For a sitcom character who spent 99% of each episode asleep and only had a dialogue of 3 words, Father Ted's Father Jack was as memorable a character as television has ever had.
The actor who played him, Frank Kelly, has died and it was on the anniversary of the death of Dermot Morgan, who played Father Ted and who died of a heart attack on 28 February, 1998.
The foul-mouthed, hard-drinking Priest was most well known for his catchphrases, which included 'Drink!' and 'Girls!' and 'Feck!' had been suffering with Parkinson's disease and had previously battled bowel cancer and skin cancer.
Still repeated now, Father Ted was for me one of the greatest comedy series of all time but his first acting role was in The Italian Job in 1969, escorting Michael Caine’s character out of prison.
Appears that The Grim Reaper has chosen 2016 to steadily work his way through his list of celebrities.
Sunday, 28 February 2016
The Hitler Song Was Right
If the song is to be believed Hitler only had one ball, Goering had two but very small, Himmler had something similar but Goebbels had no balls at all but according to new evidence Hitler also had a tiny penis.
The unlucky Adolf had a genital deformity that made his penis remarkably small, according to historians citing previously unknown medical records.
The tyrant suffered from a condition called hypospadias which left him with a micropenis as well as
undescended testicles which would make him more of a Notsee than a Nazi.
Also explains why the Sauerkraut gave instructions in his will that his body be burned after his death, the last thing he would have wanted was for his reputation to be ruined by his lack of genitals.
The unlucky Adolf had a genital deformity that made his penis remarkably small, according to historians citing previously unknown medical records.
The tyrant suffered from a condition called hypospadias which left him with a micropenis as well as
undescended testicles which would make him more of a Notsee than a Nazi.
Also explains why the Sauerkraut gave instructions in his will that his body be burned after his death, the last thing he would have wanted was for his reputation to be ruined by his lack of genitals.
Saturday, 27 February 2016
What A Berk
The golden rule in American politics is if you are to have an audience behind you in a photograph, you need at least one white face, a black one, an Asian one and a selection of man and woman with different hair colour if possible to show that you appeal to everyone so i was horrified to see Donald Trump bucking tradition again by only have a sea of white faces behind him as he spouted something racist about Mexicans, probably.
It is a game of American Election Bingo we play especially with Hilary Clinton who makes sure she crams in as many different coloured faces as possible when she is stood on a stage.
Even more shocking than Trump and his flagrant disregard for our Bingo Game is my 77 year old mothers new found liking for calling people a berk as she loudly announces whenever someone she doesn't like comes on the television.
'That Trump/Cameron/Osbourne/Piers Morgan is a bit of a berk' she will announce suddenly although i am not sure that she knows exactly what she is saying as 'Berk' is not quite the low level cuss she seems to think it is.
Rhyming slang is quite big here, plates of meat are feet and whistle and flute is a suit and such is widespread that you don't even need to say it in full so if someone says 'my plates ache' you know their feet ache and if they say 'I spilt beer on my whistle' you know they got beer on their suit.
So the full rhyming slang of 'Berk' is Berkshire Hunt which is shortened to Berk so while the sentiment that Piers Morgan may indeed be a Berkshire Hunt, i don't know if my mother should be saying it quite so loudly in company.
Even more disturbing is that deep down, i think she knows exactly what it means and is playing the 'i'm a pensioner' card to get away with it.
It is a game of American Election Bingo we play especially with Hilary Clinton who makes sure she crams in as many different coloured faces as possible when she is stood on a stage.
Even more shocking than Trump and his flagrant disregard for our Bingo Game is my 77 year old mothers new found liking for calling people a berk as she loudly announces whenever someone she doesn't like comes on the television.
'That Trump/Cameron/Osbourne/Piers Morgan is a bit of a berk' she will announce suddenly although i am not sure that she knows exactly what she is saying as 'Berk' is not quite the low level cuss she seems to think it is.
