Breaking News from the US Elections

From the Raleigh Examiner:

Chelsea clinton was canvassing in the Democrat primary in North Carolina last week. She approached a local and asked him what 3 things worried him most. He replied:

"Osama, Obama, and yo' mama"

Blue on Blue

This is a few weeks old. But I like it.

He doesn't photograph well, does he?

H/T Speccy, again

I have two opposing captions:

1. "Look at that gurning fool. When ah'm Prime Minister it'll all change fae the better. How long wull ah have tae wait?"

2. "Feck! he's got oot just in time. My economic sandcastle is aboot tae be washed awa', bobbing like a turd on the Clyde, and ah'll go doon in history as the worst PM ever. Doomed. DOOMED!"

Caption Competition

"And if you were 100% African, senator, I'd reckon about this long"

‘I wake up in the morning thinking what we can do to help homeowners’.

Dream bubbles? Captions?

Internet Dating, Part 1

When we told the idle girls to get a shift on, we were due at lunch a mile or two along the beach, they were puzzled.

"Who with, Daddy?"

"A fellow who, ummmm, visits the same blogs as I do"

"But Daddy, you told us never even to think about meeting someone you contacted through the internet. You even stopped us using Bebo when those stories started circulating a couple of years ago. And you disapprove of Myspace"

"I know, idle cherubs, I know. But this is different. He is opinionated about politics, seems soundly right wing, enjoys game shooting and is crazy about guns"

"Guns?????"

"Damn, wish I hadn't said that last bit"

"Daddy, we've come all this way to Barbados to see a gun-toting blogger guy who is probably an internet rapist?"

"Of course not, I thought it might be amusing. And anyway, Mrs 45 Government is joining us"

"What sort of name is that? You must be crazy!"

So we got into the big van we hired (there were 8 of us, the girls christened it the Loser Cruiser), and trundled off to the Carib beach bar. There, to greet us, wearing an incongruous but rather upmarket Royal Shakespeare Company baseball hat, was 45Govt and the charming Mrs 45. A fine lunch of mahi-mahi was had, with reasonable rum intake and a terrible, sweet, Californian rose that should really have been avoided. We learned a great deal about the island, sporting guns, and poor behaviour at educational institutions, sometimes resulting in expulsion.

I now know more about 45 Govt than I will divulge on this blog, and can report that he is often unarmed and not an internet rapist. But that's how the idle girls still refer to him, poor man.

Gone Chillin'

That's Idle in the distance, chillin wid his bitches at Bottom Bay in Barbados. We'll be there in a day or two and this idle, empty blog will become even idler and emptier for the next fortnight. I might change my blog header to include tumbleweed in future.

Luckily we all have up to date passports. Here's a bona fide letter to the minister responsible for fingerprintingirisrecognitionstoolsamplesandDNA:

Subject: Passport Application

Dear Minister,

I'm in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of TV Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chap who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the TV detector van can tell if my TV is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time. Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know... the one where we're not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone "important" to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor...who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN...

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.