Oh this is going to be good. Apparently an eskimo is going to come over here to tell us that we're all very bad for wanting to fly to Prague for twenty quid and that if we all don't stop it very shortly he's going to be living in a puddle instead of an igloo.

First up I see a marketing opportunity, maybe I could open a shop in Alaska selling fridges.

And hang on, he's going to come over here. How's he getting here; on the back of a whale? But wait there's more...

Nicodemus Illauq, an Inuit from northern Canada, told the gathering in Belize of representatives of Arctic peoples and island states

Belize! That would be this Belize located just north of the equator would it? What the fuck were they doing in Belize and how the hell did they get there! Penny to a pound they flew there as it's a fuck of a paddle in a kayak I can tell you.

Turns out that out fur clad friend has already written his speech so lets have a listen shall we...

Hello Mr Aqqualung... pull up a penguin and sit yourself down and do take those tennis racquets off your feet.

What happens in Britain affects us in the north. You may say that the expansion of London Stansted airport will play only a small part in increasing climate change, but everyone can say that about almost everything they do. It is an excuse for doing nothing. The result of that attitude would be catastrophic.

Our air travel contributions are a zit on an arse the size of jupiter. You would be better off going and having a word with the Chinese and Indians but I recon they would give you pretty short shrift.

Most flights from Stansted are not for an important purpose. They are mostly for holidays and leisure.

Pardon? Who the fuck are you to tell me what is and isn't important to me? Look you tosspot we work fucking hard in shitty jobs for employers who treat us like the dogshit on their shoes; those few days away in the sun or getting hammered in Bucharest are all that keeps the vast majority of us sane.

The Inuit are experiencing first- hand the adverse effects of climate change. We are on the front line of globalisation.

Tell that to all the poor fucks whose jobs have been outsourced to India.

For generations, Inuit have observed the environment and have accurately predicted weather, enabling us to travel safely on the sea-ice to hunt seals, whales, walrus, and polar bears

What do you want, a fucking medal? For years my ancestors observed the environment and predicted weather enabling them to plant and reap fields and rear sheep. Then we invented weather sattelites and the science of meteorology so we don't need those skills any more. All that statement says to me is that you're not a very advanced people. Oh and hunting whales and those nice furry seals... you are going to find out that that doesn't play well with the home crowd here, even when you say...

We don't hunt for sport or recreation. Hunters put food on the table. You go to the supermarket, we go on the sea-ice.

We used to do that too, then we invented supermarkets. Do you know why we did this? Well basically because nipping down to Tescos for a bung-it-in-the-oven lasagna is a fuck of a lot easier than crawling through the undergrowth for hours tracking some bloody deer. Now are you going to have the balls to ask your people, really ask them "Now what would you prefer: sitting freezing your arse off for hours in the hope of skewering a walrus or popping into Sainsburys for a packet of sausages?" because I bet I can tell you the answer.

When we can no longer hunt on the sea-ice, we will no longer exist as a people.

Yes you fucking will. The English no longer do maypole dancing, weave their own cloth or make motorcycles any more and still exist as a people. If you define yourself as a people only by your ability to hack whales into little bits then maybe it's time you stopped existing as a people.

Talk to hunters across the north and they will tell you the same story: the weather is increasingly unpredictable. The look and feel of the land is different. The sea-ice is changing. We have even lost experienced hunters through the ice in areas that, traditionally, were safe.

We had kind of noticed the weather is changing here too you know. Anyway I'm sure the walruses found your experienced hunters to be very tasty. Global warming kind of evens up the odds, eh, Nanook?

Several Inuit villages have already been so damaged by global warming that relocation, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, is now their only option.

Well you better get relocating then hadn't you. Let me introduce you to the east coast of the UK where in some places coastal erosion has made whole communities have to relocate. There's nothing permanent about human habitation; coastlines change, rivers alter course, people move; it's what makes humans so successful as a species.

Climate change is not just a theory to us in the Arctic, it is a stark and dangerous reality.

OK so now you need a good beating with the science stick. Global Warming, or more accurately the anthropogenic theory of global warming, is as much a theory as evolution, gravity and relativity.

Some might dismiss our concerns, saying: "The Arctic is far away and few people live there." That would be immensely short-sighted, as well as callous.

The key is "few people live there". Sure it's a bit of a pisser for you but like it or not your way of life is going to have to change. You change, you adapt and you survive; fail to do so and you die. That's not being callous, that's just reality.

Polar bears, walrus, ringed seals and other species of seals are projected to virtually disappear. Our ecosystem will be transformed, with tragic results. Where will we go then for our food?

I feel more sorry for the bloody polar bears than I do for you, you whiny fuck. You can change, they have fewer options. As to where will you go for you food I refer you to the supermarkets I mentioned earlier.

