Jeremy Hunt's Olympic Bell-End!

Hapless Minister Hunt holds his bell-end

The government's 'Culture Secretary' Jeremy Hunt caused a scare yesterday when the bell-end he was waving became detached, its heavy brass dome flying through the air and narrowly missing some woman bystander. 

Hunt was aboard HMS Belfast for the 'All the Bells' celebration, as people across the country rang bells to mark the start of London's Olympic Games. The nightmare mishap happened seconds after he had given a television interview, claiming the Games would be a complete success barring any last-minute hitches.

Asked to 'join in' for the cameras, calamity-prone Hunt weakly waved his bell around before the clanger occurred. He watched helplessly as the bell-end disappeared among a small group of Olympics fans. Fortunately no-one was injured, and amid peals of laughter the Minister slunk away like a scolded animal. The bell was later successfully repaired, it was reported, while the episode provided another moment of Olympic comedy gold.

Red-faced Hunt later explained: “I was ringing my bell in a very excited way, but it collapsed in my hand and came off." Unfortunately, the gaffe will lend support to those detractors who believe the Minister is a gormless knob.  Who'd have thought the expressions 'Jeremy Hunt' and 'bell-end' would ever be connected? 

  

Oh No: Olympic Bungle!

Sadly, the London Olympics’ first day has witnessed an unfortunate blunder by organisers. Last night the North Korean women's football team left the pitch at their match in Glasgow, after their images were shown before kick-off on a giant video screen, next to the flag of hated neighbours South Korea.

The furious squad were only persuaded to return after the teams had been announced again, with each North Korean player's face displayed beside the correct flag. During the delay to the prestigious event spectators booed, and many left the ground. Unhappily for Olympic staff including Sebastian Coe, the fiasco immediately went viral. 

Grovelling British officials have apologised to the North Koreans for the gaffe. After all, displaying the wrong flag was an easy mistake to make, depending on the calibre of the appointed score-board operator. At any rate the episode has been a first taste of pure Olympic gold.

Since their conflict of the 1950s which ended in an armistice, North and South Korea remain technically at war. Today North Korea is a reclusive, renegade state led by a mad regime, with an arsenal of gigantic nuclear weapons.

An opportunity for more regrettable Olympic bungling will arise when the two countries meet in the men's table-tennis team event. To view potential fireworks, press the red button.

Bring Back The Real Olympic Games!

Like many people, I don’t like watching track or field sports, cycling, sailing or swimming on the box.  I’m in trouble then, because our televisions are about to be swamped by the Olympic Games.  So far the most tedious aspects of the coming event have been its relentless trailing, and coverage of the torch thing as it trundles round Britain.

But the Games weren’t always as awful.  Our foreparents knew how to enjoy themselves, with a variety of sports which show just how much we’re missing out today.

Shooting has long been included in the competition, first appearing in 1896. While competitors usually aim at disc-shaped clay pigeons, the 1900 Games in Paris adopted livelier targets: real pigeons were released, and more than 300 were killed.  But even in such unenlightened times there was a degree of protest, and from then on Olympics officials decided to skip the living targets.

Croquet was the first Olympic event in which women participated, its only appearance also at the 1900 Paris games.  Just a French team entered, while a single spectator purchased a ticket to watch. Afterwards an official report concluded croquet involved “hardly any pretensions to athleticism” and the measured, courtly game was dropped.  

In 1984 the rather contradictory sport of solo synchronised swimming appeared.  Surprisingly the event was retained for the Seoul Games four years later, and again at Barcelona in 1992.  Afterwards though, other participants were added and the event became a team competition, which probably made more sense.

The unusual art of pistol duelling has also featured, in the 1906 Athens Games. Disappointingly the event consisted of no actual duelling; competitors merely shot at plaster dummies dressed in frock coats, from a distance of 20 or 30 meters. An opinion poll held in Australia before Sydney 2000 found 32% of those asked wanted the sport revived.

If it helps, the countdown to the end of the London 2012 Olympics is currently 26 days, 10 hours and 5 minutes.

Barclays and LIBOR: What A Muddle!

Well, pretty much as I originally predicted except the other guy resigned. Bob Diamond left the bank, while Barclays chairman 'Senator' Marcus Agius returned. Shocked by the intensity of public disgust at Barclays’ behaviour, Mr Diamond said: "Bloody proles didn't even know what a LIBOR was until last Thursday week."

To steady the helm at the troubled usurer, initially Lord Geezer had refused to quit. "I was quite disappointed,” he confessed yesterday, following his daily worship before a 20-foot ivory image of Beelzebub. “No one’s sorrier than I am about these events coming out. I'd hoped to stay on, to ensure nothing like this is ever detected again."

