Cripes! I remember that night...and I really loved that flying jacket! Leave them up mate, no problem!

My oh my! Has it really been so long? How terribly remiss of me. Maybe I should configure my keyboard to call up excuses on demand...now, let me see.

F1. Retro rockets failed on re-entry.

F2. Software infected by Bkdr.Laphroaig.exe virus.

F3. Anyone got 50 forints for the meter?

F4. Wastelladagain.

F5. Abducted by aliens.

F6. Got blog on.

F7. Downloading pornography. Normal service will be resumed when feeling returns to at least one hand.

F8. Can't be arsed. Bog off!

F9. Farted too close to pilot light. Am currently at an altitude of 30,000 feet somewhere over Pasadena.

F10. Overdosed on csereznye paprika. Am busy disengaging 30 feet of lower intestine from out the U-bend.

All highly plausible of course but more than a few astronomical units distant from the truth of the matter which, as ever, turns out to be much more prosaic.

Would that but I could put my finger on it, nail it down, define it, discern its nub, core or kernel and lay it before you in its purest, undiluted form. I can feel that gland kicking in again...in the deep, dark stillness of the night when all those unanswerable questions are posed like, "Why do men have nipples?" and "Why is there always more shaving foam than I actually require left on my hand prior to shaving?" and not forgetting the classic "Why have the Blades fucked it up again?", there comes the irrefutable answer, "Bugadifino!"

I suppose it's a combination of factors really.

1. The availability to myself over the last 2 weeks of anything which might even remotely be described as leisure time has been of a quantity akin to that of brain cells at a Bush fundraiser. Negligible at best. Nugatory in the worst possible light.

2. The fact that Jess has, extremely selfishly in my opinion, buggered off to Niue and thus failed to provide me with even a word of the day for inspiration. (Just checked e-mail...welcome back, my pedocentric little playmate, you!).

3. The fear that my writing might just have caught up with my present. That I may have exhausted my store of worthwhile material.

4. Marking examination papers and consequently being exposed to so much Hunglish has resulted in several short circuits in those parts of my cerebellum responsible for the production of intelligible English.

So, whither do I proceed? Well, I could start by providing my muse with the sustenance of a sausage sandwich (English mustard, seeing as you ask) and reflecting upon such input as I have received during my brief forays into the world of cyberspace over the past couple of weeks.

Firstly, I would like to put the six dwarfs' minds at rest regarding Fred Frith. "Burning guitar solos mean nothing." was a quote from the man himself, reproduced as a headline in the NME and cut out and pasted on his bedroom wall by our friend Stephen Feather.

It's difficult for me to talk about Steve. I knew him. Since we were about 12. If you were to push me, and I can feel your pressure, I would have to admit that there was no more formative influence on my teenage years. It was he who introduced me to Radio Luxembourg, it was with him that I would compile my own charts and compare them to those of Lux on the day of release. It was with him that my awareness was politicised, walking down High Storrs Road with him chanting "Heath out!!" when we were about 14. It was he who changed my life forever by playing me The Mahavishnu Orchestra's 'Inner Mounting Flame' at about the same time. Bye bye Prog Rock! Hello world! It was he whose hesitancy in matters sexual led to my stealing his girlfriend and losing my virginity. He who introduced me to the delights of marijuana, he who enlightened me as to the psychotropic qualities of Potter's asthma cigarettes when consumed in tea form, he who stopped me from committing arson when, under the influence of said tea, I was cooking 'mushrimps' in an empty pan on a lit stove in a cottage in Tetford, he who sat on the steps of my parents' house bemoaning his luck with the ladies and being overheard by my neighbours eavesdropping from their bedroom window (the swine!). It was with him that I spent summer solstice at Arbor Low, a stone circle in Derbyshire, and I remember sitting absolutely transfixed by the fire as he played guitar at midnight...an absolute minimum of notes and yet capturing the mood to such a nicety of perfection it was almost painful. It was Steve who accompanied me on an illegal expedition to Amsterdam involving 48 grammes and a tube of toothpaste, he who went cold turkey in my living room, entrusting me with his well being for as long as it took.

Steve had a boldness that I lacked. A boldness that spilled over into recklessness. I don't really know what happened, what trigger led him to go ever further into exploring those areas that something inside me held me back from but there was a strong compulsion in Steve...a willful running away from safety...in his music, his relationships and in his choice of drugs and their recommended maximum dosage he would always push at the very limits. And yet a more normal, self effacing, gentle guy I have yet to meet. Rest in peace, Steve. I hope you found what it was you were looking for.

Suddenly, anything else I might have had to say seems rather pointless. I'm sure you will forgive an old man his tears.

Right, time to take a deep breath, pour myself a few fingers of Scotland's finest (speaking of which and as it's also his favourite tipple, you'd think my ex-roving researcher would know how to spell it by now!) and attempt to further clarify yesterday's little rantlet.

First of all, I'd just like to make it clear that there was no blanket statement "I like Americans, it's America I can't stand", although as a device for summing up my general drift and as an introduction to a response it served its purpose admirably, I feel it doesn't quite encapsulate the points I was trying to make. The nail was hit, but perhaps not as squarely as it could have been.

'I can't stand' is rather too close to 'hate' for my liking and certainly does not come close to describing how I feel about America. I hate neither the country nor its people, my emotion is reserved for what the country has come to represent in the minds of many non native Americans. Even then these feelings could better be classified under the heading of 'things that make you go "Aaaaaaaaaargh!"' rather than hate. Things that provoke me to anger, to a feeling of deep frustration and sometimes despair.

America seems to have become a code for all these things, a handy catch-all, shorthand expression for all that I find wrong with the world today. And why? Well, as I said yesterday, a lot could be put down to sheer exposure...the fact that I hear more about America than I do about say, Uzbekistan (shouldn't there be an aitch in there somewhere?) but I honestly do believe that if I need to find a prime example of anything that winds me up, then I can find the best ones in the land of the free. I'm not saying that I am unable to find any cant, hypocrisy, mendacity or ignorance in the country of my birth...they are there for all to see and I do not deny it but it seems to me to be a matter of extremes.

We spent half the last century witnessing a battle of ideologies, capitalism versus communism, America against the Soviet Union, a cold war in which both sides provided the extreme version of their political creed. Europe was kind of caught in the middle with an affinity for both socialism and the free market but also with an abhorence of totalitarianism. We looked at both systems and saw the cult of the individual at work. In the USSR's case the individual happened to be the one running the whole shebang and in the States it was every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.

