As A Dodo: January 2007

31 January 2007

Blackpool's Las Vegas Dreams 2006-2007

The people of Blackpool are today jumping up and down on their "Kiss Me Quick" hats and snapping their little sticks of Blackpool rock in two as they remember their dreams of building a new Las Vegas on the shores of the Irish Sea, dreams which were brought to an untimely end on Tuesday with the decision to award the government's new "supercasino" to Manchester.

Blackpool's Las Vegas Dreams were born in May 2006, the offspring of a government desperate to grab itself a nice slice of the gambling profit pie and a council desperate to regenerate a seaside town haunted by an unhjoly mixture of the vomiting remnants of the last few stag and hen parties unable to afford the low-cost airfare to Dublin or Prague and bewildered gangs of nostalgic pensioners wandering the streets in the mistaken belief that the thriving resort of their youth hadn't turned into a place with all the charm of a Glaswegian proctologist.

Soon Blackpool was dreaming of transforming itself into a new Las Vegas - its badly-suited doormen and surly one-armed bandit attendants transformed into uniformed bellhops and unctuous one-armed bandit attendants, its low-grade lapdancing clubs transformed into high-class lapdancing clubs and its "world-famous" Tower, Illuminations and Pleasure Beach transformed into attractions that might stand a chance of being famous outside the North of England let alone around the world. Up and down the sea front, attraction owners fell into reveries as they contemplated the possibility of swapping the daily grind of separating bored teens, problem gamblers and lonely pensioners from their pennies for the pleasant task of separating bored rich people, problem gamblers and lonely pensioners from their life-savings.

Blackpool's Las Vegas Dreams were not to be fulfilled. Their death was announced by The Casino Advisory Panel, who decided on Tuesday to award the rights to build the new supercasino in Manchester rather than the seaside resort, presumably on the basis that the north-west's leading city was the only location with a high enough murder rate to justify Grissom and the gang jetting over from the original Las Vegas to launch yet another extension to the CSI franchise.

Blackpool's Las Vegas Dreams will be buried under the floor of the Tower Ballroom on Friday. They are survived by an ever-declining number of tourists and a massive increase in problem gambling in Manchester.

29 January 2007

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Rapid Global Warming 1979-2007

The death of Rapid Global Warming was received with scenes of joyous celebration around the world after it was announced that President George W Bush - inspired by the brilliant work of Montgomery T Burns and Professor Ogden Wernstrom - had authorised a crack squad of highly-trained giant mirrors to assassinate it by cutting off its vital supply of light from the sun.

Rapid Global Warming was born in 1979 to a long line of Warmings which have ruled the planet since time immemorial. The youngest Warming quickly set to work in the family business and soon made its parents proud as it increased the rate of land temperature twice as fast as ocean temperatures. Setting a pace faster than any predecessor since that embarrassing incident with the barbie led to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, many critics alleged that it was only able to maintain itself by mainlining fossil fuels in quantities that would make even Keith Richards wobble slightly and go, “Wow!”

Throughout the 80s and 90s, Rapid Global Warming was engaged in a long battle against opponents such as The Greens, riding rough-shod over claims that its fossil fuel intake would lead to the destruction of the planet and breaking into their house at night while they were sleeping, to leave their TV, stereo and PC on standby and leave their fridge door open.

It was in the early twenty-first century that the first blow against Rapid Global Warming was struck, when the US government, realising that invading foreign countries for oil is a lot more trouble than it’s worth, rushed to staunch its haemorrhaging popularity by launching a sneak attack using the most-sophisticated sun-blocking technology since the invention of the knotted handkerchief. Crippled by the most cunning plan in space since the cool-headed and logical thinking which gave birth to President Reagan’s Star Wars laser-missile defence plan, Rapid Global Warming quickly fell into decline. It finally passed away at the weekend at its family home, with all the windows open and the radiators on full blast.

Rapid Global Warming will be cremated on top of a giant oil well at St Bush’s Church of Last-Ditch Idiotic Ideas. It is survived by the US government’s plan to save us all by launching giant mirrors into space to block sunlight from reaching the Earth, and an increased use of fossil fuels and nuclear power to meet the giant surge in demand for electricity as we try to see just where the hell we’re going and what the f**k we’re doing during the long, dark days of the coming Ice Age.

27 January 2007

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But Not Forgotten: Week Ending 27 January 2007

26 January 2007

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The English Counter-Reformation 2006-2007

Political historians have today confirmed the death of the English Counter-Reformation, the attempt by a devout group led by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Secretary of State for Communities Ruth Kelly and Prime Minister Tony Blair to overturn more than 300 years of the English state not being told what to do by the Church.

