Mr. Kenwright's woes

Mr. William Kenwright CBE reprises the late Mr. Edward Woodward OBE's "Equalizer" character in preparation for a return meeting with "The Blue Union"

Apropos: my post of the 17th, ult, in relation to the travails of The Everton Football Club Company Limited in general and Mr. William Kenwright CBE in particular.

Mr. William Kenwright CBE has, it seems, threatened the gentlemen of "The Blue Union" supporters coalition with legal reprisals; not because of inaccuracies in their transcript, not because he feels that he has been misrepresented in any way, but because he insists that there was a "gentleman's agreement" not to publish any reports of their meeting (which appears to be contradicted by his asking them to write certain things down on occasions within their meeting, but I suppose that "will out" in court, as it were).

His ranting, disjointed performance has been compared unfavourably to that of Mr. Jerry "The Saint" St. Clair "gangsta trippin' ", which certainly made me laugh, I have to say. However, I was also reminded of a certain "internet meme" which has gone through many incarnations, some good and some atrocious. 

If one should permit me a little indulgence... here is my impression of how that meeting played itself out, ninety percent of which comprises of direct quotations from their meeting or documented fact surrounding Mr. William Kenwright CBE's tenure at the helm of The Everton Football Club Company Limited.

William Kenwright, CBE; his part in his Downfall 

 

Do others feel that this is the gift which just keeps on giving?

Scooters, smart suits, Ben Sherman shirts and things of that ilk

Ah, those were the days, apparently.

When it comes to sartorial elegance, I must confess to be rather drawn to the Italianate/Ivy-League "preppy" hybrid look of the United Kingdom's early 1960's "Modernist" movement; everything about said lifestyle (apart from, perhaps, the rather poor-quality amphetamine sulphate) appeals to me immensely. I shuffled onto this mortal coil whilst The Four Tops occupied the top spot in the UK's hit parade with their seminal work "(Reach Out) I'll Be There", at a time when the adherents of said scene in the South of the country were turning to psychedelics or shaving their heads and wearing "Harrington" jackets (depending upon which end of the socio-economic spectrum they occupied), whilst those in the North were becoming yet more esoteric in their tastes in the "rhythm & blues" which they listened to, the genesis of the genre we now know as "Northern Soul". Or shaving their heads and wearing Crombies ("white or red rose, sir?").

Obviously I was unable to participate in any of this shenanigans in nappies; and these days I am somewhat too corpulent to look good in the modernist wardrobe, scooter riding in my area is fraught with danger around every corner, and I should be likely to keel over with a massive cardiac infarction at the merest sniff of "Billy".

Which leaves only the music. I was always considered something of an "odd man out" in my tastes in my teens and twenties, which makes it all the more gratifying that the genre is so highly regarded these days. So, if you shall permit me an impertinence, I should like to occasionally share some of the nuggets which I discovered in my youth, and which I still enjoy all these years later.

Beginning with this one...

Are others acquainted with this track?

Consumer Testing: no. 1 in an occasional series

A "Travel Pussy", recently.

As a public service, I have decided to "road-test" a series of consumer durables, in order that you, the denizens of this cyber-strand, can make informed purchase decisions; I try, you buy, so to speak.

PRODUCT: The Travel Pussy.

PURPOSE: The product appears to be aimed at business travellers abroad who, having retired to their hotel room after consuming a certain amount of alcohol and discovered that their television incorporates a pornographic strand with a ten-minute "free view" facility, wish to engage in sexual activity; but whom are either too parsimonious, too reticent, or too afraid of infection to hire the services of a so-called "sex worker", whilst simultaneously not wishing to submit themselves to the more regular forms of manual stimulus.

CONTENTS OF PACKAGE:

- 1 bio-degradable plastic bag

- 1 sachet of lubricating gel

- 1 box, featuring a mildly erotic illustrative image on the obverse, and user's instructions on the reverse

REQUIRED EXTRAS (NOT INCLUDED):

- water

- one male reproductive organ (tumescent)

EASE OF USE: The product is easy to assemble for even the novice, the plastic bag is simply filled with water, in the manner of the disposable "cool bags" which are filled with water and placed in the freezer. However, because the bag is double-walled, filling it with water forms a sleeve. 

Serving suggestion.

The gel is then squeezed into the sleeve and around the periphery of the tumescent organ; the organ is then inserted into the sleeve and oscillated to taste. Once usage is complete, the bag may be snipped to drain  away the water, then disposed of in domestic waste, or it could possibly be washed out for re-use if one is of a parsimonious nature.

