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ne arm and one eye and i refuse even to hear mention of the word i didn t rise to the rank of admiral by playing the disability card actually sir you did the royal navy is under represented in the areas of visual impairment and limb deficiency whatever next give me full sail the salt spray beckons a couple of problems there too sir health and safety won t let the crew up the rigging without crash helmets and they don t want anyone breathing in too much salt haven t you seen the adverts i ve never heard such infamy break out the cannon and tell the men to stand by to engage the enemy the men are a bit worried about shooting at anyone admiral what this is mutiny it s not that sir it s just that they re afraid of being charged with murder if they actually kill anyone there s a couple of legal aid lawyers on board watching everyone like hawks then how are we to sink the frenchies and the spanish actually sir we re not we re not no sir the frenchies and the spanish are our european partners now according to the common fisheries policy we shouldn t even be in this stretch of water we could get hit with a claim for compensation but you must hate a frenchman as you hate the devil i wouldn t let the ship s diversity co ordinator hear you saying that sir you ll be up on a disciplinary charge you must consider every man an enemy who speaks ill of your king not any more sir we must be inclusive in this multicultural age now put on your kevlar vest it s the rules don t tell me health and safety whatever happened to rum sodomy and the lash as i explained sir rum is off the menu and now there s a ban on corporal punishment what about sodomy i believe it s to be encouraged sir in that case kiss me hardy posted by gavin corder at 3 11 pm 4 comments thursday august 16 2007 summer s over what you blinked and missed it word has it that father christmas has already shown up at harrods well you can t buy a pair of sandals or a swimming cozzie to save your life what is it with getting ready for the next season does no one actually purchase things when they need them rather than five months in advance is it only me who is either disorganised or impulsive dependent on your outlook anyway i spotted this back to school sale sign and had to share the lurve on a bit of a tangent but not dissimilar tack my local rag is bleating about the apparent crime wave that is their take on the fact that this information has been made available under the freedom of information act they have this very useful information age of youngest person arrested for gun firearm possession 12 what a load of inflammatory alarmist clap trap the kid in question not one of mine had a toy gun that shoots yellow plastic beads we do not have marauding gangs of gun toting feral children in this sleepy berkshire backwater it is frankly pathetic to log a child with a toy gun as a firearms offense what is it with everyone in this country one minute parents are criticised for wrapping their obese kids in cotton wool and force feeding them a virtual video world the next a kid out playing with a toy gun is nicked on a firearms charge i had some splendid weaponry as a child my older relatives had the real deal as they were brought up playing on bomb sites in london and handguns with live ammunition were widely available but i was given a tremendous long arm spud gun from the 50s by an older relative who had grown out of it which didn t half make the back of your legs sting when you took a plug then i had a proper air rifle now i rejoice in a longbow with which i or my sons were we so inclined could do a dammed sight more harm than with an air gun that pings plastic balls surely childhood is the time to work out your cowboys from your indians to learn your cops from your robbers by crawling about in the long grass camouflaged up armed to the teeth pouncing on pirates does no one today remember peter pan the epitome of childhood is the waging of bloodthirsty wars and doing noble and heroic deeds at great personal danger if we don t expose our children to this traditional role play and physical activity we are doomed to a nation of children who are either too timid to cross a road alone by the time they go to university or so insular and anally retentive that they believe on line gaming to be reality and with no empathy or proper role models just go and blow people away for real yes it s obscene that young lads are gunning each other down in their beds and on the streets but those children have not been allowed to be children they are old before their time and some of them are in their graves well before their time many of these children are bullied into crime by their older friends who hide behind the children s relative immunity under the laws of criminal responsibility this is different issue and the mingling is silly tabloid journalism at best at worst it will lead to a generation of desperately dysfunctional people the fear of litigation and the conflation of play with actual crime has led to a dichotomy in society whereby we have the pussycats on the one hand and the thugs on the other the scandinavians are deliberately building risk back into children s playgrounds the contention being that without risk taking in play children do not learn risk assessment and as a consequence are unable to see how to master risk situations when they do arise bless em they can actually see that a bit of rope burn and scraped knees make our children safer not the reverse i contend that unless children work out their fantasies with imaginative play in the physical world they are in grave danger of being unable to cope with the reality that those of my generation know there is a bit of a backlash and conn iggulden s dangerous book for boys is a joy and a delight to any parent of sons but even that is tamer than it sounds to my younger son s great chagrin there was nothing in it at all about explosions wherever did english childhood go where are the endless summers of youth and what have we in store from a generation of children who never played let s build the risk back in and have society grow up a bit by remembering what childhood really is posted by gavin corder at 9 04 pm 6 comments saturday july 28 2007 better than the wolf what do you say then folks posted by gavin corder at 12 20 am 8 comments wednesday june 27 2007 goodbye i don t think we ll miss you mrs blair never noted for being the shy retiring type has today been pilloried for being a silly gobby mare again on the steps of number 10 well bless her it was her last chance and a thread to that effect appeared on the 5live message board which for reasons unknown dissolved into verse while i am unversed ho ho ho in the subtleties of haiku i don t think we had those when i were a lad i was delighted to be invested as poet lorry commuted to poet lolly for my native tongue thus farewell to mrs c blair she of the flyaway hair and a mouth like a slot which says such a lot unwisely some say to be fair with a mouth that begs for a letter mrs blair should really know better than to open her gob in front of a mob all of whom are just out to get her poet lolly is speaking in tongues so draw a deep breath in your lungs and shout from the rooves the disturbing truths of peerages dished out for bungs i m using the lingua franca to find a word after which we all hanker poet lolly can t be licked with rhymes that are nicked from the dark side of the mind of a banker now that