Professor Chucklebutty's Liverpool

ELECTED MAYOR FOR LIVERPOOL CAMPAIGN.The campaign becomes a three horse race and one rooster as Herbert The hairdresser offers an alternative to the cuts as a fringe candidate.

2012-02-01T00:11:00.011Z

Herbert enters race for Elected Mayor

By Jove Missus, what a beautiful day! What a beautiful day for running into the hairdressers naked, sitting upside down in the chair and saying how’s that for split ends?

Blimey! He’s back, you all cry as one. What’s got him out of rehab?

I haven’t been away Missus, I’ve been on Facebewk. Yes Facebewk, the great social nitworking site where you get to make friends from all around the world and then delete them. I have more friends on Facebewk than I could shake a stick at, and having seen some of the stuff they write about, I’m keeping hold of that bloody stick in case I ever meet any of them.

Now what you may also not know is that there is a campaign on Facebewk to have me as the first elected mayor for Liverpool.

I blogged about it many times in the past. You see Missus, a few years ago that bloke who used to do the weather for Northwest Tonight, Foghorn Leggarty, I say Leggarty, was always going round with a big roll of bus tickets trying to get people to write their names on them. He said if he could get 5000 signatures we could have a vote on an elected mayor. He was up to 4,500 he claimed and was turning up everywhere trying to get people to sign it, well only if it wasn't raining. Trouble is, one day when he was out canvassing for signatures at the Arriva bus depot, he put it down for a minute and one of the drivers walked off with it. So for the last five years, he’s been walking the streets of Liverpool muttering to himself and picking up all the discarded bus tickets looking for signed ones. It’s a terrible sad sight.

Foghorn Leggarty offered nugget of hope at last

But at the time, Foghorn was the only one arguing for an elected mayor so I tried to form an alliance with him and let him lead my campaign to be mayor, following fears and rumours that Professor Full Ripewind may stand.

You remember Professor Ripewind, scruffy bloke, big bushy scousebrow, looks like he's got two dead spaniels strapped to his head, and has a smile like a loose doner kebab.

If you remember, once Blair didn't give him his expected knighthood, he suddenly became big mates with Cameron and Pickles instead. He was hoping to be the Czar for a Big Society Scouse Wedding, so they could get rid of all the museum and library staff and have them run instead by unemployed but experienced volunteers, which would mainly be the staff that have been made redundant in the first place. It’s what they call a “win-win” Anyway, they didn't make him the Czar and when everyone laughed, and the council opted out of anything to do with the Big Society nonesense, he got a right weed on saying he would be much better at doing things than the council, just like the way he saved Capital of Custard, when he took over 10 minutes before it started and claimed all the credit. The Custard Supremo, as the idiots at the Echo dubbed him and unfortunately, he and some people believe it and actually listen to him. The Echo loves him, they even let him write a column in the Post. Although nobody knows what the bleedin' hell he's talking about. Especially him.

Well we couldn’t risk him becoming Mayor, the man whose main contribution to our city of culture was the creation of the “Calm Down, Calm Down” image of Liverpool; all perms and tracksuits.

Because of him, visitors used to be frightened to eat in our restaurants in case there was a body in the pate. They were scared to come here in case Tommy McCardle hung them upside down in the back of Sayers. Even New Brighton was ruined by him when people stopped going for a swim in case they got entangled in Theresa’s cardigan.

That’s why I first decided to stand. He had to be stopped. The Emmerdale Terrorist, as he’s known in Yorkshire, the Beckindale Butcher! He had Archie Brooks burned to death. We can't let a man like that run our great city. But it all seemed to fizzle out and for a long time, it all went quiet.

Professor Full Ripewind. "I wouldn't let a hairdresser anywhere near me"

Just as well really, seeing as Foghorn Leggarty, I say Leggarty, ignored my offer and carried on trying to find his list. Then he started a new one and was regularly seen tormenting shoppers in Home Bargain trying to get them to sign it, although one day he wasted 5 hours trying to get a signature from the cardboard cut-out policeman by the entrance.

Since then he’s done the odd publicity stunt, like the time he climbed to the top of St John’s Beacon and unfurled a banner reading “An Elected Mayor for Liver” he couldn’t fit the rest on, well it was more of an old pillowcase than a banner. You couldn’t see it, or him. But it was lucky he had some wine gums on him as while he was up there, somebody closed the trap door and he was stuck up their for three days. He could have perished if it hadn’t been for Pete Pricerite on City F.OFF. Peter was planning to abseil down it for charity and just popped up there to have a look for himself, just to see how high it was, after everybody was telling him that he didn’t need ropes on the actual day, they were only for practicing on the backyard wall.

So it was our local hero, Pete Pricerite, who found and rescued Foghorn, I say Foghorn. Leggarty that is. Pete often mentions it on his phone abuse radio show.

“I saaaaaved his friggin’ life and he hasn't once asked me to stand as Mayor! Me, the obvious choice, the voice of Liverpool. Do you know wha' I wish I’d pushed him off. Right let’s see what vile friggin’ no mark is on line one. Gerra friggin’ job ya lazy so and so, who’s paying the bill for you to phone me? Wha? Oh sorry, we are joined by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Reverend Tom Jones …that’s not unusual.Aaahhaahhahhhahahhahahahahahaha, I’ve still got it.........just ask Paul O'Grady, he'll tell ya. ”

So for ages after that, nothing was happening about an elected mayor until a couple of weeks ago when suddenly the Labour leader of Liverpool Council, Gerry Anderson, thunders "Mayors Are Go!"

No sooner had the announcement been made than I was inundated by a knock at the front door. It was from my former campaign manager from Facebewk, Mrs Slovenia, to tell me that the cream cheese dip for my victory banquet had gone off. Well we did buy it in 2009. She said you’d better let me know soft lad, are you still standing or what? She needed to know if she should get more cheese and possibly some onion dip. I said how much is the pay? If it’s over 300k and I get to stand on the balcony at the town hall with Ringo, I’ll do it.

Well you can imagine the excitement across the city and of course once news spread, Foghorn Leggarty, I say Leggarty, sticks his beak in and decides he’s going to stand, just to spite me. But then he has the cheek to moan about Joe Andyman bypassing a referendum and going straight for a vote. This is what you wanted isn’t it? Don’t tell me after all these years, sleeping behind the back of the burned out church, on binbags full of bus tickets that if there had been a referendum, and they all voted no, that you would have said, oh alright then and gone home? There’s no pleasing some people.

Anyway, I can discount Leggarty, I say Leggarty, he’s no threat now. Nobody knows him not since he stopped doing the weather. It’s Diane Oxberry, they’d vote for now. He’ll be busy for the next few months trying to think up a policy.

That’s the problem for people like Foghorn, I say Foghorn. He never thought it would actually get this far.

I suppose it's a bit like those blokes who used to stand at the Pier Head for years carrying a placard saying;

“The end of the world is nigh, prepare to meet thy maker, be ready for the day of judgement!”

One clap of thunder and they run off screaming!

Elected Murder For Liverpool unless we do something says Anderson

Well I have to admit Mr Ambleside’s decision not to have a referendum is controversial. People are saying it’s undemocratic. The biggest critic is perhaps the deputy leader of the Literally Doomed Party Councillor Dodgy Tash. Of course he’s a fine one to go on about undemocratic decisions.

Dodgy Tash's party leader is the un-elected deputy prime minister. The professional liar, the man with the pledge, who is jointly responsible for slashing the council budget to the point whereby the very poorest in our city are paying for the greed of the thieving bankers.

So I expect any offer from the government of grants for £130 million if you opt to have an elected mayor right now, is enough to make anyone in Joe Amplesize's position risk the backlash, especially when your daily task since being elected is what are we going to have to shut down next, to save this? How many more do we need to make redundant to keep this going? Oh yes I know they could make a stand and set an illegal budget. A great noble gesture, but the likely outcome would be that the government would sit back and watch the city go bankrupt rubbing their hands with glee.

So I don’t think we need any lectures on democracy and fairness from the Lit-Dooms or Cllr Tash. who is probably already writing his own Mayoral campaign leaflets.

"Grotty Cash Needs Dodgy Tash"

Corky Kemp Deputy Leader of the Liverpool Cuts Party

The fact is that we are ruled from Westminster by lying blackmailers and thieves, who are themselves owned and only allowed to play politics by permission of the major banks, financial institutions and media moguls. But I suspect the rationale is that if we can get a breathing space locally with a big wedge of cash, then I can partly see why Mr Anklesock has taken this path.

I can’t agree with the decision 100% but I can certainly understand it. I just hope he can and has read all the small print.

Of course I can't vote for him, not when I am standing myself. Oh no Missus, I'm committed, there's no going back - I’ve already bought the hat! It’s got big Ostrich feathers on it. They’ll tickle your fancy.

But as I'm mainly in it for the money, it could be the dream ticket really. Joe Ambersol takes the flak for doing it without a referendum and in the backlash I storm to victory and take control of the city.

Once I get my hands on the £130 million and get a few odd jobs done around the house, buy the missus a new housecoat and a Justin Biever bed jacket for Mrs Hewitt, I'll just pop £5 million into my Coutts account and Joe can have the rest. I'll always put Liverpool second. And that's a promise. Although I may not spend much time here with £5million in the bank. I might move to Frodsham, buy the house next door to Professor Ripewind. I’ll still do the odd fete, cut the ribbons and judge the biggest turnip competition, although i hear the local turnip is now standing as an independent after selecting himself down at the allotments.

"The Lib Cleggs have betrayed Liverpool
that's why I am standing in the allotment
and proud to have selected myself as an Independent Turnip."
Says former leader,Washed-up Badly

Of course I will contribute to the mayoral manifesto. There are certain changes I want to see. Like I want to see the waterfront from the Albert Dock again, so those black coffin monstrosities will be demolished.

And if Peel want to build shanghai towers and Liverpool waters, they can do it first on the Boot Estate or in Norris Green and Anfield. Let’s regenerate them first. Give them some luxury apartments and jobs. Not that they'll ever build anything, they are just making it up on the back of a fag packet. I've been building a shed for 30 years so I can see through them.

In fact I may take a lead on quite a few things come to think of it. I will grant a 24 hour licence to Greggs and Sayers, restore the old Irish Centre and give it to the Welsh Presbytarians who had their lovely church by Penny Lane demolished. It's a disgrace that they knocked that down! The Beatles used to have a waz up against those walls. Beatles City? Bulldozer City more like!

Speaking of which who’s that bugger from Magullible Property Demolitions, the ones who smashed up Josephine Butler House behind a tarpaulin after pretending they were preserving the external stonework with a sledge hammer?

They knocked it down leaving all the rough brick exposed. A right eyesore, just so we could have a 15 space carpark. Are they the same ones who took a sledge hammer to the ornate stone carved Victorian fronts of the old education offices in Sir Thomas Street, so they could demolish it and build a Perspex lunchbox?

I’ll have a similar preservation order slapped on his house, see how he likes it.

Yes indeed Missus, I will take the bull by the horns. My manifesto will be full of bull and I will take it all the way to victory horns along the Mersey.

Now, if you can remember that far back, I started this entry with a whimsical reference to hairdressers. No doubt, by now you will have realised that any metion of my campaign has been the victim of a conspiratorial media blackout. This was further evidenced today by the announcement that a new name has been thrown out of the arena.

Yes, the shock news yesterday that Liverpool’s very own version of Vital Bassoon, local hairdressing mogul, Herbert Hoot, has decided to throw his ring in.

I’ll be honest, ladies and gentlemen, this is the one person I always feared as a serious rival. You see I’d vote for Herbert! I mean Mrs C and Mrs Hewitt are already wearing T-shirts saying:

If you don’t want a blert
vote for Her-bert

Which is a rubbish slogan, I know. But you see people like Herbert. He’s a character. I like him. Well I did, until he did this to me. And I'm sorry to say he’s already started fighting dirty and using underhand tactics, like saying he will do it for no pay! Filthy trick. He knows full well I want at least £300k for the job.

Bling it on says a defiant Herbert

Well two can play at that game mate. I love this city and nobody will stand between me and all that cash. He’s already loaded, it’s alright for him.

Well I have already initiated plan A of the fightback. I have left a transit van parked in wet cement right outside his Bling salon, he won’t shift that in a hurry. And do you know what it says on the side of the van?

“Nitty Nora The Nit Nurse Emergency Rapid Response Unit”

If he wants to play dirty he won’t know what’s hit him. I mean blimey, it was probably me who put the idea in his head, from the blogs ages ago. I knew Leggarty, I say Leggarty was getting nowhere and I said then Herbert should stand and I would support him. What an idiot I was!

You see that’s before I knew how bad things were going to get and what was at stake. £300k and a percentage of the £130 million.

I feel betrayed by him. After all I have done for him over the years. If it wasn’t for me, he would never have thought of opening the brilliant Champu Bar in Town. That was all my idea. I even ran a special feature on the opening night.

http://profchucklebuttychronic.blogspot.com/2009/04/by-jove-missus-here-i-am-back-from.html
The fact that it went bust because he wouldn’t leave free crisps on the bar in case anybody stood by it and then wouldn’t let anyone pee on the Italian marble urinal, that was nothing to do with me, it was his own fault. He wouldn't take the plastic covers off the couch. I tell you what, the mild was rubbish too.

I started him off. You know it was me who gave him the idea to open his first salon. I’d just nicked a brush and comb set from Woolworths and was getting chased down Church Street by the store detective. I said here you are young man cop hold of this, so when they caught me…no evidence. It was Herbert. Then I saw him a few years later using the very same brush on a Yorkshire Terrier in a Dog Grooming shop window on great Homer Street.

I said, no mate you won't make your fortune clipping poodles, look at Squeezy Wheezie, he's loaded. There's no money in dog grooming, the real money is in women’s hairdressing, if you can stand listening to them yapping. Next thing you know he has a string of salons and is driving round in a pink Reliant Robin.

Herbert, what have you done?
That's not how Justin Beiber has his hair cut!
"Well he friggin' would if he came in here!"

He was very grateful to me and always said that if there was anything he could do for me, I should just ask. I remember once when I was in the salon getting a trim, he told me that I was going a bit thin on top and offered to massage my follicles for me. I thought about it for a minute and said, oh all right go on then, so long as you don't tell anyone. So I got myself ready and when he turned round he screamed and threw me out!

All a misunderstanding and we eventually made up and so I’ve always remained a supporter of Herbert’s businesses. In fact do you know Missus, he asked me to be his first volunteer when he branched out into full body waxing. Back, sack and clack.

In fact that’s where I learned how to yodel!

And it was me who said he should modernise, don’t just offer the customers tea or coffee, I said. These days they expect Cupsofchino, Latte, Mocha. Offer them different blends, Columbian, Italian, Costa Brava, Myrthr Tydfil. Although that nearly went wrong and I can tell you this now, but if it wasn’t for my intervention he would have been shut down and lost his waxing licence. Mrs Hewitt was going to sue him for every Kirby grip he had. You see she only went in to have her ankles waxed but while she was waiting for her Colombian Latte with choco sprinkle, she told the girl she’d changed her mind and wanted a Brazilian instead.

Well I heard the screams from Renshaw Street. When I got there, there were six of them trying to hold her down while they pulled the strip off. She’d let it go a bit down there they said, and now they couldn’t shift it.

In the end they attached the edge of the wax strip to a tow rope and the other end to the bumper of Herbert’s new Rolls Royce. Well it didn't work. He revved up the engine too much and they just dragged her off the table, out through the door and halfway up South John Street. I told him to keep it in 1st gear.

Eventually, the only way we could get it off her was to use a Black and Decker Steam Stripper from Rapid, which he still hasn’t paid me for. It was very lucky for him that our local GP Dr Strukov, was doing his mobile botox and had his van in the Aldi carpark when we were going home with her, so we pulled in and Strukov gave us a few knock out drops to slip in her cocoa. Put her to sleep for a week and when she came round, I managed to convince her it was all a dream. They cost me forty quid as well, although he did throw in a DVD of Debbie Does Casualty.

So all in all, I don’t know how Herbert has the nerve to stand against me, not after everything I have done for him. But I think he could just win it so I'd best keep him sweet and hope he gives me a cut.

But as if Herbert trying to ruin my chances is not bad enough, there are other turncoats out there. Those who are refusing to mention my campaign. People in the local media who have been writing about the mayor issue and not made a single mention of my name going forward.

It proves once again that it’s the newspapers that elect governments not the people. Look at Bartlett’s blog in the Daily Weekly Gone by Christmas Post. Over the years, my contributions to his Blog site Dole Street Blues, now re-branded Dull Associates, are the main reason people have stayed loyal. He owes me! I have kept that lot going while Trickery Mirror have been chucking them all out on their arses and shifting it all to Oldham.

Not one mention in the last three articles apart from me writing in comments. I have even declared on his pages that I am standing and he’s made no mention of it. It’s a conspiracy. It’s the Illuminous Paperhatzi or the Bobthebuilderberg Group. They are all over the internet. The say it’s them who control the voting on X factor. I bet that Simon Trowel is Freemason. That’s how deep it runs.

But I think the biggest disappointment for me is that my old friend and respected local journalist and broadcaster, Harry Nield, the man I lead to safety and on stage with the stripper in the Gladray club during the Toxteth riots, has also deserted me.

No mention of my campaign in his articles about the Elected mayor. How quickly they forget. You know, I don’t like to mention this but when Harry was going through his lean years, and walking through town with a sieve on his head and holding up an electric whisk looking for mobile phone mast radiation (alright it was me who sold them to him) I stayed loyal and pointed him towards more popular stories.

Then he started writing about dogs fouling the city pavements, and I sent him numerous scoops. I expected a little more support from him.

Well Harry there’s still time if you want to back the winner and possibly a job for you on my team. I will always need a good press officer. And somebody has to iron me shirts.

That reminds me, where is me shirt? I can’t stand for mayor without me shirt!

Where’s me shirt!!!???

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

Liverpool, maligned by Tory Blogger Iain Dale, has the world press banging at my door for a reaction.

2011-09-28T13:53:00.000+01:00

Top Class Hotels. A shower in every room

Liverpool is the land of my forfathers, well me mother said it was dark in the air raid shelter, so it could have been any one of them. But that means when you attack the city of Liverpool...well I'm not going to stand for it sitting down.

During Labour Conference week, that Iain Dale, who compiles the Complete B*llocks list of the top Political B*llocks in the UK has been up here writing a conference diary.

Well that's what he's supposed to be doing, instead he decided to have a crack at Liverpool.

He does nothing but moan about the city and our most famous hotel. Naturally, the world's media wanted an instant reaction from me. But I agreed only to talk to that bastion of truth, free speech and rissoles with jus, Liverpool Confidential.

You can read the full article here.

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Not-Confidential/Just-sling-yer-ook-will-yer

I tell you this Mr Dale, you ask anyne from Liverpool about the city, and they'll tell you it's Shangri - La!

The Gazza Strip

Tatty Bye Everybody, Tatty Bye!

