Now, as far back as I can remember there has always been some form of equality for women in the British Isles.  It might have been as well balanced as the ‘little’ lady liked, but at the bare minimum you would have a door opened for you on occasions…

In the fifties, mummy was brain-washed into believing that she had to do everything for her man, because that’s what the generation before did.  Thankfully, I’m glad say, that attitude has changed however, a certain faction of the female lady-partners will insist on moaning about their life-style choices, their partners eventually and why they haven’t got enough shoes, and more often that not it’s the male partner who cops the flak…

So, I appeal to the chaps to contact me with regard to this annoyance, and I will personally arrange a trip for any  nagging trouts, old and young, to see if I can help the nagees, and give the naggers something to think about.  And I thought I’d start with a six month break in Saudi Arabia, where they will live the life of a Saudi wife, just to see how they get on.

Now the first subject that may cause our British ladies some problems is the religious side of life.  Most serious out there, and largely in favour of the lads I feel.  And, perhaps this is due to the fact that the Saudi book of ‘ This is how it’s gonna be’ was alledgedley written by a bloke, much like our ‘rule book’ of life. 

But you know, I can’t recall seeing a clause in the C of E handbook where it states that: men are superior to women and are commanded to beat their wives if they are disobedient.  Moreover, when I went to Sunday school, (that’s attended, not forced to attended), I don’t remember our teacher saying that it would be absolutely tip-top to have as much rumpy-pumpy as I liked, with all of my wives and concubines, when I grew up.

Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me as if the rules change for the blokey-bloke-about-town depending on what country he happens to have been born in!  Okay, I was born in England, and maybe I am a bit of a softy, I really don’t give a toss.  At least I’m not a sexist pig who thinks he can control, beat and debase women just because a rather old book says I can.  Maybe, just maybe, these books should be updated, after all, EVERYTHING needs updating at some point doesn’t it!

In these far of lands, will your daughter be able to gain an education?  WHAT!  Why would you need one, when you have a bunch of men to tell you what to do for the rest of you natural life.  That’s assuming you tow the line and don’t get executed in the process.  In any case, you can’t go around being smarter than a man, what would his mates think?  I mean Jesus, if the ladies start thinking for themselves they’ll want to start driving cars on the strength of that! 

Worse still – they might want to get a job!  Fuck that for a game of soldiers!  What ever next – conversations with men outside their family, while they’re completely unattended by a man from a man inside their family circle!!!  Good God, the whole fabric of society would break down.  No, no, I can see why you would need a strict rule to hid behind, especially if you wanted to suppress one section of the population, do what you like and have sex on tap.

Let’s consider the breaking of rules for a moment.  That too seems to fall heavily to one side, the female side you maybe surprised to hear!  You may have just gone out to hang up the washing in the garden, you know, stepped out side of your house.  But did you ask for permission, more importantly, did you ask a man?  No!  Oh deary, deary me!  Well, let’s see what it says in the ‘good book’ about that… no, before we start delving into how to recieve a damn good ‘scourging’ (Flailed) by your loving hubby, let’s take a look at the punishment for the children.

Now I don’t care what background you’ve come from or how much money you’ve got in the bank, everyone during their formative years has nicked something, even if it was for a dare.  So how do you deal with this?  Well, every parent has a different approach depending on the details of this petty crime.  My dad gave me a damn stiff taking too, and that was enough to put me off a life of pilfering.  Let’s take in a few facts from the book of ‘This is how it’s gonna be’. 

Not only do the laws state that women are not just second class citizens, half a man, at times their very exsistence is disregarded.  And someone pointed out that the ladies of Saudi have managed  to achieve equality in one field only: equal rights to imprisonment, exile, torture, being killed and now slaughter.  Well there you are, things are really moving forward now!!!  Is that, “I will survive,” playing in the background…

In the children’s department it seems that being punished, suddenly the more mature the female is, the more responsible they are for their actions.  Overall, less rights, more punishment – nice!  So, if you can imaging a scenario where a boy of 14 and a girl of 9 stole an item, here’s how it would pan out.  According to the laws the girl would lose four fingers on her right hand for a first offence.  On a second offence her left foot would be cut off, she would go to prison for a third offence and on a fourth occasion she would be executed!  Possibly a tad harsh.  The boy, on the other hand, with the missing digits, would go Scott free. 

