The Clockwork Times

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Breakfast clock

Dear CT

I was eating breakfast on Tuesday morning when I dropped my cornflake loaded spoon on the floor. Bending down to pick it up, I knocked my head on the table and passed out. What day is it?

Unknown

Baby clock

Dear CT

Whilst feeding my 18 month old son, he began using his plastic spoon to flick peas at me by scooping a spoon full and using the flexibility of the plastic spoon to catapult them into my face. After 4 or five attempts the spoon broke, the head of it breaking off in my son’s small hand. Undeterred, my boy then rammed the rough broken handle into my eye. Whilst deranged with the unbearable pain, I was impressed at my son’s ability to recognise even a broken spoon can still be an effective weapon.

Doncaster Rovers fan.

Vehement Vermin Vocalist

Dear Sir,

I am a faithful reader of the CT, unlike many of my military friends who say it is a big pile of Nazi propaganda. I don’t know about that, but was nonetheless shocked to read about the CT’s recent campaign to legalise squirrel-puffling. Can this be true, I shouted at my dog of seventy-seven years. She couldn’t tell me, so I decided to go to the top. Now, I am aware that many of your readers will not know much about this disgraceful sport, and so I will fill them in forthwith. Squirrel-puffling originated in the fifteenth century as a means of prohibiting the growth of the squirrel population in village communities, particularly those where nuts were grown. The squirrel would be approached by the ‘puffler’ (usually a local man or woman with limited social skills and bad hygiene), and subjected to several hours of reading. The usual material would consist of scraps of the Bible, or European fables about goblins, monsters, or ridiculous stories about girls who were swans. The more experienced puffler would often add to the mix an extract from the most recent Argos catalogue, or MFI leaflet. After the squirrel had been ‘puffled’ in such a manner, it was then clubbed to death with a wooden kettle and thrown to the dogs, before being knocked against trees attached to a long strip of sausage. Then a large paddle (or ‘wuffler’) was used to force it through small gaps. Finally, it was presented to the feudal lord, and five pence would be paid to the puffler for its carcass. Puffled squirrels would then be displayed in car parks and bowling alleys.

Now, this practice ended over three hundred years ago (except for isolated reports of pufflings in Ipswich and along the Sussex borders), and rightly so. It is barbaric and cruel. Why therefore has the Spoon seen fit to lend it’s hitherto credible weight, to this disgraceful sport? We live in an age where violence is rife, and social decency is being eroded day by day by people like Lorraine Kelly, and yet…

(We have shredded the rest of this letter, as we have absolutely no idea what this lunatic is talking about. But rest assured, he will be sent a bottle of pills and a complimentary whistle. Ed.)

Chooks Away

Dear Sir,

As a keen hen enthusiast, I was delighted to read your recent article about the merits of employing hens as passenger aircraft. With the continuing furore surrounding British Airways, it would seem logical that other means of aviation transport are put forward, and one such idea must surely be the hen. Hens are versatile, agreeable, and extremely economical to run. Furthermore, in recent tests they have been shown to be capable of carrying up to one thousand times their own bodyweight, and so would accomplish the trans-Atlantic carrying of several passengers with considerable ease. Of course, super-hens may have to be developed for the American market as they are all a bit fat over there aren’t they?

Fatties.

Yours sincerely,

Dorothy Podge. (Mrs.)

If you have anything you’d like to share with one of our readers (or even two of our readers, though we will charge if it is more than three), please do send them in to us. Clark Wiggis is away this week, so please mark the envelope c/o the Right Reverend Hercules Splendid (not gay), and address it to: ‘’Holy Crap’, Aqua-Cabin Four, Netherton-St-Flymo.

Please do not send any articles in the post; underpants excepted, as he doesn’t have any at the moment because he lost control of his Aston round Brands Hatch last week, and skidded on his holy arse for seven miles. Apparently. But then he’s a bloody liar.

Returns With His Regular “Abuse Page”

Sickos are roaming our land! Yes, I should know, I live her don’t I? Well, don’t I? Sometimes I wonder if I do live here any more with the amount of whingeing so-called “asylum seekers” and Russians that live in my area. Yesterday I saw one buy twenty Benson from my local corner shop. WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING? In the seventeenth century anyone caught doing something like that would be hanged. And what’s to stop this happening now? Only the stupidity of leftie whingeing Guardian readers.