Wally Bradlow: Shock resignation and then suspension of city's beloved son. Clegg cuts lifeline before he strangles himself with it as charges of alleged electoral fraud make headlines. Everyone is to blame. Local Poet Laureate Reggie McCough, writes an odourous ode to mark the sad events.

2011-04-18T21:57:00.006+01:00

It's a sad end for Wally Bradlow the former leader of Grotty Cash Council and leader of the Liverpool Lib Dem group.

After resigning in a blaze of glory, of the type to which we have become sadly accustomed, he is then suspended by the party pending investigations into alleged electoral fraud.

Local Poet Laureate Reggie McCough, has marked this sad day with a special ode.

Bye Bye Mr Bradley (Thanks for all the fish)

By Reggie McCough

And so farewell to Warren Bradley

Of common sense, the poor lad had nay,

Stumbling like a donkey, lame

with everyone but him to blame

There were no ears to hear you beg

from the day you passed the blame to Clegg

For you started your doomed expedition

before he joined the coalition

You wanted folk to vote Lib Dem

On a slogan that you’re not like them

A desperate plea in your final hour

While your party keeps the Tories in power

The local government Jewel in the Crown

Was left for scrap when you went down

Now you see the harsh reality

Of Liberal Democrat loyalty

Where the price to pay, as we will see

To secure Clegg’s place in history

Is your beloved party locally

Flushed down the electoral lavatory

Will some people still be fooled

And vote for the likes of Kemp and Gould?

Or your former mentor, now Lord Storey

For underneath they all are Tory

For them it’s all now very neat

For they never would have won a seat

Unless they joined the Lib Dem band

Now with fellow Tories they are hand in hand

The Lib Dem colours shining through

Revealing the dark sides shades of blue

But you piped up to save your skin

And now you’ve done your own self in

For your party planned assassination

before your tawdry resignation

As we listen to your familiar cry

“the charges made, I will deny”

You have now fallen on your sword

Faced with alleged election fraud

And without grace you still cast blame

While we wait to see who signed their name

You were often labelled more daft than bad

Storey’s protégé, his lad gone mad

But now he doesn’t want to know

And you now reap what you did sew

This is a fire you can’t put out

The hose is dry, and you have no clout

You’ve seen that your party now is rotten

And your work in the city will be forgotten

You claim you're being made scapegoat

For Clegg who will cost you every vote

So no honours list for you dear friend

For you began the losing trend

But for all the ridicule that you brought

Perhaps a lesson you’ll be taught

You claimed it was your mistaken passion

When people complained of your bullying fashion

As the decent folk that you drove away

Could have been the friends you need today

But in spite of all this sleaze and strife

Remember that there’s more to life

So go and break the fire bell

Let Clegg and his friends all burn in hell

They all sold out and they told us lies

Farewell Mr Bradley, now dry your eyes.

One more squirt

Well, I am sorry it has ended like this. I think a lot of the time he thought he meant well and maybe sometimes he did. Time to reflect.

It wasn't all his fault by a long chalk and those who probably steered him and then plotted against him are still sitting pretty with their friends in the Tories, cutting your services and trying to destroy your communities. In the end, he tried...whether it was to save his own neck locally or not, we can never know for certain. But we can be certain that his party has hung him out to dry. That shows who they count as friends. Cameron and The Conservatives over their own members and supporters.

A Very Tatty Bye Everybody, Tatty Bye

be nice to eachother.....and don't vote Lib Dem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The full story in the local press

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2011/04/19/warren-bradley-suspended-by-liberal-democrats-as-police-are-poised-to-launch-election-fraud-claim-investigation-92534-28542372/

EXCLUSIVE: LEAKED FIRST DRAFT OF THAT WALLY BRADLOW LETTER. Bradley gives Nick Clogg a piece of his tiny mind and proposes party name change to Liberal Doomed-Rats

2011-04-11T22:39:00.031+01:00

One Big Leak

By Jove Missus what a beautiful day, what a beautiful day for standing in a puddle at the greengrocers and saying how's that for an embarrasing leek?

Yes, missus the big leak story. All here in my personal chronic calls. But, not the doctored one they put out in the press, by Jove no! I have the original transcript of Wally Bradlows suicide note to Deputy Primeminister Nick Nocky Nick Clegg.

As usual, his mam had to tidy it up for him, otherwise it comes across as a lunatic rant from a desperate man. It still does, but the original draft was much tougher, and for that I say hats off to Wally Bradlow.

And so ladies and gentlemen in the interests of hysterical accuracy, I reprint the leak before the leak..or as Ned Sharon used to say to Jack Frost and the Three Ronnies:

THAT WAS THE LEAK THAT WAS.

Now first my dear readers....both of you, pay attention. This is the transcript that they hoodwinked the BBC with and that was reprinted in Young Dave Barchesters Chronicles: Dole Street Blues. The actual link is here: http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2011/04/in-full-warren-bradleys-email.html

This is it, what they want you to read. Even then, they get his name wrong! Then below that, is what I believe to be the original draft.

From: Bridley, Warren

Subject: LABOUR'S SURGE IN THE NORTH

IN CONFIDENCE - PRIVATE

Dear Nick and the Parliamentarians,

I have to date kept my frustrations and criticisms based on policy rather than just having a go because I don't want to be in bed with the Tories; unfortunately the boil is about to come to a head and burst (probably on election night) when we lose some very well respected and experienced colleagues from Liverpool City Council. The Labour and Trade Union movement are saturating the streets of Liverpool, even in our heartlands.

Liberalism started in Liverpool (Church Ward) during the late 60's with Sir Trevor Jones and Cyril Carr being the driving force; a ward we have held for many years through thick and thin, sadly this year, because of your actions in Coalition Government, this may not be the case. Never before in 35+ years have I seen the streets of Wavertree snooing with Labour activists, never before have I seen Labour posters in a local election. This is only down to the policies that our Parliamentarians are pursuing in Coalition Government. The position is untenable, Mike Storey having given many decades to the party is extremely vulnerable, and could well fall because of the Parliamentary party.

Many other long serving Councillors could be defeated not because of their record, but because of your record and the perception of what we as Liberal Democrats now are.

I only hope on the 6th May, you will meet with Leaders/Groups/ordinary members and seek their views following a set of results, which if mirrored by our canvass returns will place us back 40 years.

I and many of my colleagues in Liverpool and the North are tired of defending the indefensible, as a party we have to reconsider what and who we are before we disappear into the annuls of history as a political party who promised so much hope, yet failed because they wanted control and power.

This is not a moan because I want to be someone, I deeply care about the party I have campaigned for since its inception, as I did for the Liberals before when I was a little boy, as did both my parents and virtually all my family; Liverpool and the North needs and deserves an alternative to Labour, but at present, after knocking on many doors, all I feel is dejection and upset that the Lib Dems, the party the people trusted implicitly have become like the others and deserted their followers.

I hope you take this in the spirit it is meant, liberal principles have to shine through, we have to be independent and we have to sever ties from the coalition; if we fail to do this, we have only our Parliamentarians to blame.

Yours sincerely

Cllr. Worried Bradley

Leader of the Liberal Democrats

Liverpool City Council

But now ladies and gentlemen, sent to me by one of my agents in the field, and up to their knees in it, is the original draft version, before his mam re-wrote it and made him stand in the corner.

I think you will agree, that Wally should be applauded for his strong stance and courageous outspoken views. This is the version they didn't want you to see!

From: Wally Bradlow,

Subject: LABOUR'S SURGE UP MY END

IN CONTINANCE - PRIVATES

Dear Dick and the Parlymentrians,

I have to date, what date is it by the way? I mean you only have to look at where we were 10 years ago…where were we?

I have kept my flustrations and crittisisms based on policy rather than just having a go because I don't want to be in bed with the Tories; not since I met this bird on Facebook, and just for the record, somebody else stuck that photo in her album, and that wasn’t me either and you can quote me on that unanimously, in fact never mind unanimous, you can use my real name.
Unfortunately at the moment my head looks like a boil about to burst

(probably on election night) when we lose some very well respected and experienced colleagues from Liverpool City Council. No names spring to mind but ….obviously not Eldridge, Twiggler, Kamp, Turnip or Fieldung.....

And deffo not my mate Hursty…he was an innocent man, and I know cos it was…er I mean….just cos he got caught red handed found guilty and lost his appeal, doesn’t mean he is innocent until proven guilty and I stand on that basic principal of habeus caught-us and Magnum Carton.

The Labour and Trade Union movement are saturating the streets of Liverpool, even in the warzones…I mean heartlands.

Liberalism started in Liverpool (Church Ward) during the late 1860's with Sir Trevor Jones driving door to door in Cyril’s Car. I still use it when I am out campaigning.

It's a ward we have held for many years through thick and thin. Just ask Councillor Klemp about thick and thin: he says he’s thin and I’m….. though sadly this year, because of your actions in Coalition and many other towns, this may not be the case.

Never before in 350+ years have I seen the streets of Wavertree snooing…err snookering...snoodling …what’s the friggin’ word I am looking for? Basically, there’s loads of Labour activists everywhere, and never before have I seen Labour posters in a local election that I haven’t drawn specs and a tash on before running away….not that it was me, it was Stev…..er.. we would never do that.....

Enough of this yah boo politics, that's my mantravani. That's just the kind of behaviour what has driven this city into the ground that we sold dirt cheap to a load of speculators. Remember it was under this Liberal Democrat administration that we transfused the city skyscrape, bringing many to tears. And joy to Sir Top-up Jones.

The people of Liverpool, remember our hard work and the way we managed the city, which is why we got kicked out last May. What do you think's gonna happen this May??? Eh? Eh?...........er...........Eh?

This situation we now face, is one of being flushed down the pan, and this is only down to the policies that our Parlymentrians are pursuing in Coalition Government.

Thanks to you Dave, and you all jumping into bed with Nick Cameron and Thatcher's Liberals, the position is untenable, and even the most unpalatable Mike Storey, having given many decades to the party is extremely vulnerable, and could well fall because of all the Peroni he’s been drinking at my house. Except that we never met at my house and didn’t talk about getting rid of people, or sending texts that we haven’t sent. That's if we ever met in the first place…I've never even heard of him. Besides, Mike is a Duchess now, the nobbled Baron Of Chilblains. So he can get the Knights of Cammelairds on to you if you try and dredge all that up again. Anyway the standards board said I was just an idiot and ignorance of the law is nine tenths, so you can’t touch me for that one.

Lord Mike Strawhair sees dark days ahead for Liverpool Lib Dems

I only hope on the 6th May the day after the elections, (note to self take that friggin’ huge poster down from Garmoyle Road saying the election is on the 6th or everyone will go out to vote a day late…..no wait.... since they won’t be voting for us anyway, leave it up so they won’t vote for Labour either) See that’s the kind of strategums mind set you have to have at the butt and thrust of local politics!

Many other self serving Councillors could be defeated, not because of their record, but because of your record and the perception of what we as Liberal Democrats now are. Why did you have to let them find out? Nickhead!

Where was I ? Oh yes, Mick, I hope that on May 6th you will meet with Leaders/Groups/ordinary members and seek their views following a set of results, which if mirrored by our canvass returns will place us back 400 years, which is a long time in politics.

I and many of my colleagues in Liverpool and the North are tired of defending the indefensible. And now, since you joined the coalition, it’s even worse! As a party we have to reconsider what and who we are before we disappear up the annus of history as a political party. We promised so much hope, yet failed because you wanted control and power. A bit like like we did in Liverpool.

This is not a moan because I want to be someone, I gave up hope on that years ago. I deeply care about the party I have campaigned for since its deception, just as I did for the Liberals before, when I was a little boy, with a cheap toy fire engine and dropping clangers every few yards.

Both my parents, the dog Trevor, the budgie and virtually all my family cared deeply about the Liberal value.

Boy George knew my father, as the song goes, and in our case it’s true and this helped us to secure Capital of Culture Club 2008, which was perhaps the greatest feather in my brains behind the scenes.

(Note to my agent: Don't use a photo with that bastard Jasper Harbottle)

Liverpool and the North needs and deserves an alternative, but at present, after knocking on many doors, including my own, (but she won’t let me back in) and not putting any fake leaflets through the letterbox, as that was never proved, except in court, all I feel is dejection and upset that the Lib Dems, the party the people trusted implicitly have become like the others and deserted their followers. Obviously not as fast as the followers are deserting us.

I hope you take this in the spirit it is meant, you twat! Liberal principles have to shine through, and this election should polish us off for good.

We may have to join the independents and we have to sever ties from the coalition; if we fail to do this, we have only our Parliamentrians to blame. And I shall be blameless in this as I always am.

I would ask that this letter is not leaked in the usual way, unless I have already pressed send to everyone, or it may look like I am desperate to show the people of Liverpool that we are not shits like you. But either way, come May 6th, our blood will be on your hands!

Can I finish by saying that this City has a proud history going back four million years, and is mentioned by King John’s Ambulance in The Doomsday Book.

Well thanks to you, Clegg, come May 5th, we’ll get another friggin’ mention!

Yours sincerely

Cllr. Wally Bradlow
Leader of the Liberal Doomedrats
Liverpool Grotty Cash Council

Ay....lookkk it's L pool Lar!

***************************************************

Well ladies and gentlemen, there has been no official response as yet from Nick Clegg, but many people think that his expression on receiving the email, conveyed exactly what he thought of Wally Bradlows opinions. I couldn't catch his exact words on the news but I think it was something to do with a banker.

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

Be nice to each other

Professor Rednose gets in a spin as city withdraws from High Society. Cuts fall-out threatens his future peerage so the air and the Rednose turns blue !

2011-02-10T22:16:00.032Z

Professor Phyllis Redfern

By Jove Missus, one for the lads this time, remember when we all used to be glued to the telly, seeing what he was wearing tonight and how high the split went, well re-live those days, he is back again. The gorgeous “give us a twirl” Professor Phyllis Redfern. (Nee Stein) is back in the headlines to promote his great new project: Phyllis Redfern.

Have you heard?

Many will remember him from the Remuneration Game, with the famous conveyor belt of cash flowing into the gutter or into the bank accounts of hopeless carpetbaggers. This was during his stint as Custard Supremo and Captain of Claptrap 2008, where he came to sudden prominence after doing nothing for five years and then seized the opportunity to cash in on other peoples work at the last minute.

Largely thanks to promotion and spin by the Echo, he became the face of 2008 and amazingly, people still came. He is still as lovely as ever. The beautiful flowing hair still magnificent, if now somewhat grey. The smile is equally the same, like a loose donner kebab.

That winning smile

In spite of his claim to be a Labour sympathiser, the bastards didn’t give him the knighthood he was expecting and so Phyllis, always one to seek out new opportunities, has recently been linked to a controversial ménage et twats with Prime minister David Camouflage and his coagulation deputy, Nasty Nick Clot, from the sudden reality show, “Big Liar”

Lord Fat Arse of Picklepocket

It's in the Czars
A couple of months ago he invited David to Grotty Cash to launch their exciting new project “The High Society” an exciting con-cept whereby some very rich people steal as much as they can from local councils, ordinary working people and the poor, then throw thousands on the dole and get them to sweep the streets, clean public toilets and run the services, for which we pay council tax, for nothing. You don't actually lose your job, you can come back and do it for free!

Now when the big con plan for The High Society was launched, despite a few sceptics (450,000 locally) Phyllis was riding high on his ego. Once again somebody thick enough to think that he speaks on behalf of the city was ready to elevate him to the position of High Society Czar. “ Yes I had some critics,” said Phyllis “even from one of my former stars of Brooooockhie, Jimmy Corkhill, as played by Dean Sillyman. I said you’re just jealous because you wanted to be a Czar Dean”

Three hours of laughter and repetition of this example of scouse wit followed as it was repeated to every media outlet that didn’t hang up on hearing his name.

But even Jimmy thought the cuts were too savage. He had been around during the cruel crazy cuts during the 1980s. Why should his beloved Brookie go through this again...why Billy, why?

Great promises followed from Phyllis. “The new museum could be run by crack heads rather than crackpots, like David Flamingo, and staffed by the elderly residents of the first care home to fall victim to the cuts. There is no need for any paid staff, the Homeless can run the libraries, half the bastards sit in there to get warm all day, so why not put them in charge? Gets them off the streets. And do we really need so many leisure centres in this day and age? Most people I know have their own indoor heated pool, sauna and gym”

French Champaigne, good for the brain

Sounded great to Dave and Nick The Liar, and some people on the council were ready to buy into it too. But then it all seemed to go horribly wrong as suddenly Grotty Cash was presented with the worst cuts since Herbert spilled Botox in the coffee maker.

Suddenly it seemed impossible, unworkable. The scale of cuts meant that at least 1,500 council jobs must go and vital front-line services would be decimated.

Local Grants Slashed

There was no choice. How could the High Society be taken seriously when it was about to put 1,500 potentially in need of many of the services they worked in? It was not just those individuals, but also the cascade effect on the vulnerable that rely on the services, the communities and the whole infrastructure of the city. This was going to be worse than the 1980’s

Tough choices for Liverpool Council Leader

WONDERLAND

So why not set an illegal budget some said, like we did in the 80s and have the city run directly by government commissioners? Give them the stereotype they are looking for.

Well they didn’t need to, because the moment the leader of the Grotty Cash council said the High Society is a con in the face of such brutal cuts that would destroy much of the voluntary work already going on and therefore the city is withdrawing from the project, that was the first line of attack from Jabba The Pickle, who is minister for local government and the communities.

"Mr Hatton has cut services for political motives." he said.
"He’ll be hiring Taxis next!"

The Days of Degsy This time next year we'll still be millions less

The fat must be trimmed, says Pickles, start with your neck mate!

Phyllis joined in the chorus for a bit, saying to Dave, "you let me down lads, it stalled and the cuts are undermining it." Unfortunately for Professor Redfern, it was the leader of the council that got invited onto the news programmes and featured in the national press about his decision to withdraw from the programme. "We never bleedin’ joined it in the first place!" said the clearly angry council leader. "It was that self promoting soft shite who invited them here!"

Collide with Czars
The scale of the cuts imposed upon the city even prompted Phyllis Redfern to make a further desperate statement: “It has become derailed, he said, the cuts are undermining the High Society and risking my role as Czar! This is not the way it was outlined to me, there’s been no action and I haven’t been on telly for a month, what are you Tory bastards playing at?”

Phyllis, could see his position as Czar and his future Peerage, or a shot at Mayor slipping from his fingers and the council wasn't helping.

“Who does he think he is?" Blasted the Professor of 2nd rate soap. "What gives him the right to speak for the city? Just ‘cos he won an election, how does that make him more important than me?”

Sad Face

There was only one thing for it, tt was time to make a stand under his new slogan “We The People” (Of Frodsham presumably)

So with one of those amazing twirls, he perfected, Phyllis sets about rubbishing the Labour council to the Tory Press and the delight of Pickles and David Camouflage, by joining in the attacks on the city leaders and the Tories trying to hark back to the days of Militant.

He said “We are better off without the council, now I can lead my people to the promised land, stopping off at Poundland to get their shopping, well they won’t be able to afford to go to Liverpool One!..."

"..It’s just like in 2008 when the council made a mess of it and the commissioner raised the Twat Signal and I had to come and rescue the whole Capital Of Custard programme.”