Sounds like a great place to live – if you’re a bloke…  Still think your life’s crap?

 

You have to realise that when you are one, you tend not to take any notice of it, but it’s not until you get a little older that you realise you’ve been repressed from day one…

I can remember my mum telling me that when she was at school the pupils that were had to sit on theirs, because it went against the grain of what was seen as normality.  Well that’s just bloody typical of the masses isn’t it!  What a start in life.  As if the first day at the higher seat of learning wasn’t bad enough, some arse notices that you’re left-handed!

Thankfully, more and more people are aware of the problems of living in a predominantly right-handed world.  Not that a right handed person would take much notice.  Well I say, give ’em a left-handed cheque book and a pair of scissors to play with for a week and see how they get on!  And once they’ve mastered those seemingly innocent objects, put them in a room with a left-handed ruler and a spud peeler!  [Dear lefties, I’ll bet my next week’s wages that at this point the right-handed amongst are looking at each other with a quizzical look on the faces.]

For those of you who don’t know, hand orientation is developed in foetuses’, and is largely determined by observing which hand is predominately held closest to the mouth.  So, if you are a lefty, you’re in a select club, as I believe just 10% of the world’s population use their left hand more than their right.

Now you would think that you could leave the subject there wouldn’t you?  But oh no, somewhere along the line a bunch of pillocks made it their sole duty to spread a heap of malicious gossip, rumours and groundless facts about the left-handed community – largely, I suspect, because they had little else to do and television hadn’t been invented.

So why have the left-handed people of the world been persecuted down the centuries?  Two old faithful subjects I’m afraid, the uneducated and the help of a certain amount of religious faiths.  How the hell can religion creep its way into the left and right-handed debate is beyond me.  Still, where there’s a will there’s a way I suppose.

I guess you just make stuff up to suit your own ends, slap it in a book, then tell everyone you meet that it’s the gospel truth!  It seems back then, if you could get past the inane folk law and superstitions, some of which are still believed to this day, you might be lucky enough to have avoided being burned to death at the stake as a witch. 

Did you know that in some countries if a child is seen using their left hand, it’s tied behind their back, at home and at school!  And certain religious faiths believe that if you eat with your left hand, you are feeding the devil with your right.  What have you got to be taking to make this shit up? 

So it seems as far back as year dot, we ‘the strange ones’ have been suppressed.  Historically, the left side, and of course left-handedness, was considered negative in many cultures – brilliant!  And if that wasn’t bad enough, some how from the Latin word, sinistra,which originally meant ‘left’, some bastard managed to turn it around to mean ‘evil’ or ‘unlucky’!!!  Fer fuck’s sake – how the hell did that come about?  Too many recreational drugs my nan reckons.

And it didn’t stop there either.  While everyone who could, were making up shit as they went along, somebody managed to convert the word, ‘sinistra’ to the English word, sinister!  Well thanks for that ya wanker!

However, evidence shows that lefties been around for a long time and aren’t about to disappear any time soon.  If you were an Inca, you would have been known as a top dog, the main man, because the indigenous people of the Andes considered that left-hander’s possess special abilities, including magic and healing powers.  And get this, in Tantric Buddhism the left represents wisdom!  Yeah baby, so take it out of that you right handed buff-oo00ns!

And let’s not forget that well known Russian literary offering written by Nikola Leskov in 1881.  He had a character in his story called, ‘levsha’ which means, lefty or left hander.  Thanks to the success of his work, the word ‘levsha’ became a common noun for skilled craftsman after his book was published.  The book title?  Surely you’ve heard of it?  Oh well, here it is for your reference, it’s called ‘The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty and the Steel Flea’.  Trust me, it does exist, and what a great read and friend it must be when you and your family book a holiday to the Butlins branch of Siberia!!!