 

BENEFITS:

- much cheaper than engaging the services of a painted lady, unless one resorts to consorting with the heroin-addicted

- no danger of infection, unwanted pregnancy, or career-threatening blackmail

- no recourse to inconsequential, stilted "small-talk" is necessary

- ease of disposal; one certainly could not dispose of a painted lady in the same manner, unless one were a deviant who should be likely to be sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences in gaol

DRAWBACKS:

- a certain lack of authenticity in the perceived sensation

- the "sloshing" noises generated by the sinusoidal movement of water within the bag as the member is oscillated within put one in mind of an overweight partner who has consumed a large amount of beer, wine, and sulphurous Indian cuisine prior to the event

- the crushing effect to one's self-esteem, post-coitus, when one realises that one has just purchased a plastic bag with the express intent of ejaculating into it

CAVEATS:

- the bag should be filled with warm water; filling with cold water does diminish the sensation somewhat, (except, perhaps, for necrophiliacs), whilst filling with hot water could result in one having to concoct some rather unconvincing explanation for one's injuries at the local Accident and Emergency department

- the lubricant should be equally distributed between the organ and the bag; placing all of the gel on one or the other can cause problems during usage.

OVERALL RATING: 7 (seven) out of 10.

AVAILABILITY: the product can be purchased in "Condomats" (vending machines) in many parts of Western Germany, for around €4. Please note that the product does not come in brown.

Can others provide anecdotal evidence of their experiences with this product?

A letter to Mr. David Call-Me-Dave

"...and he got fifteen years for the sake of that pair of Trimm Trabs, ha ha ha!" Mr. David Call-Me-Dave shares a joke with Daily Mail readers, recently.

Noting, as I did today, that Mr. David Call-Me-Dave feels that the court's tough line apropos; sentencing for those involved in the recent civil unrest, however peripherally, is justified in the message it conveys, I am interested in his opinions on sentencing policies for serious offences not committed within the context of the riots.

I have thus dispatched the following missive to him personally:

Dear Prime Minister,

On Tuesday, 16 August 2011, two young men were sentenced to four years' incarceration at Chester Crown Court for "inciting disorder" via the Facebook website. Today, you stated that "it is good that the courts feel able to do that", i.e. to issue severe sentences for offences such as inciting disorder. This would seem to indicate that you feel that a four year custodial sentence is appropriate in such circumstances.

This being the case, I should be grateful if you could enlighten me as to what you feel would be an appropriate tariff for an offender convicted of all of the following offences: multiple, wilful breaches of privacy laws and the Data Protection act, corruption of serving police officers, perverting the course of justice and obstructing the police in the course of their duties by hampering a murder investigation.

Admittedly, these offences were not committed against a backdrop of civil disorder, but if the courts are emboldened enough to issue more severe penalties in order to act as a deterrent, then I should have thought that a custodial sentence in the order of 70 to 80 years should be appropriate.

What do you think?

Yours faithfully,

Eric Tampon.

I shall publish Mr. Call-Me-Dave's reply on this cyber-strand when, and if, I receive it.

Do others feel he may evade the issue by stating that sentencing policy should be a matter for the sentencing judge?

Whither The Everton Football Club Company Limited?

The Chairman of The Everton Football Club Company Limited, Mr. William Kenwright CBE, prepares to hand over the company chequebook to the Official Receiver, recently.

I herein post the following Uniform Resource Locator with no further comment, other than to say this; do others who care for the welfare of The Everton Football Club Company Limited share my sense of  outright trepidation this evening, on reading the enclosed content?

Transcript of meeting between members of "The Blue Union" and Mr. Wm. Kenwright, CBE

A salutary lesson to one and all

From a Public Information Film dating (from the evidence of the fashions sported by the players) from the early 1980's, rather than the 1970's as advertised; a lesson we should all learn.

And the lesson is this; never discuss your business, louche or otherwise, in front of the landlord of a public house whose accent vacillates all over the various regions of England, and who likes to dispense moral platitudes whilst serving you drinks. It should not surprise me if he were he who furnished the intelligence which landed the unfortunate "Jeff" in trouble with the foreign gendarmes in the first instance. That is obviously how he managed to afford the multiple trips to Spain to which he so gleefully alludes; he is a paid informant who has been placed into that public house as a cover for his grassing.