Leaders during the Custard year. It was Yellow and Thick

“If it wasn’t for me getting Ringo on the roof at three times the original cost, and being too late to cancel the giant spider, as I wanted, it could have been a disaster. Well now we the people will take control and the council can do one!"

"Wait 'til I’m Mayor, as Jeffrey Archer once said. "

Well did you ever?

In a statement to the Exchange and Mart, Professor Rednose said today: “All these councils can think about is having no money to deliver vital services and having to close down everything that is part of the very backbone of a civilised community, either that or they are whinging about making thousands of staff redundant, and wrecking their lives. They are too focussed on that to see the bigger picture of what the High Society can still offer me, and they are only looking at the negatives."

Redundant Coppers queue for free handout
at Big Society Soup Kitchen

"Each one of those sacked council workers will now have the time to polish my desk or get the coffee and a nice cake for my missus when we are chairing the National Museums meeting. (We are still trying to figure out how we wasted £75 million on that X crap at the Pier head. It was supposed to be part financed by building the black coffins!)

"So instead of these people working for the council, listening to a load of moaning gets going on about the bin collection, they can empty my bin as a volunteer. They know I am one of them because: We the people, is what made the city."

"I gave them Brookie and Holly Oakes, that’s all they ever wanted and that’s why they will listen to any old shite I come out with. There’ always some knob-head who’ll listen to me, to get their gobs in the paper isn’t that right Flemmo?”

Brookside closed due to cuts

WHAT A SWELEGENT ELEGANT PARTY - THIS IS
So there we have it ladies and gentlemen, no Tory MPs in the city but then they don’t need them now. They have Professor Turncoat to deliver the cruellest lie ever to be devised by a cynical, calculating wretched group of multi-millionaire arse lickers to the banks and financiers.

As they continue to claim allowances for their second and third homes, jet around the world, watch the money fall into their accounts from their other multi million pound business interests or the massive inheritance they are due, they will watch you lose your job, your home and your local services to guarantee continued huge profits and obscene bonuses for the very people who caused the deficit.

And you can volunteer to sweep the streets for them when they visit. Professor Redmond is in charge of the brushes. He should use one on his bleeding hair. Keep at it Rednose maybe the Tories will give you your Peerage.

Thank goodness we have people like the Professor, so important, that without anybody asking and no mandate from anyone, he feels duty bound and is prepared to step in, and lead us.

We the people, salute you.

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye!

Be nice to each other

P.S. Of course there is one thing the council could do to lessen the impact of the cuts, sort out the rip-off that is costing us £78 million a year and that has been shown to have been overcharging by £10 million a year. How many years at £10 Million? Why do we need Liverpool Direct if it’s only to tell people the service no longer exists. Well I couldn’t leave it without mentioning that could I, nobody else on the council seems to want to mention it.

Pickles at Christmas: Away from politics and hard hitting social comment for a traditional Christmas tale of horror and suspenders.

2010-12-23T21:43:00.002Z

Eric Pickles as he sets about destroying public services thanks to Clegg and the Lib Dems.

But I am not writing about him, or the coalition or even life in the Anderson Shelter down in the War Cabinet as they face Kutskrieg with the Vestminster fokkers trying to destroy our vital port city. Even the poor Liverpool lib dems are in hiding and their recently installed Morrison shelter is falling apart as they try to come up with some kind of answer to the savage attack.

No, not so close to Christmas Eve, I'm going to ignore all that. And I'm taking a great risk here posting this Christmas Special but it is really just a link to my personal diaries.

I know some of you who look to me to find out what's really going on in the city may be disappointed. Those who expect the more serious political headlines and in depth analysis which is usually my subject matter, may think this is far too frivolous for a serious academic and commentator like myself.

I suppose I am following in the example of poor Mr Bartlett on his blog Dole Street Queues. who gets battered by mean minded comments from readers if he even slightly moves away from the intrigue and Machiavellingtons of local politics. If he so much as publishes a saucy limerick that he may have overheard from Flo Clucas or a CCTV picture of the rat catcher trying to grab Richard Kemp's moustache. (I don't know what Richard Kemp must think. Maybe he should tell us in a blog - better than having to listen to him.) there is an army of critics having a go at the poor bloke. Probably the Lib dems, as they are getting increasingly desperate since being betrayed by Clegg.

But What does Richard Kemp Think?
He must think we're bleedin' soft in the head!

Have you noticed how they are all running scared of the inevitable electoral annihilation since joining the Conservatives? Very convenient these leaks, it means Clegg can still cuddle up to Cameron while they try to kid us that really they don't like the Tories or their policies, or that they think the cuts are too mean.

They are desperate to show us that they are still nice and that they are there to stop the naughty tories, the nasty Mr Osbourne and Fatty Pickles from destroying people's lives in order to keep the bankers bonuses and make us and the poorest pay for their greed.

Well. Lib Dummo's they are only able to do that because you are keeping them in power and handed them the keys to number 10, all to secure a place in history for Clegg and a few hypocritical traitors to the people who trusted you with their vote. The country didn't go out and vote for a coalition, it was not your duty to help Cameron form a government in the interest of the country. But if Mr Clegg likes to believe that the risks being taken, and the misery and hardship that will be caused for hard working ordinary people is well worth the price for a little tinkering with electoral reform, a plank, he says, (Hmmm) then I am sure the unemployed, the sick, the vulnerable and the soon to be homeless will hail him as a hero when they see they have a second preferred choice on the ballot paper come the next election.

But I am not going to talk about all that misery, as in the words of that great social reformer and political philosopher, Lord Noddy of Holder...

"IT'S CHHRRRR -ISSSSSSSST -MASSSSSS! "

So instead, I am directing you to my Personal Diary at the link below. A Christmas tale of terror and getting into pickles...that's Wilfred Pickles and a Bird of the same name, not Lardy Arse Eric.

The Story of my good friends Mr Clack and Mrs Hewitt, a pet Macaw called Wilfred, and lots of Christmas cheer and good will.

GAWD BLESS US, EVERYONE !

Here it is, click on the link below.

http://theprofessorspersonalchroniccalls.blogspot.com/

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

Back in the new year to lift the lid on the wheelie bin of local politics and custard.

Be Nice to each other

By the Pricking of my thumb, the board of Governors must be dumb. Controversy as a Diddy disagreement emerges over appointment of new chair. Nightmare on Elf Street part 92 Diddy's Back

2010-11-17T22:11:00.006Z

By Jove Missus, a new controversy has arisen for our beloved city, this time within the field of health. Well if you walk through a field you are bound to step into something unpleasant. I always thought the point of the health service was to make you feel better; well something’s just happened that’s made a lot of people sick.

The other day I read in Mr Bartram’s Ye Oldham Gazetteer Blog site “Dole Street Queues” that one of our long lost sons is possibly returning to the city. Blimey, it can’t be who I’m thinking of, it cost us a fortune to lose him the first time and now some idiots are trying to bring him back again. Give him even more of our money?

What am I talking about, you ask, and not for the first time. Well, as you may know, there is a small building hidden in the grounds of Oldham Hey Hospital that I like to hop over to several times a month. It’s the “Knotty Ash Corns Clinic” or KACC. I am actually the patron of the clinic.

THE KACC

You have probably seen me on here many times talking about KACC. Well this time it’s a big one, with a lot of tensions and strains behind closed doors. You see a little object has re-emerged ladies and gents. You may have thought it had gone away but then up it pops again floating around causing great dismay like a bad spent penny. And by Jove, we spent a few trying to get rid of it last time.

Yes Missus, it’s the astonishing announcement by the Corn Clinics board of governors to appoint Sir David Haemorrhoid as the new chair. Honestly, they have, Sir Diddy! They want to give the job to that little pain in the…are they mad, have they lost the pot?

Sir Diddy whilst at Grotty Cash Council - Back Again ?

What’s he need another chair for, what’s wrong with the little stool?

I’m proposing to table a motion to The Regional Wealth Authority before it’s scrapped…oh that’s him as well. That should tell you enough, all he did there was made a funny film about obesity. Did you see it? I don’t know if that was really him or a pillowcase stuffed full of mince. Deliberately fluffing his lines, hoping to get £200 quid for it from You’ve Been Framed. Unfortunately it was considered too scary for the early evening slot.

But that’s it, when the Wealth Authority is scrapped he’ll be after yet another wage packet. How many is that? I thought we had already paid him the over £330 grand figure that he was demanding to clear off out of the city. Wasn’t that enough?

You see, you should never pay them off, they always come back for more.

Who keeps inviting him back? Wake up and smell the coffers, as the Yanks say. He fills his own first. He’s supposed to have retired, hasn't he? That’s why before he left he was tearing round phoning the Echo, screaming and stamping his little feet threatening everyone over his pension.

Remember that Rolf Harris song?

“I want My Money Waaah ha ha haaa!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoUHjLlK8EI

It sounded just like that. He’s a one man PFI.

He made former leader of Grotty Cash, poor Mike Tory, appear a laughing stock. Well okay, you can’t credit him with that. Even Wally Bradlow, who took over, in what was his finest hour, he might have been a bit daft sometimes, but not daft enough to let him stay on. Church bells rang out, the day he went. And thanks to him and the crew he drafted in, the money nearly ran out too.

Friends in low places that’s what this smacks of. They say he was interviewed but I read a comment on the Echo site that he allegedly came third however “it was felt his connections helped make him the choice” What does that mean, did he have your knackers connected to a car battery until you said yes? Who were the other candidates then? King Herod? Typhoid Mary?

Diddy Fail or was he pushed?

You only have to look back at his track record. There’s about 20 tons of it still rusting after the Line One Tram debacle.

Now as fellow corn sufferers will know, this ridiculous appointment has come when we are right in the middle of the clinic’s £47.50 refurbishment, and my Project Manager, who has been an inspiration to the whole programme, and even chosen the paint, (Cornfield) has walked out in absolute disgust following this lunatic announcement. His brushes are still in a bucket of turps in the shed. Well I don’t blame him, if it wasn’t for my corns, I’d put my foot down too.

What can we do to prevent this? We can’t organise a protest march, not with most of the people using the clinic. Can you imagine it?

“Diddy-Diddy-Diddy, Out, Out, Owww, me corns!

Now according to the clinic’s motto, which is an old American Indian proverb

"Never judge a man until you’ve walked in his orthopaedic shoes"

as the Moccasins used to say. Well not in this case, not with my feet, I’d never get into a pair of his size 5 Pathfinders. Although I am envious of the little compass in them which points to Magnetic Nat West.

Yes, it’s all right for him in his Cuban heels, marching from one pay packet to another. Mind you, he has to wear the heels; it saves taking a stepladder out to the cash point every half an hour to check his bank balance. Tell him he won’t need the heels and just give him the boot. (again)

He may indeed be well heeled, but in my opinion he has no sole. I really couldn’t think of anyone less suited to a job that relies on good PR and high profile friendly engagement with the public.

“But he turned the council around” they say.

What? You mean like as in “Turn around this is a stick up!” holding a gun to their backs before legging it with as much money as his little legs could carry.

“Ahh yes but he has great connections” they tell us.

Yes an umbilical cord to his bank manager.

For heaven sake, just plough back through the headlines and look at the kind of publicity that he brings. Have a look at the opinions of the people who matter, and the opinions of the public. Look at the on-line comments from readers of the Post & Echo.

Look at his major achievements last time he was here. Decimation of front line jobs while overseeing huge fat-cat pay increases for him and his mates. Cost us a fortune to get rid of most of them. Just have a look. Left us with the finances that would hardly cover the running of a corner shop. Is that what’s needed?

Are you going to set up Corns Direct with BT? That will soak up any funds you try and raise. How about a million pound training programme “The Alder Way” It’s okay, you can abandon it after a year, you wont have to go on it.

And what is he saying to try and convince us that he’s Father Christmas come early, a short-arse Hairy Poppins, wanting to prove his life long connection and devotion to the place? Well he says he was treated there when he was little. When was that a fortnight ago? Did he have to have his chin removed due to an in-growing toenail?

Or was it in the very early days when he was inspired by the treatment he received – leeches.

Other Candidates for the post

Now I’m not a particular fan of J. F. Kennedy, nothing against her either, and to give her credit, she stood firm during the last Cuban Heel Crisis, when she heard the bray of pigs diving into the NHS trough, but I’ve heard she was a possible candidate for this job.

So, a former Minister of State for Health up against a former glorified Pen Pusher, who only cares about his state of wealth? And the job goes to…. yes, the man with the biro? I don’t know if she was right for the job but if it all came down to connections, surely there are a few better connections to be gained by appointing somebody like Kennedy, or was there an assassin from the grassy Knowsley calling the shots? I hope none of them selecting him were previously selected by him for their current roles.

Next thing you know, they’ll be erecting a little statue of him in the grounds. Well if they do, I’ll nick the fishing rod and kick over the toadstool.

This is a public relations disaster as far as I and many people in the city are concerned. Do they seriously expect us to believe that the pool of talent in the region is so dried up that they have to dredge it to this level?

The governors need to think again and everyone connected to or who supports the place should write to them, the local papers, the websites, their councillors and their MPs. Tell them what you think. Call Roger Fillets or better still, Pete Price. While we are at it, ask to see the records of the candidates and interviews. Who exactly is on the panel that made this decision and more importantly, what medication are they on?

Remember this could cause very bad publicity, the Corn Clinic is right next door to our proud, famous and much loved children’s hospital. You can’t dump toxic waste on a site like that.

Blimey, I thought we had problems with the Corn Clinic, I've just seen this look at what's happening next door to us

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2010/11/david-henshaws-return-to-publi.html

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

Be Nice to Each Other

As the city honour Macca with a new sculpture, the Professor examines our obsession with The Fab Fortune - The BTs and asks; Have we been sold a Lemon for a MacCartload of Cash? Liverpool Direct Questions

2010-10-14T22:23:00.011+01:00

The I.T. Dog

By Jove Missus, what a beautiful day!

What a beautiful day for running naked into the council chamber, grabbing the Liverpool Direct contract and saying “what’s the chance of a cover-up?"

What a beautiful day for emptying a pint of milk over the councils interim Chief Executive and saying;

“How’s this for a whitewash?”

What a beautiful day, ha ha, yes, what a beautiful day for wearing a pair of glass underpants and saying.....

“How’s this for transparent bollocks?”

Yes missus, you’ve guessed it, I’m back to talk about my favourite subject –

No not The Beatles!

I am here to talk about the other Fab Fortune The BTs. It has been a very poignant week for BTs fans in Grotty Cash. A week that saw the unveiling of a beautiful new piece of art for the city and a celebration of Peas. (The Professor adopts a slow gravel voice)

“I want some peas missus, get me some peas. I love peas.”

Yes ladies and gentlemen, this week we honoured one of Grotty Cash’s favourite sons. The Working Cash Hero himself, Macca.

Dr MacAlotamoney

There was a moving ceremonial unveiling of a monument to honour his achievements and of the rich legacy he has left for his retirement – which can’t come soon enough.

The city was honoured by the attendance of Maureen Lipmann herself, dressed as BT with her son Ology. She spoke warmly of the love Macca always had for the amount of cash he could squeeze out of the city and of the fun side to his personality, how in the early days in the back bedroom of Auntie Diddy’s home on Menlove Revenue the walls shook with laughter as they started to create their first big hits:

Please, please Fleece me
LDLeanor Rigs it
Hey Screwed
Doctor Rob It
Eight pay-days a week
The continuing story of Bung a high bill...and
We can’t work it out.

She said she remembered Macca writing the line,

“Yesterday, all the money seemed to come my way, now it looks like more is on the way, if Joe don’t see some sense today”
And with that, she pulled the string stolen from a tramps dog to reveal the beautiful erection on Chavastminster Park, as the crowd roared with laughter. (which unfortunately caused several bits to drop off)
http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/10/grotesque-addition-to-grosvenor-pool.html

Monument to Macca and The BTs unveilled

In this same week, it was important to also remember the role played by another man who gave the BTs the opportunity that put them on the road to shame and fortune, the man who under the hypnotic powers of evil impresario Sir Diddy Henchman, made them what they are today, yes missus, the man who couldn’t manage the BTs, Brainless Mike Epstrorey.

Mike Epstrorey The Man who made Macca rich and helped launch the BTs

So it was fitting that in the same week Liverpool Directly honoured Macca, that we also held a ceremony to recognise Epstorey’s role in creating the BTs, with the re-naming of a well known derelict theatre building. When deciding how he should be honoured, the current leader of Grotty Cash Joan Sanderson (Doris bloody Yule, to his mates) said the choice of building was obvious.

And so the former Inept-loon Theatre on Hangover Street was re-named "The Storeyteller."
http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/Entertainment/Theatre-and-Comedy/Neptune-Theatre-changes-name-_15558.asp

New Council Leader Joan Sanderson shows how the Lib Dems almost killed the Liverbird

Zzzzzzzzz!

Local Isle of Man based hack, Roley Joe Riley has already got his flask and duvet ready to sleep through the first performance, when it re-opens next year with a production of Jimmy McCracker’s “Old Chas Cole” This was one of Macca's favourite's he told me.

A free parking concession will be available to all patrons and fellow joggers who attend. The refurbishment of the theatre, when complete, will also see the installation of a disabled shower room for VIPs reflecting Macca’s commitment to a quality opportunity.

Press coverage

Now you would think missus, that with the mood of celebration and festivity in the city, particularly as the unveiling of the Macca sculpture also coincides with what would so far this year have been his 70th Million, that the local press would be joining in the festerings. But no, that would be too much to hope for.
http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/News-and-Comment/General/The-Laz-WordOn-Liverpool-Direct_15422.asp

I don’t know what it is with these miserable bloggers but that young chap from Oldham, Dave Barkalot, who works on the Daily Post, has been publishing all sorts of nonsense about the BTs in the press and on his blog. This has encouraged a whole load of cranks to write in saying that far from being our proudest sons, that the BTs have been given a ticket to take the city for a ride. Liverpool Direct £78 Million, One way Only, no returns available.

Echo Comment: Kraptonight

As usual, the cranks are hiding behind silly aliases, too scared to come out into the open just because Macca would have them in concrete boots in an Octopuses Garden. How are Dolan and Cosgrove doing on the Ex-Factor? Anybody know?

Barkalot, in his blog, which, following the council cut-backs, is due to be re-named “Dole Street Queues” published a secret report that more or less says the city has been getting ripped–off by £10 million a year overcharge on top of the £78 million we pay the BTs for answering the phone and reading a script from bit of paper. It would have only been £48 Million but the council had to amend the contract to say that they were required to read it out loud.

Well it’s claimed that this damning judgement, like all the other damning judgements, had been kept from the public, whilst at the same time in a complete volte face, the new administration were negotiating a brand new album possibly called: Revolver Held to the Head or The Whitewash Album or more appropriately HELP! Or The Robber R Souls Album.
http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2010/09/the-damning-report-into-liverp.html#more

Well yes, we all know it’s a complete rip-off, the whole BTs industry, The BT’s Experience , The Hard Days Blight Hotel and The Tragical MikeStory Tour. But look at the benefit it has brought to the way we do things in Grotty Cash…er……..well whatever they are, we won’t be able to do them for much longer as we’re skint. And some people are saying that the BTs is part of the reason for it.

