Humour

The Death of Comedy?

/ Andy Duncan / 2 Comments

Yesterday, Dr Sean Gabb spoke on the Stephen Nolan show, on BBC Radio 5, about a joke made by Michael Gove on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme.

Below, we have excerpted all of Dr Gabb’s comments made in that interview. If you would like to listen to them, please click on the audio file link below.

(The interviewer spent quite some time speaking to another guest,  Shelagh Fogarty, both before and after Dr Gabb’s comments. If you would like to listen to the full interview, please click on this link and go to about 1:56:45.)

Remain or Leave? Leave or Remain?

/ Neil Lock / 1 Comment

<Hungarian sneeze, as at the beginning of Kodaly’s “Hary Janos”>

Look, friends, all this crap about Brexit has got out of hand.

There are those that want to keep the UK as part of the EU. And there are those that want the UK to leave the EU. With me so far?

The cumbersome mechanics of a referendum (even an honest one – which it isn’t and won’t be) mean that only one side can win.

Whichever side wins, the Remains or the Leaves, everyone else will be disappointed and angry.

Myself, I can see both sides of the coin. There have been both good and bad aspects of the European project. So, I’m going to put forward a way that both sides can win.

It’s simple. So simple, you’ll think I’m a genius.

Continue reading →

A Brief History of England

/ Neil Lock / 5 Comments

A Brief History of England
From 871 to the Present
(To be sung, by those with stamina, to “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”)
By The Darn-Poor Rhymer

King Alfred first did codify
The English common law,
Which does to everyone apply;
To rich as well as poor.

The men of Wessex ruled the lands,
The forests and the plains.
But then, along came raiding-bands;
So next, we tried the Danes.

Continue reading →

Mr. Cheese’s Cabinet

/ Neil Lock / Leave a comment


Neil’s Note: Rather than bombard you with a diatribe about why I (and you) shouldn’t vote, I’ll give you my anticipations – before the fact – of how the 2010 election would turn out. I don’t think I was far off. Except, perhaps, that Mr Pryer turned out to be a Mrs.

This time? I have no idea. Except that all the politicians will be dishonest as usual, and that all human beings in the islands I call Brutesville will be even worse oppressed after than we were before. Continue reading →

Neil’s Foibles: No. 1 – King Cuss

/ Neil Lock / 2 Comments

Neil Lock

(Neil’s Note: Apparently from nowhere, a brand new short story just came out of ‘t mill.
The first of many on similar themes, I hope. Enjoy.)

Neil’s Foibles: No. 1

King Cuss

Long ago, so long ago that most people considered writing to be a tremor in the hands, there was a king called Cuss.

And I hope you don’t find it hard to work out why he was called by that name.

Be that as it may; Cuss came from the family of Truss, the first king of his dynasty. Truss had been a despotic ruler, as evidenced by what our good friend Mr Webster says of his name:

“1 a : to secure tightly : b : to arrange for cooking by binding close the wings or legs.”

But Cuss fancied himself as a progressive king. He preferred crooking his people, rather than cooking them. Indeed, a theory posits that today’s phrase “Cusstoms and Excise” owes part of its derivation to his name. Continue reading →

How soon will the Euro implode?

/ David Davis / 5 Comments

UPDATE:- I said this the other day, too.

David Davis

About 12 years ago, or it may be 13, I bet a YEM* person £25 that the Euro, recently issued, would sink to UD$1.00 by that Christmas. It did fall, a bit: my prediction was only wrong in degree –  but I lost my bet and ponied up.

Now Peter Oborne thinks the project is at last about to come undone.

* “YEM” was the “Young European Movement”. God knows what’s happened to that.