The News. Interesting, irrelevant or 80 years old.

I am sitting here, trying to remember what articles I read now. Thankfully it was the Daily Star, so there were lots of pictures.

Pictures are good memory joggers, especially as they make words standout in the first place, and the Daily Star nails this, mainly through images of massive interest and zero relevance. Like this one:

Its a beaver. Doesn’t really need the words actually, though I do like the “Hey“.

Hey” indeed.

The Daily Star might be what we’d hand to the extraterrestrials to give them an idea of what our focus really is, or we’d roll it up to bop them on the head (nearest equivalent) to shoo them out of our atmosphere.

Either way, we’d still say “Hey”.

If they ever come at all, but in the meanwhile….we’ve clouds.

We’re just not dangerous enough yet. Or cool enough either. I’m doing my bit, but you should all really be a bit more dangerous.

Perhaps like the warrior in the garden, rather than the gardener in a war. But I’m frankly more interested in a dangerous gardner.

With big, purple and suggestive-as-hell vegetables. Mainly purple.

It’s nice to have a goal which accommodates climate change, since the UK is going to have no aims to avoid it.

And, purple vegetables. Very ‘in-vogue’. Very ‘end-times’.

It’s getting hotter. Leave the heating off, especially if you’re in the pub.

I like a cold pub. It’s a chance to wear your coat indoors, as though you’re at ski-resort in South London (great place to drink and ski but not actually the latter).

Or you can wear loads and loads of fashionable outfits, like the music video for ‘Only You’ performed by The Flying Pickets.

THAT’S fashion. THAT’S a chilly pub.

It’s scenic. Looks good. You can’t take it away from chilly pubs, from The Flying Pickets, and from magpies.

Take a magpie. Take two, they’re free.

Now flatten it.

And you’ve got yourself the flag I’ve always thought would suit me, and my inevitable nation-state, very well indeed thank you.

Of course the black, of course the white. But those two; with that blue……if not the heights, then certainly the depths of fashion.

The last thing I noted in this paper was an advert. For a book of a tale from a witness to warcrimes they endured as a child in WW2.

I’ve tried to write about this theme but I’ve struggled to summarise in my irreverent style.

WW2 is still the news. Because we still can’t quite believed it happened.

Probably a book worth reading. Like a newspaper worth enjoying the pictures of.

Sam


I read the paper. Now I’ve opinions.

You’d better watch out!

You’d better not cry!

You’d better watch out and I’m telling you why...

Sam just read the paper, today.

And the world is fucked, in a very ‘but buy tomorrow’s edition’ way.

Actually, you can’t buy tomorrow’s edition because it’s Christmas Day, but that’s no reason to not panic about world events.

Such as the pet owner who was charged £40 for a phone call to discuss his cat’s constipation.

If the cat had eaten the phone, causing both constipation and a necessary phone call, I’m on the side of the vet. Holding up a scratching and wailing cat to my ear will result in me as calmly as possible letting you know that I’m going to be charging you for this above my normal rates.

Of course, the cat didn’t eat the phone, which is nice, and it did get some medicine, which is about as nice as not eating a phone.

Then there was the annual Christmas Day plunge into sewage on the nation’s coastal swimming spots.

Concerns are that those who like the bracing experience of seawater in December whilst wearing an amusing hat might get poo in their mouths, eyes, stomachs and bloodstream. And brain, probably.

I don’t know much about poo, but I wonder if it’s good for the skin. Probably not, but also, possibly so.

Maybe we should start finding alternative uses for poo, rather than just sending it down river or hiding it under less-pooey things.

Maybe use it in Law? Like shitting in the sinks of the water company Execs for every illness and death their actions caused. Copro-punishment.

Still, here’s hoping the Execs and the swimmers all have a happy Christmas.

The Druids made the news, at the only time of year they ever seem to these days (scarcely at all this millenia so far) to welcome winter solstice.

They watched the sun come up apparently, at Stonehenge. Quite windy, according to reports.

Surrounded by Druids and flaming torches, with a sun rising between ancient menhirs, that must feel like a good place for the world to end. Wiltshire.

And lastly, someone was arrested for stealing some valuable criminal damage.

Banksy does his stencil and spray-paint thing and people are arrested for stealing it before the council has a fair chance to steal it for themselves.

When I write “bugger” on a wall, I’m just stared at. By my wife. In the living room.

A good message in the sign though. Things do need to stop. I hope they do.

Merry Christmas wishes and hopes to all those who won’t have one.

Sam