISIS, Tunisia, the Ukraine.

What type of philosophy could turn a human being into a depraved murderer? Or is cruelty inherent in many humans?

In the case of the Nazis it was their hatred of Jews and Bolshevism. So why did they murder a Catholic Priest?

The SS was fundamentally split into two groups: the SS-Totenkopfverbände, or the Death’s Head Units, which ran the concentration camps and the Waffen-SS which was its fighting arm.

This particular Waffen-SS Unit had fought on the Eastern Front for several years where they were taught that Slavs were sub-humans (along with Africans) so were encouraged to annihilate everyone in their path.

Many Europeans were seduced by the odious philosophy of the Nazis and joined the SS. For Ukrainians it was the chance to kill the hated Soviets. Another little known fact of WW2 was that it was the Danish SS who were defending Berlin when Hitler did everyone a favour and committed suicide.

So many French joined the SS that they had their own, ironically-named Charlemagne Division. So what is the sting in the tail about Oradour-sur-Glane?

The fact that the French Foreign Legion eagerly accepted the SS into its ranks after WW2 and sent them off to Indochina?

Or the fact that the perpetrators were never brought to justice?

Or that the SS Officers were given sanctuary in the Soviet bloc after 1945?

Or something more shameful?

Something to ponder if you ever get the chance to visit the martyr village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

23E787A300000578-2866775-image-a-19_1418126393156

Nelson the Cat Update V2.1

12 Thursday Sep 2013

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Nelson 3

Editor’s Note:  So, if you own a smartphone or an iPad, you’ll be familiar with the daily update notices where lovely application developers seek to improve their worthy products.  Well, digital publishing seems to be working the same way.  Herewith, Ricardo Vaughan offers a DIY update to his favourite feline’s estimable tome.  

THE TRAILS AND TRIBULATIONS OF NELSON THE CAT (AMENDS)

p.6 final para – please replace ‘for my testes?’ with ‘concerning the irrevocable surrender of my reproductive organs?’

p.9 1st para – replace ‘the lamentable buffoons who alleged to be’ with ‘certain’ so it now reads ‘…continually distracted by the outrageous exploits of certain buffoons within the England Rugby Team.’

p.11 2nd para – please replace ‘the Haka’ with ‘their pre-match ritual’

p.11 final para – please expand 4th line to ‘on or off the pitch’

p.12 1st para – please delete the entire section from ‘Or maybe it was partly due to the Mediterranean lifestyle in Toulon… to …anything else that can be sold on the black market.’

And replace with ‘Hopefully this outstanding servant to English Rugby may one day become coach of England and produce a team of champions on the pitch and gentlemen off it.  Though if it were me I would not want to give up the Mediterranean lifestyle in France which I imagine would be slightly more agreeable than life on the Tyneside Riviera.’

p.12 3rd para – please replace ‘JW’ with ‘Gentleman Johnny’

p.13 4th para – please expand to ‘…spear tackled by two catapulted midgets…’

p.13 4th para – please change the sentence from ‘I felt I had run into a miniature Tana Umaga and Kevin Mealamu’ to ‘I felt as if I had run into miniature versions of the fearsome Samoan wingers Tonna Brix and Craig Moltenlava.’

p.13 5th para – replace ‘…he had staggered off to another bar, accompanied by his entourage’ with ‘he had disappeared along with his entourage.’

p.14 2nd para – please delete ‘No wonder she is in the Olympic Team.’

p.14 3rd para – please replace ‘I was soon bored to death by …’ with ‘I was mesmerised by…’

p.16 1st para change the quote to ‘Why don’t you bugga off back home to Pommieland you stupid mongrel cat.’

p.16 2nd para – delete entire para from ‘But every long white cloud… to … most welcome to watch the match with them.’

p.16 6th para – amend to ‘….presumably decided to train for the triathlon by diving into Auckland harbour.’

p.16 7th para – amend ‘the rest’ to ‘some of the other members’

p.16 last para – please expand to ‘Going back to the Albino Blacks’ pre-match ritual…’

p.17 1st para – replace ‘…‘The Caveman’ Sebastien Chabal…’ with ‘the two metre giant Jean-Luc Chasseur des Laineux-Mammouths’

p.17 3rd para – replace ‘JW’ with ‘Gentilhomme Jean’

p.18 4th para – replace delete ‘of misfits’

p.20 last para – please replace ‘(supposedly trendy)’ with ‘retro’ and delete ‘(and was the spit of Morrisey)’ so it reads ‘He wore big, black, retro National Health Service glasses which accentuated his doleful demeanour.’

p21 1st para – please replace ‘Morrissey’ with ‘Professor Smith’

p.23 3rd para – please replace ‘…queried David Attenborough…’ with ‘…queried my ornithologically challenged LHC…’

p.28 2nd para and p.32 1st line please amend ‘e-coli’ to ‘E.coli’.

p.29 2nd para – please change ‘999%’ to ‘9,999.01%’

p.32 3rd para and p.33 1st para – please replace ‘Kate Winslet’ with ‘the most beautiful actress in the world’

p.36 last para – please delete hyphen next to ‘30’

p.41/ 43 #26 – please replace ‘Marie-Madeleine Lapin’ with ‘Aimée Toutlemonde’

p.41/ 44 #27 – please replace ‘Vincent Cassel’ with ‘Mathieu Allezengrève’

p.41/ 44 #32 – please replace ‘Gerard Depardieu’ with ‘Guillaume Taxe de Séjour’

p.42/ 44 #38 – please replace ‘Bradley Wiggins’ with ‘Chris Froome’

p.42/ 44 #39 – please replace ‘Lance Armstrong’ with ‘El Diablo’ (‘an El Diablo’ on p.44)

p.46 (new) #12 ‘Enchanté de faire votre connaissance, Madame. Je m’appelle Oui.’

p.47 (new) #12 ‘Delighted to meet you, Madam. My name is Noddy.’

p.48 2nd para – please replace ‘Twinings’ with ‘Darlinks’

p.54 penultimate para – after ‘Summer has come early. Hurrah!’  please add  ‘After two consecutive days of sunshine in England the water authorities up and down the country sprang into action and imposed hosepipe bans with immediate effect.’

p.55 3rd para – please delete ‘…as a tax exile…’

p.57 final para – please delete the hyphen after ‘2’

p.61 5th para – please expand to state ‘an English Lorena Bobbit.’

p.65 2nd line – please expand to ‘Go the Gers. I hate Lennon.’

p.66 after para ending ‘…get together and play football?’ please add a new para:-

‘At least humans exchange pleasant and polite messages on Facebook unlike many of those who use Twitter. Another deplorable trait in humans: socially inept scoundrels who hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to be vitriolic, offensive and ill-mannered. If they cannot say anything pleasant or constructive about someone then why say anything at all?’

Stay tuned for the next action-packed injection of hilarity updates when we release V2.1S

Crazy Downhill Action Plus….

04 Thursday Apr 2013

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Good news and a treat from Ricardo

Bonjour mes amis!

You will not believe this but I have finished my 54,000 word novel and it has got rave reviews from a literary critic and a copy editor!!! It’s going to be published as a paperback and on Kindle!!!!

I am expecting to get sued by everyone in Glasgow, posthumously by Giacomom Puccini after what Nelson does to Madama Butterfly (it has a slightly  different ending…), the Freemasons plus my sister. b

If I make enough money I can pay for Emmjay and FM to do a return trip to Europe!!!

Richard Dostoevsky

—ooo—