Left, well I’m off, I’m looking to buy a left-handed ashtray and some left-handed darts…

 

Now chaps, you know what some wives are like, they’ll get a bee in their bonnet about something and won’t let it lie until the ‘itch’ has been well and truly scratched…

I know, I was married to two such women, on separate occasions I should add, but both of the ladies concerned seemed to buy items with their eyes instead of their brains!  Now we know that the thong-wearers are wired differently to the boxer shorts brigade, but really, at what stage in their lives does the fairer sex lose their common sense cell?

If it makes them go, “Aaah,” they’ll but it, and when you’re married there can be an awful lot of “Aaah” moments during the course of one week.  Case in point – my first little hooded cobra used to ride horses and belonged to a local stable.  Now I didn’t have a problem with that until I discovered that we had more straw in our car than the stable had!  And there’s nothing quite like taking a drive only to find that the interior smells like a dung heap!

So, to the “Aaah” momemt in question – I came home from work to find we had two extra menbers of the family, one black and the other a ginger tom.  A cat at the stables had had a litter and there were seven kittens each looking for a new home.  My wife’s first line of defence was, “They didn’t cost anything.”  “Great,” I replied, “What about the bloody smell?”  Fluffy and cuddly they may have been, but being born in a rat-infested stables most definitely had its down side.

Everything I said after that was taken as a direct insult to my wife’s judgement.  You can’t win, so this is where us chaps start to learn the benefits of playing the ‘long game’, because saying, “See, I told you so – out loud,” will only go on to cause more grief in the long-run.  I waited and waited before making my final pitch.  “What about the fleas,”  I said, “they must be coated in them?”  Thinking she had the upper hand and an answer to everything, my ex replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll buy some flea collars tomorrow.”

Now, while purchasing a brace of flea collars seemed like the best way forward at the time, I can assure you that it wasn’t.  On the box it said, this collar will kill every single flea on your infested cat.  Take it from me – it doesn’t!  It might stun them initially or give them a nasty migraine, but on the whole, these fleas must have seen what was coming and said to each other, “Sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m off.”  And as soon as collar one was in place, around 100 blood-sucking critters disembarked on mass.  And you won’t be surprised to hear that much the same thing happened when collar two was applied.

Once they regrouped on our tabletop they soon realised that there wasn’t a whole heap of cover.  So, platoon by platoon, they leapt for their lives and then buried themselves in our front room carpet.  Now it’s it’s a funny thing, once they’d made themselves at home you become desensitised to the fact that you have a potential problem on your hands.  There was no scratching or itching, and after a week the word ‘flea’, didn’t enter our minds.  And right there is the weak link in the whole situation that’s about to befall you.

Even your first ‘itch and scratch’ moment doesn’t jog your memory, because it only happens once.  Unbeknown to yourself, your partner has had an ‘itch and scratch’ moment all of her own, but doesn’t mention it because again, it only occurred once.  A few days later you’re sitting in the same room and you’re both intermittently scratching different parts of your bodies, but you still haven’t twigged that you’re doing it simultaneously now!

Then, quite by chance, you’re flicking through the channels on the TV, and during a pause in consentration you find yourself listening to part of a documentary that’s just about to reel off the facts surrounding the lifecycle of the flea.  And it’s only then that the copper coinage to the value of a hundreth of a pound falls from the sky, and lands on auntie Muriel’s favourite glass figurine of a dolphin, knocking its tail off! 

Then, when you learn that all you need is one female to start a massive infestation, because she can knock out up to 50 eggs a day, you start to sit up and take stock of the problem that’s lying in wait.  Do you call the flea man?  No!  Why?  Because your wife, who brought the problem into the flat, the problem that was free, couldn’t bare the shame of a van pulling up outside the flat with the words ‘Pest Control’ emblazoned on it, just in case the neighbours see it draw up.

Then there’s a lull in the itching and a marked cessation in the scratching department, and all talk of hopping blood suckers drops right off the agenda – but only until I went out for a few beers, came home and slept in my socks.  The very next day at work I couldn’t understand why I was scratching so much however, it didn’t take long to backtrack the story. 

