I knew exactly what he was thinking, but he still persisted in ignoring me, so I stormed past the front of the bus like a bull that’d just snagged his wedding tackle on the crossbar of his Rally Chopper, and just before I crossed the road I glared at the operator menacingly.  I even had time to flick though London Transport’s book of ‘How to Piss off a Passenger’. 

On page nineteen, appendix iiii, it states: if a driver makes no eye contact with a passenger at any time they don’t exist!  As luck would have it, the temporary lights held up the queue of traffic that bus was sitting in for over five minutes, giving me more than enough time to reach the next stop.  I light up a cigarette and waited in a smug repose for my quarry to pull up.

He rounded the corner and cruised towards me – change in hand and smiling inwardly I hailed once more.  Bastard sailed right passed me again!  I uttered many expletives in the direction of the vanishing bus, mostly beginning with the letters C, F, W and B, but overall I’d say it was the C word that gained the most attention!  I was so incensed I took his number, it was a 67!  I thought, fuck this for a game of soldiers, I’ll write a stiff letter to London Transport’s complaints department, but I couldn’t find a shop that sold stiff paper! 

A swearing fit lasting way past the 60 second mark ensued; and I began cursing again when I notice that some arse had placed yet another decommissioned sign at the very top of the second bus stop.  When I realised how far away the next bus stop was I blew my stack for a third time, I mean I went absolutely ape-shit.  I kicked the shelter, the bin that no one uses, the seating arrangement and finally the bus stop itself, mainly because it had the words, ‘bus stop’ on it!

As is always is the case when you’re mid-thrombi, I’d lost the focus of my surroundings, and it wasn’t until I turned round to light up the obligatory stress fag that I realised I was standing about 10 feet from a primary school.  My explosive outburst had neatly coincided with chucking out time and the playground was full of children, parents and an entourage of teachers. 

Heads, small and large, began turning in my direction as motherly hands cupped their little cherub’s ears.  Oooops!  Still in full fuming mode; I power-walked the 500 yards to next stop.  I know it was that far because I counted every one of my steps.  There was some good news, however, as I stomped my way between the two waiting zones not one single red lorry passed me.  I arrived at the next stop and joined a group of hopeful travellers who, by the looks of it, had suffered a similar transport fate.

Looking for a positive angle, I consoled myself with the fact that at least it had stopped raining.  In fact, the weather conditions were quite the reverse.  There was so much ultra violet light flying about I couldn’t see bloody thing when I looked back up the road behind me. 

Thanks to just the right amount of surface water, left from the downpour earlier, there was a wash of dazzling sunlight, and it was bouncing off the tarmac in the road, the pavement, every window in the street, and off of the slate tiles of the houses too.  You couldn’t even see the general through traffic it just appeared out of what can only be described as Haringey’s first Stargate. 

Twenty minutes or more had passed, and there was still no sign of a bus, but, when a few of the passengers at the head of the queue adopted the posture of a Meer Kat’s lookout, it caused a stir of hope; I even made a grab for my fare.  It was the kiss of death.  What pulled up?  The only other bus on the route, and it didn’t go anywhere near where I wanted to go!  I was so happy for the crowd that got on the bus! 

A newer set of minutes past and another 341 snaked its way up to the stop and, in the space of the next 10 minutes, two more went by.  There was no doubt about it – I was starting to take this personally!  I knew I was, because my fare was starting to melt in my hand! 

Out of the blue, and in the midst of a cloud of hatred of bus drivers all over the world, came a stirring amongst the remaining crowd.  It could mean only one thing, the approach of another red lorry.  After a group hug and swift prayer I flicked my fag butt to the kerb and looked up and there it was – a beautiful bright shiny 67. 

A group of Christians in the queue broke into a chorus of, “When Jesus walked,” and prayer mats bedecked the pavement but the rejoicing was short lived.  Yes it was a forward moving 67 and yes there were passengers within.  It didn’t have a, ‘sorry out of service’, sign on it and no, it wasn’t about to break down. 

If I didn’t know better, I’d say you waiting for the ‘but’ aren’t you?  Well, here it comes.  All of the upbeat emotions, which included relief, were slashed to ribbons when a cockney Asian driver opened the bus doors and shouted out, “Oi, oi saveloy, everybody off.  The bus terminates ‘ere.” 

Tambourines, triangles, pan pipes and sheet music all hit the deck in unison.  I’ve never felt anger spread so quickly amongst a small group of people before; I mean you could actually see the waves of hate washing over the bus. 