Notice, also, how the slippery so-and-so feigns concern for "Jeff's" girlfriend when the RADA-trained  flat-capped Liverpudlian, who appears to be "Jeff's" brother, walks in to break the bad news apropos the sentence ("oh, look... it's always the scousers, isn't it?" - Kelvin Mackenzie).

"I wonder how his girlfriend's going to take it?" , indeed. He knows perfectly well how she's going to take it, because he has been "trimming it" to her ever since "Jeff's" incarceration, inveigling his way into her affections using faux concern for "Jeff's" plight whilst she was at her most vulnerable, and then ensnaring her into a life of dependency using cocaine and heroin supplied by his handlers down at the station.

She's going to take it up the aris. As is "Jeff", in some stinking foreign nick. And it's all thanks to our friendly "mein host".

If you ever have the misfortune to have a landlord like this installed in your local hostelry, do not waste any time engaging him in small talk; just cut to the quick and glass him at the earliest opportunity.

Still, I suppose one thing has changed since the 1980's; "Jeff" got four years in a faraway foreign prison, in a land whose judiciary were far more severe than their counterparts in the United Kingdom, for possession of "a small piece of dope". In the present day democratic United Kingdom, it seems that he would get the same sentence for saying "let's have a riot" on Facebook.

Do others feel that "Jeff" got off lightly, in hindsight?

Fuckrie an' badderation in mi yard, mon

"Right, chaps... erm... cease an sekkle, big tings a-gwan in Babylon"... Mr. David Call-Me-Dave addresses the Witney Man Dem.

Spare a thought for the unelected Prime Minister and First Lord of The Treasury, Mr. David Call-Me-Dave. After the poor, unfortunate man had to cut short his £10,000 per week Tuscan holiday in order to show The Constabulary of the Metropolis how one should deal with civil unrest, following a spate of unorthodox late-night shopping at various locales in and around the London area, he now has to balance upon a delicate tightrope; he has to somehow demonstrate to the Daily Mail-reading classes that such flagrant terrorism will not go unpunished, whilst at the same time seeking not to alienate the people in the communities affected by the disturbances in case The Guardian find out some more about him and Rebekah Brooks mobilise the urban middle classes whose votes hold sway in Britain's major cities.

So, whilst the judiciary issue sentences of six months for such henious crimes as stealing a bottle of water, and Tory-controlled local authorities seek to evict poverty-stricken families because a 14-year-old youth was captured on CCTV breaking a window, Mr. Call-Me-Dave has been trying hard to demonstrate that he understands precisely what drives "de yoot" to take to the streets in such fashion. 

Today he unveiled a package of measures which will apparently save 125,000 families from disaster, and in order to lend his words a measure of "street cred" he chose to make his speech in front of a backdrop depicting some "urban graffiti", in the dangerous, deprived, racial melting-pot heart of "da ghetto" of Witney, Oxfordshire. That should do it, I feel.

However, Mr. Call-Me-Dave should be wary of such presentational tactics; there are ginnygogs powerful voices within the establishment who are claiming that such manoeuvres will only cast him in a negative light with Outraged of Burford. Those voices may have a point about certain "wannabe wiggas", but they have already been castigated as out-of-touch racists by the more liberal-minded corners of society.

So, what does Mr. Call-Me-Dave do? Does he cosy up to "da yoot", and risk alienating the Hang 'Em, Flog 'Em wing of The Conservative and Hooray Party, or does he launch all-out class war on the "feral rats" of the "chav" classes and risk further conflagrations nationwide?

Personally, I feel he and his friends Gideon and Boris should go and smash up a restaurant, like the old days. But perhaps they should choose one like Cummin' Up in Catford, in order to show their egalitarian side.

Do mi bredren say "eeh"?

Joke du jour

Courtesy of the Irish comedian Mr. Jimmy Carr, and allegedly originating from a public house in the environs of Melbourne, Australia:

"How do you make a gay man f*ck a woman?"

"Sh*t in her c*nt."

Do others have similar prized examples of such "kidney-punch" humour?

The mendacity of Labi Siffre (and others)

Liar.

It is something of an irritation, to myself at least, that many of the so-called "iconic" singer-songwriters of the modern-day era wilfully mislead the constituency of their listenership with the lyrics and sentiments of their so-called "anthems". They often issue platitudes in their polemic verse that creates what is at best a distortion of reality, and at worst a wholly mendacious rhetoric.

