I Love Richard Littlejohn

[Amy]

This week's glittering edition of You Couldn't Make It Up comes live from London's Dorchester Hotel, home of the 2008 British Parking Awards.


Initially, I assumed it was a spoof - especially when I discovered that it was to be hosted by the comedienne Meera Syal, of Goodness Gracious Me fame.
But, no. It's kosher. Even my fevered imagination couldn't come up with this one.

On Friday, 500 assorted traffic wardens, wheel-clampers and multi-storey merchants will assemble for the "the foremost event in the UK parking calendar".



They'll be treated to a champagne reception, complete with can-can dancers, before the gongs are dished out.


Categories include Off Street Parking Team Of The Year; Joined Up Thinking: The Innovation Award; and Parking Person Of The Year.


The £99-a-head bash is sponsored by, among others, the debt collection agency Equita; NCP; and The Enforcer, described as "a quarterly magazine dedicated to the growing sector that enforces regulations, issues penalties and recovers debts".


It's appropriate that the parking industry's house journal takes its name from a Dirty Harry movie.


I wonder if the journalists who produce it - and probably went into the trade dreaming of Woodward and Bernstein - ever thought their careers would turn out like this. I'd rather sell the Big Issue outside King's Cross station.


Friday's ceremony will see 500 of the most hated people in Britain gathered together in one place for an orgy of self-congratulation over the misery they inflict upon others.


If anything epitomises the nasty little country we have become, it is the parking enforcement industry.



It's not that we don't need parking regulations, it's the zealous glee with which they go about their jobs and the fines and punishments out of all proportion to the offences.


Wheel-clampers are the scum of the earth, never more so than when immobilising vehicles in hospital car parks.


A couple of months ago, I contrasted the spiteful, greedy NHS parking regimes with the cheap and courteous valet parking offered at hospitals in America.
Extorting money from the relatives of sick patients is about as low as it gets.
In Wales, they've now been shamed into scrapping all parking charges at hospitals. Don't bank on England following suit. It's as much about the sordid pleasure they get as the money it raises. There are probably a few NHS contractors up for a gong on Friday.


I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the Dorchester.


"Laydeez and gennulmen, we now come to the Lovely Rita Memorial Award for the Most Obnoxious Parking Person in Britain. And the nominees are ...


"From Screw U Parking Services of Rotherham, put your hands together for Wayne 'Psycho' Smith, who clamped a quadriplegic in his motorised wheelchair on a single yellow outside Colonel Patel's Original Kentucky-Style Fried Chicken and Kebab Shop, in Gasworks Road.


"Representing Adolf Hitler Traffic Management of Haringey, give it up for Rosa 'Klebb' Wilkins, who showed dedication beyond the call of duty by ticketing a hearse as it was off-loading its coffin outside the recently privatised Flames'R'Us Crematorium, in Nelson Mandela Boulevard.


"And making a welcome return to the Dorchester, the ever-popular winner of the 2006 and 2007 award, back tonight hoping to make it a hat-trick, please go mental for Romford Council's very own Jason 'Evil *******' Bloggs.


"Many of you may remember that after receiving his trophy last year, Jason - or may I call you 'Evil *******'? ha, ha - clamped four black cabs, one Range Rover and a Bentley Convertible on the forecourt of this hotel on his way home.


"Since then, he has made guest appearances on Watchdog, Crimewatch and Roger Cook Undercover, not to mention the dock of Romford Magistrates.


"He owes his record-breaking nomination to the awe-inspiring way in which he detained a 79-year-old pensioner in her car outside her doctor's surgery for 23 hours until her husband could cash in a life insurance policy to pay the release fee.


"And here to present this coveted trophy is the winner of last year's Lifetime Achievement Award for services to persecuting motorists, will you please give a big welcome to the man who brought you the £25-a-day 'low emissions' charge and the three-second green traffic light, London's Mayor, Red Ken Livingstone ..."


(Loud cheers)


"Thank you, comrades.


"It gives me great pleasure to announce that the winner of this year's Most Obnoxious Parking Person is ... Wayne 'Psycho' Smith! Psycho, come on down!"


(Noises off)


"Actually, I've just been told that Psycho is not able to be with us tonight to collect his award, on account of him serving two years in prison for grievous bodily harm and demanding money with menaces from a nun who inadvertently parked her Morris Minor two inches over her allotted space while attending mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church.