Here’s just a sample of what the crowd thought of the driver and his informative speech, after standing around for over an hour.  “C**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, c**t, poo, blast and…, buff-oon.”  Well seven of our party were nuns after all!  I’d left the head clinic with hope in my heart, and glee in my knees, at the thought of a swift return home, as it was I managed to scrape home two an a half hours later!  After a day of recuperation, I wrote my letter of complaint and it read… 

Dear Transport Minister,

Could you please take the entire London Transport system and stick it up your dirt box or, at the very least, use the bloody shambles to find out how ineffective it is when you actually need to get from A to B in the same day.

Yours, sincerely hacked-off of Tottenham

A true story…

Well we’ve all used it, and deep down we know it’s largely unsatisfying, so why do we go back for more?  The simple answer is, if you’re minus a car you’re forced to use London Transport’s red lorry service.  Oh don’t get me wrong, they’re a bloody marvel if you haven’t got to be anywhere particular at a specific time, but my advice is, give yourself half a chance and leave the day before!

I’d received a letter from the hospital saying that I needed take a blood test for my Lithium levels, and I also had an appointment with my psychiatrist.  I was dreading it.  Not the meeting or the visit to the vampire suite, the journey!  It meant that I’d be at the mercy of three different bus routes, using six buses in all – in short, a bus traveller’s nightmare. 

It wasn’t a cheap trip either; LT had just increased their fares.  Some twat in a suit had come up with the brilliant idea of a blanket charge which meant that even if you only went one stop you still had to fork out two quid, so my round trip cost a small fortune. 

By car, the hospital was literally no more than a 10 minute drive, but I didn’t have a car at the time so I was stuck with the situation.  And to makes things even less appealing when I checked back over some rough figure work I saw that, even if you took into consideration the bus mileage and timescale, it would’ve still been quicker to book a short haul flight!

So I turned up at the place where the big red lorries were supposed to pick you up.  If you haven’t had the privilege of using this form of transport, the object of the game is this in brief.  You, the ever hopeful traveller, hang around for anything up to an hour in all weathers. 

If you’re lucky, you’ll find a bus shelter but there’s no point in using it as it’s been built with no sides.  When the bus does finally arrive, you board and hand over a small portion of your life savings, and for this you get thrown around for half an hour by the guy sitting behind the safety cage, and if you’re really lucky you’ll get dropped off roughly 600 hundred yards from where you actually want to be!

After just a few moments of waiting, my first bus turned up, and to my total surprise, we made the first leg of the journey in a reasonable time.  I disembarked and my fingers went straight for my cigarettes, as there was no way the second bus would turn up straight away.  I’d just inhaled a lung full of quality tobacco smoke when heads began to turn at the stop and, sure enough, the second licensed bandit was approaching.  This miracle was repeated at the third stop. 

Unbelievable – staggering even, and up until that point in my travel history unheard of, so I arrived at the bonce department with plenty of time to spare.  I went straight in for my blood test, as there was no one else waiting, and my meeting with the head doctor was over in 15 minutes.  I hit the road at 3.20 pm exactly, with the hope that my return journey would be a swift as my arrival… more chance of being ravaged by a brace of nuns dressed in nurse’s uniforms! 

For one single solitary minute, I did toy with the idea of calling a cab.  I had the money in my pocket, which was about the same as the bus fare, and there was a phone in the hospital’s reception with a cab company’s number to hand.  But I thought no, I’ll entrust my faith in the big red lorry network once more.  What a bloody idiot!

On leaving the brain factory I could see my first homeward bound bus heading my way and could only assume that every one of my stars were in perfect alignment that day.  Then a negative thought crossed my mind, I hadn’t a clue where to hail down my nine ton people carrier, as the council had seen fit to dig up the road that day.  

But I needn’t have worried as, behind me was a fully functioning stopper of buses minus its shelter, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-sult!  I stuck my arm out casually and waited for the comforting sounds of air brakes and a hiss that said, “The doors are open mate, step inside.”  Bastard drove straight past me!

I was immediately filled with a sense of rage which was unusual for me, but before I began shouting the odds I thought I’d better check the timetable to make sure it was on the route I needed, and it was.  My sense of loathing elevated swiftly to a hate status.  But, what I’d failed to see was a small yellow notice at the top of the bus stop which said the stop was out of use due to the road works. 