Leading the applause for Diamond’s years of valuable service with Barclays is his daughter Nellie. Privately-educated Miss Diamante, 23, rejected British government criticism of her father which appeared in the press. She tweeted: "George Osborne and Ed Miliband you can go ahead and #hmd." HMD is an expression of disgruntlement employed by low-end American teenagers; money well spent on Nellie’s schooling then. 

A handful of jealous detractors have claimed Ms Diamond is pampered, privileged, and unrepentant over her ‘show biz’ lifestyle being funded by daddy's piracy. But at least Nellie works for a living; using her degree in English to the full, she’s been lucky enough to find a job with Deutsche Bank. Meanwhile Barclays has sought cathartic resolution to its dilemma, introducing a new savings-account marketing campaign with hoardings like the one above; in other words, business as usual. 

      

Barclays Scandal: Bob Diamond Clears Up Everything!

Diamond: "Ask me no questions."

There’s been widespread horror and revulsion across the British banking industry, following the resignation of Barclays’ chairman Marcus Agius in the wake of the LIBOR fixing scandal. As pressure grows for a criminal investigation, the debacle has wiped billions off Barclays’ share price.

City insiders believe the resignation will prove an isolated incident. Industry executive Bunny Tuffington-Smythe, speaking today from his Wimbledon hospitality suite, explained: “It seems poor Agius suffered with outmoded business attitudes such as ‘taking responsibility’, and ‘doing the right thing’. You won’t find such claptrap has infected modern banking methods, thank God. Now, trebles all round!”

Barclays has been fined £290m for systemic misconduct, but Chief Executive Bob Diamond will keep his current role. “Honestly, pay-offs for senior bankers who resign always reach 7-figure sums,” he explained, “so by staying on it’s good for Barclays, good for Britain, and good for me. And anyway, why waste a perfectly good human shield?”

Sir Bob – who’s earned £100m from Barclays since 2006 and ran the division where the transgressions took place – will forfeit this year's bonus payment but remains in line for multi-million pound share payouts. Meanwhile, to reassure customers and more importantly the Serious Fraud Office over future conduct, Lord Geezer's announced plans for a new Director of Probity to join Barclays' board. Leading the shortlist of candidates is a current senior executive from the bank’s Asian arm, Mr Han Din Til.  

Jimmy Carr: Power To The People!

Carr: "Looks like alien."

Jimmy Carr’s in the news; the Midwich Cuckoo look-alike has been stiffed by the media. It’s been revealed he employs sleazy avoidance loopholes in order to pay as little income tax as possible.

Some of us may go on about civic duty and funding public services.  But from the dawn of time, when dues were paid with root vegetables, given a choice most people would prefer to keep some tax back for themselves.  Why part with more than you need to – after all, the government will only spend it on things you don’t want, or won’t use.

And Jimmy Carr had that choice. Because he’s rich he can afford expensive advice on how best to deal with his tax matters.  From the numbers being touted, Jimmy’s spent wisely, but he’s committed no offence, broken no law.  In a sense he hasn’t been caught out at all, so why the fuss?

For me the episode’s more about pretence and personality.  Much of Carr’s humour is cruel, aimed at disadvantaged people; I don’t like him, so I’m glad he’s being criticised.  But Jimmy’s real deception arises from the difference between his background and the professional image he portrays.

Carr’s from a comfortably-off middle-class Thatcherite family, and before he entered show business was a blue-chip executive for Shell.  Contrasting with that lifestyle though, his comedy act relies on an entirely-feigned political stance, pitched at pop-up raving lefties with opinions most of us discard as we mature.  One of Jimmy’s recent routines was a lampoon on a Barclays tax-avoidance scheme; how he must have chuckled to himself.

Now though, it’s hard to see his collectivist fanbase taking him seriously.  With luck Carr's public repentance won’t help and after all, it’s not as if he’s offered to pay any of the tax he’s avoided.  No: instead, Jimmy’s laughing all the way to the offshore bank.

  

Pillsbury: Yet Another U-Turn!

Pillsbury: what a muddle!

Prime Minister David Pillsbury recently left his daughter in a pub following a mix-up with wife Samantha, it was revealed today.  Red-faced Pillsbury forgot the child after a long Sunday lunch with toff friends at the Plough Inn, near his country retreat Chequers.

The Prime Minister explained he was taken home in one car along with his bodyguards, and thought eight-year-old Nancy was with Samantha in some other car.  In turn, Mrs Pillsbury believed Nancy had accompanied her father. The muddle was only noticed after everyone had arrived home.

An aide explained: “The Prime Minister was distraught when his people notified him one of the party was missing.  After a couple of quick coffees, he drove straight back to the pub to pick up er the child.”

