our modern transport system!

I was driving back from Trin's with my camera ready to take pictures of traffic jams, but this gem just sort of fell into my lap! You've got a dickhead middle-class loser caravanner trying to pass a dickhead Humpty Dumpty loser lorry driver on a clearly inappropriate road. Imagine the stress as loser meets loser! The real irony is that a few hundred metres to the west there is an empty railway trackbed that would be ideal for taking both these traffic flows, with no obstructions to decent road-users. Pensford is dominated by a magnificent railway viaduct which still has to be maintained despite generating no income. But taxpayers are happy to fork out for both maintenance of unused listed engineering works and to underwrite the huge loss of efficiency built into the economy through keeping a hopeless and antiquated road network, free at the point of use. Of course this will all be historic within 20 years - the railway will be rebuilt (possibly even by the S&D although never an S&D route) and the road will be used by a few walkers, cyclists and horseriders. So enjoy this silliness whilst you still can!



The Frome-Radstock-Bristol line closed in 1968, requiring a formerly closed section of railway (Mells Rd - Radstock) to be reopened. It closed suddenly due to possibly climate-change related catastophic flooding, which totally destroyed this road bridge as well as part of the railway. Of course there was never any question back then of the road being permanently closed like the railway, but it is probable that future destructive storms and floods will begin to eat away at the road network, and this may well start the process of wiping out our heavy-use road network. Watch this space! 

naturists and naturalists - clearly not the world we want ...

Ageless naturist Gail Bush, a 55 year old woman who sunbathed nude IN HER OWN GARDEN was found not guilty of indecent exposure by a court in Wales. You can read the story in all the papers.



The bits I found interesting were the comments by her socialist neighbour, Jacaranda Illness, an 'upstanding' citizen, who on seeing the lady 'parading' IN HER OWN GARDEN excitedly grabbed his video camera to film her. One can only guess why! In his defence he waffled 'I have been extremely shaken by this incident. It has been very upsetting and worrying. I don't want to bring up my children in such an environment'. (Well fuck off back to Russia then! Ed)

Fellow traveller, his solicitor Daniella Christ, also waffled 'I may be prudish but it's not normal to sunbathe in the nude.' Duh? It's 2006 missy, not 1906. Queen Victoria is dead and probably a bit decomposed. We all do it these days, even the pope!

On hearing that he'd lost his case, Mr Illness muttered, 'We're absolutely heartbroken by the result. This woman has been making our lives a misery. Now I'm off home to drink a pint of Fairtrade cream sherry and watch a video'.



Meanwhile ageing naturalist David Attenborough (left above) has just discovered what the rest of us have known for years - that global heating is threatening the entire planet. He has been busy flying around the world in his fleet of private jets, crossing the Antarctic on his pimped-up snowmobile and driving the streets of the world's capitals in his stretch limo buying fur and filming animals eating each other, and 'sort of missed it.'

Never one to miss a (very late) bandwagon, Sir David has now made two films telling the rest of us what we've known for years, whilst smirkily muttering platitudes over pictures of melting ice and persistent drizzle. They are being shown on the BBC.

Sir David has said that he will donate the profits from the two programmes to the David Attenborough Charity, which aims to provide him and close members of his family with secure wind and solar powered houses in the upper reaches of Montana.

everything london's got and more ....

Trin's in London today receiving a knighthood from the Queen, and I don't envy her one bit. London's got nothing we haven't got in the village, in fact we've got more 'cos we've got badgers. This is the village post office which sells everything from newspapers to sanitary towels to eggs. And Calor gas. Eat your heart out Hugh Grant.



We've even got an art gallery for the toffs and shirties. A nice touch is a Green man on the front, which makes this Britain's first Pagan post office - unless you know better. The art gallery sells paintings, photos and things carved out of wood.



I bought this very realistic carved cat, which I call 'Pyewackett'. It's eyes follow you as you walk around the room, and it wees. 