Now at this stage the transport for the poor was held up by a set of temporary traffic lights about fifty yards away and, as these types of lights generally take longer to change than the fixed variety, I figured I had enough time to walk up to the bus and see if the caring sharing son-of-a-bitch would let me on. 

From my position on the pavement I could see the driver, and I knew that he knew I was there, but he’d obviously been flicking through London Transport’s conduct manual to discover how to deal with the, ‘angry client standing outside his bus.’ 

On page nine there are just two short paragraphs.  The first says, “Just drive off.”  And the second states that, “If you find yourself stuck in traffic for any length of time start playing the ‘looking straight ahead game’ – and then drive off.”  I extended a friendly wave.  Did he offer to open the doors even though he wasn’t at a stop, but there was clearly plenty of time for me to board without causing an accident?  Did he bollocks!

I was more than a little pissed off to say the least, but in the distance I could see a glimmer of hope, about a hundred and fifty yards away was another hailing post.  A couple of minutes had ticked by at this stage, so I decided to make my move, especially as I could see that the driver was beginning to lose his cool. 

Oh yes, even though his head was fixed in a facing forward position his body language was beginning to let him down.  There was much gripping and un-gripping of the steering wheel, and from time to time he’d roll his head from side to side in attempt to relieve the stress in his neck.  Boo-wa-ha-ha!

Final part next week…

Money, it’s said, makes the world go around, and there I was thinking it’s the gravitational pull between a bunch of planets…

If this is the case, soon the world is going to come to a grinding halt, and the rumour is, it’s the euro that is to blame or should I say the countries that use it, and the twits in charge of finance.  Now I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned our Government can take the euro and stick up a slot where the sun don’t shine.

I believe the initial use for this foreign ‘shrapnel’ was for businesses in the European Union, well if that’s the case why is it circulation on a wider scale?  Well, I’m glad to say I have the answer.

Overall, the banks keep saying they’re short of cash, which really means they’re short of our cash.  So, how do you stump up some extra wonga for your bank in times of crisis, one of the answers is to make up a new monetary system.  It confuses the pensioners for a start, and as we’re all living longer, right there is your source of extra income.  They won’t be able to work out if they’re being ripped off mostly, and this will generate a greater circulation via over paying people like cab drivers, stall holders and disreputable milkman! 

How else could a bank up its income?  Well, once you’ve fashioned your new coinage thus: 2 and one euro coins, 50c, 20c, 10c, 2, and 1c denominations, in order to avoid the use of the two smallest coins, some transactions are rounded up to the nearest 5 cents!  Well excuse me for sounding irate, but you’ve got to be a bloody idiot if you agree to that practice.  Sod it, why not just chuck all of your loose change down the nearest drain! 

Now let’s take a look at the difference between having a gargantuan debt problem as apposed to Joe Bloggs who is 10 months in arrears with the rent.  At a certain stage you notice a lot of letters building up, and they’re all from the same creditor.  More arrive, and in an attempt to deal with this financial crisis, you start putting the letters at the bottom of a draw.  Yes, even bankers to this.

Then one day the financial minister of, let’s say Greece gets a visit from a friend, who advises him to pop along to a meeting for a chat and some sandwiches with lot of other important people who are loaded.  Once there, all of his ‘friends’ say, “We understand you’re a trifle short this month, so we’re going to bail you out.”  Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-sult!

“And to confuse the plebs, when we release this statement to the media we’re going to say you debt has been ‘written down’, rather than ‘written off’.” 

The hope is using this terminology will offset the predict riot, when the masses realise your ‘friends’ have slashed your debt by 50%!”  Ooh, and don’t worry about your job, pension, bonuses, sick pay, health cover and your 16 week holiday package, just look very, very glum when you come into work on Monday morning. 

So, all things being equal you’d expect Joe Bloggs, and man of some means but with a cash flow problem at the moment, would receive the same form of treatment well; it’s only fair isn’t it.  Sadly, when you’re at the bottom of the financial pyramid any shortfall in the Bloggs account is seen as an act of high treason and your life is made a living hell. 

Firstly, more official letters arrive from a concerned Housing Association or Council, in pristine white envelopes.  Like the banker, Mr. Bloggs has so much unopend post now, he has to find anther drawer to put it in!  The only difference between the two parties is the head of wonga cock-ups at the bank shreds his. 

Then… the brown envelope arrives, a sure sign the creditor has passed your arrears on to a debt collection agency, ‘Menace, Menace & Threat Ltd.  “Better put that one right at the bottom of drawer one.”  You think to yourself.