LDL Finance Department

So I hope you will all write in to Dole Street Queues, or your local councillor to try and make sure that Uncle Joan, does the right thing and continues to let the BTs bleed us dry. Otherwise what will we do on BT’s day if they take all our phones off us and switch off our computers? Thank goodness the BTs have banned Barkalots blog from the council.

Cross Party Meeting to discuss the BTs amidst fear that Wally Bradlow may be excluded

So at the moment Joe and all the gang are having an all night party review of the BTs contract.

Cllr Bonnie Radford raises a burning issue

But at least this means that my old mate from the Libertines, Councillor Bonnie Radford will be there to put some pressure on them. Nobody can keep his gob shut, which in this case, is probably a good thing.

As for the current lot in charge, I know that over the years they have not been big fans of the BTs and many of them said that their contract with the city and the money it was costing was an absolute disgrace.

Well it’s one thing saying you didn’t like the BTs when in opposition, but don’t try and convince us now you have the opportunity to do something about it that Simon and Garfunkle were better, by constantly playing The Sound Of Silence. I’ll have the Environmental Health after you – it’s deafening!

Dave Clarklett City Head Hitter

Anyway, Missus, here below is the link to all those moaning comments and miserable bloggers writing in and whining about the truth to Dave Barkalot on his blog page, "Dole Street Queues."

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2010/10/liverpool-direct-limited-ldl--.html

I always said that the Daily Post and Echo was a quality newspaper. Well done, finally somebody there is prepared to try and Oldham to account.

Tatty Bye Everybody, Tatty Bye !

Be nice to each other.

Duck Billed Platitudes

Another £330k for Liverpool Day at Shanghai Expo. Is it justified or a criminal waste and should we bring back the scaffold or leave them there?

2010-07-22T22:18:00.003+01:00

By Jove Missus, I make no apologies for returning to the subject of Shanghai, because as I said last time, our £3million Liverpool Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo is money well spent, particularly if they now want to send me back on another freebie for a special Liverpool Day grand finale.

So stop moaning about job cuts and services under threat, you can worry and moan about that when me and our local celebs and freeloaders are back. But don't moan too loud as I will have had a skinfull by then and my head will be banging. Now I know the council is skint with a deficit of £125 million over the next 5 years, and that’s before the Cleggeron cuts. So what’s another £330k to finance our special Liverpool Day? A couple of day centres maybe 30 /40 jobs or one Chief Executive and a cleaner - that’s not too much to sacrifice for a nice little party for your favourite stars and the local hangers on is it?

Let me tell you some of the line up; I tell you the people of Shanghai won’t know what’s hit them. As my mate Pete Priceright would say, “They’ll Knock Us Out” Besides me and the Did Hee Men, there will Radio Yangtzeside’s Roger Fillets, if we can get him off the phone.

And as well as a Martial Arts display by the Unarmed Wombats, The whole of the Royal Tandoori Philharmonic Orchestra will be flown over for the day to knock out a few tunes for us.

But there is not just me for comic relief, no Missus, one of our brightest funnymen will be going over there to entertain the influential business community of Shanghai.

According to a reliable soy source, who acts as my right hand man and pencil sharpener, Mr Stan Broadman (left) will also be flown out to perform cultural anecdotes about Liverpool Chinese Chip shops.

"The Geeeermans"

Yes the Fokker will be jetting off to Shanghai from Arthur Askey International Airport (Above us only Bees) with all your favourite stars.

The show, which will focus on Liverpool’s bright future, will be compered by Brian Inglis from TVs All Our Yesterdays. But best of all missus, the star attraction will be the greatest musical group the world has ever seen, who are re-uniting for Liverpool Day. Yes it’s true! The Liverpool lads who shook the world and changed the face of popular culture forever.............wait for it!

The Scuffles !

Now obviously it's not the original line up of Arthur Scargill,

Woody Allen and Alan Price. (Pictured above)

No it's the later and much better version, "The Bootleg Scuffles" starring Mike McSpielman, John Bucketawaterman and my very good friend and poet Reggie McCough. They will be going over to perform some of their greatest hits and maybe a few of Reggie's mucky Limericks. (although hopefully not the one about the man from Hong Kong)

So c’mon ladies and gentlemen lets sack a few people so we can raise the money and have a bit of fun in Shanghai on the last day.

Now because we are very close, my good friend Reggie McCough, has sent me a sneak preview of a specially written new version of their number one hit “Lilly We’re Skint” and so here it is below for a good old singalong. C’mon, cough it up for McCough!

“Lilly Free Drink” By Reggie McCough

Opening chorus

We’ll drink and drink and drink
up all the free drink and drink and drink
If they send us off to Shang-a-hai
For it’s another - Municipal Cock up
Where the cost has - gone too high.

Poor Warren Bradley - took it very badly
When he slid right down his po-oh-ole
For they invented - Municipal Cock ups
That’s why the Lib dems - lost Control

The Daily Post has - writers who ghost as
Editorials that are spin eh hin
But I think that - we know who’s behind it
And just who tells them - what goes in

They said our pavilion – that’s cost three million
Could make us fifty - in your dree e eams
But in ano-ther - Municipal cock-up
It’s just got Beatles - and Football teams

chorus
So - we’ll drink and drink and drink
up all the free drink and drink and drink
If they send us off to Shang-a-hai
For it’s another - Municipal Cock up
Where the cost has - gone too high.

For Liver-pool day - they want us to pay
Three hundred grand, they must be nu-u-uts
While at the same time, the deficit budget
Means that we’ll pay it - with job cuts.

Now isn’t it funny - how we run out of money
And we hear the - same old cry- i –y
Yet we can pay out - 78 Million
To LDL who - bleed us dry

Roger Phillips - must see that this bill tips
Common sense right over boar-or-oard
And this Expo folly - has cost too much lolly
That we really - can’t afford

The Philharmonic - can fly back supersonic
When they offend them with their show –o -ow
For in another - Municipal cock-up
They’re playing Ying Tong - Diddle i Po

Shanghai will be baffled - when they see the Scaffold
They’ll be asking - which one’s Pau-a-aul
They’ll say pull the other- that’s only his brother
And line us all up against the wall

chorus
We’ll drink and drink and drink
up all the free drink and drink and drink
If you give more cash to Shang-a-hai
For it’s a Lib Dem - Municipal Cock up
The cost for you is - far too high.

Sooooooo - weeeeeeeee’ll - need a sodding drink
‘Cos we’re on the brink the brink the brink
Of death caused by - a thousand cu-u-uts
Admit the Expo’s a Municipal Cock up
And - show – us - that - yooooou’ve – got some guts.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well you can vote on the money or read more here.

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/index.asp?Sessionx=IpqiNwEjJHqkIwxnNwB6IaqiNwA

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/index.asp?Sessionx=IpqiNwEiNw7kKWg6IHqiNwB6IA

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Byeeeeeeeee !!!!!!

Be Nice to each other.

STOP PRESS

Ahh well looks like they have now decided to pay the £300k and have the party. I knew they would. It is a no win situation at this stage I suppose. It's still all the fault of the lib dems and spin merchants for getting us into this and the fault of those Big Businesses who have profited out of the Liverpool land grab and other get rich quick schemes but were not prepared to put anything into this jaunt.

The biggest joke is that the Lib Dems who started this whole thing and comitted the city to bankrolling a major part of it, whilst knowing the state of the finances, have called in the decision and are opposing the spend with a typical display of hypocrisy and political opportunism, saying the money should not be spent.

Oh well I will shut up about it now as I can't side with those two faced gits.

So good luck to all the artists and musicians being sent over.

Have a safe journey and I genuinely hope you have a good time.

Now what shall I wear?

The Liverpool Show and The Shanghai Expo. New, modern, looking to the future, says Bessie Braddock at the Liverpool Pavilion (stand)

2010-06-25T20:20:00.014+01:00

There’s a far away pavilion by the river in Shanghai

That they said would make our future rich and bright

A showcase to the world as our wonders we unfurled

And for three million quid we hoped they’d got it right.

We would show the world with pride

the jewel in Merseyside

A forward-looking city standing tall

Not dwelling on the past but moving on at last

Away from just the Beatles and football.

By Jove Missus, it's me, back again.
With one or two thousand words about the Shanghai Expo. I know you have been waiting for an update but when I returned, I got my hand stuck down a grid and when I rang the emergency services, they just put bollards and hazard lights around me. Left me there for months! Eventually I managed to pull the grid up but I can't get it off, so here I am back and still a bit drained.

Now Missus, remember the Liverpool Show?

The one in the Mystery (Wavertree Playground if you were posh) Well that’s a bit like the Shanghai Expo that’s been going on. You must remember the Liverpool show, the proper one, the one they used to have years ago, they always had the Army there with big guns, tanks and military vehicles - as displays I mean, not because people got a bit boisterous in the candy floss queue.

The highlight on each day of the show was when they did the raffle to find the person that had actually bought a ticket to get in. That’s right, remember we all used to sneak in climbing over the wooden temporary fences and dodge the coppers. I got caught on them a few times. Half the men walking round with no arse in their kecks and the women who had just climbed in, trying to look inconspicuous with their skirts still tucked in the back of their knickers.

They had all sorts going on, Motor Cycle Display Riders, Show Jumping and the Red Devils? You must remember the Red Devils; they used to parachute into the arena. They were always scared to jump, I heard, and so the co-pilot used to set their shoes on fire. When they bent down to put them out, he’d boot them out the door. You could see the smoke as they were coming down. I mean fancy joining the parachute regiment if you are scared of heights.

Mind you, during the war Mr Clack and I ended up as paratroopers, you see at that time they still used carrier pigeons to send messages and we read the notice wrong and thought they were looking for parrot ropers. I thought that’s better than being shot at. Take a nice packed lunch a bottle of pale ale each and spend the day walking around a nice forest with a net shouting c’mon Polly.

Well it was an easy mistake, I mean Parrots would be more suited to the campaign in the east than pigeons, and you wouldn’t have to write out the message as they can talk, you just tell them what to say.

Anyway, when we realised our mistake we soon started the training. It turned out being a paratrooper wasn’t too bad after all as you only had to jump off a wooden horse while counting. Well I took a chair to step onto, but I knew the counting bit off by heart.

Then one day, to say well done to everyone, they took us by plane for a weekend break in France. I was just looking for my seatbelt as they said we were about to arrive and this mad bugger opened the door and a few people started jumping out.

We got a shock at first but then Clack and I realised and gave the pilot a round of applause. It must have been the smoothest landing ever. You would swear we were still flying. So we got our flight bags and magazines, made sure we had our holiday money safe 100 Francs each and headed for the exit. It was very windy and so foggy that we couldn’t even see the steps. Next thing we knew, we woke up in a field in need of a change of trousers and surrounded by Germans having their dinner. Luckily I had my accordion on my back, yes I know a parachute would have been better but I had too much to carry and anyway I immediately launched into Lili Marlene and Clack started playing the spoons. Saved us, so it did. They thought we were a concert party. Three months we entertained them until they threatened to shoot us. Me finishing every night singing:

"Fröhlichkeit Fröhlichkeit das größte Geschenk, das ich besitze. Ich danke den Herrn, dass ich habe gesegnet. Mit mehr als meinen Anteil des Fröhlichkeit"

It wasn’t the last time I sang “Happiness” for a German audience, I’ve told you before about my one-man show in Germany, the one in Spandau. A mix up in the booking and the one man was Rudolph Hess. Miserable bugger, he was. To try and raise a smile, I changed the lyric to Happy Hess but they had to restrain him and carry him back to the cell.

Anyway that’s another story. I was talking about the Liverpool Show….wasn’t I…hang on, I’ll check back..

Yes, they had all sorts of stalls and exhibitions, you could have a fight in the evangelist tent, see all sorts of crafts and displays. And there were odd-looking ladies or blokes with a funny accent demonstrating food mixers.

There was always some bastard juggling as well. I hate people juggling in front of me, coming right up to your face with their gobs open as if it's astounding. Sod off! I fixed them one year, I borrowed some grenades off one of the army blokes and said, here juggle these while I try and find the pins.

What’s the point of jugglers? It’s just showing off. But showing off was what the Liverpool Show was all about.

And showing off Liverpool was the aim of the Shanghai Expo.
A chance, they told us, to display Liverpool to the world.

The Chinese were very pleased to have us and even made a scale model of ex city council leader, Wally Bradlow to use as the official mascot. A blue one as well, because he supports Everton.
The mascot is called "Ego" in Chinese, which means Wally.

An inflated Ego, full of hot air

So there we were, on display to the world. The only thing is that a lot of the world decided they couldn’t be bothered to show up, nor could any of the other cities in England. So it is just us and of course the thousands of bewildered Chinese people passing through…well maybe not thousands and not regularly passing through exactly, the estimates were a bit wrong and, as it turned out, our pavilion was on the other side of the river to the main Expo. Oh and it wasn’t a Pavilion, it was a stand....in the corner…basically it was some odd looking woman or a bloke with a funny accent demonstrating a food mixer. Well not far off.

The idea they said was to show the world the new regenerated vibrant Liverpool, as a place to do business. A modern thriving city looking to the future, with great things to offer investors.

To show once and for all that Liverpool was a great modern premiere European city with far more to offer than the tired old clichés of football and the Beatles.

So, as the giant video screen showing a film of Paul McCartney making rude gestures with his thumbs, welcomed the Chinese people that had got lost and ended up on the wrong side of the river our Expo began.

They crowded around the the wallpaper paste table and deck chairs that was the Liverpool stand and gazed in awe at how much the city had to offer. This was depicted in the giant murals of John Paul George and Ringo, interspersed with photos of Googie the Liverpool Duck, Liverpool and Everton football players. There is even a complete wall sized portrait of Liverpool FC with Bill Shankly in the middle! All of this and the sound of the Kop singing “F*** off back to America” to a tune sounding similar to one from West Side Story.

My word! There's modern forward looking Liverpool. The entire stand almost 30 years out of date. Precious memories to many of us maybe, but a selling point to Chinese investors?

Where were the Diddymen? Where was Arthur Askey?

But that’s not all, to get away from the football theme there is also........er..... a penalty shot game. This is where China’s top businessmen and politicians can try and kick a football into a net. The Daily Post said this was one of the highlights for all of the businessmen visiting the stand, who really enjoyed it. Yes, I am sure they did.

There was something similar at the Wirral Kite festival the other week. Get the ball passed the goalie for 25 pence a go, helping to raise money for kids who need specs. Odd but I didn’t notice the chairman of the CBI or Sir Alan Sugar or the Chief Executive of Peel Holdings jostling to have a go. You would have thought the bloke from Peel holdings would have flown in from his tax exile home to have a go at that. Only 25p which is a hell of a lot cheaper than having to fly all the way to Shanghai.

"On me head son!"

So they tell us it has been a huge success, even though something like only a fifth of the predicted numbers have visited the stand and that it wasn’t actually a business Expo at all.

It hasn’t been without controversy though, as they have now run out of money and the planned finale (Liverpool Day -whatever that means?) which involved flying out Cilla ,Tarby, Jerry Marsden and the Luciana Bergers as well as my good friend Vassapoint Petrochemco and his Orchestra, may have to be cancelled. They said they were about £400k short, with not even enough to buy the packet of sparklers for the closing ceremony.

Come on soft lad, you've a council meeting to go to

But not to worry, it has been fantastic. Well worth the £3 million quid. Now I know it sounds a lot but ex council bleeder…er leader, Wally Bradlow and ex Chief Executive, Hilton Stilton, ensured that there were accurate financial forecasts showing the returns on this investment. And by Jove we will thank them for it in the future. You see it has been shown that for our £3 million pounds, which is nothing financially these days, we spent more than that paying off Henshaw, Halsall, Robin Archer and Jason Harbottle. Dr McAllmoney costs us twice that a month £6.5 million for putting people on hold at Liverpool Direct while they take the priority calls from Leicester or somewhere, to come and put a plug on a bath or fumigate a chicken coup. While we pay for their time Ha ha! Mind you he's now temporarily replaced Hilton Stilton. I doubt he'll complain about the £78 million a year he was raking in for LDL.

"Just look at where we were 10 years ago, where are we?"

You see the thing is, that for our three million pounds spent, the financial experts used by the council, confidently predicted a return of up to four and anything up fifty million pounds of investment back over the next ten years.

Now before the cynics start, yes there is a bit of a gap between four million and fifty million, and the phrase “up to four” clearly includes the figure Zero. Well you have to allow for a margin of error. Or should that be huge, gaping - can't see the other side, pass us your binoculars..better still your crystal ball - chasm of error? So who were the experts giving this predicted return? Russel Grant? Mystic Meg?

But don’t worry, all those who flew off regularly to Shanghai to be wined and dined while setting this up and agreeing to pay for it have either already left, been kicked out of office or will be leaving soon, so they won’t need to explain. They’ll be fine don’t worry about it.

Almost unbearable excitement during the planning meetings

As we were stuck with it, the new bloke in charge, Joe Handyman, has had to keep the spin going. Once it’s over it’ll be forgotten about. And don’t forget, some people have already done very well out of it, the ones who got the PR contract and of course the Oldham Echo and Daily Post, who haven’t had to come into work for months as all the stories have been written for them.

So as far as I am concerned let us raise our glasses high to the Shanghai Expo, where once again the glorious leadership decisions of the previous Glib Dum administration has been Expo'd.

A special thank you to the kind and good people of Shanghai for smiling politely and kicking the ball in the net when prevented from leaving the stand by the city council staff until they did it.

Just kick the f***ing ball will ya mate!!!

Meanwhile back in Grotty Cash, Liverpool, it's all change here now down at the fun palace. The Lib Dums have been binned. I am going to miss Wally Bradlow. I wonder if he is on Bookface? I am sure his new friend is. I’ll have to check as I haven’t been on for a while, not since this group on there started calling for me to be sacked. You see I got into a bit of trouble after I put an advert on Ebay to try and flog some awful, tatty old garden gnomes that we had in the garage. But I accidentally uploaded a picture of the former Lib Dem cabinet instead.

Ebay. No longer wanted. Liverpool Lib Dems, any offers?

The Gnomes society was furious. I got Mrs C to say it wasn’t me and that the matter was now closed but the swines on Ebay said it was me that did it, so now she’s furious with me as well. She says I’ve made her look a complete lying pillock. I am beginning to think she only ever went out with me was because I was head of the Jam Faculty at Grotty Cash University and now that I have lost my faculties she doesn’t want to know.

But thank goodness that after being kicked out in May by the electorate the Lib Dums voted by a huge majority of three votes (two being him and his friend) to keep Wally on as local party leader. Well we need something to cheer us up now that his party has given power to those who almost destroyed the city the last time they were in office. So with the Conservatives in power and ready to slash the money going to Liverpool, all thanks to the support of Clegg and the Con-Democ-Rats it could well be back to Geoffrey Howe's managed decline. It's a good job Wally has a hotline to Clegg to protect us from the savage cuts...oh, but then again it's Clegg helping to make them.