Gala Opening of new shopping experience

One of the perks of being a local councillor is that you are invited to all sorts of lovely events with free food etc. Today I was lucky enough to be invited to the grand opening of the new Bristol shopping centre - Slave Trade Century 21 - in the leafy suburb of Hartcliffe. Prince Charles was due to cut the ribbon, but a stray fox was spotted at Highgrove and he was off hunting the fellow, his lovely wife Charlene standing in for him. Music was provided by local pop group, Pink Floyd, their singer Ponsonby writing a special song just for the day called 'Slaves to Asda'.

As it was a ticket-only event many people had to wait outside the protective barrier in the blazing sun, but their cheers could be held as Charlene cut the ribbon declaring the centre open. She was handed a bouquet of flowers by local girls Destiny Crouch (11) and Destiny Jacobs (10).

Slave Trade Century 21 has a fantastic range of shops, with an excellent Co-Op, a Ladbrookes, a Social Security Office and a huge branch of Pawnbrokers Muscle and Titt. Harvey Nicks were approached but declined due to the prohibitive levels of rent and business rates.

The photo above shows Charlene cutting the ribbon outside the fully-refurbished Haddock-a-Go-Go fish and chip emporium, as the crowds bask in the May sunshine on what was a very special day indeed for Bristol. 

dirty shopping habits

This is the ideal. I shop, but I still don't shop well. I have to drive to get to this place - no train or tram yet. The Organic Farm Shop, praised by Rick Stein, by the A350 at Longbridge Deverill. This is where I buy Trin's organic champagne truffles, as well as less essential items. They also do Ecover products that you can refill, which is about the most saintly thing any Pagan can do!

These are the watercress beds (organic of course) that lie alongside the shop. Our nanny-state lefty health and safety prefect scum are ordering that these are now fenced off, even though only 6 inches deep (sorry Blair, ten kilolitres deep).

Morrisons, Warminster. Note soon to be obsolete form of transport in foreground. This is a 'supermarket', an unsustainable and non-local alternative to real shopping. Shamefully I occasionally have to use this place, there being no Waitrose in Warminster.

Ah, recycling heaven, the Lions bookshop in Warminster. 4 books for a pound, no haggling. New stock every week.

domesticity

After Tuesday's adventures with crack cocaine (all now sold to just a dozen Asba boys in Frome and Corsley) I opted for a complete change and went and stayed with Trin. Despite her hovering between life and death with an NSI (Non-specific illness) I forced her to update my blogs with squiggly bits and pictures, cook me numerous meals and run a bath. This idyll of domesticity was only disturbed once, at 2am, when a dishevelled and clearly drugged-up Ponsonby of Pink Floyd hammered on the door asking my whereabouts. Trin fobbed the hirsute uncool neanderthal with some story about my being up at Clifton bungeeing off the suspension bridge, and he shot off up there in his gold-plated Bentley, muttering.

I look forward to reading the local papers tomorrow to see what became of him. 

Into the Heart of Darkness

I had to pick up 400 kg of crack cocaine for the Asba boys in Frome today, which involved driving my pimped up BMW convertible down to darkest middle-class Hampshire. I was stuck behind this thing nearly all the way. Isn't it time that lorries were priced off the roads so that just cars could use them? All the freight could go by rail and keep out of the way of decent folk just trying to make a living. And tractor drivers should be shot. And caravanners. And cyclists. And old people.

Later when I managed to pass the idiot lorry using a hand brake turn on a blind corner on the crest of a hill I got stuck behind this tosser. Now I reckon badgers can manage themselves - they've been doing it for hundreds of years since they were released into the wild by Robin Hood and His Merrie Men. Now they have besuited Justins and Damiens forcing them to read Tom Peters, to attend Work Management courses and to go on Team Building rafting expeditions in Mid-Wales.

Deal done, I went into Petersfield to get some good organic food. I felt really scared in Petersfield as it was all coffee shops, estate agents, building societies and bookshops. I didn't see one Asba lad anywhere, even in the bins.

But I did find a Waitrose as Trin's told me I have to shop there to help shed my pseudo-Chav image. I bought a pie, sandwich, a drink and a packet of bagels (thinking they were doughnuts) and it came to over a hundred quid!