We looked at both extremes and felt comfortable with neither. Since 1989 however, there has been only one extreme in existence and it has not toned down its extremity in response, rather the perceived attitude seems to be "Hey, we won...told you so...we were right after all, fuck you!" Again, this is at government, foreign policy level but to us over here, this is what we see.

Now, as England is undeniably a kind of America Lite it follows that anything which gets my goat in England is mirrored in America but multiplied by the A factor, hence my use of it as that shorthand I was telling you about.

But just to even up the score a little...

Mendacity...Tony (WMD) Blair.

Hypocrisy...Secretary of State for education sending her own children to private schools.

Ignorance...well, here we're back to the average IQ, aren't we? But typical attitudes here are British is best...asylum seekers are scrounging loafers...bloody blacks coming over here, taking our jobs...Wednesday are a big club...I could go on and on.

Cant...that typical European attitude that patronises America...the "of course, if you only had our experience, culture, education etc..." Again, bollocks the lot of it.

Anyway, rest assured that it is the rampant Republicanism of Dubya and his cohorts more than anything else which pushes all my buttons as a lifelong socialist and that any American I meet is and will continue to be treated on their merits as an individual and not as a grindstone for any axes I might have to hand.

Oh, and Jess...if ever you visit Hungary, just bring a bottle of obscure Bourbon. I promise not to treat you like an embarrassing relative and the more of a spectacle you make of yourself, the better I'll like it!

Oh well, I might stick a feather in my cap but I'm damned if I'll call it macaroni.

Pip, pip!

What is it with America? No, that's not quite right. What is it with ME and America? Why is it that on a multitude of subjects ranging from Islay malts through even the Blades to the relative merits of divergent brands of cigarette papers, I can remain coherent, well-balanced and rational and yet the merest whiff of Stateside carries within it the ability to reduce me to such a state that all right thinking individuals would raise little objection were I to be assisted into one of those long-sleeved shirts with no buttons down the front?

I've never even been there unless, that is, you count the transit lounge at Puerto Rico airport and even that was dominated by more Star Spangled Banners than you could shake a stick at.

But even though I have yet to visit it, it visits me on an almost daily basis. I can go through whole days, weeks, months even without ever being exposed to anything vaguely French, German or even Austrian which is strange considering I'm typing this not 100 kms from the Austro-Hungarian border. But open a newspaper, watch a film, turn on the TV, walk into a supermarket, drive under the yellow M and it's there. In your face, up close and personal. I guess that's part of it. I never get to hear of examples of Kan bait produced by other governments and cultures as often as I do those which are so very kindly provided by the good old US of A.

What makes it all the stranger is my personal experience of Americans. I have received nothing but kindness, generosity and friendship from every single one it has ever been my pleasure to meet, either virtually or in the flesh and they have proved to be intelligent conversationalists, good company and, even if one or two of them were rather too Creationist to fit neatly against my pagan edges, incredibly well-rounded individuals.

So my problem is not with individual Americans, then. I guess what causes me the most apoplexy can be lumped under the twin headings of Government and culture.

I realise that any discussion of US government will include points that are just as valid for most of our soi-disant western democracies but it appears to me that in the case of the States, everything is so much more so...we have to multiply everything by the A factor as it were. Examples of political chicanery and skullduggery abound internationally, but you wanna bigger and better one? Look no further.

Maybe it's the romantic in me but there must have been a time when politics was a noble calling, when governments actually led and attempted to form public opinion. The abolition of slavery, prohibition, the New Deal...even Kennedy's man on the moon within a decade, all these had the touch of the radical about them, a fearlessness that is so absent from politics today. Were all the above just catching the wave, tuning in to the Zeitgeist? I think not. But could you find me a politician today who dares open their mouth without consulting the latest opinion polls, the results of which will then quite coincidentally turn out to accord with their own long held beliefs? Government by the people? God help us. Capital punishment was abolished in Germany at a time when 78% of the German people were in favour of it. The same poll today would show that the percentages have reversed.

When I said I have had no problem with any American I have met, I meant exactly that but Americans en masse are a biscuit of an entirely different texture. When considering any mass of people it is always worth remembering that the average IQ of a human is 100. The largest part of any survey of public opinion will contain the views of those whom I would not trust to give me the correct change over the counter at McDonalds never mind formulate government policy.

And it isn't as if the politicians are unaware of this. They use it and manipulate it come election time, appealing to all that is low, baseless and selfish within the mass. When did you last hear a politician genuinely appeal to our higher nature, go against the grain because what they believed in was simply the right thing to do? And if, on the off chance that you have managed to come up with such an example, Ask yourself this. Did they get re-elected?

But then again, of US domestic policy I know little. What the rest of the world cannot help but notice are the ramifications of US foreign policy. And oh, my giddy aunt, what a spaghetti nest of cant, hypocrisy and mendacity that way lies.

I neither want nor have the time to go into this to the extent it deserves but I will take an example from current affairs. This whole fandango that is Guantanamo Bay. Now, I understand that the US isn't breaking international law here. Any laws or protocols that exist regarding any aspect of this the US is not a signatory to and thus cannot be accused of treaty breaking. But surely there is such a thing as the spirit of the law even if it is absurd to suggest that US law could be valid in say, Belgium for example. But when one starts to treat foreigners with less than one would treat one's own citizens and yet expect American citizens to be treated abroad as they would be at home, something is seriously out of whack. The thing that started this whole thing off today was discovering yesterday that the commandant of the camp has described the 32 suicide attempts amongst the non-lawful combatants held there as "manipulative behaviour." He should be on Oprah.

And that's another thing. Non-lawful combatants. What the fuck? I heard them described as non uniformed, non-members of regular army or some such. Maybe we should start rounding up any surviving members of the French resistance, then. Find a new use for Sangatte. Thing is, I don't recall the 'wars' in either Afghanistan or Iraq being agreed on at government level between all countries concerned. Maybe both those countries did in fact declare war on the US and I missed it. Maybe I'd popped out for some cigarette papers or something. America went in with a few minor 'coalition' members hanging on to their coat tails and then had the balls to decide who amongst the populations of those countries were legally entitled to fight them. Good grief!

Ooops, must go...I'll finish this later!

Right, now where was I? Oh, yeah...culture. Now I realise that this could easily turn into one of those discussions akin to that of the Jewish resistance movement in The Life of Brian..."Ok, well apart from Blues, Jazz, Gore Vidal, John Updike, David Byrne, Noam Chomsky etc...what have the Americans ever given us?"

Mind you, I would think that for all the pretty amazing things and people to have come out of America the Oprahisation of life and the cult of celebrity has been a rather high price to pay, but...onwards, ever onwards!