If one lady flea can produce about 50 eggs a day, that roughly 350 a week.  Add another eight or nine days to that, and you can see how quickly you could open your own flea farm.  Well lucky old us!  We started with about 200 of the little buggers, and if only 25% on them were ‘bra wearers’ it wouldn’t take long for them to overrun our flat.

Add the fact that they can sense footsteps and jump, by ratio, a 1000 time further than humans, and it’s not surprising that they made it up the non-carpeted stairs to our bedroom!  Then muggings comes home a few sheets to the wind and hits the pit, still wearing his socks.  Wallop!  It’s morning and I’m late, I grab the first set of clothes I can find and head off to work.  After a phone call to my wife, these poignant factors were enough to push her ever closer to the Yellow Pages and a section marked ‘Ankle biter obliterators’ 

The call goes through, and a few hours later your savior arrives with a spray gun in a luminous pink van with the words  ‘INFESTATION KILLERS’ slapped on both sides of the vehicle in Day-Glo green!  But hey, by then you’d quite happily swap your wife for a canister of insecticide and forty quid and watch as she and the flea man disappeared into the sunset!  My advice to you… never under estimate the power of even the smallest of females!!!

 

It’s taken an inordinate amount of time to persuade the Government to take up my radical suggestion to eradicate obesity in the UK, but finally, last week the Health Minister asked me to attend a meeting…

I opened the debate with what we we’re given when we were born, i.e. two eyes, legs, arms and so on.  And, overall, I don’t think the board members grasped what I was trying to achieve.  Then I pointed out that, we as humans, haven’t evolved sufficiently to cope with the rubbish that food producers add to the food we buy and eat. 

Hydrogenated fat, for example.  If you saw it in its natural state, you wouldn’t eat it, you’d start hanging wallpaper up with it.  But, use it bind apple and blackcurrant together, and slap some pastry around it, and you’d quite happily let your kids eat it.

In short, to solve the UK’s bloater problem we have to cut through the red tape, ‘cut’ being the operative word, and start producing a new race of people who will go on to use less bodily parts, and in so-doing reduce the obesity crisis and everything that comes with being a lard-arse.  And the answer – the simple act of surgical removal.  

Oh yes, it sounds a drastic approach, but is it?  I personally have to disagree.  Imagine, one of your children is ill, a high fever perhaps.  You head off to the hospital only to find there’s a five hour wait, and all because a string of porkers are in the queue ahead of you, suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes or time consuming heart attacks!  With my new system, you won’t have to line up ever again, you’ll be able to stroll straight in and be seen within minutes of entering the hospital.

So what do we do?  Well, first I publish a copy of my next book ‘If you don’t need it – cut it off’, then start interviewing  podgester couples who haven’t as yet had children.  Then I would brief them on the possibilities of living without that extra vital organ, while pointing out that having ten toes isn’t really a necessity! 

Once they see the benefits of my scheme and agree to a few minor operations well, 23 at a bear minimum, people will be queuing up around the block to take part in this great venture.  In the years ahead of course, this surgery won’t be needed, as the child of the future will be born without the extra parts.  

If you can think, ” Hey, why do I need that extra lung,” things will have a more positive edge.  So, the master plan is in place, and here’s roughly the extent of my work to date, which was undertaken during a lock-in at ‘Glass blower’s Gusset’.  Noses.  Well we can shave those off, you’ll still have two holes to breath through, and you’ll be 2ozs lighter straight away!  Ears.  Again, lop those puppies off and you’re well on your way to losing your first pound in weight.

Lose a buttock, and be the envy of all your friends, and 5lbs lighter too!  The added advantage  here of course is that when you have a fitting for your next pair of trousers, you won’t so much material, and consequently your clothes will be much cheaper.  It really is a win-win situation!  Why stop there, pull that bonus eye out, and get the remaining one moved to the centre of your forehead!