"Having exhausted his supply of clamps, he slashed her tyres and superglued her door locks until she coughed up. Well done, Psycho."


Let's hope that when they leave the Dorchester, all their cars have been towed way.

[Celestine]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

You have got to be kidding????

Hard to believe such a nasty industry has such a do.

:brick:

[Tools]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

500 of them all in one place?

Easy pickings, Cet do you have enough rounds? Get your trigger finger warmed up.

Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer I AM kidding

[Nattie]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

Damn you tools, just as I was going to get my suicide belt that a pal called bin laden had let me borrow just for such a martyrdom.

Disclaimer: Now that was offensive.

[Guest]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

Borrow?

Was he expecting it back then?

[Tools]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

It was on sale or return. One very VERY careful but rather nervous owner.

[Amy]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

The instructions from the Department of Health are very specific. If you are thinking of crucifying yourself this weekend, for heaven's sake make sure you get a tetanus jab first.

And it's advisable to sterilise any six-inch nails you plan to use.

Finally, officials say that if you are planning a bit of light flagellation to get yourself in the mood, please check that the whip is clean and in good working order.

"We are not trying to go against the Lenten tradition here," said the Health Secretary.

"But this advice is due to make sure that no one will land in hospital due to tetanus or other infections."

No, I'm not making this up. The Department of Health in question is in the Philippines where, every Good Friday, dozens of men re-enact the Crucifixion of Christ by having themselves nailed to wooden crosses.

Hundreds of others strip to the waist and whip themselves until their backs are cut and bleeding, as a way of atoning for their sins.

The Filipino Health Secretary has concluded that while it is hard to "discourage flagellants from whipping their own flesh, the best penitents can do is ensure that their whips are well-maintained".

This Good Friday ritual has become a big tourist attraction in Manila and towns all over the Philippines.

There are even a couple of bare-chested women being nailed to the cross for the first time this year. That should put a few thousand on the gate.

Not my idea of a day out, but it takes all sorts. (I'm told some people, especially those who went to public school, pay good money for this kind of thing.)

Back home, something similar takes place in Winchester this evening. Actor Israel Oyelumade will be playing the role of Jesus.

He'll be "crucified" against the backdrop of the Cathedral, after carrying a cross through the streets.

So he'll have had his tetanus jab, then? And no doubt a crack team (pardon the pun) has inspected the whip and submerged the nails in a bucket of Domestos.
Perhaps not. Photographs have been published of Israel rehearsing for his starring role. The cross is made out of scaffolding and supported by a sturdy platform. Nails and whips are conspicuous by their absence. Although he's pictured wearing an anorak, jeans and sneakers, we are assured he'll be in full loincloth tonight.

What struck me, though, apart from the stencilled King of The Jews cardboard sign behind his head, was the full-size golf umbrella a few feet above where his crown of thorns should be. Can't have Christ getting wet, can we? He might catch his death of cold. And there's not much danger of his back ending up looking like something off Mutiny On The Bounty.

I couldn't help thinking back to that earlier picture of an actor playing Nelson on the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar being forced to wear a lifejacket over his admiral's uniform for a short journey down the Thames.

That inspired a column which imagined the battle of Trafalgar being fought under modern elf'n'safety conditions - it is still doing the rounds on the internet today.

I thought about doing the same for the Passion, but how do you improve on real life twice?

I could have imagined Christ making his way across the humps in the one-way streets, wearing a high-viz jacket, hard hat and Toetectors; accompanied by Roman soldiers in stab vests and riot gear.

But when I got to him being escorted up to Calvary under an umbrella, like Tiger Woods being ushered towards the clubhouse at St Andrews after a particularly rain-sodden 18 holes, you'd say: Hang on, Rich, you've gone too far this time.
Especially if the cross looked like something knocked up by Bovis and the whole thing was called off when the Wicked Witch turned up with a stay of execution under the clause in the yuman rites act relating to cruel and unusual punishment.

Check out the Winchester website. I'm sure the real Crucifixion didn't boast a crew list which included, among others: a Discipleship Resources and Personnel Director, a Movement of People Co-ordinator, an Outreach Director and - you guessed - a Health and Safety Director.

You couldn't make it up. I doubt they're employing a Discipleship Resources and Personnel Director in Manila. Not when elf'n'safety amounts to having a tetanus jab, checking the whip for knots and sterilising the six-inch nails.