The fact which I find most boggling about US culture, apart from this weird and dangerous thing they've got going with the flag that is, is that for a country supposedly obsessed with individualism, they seem to have an almost irresistible desire for homogenisation. Witness the spread of retail food outlets, McDonalds, Taco Bell and Starbucks, the basic premise of which is that you will be able to walk into any of their establishments, anywhere in the States or even the world and be assured that the comestibles on offer will differ not a jot between any of them. All highly reassuring, I'm sure...after all, "You know where you are with McDonalds, don't you?" but the less variety one finds at home the more difficult it will be to accept that other cultures may have different tastes. The extrapolations of this reach far beyond the culinary.

And what is it with their cars? I read of a town somewhere in the mid-west which spent not a few million dollars on pedestrianising it's main street, turning it into a place where people could pleasantly go about their business, sit on benches and admire the specially planted foliage...a haven of calm, in fact.

It cost them a hell of a lot more to rip it all up and restore it to its original condition when people abandoned it for the out of town mall.

And the relentless dumbing down of everything. Here's Mariah Carey on the developing world.

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."

5% of the world's population consuming 20% of its resources and Mariah can't keep the size of her ass out of the discussion.

Oprah. Well, what can I say? We are being encouraged to sublimate personal responsibility and blame, to claim that we have been abducted by aliens rather than face up to the fact that we are responsible for our own lives and have fucked them up entirely unaided. No, we have to be women who fall for men who were smacked by their mothers and have to join a support group in order to share and seek closure. Bollocks, the lot of it!

The longer this goes on, the more I realise that this isn't really about America at all, only in so far as most of what I find disagreeable about the world today either originated there or finds its most obvious expression within its shores.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that I would feel right at home in one of the more genteel Commonwealths of the South now that there are no longer any 'strange and bitter fruit' hanging from the trees.

I think all I'm really yearning for is a more civilised age, a more educated and critical population...somewhere where people will say "Thankyou" when I hold the door open for them. And a world in which George W Bush would not have been trusted with the car keys, never mind those to the White House.

Oh well, maybe you think it's all been a wee bit fastuous but if you have been, put the gun down.

I'm hurt, wounded, miffed, in high dudgeon and all in roughly equal measure but then again, I'm only on the second bottle so the chances of my mellowing as this goes on would seem pretty fair to middling should anybody feel like opening a book on it but come to think of it, as this is in no way happening in real time, it would hardly seem likely unless, of course, you are either bereft of a brain or in as addled a condition as I hope to be in a short, wee while.

So, wherefore this attack of pique? Well, much as it pains me to admit it, Jess has done me again with her word of the day. Ambisinister, I ask you! Apart from being descriptive of one possessing an uncanny ability to look like Michael Howard in both left and right profile, I can't think of anything. Actually, come to think of it...that'll do nicely. But then again, I'm easily pleased.

So, I hear you politely enquire, why is it that, despite this late flash of inspiration, I am still sulking and muttering imprecations under my breath or to put it another way or in Sheffield dialect even..."Why's tha still got blog on?"

With no further ado, hesitation or prevarication whatsoever I shall explain, elucidate and enlighten your good and patient, forebearing selves and inform you that I have been the victim of a misapprehension of gargantuan proportions.

I have been wrongly accused, wantonly, cruelly and though it pains me so to say it, spitefully, viciously and with malice aforethought of a most heinous oversight. A crime of such selfishness, vindictiveness and plain no-goodedness that I hesitate to lay it before you in all its red toothed, black cloaked and villainous evil.

So, dear readers...assuming you have inhaled deeply and suitably girded up your loins, maybe even availed yourselves of a bracing snifter or three and ensured that all your affairs are in order and the life insurance premiums are up to date, made provision for your surviving dependents or just emptied your bowels in preparation rather than running the risk of being embarrassed by them dropping spontaneously with shock at the enormity of my offence, I shall reveal all...

I'm afraid to say that Jess, alias MD, EC and Doc has accused me of keeping The Six Dwarfs all to myself under a veil of impenetrable secrecy.

Notwithstanding the fact that I have lost an irreplaceable roving researcher to the temptations of blogging on his own initiative, to be so accused is a wound almost visceral in its severity. I have been cut to the quick, slashed open to the very core. Maybe I should re-examine my whole conception of the world, re-define my raison d'etre, sever diplomatic ties with Maryland and consult Messrs. Sue, Grabbit and Runne, solicitors to the very liquid.

Or maybe I should just abandon the whole enterprise, crack open another bottle of Stella, chase it down with a good two fingers of fine Islay malt and admit that she might just, maybe, have a case.

After all, I was informed on the Wednesday and didn't get around to posting the link till the Thursday which, I suppose, was awfully, terribly remiss of me.

It would seem that I have chosen the second option. I have just returned from the fridge (a well trodden path if ever there was) and have tipped a hefty measure of Ardbeg into my favourite glass. Did you know that I have a fridge entirely dedicated to keeping my stocks of Stella at a constant 5°C? No? My, how depressingly ill-informed you all are.

Anyway, I'm off to find Jess in one of her usual chat-room haunts. If I'm lucky, by the time I finally manage to track her down, I'll have decided which piece of my mind I'm going to give her!

What was it that personality test said about me being histrionic?

Oh well, if you have been, mind how you go, y'all.

Word of the Day

Irremissible (adj) Descriptive of any penalty awarded to a Premier League side when playing Nationwide opposition. Refers to the fact that should the first attempt be unsuccessful, the referee will order it re-taken until such time as a goal is scored.

Back later...pressure of work, dontcha know!

Well, Jess has got me with her word of the day. There's not a lot you can do with picayune although it does rather sound like a style of cuisine which may be found in or around the New Orleans area.

She did however put me on to a couple of neat tests. I particularly liked the personality disorder one the results of which I reproduce here for your perusal.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	Low
Schizoid:	Moderate
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Low
Borderline:	Low
Histrionic:	Moderate
Narcissistic:	High
Avoidant:	Low
Dependent:	Low
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Moderate
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! --

Mmmm...histrionic, eh? Moi? Got the narcissism spot on anyway.

So, on to Dante folks! Which level of hell will I occupy? Read on and be informed.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Extreme
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Blimey! Don't think I'll need to pack any warm clothes then.

Oh, and Roger the roving researcher will henceforth not be providing me with any interesting titbits as he has started up his own blog, the little devil.

Word Of the Day

Quercine (n) What you see when you look in the mirror and find you are wearing your wife's undergarments.

Word of the Day

Ketch (n) a good one of which all this year's debutants will be out to snare.