Only last week a Government report showed that while Britain used to be predominantly white there had been a series of increases, some gradual, others not so, in the number of people from other backgrounds in this country. CAN’T WE SEE WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

I’m the last person to be racist. In fact in a recent racism competition I came ninth out of nine competitors. Of course anyone should be allowed into this country. No one’s suggesting that. BUT FOREIGNERS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THIS COUNTRY AND IF ONLY PEOPLE WOULD READ WHAT I PUT IN CAPITALS WOULDN’T BRITAIN BE A SAFER PLACE? WELL WOULDN’T IT?

Sometimes I’m not sure, what with all the whingeing, so called “radical thinkers” and “good” Samaritans posing as charity workers just to sponge of the state a bit more. Not that there’s anything wrong with sponging off the state, or being an Arab, but Arabs simply should not sponge off the State!

Where does it put the honest, hard working decent, and often white, person trying to raise a family? How will they explain to their kids? Daddy’s been working hard all day, so some bloody Somalian can come and steal his money and eat his trees when he’s putting in a hard slog at the office. Of course, Somalians make a great contribution to our society. No one’s denying that, but THESE SOMALIANS ARE MAKING NO CONTRIBUTION TO OUR SOCIETY. Hey, I haven’t said “crap” yet. Oh, there I go. I’ve said it. When will Albanian so called refugees stop coming here and eating my car? When will they stop it? When? Do you know? I don’t know! I know when I’d like them to stop, and that’s right now, but that seems to count for very little in today’s so-called England.

Last week a gang of Albanian thugs ate me. It took me a day to pass through their so-called digestive systems before I came out in their collective toilets in seven separate parts. Only a crack team of doctors, paid for by the Spoon, could piece me together again, and even then I had to wait in line behind an Afghan, a Spaniard and some Chinese bloke. No one’s suggesting these people shouldn’t get medical treatment, BUT THESE PEOPLE SHOULDN’T GET MEDICAL TREATMENT! They are just a bloody pain, most of them are f**king ar*ewits, with no real bo**ocks between their f***king selves, I wish those ****ing ******s would **** off ******ing back to ***land and ***** leave ***** *******ing to ***********ers without *********** (which incidentally I ********ing **** with a ********) and ******* *********** ** ******** ******* tarmac walls to ***** ** **** *****ers ************ *** *********** *******. couldn’t even call 999 without a ***** ******* **** ******** ***pressions of Harry Lauder to ****** ******** ****** **. There was a word for this in the good old days and that word was *******. ****** off, all of you.

Fears were growing last night for Turtle, the Foreign Office chief who went missing on Tuesday night. Despite a sighting near Cheam, the 43 year old’s whereabouts remain a mystery.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office confirmed yesterday afternoon that on Wednesday morning, Turtle had been “arguing loudly” with a colleague, possibly Jack Straw, and had eaten the office stapler. “That was the last we heard of him. He left in a huff and said something about Hitler”, said Janet Fond, 92, a Government official.

Turtle at the Washington Convention, 1995

Drummed In
Turtle has been in charge of the Foreign Office since 1978. It was he who led Britain into the Falklands Conflict four years later, and it was only by his swift intervention and legendary powers of diplomacy that the UK avoided war with Corsica in 1991.

His last minute compromise on Herring quotas and official branding of Sardinia as “Wanky”, caused the then Corsican Governor Francois Parsnip to withdraw his tanks from Barnes Common. Lady Thatcher declined to comment in person as she jogged past my office, but later she issued this statement to some newspapers: “Without Turtle, Britain would currently be ruled by communists, and for that we are half-heartedly grateful. We are concerned for his safety and our thoughts are with his friends and family at this bloody awful time. We hope he’s not been rogered by a squirrel”.

