Singing Wakey, Wakey, Wakey Rise And Shine

The Big Breakfast was once described as like being woken up by a pair of cymbals which described it perfectly, it was loud, funny, colourful, anarchic and it just seemed to fall it's way through from 7am to 9am every weekday morning with mad game shows and weird humour which sometimes sailed very close to the edge.
It really hit it's stride with Johnny Vaughn and Denise Van Outen in 1997 and then in 2002 it ceased to be and left a huge void in many peoples Breakfast-time viewing, mine included because i loved that show.
This morning, almost 20 years later, Channel 4 bought it back for a one off special as part of it's Black to Front campaign which saw black presenters host some of Channels 4 most successful programs and with AJ Odudu and Mo Gilligan in the Big Breakfast seats, it was as brilliant and mad as i remember.
With the TV on offer while you eat your cornflakes limited to Good Morning Britain or the BBC Breakfast, i did wonder if the bosses at Channel 4 would use today's one off show as a pilot to judge reaction to possibly bring it back to our screens and my initial reaction is i hope so but the more i think about it, maybe not.
As much i miss the fried egg wallpaper and the whole madness at 7am, they tried it without Johnny Vaughn and Denise van Outen when they left in 2001 and after trying many different presenters, it sang its last wakey, wakey, wakey rise and shine song a year later and despite the same format, it was never the same.
I was never much of a fan of Johnny Vaughn in anything he has ever done since, i find his whole laddish thing a bit much but him and Denise was perfect together and so with a heavy heart i say don't bring it back, the odd special is fine such as today which was for a very worthwhile cause but those 4 years from 1997 to 2001 was as good as it was ever going to be, anything else, as funny, mad or brilliantly bizarre as it may be, it would be a pale imitation so let it go Channel 4 and don't ruin the fond legacy it has amongst us fans.

Special Guest Blogger: James Jameson

The problem with being an heir to a family fortune is the waiting for relatives to die so i had to find something to while away the days until the inevitable giant pile of family money dropped into my lap.
I was the great-great-grandson of John Jameson, the founder of the Jameson Irish Whiskey company and i got bored with all the drinking fancy wine, hunting and eating all the best food so i thought i would give exploring a try and tagged along on the expeditions of more accomplished explorers such as one led by Henry Morgan Stanley to central Africa to bring Belgian supplies to Emin Pasha, the leader of an Ottoman province in Sudan that was cut off by a revolt and as this was the time of various imperialist European countries fighting over which chunks of Africa they'd get to oppress, if we happened to spot some nice land ready to be annexed for the Belgian Free State colony in the Congo, that also.
It was on this expedition that i was accused of an unspeakable crime of purchasing a ten year old slave girl from a slave trader so i could see her get eaten by cannibals which i flat out refute.
Yes i did say it would be cool to see it but that was just locker room talk while i just happened to know a slave trader in Congo, his name was Tippu Tip but just because i handed him six handkerchiefs and he arrived with a ten year old slave girl in no way implicates me.
How was i supposed to know that the natives i handed her to were going to tie her to a tree then stab her in the belly and cut up the body and sit around eating the dismembered pieces of the child.
Such was my shock and indignation that i not only made some drawings but retired to my tent and turned them into splendid watercolours.
There was much noise and i made the English and Irish newspapers but another string to my bow of innocence was that nobody ever charged with anything, mostly due to my dying from some fever i picked up in the Congo not long afterwards but i was innocent of the whole thing and i have some brilliant watercolours of the events to show that i was in no way involved and it was not a case of a rich, thoughtless westerner using their wealth for evil, sure i felt sorry for the girl but remember i ended up six really nice handkerchiefs down on the deal so who was the real victim here?