It was in the summer of 2006 that the desperate band, inspired by such martyrs as Sir Thomas "throw another heretic on the barbie" More and Guy "not the political blogger" Fawkes, not to mention the religious teachings of the 43rd President of the United States, the blessed George W of Bush, first hatched an audacious plan to suborn the will of Parliament to anybody who could claim they received direct instructions from (a) a higher being and/or (b) the aforementioned Mr Bush.

It is understood that the group first began meeting in secret in the middle of 2006, when - along with a large number of faith leaders from across the country - they hatched plans to overcome the will of Parliament by forcing the abandonment of the Faith School Quotas scheme. It was the startling success of this project that led the group to plot their most audacious coup yet - blowing up the provisions of the Equality Act 2006 with regard to adoption of children by homosexual couples on the grounds that the idea of placing children in the care of loving couples of the same sex was abhorrent to God, whereas heterosexual couples who occasionally play "hide the sausage" in the wrong bit of the bun are just indulging in a little forgivable experimentation.

In January 2007, as their plan to blow up the Equality Act 2006 neared completion, the plotters were joined by no less a figure than the Archbishop of Canterbury who, despite having argued that it is "imperative to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage" still held it more important to support the view of anybody who espoused a faith, however medieval, than his own moral beliefs. Soon the Archbishop was supporting the rebels' stance in public and in private allowing them a secret meeting place inside his beard.

It was only this week that the Counter-Reformers were apprehended whilst trying to to sneak a number of explosive crucifixes into the cellars of the Houses of Parliament. Though the Archbishop and Cardinal are expected to be allowed to go free as a mark of respect for their offices, Messrs Kelly and Blair will be publicly hanged, drawn and quartered by their party colleagues.

The English Counter Reformation 2006-2007 is survived by the Equality Act 2006 and the tattered remnants of Tony Blair's leadership of the Government.

24 January 2007

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Branscombe Beach c. 160,000,000BC-2007

Mourners are already gathering to commemorate Devon's Branscombe Beach which died this week after being poisoned by the cargo ship MSC Napoli and trampled to death by freelance “environmentalists” engaged in a desperate last-ditch “rescue mission” (their mission being to rescue as much free stuff as possible before the police realised that taking shipwrecked goods without consent is actually theft).

Branscombe Beach began its very long life during the Jurassic Period over 200 million years ago when a marine incursion flooded Devon, providing it with its first shale beaches, spectacular cliffs, wonderful sea views and the beginnings of a long history of coastal vandalism.

For most of its life, Branscombe Beach contented itself with lying around and staring peacefully out to sea – its seaside idyll shattered only by the occasional passing teenage Ichthyosaur pausing just long enough to leave it’s footprint in some fresh shale for posterity.

It was with the arrival of Man that Branscombe Beach’s life changed forever. Early Neanderthals would gather by the sea in summer to complain that the beach was pebbly and not sandy, scream at their children, and dream of a day when the sea would bear giant cargo coracles that they could lure to the shore and pillage.

Celtic tribes settled near the beach around the start of the last millennium but continuous battles over seaside cream-tea franchises are thought to have taken their toll on the Beach. Its health continued to suffer in its later years as hopes of a quiet retirement were further dashed by an influx of smugglers and professional shipwreckers, lighting fires on the Beach and luring unsuspecting ships (and seamen) to their death in the hope of “salvaging” the latest tricorn hats bound for the Americas, or a BMW coach and four.

The Beach's weakened constitution was dealt a fatal blow last weekend when the MSC Napoli, bound for South Africa, foundered just off the strand, choking the Beach with fuel oil and the personal possessions of a Swedish family – including their prized collection of Abba albums and a cherished Ikea "Billy" bookcase that had been in the family for nearly 15 years.

Branscombe Beach was buried beneath a mountain of twisted freight containers, shattered gear-boxes, nappies and looters who were “just looking after the motorbike until we can return it to its rightful owner”, not to mention a thin veneer of oil, dead marine life and asphyxiated seabirds. The local council has refused permission for a cremation.

The Beach is survived by hundreds of miles of unspoilt Devon coastline – until the next ship disgorges its cargo providing a magnet for thieves from as far away as Middlesborough, desperate to get their hands on an empty barrel or some brine-flavoured cat food.

22 January 2007

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The Home Office 1782-2007

The death of The Office of the Secretary of State for the Home Department (known to friends and enemies alike simply as The Home Office) following a brutal altercation with a notorious Glaswegian hard man known to gang members as Secretary of State John Reid will be greeted with shock but little horror by all those who had come to know it.