Police are today increasing their efforts to save straw man, Vincent Galapagos, from the worst heat wave to strike Britain in more than two thousand years. Mr. Galapagos, a diving instructor from Petersfield, is being constantly doused with a special mixture of water and Fairy Liquid in an attempt to stop him becoming a flaming inferno. Chief Constable Wink Manillo spoke to us.
“Obviously, this is a very difficult time for Mr. Galapagos. The heat particularly affects people who are made of straw, or indeed any other flammable material. We are working with the local fire-service to ensure that he does not become a human torch. Although if he does, rest assured we will have a barbeque”.

Vincent Galapagos:

“I’m trying to carry on as usual”

SWANS
Britain is currently experiencing the severest temperatures since the fall of the Roman Empire. Scientists predict that, if it gets any worse, the world will become so hot only ants could survive. Professor Max Wiltshire, Senior Researcher of Heat at the University of East Feltham, believes that what we are witnessing is very possibly the end of the world. “I don’t think it is any sort of exaggeration to say that, whilst it may not happen, it could so easily possibly happen. Yes. Definitely. The potential is almost certainly there. I wouldn’t like to comment, but if I had to, I would say to people: get out. Leave. Run away from the heat; go by bicycle if you have to. Just get going. Wine gum?”

BOLTON WANDERERS NIL, DURHAM THREE
But not everybody is concerned by Professor Wiltshire’s theories. Bob Dundee has been selling ice cream from his van for the past twenty-five years. “Well, I’ve never had business like it”, he said. “People are guzzling cornets like you wouldn’t believe. I’m selling out by half ten at the moment. Even dogs are queuing up to get some. I can overcharge them because they don’t understand money”.
His friend, Barry Smart, is also doing a roaring trade. “When I first started selling water-filled mice, no one wanted them. Now this heat wave’s come along, people can’t get enough of them. I don’t know why, but I’m forcing water into mice as quickly as customers can buy them. I don’t know what they do with them, but that’s up to them. It’s disgusting really”.

HANG ON BETTY; I’VE GOT IT CAUGHT
Back in Petersfield, the battle for Mr. Galapagos continues. “We had a nasty scare earlier, when Vincent fell into an open pottery kiln that some wally had left lying about in his workshop”, recounts Chief Constable Manilla. Apart from that, and the blowtorch fiasco, I think we’re winning”.
But if this searing tidal wave of pent-up hellfire continues to escalate, will there be real casualties?
“It’s hard to say”, says Professor Wiltshire from his sky-dome above Malmesbury. “But if I was pushed to answer, I’d say yes. Definitely. No question. Fruit pastille?”

If you’d like to help Mr. Galapagos, and others like him, please send a donation to the Spoon’s Help Vincent Galapagos & Others Like Him Appeal, The Spoon, 7 Ladle Buildings, EC1.
Alternatively, simply post your credit card details to Gil Remington, and he’ll be happy to see that your hard-earned cash gets to where it’s needed.

(Please note: All donations are made at cardholder’s own risk. Someone stole my Thundercats mug last week, and I think it was Gil Remington. Ed.)

Prime Minister Tony Blair stunned the world yesterday by claiming that he retained every confidence in his embattled Director of Strategy & Communications, Timmy Silly.

This amazing statement fell off the Prime Minister’s tongue literally seconds after Silly fell through a first-floor Downing Street window clutching a pot plant, as Gordon Brown was making his annual budget statement.

Questions have since been raised about Silly’s suitability for the job.

Timmy Silly was appointed to the role after the departure of Alistair Campbell earlier this year. He had a background in newspaper journalism and horticulture that seemed to make him ideal for the position. Labour Press Chief Brian Rigmarole interviewed him personally.

“Timmy struck me as a highly enthusiastic, sensible candidate, with a good knowledge of all relevant issues of the day. He also struck me with a table lamp that had become caught on his sleeve, but that was a mistake anyone could have made. John Prescott knocked me out of a zeppelin over Bognor during the ’97 election. These things happen”.

One of Silly’s first challenges in office was to take charge of the embarrassing cash-for-bird seed row that had threatened to tear the Government down the middle.

Critics say Silly inflamed the row still further by chasing an escaped pelican around the Common’s Lobby with no pants on, but that, says the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, was part of his strategy.

“Silly always knew what he was doing, even when it frequently appeared otherwise”, said a clearly uncomfortable Michael You. “Look at the facts; did the bird-seed row disappear? Yes, eventually”.

