In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Avian Flu

Is this the year?

Sing your life

Want to know what was #1 in the hit parade the day you were born? Satisfy your curiosity here.

Looking at my results, I wonder if perhaps music is not destiny. In the month of my birth, the three top hits were, in chronological order, Ticket To Ride by The Beatles, King Of The Road by Roger Miller, and Where Are You Now? by Jackie Trent. Eight countries later, I’m hoping that that gypsy curse has just about worn off.

On the other hand, one more year and my theme tune would’ve been Pretty Flamingo by Manfred Mann. I’m pretty sure I dodged a bullet there…

So, what's the soundtrack to your life?


I'm a man of means by no means...
King of the Road.

Intelligence Oversight

We all rest a little easier in our beds, as the Democrats unveil the new leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Committee.

In the space of a few minutes, Chairperson Silvestre Reyes managed to describe Al Qaeda as a Shia organisation, and Iran as a Sunni state, before admitting that he had no idea what Hizbollah was or where it was based.

Other concepts Democrats find it hard to distinguish between include “right” and “wrong”, “mine” and “yours”, and most recently “victory” and “surrender”.

Not that the Republicans did much better. To quote the woman in charge of CIA spy recruitment: “The Sunni are more radical than the Shia. Or vice versa.”

What is it with Americans and abroad? I know many of them don’t have passports, but then again, when you live in a country as big as the US, there’s not much reason to leave. Just about any combination of climate and dusky-maiden skin-tone is available right here. Even so, surely they should be able to find a couple of dozen people out of their whole political class who know more about the world than what they’ve gleaned off of a handful of Snapple Facts?

Let’s hope these knuckleheads do a little background reading before they re-open for business in January.


Sylvestre Reyes displays his unrivalled grasp of foreign affairs, yesterday. Is that your final answer?

Not half bad

Ave atque vale, then, Leslie Lynch King, Jr, 38th President of the United States.

"Damn it, I don't need the polls to tell me whether I'm right or wrong."

He's the first president I was ever really conscious of, and even then only because he was always in the news tripping over things. Now we come to consider his life, too late we realize that he probably deserved a lot better. But there's a lot of people like that, especially among the klutzy ones.

So take a minute for those folks in your life - the cack-handed and the bad-haired, the clumsy and the dull - who are plodding along, getting the job done all the same. We rely on them to be there when we need them, but might never think to thank them.

For Gerald R Ford, give them a smile today...


Gerald R Ford and friend, yesterday. RIP.

All work and no play

The Harvard Business Review indulges in a little schadenfreude, reporting that individuals in "extreme jobs" rake in the cash but only at the expense of their sex lives.

They define extreme jobs as entailing work weeks of 60 hours or more. 46 per cent of the corporate carnivores surveyed said that their jobs interfere with "having a strong relationship with my spouse/partner", with 50% having an unsatisfying sex life. The other 50% were presumably jumping their secretaries.

Excuse me while I unpack my violin. By that logic, I reckon I’m underpaid by a factor of ten. Tough line of reasoning to work into one's annual performance review, tho'…


Big big salary, teeny-weeny penis.

Merry Christmas to you all

…and God bless us, every one.

Note: anyone offended by overt references to Christianity please proceed in an orderly fashion to this designated safe zone.

In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Nuns

Not as nice as they’re made out to be?

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is Hong Kong Subtitles, a list of (allegedly) real English subtitles to movies shown in Hong Kong.

Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!
Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough examination.

Anyone know what the short rabbits are? Do guys have them too? Perhaps we should be getting these films on cable over here, on the Discovery Channel if nowhere else…


A Hong Kong movie star, yesterday. Short rabbits a speciality.

No such thing as a free lunch?

One in 20 Latinos in the US regularly goes hungry complains the Hispanic civil rights group the National Council of La Raza.

OK, fine. While we’re at it, the National Bakers’ Union is complaining that its members don’t get enough blow jobs. And your point is…? Who are those universally well-fed lawyers going to sue? And on what grounds? Call a charity, or call Welfare, but for God’s sake don’t call a lawyer.