Don't Cancel Your Plans Just Yet

Got any plans for September 11th, 14th and 26th? If so you may want to make sure you have kept the receipt to get your money back because a time traveller from 2714 has come back to warn us to stay at home those days.
A self proclaimed time traveller has turned up on TikTok and has been the recipient of much ridicule so he has responded with a request for proof by saying 'you still don’t believe I am a real time traveller from the year 2714, so remember these three dates in September'.
Those dates are September 11th when an alien ship lands and kidnaps 4,000 earthlings then on the 14th when the first ever category 6 hurricane slams into the US East Coast and then the 26th September when a chimpanzee is able to talk because of a mutation in its vocal cords.
The time traveller did claim that aliens were going to land on Earth on 11th August and start a war with humanity and i am sure that would have been mentioned on the News and in the papers unless i missed it, the Olympics were on the time so it is possible.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there won't be 4,000 missing humans, the inhabitants of the US East Coast won't need to strap themselves in from a Category 6 hurricane and a chimp won't be verbally explaining the best way to peel a banana but boy will my face be red if i wake up on the 11th and find myself and 3,999 others in a spaceship destined for Alpha Centuri.

Another Crazy Scheme From The Desk Of Priti Patel

Despite once admitting that under her own rules, she wouldn't be allowed in the UK, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, is doing her damnedest to make sure that other  non-Brits are not welcome here and her latest wheeze is to turn back rickety floating vessels overladen with desperate people in British waters attempting to cross the Channel back towards the French coast.
The French have called it dangerous and insisted that 'safeguarding human lives at sea takes priority over considerations of nationality, status and migratory policy' and has said that a large boat attempting to approach a smaller craft will cause it to capsize for which the Government have hurried out an explanation that it will only be used in 'very limited circumstances for sturdier, bigger migrant boats' which appears a bit pointless when most of the boats are inflatable dinghies
The UN Conventions of the Law at Sea says that 'every state is required to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost' and in response by lawyers that it could be against the Geneva conventions, EU legislation and Maritime Law to attempt to push back refugees in boats claiming asylum, Patel has ordered officials to rewrite Britain's interpretation of international maritime law.
In an unfortunate turn of phrase, the Immigration Services Union called the plans 'dead in the water' due to the legal implications or maybe it wasn't unfortunate as that is exactly what will happen as seen in the Mediterranean when the Italian Border Patrol tried the same thing and the migrants threw themselves off the ship rather than be forced back, so many drowned that the Italians stopped the practice.
As most of the migrants are coming from Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq, the countries whose citizens are seeking to live elsewhere may ring a bell to anyone who has been paying attention to the news over the last few decades, for those who haven't it is where the West have intervened militarily and left the citizens in a more perilous state for it.  
Maybe our foreign policy needs to be looked at and the floods of refugees accepted as a consequence of our terrible decisions in these countries and not crazy, dangerous hare-brained dog whistle calls from Patel to her right wing brethren with schemes like her other awful scheme to install giant wave machines in the Channel.

Better Late Than Never I Guess

Each year, we foolishly throw billion of tonnes of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere and as we are seeing, that has terrible consequences for us living on Earth and as stronger hurricanes blow and the waves lap higher up in low lying nations, it seems we are already too late to stop the effects of Climate Change but while the most polluting nations countries seems to be doing very little about it, technology is lending a hand.
Iceland has began operation of the world's largest plant which will suck 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air per year making it the 15th such machine who altogether will capturing more than 9,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, according to the International Energy Agency.   
Global emissions last year were 36 billion tonnes, according to the International Energy Agency and i couldn't even do the math's for that on my calculator but Google reliably informs me that 36 billion divided by 9,000 means it would take 4 million of these machines to scrub out the CO2 we spew out annually.
While 9,000 will hardly make a dent in 36 billion, it's a start although depressingly it seems a case of too little too late for some, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated it causes over 150,000 deaths annually, while the rest of us and future generations are facing more extreme weather events as the global temperature creeps ever upwards.
The problem with Climate Change is that is was always something that was going to happen and it was easy to ignore or for the more gullible, deny, unfortunatley the going to happen is now happening as we literally reap what we sowed but at least we have made a start in doing something about it, many, many decades too late obviously but it's finally sunk into the thickest of skulls.

