Without a Padel

Mistakes are so easy to make. That's probably why that phrase rhymes. I once put a glass on the end of my bed, then knocked it off whilst thrashing my way through cheese-fuelled nightscapes. That was a mistake. You see I placed something in an apparently safe location without really considering my nearby nocturnal flailings. I once had a length of Sellotape (other brands are available) that I was asked to hold, but thought a far easier way to keep safe was to place on the edge of a nearby plate and the other on a nearby door handle. The door was opened and the resultant crash saw me visit the 'I'm a twat, where are the plates?' shop. This was also a mistake.

Ruth Padel was running against Derek Walcott for the not-at-all-pointless position of Oxford Professor of Poetry. In this role you are paid in the region of £4,500 a year plus three lots of £40 travel expenses for the three lectures that you give each year. No wonder she fought so hard. Unexpectedly, Walcott stood down after Padel emailed the press with claims of sexual harrassment by him to his students. These emails were also a mistake you understand. She must have been so frustrated with herself. [taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptapttaptaptaptaptap...SEND] "Oh bugger, you'll never guess what I've just done"
"What?"
"Emailed the press with details of my opponents sexual harrassment towards his students"
"Oh no"
She has since apologised and stood down herself after unexpectedly getting the job.

The reason I bring all this up is her statement of apology "for anything I have done which can be misconstrued as being against him". Misconstrued? Well I suppose it really depends upon why you emailed them doesn't it.

"Don't vote for me, I'm just here to make up the numbers. Vote for Octopus Derek. Good ol' Wandering Hands Walcott.
Hang on...oh no , instead of taking my emails (remember, the ones where I detail my opponents sexual harrassment towards his students?) and used them to enhance his campaign message, they've made it seem like I'm attempting some sort of character assassination. How did that happen? What's that you say? He's stood down? Oh no, this goes from bad to worse. Hmm? I've got the job? Oh for f....".

Poor lady, it must be terrible to have your actions be so misunderstood. Hopefully noone will read this and misconstrue what I'm saying and get the idea that I think her apology is a bit fake. A bit hollow. A bit forced. Maybe even a little "scooped out".

I think I'll risk it.

[SEND].

Whack a Jacko Mole

Some rather good news today, assuming you are Michael Jackson, as it turns out that you don't have skin cancer. Well done you. Those decades spent reclusively running a waiver-riddled fairground have paid off and you're as healthy as a horse. An extra-terrestrial horse that appears to have more in common with a cranefly than a Grand National winner, but a healthy example of one nevertheless.

But this isn't a skin test that has come back negative, he didn't discover a concerning mole on his back in an area previously only occupied by his overstretched eyelids. No, this was a story that appeared in the true paragon of journalism that is 'The Sun' newspaper...and yet it turned out not to be true. How did this happen? They were told that doctors had found spots on his face, and they gleefully printed it, rubbing their greasy paws together and rehearsing their 'periodical of the year' acceptance speech. They are so far down the gossip road that they very idea of seeking facts are a distant memory. Ask a Sun editor about filling their front-page with something they didn't simply overhear whilst queueing in taxi-rank and they frown at you like your head is a Rubicks cube and they've been tasked with re-arranging it through the power of mental arithmetic.

I realise that previously gossip has been printed, vehemently denied and turned out to be true, but this is Michael Jackson's face we're talking about here. Yes he may look like the result of Salvador Dali paying homage to Picasso, but despite curiously re-positioned features his face has fewer blemishes than Nicole Kidman's buttocks. As far as growths are concerned, landscapes don't get more hostile. If his doctor found something on his cheek then the news would be that upon inspection it turned out to be a miniature face of Jesus, because divine intervention is the only way it could possibly happen.

So for Jackson good news about the news not being news, and therefore good news for the thousands of fans that are financing his 50 night squat who may have been worried the concerts would be cancelled and the £10,000 ticket-price they paid on ebay would end up being a slight waste of money. Also, any potential concerns that they may have about the King of Pop's ability to live up to his own legend (assuming he makes it onstage without a Rorschach test appearing on his face) can also be put to rest by the knowledge that he is "keeping up with dancers half his age". This is hardly surprising since people have said for years that he chases people much younger than that, so if he can summon the enthusiasm to chase someone half his age it should be easy as 1-2-3.

There's Something About Shawshank

Prison dramas are often great life affirming experiences. 'The Shawshank Redemption' in one of the finest examples of such, with 'Escape From Alcatraz' coming a close second. In Shawshank, Tim Robbins' character Andy picks away at his cell wall over a period of years in order to reach a waste pipe, through which he crawls for a mile through all manner of bowel-originated unpleasantness to finally plop to freedom in a (not so) nearby stream. In Alcatraz, Clint Eastwoood's Frank picks away at his wall and escapes on a make-shift raft having left a dummy of himself in his bed. True, the dummy would win no prizes, but then it's a dummy so you wouldn't expect it to. Can you notice a pattern here? That's right, they are both set in prisons.

This is how people escape in real life.

I guess the true price of freedom is sacrifice. In this case, his foreskin laid down its life so that the rest of him could escape. It's a bit of an assumption on his part that the foreskin felt strongly enough about escape that it would be willing to give up its life so that the rest of him could run away with itself. Maybe it quite enjoyed prison life. Maybe it was a kind of foreskin Ronnie Barker, teaching the young foreskin cellmate the ways of prison survival, all the while running foreskin rings around the guard foreskins. Alternatively maybe it was more of a foreskin Papillon, spending every waking hour planning a route out of its Dartmoor hell. Either way the sacrifice proved to be a pointless gesture, as sadly the rest of him turned out to mainly consist of arsehole and the first thing he did upon tasting freedom was assault a woman and steal her car. There may be honour among thieves, but hoax bombers are a right cunch of bunts.