Rhyming slang is quite big here, plates of meat are feet and whistle and flute is a suit and such is widespread that you don't even need to say it in full so if someone says 'my plates ache' you know their feet ache and if they say 'I spilt beer on my whistle' you know they got beer on their suit.
So the full rhyming slang of 'Berk' is Berkshire Hunt which is shortened to Berk so while the sentiment that Piers Morgan may indeed be a Berkshire Hunt, i don't know if my mother should be saying it quite so loudly in company.
Even more disturbing is that deep down, i think she knows exactly what it means and is playing the 'i'm a pensioner' card to get away with it.
Friday, 26 February 2016
You Had Better Behave Men
Men are such simple folk i hate to see a woman breaking a mans heart, mostly because he only has one so she should break his bones as he has over 250 of them.
Of course i jest, the average human body only has 206 bones but men should be feeling a bit more insecure today as scientists announce that they have managed to create an artificial version of sperm which to be honest was the only reason we were keeping them around.
The breakthrough appears to be about helping men whose fertility is damaged by health problems that prevent them from producing sperm but some men feel that the real agenda is to wipe them out altogether so if they think it anyway, maybe we could do it if men don't learn to behave themselves.
Up until now men have not had a good reputation, they may have given us such useful inventions as the telephone and television but you have to weigh that up against them also giving us nuclear weapons, religion and baseball caps.
Pick a war and you will see a man starting it, make a list of history's 10 greatest tyrants and there will be 20 testicles or 19 if Hitler makes the list.
Of course we still need to keep men around but in a world with far too much testosterone maybe we could use it as a turning point to say we don't really need you but if you promise to behave yourselves we will tolerate you.
Now open this bottle and then go park the car i have left in the road because the parking space was too small.
Of course i jest, the average human body only has 206 bones but men should be feeling a bit more insecure today as scientists announce that they have managed to create an artificial version of sperm which to be honest was the only reason we were keeping them around.
The breakthrough appears to be about helping men whose fertility is damaged by health problems that prevent them from producing sperm but some men feel that the real agenda is to wipe them out altogether so if they think it anyway, maybe we could do it if men don't learn to behave themselves.
Up until now men have not had a good reputation, they may have given us such useful inventions as the telephone and television but you have to weigh that up against them also giving us nuclear weapons, religion and baseball caps.
Pick a war and you will see a man starting it, make a list of history's 10 greatest tyrants and there will be 20 testicles or 19 if Hitler makes the list.
Of course we still need to keep men around but in a world with far too much testosterone maybe we could use it as a turning point to say we don't really need you but if you promise to behave yourselves we will tolerate you.
Now open this bottle and then go park the car i have left in the road because the parking space was too small.
Thursday, 25 February 2016
It's A Sin
The Bible is the single authoritative text on morality and values in the Christian faith and Christians therefore take God's instructions seriously and toe the religious line to ensure that when their time is up they travel upwards and not go in the opposite direction.
For many the Bible has taken a backseat as a moral guidebook but there are still Christians who try to live their life by the tenets of the Old and New Testaments, but even they go about their days often committing sins without knowing it so i feel it is my duty to warn you of things you Christians may be doing which will see St Peter turn you away from his pearly gates.
Wear Gold Jewellery, expensive clothes or have braids in your hair? Hell awaits you as it states in 1 Timothy 2:9 'I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments'.
Who doesn't love a pair of ripped jeans? God apparently because as Leviticus 10:6 explains: 'And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people'.
God being the loving, forgiving type, you can gamble that he will overlook the occasional fashion blasphemy but what about that night when you got drunk and woke up with a dolphin tattoo on your ankle? SINNER!!!
Leviticus 19:28 says that: 'Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, not print any marks upon you'. That's your soul damned for eternity then.
So by now you have thrown out your ripped jeans and sent all your jewellery to Cash 4 Gold and the only thing left in your wardrobe is a selection of polyester blend skirts. Oh dear, Leviticus 19:19 reads: 'you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together. Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee'. It’s 100% cotton or nothing people.