Special Guest Blogger: Charles II of Navarre

I was the ruler of Navarre, a tiny then-country wedged between Spain and France and it was during the time of the Hundred Years War with England and played them both, continually changing sides depending on who was the most useful at the time.
When the King of France was preparing to attack my territories for my role in having his son killed, i teamed up with the English and the King backed down and even gave me some more land which didn't go down well with the English who threatened to invade me themselves so i signed a treaty with the French to protect me but the English invaded anyway and took me captive.
As wars were coming thick and fast, my brother, Philip of Navarre, threw in his lot with the invading English army of the Duke of Lancaster for the next one and made war on the French and i was released and opened negotiations with both the French and English Kings, telling the English we should divide France between ourselves and telling the French King he could rule over parts of Navarre but the suspicious Kings no longer trusted me and the Kings of England and France agreed to jointly make war on Navarre's and i was overthrown.
I was making plans on regaining my territories when i came down with a bad cold and consulted a physician, who ordered me to be wrapped up from head to foot, in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy, so that 'i might be enclosed in it to the very neck as in a sack'.
It was over-night when this remedy was best administered and after the maid finished sewing me in, she placed the pan of hot coals under my bed to keep me warm.
Unfortunately, we need to remember that the karma is a raging arse and the maid given the job of sewing me into my sack that night wasn't the brightest and when she noticed an errant thread, she decided to burn it off with a hot coal and i went up like a fancy Molotov Cocktail.
On hearing of my demise, and the way that i died, the French and English took it as evidence of divine will and proof that God was on their side but as the war between them raged on for another 66 years, i think it was just evidence of crap medical advice and proof that material soaked in alcohol is incredibly flammable.

Special Guest Blogger: Phalaris of Acragas

If you close your eyes and picture your ideal death you are probably picturing either an elderly version of yourself peacefully snoring into the Grim Reapers embrace or some other dignified departure from this mortal plain but if you are picturing your final moments screaming while you are roasted alive inside a metal hollow torture chamber shaped like a bull than i'm your man.   
All things considered i was a pretty decent leader, i built Sicily into a prosperous, well-equipped place with amphitheaters, residential housing blocks, granary buildings, aqueducts, public baths, triumphal arches and a bronze bull statue with a trapdoor installed in the belly to shut people inside the statue and enough room beneath it to set up a roaring fire.
It was a present from a local blacksmith named Perillos who said that he had made it in such a way that the screams will sound like the bull is bellowing which i found hard to believe so he learnt a valuable life lesson that handing an ingenious execution device to madman was a poor decision so i demanded a demonstration from the inventor himself and had him thrown him inside it, got a roaring fire going and listened and you know what, it did sound like the bull was mooing. Burnt Perillos to a crisp in the process obviously but i thought it was a nice touch.
With my new toy i went on a roasting spree and stuffed victim after victim inside the brazen bull and i was enjoying myself immensely although the people of Sicily not so much because i was overthrown by a citizens uprising and was stuffed in my own metal chamber and though it was much more fun seeing other people inside it, my last thoughts were i wonder what makes it smell so nice inside here, then realised it was the smell of me slowly roasting.

Special Guest Blogger: Samuel Adams

Any American history book will tell you that the Boston Tea Party was the night when angry patriots gave birth to America by boarding a a bunch of British ships and throwing crates of limey tea into the harbor.
What the history books tend to overlook is that this event would probably have ended much differently if the angry patriots hadn't been raging drunk on the night in question.
I never really liked the English and hated the way they talked, I mean, do these guys realise how wussy they sound? They all think they sound so smart with their little funny accents and words like fortnight and penultimate..JUST SPEAK ENGLISH, YA LIMEY MORONS!!
The night began at a meeting led by me at the Old South Church, when a group of us gathered at the house of newspaper publisher and tea-hater Benjamin Edes to discuss what to do about the British ships, i stood up and said 'lets storm them and throw the tea into the sea' but there was a murmur and a distinct lack of interest so i sat down and had a few glasses of the red wine, rum and whisky punch or as i called it, Freedom Juice.
Hours and a few bowl's of punch later, we moved into the phase of the night when the Freedom juice was really flowing and drunk logic was starting to sound good so i stood up, wobbled a bit and announced that we should dress up as Indians, stumble down to Boston Harbor, and show the British how irrational they were being by wrecking their shit.
I also suggested we put on our wives dresses and go moon the neighbours but by then the patriots had all belched their agreement and we stumbled out the door and towards the Boston Harbour with our efforts only occasionally halted for bouts of puking.
We boarded the ships and spent hours tossing the tea crates into the harbor before falling back home giggling and dancing and then waking up six hours later a lot more sober and wondering what we did last night and why did our clothes smell faintly of tea?
The rest is history and we kicked the Brits asses all the way back to limeyland and America went on to become the land of the free, and the home of the brave and all it took was a bunch of drunks dressed like Indians having a massive piss-up.

