'Missives from the gastronomical front' by Basford Harper

What follows are a series of extracts from Basford Harper's column in the Bolehall Gazette. His job at that publication was restaurant reviewer/toilet cleaner. He would sometimes get confused and review toilets instead, leading to a public toilet in a park taking a booking for a table of five.

Ping Ping’s All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet – Burton-upon-Trent
I arrived at Ping Ping’s flagship establishment in Burton to find a decent selection of Chinese delicacies, including lemon chicken, sweet and sour chicken and chicken noodles.
There were a fair few birthday parties in, and Ping Ping’s staff marked these occasions with their own birthday song. Of course, due to the accent of the singer, it sounded more like ‘Happy Bathday.’ Although, by the look of many of the patrons, this would also be an annual event.

The Hare and Fruit Basket – Minworth
This Brewer’s Fayre on the opposite side of the road to a sewage farm offers a rather more fragrant line in pub grub.
To start, I had the prawn cocktail, which was tasty even though it came served in a half-pint glass. For the main, I had a delicious cheese burger with only a sprinkling of grease. A humdrum ice cream desert with teddy bear wafer couldn’t detract from my enthusiasm for the burger, and I tried to find the chef, Keith afterwards to compliment him, but he was around the back, fingering his girlfriend.

The George and Dragon – Barking
Although the food (roast beef) was adequate, there was something a little unsettling about the ambiance of the venue. There were St George’s flags everywhere, with pictures of Winston Churchill and Nick Griffin taking up every available piece of wall space which didn’t have a golliwog hanging from it by its neck. It took a while, but I finally realised what it was; people were openly flouting the smoking ban! I pointed this out to one gentleman with a tattoo of a bulldog on his forehead, and let’s just say that glass ashtrays are rather slippery items to retrieve from one’s back passage.

Dr Butty – Leeds
The sausage and egg sandwich I ate at this establishment was fine, although when I questioned the credentials of the so-called doctor, the woman behind the counter, one Tracey, gave me a knowing look which could have only said, “I am going to spit in your sandwich.” I can only conclude from this that Mr Butty is claiming to possess qualifications which he has not earned.

Cinemaland Multiplex – Coventry
The choice of food at this establishment was not particularly wide, but I plumped for the nachos with popcorn and coke. While the taste was adequate, there was precious little subtext, with only the ice in the drink offering a post-structuralist take on entropy. The cheese and salsa with the nachos had nothing to say, and not even in a Beckett-esque way. The film I watched was a delightful romp featuring a talking hamster. It was difficult to hear what he was saying most of the time though, what with him being concealed in Richard Gere’s anus.

Buzzards Celebrity Blog Number 11: Jimmy Page

You know that bit in Black Dog that goes 'Da da da dada daaa da, de de diddly de de dee de, da da da da da da da dowwww'? I played that on the guitar once.

The Green-Eyed Monster

The other day I expressed my disgust at my dog licking his own testicles.

"You're only jealous," my girlfriend said.

And she was right. I would like to lick the dog's testicles.

Born to Run

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. M6 Toll Clear.

Baby, this town rips the bones from your back, it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap. The schools are good, though.

Da daaa da da!

Name droppings

I met Craig David on Monday. We went down the pub on Tuesday.


I don't want to talk about Wednesday.

The Innocence of Youth

The little girl was sad. She told me that she thought she didn't get to the finals of the dance contest because she wasn't good enough. I dried her tears and smiled, all the while letting the hard, adult truth go unsaid, that she didn't reach the dance finals because God was punishing her for being born out of wedlock.

Competition Time

These are exciting times for me in the world of "comedy" as I've recently been nominated as a finalist for something.
That something is the Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year, a prestigious competition previously won by luminaries like Rhod Gilbert, Johnny Vegas and some bloke who now works for Leicester Council.

In the last major competition final I was in, I wasn't that good, and got a particularly savage review, so this time, I'm going to write my own review and send it to the press to save them the bother...

Ben Davids has little in the way of charisma or originality, and if you placed a plank of balsa wood on stage with some jokes scrawled on it in bird shit, the effect would very much be the same.
Every comedian has a bad gig from time to time, but Davids seemed to take this one personally, and raised the question amongst the judges, 'Is it ever appropriate for a comedian to expose his testicles to the audience for a cheap laugh?'
The answer of course is no, and the worthy winner of the evening was Filtrum Kelly, whose warm tales of the London Underground were rapturously received by the Leicester crowd.