By shear fluke, you pick up the phone one day, and it’s your creditor’s area housing officer, and by and large the games up.  Fortunately, after worrying yourself to death for months on end, the officer is sympathetic to your circumstances, and for the most part the pressure is off.  A meeting takes places and a way of repaying your arrears is put in place, without too much of a dent to your income.

It’ll still cut into your food and other household bills of course, so Joe Bloggs puts forward a solution of his own.  He says, “Couldn’t another borough or boroughs lend me the money for my debt and you slash my arrears by 50%, and I’ll repay the money, say in, 20 years?”  The officer stops and ponders on the question and replies, “Mr. Bloggs – now you’re just taking the piss, if we all did that the country would be in a right state!”  Here endeth the first lesson.

Note to bankers: stop handing out credit like confetti to people YOU know can’t afford to repay it.  And start telling people, if you can’t afford to pay for something with cold hard cash there and then, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT!

Now, we all know it’s the smokers of this country who prop up the Government coffers with the extortionate tax on cigarettes, but let’s not forget England’s drinkers.  When ever there’s a budget those in charge of fleecing the already poor, always manage to add a tad extra to the price of a pint. 

I mean, can you recall the last time that wine, whiskey or champagne went up?  No, no, as usual, it’s the average man and woman in the street who are having the life squeezed out of them and the ones who have to work twice as hard to make ends meet.

If you didn’t know already, it’s the way puffers and slurpers are controlled in this and other countries because of the addictive nature of alcohol and nicotine.  And it’s been a well used method of power over the masses pegged since the days of yore, mead and flagons.  The only difference now is, soon it’ll be cheaper to drink four star! 

If you’re an aware person, you should by now have noticed the conflicting reports on alcohol via Governmental information and the World Health Organization.  The latter makes a big to-do to show their concerns with the use of alcohol, but really nothing actually changes. 

Take the unit system of gauging what you consume.  Could it be anymore confusing?  Typically, from the Governments side, it’s perfect to keep alcohol buying up and the tax coming in.  The only foolproof system would be is to introduce a format whereby if you didn’t understand what you were reading, you know you’re pissed!

And another thing, cigarette advertisements on television have been banned for years now, and yet you can view a Guinness or Lager ad 24 hours a day.  Then are the deals you can find in the supermarkets.  So it’s great to know that Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s and the like are supporting the British alcoholic. 

If you go back a few years, and you don’t have to go far, the pubs in this country closed at 11:20pm and an off-license would be shut at 10:30.  My, how things have changed!  Now you can drink your self stupid until the early hours and if you feel you need a top-up, you can pop down your local food store and buy a few more cans at 8:30 in the morning!  What the hell’s that all about?

And now for a bit of history and mathematics.  To put thing in prospective you have to comprehend the wages of the time and the old money system, pounds, shillings and pence, (£-s-d).  Today’s pound is divisible by 100 pennies, but when I was growing up in the 60’s; it was divisible by 240 much bigger pennies, and it was a period when you actually felt like you had money in your pocket.

Prior to WW I, 1914 you could buy a pint in this country for 3d, leaving you with 237 pennies out of you old pound.  The ‘d’ symbol comes from a silver Roman coin called a denarius.  And don’t forget, there were 240d to the pound and 12 pennies to a shilling, which now everyone calls a 5 pence piece.

By 1920 the price of a pint had doubled to sixpence or 6d or a tanner, and tanner equates to two and a half pence in today’s money.  And, at the time, the price of a pint had better relativity between its cost and a person’s wages.  Now it seems you need £20,000 plus, just so you can afford a pint in your local. 

In my 20’s the pub circuit was the great gathering point, a real social hub.  Forget silent friends on a computer, my social life was a live face book page, most nights of the week.  I could buy three pints with a pound note and still have 10p change, and 20 Rothmans would cost me 42p!  And that was in 1976.

However, it’s not until you get a little older, you realise what’s what in the tax department.  You may get an answer to a question you pose, but nothing will change because well, everyone else pays taxes, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE!

A long while ago I visited a friend in Cardiff and it wasn’t long before we were sitting down in his local pub with a pint in front of us.  Sometime later it was my round.  I ordered two more beers but was astonished to find out the same two Welsh pints were 70p cheaper than the London pints!