Civil rights are about not getting robbed or threatened by the State, thrown into gaol without due process, or kidnapped and murdered by corrupt cops, all of which are daily events south of the Rio Grande. Civil rights are about equality before the law. What civil rights are emphatically not about is equality of life.

Martin Luther King demanded, among other things, the right to be served at segregated lunch counters. I don’t recall him arguing the inalienable right to Japanese sweet potato and chestnut gratin once he got there. You got what was on the menu, if you could pay for it. Same goes for Manolo and friends. You don’t work, you don’t eat. You don’t like it, you go home and ask your own government to feed you. Let us know how that works out for you…

God knows, it’s not as if Whitey has a secret stash of super-healthy eating tips. They’re mostly so fat and wheezy that those lean illegals will outlive them anyway.


Tallahassee, 1956. Another lunch counter sit-in ends in defeat, as for the third day running José steals everybody else’s fries…

Top tips

Champagne corks are popping among the genital mutilation community, for the US National Institutes (sic) of Health has publicly recommended circumcision as a prophylactic against HIV infection.

No matter that the test was conducted in environments where cultural factors (ie, a tendency on the part of local males to knob anything that moves regardless of age, gender, consent or species) skews both the prevalence of the virus and the virulence with which it transmits itself. Apparently the best way to marginally cut infection rates in one of several transmission vectors for a rare disease that very few Americans will ever even be exposed to is to have all male children undergo a painful, unnecessary and desensitising surgery.

Sewing your eyelids shut is also an excellent prophylactic against snow blindness, but I don’t see the US National Institutes of Health handing out the surgical staples. Could this perhaps have something to do with the bizarre American fetish for circumcision? You betcha.

The voice of reason is nowhere to be found, but the WHO accidentally manages an approximation to it in its rather defensive response:

Dr Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV/Aids department of the World Health Organization told the BBC the results were a "significant scientific advance" but were not a magic bullet and would never replace existing prevention strategies.

Which is true so far as it goes, but is really just code for “Cut off as many of your dicks as you like – just keep our salaries coming”. By the way, if ever a name was destiny for its bearer, Dr De Cock’s is it…

One wonders where it will all end. Today your foreskin, tomorrow this? We’re on a slippery slope, my friends…


Whip 'em out, lads. One hundred and fifty million Americans can’t be wrong.

Welcome to Self-Awareness Corner

A serial incompetent and nepotist who repeatedly turned a blind eye to genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur chides the US for its unilateralism.

"No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others" intoned the shameless fraud, pissing on the memory of Harry S Truman by daring to show his face at the latter’s Presidential Library in Missouri instead of being run out of town on a rail.

Sadly, as the audience was 100% Democrats, BBC reporters, and other assorted traitors to human freedom, no-one thought to hold a whip round and buy him a ticket to Beijing, so he could deliver the same message regarding Taiwan and Tibet, or to Teheran, to give the mullahs a piece of his mind re Lebanon.

Kofi Annan was born in Ghana in 1938, and is still not dead.


Kofi Annan and friends, yesterday. One can’t exactly call his retirement “well-earnt”, but on the other hand the rest of the world certainly deserves a break from him and his leechlike cronies.

Ivan’s Christmas Shopping Special

Geeks! For the lady in your life*…

This Christmas, why not get her Eau de Worf, by L’Oréal?

Eau de Worf – because all other perfumes are weak…

* You know – that buck-toothed lab assistant you never have the nerve to ask out, or the chick in the coffee shop who always stares right through you.

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is The James Bond Dossier - all you need to know about what makes Bond Bond, and where to buy it.

Girls, if you’re still not sure what to get the man in your life for Christmas, well, chances are you’ll find something here to earn you the ultimate accolade – the unsolicited back-rub. Happy hunting…


The Smith & Wesson Hammerless Centennial Airweight .38, yesterday – as used by our James in Dr No. Hint hint.

Diana of the Effusions

“Princes plan tribute to Diana” the Telegraph announces breathlessly.

Oh, thank God. For a moment there I thought the world was about to forget that saintly and exceptional woman.

Not for her just the traditional church service. Only a massive concert in Wembley Stadium will do for someone like Diana, who overcame crippling social advantages and embarrassingly large subsidies of everyone else’s taxes to become the world’s premier clothes horse.