Silly also played a key role in the recent Hovis Scandal that nearly tore the Government down the middle. Bread had been disappearing from homeless shelters during the autumn of 2003, and the press were getting uncomfortably inquisitive. Fingers were pointed at Home Office Minister and pigeon fancier, John Mc John, who denied any knowledge. “I have never solicited bread from homeless shelters”, he claimed in a commons statement. But when Opposition MPs spotted six currant buns and a Danish pastry tumble from his breast pocket after a particularly heated exchange, Silly had to act quickly.
“All of a sudden, Timmy Silly came swinging down from the press gallery on the end of a long stretch of nylon”, said Shadow Elephant Seal Spokesman, Alan Muff. “He flashed past the despatch box and crashed into Speaker Michael Martin. No one knew what he’d been doing, or what the banner round his neck read, but it certainly buried the bread debate. It was clever, very clever”.

Most recently, Silly had been credited with saving his political masters from the Cheddar Gorge Fiasco that nearly split Tony Blair’s trousers down the middle. “Questions had been asked about the presence of a large banjo-playing hen down the bottom of Cheddar Gorge”, said Environmental Expert Robin Tea. “Was it for real? Had it been mutated? Why did it keep singing ‘Rumpo-di-diddle-di-do? These sorts of questions were highly embarrassing for a Government that had been elected on the basis of it’s absolutely no mutating of hens, weasels or muesli bars policy”. But as soon as the press got hold of footage of Silly being pulled along Whitehall, with his braces caught on the back of a roller-skating Japanese tourist, interest in the huge musical hen speedily evaporated.

Political analyst Kevin Fire believes the Prime Minister would be foolish to get rid of Timmy Silly.
“The man’s an absolute genius. Every single time any scandal has reared it’s ugly head, Timmy Silly has been there to clear it up. His political coup-de-grace must surely be the time he jumped an ass over the wall of Buckingham Palace, wearing nothing but a small pottery model of Barnet, and a large plastic bag from the Argos Summer Sale, and ploughed headlong into Prince Phillip. Suddenly, all the media were on him, and Tony Blair completely got away with invading Wales. Genius”.

With Silly’s future hanging uncomfortably in the balance, Tony Blair must be carefully weighing up the pros and cons of retaining his Chief Spin Doctor. On the plus side, anything he does can be eclipsed behind one of Silly’s comic accidents, but on the minus side, it can often look more than a little undignified during official state visits.
Said Michael You, “Vladimir Putin was clearly displeased to see Timmy Silly come through the ceiling in a bath and land on his wife during a recent stay at Downing Street. An immense amount of plaster tumbled down, together with several gallons of lukewarm water and a wind-up frog. It was a disaster”.
“But”, he adds with a rye smile, “it certainly ensured no one ever got to hear about Peter Hain’s desperate plan to sellotape Britain to Belgium…oh”.

“Silly!”

The CT’’s very own political animal is here once again to muck out the Westminster stables. It’s steaming piles of goss – straight from the horse’s mouth!

Well, it’s finally time Tony Blair got rid of that prat, Timmy Silly. The man’s an ass – and coming from a horse, that’s about the worst insult you could imagine. My cousin Ronald Ass is the arse of the equine world. He’ s a complete f***ing Neanderthal. Last year he tried to climb Big Ben in a dress because some Tory joker told him the hands were made of carrot. Prick.
I had to cancel an appearance on the Wogan show I was so embarrassed.

Ian Duncan Smith’s made a tit of himself again. He got drunk in the Common’s bar and vomited over Michael Portillo’s weasel. (Though what his weasel was doing on the bar is anyone’s guess). Tory faithful say the MP for Kensington & Chelsea took it all in fun, but I say, bollocks! Weasels are damned expensive down the King’s Road this time of year, and vom doesn’t wash off.

Ha ha! The truth is finally out – and what a hoot it is. John Prescott can’t spell his own name! Tory MP Cockerel Dove offered to help him out at a recent Labour gathering, whilst
Prescott’s spelling-guru Botch McAndrew was away– but the boisterous miscreant told him the spelling was P.I.S.S.P.O.T!
Two-Jags was certainly left with egg on his face, after Dove’s subtle coup at the Dorchester hotel last weekend.
I think it’s childish.