Word of the Day

Hagridden: (n) Where the rather hirsute giant in Harry Potter settles down to watch the big game.
(pp) What you have been when you take the Stella goggles off in the morning.

Back soon...work calls.

Word of the Day

Couchette: (n) Female of literary persuasion who spends most of her time on her agent's chaise longe, downing industrial quantities of foreign sounding lager and bemoaning the fact that she has yet to break out of the bodice ripper market.
(n) A very laid back vegetable of the marrow family.

Well, what a long, strange trip it's been. Someone asked me to go with them and give blood yesterday. I had to decline and enlighten the poor innocent as to the exact extent of my alcohol consumption over the, for want of a much better word, holiday period.

The reason for my having spent Christmas in a malt induced fug can be traced back with some degree of accuracy to a Hungarian TV programme it was my misfortune to have watched in the days leading up to the event. It featured a hopelessly inept presenter and one of our local catholic priests (it was Kanizsa TV, you see) and consisted of said inept allowing said buffer to witter on without interruption or contradiction for what seemed an eternity in purgatory about the 'real meaning of Christmas'.

Well, I ask you. Might as well have blathered on about the real meaning of Monday for all the sense he made. To give you some example of the total bollocks produced by this self righteous, smug and yet totally illogical Christian soldier, I can only bring myself to reproduce the following, bilge and dishwater as it may be.

"Christmas is a time for the family." Okay, we'll overlook the fact that this sentence, to any right thinking speaker of any language, means absolutely bugger all and we'll try and understand it as he meant it. The only problem then is that, by implication, the rest of the year is not 'a time for the family'.

The same logic I applied to the rest of his cheap and meaningless little homilies.

"Christmas is...

...a time for reflection.

...a time to think about the message of Jesus.

...a time to think about others.

...a time of peace and goodwill to all men."

Well, I'm afraid that after all this bobbins, the corks were popping at fairly frequent intervals, I can tell you!

I could also tell you that Christmas is a time of last minute shopping, of disappointment, of not having enough batteries and having pharmaceutical resistant hangovers, but I have a suspicion you know that already.

I recovered long enough to fulfill my contractual obligations with respect to the number of examination scripts I was expected to mark but this took me until about 5 o'clock on New Year's Eve. The relevance of this will become apparent later.

Just before Christmas, a very good friend of mine, a fellow biker, had invited us to spend New Year's Eve with his family at a friend of theirs, also a biker. As this was in the home town of my partner, we thought we would avail ourselves of the opportunity of leaving our daughter with the mother in law and having an evening out together for the first time in longer than I care to remember.

We went down in convoy with my friend on the 30th, dropped off our stash of alcohol and comestibles at his friend's house, got to know our hosts and headed for her mother's. So far so good.

I worked all day on the 31st and we arrived at the party at about 7.30. My strategy was, Stella and whisky chasers as is my habit, take it slowly and everything will be hunky dory. Now, our hosts' 25 year old daughter had a drum kit in their cellar/bar/den and the last thing I remember after treating everybody to a rather fine, extemporaneous solo on the drum kit was demonstrating to the aforementioned daughter how one didn't need instruments to make music by means of another solo on the sideboard of said room at about 11 o'clock.

After that...well, I woke up at her mother's feeling none too bad but with absolutely no recall of anything after the sideboard solo. I downloaded all the photos from my camera today and I was still taking photos after the point at which my memory failed so I was active and in some kind of control afterwards. But, is there anything worse than that feeling of "Christ, what did I do? Did I throw up over the host's wife? Make a clumsy pass at his daughter?"

My partner assured me that I was quite charming all evening and only threw a slump drunk but even that information was enough to throw me into a trouser squirming fit of embarrassment. We returned to our hosts' on the 1st and they did indeed let me in which I took as a good sign. They all spoke to me as well which relieved my anxiety somewhat. The real and only test that I will be satisfied with however, is whether they invite me back again!

I can only put it down to the fact that I had been working hard for days before and right up to the time we left for the party and hadn't taken that into account when devising my strategy for the evening. My friend brought back the case of Stella I had taken and there were only six empty bottles. Six Stellas, six whiskies...a mere bagatelle. Maybe someone forced champagne down my throat at midnight...I just don't know.

Anyway, I have in my possession pictures of before during and after but due to not having a URL, they cannot be published here. Requests by e-mail will be considered on their individual merits.

If you have been, I'm sure you will understand.

Oh, and you may all wish me a very happy birthday for tomorrow!

My father died last November, although in this case it would be much more accurate to say, "I lost him." The feeling of loss seems to grow as time passes, hits me at the strangest moments and knocks all the breath out of me, leaving me for a few moments at least totally and absolutely bereft.

You didn't know my father. I'm not sure I did either. His was a world of actions not words. I only ever heard him tell my mother once that he loved her and he sure as hell never told me! And it's only now, looking back with a child of my own, that I can read his messages to me.

We never talked. Oh, we passed the time of day but we never had those father-son conversations you hear so much about or at which you suppress the urge to upchuck at the movies. But when I look back over my memories of him, I cannot think of one occasion where he failed to demonstrate how to 'do the right thing'.

We had absolutely nothing in common except our love of the Blades. He even christened my first Teddy Bear 'Jimmy Hagan' and never let the fact that I called it 'Fred' create any friction between us. He, with a stubborn streak I seem to have inherited, quite simply refused to acknowledge the fact. He, unlike me, left school at fourteen as his father could not afford the books necessary for him to go to the grammar school and needed the extra wage my father could earn. He started work as an apprentice pattern maker (and passed on to me his love and respect for a good tool and a sharp chisel) and eventually worked his way up to be the Managing Director of the specialist steels company he joined as a boy.

There are so many stories and there is so much to tell that I can't possibly include it all here but I would like to repeat the words I spoke at his funeral. More for my sake than yours...just so I have some record and reminder of what that stubborn old bugger meant to me.

"We never really know our parents, do we? Oh, we know them as Mum and Dad but never as Ivy and Ray, just two people finding their way through life as best they can...pretty much like their children.

I guess if we really want to know them, then we have to look at them through other people's eyes.

I remember when my parents came to visit me in Hungary for the first time and we took them to visit the family of a friend of mine at their small, family vineyard.

My friend's father was the same age as Dad, they were both born in 1920. He couldn't speak English and Dad couldn't speak Hungarian but after a few glasses of wine, it didn't seem to matter that much.

At the end of the evening, my friend's father came up to me and told me what a good man he thought my father was.

And I remember thinking that, despite the fact that they had no common language, despite the fact that my father was in a wheelchair and despite the fact that he had had several strokes and could not communicate very well, that part of my father was still visible...that basic, down to earth, honest goodness.