“We want it to represent exactly what our mother would have wanted, how she was and all that sort of thing” explains William, with the articulacy that only the finest pedigree and years of intensive and privileged schooling can produce.

“We hope to commemorate and celebrate our mother’s life, as it’s been 10 years since she died, with a memorial service on August 31 in London” he continues, his brother squatting beside him poking a termite mound with a stick, “and then a concert, a tribute concert, celebrating her life on July 1 on her birthday.”

One’s Royal grasp on the workings of the calendar seems a little shaky there, but go easy on the poor kid, now. He’s just lost his mother after all. Or at least very likely just noticed. Maybe they switched nannies on him or something.


Building on this tremendous success, the brothers plan to follow up with a Concert for Pinochet, celebrating the life and achievements of Chile’s veteran military strongman, who died last week at the tragically late age of 91.

Given Pinochet’s long-standing association with football stadiums, the Princes have decided to book Wembley for an extra night and run both parties together. Tho’ obviously the Pinochet event will offer less in the way of music, inclining more towards the mass torture and extra-judicial execution of left-wing activists.

“Harry’s already picked out his costume, haven’t you Harry?” adds William, smiling indulgently as his brother swings idly from a nearby chandelier peeling a valet with his feet.

Of course, nothing comes easy to two such troubled youngsters, and here too there are obstacles to overcome. “The servants tell me that no-one in the Labour Party qualifies as left-wing any more, so we’ll probably have to settle for George Galloway, and make up the numbers with some Lib Dems…”

Sadly, General Pinochet’s family have already declined their invitations. “My father was a notorious fascist who for nearly twenty years held our beloved Chile in his mailed fist, murdering thousands to maintain his bloodthirsty rule” explains his daughter in a prepared statement. “He certainly would not wish to be associated with anything so indefensible as hereditary monarchy…”


William and Harry, yesterday. “We’re Royals, you know. It’s not as if we have anything else we should be doing.”

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

A new diaspora emerges, as the Institute for Public Policy Research announces the results of their survey into the distribution of ex-pat Britons.

Fully 10% of the population has shaken the dust of Blighty from their sandals and lit out for greener pastures. The IPPR offers no analysis as to why, although many might suspect that the existence of bodies like the IPPR, who track people for the sole purpose of finding new ways to tax and meddle with them, might have some bearing on the matter.


Not the least surprising aspect of their findings is that there are more Brits in Spain than in the United States. Of course, many would counter that it’s easier to get into the Spain than the United States. You’d think they might have considered that fact a little more carefully before moving there, but it’s too late now. It’s paella and property scams for life now for those knuckleheads.

A comparative study of the Irish revealed huge concentrations in New York’s Police Department, Chicago’s Fire Department and Boston’s bar staff. Strange that the sea-divided Gael can arrest criminals, put out fires and spend twelve hours in a bar without getting drunk, while their stay-at-home cousins lay waste to entire neighbourhoods on a nightly basis. Is this evidence for natural selection? That Darwin bloke might be onto something after all…


Warning – here be Brits…

Food for Thought

Margaret Thatcher once observed that the facts of life usually turn out to be conservative. Perhaps, then, we should not be surprised to learn that charitable impulses do to.

Puts me in mind of one of my favourite jokes:

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies: “I’m sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I’m doing community service this week”. The florist is pleased and leaves the shop. Next morning when the barber goes to open there is a thank you card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies: “I’m sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I’m doing community service this week.” The cop is happy and leaves the shop. Next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a thank you card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later a Republican comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies: “I’m sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I’m doing community service this week.” The Republican is very happy and leaves the shop. Next morning when the barber goes to open, there is a thank you card and a dozen different books such as “How to Improve Your Business” and “Becoming More Successful.”

Then a Democrat comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies: “I’m sorry, I cannot accept money from you; I’m doing community service this week.” The Democrat is very happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen Democrats lined up waiting for a free haircut.

It’s practically libellous, of course. Who ever heard of a Democrat offering to pay their bill?


Charity in action, yesterday. Obviously not as caring as taxing everyone else and then hiring a huge well-paid staff to hand out the few remaining crumbs. I mean, where’re the votes in that?