However, on a shelf right at the back I found this excellent packet of Lux, with 1 1/2p off! i was well made up! 

Pizza Ruck

So Trin says 'What d'you want to eat darling Spring?' so I says 'summfink chav,' so she says 'McDonalds?' so I says 'No, that's too chav', so she says 'Pizza Hut,' and I says 'Yeah'.

So we hit Frome Pizza Hut and I go for the 24" lentil feast with extra lentils and houmus, and she goes for the 6" chicken offal supreme on a bed of baby ducks with a grown-up duck side salad and fizzy duck juice.

We're sitting there minding our own business, poking fun at some christians, when a few Asba boys come in with their hoodies done up to the top toggle, trousers hanging round their knees showing little pink G-strings (Trin looked) and wearing baseball caps over the TOP of the hoodies with 'We dont [sic] need no uniform' written on and they sit down next to us.

'You're a bunch of wankers,' I said conversationally, 'aren't you?'

'Wot?'

'I was just remarking what a bunch of chav wankers you are in your little duffle coats. Been out trainspotting have you?'

'Er, yeah. What's it to you grandad?'

Trin kicks me under the table and grins.

'Just saying,' I laughed. 'Just being polite'.

'Did you call my boyfriend a grandad?' Trin roars as she pops the most delicate little garlic beak in her mouth.

'Yeah, wanna make summfink of it missus?'

As it happened Trin did, and beat the lads into a pulp without even getting up off her chair. She even had one kid's intestines out and was swinging them around her head like Rod Stewart in his prime (1946).

The salad bar was very good too, fresh and crispy, with just the right amount in a bowl to complement the pizza.

A Kick in the Kidneys for Socialists/Tories/Car Anoraks and Pink Floyd.

A slap round the face for the socialist/tory/anorak alliance that tried to kill off the S&D back in 1966, when they thought oil would last forever and that somehow the big towns of Radstock, Midsomer Norton, Shepton Mallet, Wincanton, Sturminster Newton, Blandford and Glastonbury could somehow flourish into the 21st century without a rail link!

This is the rebirth of the S&D at Midsomer Norton, track relaid and ready for trains to start running again in 2007.

Rail will be the primary (in fact for many of us the only) form of powered transport available to us once the oil runs out. Rather than wait for government to get off their fat socialist/tory arses and begin to build a public transport service we've decided to get on with it.

You want to be an activist and wind up the bloated middle-class cretin prefects that run the country - get and start building railways now (whilst the rail and skills are still available) and ensure you and your community have a future. In a car-less world how else are you going to get around (when it's too far to walk, ride or cycle?)

Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not ...

Harumph! You go through life with a slant that’s been influenced by a mixture of 60s British films, the greatest music of all time, the S&D and being brought up in 60s/70s working-class (non-council!) Littlehampton and then some spotty little twerp widens out the market for YOUR cool by calling his album after one of YOUR defining film lines ...

The cure? Sit down and watch Saturday Night and Sunday Morning back-to-back eight times with a case of creme caramel Bailey’s and some good organic tuck, then go out sour faced to Woolies to buy a copy of the offending album.

And you know what, it ain’t ‘alf bad for a bunch of spotty virgin kids. Raw guitar, heavy drums, good tunes buried in the mix and a nice sneery voice full of humour.

Forgiven lads ..... by why nick half your name from the greatest group of the 80s, Fossil Monkeys?? And the other half from a tacky Asda Chav dessert (Arctic Roll)?

Pink Floyd Storm the Pop Charts - Again!

Pop supergroup Pink Floyd are preparing to release a new pop record, with guest singer Dave Cameron, the new Conservative Party leader.

I was one of a select group of journalists invited to Pink Floyd’s singer, Ponsonby Ponsonby-Smythe’s, mansion in Quorn, Leicestershire at the weekend for the press launch. We were heralded into the 240 foot long lounge where Ponsonby (76), Quentin Ricketts (91 - drummer) and Wellington Wellinton-Waffle (85 - long cloaks, poses, triangle) were joined by Dave (21), the new leader of Britain’s moribund Tory Party. They shared a huge chaise longue, draped with gold leafed batik and cushions the size of chav’s tumours.