Special Guest Blogger: Bob Ross

Hi, glad you could make it here today and i am very happy to see you.
I am known for three things, painting, big afro hair and aside from maybe Jesus, being pretty much the nicest person who ever lived with my smiling face and talk of happy little clouds and trees in a voice that never rose above that of a gentle lullaby but that wasn't always the case, i was a hard-assed drill sergeant in the Air Force for 20 years stationed in Alaska and would bellow at poor sods to clean the latrines, make their beds and shine their shoes.
When i eventually left i promised i would be the exact opposite of the awful person i was for those two decades and fortunately for me, i spent much of my non-screaming time taking art classes and painting the Alaskan wilderness around me of mountains, lakes, snow and log cabin scenes using a technique i saw on TV show called The Magic Of Oil Painting by Bill Alexander.
I began selling my paintings and found that i could make more money selling them than yelling at cadets for not having their boots properly spit-shined so quit and tracked down Alexander and asked him to teach me the technique he used, known as 'wet-on-wet' which was nothing new, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Paul Cézanne and Monet used the same technique to knock out paintings in double quick time.
As i was so good at it and could make a painting in under 30 minutes, i was approached by PBS to front a painting show called The Joy of Painting teaching Alexander's technique which i agreed to as it would help sell my painting and promote a line of my own art supplies, building what would become a $15 million business.
I painted over 30,000 paintings during my lifetime, many i donated to PBS for fund raising and would paint three versions of the one you saw on my TV show, the first one painted prior to taping and sat on an easel off-camera during filming as a reference to create the second copy which viewers actually watched me paint and after filming the episode, i would paint a more detailed version for my personal collection.  
People did wonder why i painted quite so many trees but i liked looking at trees and your options are to either paint one to look at or drag one through your home and put in in a corner leaving a wake of twigs and leaves that'll be showing up in the most random places for the next six months.
I often said that we don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents and that was exactly what happened with my hair which was a perm job, the idea was that it would save me having to pay out for haircuts when i started out as a struggling painter but once the art took off and it got incorporated into the logo so i had to stay with it, never really liked it much though.
A heavy cigarette smoker, i suffered several health problems over the course of my life and developed cancer and lost my hair and wore a wig to keep up appearances until i died at the age of 52.
So my message is enjoy the happy trees, mighty mountains and fluffy clouds but most importantly, be sure to use odorless paint-thinner. God Bless.

Phrase That Could Only Come From America

There are some phrases you hear and you think they could only have come from that country and i heard a quote today from an American doctor that was couldn't have been more American if it came with apple pie, was chewing gum and was wearing a baseball jersey.
The doctor was discussing how the Coronavirus hospitlisations are sky rocketing over there and how full the hospitals were and how the ambulance service across the nation were stretched when he launched this classic Americanism: 'The emergency rooms are so backed up that even gunshot victims were having a hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated'.
With echoes of when Donald Trump suggested drinking bleach may be an effective treatment against the disease (just in case you are wondering, no it isn't) he then went on to explain how the situation got worse after the influential podcaster Joe Rogan announced he had tested positive for Covid and was taking Ivermectin which is an anti-parasitic drug for cattle.
As well as Coronavirus and gunshot wound patients joining the queue outside American hospitals, now there are people who are poisoning themselves by drinking Ivermectin forcing the US Food and Drug Administration and American Medical Association to issue a warning that 'Taking this drug is
dangerous and can cause serious harm including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, seizures, delirium and death'
The final word from the doctor was that: 'People are actually putting themselves in worse conditions than if they’d caught Covid' but he didn't add stop drinking poison but at the very least stop shooting at each other until the crisis eases up.