Small but perfectly formed

Indian men have complained that standard condoms are "too big" for them, bless.


You know, just because the silly fish jumps right into the barrel, we don’t have to shoot it…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is World War I – in colour!.

It really is jarring to see some of these images, in such sharp colour – it makes it somehow all too painfully recent. Fortunately they are pretty much all of French troops, so no-one’s doing anything gory or distressing, like actually fighting or anything…


WWI, yesterday. I could’ve sworn I went to school with that guy on the far right.

Cock-blogged

Creeping horror disturbs my rest, as whenever I try to migrate to the new blogger beta it tells me I can’t do it. Anyone know what’s going on there? I’m beginning to feel put upon. Maybe I’ve been blacklisted?


See? This is what happens when you guys keep rabbiting on about certain religious minorities in the comments…

Idiot Savant

My employer, Virtucon (An Evil Corporation™) is seeking to tap the creativity of humble peons like myself, by encouraging us to share new product ideas on an internal Wiki. “Do You Have the Next Billion Dollar Business Idea?” asks the lead article on the company intranet, breathlessly.

Curiously it omits the obvious follow-up, “If so, are you retarded enough to hand it over to us for free?”

What kind of morons do they take us for? They hired us specifically for our low cunning and total lack of scruples. Anyone actually coughing up a freebie on this site would be sacked on the spot for breach of contract. Oh no, I’m not falling for that one again…


Employee of the Month and friend, yesterday.

Ivan’s Sunday Quiz

Are you autistic? Anyone who’s ever found themselves painstakingly rearranging their sock drawer by shades of grey has asked themselves that question at some time or another. Well, end am-I-an-ubernerd uncertainty once and for all!

Take the test here, courtesy of Wired Magazine, a publication that obviously knows its readership all too well.

Note that the theoretical basis of this test is the work of Simon Baron-Cohen, brother of the more famous Sacha. No prizes for guessing where he acquired his abiding interest in abnormal psychology…

(My score was 18, by the way)


All this, and good with numbers too.

Plus ça change…

Tremendous excitement among the dusty ranks of Britain’s archaeologists, as new studies unveil the intricate complexities of an Ancient Greek supercomputer.

This amazing artifact, constructed almost two centuries before the birth of Christ and lost at sea around 65BC, was apparently used to calculate eclipses, solstices, and planetary motions with uncanny accuracy, marking a level of technological advance not to be seen again until the late Middle Ages.

It’s a sad reflection on human nature that this fantastic fruit of ancient scientific skill, far from inspiring further feats and “putting a man on the Moon by 300AD”, was instead carted around by some shyster to predict “omens” and cast horoscopes. Thank God we live in a more rational age, where men no longer pervert Progress to fleece the greedy and the gullible.

In other news, I receive the following in my inbox this morning…

Date: Mon, 4th December 2006 08:58:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Moses Odiaka [mosesadiaha@go.com]
To: mosesadiaha@go.com
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL PROPOSAL

My name is Mr.Moses Odiaka.I work in the credit and accounts department of Union Bank of NigeriaPlc,Lagos, Nigeria. I write you in respect of a foreign customer with a Domicilliary account. His name is Engineer Manfred Becker. He was among those who died in a plane crash here in Nigeria during the reign of late General Sani Abacha.

He had only $18.5mllion in his a/c and the a/c is coded. It is only an insider that could produce the code or password of the deposit particulars. Based on the reason that nobody has come forward to claim the deposit as next of kin, I hereby ask for your co operation in using your name as the next of kin to the deceased to send these funds out to a foreign offshore bank a/c for mutual sharing between myself and you. I will need your full name and address telephone/fax umber,company or residential, also your bank name and account,where the money will be transfer into.

Trusting to hear from you,

I remain Respectfully yours,

Mr Moses Odiaka.

Cool! Man, I’m so totally going to cash in on this…


The Ancient Greek Supercomputer, yesterday. Not much to look at, but still more reliable than Windows.

Got to pick a pocket or two

The Home Office issues a report detailing Britain’s prison population in terms of prisoners' religious affiliation.

Fascinating stuff. Apparently Episcopalians are partial to sex crimes, Catholics to burglary, and Hindus to fraud. Thank God those Muslims are maintaining their traditional law-abiding low profile and not getting into any mischief.