And I'd just like to repeat now what that old Hungarian said to me about my father that time...'Apa, te fasza gyerek vagy.' Thankyou."

So, what brought all this on? Well, I've just got off the phone to my mother. Up until about two years ago, she was doing everything for my wheelchair bound father. Then she fell and broke her hip while I was over in England for the summer and I had a strange reversal of roles, bathing and dressing my dad for a couple of months, doing everything for him in fact. It became apparent that mum couldn't continue taking care of dad even with health care workers three times a day at home and they had to go into a care home. I had no choice. I live and work in Hungary, I am under a contract I cannot break and I have a family to feed. And I think that was what finally did for my father. He loved his home and had worked so hard for it all his life and not being able to live there was too much. He just gave up. And now, I'm afraid that the same thing is going to happen to my mother. I wanted her to come over here and live with me but she needs care round the clock, cannot walk without assistance and both Zsuzsi and I work and cannot guarantee that at least one of us will be at home all the time.

She has just had a phone put in her room at the home and I was able to phone her today for the first time since I returned to Hungary at the end of August. Maybe it was the fact that she had been asleep for an hour when I phoned, maybe it was the sleeping pills but her already slightly slurred speech has become so bad that I could not understand a single word of what she was trying to tell me. I shall try again tomorrow morning and hopefully, she'll be less fuzzy.

So...back to the question, what is all this? Intimations of mortality? Maybe but not my own, that's for sure. I just do not know whether I'm up to facing this world without either of my parents there behind me. I'm 45 years old and yet I don't think I've ever really in the true sense of the word, grown up. I have always had somewhere to run to, a fixed point, an anchor. The thought of being cast adrift in such a hostile world is one I can well do without, thank you very much. Selfish bugger, aren't I?

Still, I don't remember this being on the curriculum at school...so much information and so little about life.

I miss you, dad.

Well, strap me to a tree and call me Brenda! Has it really been a whole week? What can I say? I could plead pressure of work, but I'd be guilty of a little fabrication...I could tell you I spent more time with my family but that too would have the whiff of pork about it. I guess I'd better come clean, admit to a complete absence of anything worthwhile to say, prostrate myself before you all, beg forgiveness and throw myself upon your tender mercies. A thoroughly over the top grovel, in other words.

Mmmmm. "...anything worthwhile to say." I can see you all reaching for the green ink already, turning to the letter P in the dictionary and preparing to vent your spleens over this one and you would have a point. Since when do I ever have anything worthwhile to say? This blogging lark could quite easily be seen as the absolute peak of arrogance, couldn't it? Just imagine, some ex-pat wastrel possessant of enough self-delusion to convince himself that there are people out there who might just be interested in anything he has to say. I wonder if newspaper columnists ever feel the same way?

I guess it's the nature of writing. Essentially a masturbatory exercise, at its best whenever you've got a load on and just have to get it out but also pleasurable if it's just to while away the odd moment here and there. What I mean is that I write because I enjoy it...to amuse and entertain myself but why I should then choose to publish the results is a question I have yet to really face. Yeah, I guess arrogance should just about cover it!

It's strange really, because in my other life as an amateur percussionist, I'm just the opposite. I don't mind people reading what I write but I hate them listening to the sounds I make when I hit things. Even though music is a shared experience, an interaction between the musicians themselves and also with their audience, I feel much more comfortable playing along to music in the comfort of my living room than I do playing live. My best gigs have been those which come closest to reproducing this experience in a live situation.

For instance, the owner of a disco here in town asked me if I would like to perform at his club and advertise it as a conga night. Maybe I was drunk but I agreed. On the night, I had a word with the DJ who reassured me that the only music he played was funky but who still looked a little doubtful that the experiment would work. We did a sound check...he played some choon and I played along. It was great to see the look of surprise on his face when he realised that this might just be successful!

Why it worked and why I enjoyed it so much was that it reproduced exactly what I do at home. Stick some music on and join in and drift out as the fancy takes me. If the rythmn is beyond my ken or inspiration fails to strike, there is no pressure on me whatsoever. I simply sit this one out and hope the next one resonates within me and inspires me to beat the skins as it were.

Now it so happened that last week a musician aquaintance of mine visited me and saw my congas for the first time. So taken was he by their vibrant colour and promise of latin rythmn that he asked me if I would like to sit in at a gig they had for the Saturday evening. I was not even the slightest bit inebriated but I consented immediately. I figured that his band plays traditional Irish music...okay, there'll be no samba rythmns but it should be straight 4/4, accent on the first so tone down the off-beats and everything'll be fine and dandy.

Was I ever wrong! It soon became apparent at the first rehearsal that they had become bored of playing 'Whiskey in the Jar" and other traditional ditties and reels of like ilk and had expanded their repertoire to include Iberian, arab influenced music as well. Now, I should make clear at this point that I am no professional musician, I have had no formal training whatsoever and my ability to read music is on a similar level to my competence in Sanskrit...ie. totally non-existent.

It was therefore with a feeling of doom and intense trepidation that I greeted his first words to me at the rehearsal. "Okay, this first one's in 7/8, switches to 6/8 for the middle eight and then goes back to 7/8 at the end." Yeah, right. "Er...you hum it, I'll play it." To make matters worse, as if counting bars and coming in and dropping out or changing the tempo on cue weren't catastrophic enough, their band consists of a cellist, a violinist, an acoustic guitarist, a flautist and two members whose versatility includes keyboards, banjo, bagpipes, penny whistles and recorders. The point being that there was no bassist nor drummer, the whole percussive input would have to come from yours truly. Blimey. Lawks oh Lordy.

Now any sensible person would of course at this point have requested a time out, headed for the bar and reconsidered the whole enterprise from a gently Stellad perspective. I just rolled a cigarette, told them to carry on as normal and I'd join in as and when I felt able.

I don't know if you know anything about playing congas so for the benefit of those amongst you who are in blissful ignorance I shall attempt to explain the unique problem they pose. With congas, rythmn is only a small part of the experience. Anyone can tap out a rythmn with a pen on a table. You can accent it every fourth beat or whatever but the point is that the sound of the pen hitting the table never varies. Hit a drum with a stick and you have the same basic sound every time. With congas, the rythmn comes from the wrists but the impact is through the hands and it is here that the unique character of congas shows itself. One conga can produce many sounds depending on both the point of impact and the shape of your hands at the time. The next time you hear someone play them, listen carefully and hear the tunes they play. The point is that even if you've got the rythmn down pat, the accents and the lilt are dependent on you knowing exactly what you are doing at all times with respect to hand shape and point of contact. That these patterns should follow and complement the music behind which they are playing goes without saying. My problem was not so much the strange rythmns, I soon picked those up but with finding the right patterns. Congas are Latin American and lend themselves to latin beats, samba, rumba, marenge and so on. Finding patterns to fit into Irish jigs is a horse of an entirely different colour.

