Lookalikes

Have any of my readers noticed the uncanny similarity between Indonesian radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and has-been paedophile glam-rocker Gary Glitter?

Glitter:


Ba'asyir:


I wonder if they might be related?

A phone call I didn't really want to have to make

I don't feel like even trying to be funny today.

When I got home from work yesterday, my wife greeted me with the news that my aunt - the second wife of my dad's little brother, and a much loved stabilising presence in his life and the wider family - had died on Saturday night of a heart attack. My dad phoned up to tell us while I was at work, having got the call from his brother at half past midnight and spent the rest of the night sitting up unable to sleep, nursing his shock and dismay with an unspecified number of whiskies and soda.

We knew she was unwell, having recently had a hip replacement and not having recovered according to plan. But on Saturday night my uncle noticed she was looking a bit grey in the face and called an ambulance. She collapsed and was rushed to hospital, but was pronounced dead an hour or so later. None of us were expecting anything quite that dramatic.

I dread phoning or writing to people in these circumstances, never knowing quite what to say, but I plucked up the courage to call my uncle. I wish I could report that I found inspired words of solace, but I didn't. I think I started with "I heard the sad news. I really don't know what to say..." In the circumstances, that was probably as good as anything and certainly better than not calling at all. I told him how fond we were of her (especially Djangolina, who always got on splendidly with her - she was wonderful with children) and how if there was anything we could do etc etc - all the normal cliches. But what else can you say in these situations? I meant every word, however hackneyed the phrases I used. Anyway, the hard bit's done. I'm now waiting for a funeral date.

Boyo - Les cahiers de conversation, trois

At the sight of Mr Big Big Bossy Big Boss making an inspection tour of a nearby area, I slip away from my desk in pursuit of a cup of tea, fearing the impact on the organization should someone important make the mistake of asking me a question. Along the way I meet Boyo, who is similarly pursuing tea but without ready cash about his person, and is lurking with the intent of prising a cuppa out of some misguided but well-intentioned soul like me.

On our way back, he asks me what Djangolina is up to.
"She's off for a week on a school trip to a place on the Isle of Wight called 'Little Canada'," I respond, truthfully.

"I can imagine what they do there - eat donuts, play ice hockey, learn to discuss lesbianism. In French. 'I'm from Saskatchewan, eh?'..." He is getting into his stride by now.

At this point, we reach a door. Approaching from the other side is a strikingly attractive South Asian lady whom neither of us have seen before. I stand aside chivalrously to let her through. Boyo - his head twisted through 90 degrees to continue holding forth to me, fails to register her presence walks past her saying, in a high-pitched mock-Djangolina voice "Daddy - all the men here are called Mr MacKenzie!"

I smile wanly at the woman as she flees for her life, clearly having come to the snap decision that the place is a madhouse.

A new love

I have recently gone through a life-changing experience. This has not been easy for a middle-aged, respectably married man; but there is a new object of passion in my life.

I saw her in the street, and was captivated by her beauty. Her body has the most seductive curves I have ever seen. I should have admired from afar and left it at that, but I searched out more about her on the internet, and my desire grew, and became a consuming passion; I fantasized about running my hands over her lovely body, to possess her, to be - I blush to say it - inside her.

I had to have her.

I summoned up the courage to tell my wife.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot live without her. I don't want our marriage to end over this; what I would like ideally is for her to come and live with us and us all to try and get on together. And I think Guthlac will love her..."

She looked me right in the eye, remaining calm and poised.

"If you insist, then yes she can come and live here. But on one condition."

I felt my heart pounding.

"And your condition is?"

"That you put me down on the insurance as a named driver."

"Daddy, what's your favourite action film?"

"I like the one about the young maverick palaeontologist who crashes his Micra into what turns out to be the mineralized remains of a basal male bovid."
"Is there such a film?"
"Yes Djangolina - it's called Nissan in Fossil Bull."

[Note to self - it was a mistake getting Djangolina her own Samurai sword. Must lay hands on a needle and thread...]

Boyo - Les cahiers de conversation, deux

Fellow bloggagers sometimes sigh "How wonderful it must be to have the chance, on an almost daily basis, to hear the beautifully crafted pearls of wisdom that drip from the lips of the great No Good Boyo rather than have to wait for days at a time for him to complete a posting."