No word on the Jews and their supposed over-representation among those convicted for starting all the wars in history. But you know those Red Sea Pedestrians. They probably just used their total control of the world’s media to hush it up.

Meanwhile, the atheists’ crime of choice is anything involving violence, from mugging through common assault all the way to GBH and murder. I tried to ask the world’s Number 1 Atheist, Richard Dawkins, how he squared that with his assertion that religion was corrupting whereas atheism brought ennobling freedom, but he just came after me with a Stanley knife.


Professor Dawkins, yesterday, getting to grips with the opposition, atheist-style. Good thing his wife was there. “Leave it aht, Dick – he’s not worf it… That’s enuff, ennit? He’s ‘ad enuff. Leave him, Dick. Leave it aht, I say…”

UPDATE! Britain's prison population tops 80,000 for the first time! Maybe the Plods have been rounding up the Scientologists to balance things out. After all, if stupidity were a crime, they'd all have been locked away long since...

Ninjas!

An anonymous letter appears on my desk, cunningly scrawled in crayon to defy graphological analysis:

Dear ceitisins

The only way pople wont see us or haer us is stik close to The shados and weaR som thing on our heads

ninjas

I am clearly in imminent danger. One’s first thought, naturally, is that 3H has finally snapped after years of typing like an epileptic with Parkinson’s, and has started tracking us down one by one extracting gruesome revenge upon our frail and pasty blogger bodies. But no sooner have I strapped the baby to my chest as a human shield, two small and sinister figures slip into the room and begin skulking among the bookcases…

Fortunately for me, it’s just my two eldest boys. Their stealthy progress is somewhat spoiled by their sister trailing along behind them, shouting “There’th Authtin!” and “Look, Daddy, it’th Wonan!”, and pointing.

This is probably why real ninjas didn’t take their little sisters along on missions.

Ninja costumes being in short supply since the Mutant Turtle variety were retired for soup, the boys have exercised some impressive creativity in the matter of masks. And at least they had the sense to choose clean ones.


Perhaps real ninjas had to wear underpants on their heads too. It would explain their notoriously irascible natures. I rather wish they had, and well-used ones to boot. It would be no more than they deserved, the murdering little monkeys…


Some ninjas, yesterday, and friend. Never mess with a man with underpants on his head.

Ivan’s Sunday Quiz

What South Park character are you like?

Which South Park kid are you most like? Kyle You are clever, and often come up with intelligent and funny comebacks to other people's stupid remarks.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

So what, I’m Jewish now? Well, could be a lot worse…

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is the gentle humour of the P G Wodehouse quote generator. A must for all eggs, beans, and crumpets.

All human life is there:

My Boss:

The words, delivered at a distance of two feet in the man's immediate rear, were spoken in the sharp, resonant voice of one who Gets Things Done - which, in its essentials, is rather like the note of a seal barking for fish.

Myself:

He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consomme, and the dinner-gong due any moment.
Carry On, Jeeves (1925) `Clustering round Young Bingo'

My kids:

`I remember years ago, Bertie,' said Aunt Dahlia, `when you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning purple. And I, ass that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me tell you, it will go very hard with you if you ever swallow a rubber comforter again when only I am by to aid.’
Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

And of course, my hobbies:

Boko Bagshott we called him. Took a girl to supper once at the Gardenia. Supper scarcely concluded when an angry old gentleman plunges into the room and starts shaking his fist in Boko's face. Boko rises with chivalrous gesture. ``Have no fear, sir. I am a man of honour. I will marry your daughter.'' ``Daughter?'' says the old gentleman, foaming a little at the mouth. ``Damn it, that's my wife.'' Took all Boko's tact to pass it off, I believe.

Those were happier times…

What’s your favourite Wodehouse quote?


Bertie Wooster, yesterday. A role model for us all. Fortunately we still have David Cameron.

Going around the table

Just a quick note, a day early, as I don’t intend to be hovering over this damned machine at all tomorrow.

So, what am I thankful for this year?