Born in 1782, the child of the Southern Department and Secretary of State Lord Shelburne (who was soon to abandon his progeny for the post of Prime Minister), from its earliest days The Home Office was at the heart of some of the greatest controversies to afflict the nation. Before it had even learned to crawl it was already involved in the most vital affairs of state, including such matters as the direction of Crown grants, appointments and preferments (a role which we are advised certainly was not subsequently assigned to Lord Levy or Ruth Turner).

It was only in its fourth decade, however, that The Home Office was to settle into the job (perhaps one might even say vocation) that it was to cleave to for the next two hundred years, namely the suppression of the people - individually and severally - which it achieved by suspension of habeas corpus, restrictions on the freedom of assembly and granting its support to such brilliant policing actions as the Peterloo Massacre. It was not long after this that, under the direction of Home Secretary Robert Peel, The Home Office first began to dabble in class A legislation.

The hard life which the Home Office was to lead (setting up prison hulks, sending felons to Australia, locking up Chartists and General Strikers and later even the odd Blackshirt), combined with an ever-increasing intake of bills and statutes, began to take a toll. In the mid-1960s, under the influence of Home Secretary Roy "Flowerchild" Jenkins, The Home Office briefly fell out with "the man" and engaged in a series of permissive "happenings", including relaxation of divorce law and abolition of theatre censorship as well as supporting the legalisation of abortions and homosexuality. This "fabulous freak out" turned out to be a brief mid-life crisis before the department of state began the slide into old age.

By the 1980s The Home Office was showing obvious signs of being unable to care for itself. Around the same time it fell under the influence of the first in a sequence of Home Secretaries who were themselves addicted to regular injections of publicity (or "chasing the Murdoch"). Forced to push out more and more laws of lower and lower quality, in recent years The Home Office has shown increasing signs of forgetfulness - often misplacing thousands of prisoners at a time - and paranoia, first insisting on keeping every last citizen under constant CCTV observation, later demanding that each person be required to carry an identity card and be willing to give up their full DNA details to any state employee from a benefits assessor to a lollipop lady. It was in this distracted state that The Home Office first came into contact with John Reid. The tragic result was inevitable.

The Home Office will be buried with little ceremony over the following months, it leaves behind it 24,000 highly dependent civil servants and its two young children, the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Love.

20 January 2007

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But Not Forgotten: Week Ending 20 January 2007

19 January 2007

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Celebrity Big Brother 2001-2007

Celebrity Big Brother's place in the nation's affections died this week, live on national television, following a massive public protest against the bullying of Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty by the trio of luminaries that is Jade Goody (reality TV show loser), Danielle Lloyd (second string glamour model and footballer's girlfriend) and Jo O’Meara (dog breeder and former S CLub 7 member).

Born in 2001, Celebrity Big Brother was the fruit of an unholy attempt to meddle with nature by knitting together the lowest forms of reality TV - together with a collection of talentless Z-listers, has-beens and sociopaths ... and Jack Dee - to create a monster capable of milking credulous couch potatoes entertaining the British public.

Over the next seven years, Celebrity Big Brother was to corral a series of increasingly-desperate and publicity-hungry non-entities in its televisual zoo in a horrendous spectacle not seen since the closure of the public gallery of Bedlam. So-called celebrities such as Les Dennis, Germaine Greer, Michael Barrymore and George Galloway eagerly debased themselves on national television in a desperate bid to boost their public appeal. Sadly for anyone with faith in the British public, the plan succeeded.

It was with this year’s crop of intellectual heavyweights and entertainment superstars that the programme reached an all-time low as producers signed up Jade Goody: a woman whose fame is based on the solid foundation of not knowing the location of “East Angular”, national guilt brought on by a campaign of tabloid villification and the failure to win a past series of Big Brother. Faced with the psychological torture of being placed in close proximity to a woman from another country with a posh-sounding accent and a greater chance of stringing two words together without either involving an Anglo-Saxon monosyllable than her own, Ms Goody, along with acolytes Ms Lloyd and Ms O'Meara, was understandably left with no choice but to resort to a campaign of petty-minded and foul mouthed-abuse unworthy of a playground spat.

The ailing programme's demise came with the decision of sponsor Carphone Warehouse to withdraw Channel 4’s vital supply of sponsorship cash after a suggestion that the company change it's name to Freakshow Warehouse failed to win favour.

News of the programme's demise was greeted with enormous sadness by those lined up to take part in the next programme, believed to include Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning and Adolf Hitler. Celebrity Big Brother is survived by Channel 4's premium rate eviction line, Endemol’s enormous bank balance and the worst period in Anglo-Indian relations since the Raj.