For such pining addicts, I offer the following conversation I had with the man himself this morning. We were queuing up in the canteen, and Boyo - having mislaid his glasses - was sorting with unnecessary care through assorted foreign coins and buttons for something the Inca princess manning the till would accept in payment for a coffee and a muffin, while a queue of deadline-stressed journalists and radio presenters built up behind him like a writhing snake.

As he finally sorted out his debt and moved on, he opined "What's that island where they use 2-ton rocks as currency?"
"Yap."
"That's it. I reckon we should adopt that as currency - for a start, nobody would pick your pockets, and also which nation in the UK has the most rocks?"
"Wales?"
"Wales, exactly. Wales consists largely of piles of rocks. You can't move in Wales without falling over huge, sprawling piles of slate, and anthracite, and - "

He paused for a moment while he struggled to think of another type of rock.

"Ignitheous twat-bollocks."
"I'm not sure that's a type of rock, Boyo."
"Eh?"
"Look, basically you've got three kinds of rock: Igneous, which comes out of the middle of the earth in a molten state and then sets hard; sedimentary, which is loads of bits that settle in a layer and then go hard; and metamorphic, which start off sedimentary and then get cooked in to something else like dough turning into cake."

His brow furrowed while he attempted to synthesize this new and exciting information.

"Gyppo - you forgot the fourth sort."
"Which is?"
"Kraut."
He nodded emphatically like Stan Laurel delivering a non-sequitur and wandered off to massage the coffee into his scalp and crumble the muffin down his trousers, as per normal.

Jeremy Kyle - the answer to global conflict

One of the guiltiest of my guilty pleasures is an unhealthy addiction to the Jeremy Kyle show. It's a sort of human version of those "Police, Camera, Unbelievably Thick Tosser in a Stolen Ford Escort" programmes that also rank among my guilty pleasures. I suppose the warm glow they occasion stems from a deep-seated smugness that however much one's wife complains about "getting too close to the kerb" when one is colliding with a lamppost or whingeing about 5 minutes spent filling in an innocent Sudoku while one's small children amuse themselves with knives, weedkiller sprays and pans of boiling water; there are others who are even worse at managing their daily lives.

Anyway, it struck me recently that if world leaders are serious about global peace and disarmament, they should appoint Jezzer secretary-general of the UN and have all peace conferences on daytime TV.

We can imagine what the result would look like:

JK: On Today's show - exes at war over nuclear weapons [Video clip of North Korea shouting at South: "Well you go runnin' off with America an' that, warram I s'pposed ter think? Eh?", and South shouting back "Tell them about the violence. You didn't mention that to the researchers, didja? You invaded me!"]

And a country that desperately wants to be father to it's ex's breakaway province [Video clip of JK intoning gravely - "Russia, Georgia: The DNA results show that the biological father of South Ossetia is -"]

That's all coming up later. But first, a family dispute that's dragged on for a long time, and threatened to involve the whole neighbourhood. Lots to unravel in this story. Now first up we have India. India has been arguing for years with sister Pakistan over a disputed cashmere. Please welcome India.
[India walks onstage and sits down nervously. If you can imagine such a thing.]
JK: Welcome to the show.
I: Good morning Jeremy.
JK: Now if we can go back a bit - you have been arguing about a lot of things even before this dispute we're here to talk about today.
I: Yes, even when Raj was alive we used to argue about religion a lot.
JK: Raj was your mother, yes?
I: Yes Jeremy.
JK: Please let's not get onto religion, but can you just tell us the sort of arguments you had?
I: Well Pakistan was always causing trouble, mistreating the cow, lookin' down like on anyone who thought diff'rently an' all. And after Raj passed on we decided to go our separate ways.
JK: Fair enough. So you wanted a clean break and to have nothing more to do with her.
I: Yes Jeremy - I could go my way and she could go hers and as far as I'm concerned, at the end o'the day, we're not related any more.
JK: But this current dispute is over a cashmere?
I: Yes - Raj had promised it to me as I'd always liked it, but at the funeral Pakistan made a scene and grabbed at it, tore it in half, and has kept her half saying she'll only sew it back together if I hand my half over to her.
JK: Which you're not prepared to do...
I: Which I'm certainly not prepared to do, Jeremy.
JK: OK, now take a breather. After the break, we'll talk to Pakistan and hear her side of the story. Don't go anywhere...