Anyway, we had three rehearsals and out of the eight tunes they wanted me to play on, I had something down for about four of them in true conga style, another two just playing bodhran style on the biggest conga and nothing whatsoever for the other two, including the one in 7/8. Twas then I remembered I had two small North African clay drums and took them along to the pre-gig sound check. Just two sounds to bother about, just concentrate on the rythmn, job's a good 'un.

Onto the gig then...only about 100 people in a small intimate venue...so far so good...then I saw the TV cameras. At this juncture my mind clicked to blank. I'm looking at the set list, all those tunes I was to play on asterisked for my benefit and I can't remember any of 'em. Suffice it to say that during the very first number, I came in on the beat but played two bars of what should have been a straight 4/4 in something like 6/8 and had to bluff my way back into the groove as if I'd meant it all along. All week I'd been frantic about the 7/8 which proved a breeze and went down a storm and I cock up on the easiest one of the lot. Damn that Murphy! God knows when they're going to broadcast it but I sincerely hope no pirate videos find their way onto the market...it'd cost me far too much to buy up all available copies.

The highlight of the evening? Well, apart from my solo in 12/8, the presentation afterwards to my good self of a bottle of Tullamore Dew as a reward for my endeavours. Nice work if you can get it.

So, hie all the equipment back home after the gig and log on to find United have only managed a 2-2 draw with 20th placed Watford despite their having their first choice goalkeeper sent off and being down to 10 men. Just what is it with the Blades these days? OK, we are still 3rd in the league but have yet to hit anything like form and that along with the injuries we have suffered seems to have affected the team's self belief. Think, "Oh, well. Bugger it!" call up a taxi and head back to town for alcoholic refreshment with the rest of the band. I enjoyed myself immensely...it's always rewarding to make other people laugh in a language not your own and I was on good form! Added to that the fact that I managed to stay the right side of absolutely blattered made for a very good evening all in all.

And so on to Sunday and the capture of the 'Beast of Baghdad'. As good an excuse for a bit of statesmanship as any, I would have thought but the 'Ladies and Gentlemen.........we've got him!' soon put paid to any illusions I might have had on that subject. Still, I guess it's not too late to be able to make good use of this opportunity...if handled right, it could be the start of something good in Iraq but, if handled badly (and the first signs are not good), it could make a tricky situation even more insolubly messy.

Oh well. A one, a two, a one two three four five six seven...

Now regular readers of this blog will be well aware of the almost conversational nature of its relationship with the woman with one red shoe and how occasionally, Jess will let something slip which I fall upon like Tongey on a free pint.

Well, something she wrote the other day has had my mind all of a tizwas ever since. The mind mangling, brain boiling discovery that Maryland has criminalised the act of oyster abuse has since occupied me for most of my waking hours and become something of an idee fixe with me.

Yet, try as I might, I cannot order my thoughts on the matter under advisement into any logical sequence whatsoever and therefore I have no choice but to present them before you as they occur to me at this, the moment of typing.

Notwithstanding the fact that my alimentary canal is as far as oysters are concerned entirely virginal, I was of the impression that for the true connoisseur, oysters are best when freshly harvested, prised open with an instrument designed for the sole purpose and slipped over the enamel with little delay. Thuswise the oyster in question has been removed from its natural environment, exposed to a blinding light, set free from its moorings and sluiced into a melange of highly corrosive stomach acids in less time than it takes to describe the process. In which case, I wonder what constitutes abuse. Chewing?

Now it so happened that I was in my car the other day listening to Marianne Faithful's Broken English album, the track "Why d'ya do it?" and as the line 'betray my little oyster for such a low bitch' impinged itself upon my consciousness, my thoughts veered off in another direction entirely. And here's where it might get very random indeed.

I wonder what the female equivalent of phallic is?

Are oysters that prevalent in Maryland that they have become as a sheep to the Welsh, a goat to the arabs and a wife to the unhappily married?

And if they have, how many would one need? Is penetration involved or is it more a question of providing a lubricated sheath twixt hand and rampant flesh?

Are they eaten afterwards or simply discarded, left to float like used condoms or be picked up off the beach the following morning by the used oyster squad?

Do the endorphin junkies leave the shell on?

And by dint of what evidence are cases brought to trial? As the ersatz version shares several characteristics with the original, I would imagine olfactory evidence to be inadmissible. DNA may suffice but no doubt a clever lawyer would suggest that their slippery nature had led to their sliding off the shell and down the front of their client's trousers before he was even aware of it. So one rather tends towards the idea that photographic evidence may be the only conclusive variety obtainable. Granted that only the most inveterate and depraved oyster lover would fish one out of the ocean, drop his kecks and have his evil way with it there and then on the shoreline, one imagines that there would be little to be gained by having members of the vice squad hide amongst the sand dunes of Maryland armed with telephoto lenses in the hope of catching any perpetrators in flagrante as it were. Maybe information is passed on in seafood restaurants or tapas bars or wherever it is these people hang out to be amongst those of like persuasion.

Is there an oyster lovers anonymous?

It also set me to contemplating the various and wonderful euphemisms for the female sexual organ. To Richard Condon, we owe 'the vertical smile', to Tom Robbins, 'mama's Tibetan peach pie' and to Sheridan, a very fondly remembered university colleague of mine, 'cod mornay'. Almost always food related I note. Yum yum, slurp slurp. "Oh, Timmy, you're so licky!" Reference...10 points.

It reminded me of a case in England where some guy had broken into an aquarium and attempted carnal knowledge of a dolphin. I forget quite how it panned out but I would imagine a case could have been made for it being, unlike cases involving oysters, entirely consensual.

And quite how one guy could have been charged for doing to a single dolphin what the entire human race has been doing to the whole species for years is quite beyond my ability to fathom.

Anyway, if you have been, wash your hands afterwards.

Hey ho!

I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I think I'm too lucky, maybe I'm in some way aware of a debt incurred in a previous life and I'm waiting for it to be called in. Whatever it is, I suffer from imposter syndrome. The feeling that I'm somehow living somebody else's life and that one day the Truth will out. "I'm terribly sorry, sir but we meant Mr James...can't think how it could possibly have happened...heads will roll sir, I assure you but in the meantime, if you would be so kind as to assume your rightful place in the queue for the soup kitchen."