And then it dawned on me, I’m on the wrong level of the tax and earnings pyramid, and I and thousands like me are getting belted from all sides, and unless I secure a substantial lottery win, that were I’ll stay.  Born free – taxed to death, and that’s the way it’s been for hundreds and hundreds of years.  An educated person could get a little ticked off with that piece of information!

So how can the same product, made by the same company, has such a range in price from one part of the country to next?  A landlord will say, ‘The brewery is in charge of pricing’.  And the brewery will say it’s the cost of fuel and transportation.”  So logically, if you drive to the pub, you’re getting charged twice for petrol, just so you can enjoy a pint in your local – a nice little earner.

As we stand to date, the average price of a pint in London is £3.05 and the cheapest pint I could find was a pound in Bridgend.  But you’ll be pleased to know I’ve found the most expensive ‘sherbet’ in the UK, and I can only assume the beer is served by a high class topless escort and delivered to you on a platinum tray.  If you fancy a pint get yourself along to a pub Guilford where you can pick one up for just £6.09!!!

Some people don’t know the difference between ripping and tearing…

As a keen satirist I look at the forthcoming 2012 Olympics as another financial accident waiting to happen.  When we were awarded the Games, the rest of the world must have breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn’t been stuck with them and the financial outlay during a global recession, which by the way is now moving nicely along towards a double-dip recession.

So we picked up the white elephant, and in true British style we’re going to sally forth come what may and I have to start this rant with the logo.  Yip, 400,000 quid for a pink daub!  Quite honestly an epileptic squid dipped in mat emulsion could’ve produced a better artwork I feel.  Nuff said.          

I don’t give a toss about the positive spin that keeps coming out of the mouths of the organizers; this is England mate!  The place of strikes in a crisis, the place where a single leaf can shut down the entire network of London’s over ground train system - the place where snow can fall at any given moment. 

I can only assume the head honchos working with Sebastian Coe were forced to attend a course in bullshit before signing up!  Just the logistics of London Transport’s tube network has got to be their biggest nightmare, and don’t start me on the cost of the Games. 

Picture the scene: you’re on the starting grid to catch your first tube train of the day towards your place of work at the ‘Kipper Splitters Emporium’.  You’ve got a drink and a round of sandwiches, just in case the train breaks down, and your shin and shoulder pads are in place, as are your gum shield and knuckle dusters.  You put your head down and make a break for the sliding doors, and for your efforts, you secured a place crushed against a window in the standing position.  

From there you’re thrown around for twenty minutes towards your next connection and when you alight you bite, kick and punch in a bid to tear yourself away from the on-board commuters.  But it’s only when you reach Kings Cross station you realise that 350,000 extra foreign visitors have turned up for the Games and they’re going to be here every day for the duration of  the Olympics.

Now, I don’t like to spilt hairs (believe that and you’ll believe anything), but it’s come to my notice that the events that make up the Games don’t have many links with the past.  In fact, 28 of the 38 events weren’t even invented at the time of the original Olympics, and how the hell Beach Volleyball and BMX cycling slip in as sports, it’s absolutely farcical!   

So, the rush hour will become the ‘crush hour’, and 80% of the athletes will be within 20 minutes of their events and 97% will be within 30 minutes of their events.  Aah haha aahahahaahahaha  hahaha – priceless! 

Have the Olympic board undertaken a dry run on a Monday morning with the expected extra weight of human traffic – doubtful.  And right there is what should become a new Olympic sport – just getting the athletes from their hotels to the arena! 

The rumour is that 93% of training venues will be within 30 minutes of the athlete’s village and the aim is for 90% of venues to be served by three or more forms of public transport. 

Well we’ve got that now, and you still can’t get to work on time!!!  The Olympic board came to me for an answer to this problem obviously, and after seconds of rigorous power meetings with myself I’m glad to say I have the solution.  Everyone living in the London area and within a 15 miles radius of the M25 will have their homes boarded up so they can’t leave their properties.         

The next transportation problem will of course be our aviation system, which team GB hope to turn to their advantage in the javelin and the pole vault events.  The plan is to ensure the incoming athlete’s equipment and luggage is diverted to Guatemala!  The M25 will remain a car park for the length of the Olympics.     

Okay, let’s take a look at the cost of 17 days of running, jumping and slinging various objects about in a field.  The estimated bill for staging the Olympic and Paralympics was £2.1bn.  Forget all of the other figures you may have heard about, as no one can accurately forecast the eventual cost. 