The Great Nana!

Now, where’s me Beatles tape, I am going to listen to that on my Walkman on the way to Mr Clack’s to watch the football.

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

Be nice to each other.

Not all the Rats have left the sinking ship. And one is setting a cat amongst the pigeon droppings.

2010-02-22T23:17:00.003Z

By jove Missus, where's the Pie Eyed Piper when you need him? Well he can't get pie eyed on his rounds these days, because half the pubs have shut down since the "Nanny State" imposed the drinking ban in pubs. That's why we now have to stand outside having a fag instead.

But we could do with him at the moment, to sort out the rat problem in Liverpool. No not Wally Bradlow and his crew, they'll soon be deserting the sinking ship anyway. I am talking about the Rat that is due to be exterminated, the one on the side of the Whitehouse Pub.

The Grafitti Artist known as Banksy was allegedly commissioned to do this in 2004. Well that's what they say, but my good friend Mr Wayne Colquittstreet (check before publishing, I can never remember how to spell his second name) on his always interesting blog, Liverpool Preservatives Trust has a very differing opinion.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2010/02/whitehouse-pub-is-it-really-banksy.html

Anyway, my view is that I couldn't care less if it's an authentic Bankslip or not. The real issue is that all these people keep calling the painting a Rat when in fact it is a CAT as any fool can see. I asked Wally Bradlow the leader of the council what it was up there, and quick as a flash, he shinned up the drainpipe trying to rescue it. I rest my case.

This may be a trivial issue, rat or cat, but there are far more qualified people than me out there who can take up the other issues about the detruction and dereliction of our historic landmarks, where anything goes so long as it delivers one of four things. Skyscraper, Carbuncle, Luxury Apartment or yet another hotel.

No vision, no strategy no sustainability. That's why the council is about to ban the use of those three words. It's another cover up.

I shall leave that to the others to debate. I am not one to offer an opinion or shove my nose in where it's not wanted. I am a man of few words. Most of them already banned by the council.

So with the help of my good friend and local poet Reggie McCough,

who must have helped Banksy get up there to paint it as he said he used to be with the scaffold, I have instead concentrated on the argument as to whether the SouthBanksy painting is a Rat or a Cat.

By me, Professor Waffle Chickenbatter....what's happened to my spillcheck?

Catatouille

By Reggie McCough (and me)

The Whitehouse pub in Liverpool has recently been sold

Complete with work by Banksy, of a Rat we have been told

There may be rats inside but on the outside wall of fame

It looks like a Felis Cattus, to give the Latin name.

Don’t say to me look at the tail to try and make your case

that it’s Roland Rat when clearly it is Bagpuss round the face

Even if it’s meant to be, don’t take me for a fool

You’ve done a cat and that is that, go back to drawing school.

The name should match the subject even if it’s just a blob

You wouldn’t call Epstein's Kiss “Gorillas On The Job”.

Or Mona Lisa “Gurning With a Cheeky Randy Grin”

as Da Vinci said, give me the look like you’ve got the love eggs in.

The “Laughing Vauxhall Vectra” can’t replace a Cavalier

Whistler’s “Dad In Drag” has not the warmth of Mother Dear.

Or, “Woman With Her Kit Off Standing In A Giant Scallop?”

Botticelli’s Birth of Venus makes her much less of a trollop.

Scallops

Michaelangelo’s Last Supper, well you really wouldn’t hurry

to see it if the name was “Lads, Let’s All Go For A Curry.”

Van gogh’s famous Sunflowers? They'd surely raise some laughs

If they had gone to auction, labelled as a bunch of daffs.

And what of old Picasso,would his talent have been missed

If his paintings were of Katy, The Oxo Cube cubist?

So is this a case of The Emperors Clothes with people scared to say

They t’ought they taw a puddytat when it saw the light of day?

Picasserole

Now it seems it’s called a Rat, that’s what it’s meant to be

Well call it what you want mate, I know what I can see.

It’s a cat and not a rat that adorns the old Whitehouse.

Look at it, admit it, what are you, a man or a mouse?

First published on Liverpool Confidential.

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/index.asp?Sessionx=IpqiNw86IWxnJHqiNwF6IHqi

A very Tatty Buy everybody Catty bye!

Hello is that Liverpool City Council, got any historic buildings you want knocking down? Yaaaaay!

A Day At The Races, for Hilton Stilton and major boost to the Lord Mayors Charity

2009-11-22T22:42:00.015Z

Grotty Cash Executive Prepare Strategy for Next Weeks Crucial Finance Meeting

By Jove Missus, it's political corruptives
gone mad!

Can't you have a bit of fun on the rates these days without people having a go at you? I am referring to a recent disgraceful attack on my very good friend and Town Clerk for Grotty Cash, Mr Hilton Stilton and his expenses management team.

Yes it's that Stinky Ink Bartlets, from the Oldham Gazette, up to his old tricks again.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/11/11/liverpool-city-council-officials-make-charity-donations-after-hospitality-inquiry-92534-25138983/

Poor Mr Stilton is a very polite man and if people are kind enough to send him 9,000 free invitations to Race Meetings, sporting events, concerts, dinners and Bingo Gala nights, well he is far too polite to refuse. But you can't have a go at the man for that - he can't go to them all for heavens sake - so what if he said no to six of them?

He can't be everywhere at once! How can you possibly get from the 2.15 at Chepstow to the the 2.30 at Newmarket, it's ridiculous. And then if you have to rush home and rinse through a pair of clean knickers ready to throw at Tom Jones during the concert at 8.00pm the same night, the poor man would be worn out.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/11/11/days-out-at-the-races-and-the-echo-arena-for-top-liverpool-council-officials-92534-25138982/

But let me tell you this missus, at every free dinner he attends, there is a little doggy bag under the table for his loyal staff. He fills it up after every meal. All the gravy goes to his management team and over a thousand of his other staff may get the chop.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/11/12/1-000-liverpool-city-council-jobs-face-axe-92534-25148804/

But he has been trying to save his money, just in case Cameron gets in, so of course he's going to grab as many free outings as he can - it makes sense! But oh no, the local Rag and Bones man, who looks after the accounts, Harry H. Corbett, has kicked up a fuss telling them all to make a quick bung to the Lord Mayors Charity, otherwise it doesn't look good. "City in financial ruin, millions of pounds shortfall and you're at the race track every couple of days" he said. ..Hmmm put it like that and I suppose it would start the gossips.

I gave a few quid to the Lord Mayors Charity myself but somebody said that part of the money was being used to buy Mayor Jackastorey a new bucket of gravel and a packet of lard for his hair. Probably that Richard Kempton-Park told me.

But anyway Missus, don't believe these gossip mongers, I can assure you that Mr Stilton is a gentleman and a dollar..I mean scholar. As soon as he heard that it all looked dodgy, he and his friends in the private box at the Philharmonic, without any provocation, hint or suggestion, imediately made donations to the Lord Mayors Charity as soon as Corbett told them to. Although actually I suppose we did, since we pay their salary.

Never mind, as far as I'm concerned, Mr Stilton works damned hard for this city and is rewarded with a pittance of only £230,000 per year plus 20% performance related pay (even that depends upon how many performances he's been to that week) So if anyone thinks he just spends his days at the races before heading off to watch Morrisey from Wet Wet Wet at the Arena, and then going for a free nosh-up, I have put together this brief documentary that shows it's not all freebies and perks.

This covers just one busy week in the life of the man who had to squeeze into the tiny shoes of the Evil Sir Diddy.

So in the documentary posted below, we follow Mr Stilton, during just an average week in Grotty Cash. Amongst other things you will see him preparing for Cabinet meetings, opening events, giving speeches and presentations, trying to get a meeting with the Fireman and council leader Wally Bradlow, working on the budget, looking into the new docks development, rallying support for and testing out one of the proposed Tram systems before finally having a moment to quickly wash and brush-up in Misadventure Place, courtesy of the local doctor. A man simply trying to get on with the job.

HILTON STILTON; A WEEK IN THE LIFE

More news to Come.

I'll be back soon with a full report into the 4,000 dodgy Etch a Sketch devices that Liverpool Direct tried to pass off as Laptops to Grotty Cash Council at an annual cost of £78,000,000.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/11/20/liverpool-to-replace-4-000-out-of-date-computers-92534-25211490/

A furious Councillor Richard Clamp has finally spoken out against this madness and laid the blame for his disasterous handling of the Boot Estate, squarely on the poor IT equipment he was forced to use when masterminding the development strategy.

LDL Laptop £3,000 cost plus £2,000 compulsory

annual maintenance charge

Replacement mouse from LDL IT range £175.00

plus £25.00 for the key

For more items or to order goods, see full catalogue of disaster

I'll also be reviewing Judy Finnigan's new show, Pet's Cost Millions, and letting you know how my old dog Mac, a balding Rottweiller, is getting along with the terrible incontinence and trembling problem he has suffered since Judy accosted him during a lively broadcast of the new daytime show on Dale Street the other week.
http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2009/11/finnegan-goes-a-bit-thick-of-i.html

New call to ban dogs from fouling the city

But enough of this doom and gloom, let's have some good news for a change!

So here is some good news to end on, forget thousands of job losses being planned, forget Liverpool Direct ripping us off for £78 Million and still nobody with enough guts in the Lib Dems to admit it has all been a con. Forget too about the budget shortfall of at least £124 Million over the next couple of years and forget the 08 Place losing £1million a year. The good news is that we have committed £7 million pounds of your money to pay consultants to come in over the next twelve months to give us some much needed guidance on how to start running this city properly.

It is going very well so far, and the consultants are doing such a good job that I can confirm that by December 2010, there is every possibility that Grotty Cash Council will have a clear strategy in place that will enable them to identify their Arses from their Elbows. This will be a major step forward for the city leadership.

The first draft of their report has already been published and presented to the leader of the council Wally Bradlow, but unfortunately he is so far unable to understand the complicated diagrams.

Not to worry, we will get some more consultants in to explain it to us in laymans terms.

With this kind of determination, I'm sure they'll soon get the administration of the city back on the right track.

Chester Racecourse has a good track apparently!

Fancy a flutter missus?

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

An Epic poem on the World Heritage Site as William McGonagall writes for the Chronic Call. Plus The Pumpkin's on parade in Wavertree, and a load of old flannel about Employment and Romance.

2009-09-30T20:08:00.019+01:00

By Jove Missus, it will soon be Halloween and in this edition of Chronic calls I bring you a tale of the supernatural connected to our fabulous water-front and the changes taking place.

Now as you know I am a great admirer of Professor Tom’s Lemons, who writes all those books about tales of mystery and murder as well as a catalogue of strange experiences and sensations he has had around the ghoulies area. Mrs C likes nothing better than to bury her nose in them. Well I met up with him the other week, quite by chance.

He was drumming up some new material outside Yates's Wine Lodge at chucking out time. He was wearing a white bed sheet over his head and a top hat, jumping out at people that he thought were drunk to the point of collapse and then hitting them over the head with an old copy of The Times. Then he says, "Wooo! Look at the date it’s 1847 you have gone back in time – I am a Victorian gentleman! Then he pushes them into the bushes and runs off.

When I got up, I mean when they get up, he jumps out again further down the road, with a colander on his head, some swimming goggles on and a sheet of Bacofoil around his waist. "It’s the future now," he shouts - waving a bullseye torch - "it’s the year three thousand and seventy six, dogs have grown wings and beaks, and poo in the trees, there is a Liberal Democrat government!" Anyway it was that last bit that gave him away and I said "is that you Tom?"

So we got talking and the next night he came round to the house with his ouija board. Now I think it’s all nonsense but Mrs Hewitt is a firm believer. She claims she was once told that she had second sight, but when I questioned her about exactly who told her this, it turned out to be the woman in Vision Express. That’s not what she meant I said, she meant your glasses are bi-focal. But she won’t have it.

Anyway we started off and of course Mrs C does the usual party trick; pretending to be possessed and spinning her head round with a big black forked tongue darting in and out and sending everything flying off the mantel shelf. I really don’t know how she does it but it’s amazing to watch. Anyway she went a bit too far this time, what with the projectile vomiting and making Mrs Hewitt fly up in the air and spin on the ceiling like a catherine wheel.

But then something very strange happened. A gentle voice with a Scottish accent came from nowhere. "Is that alcohol?" It asked. By Jove yes I said. Do you want a drop: you must be dead thirsty. “I do not and nor should you, it'll be the ruination of ye” the voice replied. Anyway you will not believe this, we had been joined from the spirit world by the poetic soul of the great William McGonagall. The finest Scottish Poet that ever lived. Far better than Pete Burns, in my view. McGonagall was the author of such great works as his celebrated ode to the opening of the Tay Bridge, entitled The Beautiful Bridge over the Silvery Tay and the sequel The Tay Bridge Disaster.
http://www.naxosaudiobooks.com/189312.htm Tay bridge disaster read by Gregor Fisher

McGonagall told us that Arthur Askey, had been telling him all about Liverpool and the Three Graces on the waterfront and how he should write a poem about it for the Capital of Custard. I said that was last year what kept you? "I couldn’t get through" he said. What from the spirit world? I asked, "No Liverpool Direct" he said. Well if you have written it, tell it to me now and I'll write it down and publish it for you. Mind you missus, I had to cut out seventy three verses.

And so ladies and gentlemen we present a special edition of Professor Chucklebutty's Liverpool Chronic Calls as we publish an ode to our developing city, the historical waterfront and the Three Graces by the late great William Topaz McGonagall.
http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/ More on McGonagall

The Beautiful World Heritage Site On The Silvery Mersey

By William McGonagall

"Oh what a beautiful sight to behold"
many people would say, as their stories they told
Of the time they arrived in fair Liverpool
And their eyes lit up and their mouths did drool

The world came here, from all cultures and races,
Welcomed ashore by our fine three graces.
Though I feel that I must point out to you,
Before 1911 there were only two.

So without wishing to be at all pedantic
Not everyone who has crossed the Atlantic
Would have been met by the graceful three
When they ended their journey across the sea.

But I am sure the experience was not diminished
By the Liver Buildings not being finished
But all who do see them it has been said,
From Shanghai to Peru or Birkenhead

Do loudly cheer and we must surely agree
That it is a most beautiful sight to see
So highly in fact did the visitors rate us
That now it is granted World Heritage status

We take Pride in and love in equal measure
Our port, an architectural treasure
Best viewed from the river or the Albert dock
But what is this people cry out in shock?

For they are constructing something new
That has destroyed what was the finest view
Where once their image was reflected
Two great dark slabs are being erected

Misshapen blocks of cold shining black
A featureless mass stops you dead in your track
For what was once a site of celebration
Has suffered a heinous desecration

A rising monstrosity that now defaces
The land around our proud three graces
What kind of demented fools approved
With the risk of our status being removed?

The construction of these soulless towers
Like great black slugs amongst fragrant flowers
A great architectural travesty
Like two new Concourse Towers on sea

And who of sound mind would buy or rent
Next to the great Mersey Tunnel vent
For a healthy living must be in doubt
Where the carbon monoxide filters out.

How many new flats we should be told
Are now occupied or remain unsold
I offer a quick unscientific test
Hands-up if you live in One Park West

If you bought one of those, what price did ye pay?
And what may I ask is it valued at today
Had ye been at the demon drink when ye signed the cheque
For a home that looks like Wigan Tech?

The city skyline that now we see
Devoid of art and symmetry
A rising mess of concrete and glass
From the architectural dunces class

Even where we yoyage on our famous ferry
They’ve created a heap that looks built by Jerry
Winner of the great carbuncle cup
Like a caravan with it’s downside up

Is there nay reached a point of saturation
For the city planners to have some hesitation

Or is it the fact each planning application

Is a gift to property speculation?

Wrapped in the term regeneration

Yet with the city’s falling population

It does nothing to address our real housing need

For the driving force for this is greed

And while the ink on one application’s still damp
The next one’s there for the rubber stamp
To keep adding more common sense can’t deny
We are building ghost towns in the sky

"That will be three shillings and sixpence please."

I think he's been reading the Preservatives Trust.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/09/liverpool-world-heritage-city.html

Now Missus, before I go, back to Halloween.

Now as you know, at this time of year all the kids will be wanting to carve their pumpkins and hang them out to dry. But at the moment it looks like one special big pumpkin may be about to get carved up and hung out to dry in Wavertree. Some people are concerned about it not being suitable after the last scoop and possibly not as clean as it should be. The sitting Labour MP Jane Canapé has offered to come and give it a rub down with a flannel if it helps or take it back to the cleaners but it may not be enough. There has been a suggestion that the big glowing pumpkin could be replaced by a large Turnip. Then again, there's a local fireman looking for another part-time job, perhaps he could hose it down. It would be a shame if they get rid of it. Poor old pumpkin must be feeling quite hollow inside. I'm sure he'll find a job somewhere.

That reminds me, there have been some scurrilous comments about Mrs Hewitt’s part time job in my Jambutty-mine theme park that I recently opened. It is true she was recruited through an agency and the post was not advertised but let’s face it, dressing up as a canary perched in a little wire cage and being hung from the roof of a mine shaft for 9 hours a day for 30 bob an hour is not going to attract a lot of applicants. What’s more she had all the required skills.

http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2009/09/the-fight-for-wavertree-hots-u.html

She fitted the costume and she can twitter on endlessly. However I would like to make it quite clear, she is most definitely not my girlfriend, although she did try it on the other night in the bathroom.

I was just in my nightshirt standing on a chair trying to put in a new bulb and she stumbles in through the darkness, hands all over the place trying to grab on to something. I just managed get the new bulb in and the light came on. The look on her face - before she screamed and fainted. When she eventually came round, she said it was all a mistake and that she thought she was pulling the chord for the light switch. A likely story!

She says she's recovered now and my eyes have stopped watering, but she hasn't spoken to me since - which is marvellous. Of course she now has the ghost of McGonagall for company, yes he's decided to stay, although if he keeps lecturing me about drink, I'm calling in the exorcist.

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye

Be nice to each other.

Matthew Street Special Festival Report with John, Paul, George and Tesco lookalikes on every corner. Surprise guests make big impact and Mysterious Shopping trolley apears in Cathedral Font

2009-09-03T00:00:00.019+01:00

By Jove Missus what a weekend! Liverpool’s Meryl Streep Street Festival bigger and better than ever before. More bands than Arriva Conductor Vassilly Pertbottom could shake a stick at, which seems to be an obsession of his. Of course it was all started around those four cheeky mop tops from Manchester. Every year it attracts thousands of music fans to the city, many who dress-up for the ocassion. Swarms of them everywhere, it seems you can't go down any street without finding a John, Paul, George or Tesco on the corner.

And the success of this years event has already been hailed by Wally Bradlow, Leader of the Silly Console. Wally says he is already looking at ways to make next years bigger and better including promising to enter a World Mug bid. Do you know they are even talking about changing the name of the Park known as The Mystery? It's going to be called "Christ we are losing millions on this new olympic size swimming pool, who costed this up?"