16 January 2007

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Low Inflation 1992-2007

Bank managers and Building Society heads were today united in sadness at the death of Low Inflation, a sadness which they chose to express by immediately cancelling all their low-rate, fixed-interest mortgage offers and preparing to issue foreclosure notices against any debtor who even considered looking at them in an even slightly needy way.

Low Inflation was born in the UK in 1992, the product of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont's decision to jilt the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in favour of a brief liaison with a sexy floating pound in the bathtub. So disturbing was this event - not to mention the image of Norman Lamont in a bath inextricably associated with it - that it will forever be known as Black Wednesday. It was in this dark period that Low Inflation first saw the light of day in the British economy, perhaps due to the fact that at the time there was precious little British economy left to inflate.

Over the following years, Low Inflation was to come to dominate the British economic scene, ushering in a time of prosperity, rapidly rising house prices and spending like there was no tomorrow on essential 1990s items like Magic Eye posters, PlayStation consoles and Robson and Jerome tapes. So popular was low inflation that in 1997, new Chancellor Gordon Brown placed it at the centre of his policies, right alongside blaming the Conservative Party for anything that went wrong and wishing Tony Blair was dead. This ushered in a period of yet more prosperity, even more rapidly rising house prices and spending like there wasn't even much of today left on essential 21st century items like Harry Potter books, Gorillaz interactive CDs and DVD players.

Such a Golden Age could not last. By the early noughties the British economy was beginning to show a fatal addiction to ever more expensive energy sources and an unfortunate tendency to drop bombs on the places that provided them. This, combined with rapidly rising house prices and spending like the world was about to end on essentials like ultraslim jeans, Arctic Monkeys mp3s and giant flatscreen tellies, was ultimately to lead to low inflation's death.

Low Inflation will be buried under a mountain of overextended credit cards and secured debt. It is survived by a weeping Gordon Brown, some very rich energy company officials and a lot of people wondering if an LCD TV the size of a football pitch was really an essential purchase.

15 January 2007

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John Reid's Fitness for Purpose 5 May 2006 – 15 January 2007

13 January 2007

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But Not Forgotten: 13 January

12 January 2007

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David Beckham's Spanish Career 2003-2007

Footballers will today sign a series of vastly over-remunerative sponsorship deals in memory of the Spanish Career of former England soccer captain David Robert Joseph Beckham, which has finally passed away after months of illness, bravely borne.

David Beckham's Spanish Football Career was born in 2003 to a barrowload of money from Real Madrid and a blazing row with Sir Alex Ferguson. Within seconds of its birth it was hailed as a "galactico", a Spanish term that translates into English as "overpaid, big name footballer who will fail to assist Real's quest for a major trophy" - a role which David was to fulfil perfectly during the three-and-a-half years of his Spanish Career's life. From the outset he threw himself into his new life: despite many struggles and missteps he eventually came to grips with a complex language and, having finally mastered sufficient English to conduct an interview without need to resort to signs, even went on to learn some simple Spanish words, including the phrases, "How much will you pay me to do that?", "Where is the mobile of Rebecca Loos?" and "No, my wife's breasts are all her own, honest, the strange ridge at the top is due to a complex genetic condition".

While matters off the field were going well, with regular appearances in celebrity gossip magazines and tabloids encouraging regular transfusions of cash from major sponsors, matters on the pitch fared rather worse. Soon, the Spanish Career was showing signs of illness, with the young star who had burst onto the scene from the wing soon showing signs of fizzling out - like so many overswerved free kicks - meaninglessly in the middle of the pitch. It was not long before the Career was not even fit enough to make its regular cameo appearances from the bench and was instead transferred to the reserves where its final, sad moments could be kept from the media.

Despite such treatment, Beckham himself managed to keep his spirits to the last, even managing to joke with reporters gathered around the Spanish Career's deathbed that its end had nothing to do with Los Angeles Galaxy's £125 million offer and was "all about the kids". It was as the chorus of raucous laughter this quip engendered died down that the Spanish Career breathed its last.

A moving ceremony will be held for David Beckham's Spanish Football Career this summer, during which a series of removal men will transfer a vast number of overpriced clothing and gold-plated furniture from Spain to Los Angeles. It will be attended by all Victoria and David Beckham's new Hollywood friends, just as soon as they can buy some. The Spanish Career was predeceased by David Beckham's England Career. It is survived by Hello magazine.