Nancy was found preparing for a gap-year in 10 years’ time by helping bar-staff and practicing an Australian accent.  “Talking with proles is fun,” she chortled as drunken strangers, now the little girl’s friends, crowded round and laughed at her antics.  Pillsbury joked: “She always finds her way home – and at least I remembered the meal receipt!”  After tuts from elderly customers, he added: “From now on, Sam will be doing the Sunday lunch!” 

Pillsbury’s security team and the hire-car firm involved, Dave’s Minicabs, have been cleared of stupidity over the incident after it was found Nancy had thrown everyone off by hiding under a table.  But staff and regulars at the Plough are worried.  Barmaid and mother-of-five Tracey Island said: “It’s a disgrace.  I always lock my kids outside in the car where they’ll be safe.” Drinker Bunny Tuffington-Smythe (85) added: “If the idiot can't even look after his daughter, what chance has this benighted country got?”

Mr Pillsbury has also recently lost a bicycle, and is keen to establish parenting classes for the socially inadequate.  

      

Osborne's Pasty Tax Crumbles!

Pasties: Osborne's favourite. For Clegg, quiche.

Chancellor George Osborne has reversed his half-baked plan to extend VAT on Cornish pasties.  As long as they’ve been put on a tray and allowed to cool, they’ll be exempt from the 20% hike. The climb-down’s been portrayed as a resounding victory for protesters across Cornwall. 

Lib Dem MP for St Austell and Newquay Stephen Gilbert, who’d opposed the tax, said: "The strength of feeling from local people has been clear since these proposals were announced.  Plans to increase VAT would be unfair, unenforceable and cost jobs.”

Gilbert was on the right lines but the real issue wasn’t the genuine Cornish pasty, threats to the Duchy’s businesses or local protest.  Greggs, the UK’s largest bakery chain with 1,400 shops and thousands of employees nationwide, had lobbied the government for a U-turn.  Following Osborne’s announcement in March, some £30 million had been wiped off Greggs' shares; the giant manufactures various hot snack items. News of the Chancellor’s retreat immediately increased the share price by 9%.

"Yum yum!"

Osborne's recently claimed to adore pasties and apparently eats several every day.  But though his surrender helps Cornwall’s bakers, it's also encouraged Greggs to continue peddling a curious, vile-sounding product.  The company’s website describes their creation as a Cornish pasty, and reveals its grim ingredients: “Chunks of steak and minced beef with potato, onion, carrots and peas, lightly seasoned and enclosed in a puff pastry case.”  No Cornish person would ever eat such a freakish object. 

Osborne’s hike, the anti campaign in response and final humiliating defeat for the Chancellor are a microcosm of this terrible government’s blundering policies.  For a time though, the Coalition was at least able to use the Great Pasty Outcry as a handy distraction.  Now perhaps effort can be put into even more important issues.   

England vs Norway: Total Victory!

Atkins: Euro-victory for our boys

Last night, once again Engerland stamped its authority across Europe's banana states in a crushing reminder of who's top dog in this part of the world.

At football, skipper Tommy 'Tiger' Atkins and his young lions tore apart a dazed Norwegian eleven in Oslo while from the touchline new team manager, Ollie Hodgson, watched proudly.  After our boys' comprehensive 1-0 victory over the Nordic laggards it's odds-on that this summer the European Championship cup will return to Old Trafford.

Engelbert: fond of animals

Engerland also impressed at yesterday's Eurovision music competition, held in some outlandish third-world country, where our entry comfortably beat Norway's feeble effort.  The evening was humiliating for the tearful Norwegian competitor, who at the end of the night trailed by several points to Engelbert Humperdink's well-received ballad.
  
Yet again, drawing on our customary grit and determination to 'get the job done', Engerland remains the wonder of Europe.

Land's End Re-Named For Olympic Torch Relay!

For the start of the Olympic torch's tedious journey around the British Isles, in Cornwall the Land's End's visitor centre was spruced up.  Target for trippers and fund-raisers, the place is an abomination, a ghastly tourist-trap counterpointing the surrounding scenery’s magnificence.  Those in the know approach by foot along the cliff paths, while the herd’s endless cars and coaches try to ruin the area.

But until recently the centre’s entrance portico at least flew the flag of St Piran, and was adorned with the landmark’s Cornish and English names.  Below we see some cyclists, proudly posing after their sponsored journey from somewhere to raise money for something.  And behind them, the original sign.

Land's End: Cornish name, emblem and flag in position.

Tarted up for the torch-following cameras though, we find the Cornish name, emblem and flag have been removed and a bland hording put up in English only.  For its biggest exposure ever, splashed across media round the world, Land’s End had all references to its Cornish identity dispensed with.

Sign of the times: sanitised ready for Olympic world-wide publicity.

I wonder who’ll put their hand up to this one.