‘We’re like, making a er pop toon,’ said Ponsonby through clouds of heroin smoke. ‘My father’s hired a studio and I’ve written a great song called Post Constructionist Spoilt Boy man ...’

Wellington and Quentin nodded in agreement, whilst their every needs were being attended to by a group of naked ladies who lunch.

‘It’s like man,’ added Dave (21), ‘we’re like blown away, it’s psychedelic and grooved up. I love these guys. They’re cool, like, you know?’

Ponsonby suddenly produced a shotgun from under his glittering cloak and took aim at a fox that was running across the lawn.

‘Got the fellow!’ he announced, dropping back into the chaise with a grin on his face.

‘So what is the song about?’ I asked.

‘It’s like about er post constructionist spoilt boys man. Their angst and stuff like that,’ posited Quentin, whilst injecting piping hot pure heroin directly into his frontal lobes.

‘Gimme some of that,’ laughed Dave, as he snatched the empty hypodermic.

‘Like the real struggle yeah to sort of er make something of one’s life against the military-industrial complex like,’ added Wellington as he tucked into a steaming platter full of garlic magic mushrooms.

‘We’re going to use it in our next Party Political Broadast,’ said Dave, toying with the hypodermic, but not inhaling.

‘It’ll appeal to everyone man,’ said Wellington. ‘Middle-class parents, their children.’

‘Their grandparents,’ added Quentin. ‘Everyone man. Even my mum likes it, and she’s 101.’

We were then played a copy of the pop song, woken up and ushered out of the lounge. The final words I heard as I was bundled out of the door was Dave shouting ‘Drug abuse is, like, real cool yeah’.

Pushing Your Sprog to the Top of the Achievement Pile and Getting it into the Real World ASAP

So little Bunty-Jane or Darren-Chardonnay is showing signs of being a bit cleverer than all the other chavs in his/her class (isn't yours always cleverer than all the others?) so you want to make sure he/she gets on in life. What life skills does the brat need, what'll help her/him clamber to the top of the pile (and leave home before you succumb to premature senile dementia)? Well it ain't going to be finger skills on PS2 or familiarity with the musical keys of Pink Floyd pop songs. It ain't going to drive (no fuel) and life's going to be harder (but much better) than he/she's used to.

A start is to think about what jobs are going to be around in 30 years time. I asked John Smith of Crackytown University what the current views are of our top academic non-chavs. The results are below.

Ten Jobs with no future

Lorry Driver
Advertising executive
Garage attendant
Merchant banker
politician
beautician
accountant
TV producer
Nuclear physicist
Astronaut

Eleven jobs with a great future

Tram Driver
Farrier
Storyteller
Organic Farmer
Cycle repairer
Carpenter
Handyman/woman
Teacher
Thatcher
Steam engine driver
Nurse

A Trip Into the Past

I had to make one of those rare trips into 'town' today, 'town' being Bristol. With Peak Oil Indicators and Climate Change Manifestations all around us now, it was perhaps more an exercise in nostalgia than anything else. The city didn't really begin until the last few miles. The southern approaches to Bristol are actually quite attractive, especially through Pensford, one of those fairly quaint places that are enhanced by the work of man - in this case by the impressive viaduct (closed 1968 due to the floods, reopening about 2020?) and along past Dundry. Suddenly the town starts to close in and all those impediments to sanity start appearing - traffic lights, chain stores, bus lanes etc. I felt like a duck out of water. Needless to say my reason for going made it all worthwhile (thanks Trin!) but I always get that resonance that all around is on borrowed time - the suburbs, the hilarious joke transport system (car anorak frenzy!), the shops selling muck that nobody needs. How are these millions going to manage when Peak Oil hits or when there's a huge disruptive climate event? I'm glad I'm 450 feet up and five miles from the nearest market towns and 25 miles from the cities. Still, you have to laugh ....