The Archbishop of Canterbury on... Boris Johnson, the obvious source of health advice

29th November 2024

WAKING up with a hangover the size of the French national debt, I reflect on the events of last Sunday, when my faith helped me enormously in my hour of need in a pub.

I was in a watering hole in Soho with a couple of fellow bishops when, to my astonishment, last orders were announced at 7.45pm. I demanded an explanation from the barman, who told me they were one of the small number of pubs that close at 8pm on Sunday, and, due to not serving food, staying open later was out of the question.

‘You are shitting my cock!’ I exclaimed. ‘Well, can’t you make us some fucking sandwiches or something? Don’t make me go to fucking Wetherspoons!’

‘Can’t be done, sir. It’s a religious thing,’ he said.

‘Religion, eh? Well, I’m the Archbishop of Canterbury. I’m going to have a fucking word with God about this, that’s what I’m gonna do.’

Upon which I repaired to a quiet corner of the public house and affected to converse with the Almighty.

‘Right, I’ve just been onto God,’ I told the barman. ‘He says fuck your by-laws, it’s fine by him if we carry on having a drink. He also says he has no recollection of making a commandment that thou shalt not imbibe of a Sunday evening unless accompanied by a microwaved fucking lasagne.’

And so, the pub remained open. With a wry smile at the man’s folly, I take a light breakfast and peruse a periodical. Therein I read that Kemi Badenoch is calling for Keir Starmer to resign due to an online petition calling for an immediate general election.

Fuck the fossilised remains of Christ’s donkey, how old are you, fucking seven? Of course he’s not gonna resign, he’s only been prime minister for about a fucking fortnight! An inept, authoritarian, hopeless, woefully unpopular prime minister who’ll change fuck all except his fucking underpants, yes, but he’s still only just got in. And now you’re gonna look a right tit for the next few years for having shot your load so early! That wasn’t a petition, it was a census of fucking morons!

Manchester City are currently experiencing a difficult spell, having lost several games in succession, most recently in the Champions League, drawing 3-3 with Feyenoord after being 3-0 up.

Hahaha, in these fucking dark times, I can only say thank you Pep Guardiola, thank you Phil Foden and that cow-faced fucking pillar of sulking toss Haaland for brightening our lives with your hilarious run of fuck-ups! You drew with fucking Feyenoord! The Dutch Grimsby! The only logical explanation is you’ve realised that when this court case is done you’ll be relegated to playing football on Hackney Marshes with jumpers for fucking goalposts, so why bother putting a fucking shift in now?

Melanie Phillips has been on the BBC, an institution of which she is highly critical, dismissing the ICC court case against Israel and accusing the UN of being ‘in bed with Hamas’.

Fuck my wanksock, why the fuck do you keep inviting this racist, anti-Muslim, genocide-supporting fucker onto your shows, BBC? Is it some sort of weird, docile guilt? Or is it your fuckwitted sense of ‘balance’, where you have to balance sane, moderate, well-informed political commentators with unhinged, neo-Nazi-inspiring, pants-on-head batshit, malicious fucking career nutjobs like fucking Phillips? She fucking hates you, grow a pair and fucking hate her back!

Finally, Boris Johnson has accused the Church of England of failing to provide young people with ‘spiritual sustenance’, leading them to fill the void by ‘gorging themselves’ on food. In his day, Johnson elaborated, ‘people were skinnier, they ran around a huge amount, drank Tizer, ate Spangles and Curly Wurlies and dogshit… now they’re all fatsos and I’d be shot for saying they’re fatsos but that’s the truth.’

Jeeza-fucking-loo, of all the toxic fucking custard hurled around in these ongoing, deepeningly fucking stupid culture wars, this has to be about the most idiotic to date! Without wishing to body shame, if they did line you up to be shot, Boris, they’d have plenty to fucking aim at! And what in the name of fuck has the C of E got to do with Spangles and Tizer? Is that the spiritual sustenance we were dishing out in the 1970s? Curly Wurlies and dogshit? Listen, you silly fuck, young people paid fuck all attention to the C of E back then, just like now, and hopefully they’ll pay fuck all attention to a bladder on a stick jabbering fucking codswallop like you, you cunt!

Fearful steps in the land of the ladyboy: The gammon food critic's Thai taste experience

28th November 2024

Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who knows for a fact Starmer’s only going after the farmers so he can repossess their land to build luxury houses for migrants.

NEVER fancied Thailand. Too hot, scary wildlife that can kill you with a single poisonous bite, and most of the women are packing cocks.

Ladyboys, they call them. Blokes tarted up to the nines thinking they’re women. Unfortunately there’s plenty of that in good old Blighty these days, except ours are usually munters. Still, no coincidence the capital’s called Bangkok, if you ask me.

And people do bang on about how good the food is. There’s a restaurant nearby that claims to serve the best Thai food in Birmingham, so I thought why not? It’s probably like Chinese. They look pretty similar.

However I’ve been warned about a big cultural taboo. Never point your shoe or foot at another person. Feet are an unclean part of the body apparently. Are they too primitive for showers? I’m guessing you have to walk in sideways like a bloody crab to avoid offending them. And you thought modern Britain was full of snowflakey bollocks.

Having safely negotiated my way to a table without insulting anyone with my feet, I peruse the menu.

There’s pad thai, or stir-fried noodles with vegetables and roasted peanuts. Giving that a miss. If I wanted peanuts with noodles I’d open a bag of KP and sprinkle them over a pot of Pot Noodle chicken and mushroom.

Then there’s tom yum, a clear soup with galangal – which is just a posh name for ginger – and lemon grass. A bowl of spicy water with twigs in it, then.

Running out of options, I order the laab, a spicy, salty salad with fish sauce. I’m morbidly fascinated as to how exactly you make a sauce out of fish, but decide not to ask. Some things you’re better off not knowing. It’s hot as f**k and comes with raw vegetables. Must remember to look up the recipe, because it sounds like a perfect cure for my constipation.

Green Thai curry I’m familiar with. Tesco do it. But there’s no point ordering something I can pick up in the chiller aisle whenever I feel like it. So I go for ‘pad kra pao moo’, which from the name you’d assume is beef, but turns out it’s minced pork stir-fried with Thai basil, green beans and garlic and shit. Topped with, of all things, a fried egg. It’s passable, to be fair, with plenty of plain white rice to smother the taste of the spices. But it’s no chicken tikka masala.

I finish with ‘Thailand’s most popular dessert’, mango sticky rice. Basically, rice cooked in coconut milk topped with sliced raw mango. Fruit and rice. I ask you. That’s the trouble when you let foreigners come up with their own cuisine. During the British Empire we had cakes, which take a bit of effort.

Finally it’s duty done. Would I come again? Unlikely. And I’ve still got to work out how the f**k I’m meant to get out of the door without my toes giving anyone a funny look.