Watch out, Davis! There’s a new boy in town – and he’s gunning for your job! Tristram Winkle is after the shadow deputy prime minister’s office, hefty salary, and angle-poised lamp. Winkle, a graduate in rude inscriptions from Oxford, was initially asked to head up MI23, but he said that fining old women for farting at cats “wasn’t his jazz, Martha”. Winkle is determined to give the Tories a good slapping about, maybe with a herring, before setting his sights on the Government. “I’m going to rock their world”, he told my furry colleague Ricky Badger. “I’m going to hang them out to dry, then pound them with mortars until they all collapse and shout no, no, stop”.
Said Davis: “He can have my job, that’s fine. But there’s no way the rakish young whippersnapper is getting his grasping paws on my antique teeth”.
Antique teeth? I’ll give him antique teeth.

Rumours abound that the BBC are intent on attacking Downing Street, after Chairman Gavyn Davies was spotted buying a WWII British Tiger Tank at a dealership in Wigan. BBC insiders say Davies will command the turret, whilst Director General Greg Dyke will drive the Colossus.
Said Tony Blair’s official spokesman, ‘H’ (formerly of the band ‘Steps’), “There is no chance of a successful attack by the BBC; not unless Radio One play my new single anyway”.
However, Downing Street officials are rumoured to be taking the threat seriously, and have already wheeled out Harold Wilson’s seventeenth-century canon to defend the front porch.
Cherie Blair is also to be stationed in a strategic position.

Finally, that old granddaddy of the house, Liberal MP for Lower Kneesdon & the Thrashings, Poff Spambule, has died. Friends and relatives were with him on the Commons’ terrace when he passed away, during celebrations for his eightieth birthday. Pushing him over the railings and into the Thames was his old political rival, Griff Pimcock.
“ I think it would have been exactly how he wanted to go”, said Pimcock, (Labour, Scroffle Ricketts West). “He didn’t feel a thing; didn’t even hear me coming. Whilst the others kept him busy with cakes and balloons, I was able to get up right behind him and belt him with my left trainer. I’d had the end weighted with lead, which was handy, as it didn’t show up on the metal detector in the lobby. And there he went, quiet as a mouse. Apart from the thrashing, but the Speaker came forward with a wooden picnic bench and we all stood on top of that until the air passed quietly from his lungs”.
The Commons Birthday Surprise Committee say they expect Mr. Spambule to reach the Thames Estuary as early as Thursday, barring crab attacks.

Well, that’s all the political manure for this week. Join me soon for more of the same old crap. Till then – don’t have a mare. Bren.

(‘H’s new single I Love a Cheeky Bit of Brie is released on Monday. It is predicted to go straight down the poo-chute).

It was revealed today that Downing Street Spokesman Alastair Campbell’s infamous Shoeshine Boy, Roy Dubbles, has been made the 115th Pope in a secret ceremony in Prestwick.

The shock announcement came hours after Dubbles, 56, had made his intention to leave Campbell’s employ clear in a circular email to his mates. The Vatican is not sure how seriously to take the claims, but has sent its Christ-in-a-crisis envoy Luigi “Brown Skids” Veccotti to London to “have a shout at the man”.

IT’S LOADED 
Roy Dubbles, who famously shined the PM’s Chief of Communication nude during a visit by the Vice- President of Sweden, was not available for comment today, but his former employer Campbell today held a Press Conference, citing “extreme boredom” as a major cause. Having answered a barrage of questions on various General Knowledge subjects, he concluded by appealing to the public for “Trust. Trust plain and simple. You must must must trust the Prime Minister and I on this. If you cannot trust Mr. Blair and I, who are you going to trust, eh? Eh?”.

That shut them up for a while, but then Campbell was assailed with a new volley of questions, such as “Where’s my wallet? (Tipping Marper, The Times), “Have you seen my wallet?” (Brenda Brenda, The Spectator) and “Do you know where my wallet is?” (Ian Pleurisy, The Mirror). The PM’s press man shrugged these off, quickly leaving the room and shouting, “Have you checked your back pockets?” Truro is not in Perthshir