DADDY PIG: Arise and Save your Bacon!

Poor daddy pig, he goes out every day and works his trotters off to provide for his family. He is clearly highly intelligent & cares about those around him a great deal. And yet; when daddy pig returns to the warm bosom of his family they seem to  treat him with barely masked contempt and regularly refer to him as ‘silly daddy pig’. This is tantamount to emotional abuse in my book & I think that it is high time that Daddy pig manned up and ‘took charge’ of his household.

I think that we all know where the rot started in the pig household. Yes, I am of course talking about Peppa Pig, The most entitled and narcissistic little porker since the emperor Nero was a first turned up at ‘baby gladiators’ Roman toddler group. Peppa basically does whatever she wants all the time with no real consequences. In almost every episode she is told not to do things that she then almost immediately does.

Mummy Pig: you mustn’t touch the computer whilst I am working Peppa and George.

Peppa [touches computer, immediately crashing the programme that mummy pig is working on] Yes, don’t touch the computer like this George!

Mummy Pig: Oh Dear, Daddy pig.. come and help please!

This episode then has daddy pig fixing the computer and letting Peppa and George play on the  game that they wanted (rather than passing it back to poor mummy pig so that she could finish her quarterly sales projections or whatever it was she was working on). What on earth is going on here?

I thought when mummy pig called daddy in (from preparing lunch for everyone by the way…’silly daddy pig’), it was so that he could administer swift and merciless justice on the naughty piglets. But no. There must never be any consequences for Peppa pig. She will just dance through life, jumping in everyone’s muddy puddles and never having to do the laundry. Taking the piss out of her dad if he ever has difficulty navigating in the car or struggles with DIY eats too much.

So, daddy pig has a comfort eating problem. Well big woop Peppa! I am surprised that your awful behaviour has not driven him to rampant alcoholism or glue sniffing by now. This madness must end. I recommend a new episode called ‘Lets Talk about Peppa’ where daddy and mummy pig have a long talk about how they are going to manage Peppa’s out of control behaviour. Then the next episode will be entitled ‘Peppa Pig is sent away to Military boarding school until she learns the error of her ways’ or something like that.

Also the shows creators should introduce predation to the Peppa pig world. I suggest an episode titled ‘ Peppa pig loses a friend’. One day Rebecca Rabbit does not turn up for the class field trip and it turns out that she has been killed and eaten by Danny dog.

Madame Gazelle: What’s all zat muck around your mouth Danny? You really should make sure you are nice and clean before coming into ze class you know.

Danny Dog: Sorry Madame Gazelle, it’s Rebecca Rabbit, I was a bit hungry this morning after playtime so I scoffed her down. I’ve still got a bit of her leg in my school bag if you want me to share it with the class?

Madame Gazelle: Oh Mon Dieu! This is orrible, ow could you do such a thing Danny!?

Danny Dog: ‘Circle of life’ miss. [belches loudly]

 