Review by Beef Stennet

Tittle tattle

Pop starlet Rihanna has denied that she has an STD. Good. Wouldn't it be awful if she had gonorrhea-ea-ea, eh? Eh? Eh?

Buzzards Celebrity Blog Number 10: Santa

Santa Claus. Father Christmas. Saint Nicholas. Pere Noel. Sinterklaas. Kris Kringle. So many different aliases, which one is real? There's only one way to find out. Check his driving license. I once asked a Santa for his driving license but he spat in my eye and punched me. Come to think of it, if he was really Santa, why was he so drunk? And why was he homeless?

Merry Cwistmas Everyone!

Upon overhearing a conversation between three gentlemen

MAN 1: I really, really like The Wire.

MAN 2: I agree. It's really good isn't it?

MAN 3: I've never seen it, but I'll tell you what I do like; that My Family. That Welsh one cracks me up.

MAN 1: You're not my friend anymore.

MAN 2: Nor mine. You're one weak-ass bitch, yo.

My letter to the editor...

Dear Editor,

May I begin by commending you on the sterling job you are doing in editing this publication. When I read a piece by one of your writers I think, 'Yes, it's well-written, but it's also well "edited"'.

Anyway, to the main "point" of my "letter". I was incredibly disappointed by the choice of person to switch on Tamworth's Christmas lights. It was, as I'm sure you're aware, a nine year old girl! And not even a famous nine year old girl, like "Lindsay Lohan" or "Smiley Virus", just a regular scummy nine year old girl from a gutter somewhere.

For next year, I have drawn up a wish-list for who I would like to see "switch" on our "festive" lights! Let's be ambitious and see if we can "make it happen!"

1. Aggie Woodbine
2. Grouch Marks
3. Barry from Eggheads
4. Jackie Fulcrum
5. Flavor Flavor
6. Barrie "Silly Bang" Stott
7. Spit the Dog
8. Carol Borderline
9. Father Xmas
10. "Tom Hanks"

Yours "Sincerely"

Concerned President

The generation gap

GRANDAD: Things were different in my day, all I ever got for Christmas was an orange.

KID: What do you mean, orange? It's Apple that make iPods, grandad!

GRANDAD: Silence! Silence before I belt you.

ILuvDawkins4eva Message Board Post - Number 1

Barbara1967 Help!
My dog isn't eating!!! Iv'e tryed everything bt he just wont eat his food, waht
can i do?!?!?!???

BaggiesBoy Re: Help!
Take him to the vets, love. Its the only way. Its probly nothing serious!

ILuvDawkins4eva Re: Help!
Yes, take him to the vet. It's the scientific way. And ignore BaggiesBoy, he
doesn't know that it's nothing serious. It could be inoperable cancer for all
he knows, but then again he probably prays to the Flying Spaghetti Monster
so you can't possibly trust his judgement.

BaggiesBoy U r a cunt
Cunt.

ILuvDawkins4eva Re: U r a cunt
Hmm, that's just like you, to make suppositions without empirical evidence.
Just wait until everyone on CommentIsFree hears about this.

Oh pirex yes they rob I

Some people mock me for having religious beliefs.

"How can you believe in God when there's no evidence for it?"

Well I don't care about evidence. Nothing will stop me from being a Rastafarian.

Mon.

Self-deprecating joke. Code number: EN59742H

With me, ladies, life is like a rollercoaster.

You wait ages for a ride, and when it comes it only lasts two minutes.

Well...

Well. Well. It's been a while. I haven't posted anything on here in 2 months. That's quite a long time. You'd think that in that time, I'd have plenty of snappy zingers and hilarious stories to report.

Well...

I don't. Deal with it, sister.

Buzzards Celebrity Blog Number Nine: Satan

They say that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
That's a crap trick. Try pulling a rabbit out of a hat, you demon bastard.