number ten has a new occupant i think it s about time that we learnt how the english feel really about taxes costing us dearly and pulling this post took some front cheeky moderators thought that jock unelected and runt should not be coupled obviously a better rhyme springs to mind but i refrained from that one as in banker above for a mandate brown just hasn t got reserved matters come to not a lot for if the whole of kirkcaldy were to vote as a body they could influence brown not a jot he can t talk on health education or training nor farming or fishing even when it is raining not housing or planning the police or the law nor aspects of transport the buses or sport it s because they re devolved that brown can t be involved he must interfere in our affairs never more i ve done another verse i m afraid i can t help myself sorry goodbye i don t think we ll miss you forgive me while i weep in a tissue for she is a blair who has never had a care cos democracy s not been a real issue posted by gavin corder at 6 17 pm 9 comments friday june 22 2007 stalinist brown well the permanent secretary to the treasury for four years under brown should know what he s talking about image stolen shamelessly from alfie at waking hereward posted by gavin corder at 6 20 pm 5 comments tuesday june 12 2007 the white house you know how it is sometimes you think to yourself i don t really want to be challenged with my reading material a rip roaring good historical yarn would just about do me right now so long as it s well researched so it was this morning i had a slow morning so i ran myself a nice hot bath stepped in and settled myself with a bernard cornwell that i hadn t read much as the tv series with sean bean is absolute crap largely because sean bean can t act the stories aren t bad even though they have nothing in the way of characterisation sub plot and offer nothing to a discussion of the human condition however i digress so in i get i always read the foreword preface introduction or whatever actually i have an honours degree in english from a damn good university on the strength of reading the foreword preface introduction or whatever but that s another story in this case it was a foreword not a whatever and i quote later that year 1814 in the same kind of operation though on a much larger scale the british were responsible for the capture and destruction of washington itself among the many buildings that were burned was the president s mansion the lower walls were of stone so they survived but when the mansion was rebuilt those walls were painted white to hide the scorch marks and it has been known as the white house ever since oh that s interesting i thought however in an idle moment at lunchtime told you it was a slack day i thought further on it i know i thought i ll read up a bit on that british assault only to learn that cornwell has perpetuated a myth of which it seems every american school child is aware the house acquired its nickname early on congressman abijah bigelow wrote to a colleague on march 18 1812 three months before the united states entered war with england there is much trouble at the white house as we call it i mean the president s quoted in w b bryan the name white house records of the columbia historical society 34 35 1932 308 the name though in common use remained a nickname until september 1901 when theodore roosevelt made it official hmmm a tiny spot of research tells us it aint so joe look i know historical novels are ultimately fiction and so about storytelling not academic rigour and hey we all make mistakes while attempting to be thorough in research but surely something so fundamentally flawed in the foreword not in the narrative of a book first published 20 years ago should have been corrected by now posted by gavin corder at 10 52 pm 5 comments monday june 11 2007 apologies for absence to anyone who is actually still looking thankyou i ll try and post something real after a bit of sleep posted by gavin corder at 3 06 am 12 comments saturday march 24 2007 les paul junior one of my blog buddies has uploaded one of his own compositions given that his screen identity is les paul junior pictured above i should have guessed he could play a bit have a listen mind you i wasn t expecting it to be quite so mellow given his favourite video is this one talk about shit faced posted by gavin corder at 12 16 pm 8 comments friday march 23 2007 the bogey man this is one more reason why this man must not be our prime minister please god labour party members come to their senses posted by gavin corder at 7 06 pm 4 comments saturday february 24 2007 cameron snubs young fan this is brilliant hats off to creator bert grr posted by gavin corder at 6 56 pm 1 comments tough on crime credit to stewpot posted by gavin corder at 6 50 pm 0 comments friday february 23 2007 hoodie shoots cameron and causes uproar under the headline teenage pistol hoodie gloats the sun predictably wallows in disgust a teenage hoodie told last night how he ran up behind tory leader david cameron and pretended to shoot him tagged thug ryan florence 17 said he made the sick gun gesture to impress gang pals who were watching and the great british public is whipped into a frenzy of comment like this typical of the daily mail this young thug is a good reason why we all should be armed with guns john smith ulverston uk oh purleeease wikipedia is quite ambivalent about the bang bang hand gesture this imitation of the action of a revolver pistol is often meant to represent a handgun in children s games it may also be used menacingly to mean i m gonna kill you or simply as a playful greeting the gesture is represented in stock photo libraries under the business section the gesture here surely implies spot on or right on the money yes we re going places or some such and for fans of wrestling s cactus jack the double handed gesture is a signature apparently cactus jack mick foley took his trademark catchphrase bang bang from the b 52 s song love shack the song was running through his head at the end of a match and he held his fingers up like pistols while reciting the bang bang bang on the door verse but what honestly is the difference between the top image and this one i put it to you that a little boy in manchester was hamming it up for the camera no more no less feel free to comment here and there is further discussion on the message board posted by gavin corder at 1 47 pm 9 comments english holiday prime minister blair not feeling well and concerned about his mortality goes to consult a psychic about the date of his death closing her eyes and silently reaching into the realm of the future she finds the answer you will die on an english holiday which one blair asks nervously it doesn t matter replied the psychic whenever you die it will be an english holiday posted by gavin corder at 11 04 am 0 comments saturday february 10 2007 eu laws threaten earl grey tea the producers of the citrus fruit bergamot which is unique to earl grey tea will not be able to afford to comply with the new eu reach directive under the health and safety regulations the bergamot oil which is mainly used in the production of perfume is classified as potentially poisonous and is therefore required to be tested and registered with the european chemical agency the extra 35 000 cost this would entail is beyond the means of the small italian farms which grow the commodity and may lead to the farms changing the crops they grow they tried to straighte...