This isn't to belittle the fun and games at Winchester tonight. They've got no option other than to go along with the safety nazis and the hundreds of other fatuous rules which govern every kind of human activity. The point I'm trying to make is that in a free society, if consenting adults want to nail themselves to crosses, or coffee tables, for whatever reason, it shouldn't be any damn business of the state to try to stop them.

I'm sure a good time will be had by all tonight, whips or no whips.

Let's just hope they haven't banned Hot Cross Buns for fear of upsetting Muslims.

Happy Easter.

[Guest]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

A pint and a half sir? You're nicked

20:40pm 31st March 2008

These people never give up, do they? The Government has again dusted off plans to lower the drink drive limit.

As many as 200,000 motorists, who currently drive perfectly legally, could lose their licences.

That, of course, is not an unwelcome consequence, it is the whole point.

Ministers may try to dress it up as a major contribution to road safety, but the truth is that it's just another excuse to punish, bully and fine us.

Coincidentally, this latest assault on motorists comes at the same time as the introduction of new "fairer" parking enforcement, which will see penalty notices issued not by traffic wardens but by CCTV cameras and is expected to significantly increase the £3.5billion a year which councils already make out of parking fines.

Now before the "if it saves one life" lunatics start bouncing up and down, I don't drink and drive and I've never had a speeding ticket in my life.

My sympathies go to anyone who has ever lost a relative as a result of a crash caused by a drunken driver.

But this latest proposed measure won't bring them back, nor will it prevent future road deaths.

"Experts" claim that if the limit was lowered to just one pint of beer or a single glass of wine it would save "up to" 65 lives a year.

Come on, chaps, you can do better than than that. Why not 10,000, or a million? What does "up to" 65 lives actually mean - 64? One? They haven't got a clue. They made it up.

Even if it was true, in the context of a population of 60 million, 65 is statistically irrelevant. Britain already has the safest roads in Europe, which given the state of our highways and the saturation levels of traffic is little short of a miracle.

And what they don't tell you is that the 540 "drink-related" road deaths also include drunken cyclists and drunken pedestrians who have stumbled in front of cars driven by people who are stone-cold sober.

Motorists who drink a pint and a half or a couple of small glasses of wine before getting behind the wheel are not the problem.

It's those who drive after swallowing 16 pints of Wifebeater or a bottle of scotch. And, as this column has long maintained, they wouldn't take any notice of the limit if it was cut to half a pint of milk.

Perhaps if a few more coppers could be taken off diversity training, filling in forms and gawping at CCTV cameras all day and diverted to traffic patrols that might serve as a deterrent.

Don't hold your breath. This government wants us to break the law.

It needs the money. Does anyone seriously believe that speed cameras exist primarily to save lives? Of course not.

They're there to raise money and pay for the burgeoning bureaucracy set up to collect the fines. It's just another stealth tax.

If police forces were serious about tackling dangerous driving, they'd be mounting highly visible patrols. Instead, they're skulking behind bushes, hoping to catch us going a few miles an hour over the limit.

Only yesterday it was revealed that the Mad Mullah's latest wheeze is hiding members of the North Wales Traffic Taliban in a horse box to prey on unsuspecting drivers.

One of the main reasons ministers have revived cutting the drink-drive limit is simply to give themselves something to do. They're clutching at straws to find any kind of justification.

Listen to patronising pipsqueak Rob Gifford, of the parliamentary advisory group on road safety.

"The climate has changed because of growing concern over binge drinking and the health impact. The mood music is now conducive to lowering the limit."

No, it hasn't. And no, it isn't. The idea that this has got anything to do with binge drinking is a monumental insult to our intelligence.

Since when was one-and-a-half pints of beer "binge drinking"?

This won't do anything to address the tanked-up hooligans who pour out of the rock-around-the-clock drinking barns which this government is so keen on.

And as for the "health impact". For heaven's sake.

You could drink a pint and a half every day and still fall way within the Government's own "safe" drinking guidelines - which are in themselves fictitious nonsense.

To put all this in perspective, last year 70 people were killed and 99,000 seriously injured in DIY accidents in the home. If they're so keen on saving lives, why don't they make electric drills illegal and send in the police to close down Homebase?

More to the point, if they really gave a stuff about preventable deaths they might do something about our filthy NHS hospitals, which kill at least 7,500 patients a year by infecting them with superbugs.