Ham Fists? makes a change from putting your foot in it and you don't need to go all the way to Tesco. Every Lib-dum helps.

It really is remarkable how this major free festival has come back to life after the fiasco a couple of years ago when Jason Orange decided to Take That £230,000 and we were left with just Jacko Plinky Plonk and his cardboard guitar standing on a bin in Williamson Square in front of the bemused crowd of 20,000 Japanese and American tourists. Sadly, due to health & safety concerns,Jacko Plinky Plonk was prevented from continuing with his performance meaning that the crowd were forced to watch Chas & Dave singing Grabbit Grabbit Grabbit from the roof of the 08 Place.

Of course the 08 place has come in for some stick recently, well actually since it was built. Suddenly everybody is wondering what it's for. Fortunately, in between saving the finances of the city for the future and putting aside any party differences with a personal private and heartfelt plea that he copied to all the local media, to unite people around him as the obvious leader of a new coalition, Councillor Richard Cramp, hero of the Boot Estate development (posthumous award) is to lead an enquiry into the 08 place. He has promised to examine absolutely everything that went on with it and what its purpose is...well except for the financial goings on when it was built, the reports to the Executive Board, the overbudget refit that was sneaked through, the use it has been put to and who gets to park there for free etc.

COUNCILLOR CORKY thinks Wally is finished. A case of Bootsie and Fudge

Anyway back to the plot. Now prior to the start, of the weekend festival, I had been over to Manchester to collect some dear friends of mine, Elsie and Gladys Sissons, (No relation to Peter Sissons, although he'd never let on) who just don’t get the chance to see such major festivals or top acts on their own doorstep and both of them have been big fans of Jolly Marsden and the Pacmakers ever since his days on the Sooty Show.

Elsie and Gladys Sissons from Cheadle

Now the funny thing is, the day before, I had mentioned to a friend who works in the new Culture department, who took over from Harbottle and the Custard Company, that as a big surprise I was bringing the sisters to the festival. Now my culture friend Clara, got very excited about this for some reason and asked if they would do a few numbers live on stage. You give them a mic and an audience and you’ll never get them off the stage I said. Right she said if we sort it, you could put them on the centre stage at 8.00pm the crowd would love it this is going to be brilliant!!! Really I said? Well all right I’ll keep it as a surprise for them as well.

So with Elsie 87 and Gladys 83 in the back of the car we were hurtling down the M62 on our way to the festival with them both singing “Jerry Cross the Mersey” at the top of their voices. I keep telling them it’s ferry but they always start shouting that Ferry was Rexy Music and poke me in the back of the neck and then tugging my hair saying "get it cut, you're like a girl - he is a girl.." blah blah yak yak....Old sods!

FERRY and THE PACEMAKERS

So anyway we just got off the M62 and Gladys says she wanted a six pack of Red Bull to keep her energy levels up. Fortunately there was a Tesco Express on Queens Drive so we nipped in there and then set off again. Just as we got to Old Swan Elsie wants some Extra strong mints (she thinks it disguises the hip flask effects) fortunately there was a big Tesco on the corner so I ran in there for them and off we set again.

Elsie offers the mints around and Gladys says she only likes the spearmint ones so we headed towards Allerton as there is a big Tesco superstore there but they didn’t have any in stock. Fortunately just around the corner in Rose Lane there is a Tesco Express so we popped in – no luck again - but as luck would have it there was a Tesco Metro on Greenbank Road who had a box of them at the counter. By this time I was getting dizzy and took the wrong turn. It was only when I saw the Tesco Metro on Aigburth Road I knew where I was. I don’t like going into Town via Park Road although the area should improve once they open the new Tesco store so we headed back across Sefton Park to Wavertree Road and stopped off at the Tesco Metro in Edge Hill to get some sandwiches.

Then I remembered that I had been asked to officially open that store and I recalled that within minutes of me speaking the crowd started to shout and protest. I think it was something to do with the freshness of a sandwich somebody had bought as they all shouted “Ya awful Chickenbutty Off Off Off!” or at least that’s what it sounded like. I didn’t get the chance to find out as Sir Terry took the microphone from me and pushed me off the stage. So I thought no, sod them we’ll go somewhere else for our sandwiches.

I think Sir Terry was a bit annoyed with me from the off anyway, because of the little accident I had when parking the car.

But I don't hold grudges, missus no I am full of plumsiousness and whimsy (its the marrowfat peas) and anyway I understand that Tesco has made a great donation to this years festival that may be auctioned for charity. Yes they commissioned an oil painting of the classic Beatles album cover Abbey Road, the one with the lads on the zebra crossing . They have updated it a bit though for the modern audience.

ABBEY ROAD ALBUM 2009 Every Beatle helps

Luckily just by the Uni on Brownlow Hill, there was a convenient Tesco Express so we picked up a few sarnies to see us through until lunch.

As soon as we set off Gladys says did you get me a scotch egg? Well I wasn’t going back for that. If only i could find another convenient shop selling scotch eggs. I’m not a fan of them myself, strikes me as a mutation – what do they feed the chickens on?

I couldn't believe my luck, there just a few hundred yards round the corner on Mount Pleasant was another Tesco. Hang on while I nip in here. They had them in six packs so I got two for the greedy mare.

Here are your mutant chickens I said as we drove away again.

I should have kept my mouth shut. What's in this sandwich? Is this cheese? shouts Gladys I wanted chicken sandwiches. Cheese brings me heads on she said. So I had to stop the car on Renshaw Street and run down Bold Street to the Tesco Express for her and her chicken sarnies.

Back in the car, she says did you get me any Neurofen? That cheese has given me a migraine. Well what did you eat the bloody things for then ? I said. Some of them were for me!! You've scoffed the sodding lot! So anyway I had to jump out again by the precinct and nip into Clayton Square to try and find somewhere that sold painkillers. Nearest place I could find, thank goodness, was a a large Tesco store.

It’s very salty this chicken, says Elsie as we set off, spitting bits down the back of me shirt, did you get any mineral water?........

Luckily just along the road there was a Tesco Express on Lord Street. It was either that or back up to the new Tesco on London Road, so I popped in there for a bottle. All the time the two of them stuffing their faces and singing their heads off. Suddenly Gladys gets a coughing fit and starts complaining of a sore throat. You’ve got Swine Flu I said! I’ll have to shoot you. You’re the only swine we know, she said, we must have got it off you. Well what do you want for your throat - besides my hands round it? I asked. Well I don’t want Tunes, she said, they have mental in them, what’s the ones with no taste a bit like Tunes? I know, Hacks she said. But they're strong I said - all throat lozenges have a strong taste. No,no she insisted, you could get them now with no taste. Right I said so you want some Hacks with no taste, well there is only one place for that these days, Old Hall Street. Yes, they have a Tesco Express.

By this time we had missed half the performances at the festival and it was nearly 8 o’clock when we just got to the main stage. As soon as I approached the VIP section (Virile Ingenious Professors) some frantic stagehand grabbed me and said have you brought them? Cogloose has smuggled in the all the nationals, BBC, Sky news, MTV and everything to cover it. Blimey! I said, yes they are with me. Are they ready to go straight on? asked the anxious stagehand, only word has leaked out and there are thousands waiting to see them. Really I said, doesn't say much for the rest of the acts. Anyway you try stopping them, I said.

I went back to the ladies and said right Gladys, Elsie - a big surprise for you - they want you on stage to do a few numbers. There's a big crowd here just to see you two. That turn you do at the bingo on Fridays must have caught on since Mr Clack put it on You Tube. You know the one where your teeth fell into your cleavage when you were singing Hello Dolly. Seems they are all waiting for you. Do you think you can do a few of your numbers?

Well they were up onto the stage like a shot fighting over the microphone behind the curtain. Meanwhile I could just make out my friend Cogloose starting an announcement to the crowds.

We have a Brilliantly briliant surprise! she gushed

Liverpool...Are - You -.Ready?....... (huge roar of yes from the crowd)

Ready to welcome on stage at the Matthew Street Festival (sic) Two Thousand and Nine..

The fabulous, fantastic,

brilliant and amazingly…. er ..brilliant…. a huge Liverpool welcome for.........

The Scissor Sisters!!!!

The crowd went wild with cheers as the curtains began to open. I kept tapping Cogloose on the shoulder saying Sissons…not scissors it’s Sissons .... the Sissons Sisters - from Cheadle, but she couldn’t hear me for the cheers. As they took centre stage Elsie and Gladys started to belt out “You are My Sunshine” - lovely harmonies as always - one starts the first line after the other you know how it goes - the crowd fell suddenly silent but only for a few moments.

Crowds turn nasty at Oldham Street Festival Photo courtesy of Oldham Chronic
Anyway as we were speeding back up Canning Street, a few minutes later, trying to find somewhere that sold bandages, TCP and elastoplasts or at least something to take the swelling down.

I turned into Hope Street hoping we could find a late night shop or convenience store. And do you know what? There wasn’t a single bloody Tesco to be found.

No wonder this city is going down the pan. Pull the front off one of those old terraced houses and it would make a lovely Supermarket. I certainly didn't have time to drive a few hundred yards up the road to the next Tesco.

Fortunately there was a small convenience store on the corner that sells everything you might want. Thank goodness for small businesses. They need our support.

It can be done you know.

STOP PRESS: 4th Sept. Tesco were planning to open a store in Hope Street but have withdrawn following a spirited sensible campaign by the former Monkees guitarist and actor Mike Nesquick. Three cheers for common sense and well done Tesco for listening to the people of the city. I for one will still be buying my Scotch Eggs at your shops everytime Elsie and Gladys come to visit. What do they feed the chickens on?
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/09/04/tesco-withdraws-plans-for-liverpool-hope-street-store-92534-24604733/

Tatty Bye Everybody, Tatty Bye.

P.S. Just in celebration of the ladies brief performance, here is a link to a rather different version of You Are My Sunshine with an important message from those busybodies in GREENPEACE.

I know it's a bit blue for me but then so are me bruises at the moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3mlsTmoINA

Terminal Architecture at World Heretic Site, Rednose Gingerbench arrives, Bronzed-Off at Lime St, Penguins Revolt and the Mayor is Bugged

2009-07-16T23:35:00.008+01:00

The Award Winning New Ferry Terminal Pier Head Liverpool

By Jove Missus, what’s wrong with the people of this city? I have just been down to look at the developments at Mann Island and the Pier head everyone is moaning about and I think they are amazing! Have you seen what’s being built down there? The new ferry terminal is positively breathtaking in the boldness of its design. A triumph of modern architecture, unlike anything seen before or hopefully ever again.

I can’t see why some people don’t like the new terminal; they obviously weren’t fans of the Flintstones. I thought I’d strolled right into Bedrock. The Architects Yabba, Dabba and Doyouthinkwecangetawaywiththisrubbish, have provided the Pier Head with a building that genuinely compliments the rest of the misshapen slabs that now pollute our World Horror Stage Site, and why not? We can’t keep living in the past! The so-called Three Grocers have become a cliché, it’s about time we hid the damned things from view. Either that or just knock ‘em down for car parking.

It’s not often I agree with the soon to be ex-leader of the Silly Console, Wally Bradlow, but this time he is spot on. Answering the criticisms of a certain Mr Bruce Wayne who writes the blog, Grotty Cash Preservatives, Wally hit back by saying:

“ Er..Salisbury City Council came in for the same criticisms 3 million years ago when they built Stone Minge and look at it now, when that’s finished it’s going to be amazing. I am sick and tired of these theodolites that are against anything modern and incredibly ugly. We want to make Liverpool into a European perineum vibrating city and I am unanimous along with everybody else on that one. I mean look Roger, you only have to look at where we were 10 years ago….where were we Steve? What do you mean we were standing by the printer? No not that! Anyway we weren’t, you did that on your own remember, except that you are innocent…stop going on about it will yer? ”

On the subject of great architecture missus, which we weren’t, there is good news for the Duke Of Westphalia, he’s managed to flog 46 mini-labs in the Wigan technical college on the front of the Grotty Cash One Shopping development.

So that’s only another 300 or so to off-load. I’ll bet the Grossvenal group is regretting sneaking in all those extra floors now. Now some people have even criticised this fantastic achievement. If we are talking about preserving our culture and historical legacy, what better way than to re-create the past by selling off a huge chunk of the city to a Feudal Lord? Yes that’s right missus, when you pop into the shops for your washing up powder, you are now officially a serf buying Surf. Typical of Grotty Cash to let this happen. What do you expect when we are run by a bunch of fiefing Vassals.

O8 BENCH IS HERE!

And on the subject of shopping, great news if you want to take the weight off your corns. The Bench for Liverpool 08 has finally been produced! And do you know what? The thing is rather nice – I like it.. Alright it’s a bit like a cadaverous Gingerbread man being carried away for burial by little diddy gingerbread men but then so is Professor Rednose, who came up with the idea for competition. It is a just a shame that within ten minutes of it going on display, some rude graffiti vandal, probably SouthBanksy or whatever he’s called, had to draw a gentleman’s thingy on it, you know missus, a Wally. What does that say to everyone about our year as COC?

But very well done to the gentleman who submitted the winning entry it. It really is a charming and simple design.
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Now speaking of art, it’s about time I went public on this. Lime Street Station! I’ve kept quiet so far but now every time I see it and the crowds of people laughing at it and then pointing at me…well I have had enough. I knew after seeing the statues of John and Dudley Moores who founded Diddywood’s Pools had been made to look like Ed the Duck and Dr Crippen that i shouldn't get too excited. Then we got the two Bishops of Liverpool, Archbishop Deryck Guyler and Dr Alan Sheppard, the first Bishop to play cricket on the Moon or something, and they looked like they had both fallen into a skip full of wet cement, I thought this may not be the honour I was hoping for. So my expectations were not high which was just as well when I saw what our local sculptor, Tom Mersey, had knocked up in his shed.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/07/liverpool-european-capital-ofbad.html

It looks like David Jacobs on crack! Like I am hallucinating over a giant corn on the cob. And have you seen the crotch of my trousers? I am a renowned Operatic Tenor. If I wore them I’d be castrato in no time. Far too tight for knotting sausages!

They’d certainly help me to release Tears.

And what has Aunt Bessie got to do with Liverpool – running up to me with one of her home-made dumplings?

No I’m sorry mate, they did a lovely statue of Eric Sykes in Morcambe, doing his trademark dance at the end of he show (pictured below) but I’ve ended up with this thing.

BRING ME SUNSHINE, IN YOUR SMILE.....
What do you thing of it so far...?

I like the one of Barry Fury but look at the hair on the one of me, or huuurr ..huurrrr, as we say it in Liverpool, if you couldn’t do it properly, why didn’t you do me in me big hat and fur.....fuuuur…..fuuuuuur, coat?
You could have had me banging me drum at 3 o’clock in the morning trying to find out what time it is. Instead I’ve got a lift and separate suit, a meringue on me head and a giant shrivelled salami in my hand!

The only decent one he’s done, as far as I can see, is the statue they have in Croxteth to celebrate a local political figure. It's called “The Fat Defector” although, I can’t see it lasting beyond next year as he couldn’t afford enough bronze and had to use pastry.

Thank goodness there is still the statue of me in Grotty Cash Village, a much better likeness, one that reveals the real me, as I was in my younger days. Mind you missus, even that is a bit out of proportion – look at the size of my tickling stick!

Young Chucklebutty leaning on his tickling stick tree

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Now missus, sticking with the art theme, you will all recall the great success of last years “Let’s go for Lambanana Supper”

Perhaps the biggest and popular ongoing event of 2008. A daft statue that the council had ignored and shunted around for nearly nine years. The quirky design and comment about genetic engineering and agriculture. The Superlambanana.

As you may recall, I commissioned my good friend and Liverpool limerick writer Reggie McCough to compose a Lambanana ode for the pages of Liverpool Continental in celebration of our little friend being saved….sort of. Here it is to read, if you link on this click

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/index.asp?Sessionx=IpqiNwEiNwEiKWJ6IHqrNwB6IA

Well how could we top that? How could we come up with something as odd and unique that would capture the imagination of the city? Well we couldn’t so we are going to shove a load of penguins everywhere and order kids in schools to decorate them or get expelled. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/07/07/first-photos-of-the-colony-of-go-penguins-which-will-visit-liverpool-this-winter-92534-24090174/

Stop the Lib-Dums getting rid of our Lollipop patrols. Penguins against Pelican crossings!

It’s odd that the Glib Dummercrats should go for this idea, given the fight they had with the p-p-p-penguins over secondary p-p-p-picketing when they tried to sack all the Lollipop patrols and force children to use cheap labour Pelican Crossings. Of course they deny it now but at the time we all knew it was fishy, which is what attracted the penguins to the city in the first place. Well I may mock, but there is every sign that this will catch on. Already there are penguins being spotted splashing about in the Mersey.

Even our own Lord Phil Rednose has been promoting the event and dressing up as a penguin for all the usual publicity shots. You would think that after the near disaster caused by the Custard Company in the run up to 2008 that he would know better than to let my old friend McCogloose order the penguin costume for him. Here is Professor Rednose in his outfit launching the event but..it’s the wrong colour surely? It just doesn’t look right. Doesn’t say penguin to me.

Bugs and Beatles

Our new Lord Mirth, Muck Storeyteller, is keeping busy, it was marvellous to see him at the opening of the wonderful new Creepy Crawlies and Bugs exhibition. Here are a few of them showing off the inferior cheap cladding they sneaked into the design that will grace our marvellous Xrate Museum of Liverpool Lice and double as a giant skateboard park.

It was great to see the Mayor nervously getting into the spirit of things at the Bug Exhibition. I have to say though that for some of the children who started crying and trembling, it was a frightening ordeal seeing a rather unpleasant looking and wriggling little creature up close, but when the staff explained it was only the mayor, they calmed down and shoved a scorpion down his trousers.

"Whaahahaaa...get that bug out !" Says Mr Mayor

The was another major scare, when police received reports that one of the giant hissing cockroaches had escaped and had been seen heading towards Merseytravel HQ but it turned out to be a false alarm and it was just a local fireman in one of his many disguises on his way to collect his council allowances.

Now the marvellous thing about this exhibition – they really should try this at Chester Zoo – is that you can get to eat the exhibits. Yes Missus. Instead of a Goosenargh Chicken, you can have a Baked Tarantula. Everyone gets a leg…By Jove!

Here's some infrmation about the exhibition if you want to go and play with some spiders or eat a few delicacies like Ant and Dec

http://www.bugworldexperience.co.uk/static/

I’m surprised that Ms Angie Samples, at Liverpool Confit of dential hasn’t done a review of it for their restaurant guide. They can’t be squeamish, I mean all the places she and that Lucky Grills has been to, they must have already swallowed half a ton of cockroach legs and the odd beetle by now. Lemon Grass indeed! I mean one lunch trip to ( ) would give you enough antennae to pick up channel five.

C’mon let’s have a review. With photos of the happy diners. I’d do it myself but I’m still recovering from the Seagull Bap I had at Munro's a while back.

Here's some recipe suggestions from what used to be our museum

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/wml/naturalworld/bughouse/kitchen.aspx

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DESTINATION GROTTY CASH!