So, after years of construction and hype, we’ll be lucky if this project breaks even.  And you wonder why your gas and electric has doubled recently! Yep, it’s what your supplier is using to pay for advanced orders of fuel to cover the extra usage during 17 days of watching a bunch stick insects run about a bit.   

However, there is a last ditched plan to recoup some of the groats lost in the coffers, but I can’t say I’ll be subscribing to it.  In this country we have been constantly reminded we’re a bunch of ‘lard-arses’, and eating our five-a-day is the way forward.  There’s even rumours of a fat tax – well how about this, DON’T PUT THE CRAP IN OUR FOOD TO BEGIN WITH!  

So what’s the plan to redeem some cash?  Lord Coe will raise funds through broadcast revenues, licensing, tickets and local and global Olympics sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.

McDonald’s!  At the Olympic Game!  Are you bloody sure?

Now, if you or I thought about it, made plans, hired a team, and then applied for a grant for this particular project, you’d either be laughed at or at the very least sectioned for your notion and actions.  However, somehow an artist has managed to convince the Arts Council to stump up 500,000 big ones to tow part of an Icelandic island around England’s coastline!  

Oh it’s not just any old island oh no, this one’s been uncovered by a receding glacier and the point of the exercise is to highlight the issue of global warming.  That’s the good point, if global warming does actually exist that is.

So what are the plans to shift six tons of rocks and dirt from Norway to Bristol, and how would you achieve this bloody stupid idea?  Well, the artist Alex Hartley and his team of 18 idiots, dug and bagged up, yes bagged up, part of the island and then transported the lot 200 miles across the ice covered ocean to a waiting schooner.  Now call me Mr. Picky, but I thought global warming was at the heart of this project?  Not so far. 

Point one: you have to ask yourself, what means of transport was used to shift said rubble to the schooner?  My guess is – it wasn’t a herd of pack animals.  Point two: what does a schooner run on?  Well it ain’t fresh air all the time that for sure as mustard, no it’ll be a fossil fuel won’t it!  So right there Mr. Hartley has added to the global warming crisis.  And he seems hell bent on continuing to do so.

So, you’ve got your rocks, what are you going to do with ‘em?  Well first of all you’re going to drop off the rocks in Bristol.  Then you’re going to ‘sculpt’ them into another floating island-shaped mess, about the size of a football pitch, and call it Nowhere Island.  

Actually, sculpt is a bit of an exaggeration, as so far I haven’t seen any evidence of tools being used.  So really the blokes been paid to just throw rocks about at your expense!  A six year old would do that for nothing.  Shortly after this your floating masterpiece will become part of the Cultural Olympiad to run alongside the sporting events in 2012.  Spiff-triff-marvellous, I can hardly contain myself.    

At the risk of repeating my self phrases like, ‘how much’, ‘burn up’, and ‘fossil fuel’ keep coming back to haunt me.  And to continue the fossil fuel burning issue, the floating Flintstone’s patio will be sited in Weymouth for the Olympic sailing fest and later towed around the South West coast of dear old Blighty.  Whoop-de-bleedin’-do!    

If this is just one of 12 projects chosen nationally to represent each of the UK regions alongside the sporting events in 2012, what the hell are the others like?  So far, they haven’t hit the headlines and I can’t say I’m surprised.  If they all cost half a mil to support and are as bloody ridiculous as this one, there’ll be blood on the streets at the price tag, in a time where the country is skint.  Art for sport’s sake!  Old bollocks for art sake more like.  But don’t worry; it’s only the hard pressed tax payer that’s coughing up for it.

It actually beggar’s belief that in light of the recent financial cock-ups, this gross and indecent use of public money has been allowed to continue.  We’re almost at the stage where some berk (rhyming slang: Berkshire hunt) will stand up and say, “Let them eat Jaffa cake.” 

Schools have had their budgets cut to pay for inane and senseless ideas such as these, and if I hear, “We’re all in it together,” again I’ll puke.  Yes, we are ‘in it’ together, but some of us will weather the storm without any damage to our bank and offshore accounts. 

Mr. Hartley says the environmental cost of towing the island will be outweighed by the “poetry of the project“.  Prat!  Well I suppose he would say that, now he’s got a bank account that’s never looked so healthy.  And just to bolster my view on the ridiculous, at the end of the Olympic season the visionary artist who, I suspect is hearing voices, plans to return the rubble back to Norway and rebuild the island it came from!    