A loving wife.
Four great kids, especially our new arrival.
Good health for everyone, including both of our mothers.
A strong church.
A good job and a salary that lets my wife stay home with the kids.
A boss who’s a decent human being.
Only being away on business for three weeks this year.
A new and bigger house, with a walk-out basement and a decent lot.
Passing a very challenging quality management certification first time back in April.
That I'm not a turkey.

What do I want for Christmas?

A promotion (would be the first for four years).
A pay-rise (ditto).
A buyer for our old house.
An orally-fixated cheerleader (pom-poms optional).
And another year like this one.

What are you thankful for?


The first Thanksgiving in 1621, yesterday. Known to Native Americans as Thanks For Nothin’ Day…

And now, the news for the dumb

“Not eating makes you die – shock” reports the Telegraph. Anorexic Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston, who lived on an exclusive diet of apples and tomatoes, has died from kidney failure aged 21.

She is the second anorexic model to die this year. Uruguayan Luisel Ramos, 22, suffered a heart attack in August after living on lettuce leaves and Diet Coke for three months.

Something of a pattern emerging here, maybe?


Simple cause and effect seems to be challenging for South Americans generally. Dim-bulb Brazilian Cassia Aparecida de Souza, 18, made headlines recently with the claim that her cat, Mimi, had given birth to the miscegenous offspring of the neighbour’s dog, which is a first even for a country as lax in matters sexual as Brazil.

No word yet as to Ms de Souza’s stance on tomato-only diets.

Are these women representative of all South Americans in their feeble grasp on the facts of life? If so, it’s no wonder that they keep electing scumbags like Chavez and Ortega…


Is it a puppy? Is it a kitten? No, it’s a puppy. Duh.

Everyone’s a critic

I find my faith in natural justice momentarily restored as Sacha Baron Cohen is punched repeatedly in the face on a New York sidewalk.

Side-splitting funny-man Sacha decided on the spur of the moment to reprise his notorious Borat character on a passer-by, requesting to have sex with his clothes, whereupon the object of his attentions promptly beat him unconscious.

Seeing as mere eye-contact has been known to provoke pre-emptive stabbings from neurotic New Yorkers, many would argue that Borat got away lightly. Fortunately our very own Hugh Laurie, star of “House”, was there to salvage Sacha from the wreckage - a fake doctor rescuing a fake Kazakh from a very genuinely offended citizen. I’m sure there’s a clever metaphor on the ephemera of fame in there somewhere, but I’m just sorry that I wasn’t there myself to help out– by, say, holding Borat by the arms, or fetching a baseball bat.

The humblest copper in the land cannot pummel a dusky suspect without getting plastered all over YouTube nowadays, and yet no-one thought to capture this priceless piece of cinema verité on film. Where are the paparazzi when you need them?


Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat, yesterday. Now with authentically Kazakh-style missing teeth…

Dispatches from RummieWorld™

A warm welcome to Self-Awareness Corner, as German Lawyers unveil plans to charge Donald Rumsfeld with crimes against humanity.

Well, one certainly can’t gainsay the German people’s expert and in-depth knowledge of war crimes. Their reputation for near-autistic blindness to embarrassing inappropriacy is also apparently well-earnt.

In other news, 150 scientists and staff are kidnapped from Baghdad’s Higher Education Ministry in broad daylight.

Now, I can see bundling some poor chump off the street into the boot of a car being called kidnapping, but when it comes to twenty camouflaged lorries full of uniformed thugs rounding up an entire government department, I fear we are stretching the meaning of “kidnap” beyond all reason.

A new word must be found, and I think it is only fair that it pay tribute to the inimitable skills of our former Defence Secretary by immortalising his genius.

Therefore I humbly suggest “to rummie” vt, sb, to kidnap on an industrial scale. Use it wisely, my children – I bequeath it thee…

What’s your favourite neologism?


Some German lawyers, yesterday. Poachers turned gamekeepers.

It’s alive!

Wide-eyed innocence from the mad scientist community as they digest the outraged reactions to their plans for human-cow hybrids.

Frankenstein and co. are for some unaccountable reason short of real human eggs to butcher, the general public being notoriously conservative in these matters. Therefore they have hit upon the simple and risk-free solution of injecting human DNA into cows’ eggs, and then smooshing the mewling abominations that result to harvest their juicy, tender young stem cells. Lovely!