10 January 2007

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Tony Blair's Green Credentials 1994-2007

Tony Blair’s Green Credentials died this week after a long battle with plausibility when they were finally shot down in flames by his own sustainable development adviser, JonathonPorritt

Tony Blair’s Green Credentials were born in July 1994 when he became leader of the Labour Party and immediately began throwing out old Labour policies harmful to the chances of Tony Blair ever becoming prime minister. Clause IV – the party’s commitment to the common ownership of the means of production and exchange – was replaced with more Blair-friendly values such as unbridled consumerism, private finance initiatives and large cash “loans” for peerages, along with a new emphasis on sounding caring about the environment while actually doing bugger all about it.

With New Labour’s election victory in May 1997 Tony Blair’s Green Credentials were firmly ensconced at Number Ten – behind a desk made from timber taken from a renewable source, and in an office powered solely by the sun shining out of Mr Blair’s backside.

Tony's Green Credentials made their mark on the map by instigating a widespread plan to reduce governmental waste by recycling old Conservative policies such as privatising national assets, mucking up education and the NHS, appointing Home Secretaries who apparently base their moral philosophy on Genghis Khan and allowing cabinet ministers to become embroiled in embarrassing personal and financial scandals.

The unwavering pursuit of the eco-friendly even extended beyond Britain’s borders when, despite evidence to the contrary, Tony's Green Credentials refused to create new foreign policies, instead insisting on using second-hand American policies on waste disposal - largely involving the transportation of metals, explosives and depleted uranium to the Middle East where they were used to recycle buildings into rubble and people into bodybags

Sadly the continuing uncontrolled noxious emissions from cabinet ministers – particularly John Reid, David Millibandand Ruth Kelly – sounded the death knell for Tony Blair’s Green Credentials. When Mr Blair himself refused to accept the disastrous consequences of long-haul flights for the environment, or the unacceptable size of the scandal footprint left by his free holidays at the homes of bland UK pop stars, the Credentials slipped into a coma before being pronounced dead by green activists and Mr Blair's own environment minister.

The service for Tony Blair’s Green Credentials will be conducted at St Sellafield's Holy Roman Reprocessing Plant before being leaked into the Irish Sea.

Tony Blair’s Green Credentials are survived by David Cameron’s solar-powered, hydro-electric windmill and Menzies Campbell’s extraordinary conservation of energy.

08 January 2007

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Those Who Knew Them: Magnus Magnusson 1929-2007

For the latest in our series of personal tributes from those closest to the recently deceased, we at As A Dodo are honoured to have been granted an audience by one of Magnus Magnusson's most famous co-workers, the Mastermind Chair.

I doubt there can be anyone in Britain over the age of 20 for whom the death of Magnus Magnusson will not cause a moment's pause as they ponder the passing away of a significant period in their past. As host of Mastermind - a programme in which I am proud to have played a significant, though non-speaking, role for 25 years - his was one of the faces that stared out from the screen at a whole nation. He was a significant star in the televisual firmament at a time when all of us would gather before it to gaze at its wonder. As host of Mastermind throughout the seventies and eighties he belonged to that curious pantheon of on-screen figures - Morecambe and Wise, Tom Baker as Doctor Who, The Two Ronnies, Jack Warner's George Dixon, newsreader Kenneth Baker - who were worshipped by families sitting on their sofas on dark winter evenings, tucking into tea and biscuits as they bathed in the glow from the cathode-ray tube. Such was his fame that he was even to stand alongside Harold Wilson, Frank Spencer and assorted members of the cast of Coronation Street as one of the people 1970s comedians really couldn't do an impression of.

What was he like? Ask any of the Mastermind contestants and they will tell you he was charming, courteous, humorous, kind. It was a side, I regret to say, I was not to see myself until our joint retirement from the programme in 1997. Before that I could only sit opposite him - usually more than a little encumbered by the bottom of some obsessive tax-office worker, local council accountant or other person with too much time on their hands and too few social skills in their personality - and watch his magnificent performance as the programme's quiz master. Introduced by the lumbering, threatening tones of "Approaching Menace", Magnus asked his questions in a manner more usually associated with Laurence Olivier plunging a dentist's drill into Dustin Hoffman's premolars. As inquisitor he was dour, unsmiling, intolerant of error and more than a little surly, somehow succeeding in giving the impression of being beyond such petty human concepts as pity or mercy. Not only did this brilliant charade help to give the programme its bite and attract an audience of up to 22 million, it was also to prove the inspiration for Gordon Brown's on-screen appearances.

It was as the programme came to a (thankfully temporary) end on terrestrial television in 1997 that I was finally united with the man I had for so long admired from a distance, when he freed me from my BBC shackles and allowed me to join him in Scotland. Over the years I have been sat on by many rears, the rears of winners and losers, brewing technology supervisors and polytechnic lecturers, barristers and bus conductors, but out of all of them there has only been one set of buttocks by which it has been a pleasure to have been graced.