Take, for example, the case of Mr. Labi Siffre. Possibly his best-known work is a disk entitled "Something Inside So Strong",which begins with the following refrain:

"The higher you build your barriers, the taller I become".

This is emphatically not the case, and I hereby present anecdotal evidence to prove it.

In the unusually warm summer of 2005,  the twenty-something daughter of my next-door neighbours took the opportunity to engage in long bouts of sunbathing in their back garden. Sometimes, in order to create the "all-over" bronzed effect prized by young ladies, she would remove her top, revealing her  firm, pert breasts. Obviously, however, I only noticed her semi-naked presence en passant on several occasions, and each occasion was purely an accidental consequence of my having to tend to the plants in my garden which, given the unusually high temperatures, required liquid replenishment. Several times a day.

This activity was wholly misconstrued by the head of the household next door, and his attitude toward me because more and more hostile, which reached something of a "tipping point" one day when he claimed that my genitalia were deliberately exposed, and indeed manipulated, during one of my green-fingered excursions. Despite my protestations that they were old shorts that I was wearing, that had become rather baggy around one leg, and that all of my undergarments were in the wash that day and thus I had been forced to "go commando" and was merely seeking to readjust my dress, the next day he raised the height of the fence between our gardens from a height of three feet to a height of eight feet.

The resultant impact upon my sight lines made me feel like I was being oppressed, much as I imagine residents of East Berlin felt when they awoke one morning in 1961. However, I knew from Mr. Siffre's lament that justice would prevail, and that my neighbour's act of oppression would come to naught, as my height would soon increase to compensate, and I would soon have my former vistas reinstated... except that my height stubbornly remained at a mere six feet, and the reward for placing my trust in his words of so-called "wisdom" was the view of an unstained waney-lap panelled fence placing my prized begonias in the shade.

Had I known that Mr. Siffre was merely spouting empty platitudes, I should never have bought that CD of his greatest hits when I heard the track on an advertisement for a Peugeot automobile. I feel as if I have been cheated in so many ways. And I am sure that he is not the only such offender.

Do others have examples of being badly let down by the wilful mendacity of eminent singer-songwriters?

Stylish men about town; part 1 in an occasional series

Today, we focus on the City of Liverpool, and learn a lesson as a local fashion icon seeks to pour oil on troubled waters after an unfortunate administrative error takes place at his local turf accountants.

A shining example to us all, I am sure you will agree. It is almost humbling to witness.

Do others particularly admire the way in which he adheres to the gentleman's etiquette of wearing plain black socks on such formal occasions?

Being put off one's stroke, in the most literal of senses

Nein danke.

As the years advance, for many of us the concept of physical intimacy becomes very much a solo effort; when one's partner has availed herself to the martial bed after a hard day spent watching the "Coronation Street" televisual strand, it is inevitable that deep sleep will ensue on her part. Obviously it should be terribly undignified, not to mention downright rude, to prod a narcoleptic partner with one's tumescence (especially if such an intrusion carries the very real threat of an inadvertent Dutch oven), so one is left very much to one's own devices.

However, all is not lost; with a few clicks and a few flicks, sexual nirvana can be achieved with relatively little effort. One of the marvels of the white heat of the modern technological age is the ready availability of enabling material to get one in the right frame of mind, visual Viagra if you will. So, one settles down with what seems like a particularly appealing vignette, works oneself up to cruising speed... and then something at once strange and unsettling occurs. One finds oneself losing the will to continue, due to the perceived ugliness of the male performer.

This is strange to me, being of 100% bona-fide heterosexual proclivities; however, even if the vignette features three astonishingly attractive ladies performing all manner of stimulating acts, it all comes to naught if the gentleman involved in the rumpus resembles a silverback gorilla.  Or Alex McLeish.

One's olfactory synapses can almost detect all manner of deeply obnoxious and unpleasant smells of the kind issued by hairy, overweight wrestlers in a bout, even if one should have to travel 3,000 miles and 30 years into the past to actually arrive at the scene of the action. Why one should be distracted in such a manner, when one really does not seek to assess the aesthetic appeal of the male performer, is beyond me; however, once the rubicon is crossed in this way, I inevitably find myself readjusting my dress, clearing out my web cache, and searching the internet for images of the Focke-Wulf Ta 152 instead of blowing my biscuits.

One obvious suggestion is to contain oneself to viewing scenes involving solely lady performers; however, one finds it difficult to place oneself in the seat of the action in these circumstances, and therefore there is a profound sense of disengagement. Plus, they look as if they could well do without my involvement. One feels like a voyeur, in fact. And that should never do.

