3594 days ago
The Mrs finds page three women offensive and is today celebrating the fact that The Sun has dropped this feature. Most of its readers wanted it to stay and most of the population did not care but a small group of the liberal elite campaigned hard, applying commercial pressures on News Corp and Page three est mort. There you go, the liberal left find something offensive and they may be a minority but it must be banned. Hmmm a cup of Charlie Hebdo anybody?
Page three has allowed a good few Essex girls to get a career outside of Tesco’s and earn decent wonga. It was their choice to get their kit off and they grabbed it. I guess it is back to Tesco’s for the next generation of Melinda’s and Sam’s.
The liberal left do not care about giving opportunity to the poor, to their client state. They care
4079 days ago
Thanks to Darren I managed to get away early and so avoided the 11.35 drunks express from Paddington. On the 10.15 I thought that I could sleep soundly, manage a new high score on word mole and attend to other matters. What I forgot was that by the time we arrived at Swindon it was 11 PM and that made this the drunks express for those leaving the town that gave us Melinda Messenger.
Hence, at 11, about 15 lads joined our carriage. I say lads, but a couple were older than me and within a few minutes as they shouted loudly in broad West Country accents it was clear that the collective IQ of the 15 was barely into four figures.
To keep themselves entertained they started playing a game “the gauntlet” which seems to involved 14 of them kneeling on their seats looking backwards while the 15th had to run past them. Those kneeling simply had to either hit the runner as hard as possible or to try to rip his underpants down by sticking their hands down his trousers. At the same time they has to shout abuse at the runner. The three most popular shouts were “you gay cunt”, you “fucking lesbian” or “you Leon Britton.” Or was that “you Leon Brittan.” Was it a reference to the Swansea midfielder or the former home secretary about whom so many interesting rumours circulate. I did not feel like asking about this cultural metaphor.
However, the irony of a bunch of men shouting homophobic abuse while try to stick their hands down each other’s trousers was not lost on myself or the small group of fellow passengers.
Occasionally the insults got too much and in our short 45 minutes together we enjoyed two real fights where a couple of the drunks beat the crap out of each other. Apparently this all harked back to a row about a pair of sunglasses lost at Butlins. Whatever.
My back was turned to this spectacle but – like my fellow passengers – I could not help but watch. I felt rather like a Victorian paying to go and watch lunatics humiliate themselves at the asylum, but – feeling a little guilty – I watched anyway. The late night trains to Bristol are a true gin alley
4260 days ago
I found myself changing trains at Swindon yesterday and had about ten minutes to wait and was captivated by the birds. That is not to say a new generation of the Melinda Messenger’s but the swallows. The skies above the station were dark with a swirling, boiling mass of them flying in seemingly precise formations to create ever changing cloud patterns in the sky.
Seemingly two “clouds” can crash into each other at great speed but no birds collide and a new cloud pattern forms. The picture below is not the greatest and cannot capture the speed at which the cloud patterns changed, but it was truly captivating. I was almost sorry when my train arrived and I had to stop watching.
PS. Darren says "I've heard that this is a non-water example of fluid dynamics. Each bird is concerned only about itself not crashing into its neighbour, the macro result being waves.". Whatever..it is a spellbinding sight.
4326 days ago
My normal Friday sees me taking a very late train out to the West of England from Paddington. The 11.30 from Paddington sounds like an Agatha Christie but the novel that springs to mind as I contemplate today’s trip is Murder on the Orient express, when the train gets trapped in the snow half way across Yugoslavia.
Of course we will not see 10 foot snowdrifts in Southern England but it only needs a few inches of global warming to fall and Network Rail throws in the towel. I wonder what is the worst case scenario? To be told at Paddington that there are no trains and to be stranded in the capital? That would be bad enough. The trains are quite warm so getting stuck in a snowdrift would be acceptable. I think my real nightmare is the train stopping at either Didcot or Swindon at 1 AM. Neither station is warm and both are grim.
At least Swindon produced the delightful Melinda Messenger (who is now 41, can you believe it?) and (only until May I pray) is home to Paulo di Canio. None the less a night in its station waiting room is not a prospect I’d relish.
Overall today’s travel fills me with dread.
