When RBS took over Nat West some 12 years, all the “assets” at Nat West main office were “valued”.
The wine “cellar” was valued at £50,000
Fred the Shred thought it a good idea and instructed all the wine to be shipped to Edinburgh (his home address?)
Upon arrival, the wine was again “valued”. This time at £500,000
I have no idea if this story is true. But it came from a most reliable source and was repeated in front of a former Nat West main Board Director, who, being utterly honest and a man of great integrity, shook his head and hung it in shame so low I thought it had reached his waist.
Don’t we all love these stories? Ignoring the “values” in this case, the story has that horrible ring of certain truth! Oh what terrible damage have these awful people done to the City?
Edinburgh Fringe Postcard (beak says: "click to see details - love from beak xx")
When visiting the Fringe, you have to let it wash over you, accepting it for the disorienting wave of human brain-detritus that it is. There is simply too much to take in from all the various hilariants and infinite, unstoppable untertainment.
Such visceral wonders; those unerring wits; and thy hyper-hypheny-pretentious types too – the irredeemables – and my, how they shall pay.
Whatever. This post attempts to capture the Main Protagonist’s 4-day visit at the Festival‘s tail end.
Image man beak has helpfully provided a delicious photographical compilation/complication above, in the form of a tastefully-concocted mashup postcard, although since giving up he personally neglected to join us this time (cheers beak – Ed).
There were allegedly something like 2500 shows on offer throughout August, and whilst it’s a good idea to book some stuff in advance, for some of it you just need to go with the buzz.
Below is a brief run-through from memory of what happened (hover over links to see comments if you like; don’t bother if you can’t be bothered)…
Comedy Manifesto (hosted by Kate Smurthwaite, with various guests partaking. Actually Stu Privett was invited to perform in this three times this year)
Questionable and pseudonaked Seth Ifrican busker (he was neither naked nor a busker)
Nick Sun (most exciting comedian this writer has seen for yonks)
Curry and catchup with mates
Long journey down from Edinburgh
Kips
More kips
Write painfully-constructed nonsense in a blog post
Of course a lot of other stuff happened in those four days, but if it were committed to publication we only lay ourselves open to litigation, don’t we? And we don’t want that, do we? No. (Yes.)
Amidst an eventful day in Parliament, Rupert Murdoch has done nothing other than to stick tacitly with his tack of explaining little about his involvement with the phone hacking scandal, other than to give a flaky apology and to reaffirm his disconnection to almost a decade of illegal activities in newspapers he just happens to own and control.
John Whittingfail quizzes the troubled media mogul Rupert Murdoch
FANS OF SURPRISES are confirming that more surprises than ever are becoming still less surprising.
This latest realisation comes after a slew of reports that UK railway passengers customers are set to pay fares of inflation-busting rates yet again, despite two prior decades of unfair inflation-busting fare increases.
Furthermore this news comes despite the perpetual increase in overcrowding and statistics of ever-reduced reliability, despite these facts’ own inevitability and corresponding unsurprisingness.
One especially frantic commuter commented today as follows:
“I just cannot believe we are getting value for money. Every day I wham myself into that cattle carriage like a bent-up cow, along with several hundred other bovinesque city folk.
I can hardly breath without inhaling the long hair strands of the pretty blond less than an inch from my face. But it works better than viagra. You ask my wife! She still wasn’t surprised though. I was in prison for 4 years for molesting the neighbours’ cats, so she knows the way I am.
And even then the cats knew what I was going to do as I had to protect their health and safety risks – not to mention my own – by showing them an RSPCA DVD and a C90 explaining the risks of Cat Aids before I could proceed.
I tell you, life is no longer full of surprises. This government needs to get it sorted out, but no: they’re too busy stuffing their faces with genetically-recreated dodos at the taxpayers’ expense. What a surprise. I don’t think!”
Even Tom Vek, an occasional songs minstrel and proponent of surprises, remarks:
“Every song I make is containing less surprises as listeners are getting more and more familiar and complacent with the vapid surprises I try and foist upon them. Everything is old and done and unsurprising. I can’t just pump the drums up to 11 anymore.
No wonder Tricky got so depressed after Maxinquaye. He did it all on that album back in 1995. Perhaps he killed the surprise. Wouldn’t surprise me. No wonder he kicked a pigeon into a shop window. The pigeon saw it coming as its guts splattered across the front of Superdrug. No surprises there.
This comes despite the 11 year gap I’ve left in between this album and the album before it; my so-called fans weren’t surprised I’d faded into profound obscurity. Unsurprisingly forgotten, just like all humans before me and yet to come (and then die).
Yet still my so-called fans weren’t surprised when I made a comeback after surprising them by taking a job at Blockbuster Video – in the Adult section, as a customer fluffer – for the best part of 2 decades to fund my return to indie microfame.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers were warning citizens today that as a result of the dramatic reduction of surprises, that they ought not to be too blasé to criminal acts. Chief PC Plod stated:
“Citizens must at least act surprised so as to emphasise how awful everything is these days, as opposed to acting cynically unsurprised.
I mean, yes, sure, this country has become humdrum, pointless and a waste of landfill opportunity. Nevertheless there are-”
…unfortunately at this point Chief PC Plod broke off his sentence and bit into a cyanide capsule. Unsurprisingly he couldn’t see the f*cking point any more.
Existentially, Chief PC Plod bit off more than he could chew. Surprising. Not.
And when we’re hungry, yet already full of belly-food, our innate intuition leads us to want more than we have: a manifestation of greed, an instinctive desire to grab more than we already have, to enrich ourselves and our families and maybe our allies too.
Hungry peoples are never truly sated. It’s the fear-driven desire for security innit?
Yes, folks, we’re discussing the justification for our land-grabbing and wealth-stealing proclivities.
The Main Protagonist of Oh Cheers is disturbed by a recent public uprising…
I always wondered what was to become of the summer of rage. It seems the best the Ook can do is a slightly lame water battle organised on Facebook. However, even that is quashed by a dozen carefully orchestrated police-persons.
Might it be nothing more than an overheated mildly-but-deeply ENRAGED Mail-reading English overreaction to some Ook cops?
Either way, something kicked off at Hyde Park last Friday. A little nasty.
OK, some prick was looking to start a bit of a fight, and he got thrashed down to the ground like he ought to have been in a proper GTA smackdown. There was no need for his idiocy.
Kudos to the originator of the video. In the future he is exactly the sort of human who might find himself constrained when other water fights occur and the “executive” are involved.
See for yourself what happens when someone organises a big waterfight on Facebook (note: literal “March of the Pigs” of the title commences circa 3:08 into the video)…
There is only one truth here. We Oh Cheers folk dare to print it here. Blessed are those with understanding, for they are reckoned with the truth. Oh dear.
The blue fence is to protect your precious innocent self
Yes, it’s ALIENS destroying the Houses of Parliament.
But at least health and safety legislation protects us with a nice big blue board of “danger: demolition” in the midst of it all. Nice aliens, eh?
