THE BRITISH THREAD II

Whatever might be said about Mr Cameron he looks to be in pretty good physical order for a man of his age. Whether he can't match Mr Obarmy's skills with steps or whether he chooses not to is a moot point.

Frankie Boyle described him as a man who looked like his blood had already turned to pate.

Packy thinks Salmond is running scared, that all he ever wanted was "DevoMax", and he's been forced to nail his colours to the mast, full independence or nothing.
And expat Scots (like me, and many others) don't get to vote.

aaa aaa

What would you vote if you were allowed Mac?

I think I've answered this before, on this forum too. I can't see any sense in the desire for an independent Scotland. Or any encouragement to adopt the idea from the daily activities of the MSPs at Holyrood.

Historically Scotland and its people has been outward-looking. Broad international socialism, that's the thing. Maybe some Scots think they can plough that furrow if they can get out from under the English Tories, but the main support for the independence ambition seems to be from the young who have been raised on Braveheart nonsense. Visceral dislike of the sassenach and a sense of grievance is not in itself sufficient reason nor foundation for a new state.

You being a honorary Englishman Mac I thought you might have voted "Yes" to get the buggers off our backs.

That's a good idea to raise MP's salaries by 11% against the policy of the three main political parties.

And cancelling the much hyped Royal trip to the South Pole because of inclement weather is just as good.

What about Arsenal, no doubt after much discussion, having their players wearing two black armbands. Which can only mean one thing.

The trip hasn't been cancelled. The race part has, now instead of racing against each other they'll be working together.

It would be interesting to know what is really going on instead of having to rely on photo opportunities arranged by folks in search of a gong.

There's a TV programme called Harry's Arctic Heroes about him joining a group of injured servicemen trekking across the Arctic. It's purpose is, supposedly, to raise awareness for injured servicemen charities, but I'm sure Harry's not adverse to the publicity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013y230

I hope it raises awareness of the fact that injured servicemen need charity while the vipers who sent them into danger get an inflation busting 11% rise.

Tony Bastard Blair can't show his venal face on the streets of our cities, lest somebody lamp him one.
He needs the bodyguard, not for the usual reasons.

I'v never voted Lab/Lib/Tory in my life, so my conscience is clear whenever a British troop comes home from the mid-east in a coffin

I once voted. I was very young but I felt so absurd that I never tried it again.

I've got an observation to make here, a complaint really.
I watched some of the Mandela memorial gathering from SA today, on the TV.

How is it that people, facing a battery of microphones and using one of the most powerful public address systems known to man, think they have to shout to be understood? Do they not realise that shouting makes the speech less clear?
How is it that people, addressing an audience of thousands in a stadium, but an audience of millions worldwide on TV, do not think it better to leave the sound to the soundman and OB editor, whose job it is, but think they have to shout as if to reach the guy on the back row? And so look like blithering idiots on TV?

OK I've finished now.

Why can't you just let people get on with what they like doing best, Mac, without moaning. It's not often we get a chance to see them in harmless mode.

Did you see Mr Obarmy take that long flight of steps. Something must come over him when he sees steps. It's the opposite of what comes over me. Do you think She Who Must Be Obeyed looked anything like those ladies from the upper strata of the Mandela clan? I had always imagined her something like Raquel Welch. Did you peg a King Twala anywhere?

Once I'd seen that I switched to Race Day Live. There's some headbangers on view in that. I realised when nobbut knee-high to a grasshopper what fools horses and donkeys can make of us humans when my Mum took me to the big agricultural show we had every year. The gymkhanas were best. Young girls in jodhpurs on ponies going round a course with a pole six inches off the ground resting on two sandbags every so often.

Even now I can't imagine a school with girls in it. We kept well clear of girls.
We might still do I suppose if it wasn't for that mysterious charm they have learned to cast over us when the biologically determined process known colloquially as "puberty"--for simplicities sake--rolls out and impales us to a cross.

I watch the faces of the horses a lot. I try to figure out what their expression says about what they are thinking. I love to watch a loose horse keeping up with the others and going around the outside of the fences. I once saw one leap the perimeter fence into a well-kept suburban back garden and just stand there on the lawn in utter confusion. Everybody has seen a cat look confused when the mouse or the bird escapes.

When you have to be patient and not abled to get up things that amuse you is when the most amusing things occur.

Horses don't know they are racing. They have no idea where they are or what they are doing. A system has been arranged called The Handicapper so that every horse in training, excepting Frankel, gets a good few whippings. Which imitate a swarm of angry bees. One American jockey was caught with an electric whip.

A horse wins its first race easily without the whip being applied. What do the fuckers do? They give it 10lbs more to carry next time out. Its owners, who love it of course, eyeing up another £30 grand, enter it.

So the bigger the monkeys horses make us look the better I like it. Such as a bloke spending a frosty Sunday morning cleaning out the stables in which his daughter's have spent the night and then fixing a trailer to his car to fetch some more bales of hay.

The Princess Anne dunking was the best.

My new band? Riff Clitchard and the Saddos

(the Americans wouldn't get it, on the Spoonerisms thread I mean)

Good post btw, Spendy.

I'd like to be on some of that, too.

Raquel Welch would be good, Selma Hayek maybe, but they're both a bit small. Sophie Dahl, then, with Grace Jones' attitude.