"This is a very rational step: to learn what you can using animal eggs, which are readily obtainable, before moving on to valuable human eggs when or if this becomes necessary" explains Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of developmental genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research, tossing another puppy in the blender.

It’s good to see the true spirit of pure scientific enquiry alive and well among our brave boffins. And if their unholy mutants lurch out of the castle and stroll down to the village to rip the heads off peasants, well, that’s just regrettable collateral damage in the War on Ignorance.

All in all, a small price to pay if it cures Michael J Fox of his Parkinsons’. Then maybe he’ll finally do Back to the Future IV instead of all those creepy Democratic campaign ads…


“Paging Professor Lovell-Badge to Customer Service, please. Someone would like to register a complaint.”

In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Whatever happened to...

...toddlers falling down wells?

Ivan’s Election Round-Up

Thursday 7am: It’s election day!


Not that I get a vote, unless you count all those postal ballots I swiped from the Sunnyview Retirement Complex during nap time. Nevertheless, I feel moved to join in the fun, and dress accordingly.

Thursday noon: Turns out that Americans like to hold their elections on Tuesdays, not Thursdays as in proper countries like the UK. Bugger.

Why was I not informed? I make a mental note to chastise the wife, if only on general principle.

Thursday 11pm I review the results with alarm. The Democrats have seized control of Congress. In other news, Britney Spears announces her divorce.

Coincidence? I think not. The filthy tide of left-liberal immorality is already threatening to swamp us. May the Lord have mercy on our souls…

Quote of the Week Keith Ellison, first-ever Muslim Congressman, celebrates the rainbow coalition that elected him:

Ellison said his campaign united labor, minority communities and peace activists… "We brought in everybody."

“Everybody”?


Britney Spears, yesterday, too inconsolable to dress. Just the first of many victims of this unholy Democrat tyranny.

Hey Big Penda

Our friend 3H, inspired by Bystander, sings the praises of Offa, King of the Mercians and Hammer of the Welsh.

Despite the attractions of Welsh-hammering, I've always been more of a Penda man myself.

Penda remained a Pagan throughout his life but, by his wife, Cunewise, he fathered a large family who all became Christian: Peada, King of Middle Anglia; Wulfhere and Aethelred, eventually Kings of Mercia; Merewalh, King of Magonset; St. Cuneburga, wife of King Alcfrith of Deira and Abbess of Castor; St. Cuneswith; St. Cunethrith of Castor; St. Edith of Aylesbury; St. Edburga of Bicester; and Wilburga, wife of King Frithuwold of Surrey.

Five saints! That's got to be a record. Granted, they were only chicks, but even so - not bad for a head-banging psycho like him. We shall not see his like again.


Penda, King of Mercia, yesterday. No school like the old school…

Maiden Aunt

Food for thought as the BBC compares Western promiscuity with those fine upstanding moralists of sub-Saharan Africa.

“Why oh why are Westerners such sluts compared to Ethiopians?” Aunty Beeb asks us, shaking her head sadly. Probably for the same reason that they punch out four times as many kids, despite having fewer partners – they have no condoms.

I would also add that they live in a shithole with nothing else to do, but seeing as there is no baby-boom in Birmingham I must reluctantly lay that argument aside.

Nevertheless, it must be significant that every single man in Ethiopia between the ages of 35 and 39 is getting laid. I mean to say, every single one. You’d think their tourist board would’ve made some hay out of that little data point by now. But no, they’re sticking with “Ethiopia – bring food!” for the twenty third year running. Those Saatchis have really lost their edge, if you ask me.

Once again the BBC manages to simultaneously patronise the Third World while slagging off its own nation and culture. Too many of those spineless lefties seem to be auditioning for jobs under the first sharia government. No-one beats a socialist when it comes to getting their surrender in early – as Francois “Mr Vichy” Mitterand would be the first to tell you...


Compare and contrast: liberal democracy and emancipated females vs third world goat-herding – which is superior? Think you know? Aunty knows better!

In your Sunday Irae Magazine this week

Shy heartthrob Russell Crowe finally speaks out!