Tonsils?  Rip ’em out mate.  Spleen?  Ditto.  Nipples?  Completely wasted on a bloke, and hey, who needs a whole liver?  Cut the bugger in half and shed another couple of pounds in an instant.  And while we’re at it, let’s take out that spare kidney too.  Do you use all of your brain?  No.  Well there you are then, keep what you need and bin the rest!  Yes, I reckon I’ve managed to shift around 12lbs of unwanted weight there, without even blinking.

Looking at the bigger picture, who ever it was that designed the human form, can’t be credited with creating the most intricate being on our planet.   I mean, most people haven’t spotted the most obvious flaw in our complex design.  Think about it – who in their right mind would fit a waste disposal unit, right next to a communal play area??? 

Please send your donations to: Hitler Towers, Spursland, north London.

 

Well it’s a bit like camping.  Seven days of it and you can’t wait to get home to a comfortable bed…

I’m talking, of course, about hiring a boat and setting sail on the river Thames.  It did seem like a great idea at the time, but come the middle of the week I’d had enough.  I’m not sure what tipped the balance in my mind, the boredom of travelling at speeds that a snail would laugh at or the fact that I fell in at a mooring site, just before a lock, which left me with half a pound of small stones embedded in my heel.  Looking back now, as a 23 year old, it was the whole cycle of the trip wore me down in the end. 

Overall, it seems all to easy to hire a boat and set off down or up the river, depending where you start.  All I can recall was a little chubster of a marine owner saying, “Thanks for the cash, here’s the key, there’s your boat and see you in a week!”  The rest was up to us!  So, after stowing our belongings away and sparking up the engine of HMS Intrepid, the four of us headed off in search of the nearest pub.

However, before you make to the nearest inn, like life, there are a certain amount of  obstacles, barriers if you will, that are set to fuck up your transit towards a clutch of decent pints of bitter.  Opening you first lock is a fascinating exercise.  You don’t know what to do, but people appear out of nowhere to help.  But, by lock 315, you really don’t give a shit, especially after you’ve worked out that if you had a straight run, with no locks, you could add another two days to your holiday.         

Were we warned about accidents that may occur on our journey?  “Key, boat, see you next week.”  If we were I’d missed it!  At one point my girlfriend took the wheel and all was fine for quite some time.  That was until we entered a private yachting marina.  Rather than alert the crew of any impending doom, my lady-love kept schtum, hoping she could sneak out the same way she stumbled into the boating equivalent of a Rolls Royce showroom. 

And the plan worked, right up until the point where something long and expensive looking, which was sticking out proud of another boat, made contact with the side of our boat.  There was this sort of straining noise, which was followed by an unnerving scraping sound.  I woke up to find part of an aluminium mast making an entrance through a window which then made contact with the frame of the window. 

I watched as out boat lurched forward, instead of the intended direction of reverse, and heard the cries of a young female in distress saying, “Bollocks, fuck it,” and, “bollocks,” once more!  I’m not quite sure how we slipped away unnoticed, baring in mind the row that the collision made, plus the level of human vocal activity, but some how we did.  And the damage?  Well we couldn’t shut our window now.  And the yacht’s mast?  Personally I thought the bend at the tip of it lent it a certain amount of charm!             

A few days into our voyage we met up with boaters and punts brigade.  It was all very Pimms and jolly nice dresses, if you know what I mean.  Bloody idiots – loads of money, but a sad lack of common sense.  Thank God we had missed the Henley Regatta by exactly one week, these prats were just the warm-up act.

Did anyone mention anything about the boat’s engine?  “Key, boat, bye.”  Nope, don’t think so.  On the Thursday there was this smell.  A smell which smelt like if it could speak wouldv’e said, WARNING – WARNING – WILL ROBINSON -YOU’RE ENGINE IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE.  But it didn’t.  So, after waiting for five hours for it to cool down, we thought we had better put some lubricant in the oil-starved engine.  

The very next day we managed to beach our trusty puddle steamer on a sandbank.  Aah yes, the joys of standing at the helm, while sailing into the midday sun with a blinding hangover.   Fortunately the crew of a tourist boat alerted their man at the wheel, and he shouted at us to wait for the backwash of his cruiser while slamming our wreck in reverse.