Before I go, I should just mention that I was not successful in my application for the £75k job of Director of Destination Grotty Cash. To make sure that people see Liverpool as a cultural destination and have a rewarding cultural experience. A new post created by a cash strapped council looking to make savings and cut services by duplicating the work already done by the Mersey partnership and the head of tourism. http://blogs.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/dalestreetblues/2009/07/whats-the-future-for-the-merse.html

So whose mate is going to get this nice little number then? I could easily have done that. I’ve even got my own A to Z and I am on first name terms with Mrs Ida Downey from The Adolfo hotel.

Well I mentioned a certain person that has recently taken up a position on the board of No Mercy Travel and, although I have no proof, I strongly suspect a stitch-up between the fire brigade and the bus drivers on this one. I was sent this photograph of the two shortlisted candidates. You make up your own mind.

Ding-ding hold tight now, next stop Grotty Cash. Please give the driver the correct change - £75,000 plus prp - Aythenkyew move along the bus now!

Tatty Bye Everybody, Tatty Bye

Be Nice to each other…

p-p-p-push over a penguin

Hurst Mercy Travel, The Last event in the Firefighter Games? Grotty Cash In Westminster, Biros and Mugs

2009-05-27T22:45:00.005+01:00

By Jove Missus have you been reading about the UFOs sighted over South Grotty Cash? Turns out it was Pigs flying over the democratic vote to put my old friend Crookcillor Steve Blert onto the Executive Board of

No Mercy Travel.

He wants to move on from his criminal conviction for breaking election law with dirty tricks of the lowest order and bringing disgrace on politicians and his party. So Wally Bradlow has moved him on to nearly £6000 of your money missus! So with his Concillor allowance of over £9,000, the £300 for running his office and now this handout from his mate Wally Bradlow, he’s pocketing £16k reward on top of his full time salary as a Hosepipe Jockey. And they say crime doesn’t pay? Well it certainly does in Grotty Cash. Very useful when as we know, he is saving up to retire to Australia, once he’s finished wrecking the reputation of the city. So for now he's in again through the back door.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/05/26/disgraced-councillor-anger-as-steve-hurst-given-merseyside-transport-authority-post-100252-23709655/

What was Wally Bradlow thinking of? I would hate to think that he was somehow implicated in the scandalous

Waltonscab-lapdance-boguspinkleaflet-dirtytricks-gotyounowhursty-where’smehat-gate, as the whole sorry saga has been named by Stinky Ink Bartles in the Oldham Chronic.

And what of that fine lady that Blert has now replaced on the No Mercy Travel Board, the lovely and feisty Juniper Clein? (Have I ever mentioned it’s German for Diddy?) Was she doing a bad job or has she been sacrificed on the alter to save our souls? Blert being one of the biggest.

She may be a bit batty, but I am told she’s got the measure of the current mob and it’s just unfortunate that her political career in Grotty Cash has been held back by her having some remaining principals and a notion of right and wrong. The kiss of death if you want to get on in the Glib Dums. Remember what happened to young Slarty Bartfast when he asked Wally some awkward questions about wasting money and the Meryl Streep Festival fiasco? The De Selectioni gang moved in with Wally and Blert at the back of the local district meeting dressed as Marlon Branston and Robert de Biro.

So Missus, what is Wally Bradlow, the leader of Grotty cash telling us about this appointment? Blert wants to move on, he says, he has accepted the courts decision and the failure to win his appeal against his criminal conviction but that doesn't mean he's accepted the guilt!

Now I seem to recall that one of the main principals of the judicial system is that anyone on trial is "Innocent until proven guilty." Now it seems that Wally and Blert the latter day Cheesehead & Firefight have now rewritten the entire justice system, so that now it’s "Innocent even when twice proved guilty." Lock your doors and windows Missus, this means we are about to release almost the entire prison population.

I wanted to get an understanding of exactly how this affects the law and luckily my learned friend and the city’s favourite legal beagle, Sir Rex Hesperus, had invited me out for a drop of mother’s ruin at one of the city’s new nightspots, "Bar Mitzvah." Now I don’t mind these theme pubs but this one was very odd. There was no sign of a bar and instead of a jukebox there was some kid singing.

Come on I said get your hand in your pocket and get the ale in. Don’t be ridiculous he said, sit down and shut up. Look, I said, I know you do a lot for charity and so do I, so come on let’s both get philanthropist. Chucklebutty, he said, with one of his withering looks, for the last time this is not a wine bar, there is no Cherry B, no Foster’s, or Guinness, Castle Maine, Black Sheep, and while you may find the odd Stella, there are certainly no Nobby’s Nuts and most definitely no pork scratchings! (He’s very thorough) It is a Synagogue and we are celebrating a beautiful religious ceremony marking the transition to manhood of that young boy up there, the one that you just referred to in suggesting that we roll Rick Ghastly.

Well it’s the same thing, I said, when I was 12, I had my first pint of wallop and that marked my transition to manhood, so is the kid getting them in then or what?

Anyway, he was having me on as later we all ended up at one of the best knees-ups I have ever been to. It went on until the next morning. Do you know missus, there was even a free breakfast laid on? That’s when Louise Alpenn MP turned up with a ballpoint pen as a gift for the lad.

She brought apologies from Birkenhead's Frank Freeload, who couldn’t come as his shoes were at the menders. Mind you I always think cobblers when I listen to him.

But after all that, Rex wanted paying before he’d give me the legal view, in fact he gave me a bill every time he said no. But basically it seems that Wally Bradlow, through his detailed study of the law has demonstrated that all these judges and courts are a waste of time and money. All that fuss that was made about trial by jury, the right of Harry H. Corpus being removed, the extension of the time people may be held in custard without charge etc. none of it matters now, you just go through due process wait for the verdict and if they find you guilty you just say thank you very much I accept what you’re saying but I don’t accept the guilt. So there you are completely exonerated and moving on with your life after all that nonsense you’ve been put through. Wally should be the next Master of the Sausage Rolls.

This is excellent news for all the 300 or so MPs about to step down in disgrace, it doesn’t matter if they are guilty now, and even Wally has said so. When Joan Sanderson (Doris Bloody Yule) the Labour leader in Grotty Cash criticised the appointment of Blert, Wally said considering all the mortgage flipping Labour MPs, it’s a bit rich coming from Doris – so clearly it’s all right then by Wally, if the MPs may be facing criminal proceedings or standing down in disgrace then what’s wrong with me giving one of my convicted criminal mates a little trouser pleaser.

But I suppose this explains why all those referrals to the Ironing Boards for England about the Grotty Cash Councillors bringing their office into disrepute came to little or nothing.

The fact is that a staggering number of MPs have to a large extent abandoned all moral and ethical standards of behaviour, in favour of personal acquisition, greed and deceit, where they turn a blind eye to – indeed institutionalised - corruption and embezzlement. And we wondered why certain city politicians and executive officers seemed to be able to get away behaving how they wanted, with such brazen appalling behaviour, squandering the council tax on themselves, their hair-brained schemes and gimmicks, highly questionable contracts costing us tens of millions whilst they slashed services to pay for it. We wondered why they can put two fingers up to legitimate questions under the Freedom of Information Act and get away with it? Well partly it seems because Parliament itself has been doing just the same in order to cover up their own avarice and greed. And now they are found out, they are appalled -at being found out- and yet they feel that they are just the people to punish themselves and bring aout reforms, so long as we continue to vote for them. As if they had the God given right to their jobs and their positions.

The Reforms of the Recidivists. By Jove Missus, it takes the tickle right out of your stick! Well the gravy train may have been derailed for UK MPs but of course this abuse is probably nothing in comparison to the expenses scams of the Members of the European Parliament and there is not much the Telegraph will be able to do to bring down or expose that system across the member states. Anyway, who will listen to us, now that we are the political laughing stock of the world? The Mother F*****s of all Parliaments, the Ladel of Democracy (£2.49 from IKEA Claim it back)

Now ladies and gentlemen, I have to sadly confess that all of the above is very different from what I had planned to write today. Having like everyone else, had to scoop my chin off the floor with each new revelation about our Dishonourable Members of Parliament. These are the people we trusted to lead the nation (even if they do make a pigs ear of it) the people you have known and listened to for years. People you have respected, given your support to, often disagreed with them but in some cases still quite liked them for their quirkiness. People who had been held in great admiration for their stances on important issues. They have let us all down in such an incredible, almost incomprehensible way and have brought shame and disgrace to all aspects of political life in this country. A bunch of two-faced, sanctimonious whingers crying because they’ve been caught, or in some cases still brazening it out with a sense of outrage that, as they see it, their right to avoid tax, plunder the taxpayers purse and profiteer at our expense is being questioned. Some of course have suddenly decided to spend more time with the family, although since they pretend to employ half of their family, they must be sick of the sight of each other.
But with all this in mind, it set me to thinking, that perhaps Wally Bradlow, The Storey Teller, Blert and all their cronies, in the grand scale of things, and when compared to this lot in Parliament…well I started to think maybe it's time to move on, after all what’s a few canapés, free theatre tickets, foreign junkets, dodgy contracts, free parking, pigeon shelters, half a million pound pay-offs, land deals, Grotty Cash Direct, the Rottweiller, Matthew Streets, Son’s Pop band, destruction of the city heritage for a quick buck etc in comparison to what’s been going on in central government. Is it any wonder I thought, that some things here seemed to just be getting a little out of hand, with no recourse, sanctions or accountability? Fear of opening cans of worms maybe?

And so I was about to write that maybe Wally Bradlow isn’t so bad compared to the crooks in Westminster, after all, I have always said that he’s more daft than bad. The demise of the Evil Cobbles laid by Sir Diddy, has allowed some level of decency and honour to return to Grotty Cash, with more of an emphasis on working together rather than the bullying and intimidation that characterised his regime.

There are I think genuine attempts by the Executive Officers to restore financial controls and build a proper business strategy for the city. Well it was that or external inspectors being brought in to run the city. Whether you agree with their programme or not, if you can cut through the ridiculous spin and nonsense that still undermines many actions and initiatives they at least seem to be trying to build some kind of a vision for the city and we can only hope that they succeed. But all of this is in spite of the Glib Dum administration not because of them. It was their policies and administration of the city that got us named as the worst council in the country.

I even wanted to wish Dicky Mint the Storeyteller every success as the new Lord Mayor, it’s true I wasn’t keen to say the least, but for the sake of the city, I hope he makes a good job of it. And believe it or not missus, that is still the case. Good luck to the mad bugger.

But once the year is up…sod off.

Give him a peerage or a knighthood if you like just get him out of local politics, before the liver Building is turned into a KFC and the Liver Birds are given a crispy batter coating. if you can still see them once they've finished building the Fourth and Fifth Disgrace.

That's what I wanted to say before gracefully bowing out but sadly my feelings of “let’s move on” have been tarnished in the use of those very same words by Wally Bradlow and his appalling decision to appoint Blert to this position.

Well the standards board investigation that Wally Bradlow faced, concluded that he showed naiveté and was lacking in judgement. In the circumstances of this appointment, by bringing his disgraced fellow firefighter back into a paid and important, prominant role in the city, with the ink not yet dry on his recent criminal conviction, then the conclusion of the Standards Board about Bradlow is perhaps the kindest possible judgement of the man. There will be many others now making their own judgement.

Poor Mr Stilton, what must it be like to have to have to put up with this day in day out? Realistically though, what can he do? There have been all the accusations of cover-ups and whitewashes and probably justified in some cases but in reality what can be done to combat this lunatic administration without a new civil war between officers and members. The city went through enough during the attempted coup by Sir Diddy against Dickie Mint the Storeyteller.

Remember, when Stilton was the Head Caretaker for Skools, he was highly regarded and seen to be very capable and sincere. He had a very positive impact on those services.

Has he been completely drawn in or, as I have - perhaps generously - asked before, is he having to bide his time and play the game? Is it guile or gutlessness? Apart from the money, which quite frankly he is raking in, it cannot be an enviable task to try to be instructed by, follow, manage and work with this politically bankrupt and despotic mob. I really don’t know how much better it or he would be under Doris and the Labour crew, but it surely couldn’t be worse? Could it? And if a change of political leadership allows Stilton to become the person he once appeared to be, then maybe we could see the end of the spin machine and a genuine vision for the city emerge. A City leadership and administration that begins to put the local people before the politics and our public service before self service.

This is not just about the election next year and Labour versus Lib dems, it is also about the decent Lib dems themselves standing up for what is right and challenging the disgraceful actions and behaviour of their leadership, that has discredited their name and their reputation.

The opportunity brought about by the expenses revelations makes it time now to try and get the Grotty out of Grotty Cash. The Lib dems can’t rely on Nobby Clogg, their new national party leader doing it for them, he’s had his head in the trough like the rest of them in Westminster. The ordinary rank and file members of all parties have to take action.

We talk of the new pride in the city, then why not a new pride in yourselves? Across all the parties? In the words of Martin Bell, Dump the Dingalings.

It's time to stop them all taking us for mugs!

In the meantime

It seems to be a very Tatty Bye Everybody,

Tatty Bye

Be nice to each other.

Shanghai ASBO, City Heritage at knock-down prices, the Dead Dog Blog and Maggie May

2009-05-07T19:18:00.006+01:00

By Jove, Missus, what a tattyfilarious time I’ve been having.

I am just back from being shanghaied to China by our City leadership. I thought things would quieten down for me once the 2008 Year of Custard had ended but no missus, not a bit of it. First it was Cannes on our luxury yacht for a week now China again. Aren’t the taxpayers wonderful? I can’t thank them enough for sending me all over the world.

This is the third time in the last two years. Of course I missed out on some other trips.
I didn’t get to go to New York for a week with our city councillors to see how they dealt with all the empty ashtrays when they introduced the smoking ban. As I am sure you will agree, the success of the smoking ban here and the closure of all the pubs was dependent upon the taxpayer footing the bill for a week in New York. A vital fact finding mission. I am just still waiting for the report to come out.

Apparently Missus the Seychelles has introduced increased parking fees at night so we may have to go over there too to see the affect on local business. And Barbados is looking at doing away with bollards. That’s definitely worth investigating. I’ll put my name for that, perhaps me and the Leader, somebody from NWDA and a few highways officers. After all the leader and I are both well known for talking bollards.

But anyway Missus, Shanghai! What an adventure. Yes all leading up to the Shanghai ASBO where Grotty Cash is one of only two British cities daft enough to take part. Of course there are special connections between us. They have the Great Wall of China and we have The Great Wall of Secrecy and of course our next mayor will be The Max Wall of Public Office.

The next Mayor Of Grotty Cash Max Storey

During the trip, I was lucky enough to be able to visit the archaeological site where they uncovered that remarkable life sized army. What an amazing site it was. Did you know missus, that a scouser from Dovecot commanded the original army? Yes missus Terry Cotter he was called. What a leader he must have been for them to create such a monument.

On the poster outside the exhibition is a little man holding a traditional wooden cage containing a songbird. Above him is the battle cry of the Terry Cotter Army – “are you looking at my bird?”

Of course we nicked the idea to create a similar monument to our glorious Lib-dumb army on Crosby beach. The Gormless Men. Have you seen them missus? By Jove!
How much extra would it have been for a pair of cast iron Y-Fronts? They are all astronomically correct madam. I can tell you this, they are not affected by the cold water either, by Jove no. Not even the ones nearer the sea.

You should see the size of the barnacles on some of them. Pop down there with your husband missus and tell him to take all his clothes off and gaze out to sea with them. If he’s lucky, he may get a little tug off shore.

There is a rumour going round that one of the rusty orange coloured gormless statues is actually ex Chief Executive of the Custard Company, Jasper Harbottle. They say he is trying to turn back the tide for a Paul McCartney Concert, either that or he’s pissed as Canute. I heard that Wally Bradlow had in fact given Harbottle a pair of concrete boots and a seaside holiday as a leaving present. Still no apology! He’s waiting Mr Deputy Mayor.

But anyway Missus, I really can’t tell you any more about the Shanghai trip, I am sworn to secrecy. There are amazing plans for the event and it may need several more trips to finalise our freebies before 2010 just in case the ungrateful electorate kick Wally and the Glib Dumbs out of office. Then again, I am sure Moira Anderson and the Labour group will need to go there, now we have committed ourselves.

I am still available and you will need me to translate. I’m fluid in both Mandarin and Mancunian dialects. The Chinese delegation that visited Liverpool said they found it difficult to understand Wally Bradlow and they were appalled by our Liverpool Direct and how terrible it was.

This comment by them caused some confusion amongst those of us raised on The Benny Hill Show. Fortunately I was on hand to say, “Ahh! You mean LDL, oh yes it is terrible, a complete rip-off but they are all too scared of what will come out if they admit it. He understood me perfectly, nodded his head and said “quarter past two.” An international incident narrowly avoided. I helped to avoid another incident when the Chinese were here, they asked if they could talk to somebody about the Beatles and I had to rugby tackle Wally Bradlow before he said “ of course John Lemons wife Yogi Omo was Chinese”

Yoko Bono arrives in Grotty Cash to put some mucky pictures up.

Anyway it turned out they wanted to talk about the beetles in their hotel room. Musically they preferred S-Club Seven. Didn’t they sing Reach for the SARS? Maybe they could make a come back with a song for the Swine Flu. They could get those women dancers from the old Top of the pops – Pam-demics People. Or how about doing Gershwin’s Porky and Bless you. Did you know the council has removed Roger Whitakers Mexican Whistler from all the jukeboxes? Well I suppose you can’t be too careful. That’s probably what caused Peggy Lee’s Fever. Still, it takes your mind off the economic melt down, which will probably kill more in the long run.

How did I get on to that? Never mind but I shall keep you updated with the plans for the Shanghai ASBO. But don't think all the money this will cost is going on my hotel bills, no we are spending much more than that. As it says on the partnership website "Liverpool's presence at the World Expo is estimated to cost about £3m, of which half is expected to come from the public sector. (it better had or they'll be after me for the mini bar bills) Liverpool council has committed £300,000 to the project, while the North West Development Agency is expected to reach a decision on a bid for £1.25m shortly." See, peanuts. Or maybe Cashew Nuts.

Speaking of nuts, for some reason people have started asking about my meeting with Lord Rainhood in April last year, which may lead to the revival of my jam production line with the right PR. Well there was Jam in it for somebody but unfortunately as I overdid the free Cherry B that night I have declined to answer any questions for the moment. It cost me a few quid, but it was well worth it. Ahh the trials and tribulations!

Now Missus, I don’t know if you are aware of this but there are a lot of people out there writing these so called Blogs. Mainly busybodies with nothing better to do other than mock or write scurrilous accounts of all sorts of alleged goings on. I can’t understand why they bother, I blame the telly myself, there’s nothing worth watching these days.

Just look at the schedules a few years back compared to now, you had Saturday Seaside Specials, Bobby Davros in a Box, Noah’s House Party – that had a Mr Bloggie.

And don't forget, Leslie Crowther’s How Much is this? Googie Withers in Porridge.