Have others fallen foul of this unfortunate phenomenon?

Sir Maurice Micklewhite; is he fucking precious, or what?

(Pictured: Sir Maurice Micklewhite provoking a good webbing from a large pugilist, recently)

I was intrigued to read in Private Eye, issue 1284, of Sir Maurice Micklewhite's rebuttal of his use of the oft-quoted phrase "not many people know that" via the iCorrect website.

In addition to the cornucopia of literary work which bears both his name and the said phrase ("Not Many People Know That: Michael Caine's Almanac of Amazing Information" (Coronet Books, 1984); "Not Many People Know This Is 1988; Michael Caine's File of Facts" (Coronet Books, 1988)), there is also the small matter of a film entitled "Educating Rita", in which Sir Maurice (playing Dr. Frank Bryant) quite clearly utters the words in a drunken scene as something of an "in-joke". I believe Sir Maurice was nominated for an Academy Award for this role, which makes it all the more surprising that it appears to have slipped his mind.

Still, if he wishes to disassociate himself from his more memorable quotations, then I would be most happy to be credited with them in his stead. After all, I am a big man, but I'm out of shape.

What do others think?

A Short Biography, by Dr. Nigel Reo-Coker (Professor Emeritus in Absolute Bollocks, Aston Polytechnic)

Currently retained by an investment bank to twiddle his thumbs animatedly, Crispin Cornelius Aloysius St. Clair Tampon (bestowed the sobriquet "Eric" by his father in order to avoid beatings) entered the world as the janglings and power chords of the first wave of British Popular Music gave way to the first fumblings up the self indulgent dayglo skirt of psychedelia. Raised on a rather nice tree-sodden council estate, Eric found himself consumed by anger engendered by decimalization rendering his collection of thrippenny bits worthless overnight. This anger was mainly vented at the Alpine pop wagon (Eric being a staunch supporter of Schofields' saccharine-laden Cream Soda offering).

School came and went in turbulent fashion for the young Eric; his ability to buy and sell his teachers in the arena of factual information earned him a place on the autistic spectrum and several good shoeings. Any interest in formal education the lad may have had were finally ended by the insidious attentions of a squat middle-aged deputy headmaster, who was also a predatory homosexual. Happily for Eric, he cottoned on to the fact that the slobbering Welshman had more than his "O"-level results in mind, and emerged from the encounter with his fundament virgo intacta. The other party later "went postal" in class and was last heard of in the confines of an order of Franciscan monks.

In fact, the only thing to really capture the attentions of the pubescent Eric was The Everton Football Club Company Limited; Eric's father was nominally a supporter of The Red Bastards of Beelzebub, but was one of the legion of "supporters" who "couldn't get the tickets, lad". One day, shortly after his 11th birthday, a friend of Eric's procured two Main Stand tickets at Goodison Park for a fixture versus Coventry City FC, which resulted in a 6-0 victory for The Toffees and featured a hat-trick from a fabled figure known to the crowd as "Fat Latch". Eric was thus trapped in the manner of the bluebottle within the spider's web, and a lifetime of cynicism and almost constant disappointment was ensured, with the odd moment of coruscating happiness to balance things out.

Having drifted out of education and into low-paid work, Eric rose without trace through a blur of pharmaceuticals, broken relationships and frenzied wanking, and became the UK's pre-eminent Systems Analyst, a position he held without any real challenge until 1999, when he simply gave it up because he couldn't be arsed anymore. Now earning just enough to pay for his rather constraining mortgage and outsize wardrobe, and having become a permanent fixture of the morass of self-centred lower-middle class pricks in London's outer suburbs, his attentions were now focused on a new, burning ambition; the desire to become the nicest man to infest internet message boards.

Having since been dismissed by the constituency of such fora as something of a crank, Eric feels that he is merely a misunderstood soul, a voice of surreal wisdom in a howling wilderness of Meow-Meow fuelled madness and pervasive greed. With this in mind, he has decided to concentrate his thoughts into one corner of the virtual playground, with the occasional visit to a nearby toilet for a quick piss now and then. Some regard these thoughts as being the product of a brilliant, yet tortured mind; some regard them with a mixture of bewilderment and curiosity; and some just laugh like a fucking drain at the soft twat. And not in a good way, either.

Nevertheless, to quote Eric himself, the question remains... "What do others think?"