Pizza Burgers

When I was a kid, my friend Colin invented pizza burgers. For the uninitiated, pizza burgers are two baps, with tomato puree and cheese, put under the grill for five minutes.
Anyway, after school, Colin and I lost touch, but recently I heard that his wife had been having an affair. We met at a school reunion last week and had a few drinks, and I asked him how his wife was and if she'd run off with any stange men lately.
Then he went all quiet and distant for a while. I guess he was too busy thinking about pizza burgers or something.

Pull back and revere

I saw a vision of Christ in a window. It was a stained-glass window.

My first tabloid column

Jenk 'Jenk' Jenkins was a kind and generous man. Everyone he met remarked on how 'kind and generous' he was.
But Jenk 'Jenk', 'kind and generous' Jenkins had a secret. He was dying of AIDS. Not the kind you get from sex, but another kind.
Jenk 'Jenk' ,'kind and generous', 'dying of non-sex AIDS' Jenkins didn't want to die in agony, he wanted to die on his own terms.
Jenk 'Jenk', 'kind and generous', 'dying of non-sex AIDS', 'suicidal' Jenkins held up a bank with a toy gun, and was promptly shot dead by police.
Police issued a statement, saying they regretted that Jenk 'Jenk', 'kind and generous', 'dying of non-sex AIDS', 'suicidal', 'shot dead by a police marksman' Jenkins, chose to end his life in such a way.

That's all very well and good, but what about the paedophiles?

Prison Break

If you do the crime, you’ve got to be prepared to do the time. That’s what they say, but let me tell you, when the fuzz dragged me out of my digs, screaming like the fanbelt on my old Vauxhall Astra, I didn’t feel prepared for the chokey.
The judge gave me twenty years after the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict. Apparently, it took them all of twenty seconds to reach it; they elected to spend the rest of the two hours playing Pictionary, just to add to the suspense. Although, if you ask me, if you want a game with suspense, try Buckaroo.
I was twelve days into my sentence when I decided to escape. Me and a permissive Filipino lag called Eduardo crept out dressed as a pantomime horse. Regrettably, once we were clear, we grew listless and lost our way, eventually wandering onto the Grand National racecourse, midrace. We were doing well until we took a nasty tumble on the last furlong and Eduardo had to be euthanized.
Now, as I sit in my cell, contemplating my now-doubled sentence; I am sniffing the very same glue that Eduardo was made into. Cosmic, eh?

Marathon Man

I ran into an old friend the other week, and he invited me to a Clint Eastwood film marathon round his house at the weekend, he was showing Lafayette Escadrille, Ambush at the Cimarron Pass, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, the Good, The Bad and the Ugly, The Witches, The Magnificent Stranger, Hang 'Em High, Coogan's Bluff, Where Eagles Dare, Paint Your Wagon, 2 Mules for Sister Sara, Kelly's Heroes, The Beguiled, Play Misty for Me, Dirty Harry, Joke Kidd, High Plains Drifter, Magnum Force, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, The Eiger Sanction, the Outlaw Josey Wales, The Enforcer, the Gauntlet, Every Which Way But Loose, Escape from Alcatraz, Bronco Billy, Any Which Way You Can, Firefox, Honkytonk Man, Sudden Impact, Tightrope, City Heat, Pale Rider, Heartbreak Ridge, The Dead Pool, Pink Cadillac, White Hunter, Black Heart, The Rookie, Unforgiven, In The Line of Fire, A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County, Absolute Power, True Crime, Space Cowboys, Blood Work, Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino.

I didn't go though, I'm not a big fan.

Buzzards Celebrity Blog Number Eight: Henry VIII

Had six wives, he did. Six. I don't know how he found the time to invent the vacuum cleaner.

Losing my Religion

I've decided to convert. Up until now, I have been a strict Church of England man. Not that I ever went to church, except for weddings and such, but apart from that I was devout. I mean, come on, who wants to go to church these days? I went to Midnight Mass once, it lasted two hours. Wasn't it Jesus himself who said that 'brevity is the soul of wit?' What do you mean, no?

Anyway, I have decided to convert to Islam. I know, I know, they've got a bad reputation lately, what with all the suicide bombings and such, but I'm not scared of suicide bombers. In fact (snigger) I think they've been blown up out of all proportion! (snigger)

They didn't like that gag down at the mosque.