You may think that so far it all seems a bit anti-female, but the Bible is nothing if not misogynistic and sexist so ladies, once in Church keep quiet as ecplained in 1 Corinthians 14:34: 'Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak'. Know your place ladies and stop singing all things Bright & Beautiful on a Sunday morning.
You may think that designer stubble and long hair looks cool but unless you are at the start of a mission to grow a beard down to your navel or plan to shave it off as soon as you find a razor then God will tell you to go do one because he hates beards as much as he hates homosexuals. Leviticus 19:27 tells us that: 'You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads neither shalt thy mar the corners of thy beard'. That bowl cut you will need to rock will be worth it in the end.
So you take your shaved chin and circa 1963 John Lennon haircut down to the restaurant to cheer yourself up with a meal. The seafood menu looks appetising but put down those crabsticks unless you fancy eternity with a pitchfork up your backside. Leviticus 10-11 reads: 'All that have no fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination'.
By now you are probably thinking to play it safe, just stay at home and maybe throw the ball around outside with the kids, surely God can't have a downer on that. You'd think wouldn't you.
As Leviticus 11:7-8 explains: 'And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you'.
You know that rugby ball or American football you have been throwing around is made of pig skin right. See that bit about not touching the pigs carcass. Yep, you're toast.
Of course if you obey all the above from now on you may sneak in with a plea that you didn't know but as soon as you become aware you threw out your hooped earrings, ripped Levi's and wool blend coat and never made another visit to Captain Ahabs Lobster Shack and banned all balls from your house but of course if you were a proper Christian you would have read the Bible enough to know you were throwing away eternity in paradise when you were enticed into buying that bling.
For many the Bible has taken a backseat as a moral guidebook but there are still Christians who try to live their life by the tenets of the Old and New Testaments, but even they go about their days often committing sins without knowing it so i feel it is my duty to warn you of things you Christians may be doing which will see St Peter turn you away from his pearly gates.
Wear Gold Jewellery, expensive clothes or have braids in your hair? Hell awaits you as it states in 1 Timothy 2:9 'I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments'.
Who doesn't love a pair of ripped jeans? God apparently because as Leviticus 10:6 explains: 'And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people'.
God being the loving, forgiving type, you can gamble that he will overlook the occasional fashion blasphemy but what about that night when you got drunk and woke up with a dolphin tattoo on your ankle? SINNER!!!
Leviticus 19:28 says that: 'Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, not print any marks upon you'. That's your soul damned for eternity then.
So by now you have thrown out your ripped jeans and sent all your jewellery to Cash 4 Gold and the only thing left in your wardrobe is a selection of polyester blend skirts. Oh dear, Leviticus 19:19 reads: 'you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together. Neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee'. It’s 100% cotton or nothing people.
You may think that so far it all seems a bit anti-female, but the Bible is nothing if not misogynistic and sexist so ladies, once in Church keep quiet as ecplained in 1 Corinthians 14:34: 'Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak'. Know your place ladies and stop singing all things Bright & Beautiful on a Sunday morning.
You may think that designer stubble and long hair looks cool but unless you are at the start of a mission to grow a beard down to your navel or plan to shave it off as soon as you find a razor then God will tell you to go do one because he hates beards as much as he hates homosexuals. Leviticus 19:27 tells us that: 'You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads neither shalt thy mar the corners of thy beard'. That bowl cut you will need to rock will be worth it in the end.
So you take your shaved chin and circa 1963 John Lennon haircut down to the restaurant to cheer yourself up with a meal. The seafood menu looks appetising but put down those crabsticks unless you fancy eternity with a pitchfork up your backside. Leviticus 10-11 reads: 'All that have no fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination'.
By now you are probably thinking to play it safe, just stay at home and maybe throw the ball around outside with the kids, surely God can't have a downer on that. You'd think wouldn't you.
As Leviticus 11:7-8 explains: 'And the pig, because it parts the hoof and is cloven-footed but does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat any of their flesh, and you shall not touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you'.