What I do know however, is that it has even invaded my dreams. The fear of being somehow 'found out' is the theme of the only recurring dream I have. Interesting how those dreams you would really love to re-occur, those involving several nubiles and various and sundry comestibles, never seem to fall into this category, do they?

So, to the dream. It always, unerringly, without fail involves my having killed someone and struggling to come to terms with the imminent discovery of the body. I never get to find out the who or the why but no matter how diligently I have disposed of the body, something will always happen to make its coming to light inevitable and my guilt all too apparent. So far, not so bad, I hear you considering. But wait, there's more.

You know how you can sometimes, when dreaming, convince yourself that it's only a dream and thus can your character in the dream start to enjoy himself a little? Well, in this sleepscape of mine, my character in the dream also has a recurring nightmare that he has killed someone and that...etc...etc...etc. This has the effect, on waking, of making me for a few moments at least, decidedly apprehensive about my immediate future.

Now what livened up last night's dream was the fact that in my fugitive scenario, my flight from justice as it were, I was accompanied by Mary and Joseph. By reason of the purest logic, these roles were played as an archetypical Jewish couple by Maureen Lipman and John Bluthal. Mary was your typical stoic yiddisher mama, bearing the weight of the whole world and its errant sons on her shoulders and Joseph a lightweight, ineffectual yet eternally optimistic dreamer.

Anyway, inbetween spoon feeding me chicken soup and reminding me that I should have gone to Med School, Mary was schlepping me around town from pillar to post in an orgasm of anxiety, Joseph all the while playing down the problem in hand. "The boy has chutzpah, he'll get over it." being the full extent of his advice to us both. Chutzpah? Well, if you define balls as pissing through the letterbox of your least favourite neighbour, chutzpah is then ringing the doorbell and enquiring how far it went. Quite how this scenario would have played out, I never got to find out as I was awakened at this point by a straining in the groin area informing me that that there was a load on its way that may best be shed in the bathroom.

So, what does it all mean? Bugger all I hope but it would appear that this fear of being found out goes deep in me. Have I some deep, dark secret in my past which, if revealed, would destroy my life? Well, maybe I have and maybe I haven't. I'm much more inclined to think it's a subconscious ploy to dodge responsibility or at least to aid in taking whatever responsibilities I do have in as light a fashion as is possible. After all, if it really is someone else's life I'm living, then how could it possibly be my fault if I fuck it up?

Oh well, and a "Hey nonny no" to all.

Just what I needed. Tripe in the papers to kick me off on one. Yes, I do get the English newspapers here, a bit late they may be but they can usually be relied upon to provide some kind of grist to my mill. Lately however, they have been rather devoid of any content that may, even in the slightest way, be termed contentious and it is this, alongside the fact that I have had a hair-tearingly boring and uneventful few days, that is responsible for my recent limited output.

Today though, The Independent has provided me with a couple of gems. The fact that the first was written by James Lawton, a journalist I admire enormously for his erudition, passion and common sense regarding the subject of sport, did cause me a little concern. That the second should have come from the mouth of Richard Caborn, our soi-disant Minister for Sport, should come as no surprise to anybody.

They both concern the recent Rugby Union World Cup in Australia. Lawton bestows his praise upon the team and recognises their accomplishment with genuine enjoyment. Caborn, I suspect, doesn't give a flying one either way but can spot an opportunity for reflected glory and making political capital from a great distance, even were he to be blindfolded in a dark cellar and outside the best part of half a bottle of Scotland's finest. It's a knack. All successful politicians have it. The others share the fate of Mr. Thing. Or that of William (14 pints, my arse) Hague although I must admit that he was at least successful enough to have left us his name behind.

Anyway, to the nub, grist or kernel of this little bloglet. Lawton also stated in his piece that the rugby players provided an example to their football counterparts regarding behaviour and accepting the decisions of the referee in good spirit and saw no reason why football players should not follow this. He talked about pressures being equal...blah...blah...blah.

Well, James. Sorry old chap but that is pure unadulterated bollocks. It's a class thing you see. While all those rugby wallahs were learning respect and bonding with their fellows at single sex public schools...which can roughly be translated as being thrashed by sadistic, latent homosexual masters and tossing each other off in the showers after games, most working class kids were already graduates of the 'twat him one' school of thought which pertains to this day wherever working class kids of a certain age (from two and a half upwards) congregate and socialise.

Now, rugby union was an amateur code until recently which meant that most players were university educated and members of the professions. In other words, middle class through and through. Arguing with the ref or otherwise making an exhibition of oneself had been drilled out of these guys by the time they left short trousers. It is just not part of their culture. It is alien to them. They ARE the establishment. Rugby was a hobby and an excuse for a bit of a jolly up from time to time. Hardly life or death.

And even now that higher echelon rugby has embraced the professional ethic, I would hazard a guess that, up until the World Cup victory, the earnings potential of those at the very top would possibly equate with that of a career in the professions...doctor, solicitor etc. Add to this the facts that they are largely left alone by the press and play in front of crowds of a few thousand week in week out for their clubs and we can see that the so called pressure doesn't add up to squat.

Now football, in Britain anyway, is a working class sport. Most professional footballers share the intellectual capacity of say, Ian Rush who, when asked for his observations on life in Italy after his transfer to Juventus, replied "It's just like being in a foreign country." Yes, quite. These lads had their backs to the wall from an early age and were more used to fighting the establishment than interested in becoming a part of it. Most left school at 16 with few, if any, qualifications. The only options for attaining the good life were crime, football or rock music. Really well prepared in fact, for earning over a million a year by their eighteenth birthday, wouldn't you say? Okay, so not all footballers have the talent or the application to reach such dizzying heights, but they all aspire to it and there is the key. To them, it's a whole lot more important than just a game or a hobby. Know any well balanced rock stars? Anyway, stick these uneducated, impressionable and mostly not very worldly wise guys in the first team on say, 10,000 quid a week, let them perform in front of crowds of up to 68,000, have their every move both professional and private followed by the press and then we can talk about pressure, James.

Caborn went even further to include the behaviour of the fans in his paean to the rugby code in that there were thousands of pissed Englishmen in Australia and nary a glass was broken. He has written to the Football Association pointing this out and he expects them to act on it. Just what the hell does he expect them to do? Fuckwit.

I guess if he were a director of SUFC he could simply re-open G and H blocks and wire their turnstiles to the National Grid. Job's a good 'un.

Oh well, yours as ever. If you have been, give him one from me.