POSTMAN PAT: Creating unrealistic expectations of the workplace

Hi Pat, welcome to your annual appraisal interview. Do come in and have a seat. Now, I’m sure that it will come as no surprise to you that the post office is seriously concerned about your conduct. Come come Pat, don’t look so shocked. Please sit back down. Don’t worry we can clear up that smashed cup of tea in a moment.
Now, let’s have a look at some of your behaviour over the past year shall we. First of all, there’s the matter of your cat Jess. …Yes she is delightful. What’s that you say, Jess is actually a boy? Hmmm, well I apologise for the misunderstanding. But you have to admit that she…I mean..he does sound like a lady cat. And with a name like Jess…well, there was a lot of room for misunderstanding.
But yes, adorable as Jess is; you really cannot be bringing your pet cat into work with you every day. No it’s not essential to your duties for you to have a cat Pat. This is not the nineteen thirties. Rats and mice are not running rampant amongst the mail room parcels, necessitating the role of the ‘post office cat’ to control the local vermin. Or are you claiming that Jess is some manner of disability companion animal?
No?...are you sure Pat. We were wondering whether Jess might be your ‘thinking brain cat’ after looking at some of your recent deliveries.
What do I mean by that? Well, lets take the delivery to Alf last week just as an example. Alf was building a rocket for some sort of race around Greendale and you delivered some of the parts that he would require. No problems there. But then you proceeded to chat with Alf for almost an hour. This would have been bad enough but then; whilst his attention was elsewhere, you entered the rocket, became locked inside and ended up flying it around Greendale for most of the afternoon. Pat, this is not what you are employed by the post office to do. You are a parcel delivery operative. No, it doesn’t matter that you won the race. It was a complete waste of post office time and resources, not to mention the fact that you aren’t insured to pilot such a contraption. What if there had been an accident?
Which brings me to our next concern. What do you think the running costs of an average rural postal service are Pat? Not sure? Well allow me to help you out. They are certainly not in the ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ bracket. A first class stamp still retails for under a pound and one can send a parcel across the country for less than the cost of a packet of fags. How therefore do you possibly imagine we could countenance the use of your own ‘post office helicopter’ to deliver occasional items of mail?
What do you mean ‘special delivery service’. It certainly is special Pat. It breaks every known rule of consumer economics. You cannot use a helicopter costing thousands of pounds an hour to deliver a parcel that we were paid under twenty pounds to deliver. What do you mean ‘HS2 would do it’? Your department of the post office on its own is responsible for 43 percent of the total UK spend Pat. At the last count you were running two ‘bright red’ vans, a motorcycle with sidecar, a helicopter and a further ‘bigger van’ for special delivery jobs. It wouldn’t be so bad but you take three or four times as long as any other known postman to deliver even simple letters. What do you mean Mrs Goggins lost them one time? Mrs Goggins is about 1000 years old man! You are constantly opening other people’s parcels, or loosing them in fields or walking off of your postal route in order to support local school plays or to help out the local ‘one man’ police service!
I’m afraid that you no longer fit with the modern twenty first century postal service and we will have to let you go. What do you mean ‘the people of Greendale won’t stand for this’? Don’t you realise that we are trying to compete with Amazon and Ebay Pat. There is no room in the lean future for a postman who’se idea of a great summer party is to drop five hundred and thirty eight cubic tonnes of sand in the city centre and proclaim that it is a beach party without the beach. Also you are spending far too much post office time helping out with your friend’s railway project.
Enough is enough. Go and join Fireman Sam at the Employment Office and hand in your keys to the chopper on the way out. We are going to sell it to fund a post office staff party celebrating your departure.

Bing Bunny: The Reason Britain Has Lost It's Way

For any of you who are not held hostage by your children and forced to become over familiar with children’s television; the gruesome twosome pictured above are Bing Bunny and his carer Flop.

I say carer. To be honest, the exact nature of Flops relationship to the dark rabbit is a little uncertain. Is he Bings father? his childminder? some sort of teacher? A beanbag that Bing has imagined as having a gentle voice and happy personality ?

 

Actually the last suggestion might make perfect sense given the observable fact that Flop is (not to put too fine a point on it), one of the most ineffective and useless parents ever to have been given custody of a child.

The little terrorist Bing is pretty much allowed to get away with any bad behaviour with no comeuppance at all. This despite having always been warned by Flop that it is an inadvisable course of action.

 

On any given episode the formula is generally the same. Bing and flop are happily doing something. Bing proposes an utterly stupid or reckless course of action. Flop gently cautions Bing against this madness. Bing then does it anyway and then comes to flop in tears when something bad happens as a result. Flop then gently comforts Bing and makes it all better.

I am going to write to Cbeebies (or whoever the stupid company is) with the following (in my opinion much better) script for an episode.

 

[camera in…establishing shot…the zoo exterior daytime]

Narration: ‘it’s Saturday afternoon and Bing & Flop are visiting the zoo’

Flop: ‘Look Bing, the wolves enclosure’

Bing: ‘Oh wow Flop, wolves are so furry, look…that one is having a wee’

Flop: ‘[chuckles] yes, so he is. Do you need a wee Bing’

Bing: ‘No. I want to go & pet the wolves flop, please can I?’