You know that rugby ball or American football you have been throwing around is made of pig skin right. See that bit about not touching the pigs carcass. Yep, you're toast.
Of course if you obey all the above from now on you may sneak in with a plea that you didn't know but as soon as you become aware you threw out your hooped earrings, ripped Levi's and wool blend coat and never made another visit to Captain Ahabs Lobster Shack and banned all balls from your house but of course if you were a proper Christian you would have read the Bible enough to know you were throwing away eternity in paradise when you were enticed into buying that bling.
Money, Money, Money
You would have thought after the austerity fad that has swept the globe since the 2008 crash, we would finally have a handle on debt but a look at the list of countries debts shows that nations owe over £60 Trillion to each other and just one nation owes almost a third of that.
The United States is the worst offender and in the hole to the tune of $18,772,300,000,000 ($18.7 Trillion) or 103% of what the country brings in.
Second worst off is France which owes £5.7 Trillion then Germany £5.5 Trillion, Japan £2.8T, Italy £2.6T, Netherlands £2.5T, Spain £2.3T, China £1.6T, Switzerland £1.6T and the UK £1.5T.
Such is the state of the global finances that there are only 5 countries who have been able to avoid this economic insanity of debt and live within their means.
Macoa, the British Virgin Islands, Bruniei, Lichenstein and Palau are the only countries that bring in more than they spend.
With such huge levels of debt i can't see how countries are ever going to get out of the red and into the black, Iceland's debt is equal to £282,930 per head of population while each person in The Netherlands would need to find £226,503 each to clear the nations debts which is a lot of daffodils and tulips so i can't see these debts being cleared anytime soon.
As for the UK, we each would need to find £23,240 each and that is after the Conservative Government have hacked and slashed whatever is hackable and slashable and still we need to find another £1.5 Trillion in savings so i don't know what the answer is but surely at some point nations will begin thinking how we do things at the moment isn't working and look for other ways of doing things.
The United States is the worst offender and in the hole to the tune of $18,772,300,000,000 ($18.7 Trillion) or 103% of what the country brings in.
Second worst off is France which owes £5.7 Trillion then Germany £5.5 Trillion, Japan £2.8T, Italy £2.6T, Netherlands £2.5T, Spain £2.3T, China £1.6T, Switzerland £1.6T and the UK £1.5T.
Such is the state of the global finances that there are only 5 countries who have been able to avoid this economic insanity of debt and live within their means.
Macoa, the British Virgin Islands, Bruniei, Lichenstein and Palau are the only countries that bring in more than they spend.
With such huge levels of debt i can't see how countries are ever going to get out of the red and into the black, Iceland's debt is equal to £282,930 per head of population while each person in The Netherlands would need to find £226,503 each to clear the nations debts which is a lot of daffodils and tulips so i can't see these debts being cleared anytime soon.
As for the UK, we each would need to find £23,240 each and that is after the Conservative Government have hacked and slashed whatever is hackable and slashable and still we need to find another £1.5 Trillion in savings so i don't know what the answer is but surely at some point nations will begin thinking how we do things at the moment isn't working and look for other ways of doing things.
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
Lenin or Lennon?
It seems that no music award show is complete without a tribute to David Bowie and the Lady Gaga tribute at the Grammys was to be polite, bloody awful and a bit weird although the one at tonights Brits was better, it still wasn't great.
I wasn't a massive Bowie fan but i did like 'Life on Mars' although nobody seems to have asked Bowie about the line in the second verse and whether it is 'Lenin' or 'Lennon' that's on sale again.
I have always assumed it is Lenin as the preceding line is 'Now the workers have struck for fame' ties in with the Russian leader and the workers parties under Communism.
Alternatively, John Lennon was into his solo career by 1973 when the Life on Mars song was released so it could easily be about the former Beatle and when you look up the lyrics on the internet most sites give this version.
Still not sure about what 'Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow' means though but then the 1970's were weird and Bowie was weirder than most.