I think the main reason the trip wore me down to a frazzle were to key points.  The first was the chemical toilet.  Man, it was toxic in there.  And that was before anyone had used it.  For tuppence I’d have had a dump over the side, but you know what it’s like, you just can’t go when a bunch of canoeists paddle past or a gaggle of cyclists drift by on the tow path can you! 

Well, by day six you’re completely pissed off with life on a boat.  The bog stinks to high heaven, the fly and mosquito population seems to have tripled, and you’ve totally run out of patience with anything to do with the lock gates.  However, one thing you’re not going to miss is, parking up at night.  You’re tired, you can’t be arsed to cook, and all you want to do is hit the nearest pub.  But can you find a mooring site?  Can you bollocks!  You can see plenty of spaces, but can you reach them before a German U Boat slips in before you?  NOT AT 8 FUCKING MILES PER HOUR YOU CAN’T!!!!  They already had their towels down at 2:30 in the afternoon!  

You disembark, making sure you pull up with the damaged window facing away from the landing stage, and say to the boat owner, “Key, boat, and – by,” then run like hell to your car, hoping the bloke with the aluminium mast hasn’t rung the guy demanding money with menecies.  NO, NO, NO –  NEVER , EVER AGAIN 

[US News now: there’s a place in Cincinnati, Ohio called Licking County – fact.]

 

Now, I’m sure every country in the world has at least one idiot like this tucked away somewhere, but how they end up presenting their own television program, week after week, is beyond me…

We, here in jolly old England, have the shy, retiring and very placid woodsman, Ray ‘yawn, yawn and thrice yawn’ Mears.  And, what he doesn’t know about surviving out in the wild, could be carved on a soldier ant’s bog seat – but God he’s a boring old fart!  And consequently about as stimulating as a waterlogged firework that went out for a walk in the rain, minus an umbrella, and dressed in a matching two-piece sponge ensemble.

He’s been absolutely everywhere and filmed his exploits and, and he gets paid for it – unbelievable!  It’s just a shame he had a personality bypass before his woodcraft career began.  Yes, he has an extensive range of knowledge, and yes, you could dump him anywhere on the planet, with no more than a knotted handkerchief and a quarter dolly mixtures, and he’ll survive.  But really, what’s the bloody point?

Am I going to face a grizzly bear in north London or find myself dehydrated while walking up my local high street?  No, is the short answer to that.  His wife must be on the verge of a break-down I should think.  He can rub two boy scouts to start a fire, but he can’t work out how to turn on the bloody central heating – twat! 

And he’s clearly forgotten what a supermarket looks like, because his wife asked him to go out and get something for an evening meal and he came back with a bag of wild mushrooms, [well, livid actually], a brace of hornet’s breasts, and two haunches of road kill.  (Species still unverified.)

Mrs ‘Oh no, soppy bollocks has gone walk-about again’ Mears can’t even ask him to do any housework either.  Last week he took all the washing down to a local river and started battering it against a rock.  It was a great effort on his part, and three days later everything was spotlessly clean.  Unfortunately, every item of clothing was full of holes and still wet.

And he hasn’t got a clue how to use any electrical goods you know!  His better half asked him to tackle the vacuuming a few days ago, while she went to work.  She came home to find him using the ‘Cyclone Vortex Carpet Sucker 4000; only to discover that Nanook of the north hadn’t plugged it in!  And the other day he said, “Don’t worry love, I’ll make the beds,” and when she returned from the psychiatrists, he’d chopped them up, made a canoe, and erected hammocks in every room.  But, to do this, he’d pulled up six fir trees from the garden to tie them too.  What a spanner! 

It’s the film crew I feel sorry for, they have to eat what he cooks at the end of a very long day.  Imagine the scene.  You’ve just sat down after hours of listening to him banging on about the benefits of eating cuckoo spit soup, and you’re hoping for a plateful of steak and chips and a few beers, and what do you get – a starter of bluebells and bat droppings, a main course that could range from anything from a stickleback sandwich to a slice of woodpecker’s bum en croute, followed by a dollop of vole and mint ice cream.  Well, whoop-de-bloody-do!

