Skip to main content

Easy targets

Some notes for your diary, the following words and phrases are banned in my hearing until further notice.

"In real terms"
"Contextualised"
"Knocking it out of the park"
"That's old-school"
"That's what I bring to the table/party (delete as applicable)"
"Punch and Judy politics"

Any figure over 100% is banned should it succeed the words "giving it" in a verb clause, all other usages are acceptable. Any mention of MP's expenses is banned should you yourself have an expense account/petty cash tin/access to a stationery cupboard. Discussion of the BNP voting for non-whites to be allowed to join is banned, likewise anything which could be deemed a liberal hot button du jour. John Terry is banned, likewise Ashley Cole. Vernon Kay's ban is not be rescinded under any circumstances. George Lamb will remain banned until such time as his accent ascends to its correct social class. And he fucks off. Florence and the Machine are banned before nine a.m and after five p.m., and all day Sunday. Unless she stops shouting. Any discussion of how if Pete Doherty wasn't a rock star (which to the best of my knowledge he is not) he'd be in prison by now is banned banned thrice fucking banned.

That is all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Inedible

"He says it's inedible" said my front of house manager, as she laid the half-eaten fish and chips in front of me, and instantly I relaxed.  Clearly, I observed, it was edible to some degree. I comped it, because I can't be arsed arguing the toss, and I want to make my front of house's lives as simple as possible. The haddock had been delivered that morning. The fryers had been cleaned that morning. The batter had been made that morning (and it's very good batter, ask me nicely and I'll give you the recipe some time). The fish and chips was identical to the other 27 portions I'd sent out on that lunch service, all of which had come back more or less hoovered up, we have have a (justified, if I do say so myself) very good reputation for our chips. But it was, apparently, "inedible". When it comes to complaints, less is more. If you use a hyperbolic word like that, I'll switch off, you've marked yourself as a rube, a chump, I'm not g...

Chop chop

I was completely ignorant of the fuss over the edited Trump speech in an edition of Panorama until, one moment later, I wasn't. And the reasons for my ignorance are instructive. I had no idea that the story was even brewing until the surprise Sunday night news of the resignations of Tom Davie and Deborah Turness. As I'm sure you are by now aware, this was occasioned by a clumsy edit in an old edition of Panorama, which has already been on the iplayer for a year. It's a non-story. Except people decided to make it a story. The reason I'd heard nothing of it until the resignations was that I'm not on X, where, apparently, it was all the media classes had been talking about for a week. It was an obsession of the unholy right-wing trifecta of the Mail, Telegraph and Times (who, given that they sent a bloke just last week to interview the wrong Bill di Blasio, you'd think would wind their necks in over factual inacccuracy). It was big news on GB news, all self-contain...

Creepy old men

I note, somewhat wearily, that creepy old men are back in the news, being creepy. Creepy old men, and their apologists and enablers, who argue that their creepiness is somehow the natural order of things. Old men would have you believe that it is difficult to not be a creepy old man. That it is a task of epic proportions. It is not that difficult. It is a matter of intention. As yet more of the grimness of Epstein unfolds, creepy old men are, sadly, a flaccid topic once again. Whether it be pursuing students thirty years their junior, or simply not asking too many questions about the background of the probably legal young woman who you've just been introduced to by your good pal Jeff. To be clear, I am not referring to criminal creepy old men, the ones who actually committed statutory rape, the ones who fucked trafficked hirls. That is not something which is allowed to get away merely with the contempt of the observer.  That deserves prison.  No , I'm referring to the hinterla...