If anything needs bagging up and towing out to sea it’s the English Arts Council.  I’m setting up new concern whereby any hacked off tax payers can book a ride on a Royal Navy ship.  Once aboard individuals can have full use of the ship’s artillery and use the Arts Council Island for target practice.  Three shells for a tenner, bargain mate, and more than a little satisfying!

I’m sure you’ve noticed that  a lot of oxygen and money is wasted in the filming of television entertainment, but none more so than during daytime TV.  Quite how the production teams chose what topics to cover is beyond me, and I can only assume they either quaff large amounts of alcohol or take an inordinate quota of ‘Billy whizz’ (Speed) when they brainstorm their ideas…

I guess you have to put yourself in their shoes for a while and take a look at what they have to work with and who might be their target audience.  Students – well, we can forget about them they don’t get up before 3pm.  Who else?  Mums yes, pensioners certainly, a smattering of the ill and fracture patients maybe, the newly dead and the wealthy housewife with nothing better to do than spend hubbies money by inventing new projects to keep  herself occupied.

And it was right there one smart production assistant struck gold.  Forget  about flogging antiques, bat watch updates and repeats about ferret farming, aim for the woman-about-town who wants to move to the country, brilliant!

So what do you need to produce such a televisual feast?  To start with you have to hire a ’pride’ of hosts who don’t mind repeating themselves every 13 minutes while using every cliché in the book.  (Did you see what I did there?  Oh please yer-selves.  Next track down a constant supply of ladies who live in town-houses who are more than keen to get their phyzogs on national TV and drag hubby along for the ride, and a film crew. 

Overall, the episodes of ‘Escape to the Country’ are clearly for the affluent who love the fact they’ve got wads of cash and don’t mind shouting about.  They are the stars of the show and the host or should I say, victim has to pander to their every whim and need. 

Well, to be honest, he/she doesn’t do any of the background work, that’s what a plethora of unnamed researchers are for, hence the clause in their contracts that reminds them that, “You don’t have a Springer spaniel and a brace of Labradors and bark yourself!”  No, overall, the host is there to keep the peace between the ‘stars’ of the show and the camera crew, because if they can’t make their mind up about a property, everyone has to work late. 

The premise of the programme is simplicity it’s self.  Smugly rich couples, (the wives) put their names forward to appear in the show because they want to swap from the hurley-burly world of town dwelling for a retreat in the countryside.  Now, I’m sure the programme makers want to know the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of their prospective buyers, but really what it boils down to this, if you’ve got between £450,000 to a mil to spend, so they can keep the ratings up - come on down.

All they have to do is pick one property out of four, which has be chosen for them to their spec, and at the end of the show say, “Yip, we’ll take that one.”  Do they?  Do they bollocks.  You can almost hear the film crew in the background shouting to one another, “Frank, put the kettle on mate, the silly bint thinks the wallpaper’s to thin!”  So, off we trot along to property No. 1. 

The host reels of a load old cobblers, which is set to big-up the couples wants and needs, and in they go.  It’s set in two acres of land, there are four bedrooms, the view all round is stunning and the bathroom, living room and kitchen are large enough to undertake a three point turn in an Austin Healey 3000. 

Is it suitable for the Pilkington-Smythes?  Well hubby likes it, but he dare not say it out loud or in front to his account-drainer.  Instead, he waits for her view, and then nods approvingly saying things like, “Well spotted dear, and “I hadn’t thought of that.”  She walks away with her ego inflated and the host bites his or her lip.

It’s clear to the host who’s the doormat in the relationship and who has her trousers made in Savile Row, and notes she/he has to up her/his game with property two.  Even before they enter the house the wife grimaces at something and hubby recoils with a non committal look on his face.  What can be wrong?  Shock-horror-gasp!  They have neighbours!  Oh well, upward and onward.

House three was the wrong shape, (The wrong shape?) the grass wasn’t the shade they/she had ordered, and it was “A bit windy.”  Imagine that, wind in the middle of a Cumbrian valley!  With gritted teeth and a false smile, the presenter walked them through the gates of property four.

Now this was more like it.  Suzie (home-maker) Pilkington-Smythe was in absolute raptures over this gaff.  Well, she had a half-smile on her face, which is more than she had all day, and this was the cue for her mobile purse to grin broadly.  All of the rooms were big enough for ‘modam’, and the south facing view was a key selling point too.