Of course, having all the knowledge of woodcraft under your belt and surviving in the elements, even though you have a perfectly comfortable home, is just part of the irony.  His documentaries are maticulously planned out before he sets off.  So, if you’re a first-timer, this is what you would need to survive in the Gobi desert for one night:

one four-man camera crew and a fully laden 4 x 4, (50 grand should cover that).  You might want to take a small tanker of water too, oh, and a bucket of anti snake bite venom.  Now all you need to do is arrange transportation for all of the above, book some first class air tickets, find £200,000 to pay for it, and you’re good to go!  Now, call me cynical but, it’s hardly roughing it, is it?  That a holiday!

“Always carry a parachute with you,” he says  What!  Even when you go to the dentist?  Now, when I wake up in the morning, my main priorities are, my first cigarette of the day and how quickly I can make that first all important cup of tea.  When Ray wakes up his first thoughts are, “Why am I covered in owl droppings again.” and, “Suppose I better start a fire.”

No wonder he hasn’t got a proper job, it takes him too long to produce anything.  He arrives on site, somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, with nothing more than a knotted handkerchief and an axe and, first things first, he has to build a shelter.  Well there’s two hours of your life you’ll never see again!  So, after hanging up his hammock and covering it with a mosquito net, off he trots to find something to eat, while looking for the 16 basic types of wood you need to start the fire in the first place.  Personally, I’d smash up that chair I made!  Bang goes another two bloody hours!

So, after foraging in the undergrowth you find your quarry.  Usually some poisonous berries or roots, which need to be boiled in water to remove the toxins, and then you set about lighting your fire.  And, as if by magic 16 hours later, your evening meal is ready.  And what does he say to camera, with an inane look of his face?  “My, that’s tasty,” as he chomps his way through a billycan of brown mush that you wouldn’t give to a guinea pig.  Well he’s going to say that isn’t he, he’s bloody starving!

Moving on, if you’re spending time under the stars in the Grand Canyon, keep an eye out for anything with teeth and claws that weighs around 800 pounds, and could be between 5 and 8 feet tall – it’s probably just be a grizzly bear.  And here are a few of ‘Davy Crockett’s top tips to avoid be eaten: don’t visit the Grand Cayon.  Never offer it a sandwich, and stay calm, even though the compulsion to change into a pair of brown corduroys is the first thing on your mind.

Can you play dead?  Yes, but personally, I’m all in favour of of the odds of running like fuck in the opposite direction, despite being informed by Mr Mears that you shouldn’t!  Should you attempted to climb the nearest tree?  If you think it will help.  But I should warn you, as big as they are; even bears aren’t adverse to shinning up up a silver birch for a spot of lunch!  

The final piece of usless advice from our intrepid twit is, always stay down wind from the bears.  Well that’s just great.  What if they’re behind you?  Bloody idiot!  Right, I’m off, my slug and humming bird pizza has just arrived…

[observation: 630 episodes I’ve watched, and not once did he make a toilet – the dirty, dirty devil!]

 

The debate continues between vehicles insurers as to whether they will cover giraffes against whiplash.  A giraffe at London zoo said last week, “It’s not fair, I’ve got a mate in Bristol zoo, and he managed to get covered, it’s neckism pure and simple.”

Baldness has been banned in Guatemala.

Navel news now… harbouring a grudge without owning a harbour will be taxed from midnight to night.  The landlocked parts of England will be hardest hit, said a harbour master.

For the first time since 1749, lisps will be legalised in Wales today.  The courts have tried to make lisps legal in the past, but due to the amount of sylvia produced by by the Welsh when they speak, the ink kept smudging on the paper leaving the terms of the court papers  illedgable.   However, since the invention of laminated paper, the ruling should be passed next week. 

And due to pressure from the European Union, New Scotland Yard will forced to change its name.  A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said, “It’s sad day for us, for years it was known as Great Scotland Yard, then Scotland Yard, now it’s going to be called New Scotland Metre, and all becuse we went metric!”