So, it's December the 1st and already it's revving up. If you're already teed off by all the TV ads, fairy lights and forced jollity and feeling yourself rising on the curmudgenous scale, you could always take comfort here.

Or maybe you should take a moment to reflect on the fate of one guy who didn't believe in Santa Claus.

Perhaps you're of the volunteering kind. In which case you might like to be Santa's Little Helper to while away those empty hours and days pre - last minute shopping.

If you're waiting for divine instruction, then this may be what you've been waiting for.

And for you little pixies with a sense of adventure...here's Adventure Elf. Enjoy!

Just popped in as I thought you might like to see this.

Well, well. Not a bad day at all. A fine 2-0 win for the Blades and Roger the roving researcher came up with this little gem for me.

The Stella Liebeck Awards

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella awards.

The Stellas are named after 81 year old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonalds. That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous but successful lawsuits in the United States.

Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating McDonalds, the teens who allege that eating at McDonalds has made them fat, was filed after the 2002 award voting was closed.

This suit will top the 2003 awards list without question.

5th place (Tied)

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.

5th place (Tied)

19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th place (Tied)

Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage door. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He could not re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family were on vacation and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food.

He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation had caused him undue mental anguish.

The jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

4th place

Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle dog. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard.

The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been a little provoked at the time as Mr. Williams, who had climbed over the fence into the yard, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd place

A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone) The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

2nd place

Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms. Walton was
trying to crawl through the window in the Ladies Room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

1st place

This year's runaway winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor Home. On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Razinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that he should not actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor Home.

The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles.

Hi-ho, silver lining...

Well, for some anyway. Bad news I'm afraid. Some bugger's won the Hungarian Lottery and as my phone isn't exactly ringing itself off the hook, it seems I'll be off to work on Tuesday after all.

Pish and ptui!

Not me guv'nor, honest...part 2.

Just when I thought I'd got it all out of my system another bottom-smackingly blatant bit of blame shifting, with more than a hint of cant and hypocrisy thrown in for good measure, impinges itself upon my consciousness as a result of reading reports concerning the Bush/Blair love in that recently took place at Brenda's behest.

And quite what gives that particular vowel mangling inbred the right to invite half the security apparatus of the good old U.S. of A. over to England at tax payers' expense is a subject I could all too easily go off on one about, so I shall snip this particular tangent forthwith.

No, what has really lodged in my craw today is reading that the two bees have come over all Oprah. It would appear that they are seeking closure. Apparently it is time for us to move on and forget our past differences as any other response will harm "the Iraqi people" and not aid in dealing with the "difficult situation" we "all" face.

Now, one has to be impressed by this. The balls! The sheer brazen effrontery of it quite takes the breath away.

Move on, they say. Well, they would, wouldn't they? Let's move on and forget that the rush to war was based on a huge lie. Let's forget WMD. Let's forget that Osama despised Saddam and had absolutely no contact with him whatsoever. Let's continue to ignore the fact that almost all the terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis. Let's pretend we didn't notice the closure of U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia and the relocation of troops to Iraq immediately following the invasion. Let's not remind ourselves that the only Ministry deemed worthy of protection was the one for oil. Sexed up intelligence dossiers? What of 'em? Let's not mention that we went blindly into war without even the remotest shadow of an idea of what we were going to do when it was all over.

Move on. And just who is this aimed at? Maybe they think they can con Joe Blow into going for this shit, and with re-election a priority that may indeed be the target audience, but they are also directing this at those governments and organisations who were kind enough to attempt to warn them of their folly and its probable consequences.

Sorry guys but this difficult situation is one you created yourselves and who can blame the "surrender monkeys" for telling Bush to fuck off now he comes crawling to them to help bail him out?

All of a sudden the United Nations has a major responsibility and a role to play in helping Iraq. Excuse me? Is that the same United Nations who were not given the time they asked for to confirm the non-existence of WMD? Who were lost in their own irrelevance? Who are still owed God knows how much in unpaid dues from the States? Good grief.

No, guys. You were warned. Loudly yet with rationality and reason. You dug the hole, now get yourselves out of it.

The problem with this is that they have not just royally screwed it up for themselves but for all Americans, Britons, Turks and Australians everywhere whom they have turned into legitimate targets for every fundamentalist would be martyr from Bradford to Baghdad. Thanks, bud.

"But hold on," I hear you say, "why not give them the benefit of the doubt?"

Okay then, let's look at Dubya's record of moving on, shall we? He moved the fuck right on out of Afghanistan, didn't he? The Afganistan that is now under the control of those lovely warlord chaps of the Northern Alliance, where women are still repressed, whose major export is once again the opium poppy and whose plight has dropped completely off the radar of western media. Good record there, then.

Let's consider the U.S.A. response to the plight of any subjugated peoples, shall we? Having allowed the Hungarians to believe they would be supported in the 1956 uprising, they sat back and watched the Russian tanks roll in. Having done the same with the Kurds and Northern Iraqis at the end of the gulf war, they again sat back and watched the gassings. And so it goes throughout history. Rwanda, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Korea, Palestine, Uganda, Chile, the Phillipines. They create these monsters, sign massive arms deals with them and convince themselves that at least they're "our" monsters and then, when they have outlived their usefulness, deny all knowledge or responsibility and beg others to help them out of the situations they have made for themselves.

And let's look at the hypocrisy, shall we?

Dropping laser guided missiles, from several miles up in the lower atmosphere, which may or may not hit their targets is an act of bravery on the part of our courageous pilots. Hijacking a plane and flying it oneself into a building is an act of cowardice.

We are not conducting a war against Islam. The attack on the WTC was an attack against all our Judaeo-Christian values.

We are fighting for democracy and Human Rights. Guatanamo bay, anyone? Homeland security? Identity cards? Anti-terrorism legislation?

And they care so much about the fate of the Iraqi people that they're not even keeping a body count of all the Iraqi civilians killed in this present conflict.

I'm well aware that this could be, and probably is being, written about in a much more coherent, erudite, better organised and well written fashion than I have managed here, but the fire is in me and I could not stop myself.

To return to my opening. A plea. Please treat us with a bit of respect and allow that we are intelligent, rational, thinking beings. Be honest enough to rephrase your pleas. Tell us that we should move on and forget our past differences as any other response would harm your re-election prospects and not aid in covering up, or diverting attention from, the complete fuck-up you have both, entirely alone and with malice aforethought, lumbered the whole damned world with.

Anyway, if you have been, you have my deepest sympathy.

Oh, almost forgot. Thanks to Roger for reminding me that Tesco mineral water used to be labelled 'suitable for vegetarians'. Well, I never!