As I've argued before, they could start by bringing corporate manslaughter charges against hospital administrators. That would put a stop to it overnight.

What we're really dealing with is a government which has run out of sensible ideas (not that it ever had many), hasn't a clue what to do about the real problems and is flailing around firing in all directions just to give the impression of activity.

This is a bankrupt government of punishment freaks and tax junkies, who see the law-abiding paying public as a lumpen rabble to be persecuted and bled dry - none more so than the poor bloody motorist.

They long ago lost any sense of justice, common sense or proportion.

It's enough to drive you to drink.

[Amy]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

Gordon Brown flies into Washington today, still an unknown quantity to most people in the U.S. despite his bizarre appearance on American Idol last week. If he runs true to form, he'll probably arrive at the White House via the back door, get lost in the corridors on his way to the Oval Office, refuse to have his picture taken with George W. Bush and then fly out - having signed over Bermuda to the Americans without holding a referendum of the colony's inhabitants.
Once back home, he'll deny ever having been there.

In advance of the trip, profiles of the Prime Minister have been appearing in the U.S. This column tuned in by satellite to Eye-Witness News, Palm Beach, for a preview of the visit:

Forget Red Rum, Gordon Brown wouldn't be worth a bet against a pantomime horse:

Good morning America, how are you? This is your favourite son, Chad Hanging, reporting. The President of Englandland, Norman Brown, is arriving in our nation's capital this afternoon to meet with President Bush. But just who is this guy? Let's cross to our special correspondent Brit Limey.
Hey, Chad. As you can see, I'm standing in the world-famous Trafalgar Circus, with the House of Fayed directly behind me.
So what can you tell us about Norman Brown?
Well, Chad, he has been President for some nine months now. He used to be Chancellor.
What, you mean he's, like, German?
No, that's what they call their Treasury Secretary over here.

And is he a Conservative, like President Tony Blair?
No, Chad. He's Labour. President Blair wasn't a Conservative, either. He only pretended to be.

So how did Brown get the job?
He just kept shouting at President Blair until he stood down.

But he won an election, right?
No, Chad, there wasn't an election. He did think about calling one, but decided against it because he was frightened he might lose.

How can you change Presidents without having an election? I mean, it's not like President Blair was assassinated.

That's just the way it works in Englandland. The leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Lords gets to be President.

So Norman Brown was elected leader of the Labour Party?

Negative, again, Chad. He did raise money and have a leadership campaign, but no one stood against him.

What, nobody? No primaries, no general election, nothing?

Affirmative, Chad.
Let me get this straight. His party hasn't elected him, the country hasn't elected him, yet he still gets to be President. Sounds like a tinpot Commie dictatorship to me.

You could say that, Chad. Norman Brown doesn't really like anyone being given the chance to vote on anything.

Someone must have voted for him, some time.
Oh, yes. He was elected to the House of Lords by his constituents in Scotlandland.

He's Scoddish, then?
That's a big Ten-Four, Chad.
So is he President of Scotlandland, too?

No, that's a guy called Alan Salmon.
Hang on, if Brown's from Scotlandland, how can he be President of Englandland?
That's just the way it goes in this crazy country, Chad. Brown can make laws for Englandland, but not for his own people in Scotlandland. Not that it matters much because Brown has signed away most of Englandland's lawmaking powers to unelected European bureaucrats in Brussels, Belgiumland.
That would be like stripping Congress of the power to make laws in America and handing it over to Mexico.
I guess so.
How in the Hell did the people of Englandland vote for that?
They didn't. Brown wouldn't let them, even though it was a solemn promise in his party's manifesto the last time people were allowed to vote.

Couldn't the Supreme Court have stopped him?
Not really. The Supreme Court of Englandland is now in Strasbourg, where the geese come from.

Isn't there any opposition?
There's a guy called Boris.
Sounds Russian.
I wouldn't be surprised, Chad. There are millions of Eastern Europeans living here now, mainly in Peterburl. Englandland has seen mass immigration over the past ten years, but no one voted for that, either.

What in the name of Ulysses S. Grant is going on over there, Brit? We're talking about the country which gave us Magna Carta, saw off the Armada, stood alone against Hitler and invented parliamentary democracy. How does Norman Brown get away with it? He must be a popular guy.
Far from it, Chad. According to the latest opinion polls, he's the most unpopular President ever. His approval ratings are even worse than George Dubya Bush. There's talk about him having to stand down soon. He's already promised the job to some guy who works for him - name of Balls.