Raw plugs should be cooked, says a food analyst.  The sausage company, Wall’s have already been fined for disregarding this new policy.

Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in Cheltenham,  said a reporter from The Daily Conspirator.

If CDs were square, you’d have to cut the corners off to get them in your player – fact

Local Sport now… All of the Enfield Narcoleptic’s11 were booked last Saturday for time wasting in a friendly against the Barnet  Somnambulist.  Their manager said last night, “I can’t believe this has happened agai….zzzzzzzzz zzz zzzzzzz.” 

My sister has just bought a tap dancing tortoise – fact!

International news now…  There’s in Cincinnati, Ohio called, Licking County – fact!

Well…if Nora Clacket from Dunbar had checked in to the Silver Hills psychiatric hospital, would anybody have given a toss?  No, is the simple answer to that.  However, if you’re a newly outed celebrity mental, outed by your publicist that is, man you’re gonna be popular!  I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall during that meeting…

As a type II sufferer, I am a tad confused by the statement issued by Catherine Zeta Jones’s spokeswoman, Cece Yorke.  She confirmed that she had received mental health treatment to help her cope with her traumatic personal life. ‘After dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine made the decision to check into a mental health facility for a brief stay to treat her bipolar II disorder,’ she said.  She’s feeling great and looking forward to starting work this week on two upcoming films.’ 

Now, up until that point in the media, no-one knew that Zeta-Jones had a bipolar disorder, and hey, why should they, it’s none of their business.  So why disclose the news now, giving the just merest amount of facts, and then nothing more since the initial statement?  [Methinks someone was about to dish the dirt, and this was a PR excercise to quell the naughty rumours, while appeasing the film company’s backers that a certain party won’t be taken away in a ‘happy limo’, in the new Gucci ‘all-in-one jacket’ (straps a permanent feature) during takes!  Well – films are awfully expensive to make now-a-days.]   

Obviously, I don’t have a problem with people who suffer with a mental illness, but what I’m pissed off about, and believe me I am fuming, is the way this annoucement has been handled by her publicist.  This is how it came across to me sane, sober, and as ‘well’ as I can be for the last nine years, after five break-downs. 

Everything in Catherine Zeta Jones’s life was all going swimmingly: films, wealth, married into the Douglas family (more chashy-wonga) more films,(even more green-backs) had a couple kids, blah, blah, blah and blah.  And then – WALLOP – out of nowhere – she’s a mental  – and five days later she’s ‘feeling great’!  

I’d love to know what form of treatment she had, I could’ve done with that a few years ago.  “Mr Walton, you have a type II bipolar disorder.  Take four years out of your life while we find a drug that will give you a therapeutic effect.”  [Doffs cap – drags carcass out of hospital – loses job, house and marriage.]   I can only assume that Ms Jones must have slept in a new mental health microwave.  “Six minutes on high nurse,  Ms Jones your treatment is complete.”  “There’s lovely aren’t I, heres $3,850, oh bollocks, make it four grand.”     

From a medical prospective and my personal experiences of the disorder, I can’t help think that Ms Jones’s publicist has dropped a bollock on this one, because the story doesn’t add up.  I listened, completely agog, at information that all she had suffered with was 12 months of stress due to her husband’s diagnosis of throat cancer, she’d hit the drink and her fag input had reached the chain-smoking level.  Clearly there’s more to the story, there has to be. 

Will we find out the truth?  Oh yeah, you just wait, it’ll be a disgruntled former maid, chef or pool girl who blows it wide open, and all because a caring sharing publicist was worried that the stigma of mental ill health would affect her clients earning power and reduce her own income.  

I sincerely wish you well Catherine, and don’t worry, you are in a great circle of decent human beings, and if you ever want a chat, feel free to contact me (yeah, like that’s going to happen) but please, get a new publicist.  She has personally insulted me, and the rest of the bipolar squad, by her lack of knowledge of the illness, and given the impression that you can treat a type II bipolar disorder in five days…

Ooh look – it’s the Lithium lady!!!