Climate change in the Arctic is not just an environmental issue with unwelcome economic consequences.

I think that you'll find that it is!

It is a matter of individual and cultural survival. It is a human issue. The Arctic is our home and homeland.

Well you're just going to have to up sticks and move to the rockier bits aren't you. Look mate, my "home and homeland" is in a fucking swamp 2 metres above sea level so assuming our lovely government isn't going to see some fucking sense and stop pouring money into the black hole that is Africa and pour it into sea defences for their own citizens then at some point my "individual and cultural survival" will rely on me moving. Why the fuck are you any different?

What can Inuit - only 155,000 of us - do about this global situation?

Bugger all, quite frankly.

We are not asking the world to takes a backward economic step

I think that you'll find that's exactly what you're asking the world to do.

All we are asking is that our neighbours in the south greatly reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

OK, you stop murdering those cute seals and we'll see what we can do.

This does not need big sacrifices, but it will need some change in people's lifestyles. Is that plane trip really necessary?

But you don't need to change your lifestyle, right? And that plane trip might not be necessary (is yours to come here to the enquiry - you could send us a videotape but that would cut down on those photo-ops that all politicians like you love so much) but it's my money and I'll fucking decide what to do with it and wankstains like you can go and take a running jump if you think you can tell me otherwise.

Now put those stupid tennis racquets back on and piss off.

It's like rain, on your wedding day

"Isn't it ironic, don't you think?"

That the parents of a child how has been abducted possibly by a paedophile are looking forward to a private audience with the leader of an organisation which has active paedophiles in its ranks and which has and continues to cover up and protect child abuse and the abusers.

Oh and I was bloody right in my last post about the fucking Gulfstream jet as well!!

Retail tycoon Mr Green, who owns Top Shop, had offered the couple his 12-seater Gulfstream jet after hearing about the abduction.

News from the future.

Dragons, being of a somewhat magical nature, occasionally experience timeslips when flying about and I had one a day or two ago. Unfortunately for you (and me) I didn't manage to get tomorrow's lottery numbers but I did manage to snag this news item from May 2008...

Pogo Bounce for Madeleine
Increasingly desperate to keep a jaded and disinterested press reporting on the now all but abandoned search for their missing daughter Gerry and Kate McCann today waved off 30 bewildered and confused children on the first leg of the Praia da Luz, Portugal to London, England pogo stick hop.

"We are determined to pully any stupid, fuckwitted stunt out of our arses to keep our story in the news," Gerry McCann, father of the missing child, said today. Although doctors have advised the couple that they expect at least half of the participants to expire from exhaustion before they reach the Spanish border the McCanns were reported as saying "We are sure that this is what Madeleine would have wanted. Anyway a few dead sprogs might get our story a bit higher to the top of the BBC News webpage, well at least above Chris Tarrant throwing a spoon and a fucking exploding snake. for christ's sake!"

As the children bounced off into the distance Mrs McCann added "We are convinced, despite all evidence to the contrary, that out little girl will be found safe and well; we also believe that the moon is made of cheese, Elvis is alive and that my next child will be the result of immaculate conception. After all, we are catholics and as such used to believing in anything, no matter how brain-dead a notion it might be."

Deflecting criticism of the controversy surrounding the fund set up to aid the search for the child they lost whilst getting rat-arsed in a tapas bar in the town, the McCanns added "It is essential that we have as much money as possible to help us in the search for Madeleine. The forty room seafront mansion we bought is an absolute requirement to house the team of masseurs, personal trainers and media consultants who have kindly offered their services to aid us. Also we need the Gulfstream V to be able to get us to press conferences anywhere in the world at a moments notice."

"We know that most of the money came from little old ladies who were subsequently not able to heat their homes last winter but we are sure that as they gasped their last breath collapsed on the floors of their freezing houses that they were comforted by the fact that they were helping to find our little angel."

Last word on Eurovision - honest

Just one last thing and then I'll shut up about it.

I was having a look through the referrers to the blog this morning and someone had arrived here following a Google search for "Scootch naked pictures"

I would also like to apologies on the people in the second carriage of the 7.19 Cambridge to London train for vomiting all over them as that image burned itself into my brain.

Ils ont oublier le plot

Oh now this is getting silly, some bloody twat of an MP with obviously nothing to do on behalf of his constituents today has said that the Eurovision song contest voting system needs to be changed because it is "harmful to European relations".

No it isn't. Hitler annexing the Sudentenland was bad for European relations, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was bad for European relations. Montenegro giving Serbia douze points in some silly singing contest that no-one takes seriously is most decidedly not bad for European relations.

An utterly pathetic attempt by some fuckwit politico to jump on one of the weediest bandwagons going; remember we pay their salaries people!