Flop: ‘No Bing, wolves can be quite dangerous you know. They aren’t like dogs’

[we see Flop being distracted for a moment as he helps a passing old lady to pick up her dropped bag. Bing uses this distraction to clamber over the barrier and into the wolf enclosure]

 

Flop: ‘Oh Bing no….Come back!’

[Bing ignores Flop, he runs recklessly after one of the wolves in an attempt to stroke it. The wolf turns around and bites Bing’s hand]

Bing: [Bursting Into tears as he rushes back to Flop] ‘Oh Flop…Flop, the wolf was nasty and it bit me on the hand…look, there’s blood coming out Flop’

Flop: [giving Bing a smack around the ears] ‘I told you not to go in there you stupid bastard. You could very well have been killed. Let’s hope you haven’t contracted rabies from that bite. Now stop blubbing and let me have a look’

[the rest of the episode concerns Flop taking Bing to the emergency room whilst lecturing him on the importance of respecting and obeying your betters].

 

If Bing is not stopped, his sense of narcissistic entitlement will doom any future lady bunnies to a miserable relationship with him.

 I imagine him in his thirties, frittering away payday loans on yet more online casino spins from a dirty two seater sofa surrounded by empty plastic microwavable curry packaging. His signature adorable dungarees are shabby and stained . Straining in a vain attempt to cover the massive expanse of his beer belly. The stench of skunk lies heavy across the fetid bedsit.

 

Bing: [on phone] ‘Hi is that Flop? Hi buddy …. Sorry to be a pain but could you lend me some more money mate?’

Viking Funeral For My Pants

As has previously been discussed here; I find it hard to let go of things. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of my wardrobe. Some of the clothing items there have been with me for over a decade. This is not because of any environmentally conscious mind-set  on my part. But rather due to the fact that, at some unconscious level, I expect  all of my clothing to last forever and cannot really appreciate that some vestments need to be consigned to the dustbin. I often refer to certain shirts as ‘my new shirt’ despite the fact that I actually purchased it three of four years hence.

As a psychotically organised individual; I have a strict method to clothing storage. Trousers on one side, then shirts then warm clothing. As I am the only one in the household who every puts laundry away, this system has been rigidly observed for some years. I have two rails of clothing (one atop the other). The top rail for smart work wear and the bottom for the shambolic crap that I dress in at home.

When a new item of clothing arrives it heralds the  beginning of an arduous, decade long process of being digested by the Salak of my wardrobe system. For two or three years it will remain  on the ‘best work wear’ rack. But then the inevitable happens and I must sadly admit that it is looking frayed and old. At which point it is demoted to the lower ‘casual wear’ rack.

From this point on it is a slow decline for another four years or so until it has too many holes or stains in to be safe to wear outside the house.  The last three years are a shameful time for it as I refuse to throw it out but wear it when relaxing at home . Then finally I have to get rid of it.

My last pair of jeans reached this Nadir a few months back and I just couldn’t bring myself to chuck them out. They had holes in which I had repeatedly repaired but even I had to admit that jeans with a massive rip across the groinal area were a fashion ‘faux pa’s even for me. It had gotten to the point that I couldn’t sit across from anyone without the risk of seriously indecent exposure.

In the end I have landed upon the perfect solution. Like the Vikings of old, I now send the ‘honoured dead’ to their fabric afterlife upon a flame filled chariot (which is to say that I chuck my old clothing in the stolid fuel burner in the winter mornings in order to keep warm).

Watching  as my clothing gradually surrenders to the fierce glory of the flames  feels epic and allows me some form of primal closure. I feel as if I am some ancient warrior  shooting a fiery shaft  into a longboat  and standing in solemn silence to watch it burn  as it drifts away.

‘ A pair of great trousers comes to meet their fellows in Valhalla this day. Trousers that have rode out many storms in this life. Though vicious stains were visited upon them and farts beyond number ravaged the brave fabric of their gusset they stood true. But now they come home. To the great Levi 501’s store of the skies. There they will be born aloft on the legs of worthy hero’s and never again kicked under my bed and forgotten about for weeks on end’

And then I set a match to them and watch them burn. But only after cutting off some of the material to make Barbie doll dresses for my daughter. I mean for goodness sakes, I have to have SOMETHING to remember them by!

 

New and better blogsite coming later this year!