On the plus side they are planning to make a film of the escape. It is the tale of a foreskin that lives on the wrong side of the law and is eventually imprisoned for its crimes, then later sacrifices itself so that the scrotum it had grown so close to may escape. I hear they are talking to Zak Efron.

(Esc)ape(ology)

Of all the great apes, orangutans always look like they are having the most fun. With the possible exception of the dwarf breed that spends its days balancing precariously on David Caruso's head, as it is inevitable that they absorb some of his relentless grump. The cheerful demeanor is primarily to do with their habit of wandering around waving their arms about like an amused child with learning difficulties whilst simultaneously looking like they want to kiss you. The song and dance routines are also contributory. Now we've all seen 'Rain Man', so it comes as no surprise that despite appearing delightfully retarded, they are also pretty clever. Take this chap, who short circuited his electric fence with a stick then hopped over it and started piling objects against the next one in order to make his final escape. Alas that's when the orange one's main character flaw kicked in. Laziness. He just couldn't be arsed any more. So back he went, waving his arms around like he'd won the world-cup.

Imagine if Steve McQueen had been that lazy. "Nah it's alright fellas I'm just going to go back to my cell, bounce my ball a bit and wait for dinner. You go ahead. Good luck Gordon"
"Thank you...oh fuck".

They're not all like Karta though, here is a particularly enthusiastic fellow called Ken who would escape from his enclosure purely to have a wander around the park looking at the other exhibits. King of the minglers you might say. He became so popular that he had the ultimate accolade bestowed upon him: his own range of bumper stickers. Amazing how much more adorable you seem to other species if you can stop yourself from ripping their faces off. I bet Travis the chimp is kicking himself.

St Bono the Tedious

Poetry, like any artform, is open to interpretation. One man's meat is another man's poison. Or maybe that should be one man's Ratt. Either way, they will probably disagree over some works of art. The reason I bring this up is because on May 13, Radio 4 will be broadcasting a poem about Elvis Presley, written by Bono in 1995. In true 'is it art?' debate fashion, some people will like it and some people will not. Specifically: the world will hate it, seeing it for the maddening bullet-point biography that it is, whilst Bono will gurn his best chin-touching-forehead smile and continue lighting his farts with hundred dollar bills, congratulating himself on having polluted the airwaves with lines such as 'elvis the pelvis, swung from africa to europe, which is the idea of america.'

How has this happened? Surely not even the most ardent U2 fan would read this and think "that'd make bloody good radio". You could get the same level of entertainment by being tied to a chair with razor wire and having radioactive leeches deposited onto your naked eyeballs. Or by watching 'Katie and Peter: Stateside', which is a lot less messy and you get the added bonus of watching her dead, botox-paralysed face trying to express discontent at Peter Andre (who looks the same now as he did in the early-nineties, ie: clumsily carved from wax by a blind man with no hands). You might also get to see her son, Harvey, who she keeps 'under wraps' due his various disabilities.

Here is a picture of her blending in, in order to keep him 'under wraps':




Although granted it does look like she's either

a) trying to subtly steal someone else's baby,
or
b) attending a party where all the dips are secreted in the hair of disabled children.

I can't decide which, so I will opt for mystery option c, which is the slightly more realistic 'about to unnecessarily nag an offscreen Peter'.

Someone is Gay

It's taken a long time, but finally the star of 'Top Gun' has come out as being one of them gays that you've heard so much about, and it must be true for I read it here (careful now the article contains nudity, so by looking at it you risk corrupting your delicate mind with the knowledge that people have nice wobbly bits under their clothing). Isn't that exciting. No really, isn't that EXCITING! Someone's gay! Hooray for news!

They best part about this story is that now Top Gun is now even gayer than it was before. Which is an awful lot. Top Gun is so gay I was surprised not to find deleted scenes of bathroom towel fights in the dvd's special features, only removed because Tom Cruise's alien chums threatened to change the temple locks. Not that this made it any less homo-erotic, the director (Tony Scott, fact fans) can't let five minutes pass without having his stars give each other a nice sweaty cuddle, and I would be surprised if the phrase "you can be my wing-man any time" hasn't been etched above at least one glory-hole in the past 23 years.

Speaking of which, exactly who came up with the idea for glory-holes? Do they drill the hole themselves or is it already there, perfectly penis-sized. Was someone sat on the toilet one day and heard a voice from the neighbouring cubicle saying:
"Oi, mate, stick your willy through here"
"Why?"
"So it can go in my bottom"
"Cool!" [unzips trousers]
It's a very bold move to stick your winkie through a hole on the offchance that the person on the other side will want to do something with it. Assuming you get a good fit it must look like a fat pink slug embarking on a career as a gymnast. Why was there ever debate over gays in the military? I would gladly entrust the security of our country's borders to someone that is brave enough to entrust the safety of the stiff one-eye to a total stranger that may or may not cut it off with a sharpened toilet roll. Picture the interview:
"So, Mr Humphries, we've looked at the results of your entrance tests and I have to say, we're very concerned"
"Why?"
"You have no experience, you have no strength, you have no speed, you have no stamina, and worst of all...you're one of the gays"
"Is that all?"
"I could go on but frankly don't really see the benefit. Can you honestly tell me that you have a single quality the British military would benefit from?"
"I merrily post my penis through walls, unconcerned of the possibility that I may be left with nothing but a tattered flap of blood-soaked skin"
"Blimey. You're in".