Yip, for a knock down bargain basement price of £795,500 or 7955, as we say in the trade to make it sound cheaper, it was a steal.  Then, Mrs. ‘Up-herself’ spotted a flaw in this perfect Des-Res.  The house she liked, and the land she liked too, all four and a half acres of it.  After taking another Valium, the host asked why she was going to reject this property.  Do you know what the silly cow said?  “The house is in the wrong place, it should be a bit further over to the right!”  Visiting the ‘surprise’ property was cancelled.

In the round up at the end of the show, the host did her best to find some positives in shelling out thousands of pounds in the production of another failed show.  And the couples last passing shot was, “We weren’t sure what we wanted anyway.”  What a pair of arses!  Call me Mr. Picky, but surely the money wasted on the show would’ve been better spent given to a charity that supplies drought regions in the third world with clean running water perchance.  Pillocks!!!

If you’re old enough to remember Twiggy, you’ll recall she was no wider that a coat hanger, and since the 60’s of swing, model-wise at least, nothing has really change except the bizarre efforts of the fashion designers…

Well no, two things have altered over the years as it goes, there’s now a ‘lard arse’ range to appease the bloaters of society who can’t stop forcing Mc Donald’s down their necks, and the re-touching guys still have a license to shave pounds of off a model by doctoring the pictures.  And the next thing you know an eight year old girl says to her mum, “I need to go on a diet if I’m going to look like Kate Moss,” and a browbeaten mother replies, “I’ll get some cigarettes, strong coffee and a bag of coke for you tomorrow dear!”

I’m not sure who’s the worst, the designers or the celebrities that buy their clothes, then fawn all over them for producing a master piece for them.  Alex McQueen was a prime example; local boy makes good, but even he ended up brown bread (dead).  There’s no doubt that his earlier pieces were the work of a craftsman, well he did learn his trade in Savile Row after all, and in short he was the dogs wotsits at a very young age.  But it all seems to go breasts upper most when fame and fortune catches up with these people. 

Have you seen what comes down the catwalk lately?  More importantly, have you seen the piece worn anywhere else?  I mean, if you want to wear something that looks like green marzipan with a chandelier dumped on your bonce, you help yourself.  It’ll probably only set you back 12,000 grand and rest assured, no one down the supermarket will be wearing the same mess.  In fact I doubt whether you’ll find an occasion to wear the bloody thing in the first place.

So, as a hot-shot designer with a bundle in the bank, you can really let loose with your creative side, knowing full well that some twit with more money than sense will buy what ever you make for them.  Would you buy a neck scarf for 300 big ones?  Well that’s what happens when you have your own brand name, you can charge what you like!  However, when this occurs you find yourself at parties three times a week and a whole bunch of new ‘friends’ whose main intent is to supply you with as much Colombianmarching powder as you can stick up your schnoz.

Well, how odd, the McQueen range suddenly went into overdrive, and his work became more and more farcical.  I’m still trying to discover who thought it would be a great idea to purchase a dress that looked as if it had been fashioned out of carpet off-cuts – in purple!  I mean, you can actually see the cocaine at work.  Oh yeah, I can stay up for three days straight and design a dress, the trouble is I’m pretty sure no one would look twice at my matching Swiss roll meets brown  Plasticine ensemble or would they?     

Other pieces of McQueen’s work have been described as thus: from the autumn range, “A dress with a floral embellishment.”  I kid you not; it was a bush, with leaves and twigs included!  Next; “A white coral reef skirt.”  Yip, if it wasn’t a recently under cooked omelette, then I’ve got two bottoms!  And what was he on when he thought that designing a pink boiler suit with a snood and a gas mask was a good idea!  Moreover, who agreed with him when he slapped the first sketch down on the table?

Honestly, these people get so far up themselves they can’t see the dress for the trees!  And what about the models?  Well, they’re young and will probably wear anything for the right money, but all the same, what a life.  All are hoping to be the next top catwalk queen, but in the run up to that coke-fuelled position, they’re pushed and pulled about, makeup is slapped all over their heads and they have to subscribe to a diet of a lettuce leaf and 400 cigarettes a week.  So it’s no surprise when they lose the will to smile.

It doesn’t matter what I say because the clothes cattle market will carry on long after I’m in my box.  And if your wife or partner wants to dress up in a matching two-piece ‘Borrowers’ outfit, let her get on with it.  In fact, get yourself one; it’ll give the members of the Rotary Club something to talk about. 

Rest assured, you’ll know if you’ve been to a high class catwalk show, all you have to do is check the maximum load sign in the lift.  Instead of stating it can carry 1000lbs or eight people – it’ll say 1000lbs or 36 models!