subscribe
/ Sign Out

Which union boss you're furious with today: A guide

YOU have woken up and, as an ordinary, hard-working Briton, are furious with the boss of a union that’s on strike. But which one?

Commuters: Mick Lynch, RMT

As a regular rail commuter, you’re appalled that dome-headed Lynch and his cohort of communists are striking, forcing you to stay in bed later, not have to trek through sub-zero temperatures and work from home. Your self-righteous fury makes you just like Richard Madelely, as all men want to be.

Christmas card receiver: Dave Ward, CWU

The prospect of no Christmas cards arriving for two whole days, leaving your mantelpiece bare, has you in a frenzy. And it’s all the fault of Ward, who from his name alone is clearly an elitist Marxist hell-bent on bringing down a democratically elected government on its third prime minister in three years.

Illness sufferer: Pat Cullen, RCN

As a regular visitor to hospital you see how understaffed and overworked the nurses are, so you’re up in arms about their unreasonable demand for a pay rise keeping pace with inflation. Firebrand Cullen’s stirred them up or they’d certainly accept seven per cent pay cuts year-on-year.

Road user and international travel: Mark Serwotka, PCS

This is getting serious now. The roads are on strike? So nowhere will be connected to anywhere and all Britain will be fields? Oh, okay, well even if it is only driving instructors and traffic you’re steaming at Serwotka, who you read today earns a salary! How he’s got the f**king nerve you’ll never know. Labour scum.

Scottish frequent flyer: Sharon Graham, Unite

Well they know what they’re doing, don’t they? Shutting the Highlands and Islands Airports in the run-up to Christmas, just as you were idly considering a festive tour of Barra, Islay, Stornoway and Wick? The unsurpassable bastards, and Graham’s the greediest of the lot. You’ll certainly blame her and her union boss mates for this, and not the Tories.

Postcards, newspapers, Argos catalogues: The insane places you used to find porn

BEFORE the internet gave us an infinite variety of porn, you had to scour some unlikely places to get your fix. Such as these.

Postcards

Credit due to the entrepreneur who first decided that, rather than the grim expanse of Rhyl beach, they should whack a pair of tits on postcards. And a small image of a woman in a bikini met the masturbatory needs of generations. Less compelling was the dreary account of a trip to the seaside on the other side.

Newspapers

A publication devoted to war, murders and natural disasters isn’t the obvious place a normal person would look for porn. Then in 1970 The Sun did its first topless Page 3. Since then tabloids have been a winning mix of death and tits. Even recently you probably read about 9/11 before turning the page to see Keeley’s twin towers.

Pottery

If you thought having to sneak downstairs to watch a muted VHS while your parents were asleep was a difficult way to consume pornography, then have sympathy for the ancient Greeks. These poor sods only had porn painted on the side of clay pots. Available to view in many museums, but imagine the shame of being caught wanking over an urn.

Cinemas

Not enough is made of the fact that, for a significant period of the 20th century, people used to flock to cinemas to masturbate. Thankfully, the internet has spared most modern perverts this indignity. The brave souls tasked with cleaning these cinemas after every screening should be honoured with a giant statue in Trafalgar Square of a man rubbing one out over Catwoman.

Art galleries

A school trip to an art gallery was never something you looked forward to – until you remembered that those kinky Renaissance artists couldn’t get enough of painting nudes. Nobody will maintain that trying to masturbate over the hazy memory of Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ was an easy wank, but in the 80s, you had to make do.

Catalogues

Barely needs mentioning, but the Kays or Freemans catalogue was the motherlode of porn substitutes. Even Argos catalogue had the odd babe in the shower section, presumably to subconsciously lure dads into buying a power shower. And knowing your dad, it would have worked.

Next story ›