The Archbishop of Canterbury on… Ricky Gervais, happy to be inspected by the Toilet Police

25th April 2025

WAKING with a hangover so intense I feel it would require a guillotine rather than an aspirin to remedy, I reflect on the passing of Pope Francis and my decision to apply for his job.

There is the snag of my being Church of England but I would be quite willing to convert – it’s all the same to me. What’s a bit of transubstantiation between friends? More relevant are my people skills, the breadth of my appeal and my proven ability to run a religion.

I outlined my pitch in a point-by-point email to the Conclave titled WHY I’D MAKE A FUCKING GREAT POPE. Among my proposals were to drop the fucking nonsense about rubber johnnies, gay marriage for priests and kick out the nonces. I also pointed out the novelty of electing the world’s first openly atheist Pope.

I have yet to hear back but my own Church council is sufficiently alarmed that I might make this high-profile move that they have voted to double my stipend. On that basis I may reluctantly withdraw my application.

My future thus in the balance, I take a light breakfast and peruse a periodical. Therein I read that in the light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, equalities minister Bridget Phillipson has said trans women should use toilets according to their biological sex.

That’ll fucking work out well, won’t it? A charter for the fucking self-appointed TERF Toilet Police to bar anyone who doesn’t look like fucking Kylie Minogue in her Neighbours period from taking a piss! And how does it fucking work for trans men? They have to go piss in the ladies? Just because of your rigid binary hang-up about genitals and fucking gender? Quite apart from not reading what the ruling actually fucking said, you haven’t thought it through for one second, have you? Another fucking desperate attempt to suck up to Trump and Reform voters, which is the only idea you useless fuckers have got right now!

Ricky Gervais was among those who celebrated the Supreme Court ruling, posting an image of himself uncorking a bottle of champagne.

Yeah, only a true cunt like you could metaphorically wank over the prospect of an already marginalised group being punched down even fucking further! I hope every time scumboids like you try to take a piss in a public toilet, some upstanding citizen takes it upon themselves to challenge you to prove you’re not a trans man! Sure, you’ve grown that fucking beard but what does that prove? Drop your fucking trousers and prove you’re a biological male or it’s off to the women’s toilets, you massive fucking pervert!

Oasis fans have collectively lost more than £2 million to scams since tickets for their reunion tour went on sale, a bank has estimated. The biggest single amount lost was more than £1,700, suggesting fans are willing to pay well over face value.

It’s part of my job to deplore crime, thou shalt not kill and all that shit, but frankly I’m on the side of the fucking scammers on this one! If you’re gonna fleece anyone, fleece pigshit-thick nostalgists and bovine members of the English Rock Defence League who are willing to pony up stupid sums to bray along to Wonderwall in some ghastly fucking hangar like a giant fucking abattoir or something! Scams like this should remind you how fucking stupid you are, so try thinking harder about shit and maybe read some books or whatever, instead of shelling out bundles to join some Stone Island herd of fuckwits!

Finally, it seems Liz Truss has been supplementing her meagre income by writing a column in the Daily Telegraph, in which she complained that her 2022 mini-budget might have worked had it not been for ‘Conservative-in-name-only MPs, the economic establishment and their allies in the media’.

Are you pulling my cock? Seriously, are you pulling my fucking cock? That a swivel-eyed madwoman like you ever found their way into 10 Downing Street is a fucking indictment of how lopsided to the right this country has become! It’s like fucking Katie Hopkins being elected prime minister! Dead mice brought in through the fucking catflap by the Downing Street cat would have made a better prime minister than you! Even fucking Keir Starmer is a fractionally better Prime Minister than you! How fucking humiliating is that?

I hope I don't go 'Hungary', get it? The gammon food critic's Budapest city break

24th April 2025

Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who reckons everything’s so woke these days the new Pope will probably be a black lesbian in a wheelchair.

I’M taking myself off on a little holiday. After a google I opted for Budapest, with its cheap beer, stunning architecture and rich history. Although if my history was mainly ‘collaborating with the Nazis’ I’d keep quiet about it.

Once I escape all the bloody middle-class families at the airport going on Easter breaks it’s not long before I arrive. The first thing that strikes me is it’s a shame Hitler didn’t sort the money out.

There’s 470 Hungarian Forint, or HUF, to the pound, which is way beyond my maths abilities. I don’t know if I’m coming or going. I could be getting robbed blind or getting endless bargains, and I wouldn’t know because I’m not some specky bastard with loads of GCSEs.

Undeterred I seek out one of the famous local ‘ruin bars’, so-called because they’re falling down and no one can be arsed to fix them. I thought these Eastern European types were meant to be hard workers, but it turns out they’re lazy as f**k. Still, it’s good to have your prejudices challenged.

I order a pint of the local beer, Dreher. It’s piss-weak, so I opt for a chaser. The most popular spirit is apparently called Unicum. Don’t think they thought that one through. I’m not Marc Almond so I order a shot of Palinka, a local brandy, instead. It tastes like shit, but it’s as potent as rocket fuel. Maybe it’s from the Nazis’ V2s. I get three in to compensate for the beer.

Feeling nicely wobbly after two more rounds, I seek out some food. Goulash soup seems a relatively safe starter option. It’s beef, potatoes and carrots in a broth thinner than an Ethiopian Slimmer of the Year. And tastes of nothing but paprika. Hungarians could learn a lot from beef and vegetable Big Soup.

On to mains, and I briefly consider the chicken paprikash before thinking better of it. Yet more bloody paprika, and doughy-looking dumplings that would leave your bowels with about as much sign of movement as the M5 on a bank holiday weekend. No thanks.

Then there’s Porkolt, an indeterminate meat stew. Or Lecso, a sort of vegetable ragout stew. Why is this place so obsessed with stew? If that wasn’t boring enough there’s stuffed cabbage, and other equally unappealing offerings.

Eventually I opt for the ‘traditional wooden platter for one’. One what, exactly? Army battalion? It’s f**king enormous. Chicken, pork, steak, fries, flatbread, salad, pickles – it’s like a deconstructed doner kebab, only five times the size.

I manfully plough my way through most of it before heading off to find a local patisserie for ‘chimney cake’, which I’m told is a regional speciality. It’s basically a sweet dough rolled around a cylinder then baked and finished with a sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon. Edible enough, but it’s no cream horn or a good old British chocolate eclair.

My overall verdict on Hungary? Just another substandard European country. I won’t be coming back and that’s nothing to do with being banned from the local thermal spa for constantly adjusting my budgie smugglers. Those young ladies should have been wearing less skimpy bikinis.