Mind you, maybe next year we could send our Franz Ferdinand to Eurovision and with any luck they'll get assassinated by this year's winners.

From silly to stupid

So far I've held my peace on the missing ankle-biter in Portugal business but today it's just gone from being silly to outright stupid.

On the say-so of some twat journalist from that paragon of reportage that is the Sunday Mirror some poor sod had been arrested and questioned; his crime according to this piece of cuntsnot is:

"He was just too close to the investigation," Ms Campbell said. "He was spending far too much time talking to the media and he was coming in and out of the apartments and speaking to us as if he was somebody official."

Look Campbell you despicable turd, at the very worst that makes him a sad git but the British media, desperate to keep this story going so they can shift a few more papers to the ghouls who like to read about this stuff, have fitted up this poor sod.

"Oh he has a daughter the same age and the spitting image of missing whatsherface." Yeah so he's probably feeling pretty cut up about it all and so genuinely wants to help, it's not as if he's just interfering for the sake of it, he's got some useful skills that he can bring what with being bilingual and all. "He spoke to us too much!" Yeah right, and I bet you pestered him night and day to talk to you because the plod were telling you nothing.

The clincher is of course that he looks like the perfect image the media have of a nasty evil peedofil; tinted glasses - check, badly fitting polyester clothing - check, general undefinable look of creepyness you can't quite put your finger on - check, lives with aged mother - check.

I really, really hope that he is as innocent as a day-old lamb and that he sues Ms Campbell and her tawdry hack rag every which way to Christmas and back.

And you really don't want me to get started on what I think of the parents.

Nul Points Encore

Ok so it wasn't the greatest Eurovision ever. To be honest there were only two songs that vaguely stood out, Roger Cicero's german swing tune and the one from Georgia with the cossack dancers that sounded a bit like a cross between Bjork and "Ray of Light" era Madonna. Everything else rather became a bit of a wash of noise and belly-dancers with a guest appearance by Timmy Mallet wrapped in Bacofoil "singing" the Ukrainian entry and some other country who decided to send a Goa'uld complete with hand mounted zappy light to do their song. Oh and Ireland, you are a nation of musicians so how the fuck did you manage to send the once person in the whole country who couldn't hold a tune in a bucket?

Still, congratulations and respect to Serbia who had the balls to send a bunch of lesbians - decent enough tune as well as far as I can remember but by this time I'd pretty much finished the wine so it was all a bit hazy.

Ireland rather spoilt the party though by giving the UK entry some votes, we were onto the prospect of a nul pointer up to then which at least has some merit. Not quite sure what happened there but the silly song we submitted just didn't seem to play too well on the stage that they had in Helsinki, it seemed to lose intimacy and have all the fun stripped out of it; the lurid backgrounds didn't help either I thought and the sound did seem muddy so I suspect a mic balance problem or an Al-Qiadia sympathizer behind the mixing desk. Well that and the fact that, on balance, it wasn't that strong a tune compared to the others.

I'll bet Justin was giggling into his beer though, not that he would have done any better.

Got to admit that the "vote for your neighbour" is starting to be more than a bit stupid though, especially as Yugoslavia gets to vote for itself about eight times. And nobody seems to put any effort into the interval thingie any more; I guess after Riverdance everyone has said "Oh sod it, we'll never top that, just put something vaguely folky on and blow something up, that'll do."

Still, for all it's flaws and foibles it's three hours of fun and although world + dog knocks it I still have a soft spot in my heart for what was originally conceived as a good way to try out this newfangled technology.

Don't fancy yours much

As you're all aware Europe just keeps getting bigger. Maybe not so much physically despite the best efforts of the Dutch but with the increasing fragmentation of what used to be the Soviet Union and its satellites every time I take a break to scratch my bum a new country seems to come into existence. This is most evident when it comes to the acme of broadcast television, the Eurovision Song Contest. Now despite the oddness of Israel being an honorary part of Europe on these occasions there are now so many countries that if they were to try and run the contest in one go it would last longer than a Wagnerian opera (and still be more interesting) so now they do a semi final where all the nations who haven't chipped in a fat wedge of cash to get a bye to the final have to do a sing-off in front of Andrew Lloyd Webber... oh no hang on, that's a different show.

It's all a bit stupid really as all that happens is these newly minted nations are, despite what their local nationalist politicians would have you believe, are all best mates and, using the telephone still being such a novelty, all vote for each other regardless of how bloody awful the song was.

However although I didn't see all of it (due to having to support the fucking crappy overnight batch run - see t'other blog for details) and as I've mentioned before I rather like Eurovision for the silly acts, awful songs and occasional gem that crops up. However if last night's entries are anything to go by it's going to be a bloodly long night on Saturday. If anyone's interested I'm thinking of liveblogging it (cue: tumbleweed blows through blog).