I wasn't a massive Bowie fan but i did like 'Life on Mars' although nobody seems to have asked Bowie about the line in the second verse and whether it is 'Lenin' or 'Lennon' that's on sale again.
I have always assumed it is Lenin as the preceding line is 'Now the workers have struck for fame' ties in with the Russian leader and the workers parties under Communism.
Alternatively, John Lennon was into his solo career by 1973 when the Life on Mars song was released so it could easily be about the former Beatle and when you look up the lyrics on the internet most sites give this version.
Still not sure about what 'Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow' means though but then the 1970's were weird and Bowie was weirder than most.
Just How Good Is Adele?
Every generation consider their era's music to be the best, my grandparents poo-pooed my parents bands like the Beatles and my parents wrinkled their noses at my Gun's N Roses records so it's only fair that i in turn slag off the music of today which to my ears is dull, dull, dull.
One act that i particularly don't feel the love for is Adele who seems to walk away from every music awards ceremony with an armful of trophies which must mean that i'm obviously wrong and she is a musical genius but let's not be so quick to adorn her with the pop princess crown just yet.
My main problem with Adele is that she has hit a rich seam with the tear jerking ballad and wow is she hammering that particular genre.
Hello, Rolling in the Deep, Someone like you, Chasing Pavements and even the James Bond theme Skyfall were all slow, plodding tunes all about the same failed love affair which obviously people like and buy in their droves but it's not so much for me.
I'm can almost guarantee that Adele will end the Brit Awards tonight with yet another armful of statues and platitudes ringing in her ears but i must admit to being perplexed how she continues to sweep all before her with basically the same tune re-written with different lyrics about how her heart has been broken.
One act that i particularly don't feel the love for is Adele who seems to walk away from every music awards ceremony with an armful of trophies which must mean that i'm obviously wrong and she is a musical genius but let's not be so quick to adorn her with the pop princess crown just yet.
My main problem with Adele is that she has hit a rich seam with the tear jerking ballad and wow is she hammering that particular genre.
Hello, Rolling in the Deep, Someone like you, Chasing Pavements and even the James Bond theme Skyfall were all slow, plodding tunes all about the same failed love affair which obviously people like and buy in their droves but it's not so much for me.
I'm can almost guarantee that Adele will end the Brit Awards tonight with yet another armful of statues and platitudes ringing in her ears but i must admit to being perplexed how she continues to sweep all before her with basically the same tune re-written with different lyrics about how her heart has been broken.
Sunday, 21 February 2016
Trump Not The Most Scary Republican
The race to be the American President continues along its Big Brother style process with the latest evictee being Jeb Bush who faces a ribbing from his father and brother at the next family gathering and the ignominy of being the least liked Bush member in a family where one of them lied to take his country into a war and oversaw the death of over a million people which is still resonating today.
So now that Jeb has packed up that gun with his name on it and gone back to Florida the field is thinned and the smart money seems to be a process which will end with Donald Trump crowned top Republican banana and gaining the nomination to take on either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
But the Trumpton guy is nuttier than a squirrels pantry you may say but according to people who pay more attention to these things than me, Trump is almost normal compared to the man who is currently second, Ted Cruz who John McCain called a 'wacko bird'.
A quick check on Wikipedia shows his father is Cuban, his mother Spanish and he isn't even American but born in Calgary which is in Canada unless my Atlas is wrong so not sure of he is even legible, maybe Donald Trump should be asking him for his birth certificate.
His wikipedia page lists his political positions as pro-gun, anti abortion, opposes same sex marriage,
disagrees with scientific opinion on climate change and favours the death penalty.
Throw in that he is scarily religious and i fail to see the difference between him and any other right wing American Presidential hopeful unless i am missing something.
Equally the same people who say the Republican line up is a farce are also saying that whoever gets the nomination will be beaten by Hillary Clinton anyway who they expect to win the Democrat race and have her backside warming the big seat in the Oval Office come November.