Anyway, the main reason I decided to convert was not especially spiritual, but because of what they call God: Allah. I just like how informal it is, how you can shorten it to Al.

I wouldn't mind a God called Al, because it makes Him seem less scary. and I don't think he'll mind much. In fact, wasn't it God Himself who said, 'You Can Call Me Al?'

What do you mean no?

Laughter

Sometimes life makes me laugh. I was in a shop the other day, buying some pick 'n' mix, when the cashier tried to charge me four pounds! Four pounds? That's almost five pounds!
Oh how I laughed, I stood there, at the front of a long queue and just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed until I was hoarse. A store detective asked me to leave but I just laughed right into his face.
On the way home, I tried to laugh in the face of death but there was none around so I just laughed at a funeral procession.

Ricky!

Will there ever be any end to the madness?
As much as I love Ricky Tomlinson AKA Jim Royle AKA That Bloke from Brookie AKA Ricky Tomlinson, I find his series of My Arse products rather grating.
There's Football My Arse, Christmas My Arse, TV My Arse, whatever next?
I'd like to think that a picture book detailing Ricky's routine colonoscopy would be released, because it would be called My Arse My Arse. And what if he released a compilation of the entire My Arse series? Imagine that.




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I have no head for numbers

When I were a lad, I never did understand algebra. It was a foreign concept to me, the idea that n could equal a number.
I remember on one occasion, I was presented with an algebra equation to solve, and could not make head nor tail of it.
Eventually, I turned to the boy sitting next to me, the class brainbox, Clark Clerk, and asked him for the answer,
"No," he said, sharply, but I persisted.
"Ah go on," I said.
Angrily he turned to me and said, "What part of no don't you understand?"
I said, "n."

Thank you algebra lovers!

They smilin' in your face, but all the time they wanna take your place, the Backstabbers...

BACKSTABBERS!

Pet Peeves: People who "tell it like it is"

I dislike people who claim to "tell it like it is." Not because I am averse to honesty, you understand, but because when people describe themselves as someone who "tells is like it is," what they actually mean to say is, "I am one rude and nasty person right here."
It seems you can't do anything these days without someone trying to force their opinions on you,

"That joke isn't very good."

"Your dress sense is poor at best."

"You probably shouldn't wear your blindfold whilst driving."

Blah, blah, blah.

I have many famous friends

It's true! Just the other day, I had Dog the Bounty Hunter and Cat Stevens round for tea. They didn't get along.
Dog just kept pinning him into corners and biting him. I tried to calm him down by saying, 'Wait, Dog, his name's not even Cat anymore, it's Yusuf Islam!'
But that just seemed to make him worse.

I really...

want this. This is the biggest night of my life. I need this so, so, so much. You don't realise how much I want this. I'm gonna give it 110% No, 112% This is my moment, a moment like this doesn't come along very often. Not at all. This is my biggest dream and I just hope I can pull it off tonight. Because if I don't I'll do myself in. No messing. I'll jump off a bridge or something proper high like that. Onto some jagged rocks. And then while I lie there, in a pool of my own viscera, I'll know that I've missed my big opportunity to be the Amington Fete Rhubarb Gardener of the Year.

EXPENSES!

Some people say that the electorate will turn to fringe parties like the BNP because of the corruption of mainstream politicians. If they do so then they are not only horrible racists, but also deluded, because BNP representatives would be every bit as crooked. They'd just claim for things like flags, and bulldogs and blackface soap instead.

I would imagine...

...that it would be difficult to instigate industrial action in a bowling alley and be taken seriously.

Pontificating into the void

This economic climate is a bad one. You might say things like, 'Yeah but, get some perspective, it's hardly the apocalypse,' but you're an idiot. Because it is the apocalypse. You get some perspective. From a cow's bum.
We need to alter this course of events if we are to survive, we need to get out of this dire economic climate.

Yep, a little bit of climate change is all we need.

Why it would be great to be the Pope. Part 1: Papal Infallibility

Example 1: Scrabble

CARDINAL GUALTIERI: You can't have that, it's not even a word!

POPE: I am the Pope, and I say that Fuckwidget is a word, and I claim my 160 points!


Example 2: le Boudoir

WOMAN: No, I've got a headache!

POPE: Oh no you haven't!