The Archbishop of Canterbury on... how the f**k do you lose money on a monopoly?

4th October 2024

WAKING up with a hangover so intense that liquid traces of my brain have dribbled through my eardrums onto my pillowcase, I sit up, check my ‘emails’ and am surprised to find a message from Laura Kuenssberg.

It had been arranged that I should do a hard-hitting interview with Ms Kuenssberg next week. Curiously, the email contained a draft of hard-hitting questions she intended to put to me, as the BBC’s most hard-hitting interviewer. They were as follows:

My apologies, your grace, did I genuflect hard enough as I introduced you?

How do you manage to cope so successfully with the rigours of your job without resorting to gross profanity, alcohol or atheism?

Would you prefer to ignore the questions and simply boast about your achievements by blatantly rewriting recent history?

Once it emerges that she has accidentally conveyed this interview brief to me, the BBC decide that the interview can no longer go ahead. Which is a shame, as I was looking forward to availing myself of their refreshments in the green room.

With a sigh, I set aside my computer, take a light breakfast and peruse a periodical. Therein I read that a horse who led the Queen’s funeral procession has been awarded the ‘animals OBE’.

Fuck ex-Archbishop Robert Runcie’s dead cat, are you shitting me? This is some Caligula shit! What, the horse is gonna step up to the fucking red carpet at Buckingham Palace and King Charles is gonna hang a fucking medal round its neck? Is it going to stamp its hoof twice to say ‘Thank you’? It’s a horse! It’d fuck a police car if it was feeling horny! Christ, the Royal Family and its relationship to animals – either treating them like David Attenborough or massacring them for sport. You’re fucking lucky you didn’t get both barrels, Paddington!

Thames Water remains in desperate trouble, with over £15 billion in debts which they insist make it necessary to raise bills by 40 per cent to continue to function.

Well, that’d help you out, wouldn’t it? Us having to pay through the nose to pay for your astounding, greedy incompetence. I mean, how do you justify your pisspoor performance? You’ve got no fucking competition! You’re a monopoly! On water! It’s not like we can switch to dandelion and fucking burdock! Try having a shower and shit with that! And yet you’ve managed to fuck it up, with about a trillion tonnes of raw sewage thrown in too! But Heaven forbid we should fucking nationalise it because that’s Corbynism which is Communism with extra antisemitism so let’s just keep drowning in fucking shit till the end of time!

A Conservative fringe meeting at their conference discussed how to persuade women to ‘breed for Britain’ in order to ‘grow more’ social care workers, one day after Kemi Badenoch’s comments about ‘excessive’ maternity pay.

Wow. You know, there is a comet, known as A3 but more correctly C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-Atlas), which will appear in our skies later this month. It was last visible 80,000 years ago when Neanderthals roamed the earth and will not reappear for another 80,000. And you know what, it’ll reappear sooner than you mad Tory cunts ever get reelected in the UK! ‘Breed For Britain’? Yeah, something that sounds like a compulsory breeding programme in a sci-fi dystopia with allusions to Nazi Germany is going to be a real fucking vote winner!

Finally, it seems that Jonathan Gullis has complained that since losing his seat as an MP he is having difficulty finding work in his former profession of teaching, and believes being a Tory has been held against him.

Well, for once in your bigoted, thick, stupidly-bearded life you might have a fucking point! You’re supposed to be teaching, ie. imparting facts, wisdom and guidance. Not opening kids’ minds like toilet seats and taking a huge toxic dump in them! Let’s add some context, Jonathan – you made an embarrassing fucking public spectacle of yourself as a gurning, sadistic, far-right case of rancid cockrot! If this were the 1970s there’d be plenty of niches for weirdos, but things have changed and twats like you aren’t trusted to be lollipop men, let alone fucking teachers! If they made a film of your fucking teaching career it’d be called Goodbye, Mr Shit!

A tale of two chippies: The gammon food critic's fish supper showdown

3rd October 2024

Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who knows there wouldn’t be any of this free gift bollocks with someone principled like Nigel in charge.

I LOVE a good chippie tea, me. Been going to Roland’s Happy Plaice around the corner four times a week for years now. Breaks up the pizza deliveries. He’s a Northerner, but I try not to hold that against him. The further towards Scotland you go the better they get at deep-frying shit.

But now there’s a new chippie opened over the road. Downside? They’re Turkish. Or Greek. Same difference, swarthy macho Mediterranean types. Probably slit your throat for disrespecting the honour of their saveloys.

So in the interests of fairness – and nothing to do with their 20 per cent opening week discount – I decided to do a taste test comparison. They won’t be a patch on Roland’s, but I’m an open-minded, objective kind of guy so I’m going into it without prejudice.

It must be said, Roland does banging chips. You might get a few undercooked ones, but on the whole they’re proper British chip shop chips. Massive portions and deliciously soggy with years-old oil. None of that PC nanny state ‘don’t die from a heart attack unnecessarily’ bollocks.

His fish is top drawer too. Batter thicker than a Labour voter, fresh cod straight from the freezer. He’ll even give you free batter bits, if you’re a regular like me. To be honest I’d be happy with a carrier bag of those, and sod the fish and chips.

So as you can see, new boy Stavros or whatever his name is is up against high-class opposition. I just hope they’re not cooking everything in disgusting olive oil and topping it with olives and shit.

The chips, unsurprisingly, are a massive letdown. Too light and crispy. What’s the point of a chippie tea unless you end up with acid reflux and feel like you’ve eaten a whole block of lard?

The fish is OK, for foreigners, but the batter’s thinner than a fag paper. Tightarses if you ask me. It’s like the difference between a see-through nightie and a winter jacket. Give me the warm, thick one, because I’m not planning to shag a fish.

But it’s the sides – or lack of them – that are the real reveal. Pickled eggs? Blank looks. Mushy peas? You’re f**king hoping. I ask for scallops and the thick twat thinks I mean shellfish. No, potato scallops. If there’s cuisine better than battered patties of mash I’ve yet to discover it.

Their kebabs might have been okay if it wasn’t for the shitloads of salad. You don’t get that at Roland’s. Why ruin good lamb with a bunch of lettuce? You may as well fill up the pitta with grass cuttings. Assuming it’s really lamb, of course. Might be worth doing a headcount of the local cats.

Verdict? There’s obviously only one winner, which yet again proves that try as he might, Johnny Foreigner is no match for Great British cooking. I thought Brexit was supposed to spare us from all this. Will I go back? Not bloody likely. Well, except for the next five nights until the opening week discount ends.