First up are Bulgaria with a song, my Bulgarian speaking friend Bogdan assures me, is something about a young man and a wild pony (nudge nudge, wink wink). Not sure what they are getting up to but with him drumming and her screeching in anything but the key the song was in it isn't going to be getting any sleep. Then we have Israel's "controversial" entry about getting blown up which was sung in a mixture of English, French, Hebrew and Shite, was about as controversial as a kitten playing with a ball of string and conveniently ignored the fact that the only country in the middle east with a button to actually push is Israel. I must admit that the entries then started to merge into a blur of off-key wailing after that but a couple of notable "what the fucks" were Switzerland's song about vampires sung by a chap who really didn't get the Vampire Lestat seductive thing and just looked like a total prune (who could not sing, but then he is a "DJ" so not entirely unexpected), Iceland doing some gloomy Deep Purple-esque heavy rock ballad which was about as heavy as one of those dolphin helium balloons the sell in shopping malls to kids and Georgia who were notable for coming out about eighth or ninth and actually being the first song where the singer actually made it through the whole song in the right keys and without going flat. I mean I know the songs are supposed to be a bit daft but for Fafnir's sake you do actually need to sing them.

Nul points

Goatwake

I see that Sudan's "married" goat has followed in the footsteps of Marc Bolan and James Dean and died young, thus ensuring she will always be young, beautiful and retain her place in the "Most Emailed" section of the BBC's news website in perpetuity.

Rose - Requiescat In Pace

Ten Years, Is It Really Ten Years

I remember it as though it was yesterday. Mrs D was away from home on a business trip and I'd spent the evening before down at "The Black Hole" (a.k.a. The Black Horse, our local village watering hole) where they had a sort of bring along your penny whistle improvised folk-a-thon for May Day. I'd taken the harp and jammed along to a few folky classics - I remember playing O'Carolan's Concerto and it going down well.

Everyone was in a good mood because everyone knew that John Major's Tories were in for a slash/slash/breath-weapon 10d6 damage beatdown and no saving throw.

I didn't even bother to stay up to watch the results.

The day after the election was lovely and sunny. Every other word on the TV news was "Landslide" and we all knew the words to "Things Can Only Get Better" and we all smiled because after what seemed like forever of sleazy Tory government we all, even the Tories, believed that they could.

I drove to Gatwick to catch a plane to Germany as I'd been invited to a premier performance by Cirque Zingaro by a friend of mine who takes pictures of horses for a living. I remember "borrowing" all the papers from the departure lounge to take to my friends just so they could share the joy. I remember Zingaro being brilliant if a little odd (never having heard Korean music before - seems to involve screaming a lot) and meeting with Bartabas after the performance and acting as translator for my photographic friend who didn't speak French.

We all felt great, after all things are going to get better now.

Things... Can Only Get Better... Only Get Better...

We trusted you Tony. We trusted you and gave you all our hopes for a better future. And you bent us over and fucked us up the arse with them.

And for that alone, I hope you rot.

AA - about as useful as a bunch of alcoholics

Had all the makings of a lovely evening last night - clear skies, clear light, funny Bill Bryson book on the train home and Mrs D called to say that she'd done the stables and made the feeds up.

So I get off the train in a good mood to find I have a flat tyre. Boo.

Oh well, minor setback. I rummage around in the boot, dig out the spare and the as-yet unused wheel jack and do the necessary nut removal duties. Now normally at this point the wheel comes off. Not on my car it doesn't. I yank and pull and arse around with it for a while but can't get it off. Oh well, better admit defeat and call the AA.

Ring Ring - You are in a queue and will be answered shorty.

Ring Ring - You are in out highest priority queue and we will get to you very soon

Ring Ring - Honest, we are going to get to you very soon.

Ring Ring - Er... maybe you could gather some wood and light a fire, you're going to need to keep warm as we're not actually going to answer the phone for ages.

Fifteen fucking minutes I'm waiting, only for some giggling numpty to tell me that the earliest I can expect to see the little yellow van is in two hours. "I'll be there .... You've got a friend" go the adverts. Well it looks like you won't be here any time soon and you're certainly no friends of mine you useless pricks.

I am so fucking furious and cold at this point that I turn greener than normal, my shirt splits open (but not my trousers which is really uncomfy) and I grab the offending wheel, lean all my weight away from it, put the wings into beta pitch and flap really hard... and end up on my back in the car-park with the wheel from a Saab 9-3 on top of me.

Oh well... at least it worked. Spare goes on and then I start to drive home and put in a call to the AA on the handsfree. It'll take fifteen minutes to get home so I imagine that I'll finally get through when I'm pulling into the garage.

Ring Ri... hello this is Sharon speaking.

Fucking ace... through in about 10 seconds... now my happiness is complete.

Wonder if the RAC are any better