“Just don’t call me tetchy. I hate it when people call me tetchy…”

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week, why not gaze into the abyss for a while as you peruse this balanced and objective review of the merits of female circumcision?

But remember, when you gaze into this abyss, it is not only gazing back but probably pulling on a suicide vest while it’s at it. Try not to make eye contact…


“Of course, the simplest way to deal with uncovered meat is to cut big chunks of it off and throw it away…”

Diminishing returns

The Daily Telegraph entertains and informs again with its excellent “your view” section, where readers provide their considered opinions on the issues of the day.

I find a lively debate, inspired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, regarding whether full-time working mothers are detrimental to family cohesion and children’s welfare.

Among the predictable pearls thrown up by those with nothing better to do all day than take the Archbishop of Canterbury seriously, I alight upon this little gem, posted by a Mr Arnold Ward:

My wife and I both work around 75% which seems to work for us and our two children - maybe this is a model that should be more universally adopted.

Truly we are in the presence of genius. He continues…

Moreover, just because they are women does not mean that they are going make great mothers, my own mother was not temperamentally well suited to childcare - try as she might.

Evidently, she was not much cop at elementary statistics or basic logic, either. On the other hand, I do hope she’s still hale enough to hotfoot it round to his place and kick his sorry, ungrateful and mathematically-illiterate ass all over the room.

For his next trick, Mr Ward will solve income inequality by giving everyone a 10% pay rise…


Mr Ward’s grasp of numbers is eight today. Many happy returns!

Midnight 'til one belongs to the Dead...

Flying rats

A feel-good story to start the week with, as a pelican shows unexpected community spirit by abruptly catching a pigeon and swallowing it whole.

An RSPB spokesman said "It is almost unheard of for a pelican to eat a bird. Their diet should be strictly fish."

So much for the experts. A fish-only diet is all very well for effete Western Pelicans, but this one is an Eastern White, from Siberia. I know from bitter experience that one eats whatever one can get out there…


The world’s dumbest pigeon, yesterday, about to meet his maker. Retarded even by the unexacting standards of his scrofulous confreres…

Begging the question

Quite frankly, I was unaware that I had any in the first place…

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Ivan’s Site of the Week

This week’s winner is The Rockall Times, your one-stop-shop for all North Atlantic news.

Not as urbane as The Onion, say, but what it lacks in polish it more than makes up for in ethnic stereotyping and swearing. That’s a trade-off I can live with…


The Rockall Times: not just a newspaper – more a public service.

Six Feet Under

Excellent!

No-one does obituaries like the Telegraph nowadays, and this is a classic of the genre. You can feel the tension in the air as they carefully skirt around any mention of the obvious puns, in deference to the sombre occasion and, no doubt, the exasperated requests of the dead man’s family.

And who needs a cheap shot at the name with such a life to eulogise? Leading African troops against the Japanese, tugging Greek beards, demanding the surrender of Cuban irregulars clad only in diving flippers and mud – his story has it all.

I suppose with a name like his one might feel driven to excel, if only to give people something else to talk about. Lt Col John Trenchard Pine-Coffin OBE succeeded in spades, and we salute him for it. Ave atque vale…


The Pine-Coffin arms, yesterday. “In storms we thrive”. One only hopes that Heaven doesn’t bore him.

Where’s my rifle?

Clown conference opens in Mexico reports the BBC, inexplicably filing the story under “Americas” rather than “Terror”. 400 clowns have gathered in Mexico City for four days of intensive workshops and competition on the general theme of giving small children lifelong psychological problems.

Where are Al Qaeda when you need them?

Not content with giving everyone the willies, these pasty-faced freaks are demanding subsidies for their perverted “lifestyle”:

"We would like the government to be aware of our existence," Tomas Morales, known as "Llanton Clown", told the Associated Press news agency.

"Because, in some way, we need a school for clowns."

Mr Morales, doubtless a relative of Bolivia’s narco-terrorist President Evo, intends to gather his legions to perform for free outside the Mexican parliament to raise awareness of their plight. And if they don’t get what they want, they’ll do it again, and again, and again…

"To be a clown is something really serious” says conference organiser Pingo the Clown. That tells you all you need to know about them, really, doesn’t it?


A clown, yesterday. That's not funny.