So now that Jeb has packed up that gun with his name on it and gone back to Florida the field is thinned and the smart money seems to be a process which will end with Donald Trump crowned top Republican banana and gaining the nomination to take on either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
But the Trumpton guy is nuttier than a squirrels pantry you may say but according to people who pay more attention to these things than me, Trump is almost normal compared to the man who is currently second, Ted Cruz who John McCain called a 'wacko bird'.
A quick check on Wikipedia shows his father is Cuban, his mother Spanish and he isn't even American but born in Calgary which is in Canada unless my Atlas is wrong so not sure of he is even legible, maybe Donald Trump should be asking him for his birth certificate.
His wikipedia page lists his political positions as pro-gun, anti abortion, opposes same sex marriage,
disagrees with scientific opinion on climate change and favours the death penalty.
Throw in that he is scarily religious and i fail to see the difference between him and any other right wing American Presidential hopeful unless i am missing something.
Equally the same people who say the Republican line up is a farce are also saying that whoever gets the nomination will be beaten by Hillary Clinton anyway who they expect to win the Democrat race and have her backside warming the big seat in the Oval Office come November.
Saturday, 20 February 2016
EU In or Out Referendum
My usual default position is anything David Cameron thinks is a good thing i am against so it is quite awkward that i find myself on the same side of the fence as the Conservative Party leader as we both think it is in the countries interest to remain in the EU.
I wasn't previously concerned about the In/Out referendum on 23rd June as the polls continually showed the 'NO' vote in the minority and was relaxed that my fellow Brits would do the sensible thing and stick with the EU, but suddenly things don't seem quite so clear-cut.
The warnings that food prices will rise, three million jobs will be at risk, EU membership is worth £3,000 per household, the economy will suffer, national security will be at stake and we will lose free healthcare on holiday don't seem to hold sway anymore as the No are hammering the immigration line, saying that it is all about 'control immigration' and taxes going to Poles and Romanians claiming benefits and mentioning camps of immigrants at Calais just waiting to invade our shores and suck up Job Seekers Allowance.
The only argument that i have heard so far that has stopped 'NO' people mid moan is how the Premier League would be decimated as European players would not qualify for work permits if Britain quit the EU and treated them as overseas footballers and two thirds of them presently playing would not meet the criteria currently used for non-Europeans to get a work visa.
All 20 Premier League clubs have at least one player who would be affected if these rules were used on the current squads. Sunderland would be left with no goalkeepers, while Swansea would be reduced to just one attacking player. Newcastle would lose six midfielders.
Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Swansea City would lose nine players each so rather than just concentrate on the economic benefits, would be useful to throw having to wave goodbye to footballers into the equation.
I wasn't previously concerned about the In/Out referendum on 23rd June as the polls continually showed the 'NO' vote in the minority and was relaxed that my fellow Brits would do the sensible thing and stick with the EU, but suddenly things don't seem quite so clear-cut.
The warnings that food prices will rise, three million jobs will be at risk, EU membership is worth £3,000 per household, the economy will suffer, national security will be at stake and we will lose free healthcare on holiday don't seem to hold sway anymore as the No are hammering the immigration line, saying that it is all about 'control immigration' and taxes going to Poles and Romanians claiming benefits and mentioning camps of immigrants at Calais just waiting to invade our shores and suck up Job Seekers Allowance.
The only argument that i have heard so far that has stopped 'NO' people mid moan is how the Premier League would be decimated as European players would not qualify for work permits if Britain quit the EU and treated them as overseas footballers and two thirds of them presently playing would not meet the criteria currently used for non-Europeans to get a work visa.
All 20 Premier League clubs have at least one player who would be affected if these rules were used on the current squads. Sunderland would be left with no goalkeepers, while Swansea would be reduced to just one attacking player. Newcastle would lose six midfielders.
Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Swansea City would lose nine players each so rather than just concentrate on the economic benefits, would be useful to throw having to wave goodbye to footballers into the equation.
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