Say again, Brit, you're breaking up.
Balls.

You're damn right there, buddy.

[Amy]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

Jo Brand used to have a routine about being half-bulimic. She had no problem with the pigging, she just forgot to throw up. That was the first thing which came to mind when I read Two Jags' claim to be a bulimia "victim".

If you're someone who has eating "issues" or watches daytime television, I suggest you look away now or write to Bel Mooney.

As a general rule, this column doesn't do caveats, though I am prepared to concede that most of the soppy stick insects who make themselves sick to squeeze into size zero frocks are a slice of cheese short of a Big Mac and would benefit from a few weeks in a padded cell at Detox Mansion, being fed through a tube like a Strasbourg goose.

Yes, I know it's not just women. I seem to remember reading that Grocer Heath used to stick his fingers down his throat after State banquets. Given the amount of Chinese food he guzzled in his time, who could blame him?

Which brings us to Two Jags, the world's most unlikely binge-puker. When I read this risible parcel of nonsense on Sunday morning, I laughed so much I nearly regurgitated my Full English.

At this rate, I thought, I'll soon be out of a job. I've had a crack at spoofing the Prescott diaries in the past, but this took the Jaffa Cake.

"I'd just turn to some digestive biscuits, which meant a packet of them...I could sup a whole tin of Carnation Milk...Pauline realised in the end...the signs in the toilet gave it away...it's to do with acid... waiting room full of women...I was the only man there...perhaps they thought I was on a fact-finding mission...now I've come out about my bulimia, it might do something to help the many young women..."

You couldn't make it up.

Two Jags has cast himself as this year's Paula Hamilton, the Volkswagen model who made a career out of My Battle With The Bottle - except this time it's burgers, not Bollinger.

Fleet Street's Glendas are going to have a field day. This one will run and run. I can't wait for next week's instalment - Two Jags: My Menstrual Cramps Torture. Nothing would surprise me any more, given that Prescott appears to have spent his entire life in the grip of advanced PMT.

What does astonish me is the way in which this fairy tale has been greeted with widespread credulity.

Rule one: never take any politician at his or her own estimation.

Two Jags is a curious contradiction, a self- styled hard man who invariably casts himself as a victim - the default position of the bully throughout the ages.

Despite being over-promoted way beyond the pinnacle of the Peter Principle, Prescott sees conspiracies everywhere.

It's the public school toffs, or the bloody Tory Press, or them stuck-up BBC types.

Whenever he's been caught with his trousers down - literally, in the case of Tracey Temple - it's always been someone else's fault.

You might have thought that a man of no apparent talent who had risen from bar steward to Deputy Prime Minister might have counted his many blessings.
Instead, Two Jags has festered in a constant state of feeling sorry for himself.
For my money, the knowledge that he was permanently miserable and well aware that not just the whole world but his own closest colleagues were laughing at him always made his presence in government that little bit more tolerable.

He might have been wallowing like a pig in the proverbial, he might have been wreaking untold damage on the nation, but we knew that he was deeply tortured and unhappy.

And he knew that we knew, which made it all the more delicious.
There have been some rogues and incompetents who have reached high office in Britain, but none to compare with Two Jags.

It is to Tony Blair's eternal shame - not that he has any - that he elevated this semi-literate oaf and charged him with running great offices of state.

Churchill gave us The History Of The English Speaking Peoples. Alan Clark and Dick Crossman gave us their diaries.

Two Jags has delivered Prezza: My Story, coming soon to a remaindered bin at a bookshop near you.

It is his last, vain - in the truest sense of the word - attempt to cash in before he stands down as an MP.

He's never been bulimic, just greedy. His approach to food mirrored his approach to life - gorging himself on houses, hotels, helicopters, limousines, first-class travel, free tickets and the typing pool.

And now we're asked to buy the idea that he's some kind of victim, baring his soul in the hope that it might help unfortunate young women.

Excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick.

[Xena]

Re: I Love Richard Littlejohn

Which brings us to Two Jags, the world's most unlikely binge-puker. When I read this risible parcel of nonsense on Sunday morning, I laughed so much I nearly regurgitated my Full English.

Says it all!!!