And one of my favourites - Kenco (an early version of Victoria Wood's Dinner ladies)

Now what have we got on telly? Wall to wall reality rubbish, Ramsey f-ing and blinding, that fat little pudding Jamie Olives banging the self promotion drum lecturing us about eating less, while he spits all over the camera man and Ann Robinson squinting at you and calling you thick. Call that entertainment?

It’s no wonder these silly bloggers keep churning out their rubbish. Some of course have followed my example and kept it snappy and to the point, writing about things that capture the “mineshaft” of the people, as the trendy folk say. My old Capital of Custard Blog has been copied around the world. I have just heard there is one in Cyprus called Professor Yassos Choukraboukos’s Official Guide to Cyprus Capital Of Couscous. The fool, what’s Couscous got to do with Custard?
But the point is – and there is one – some of these blogs are very informative. There is the prolific chap who writes about scribbles on a jotter while he has his muesli, and I must say it is a great read, far better than anything you get in the Oldham Echo or even in a newspaper for that matter. I would thoroughly recommend a viewing. I think the blog is called condensed milk or something, and funnily enough he recently did a piece about Connie-onnie, anyway here’s the link: http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/

Now the other good thing is that many of these bloggers provide links to other sites This chap had one that looked right up my street. The Liverpool Preservation Trust.

As you know, I started out in jam mining and I still like to see what’s going on in the world of preserves. You have to keep up with the trends although I did come a cropper trying to launch my Raspberry, Kidney Bean and Lentil Jam to tap into the chanting, sandal wearing, crystals and kaftans market. I won’t say much more, the lawyers may be reading this and the court case is sub-jucie-fruit, but it turned out that this particular blog had nothing to do with fruit preservatives at all. No Missus it is about preserving our heritage, architecture and our culture.

Well the blog may be about that but from what I’ve read so-far the people who are paid to do this including the trustees and the city planners seem intent on destroying it, flogging it off for a quick buck or letting it rot. Now I don’t really mind them knocking down Ringo’s house but only on condition he’s in it at the time.

But what I do object to is great city landmarks and some of our finest buildings being wrecked to build unwanted, unnecessary concrete and glass slabs and empty, unsold one bedroom apartments or them being professionally vandalised while the city seems to turn a blind eye. They had better turn a deaf ear as well since the proprietor of one of the favoured development companies is allegedly prone to foul mouthed outburst in his replies about having had to meet and listen to complete W*nkers. Fortunately, he didn't name names.

It's always sad when a loved buiding is sold off or goes under the hammer at the auctions,but at the moment this seem to be a sledge-hammer.

Yes prominent landmarks of great architectural or historical significance can have the front hacked off them or be gutted in broad daylight with no planning permission, but if you drop a fag end in castle street, thirty uniformed men will jump on you and steal your wallet.

I’d like to hack the front off the building they put up to replace the fabulous Casartelli that was left to rot for decades, with no attempt to save the original frontage even if the floors were rotten as they claimed.

An original 18th century off licence for the wino dandy’s of the day. Picture their wives each evening, nipping out in their pyjamas for twenty Super kings a bottle of Smirnoff , six cans of Special Brew and a packet of Red Rizzla. Then back to their town dwelling house on Hardman Street to neck the lot before retiring to bed with a cup of hot Rococo. Now it's advertised as "Posh Pads" How very respectful of the destruction of our most historic building - that was.

I can’t even look at the replica they put up of the Casartelli . It’s like if you sat on Yehudi Minestrone’s Stradivarius violin and offered to replace it with a Ukulele from Hesseys, pretty much the same shape, same number of strings but he just wouldn’t want to shove it under his chin.

They could have saved the front of the building if they had wanted to, like they promised to do with the old dole office in Leece Street. How’s that coming along by the way? There’s been a big hole there for about 10 years. Where are they keeping it, has the short sighted Mr Magoo Group sent it away for specialist restoration?

Now in the early days I had read quite positive accounts of Magoo developments and i was a great supporter when I heard that they had ripped the front off Billy Butler’s house, I don’t care if he was a pioneer of radio, we’ve been holding his plums for far too long, but it seems I was mistaken. It was the lovely Josephine Butler House that they have destroyed – well I say destroyed, they claimed it was restoration. I am no expert but I don’t think you can restore a sandstone entrance canopy and surround by smashing it into dust first. It didn’t seem to work for Sir Thomas Street. But anyway, we are told that the cladding is getting specialist restoration although why you will need it for a car park, I don’t know, since that’s the latest plan for the site.

Here is Josephine Butler House as it was and then after the sledgehammer attack. Then an artists impression of the Magoo groups proposed restoration.

Pictured before restoration began . After Magoo had carefully Hacked off the front

Josephine Butler House as it will look on completion

Now thanks to the idiots at Liverpool Roger Moore University or Littlewoods Polytechnic as I remember it, the Magoo Group has now got half of Hope Street, for a knock down price, literally.
The proposals are to develop Hotel and apartments! Just what the city is crying out for. I am surprised they haven’t got hold of the old Irish Centre yet, or the Duke Ellington rooms to give it the proper name, although that may be because Councillor Flu Clogdance used to do the Jitterbug there and wants to revive it.

We are always shouting about wanting to be a world-class city, but I suppose it depends which part of the world we mean. Possibly they mean parts of Arizona or the Klondike as it seems to me that we are building a series of posh ghost towns. Enormous monuments to celebrate an era of uncontrolled property speculation, all standing empty and yet we keep inviting in more and more. Now what did it say again on the Liverpool - Shanghai Partnership website about our remit for the Shanghai ASBO?

"The exhibition space will promote how Liverpool as a modern, leading city can develop and prosper while conserving its rich history as a World Heritage site."

Ahem!!!

Now Missus, what about all these other apartments they keep on building in the city centre? Take that Liverpool One Park Westphalia apartments at the new Debenhams shopping centre. (still plenty of retail units left if anybody is interested) Did anybody look at the plans or a model before they put up that monstrosity? No wonder they’ve only sold four of them. Who wants to live in a 1960s technical college? It’s the same colour and design as our toilet freshener, I am sure of it.

Look at the original concept model for it and see what you think.

Design Concept for Liverpool One Park West Apartments

If you did live in it, first off you can’t get in without wading through 300 Emo's camped out on chavasse car park drinking Red Bull and secondly what happened to the top floors on the pointy bit? Is this why they are banging on about obesity, is this why the teachers are nicking the cheesy wotsits and curly wurlies out of the kids lunch boxes? Are they desperate to find people skinny enough to fit in the top floors?

It’s a good job you can get flat screen Televisions now, but you won’t turn into a couch potato in there - you couldn’t get a couch in them – you’d have to hang from the wall by a coat hook holding your breath. And all that for a starting price of £199,000!

Seriously missus, what is the point of these luxury apartment towers, each one taller than the last? If you haven’t got one of the top floors, what’s the point? All your friends will just laugh at you boasting about having a flat in Beetham Tower if all the people are gawping in at you from the bus! Completely pointless, unless you are on the top floors otherwise think how many bottoms on toilets are overhead while you’re having your tea. All that sewage flowing down behind your bedroom wall.

I don’t care if there are football stars living in the block, I don’t want anything Tommy Lawrence or Jackie Milburn has passed dribbling down my offside. Here, anyway is the link to the site, just in case I have got any facts wrong.

http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/

Well worth a look if you want to know what’s happening with the heritage and fabric of the city as well as our Merseyside and Liverpool Museums and Art Sculleries.

Now another blog I dip into now and again is Lois Baldock’s regular offerings. You may have read recently that she resigned her position as lead for Ethical Standards due to an entry she made on her blog 2 years ago in which she called a bunch of *opportunistic conniving deceitful bastards, “L*b D*ms” and “L******s” who later complained about such a disgraceful comment.
Lois Baldock

Well it was her choice to resign over this – I hope, and you can respect that decision unlike those who cling on even with criminal conviction. In the supportive comments on her Blog, reference was made to another blog site, one that, as an animal lover, I found very distasteful.

The Blog in question is in support of the "Opportunistic Devious B*stards" and is called Dead Dog Blog.

It features some unfortunate looking stuffed dog, similar to the one that used to have Bob Carolgees arm up it’s khyber - It spits as well.

But do you know Missus; I was quite pleased to see it. I do hope it’s not banned from Council and Library computers. It provides a valuable insight into the Glib Dums who as we know are very fond of dogs. Although Norman Scott wouldn’t agree.

In fact they have a special dog that they look after. They donate millions of pounds in council tax to the dogs’ home in Misadventure Place. They have even built a little doggy shower to help keep Fido's mucky little paws clean. But nevertheless it is good to see that they can enjoy some satire and a little joke. Well they elected Wally Bradlow as leader and are having Muck Starey for Mayor, so obviously they have a strong sense of humour.

Now some people may find the look-alike pictures it features a little offensive. I know there was a recent complaint from a Mr Potato Head.

But we have to be able to give and take Missus. You give them a vote and they take you to the cleaners. I particularly enjoyed the most recent satire about the three Garston Labour Councillors. who had failed to turn up to some meetings to discuss how to spend some funding in a way that would make a difference to the area.“What would you do with £140,000?” It asks, concerned that this money could be wasted because of them. Now some people may think this is having a go at these councillors but you have to understand the Glib Dums.

This is clearly a cry for help by way of confession and a touch of self-effacing humour. What they are really talking about is the waste around Capital of Custard and all the rest of the money they have squandered. The real question they pose is what would you do with £121 million? Where’s the money gone?

I mean for heavens sake £140k wouldn’t cover one of the pay-offs they had to make to the numbskulls they hired that almost cocked-up the whole of 2008. £140k is less than half what they had to pay off Henshaw to get shut of him. Or Archer and Harbottle and it’s nowhere near how much of your council tax money they gave to their head of finance Mr Hasitall in order to see the back of him.

The poor little pooch, it must be getting on a bit as well. Its memory is going. It is typical of memory problems within old age. You can remember things that happened a couple of years ago, like some naughty words in a blog entry by a local opposition councillor, but you cant remember the court case criminal conviction and losing the appeal from one of your own executive members guilty of fouling the pavements in Belle Vale. I don’t like to see glib dumb animals suffer like that but at the same time, I would never have them put down.
So to offer my support, here is a look a like for your Deluded Dude Dead Dog Blog.

Toilet Brush Head___________Dude The Bog

http://dudethedog.blogspot.com/

Now before I go, I must mention a special anniversary this week

30 years since Mrs Twatcher landed on the roof of number 10, like an evil Mary Poppins in a twin set and pearls.

A little boy ran up to give her some flowers and she poked him in the eye.

I recall her entering Downing Street and making a statement to the waiting press.
She said;

“ I am reminded of the words of the Marquis de Sade who said- All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.- but I probably better say something by St Francis The Sissy instead, where is my harmony hairspray Dennis? ”

Remember the election song. No not "Supercallousfarrightwitchshitextremeantisocialist"

The other one. Wanted a Prime Minister Mummy for two adorable children

[Sung]

If you want this choice position
have an evil disposition
Hollow cheeks, and warts!
Shrill voice, cruel thoughts

You must be mean, you must be vicioious

But be seen to wash the dishes

Take out the unions, make laws
To put them on all fours

Always be cold and raw
Save your face by taking us to war
Lie about Belgrano slaughter
”Rejoice!” dead sailors in the water

You will give us lots of cause to hate you
An eternal flame in hell shall commemorate you
we won’t hide your spectacles So you can’t see
The harm that you do
Or the misery

Hurry Maggie ,Many thanks
Sincerely,

Your ignorant racist daughter and idiot criminal son who should be doing 30 years.

I blame the parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNTzp9grp2Q Perfect Nanny

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty bye

Be nice to each other

The Official Launch Party, A brush with Herbert, The Appeal, The Waltons & Dirty Tricks. Plus Wirral Foulkes Up over Library Closures Fiasco

2009-04-16T15:33:00.000+01:00

By Jove Missus, here I am back from Cannes in a brand new Chronicle. A chronic extravaganza of mirth and comment with a cutting edge.

Yes, that’s right, Chronic the edge-blog.

The Capital of Custard year is behind us and we look to the future of our great city, reborn, renewed, regenerated and being architecturally ransacked for a quick buck by mindless speculators thanks to our idiot planners and so-called learning establishments. All out to make a killing. They probably will with some of the rubbish they are building. Just as well nobody wants to or can afford to live in them.

Well the new Blog - this Missus, you are looking at it now - was announced at a spectacular 10minute celebrity packed launch ceremony at Herbert’s new Slappy Hour Bar.

Isn't he looking fabulous Missus?

It was scheduled to last for the whole evening but when I saw the price of the drinks I had no choice but to set off the fire alarm. Well I’m not paying those prices for Jimmy Corkhill, Barry Butler, Caroline Huge and the cast of Redmond’s Wooden Blokes, just so they can get their gobs in the Echo. At least Kerry Kattomeat brings her own. I told them it wasn’t safe to go back in and the night was ruined. All the freeloaders can clear off, I said.

Cast of Holly Oaks at the launch night

But I’ll tell you what Missus, that Herbert’s as mad as a hatter; it must be all the hairspray he breathes in. We’d only been there a few minutes - just standing at the bar asking if he had any nuts - when he comes charging over and starts hitting us with a sweeping brush, saying we are not allowed to stand and we all have to sit down! I wouldn’t mind but a few minutes later he did the same in the urinals. Burst in like a madman, “Don’t you dare wee up my Italian marble stalls” he was screaming, “go and do it sitting down in the cubicles.” The next thing you know, one of the bar staff is in there, drying them off with his sleeve. I’m glad I didn’t have any nuts now.

Now before I get to the main points, just to put your minds at rest - following the MIPIM report - Mrs Hewitt is now back after her month in the Bastille, after her drugs arrest. “Mipim The Mule” the local papers called her. Fancy the French customs accusing a woman of her standing (4ft 10ins in her surgical stockings) of being a drugs runner. She has enough problems getting to Boots and back for her Fibrogel.

Nearly a month it took for the police analysis to come back, and of course, as we all knew, it wasn’t heroin at all – the idiots – no it was cocaine. Anyway they released her after they tracked down the man she bought it from. He was very nice about it when they put him in the cells with her. I think he fancied her a bit, kept trying to give her a kiss through his mask. Mmm I could just eat you darling, he kept saying. A charming chap, went by the name of Harry Ball, a lecturer, she said.

Mrs Hewitt's Cell Mate Harry

Well at least she's out now. I told her at the time, I know France is expensive but 300 Euros for a few bags of Canderel was way over the top. She should have realised, her and her slimming. She already looks like a cotton bud in a hat. But anyway, she lost over 3 stone in the prison, so that was good but now she’s gone back on Sweetex.

NEWS

Well, a few things have been happening recently it seems, the big one, although you’d never know it from the Oldham Hall Street crew, was the appeal result in the case of Councillor Mr Stan Hertz and the Walton’s. Despite all the crocodile shoes and alligators (I’ll get the proof reader to check that) he failed to have his conviction overturned after being previously found guilty of breaking the Allotments Society Election regulations.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/04/13/labour-calls-on-lib-dem-leader-nick-clegg-to-sack-disgraced-liverpool-councillor-steve-hurst-100252-23373301/

Guilty!

Now I don’t know all the facts of the case, but I believe Mr Hertz carried out an undercover dirty tracks campaign against the archrivals from the New Lobelia Allotments Society in Belladonna Vale. He couldn’t have chosen a more loved and popular family for heavens sake; the Walton’s ?? They used to have me in tears every week in their telly programme, that and the other one that I was in with Craig Charles; The Little Ward On The Priory.

How could Hertz make such vile accusations? Claiming Mrs Walton used to leave meetings early to go and show her bloomers while Barn Dancing, that John (Pa) Walton was so unpopular at the local Hog whistling stadium, that he couldn’t get a partner? What did he hope to gain by this? And what I want to know is, was he acting alone, was it his idea or did anyone else know what he was up to? After all, he has some notable defenders on the Allotments Board, that otherwise he has taken for right mugs. There’s the chairman himself, Waron Brambles, the prospective mayor Muck Spreader, and the man hoping to get on the National Allotments Committee, Collie Elderflower. I wonder if anyone else knows anything? Probably little Weed, especially when he got caught. Yet in spite of two court decisions Bramble’s is still having none of it – banging on about personal integrity - makes you think. Hertz is after all a conviction politician.

Exhibit A: Hertz's cunning disguise.

Anyway his defence was ridiculous. He admitted being there and having in his possession the nasty little pink notices, but he claimed he had found them. He siad he thought they were disgraceful so he was collecting them from letter boxes to take back to the compost heap, or their Head Quarters, as it is known. My cousins Reg and Ronnie, tried a similar defence when they said that; after noticing the bank door had been left open, they were putting the money back in the safe when the alarm went off. (12 years each)

Now on the night in question, the Walton’s, who had been singing bringing in the sheaves around the Pianola, received a telegram from Sue Ellen, who lived at the bottom of Walton’s Mountain. It said there was a critter dressed as Roy Orbison going to a Babe Ruth look-alike competition, a poking and a shoving evil little scriptures into the mailboxes of the towns folk.

Well John-Boy, Jim-Blog, Bob-a-Job and Pop all raced down the mountain and confronted Hertz asking him to stand still while they loaded a plate into the camera. After refusing to watch the birdie and preferring to fly like a chicken, -

Hertz got into a scuffle during which his trousers came off. It was noticed that he had bundles of the pink leaflets tucked in his underpants containing dreadful smears. I am not surprised. The actual crime committed was not the smears, but that the leaflets contained no publishing address and pretended to be from a fictitious floral society with the initials of what was supposedly, the International Allotments Group. (IAG) It turned out, like many criminals, that he was leaving a cunning clue and the initials actually stood for; “I Am Guilty”

So unlike him and his underpants, the Walton family are left without a stain on their character. My very best wishes to them.

As for Hertz, Brambles should get rid of him after bringing them into such disrepute, after all that's usually Muck Spreader's job. If I had my way, I’d do what they did to criminals in the 19th century and send him to Australia. That would teach them!

Now ladies and gentlemen, I turn my microscope to other pastures.

This new chronicle will be much wider than the goings on in Grotty Cash, by Jove yes. The Cannes jaunt has given me a taste for the wider world, new and exciting topics, exotic locations, the intriguing world of international politics in this globalised collapsing economy. I will be covering events and reports from mysterious far off lands and distant shores. So with that in mind, what has been going on in Birkenhead?

I thought Grotty Cash was bad enough with the Fireman in charge and the legacy of Sir Diddy, not to mention the little Shitzu or Rottweiler, or whatever they call him, that he left behind. But the Wirral is getting just as bad, they are being run by Duane Doberman from Bilko.

Councillor Foulkes-face

Cultural vandals, hell bent on destroying their public libraries and flogging off the buildings to save a few quid.

Once they are gone they are gone forever. Now don’t get me wrong missus, I know they are also looking to close some museums and leisure centres and seriously; do we really need a Guinea Pig Baths? That’s equal opportunities gone mad. Anyway, they’d probably drown in it and you’d have to fish them out with a net. What psychological damage would that do to little Johnny or Kylie; seeing their furry little friend gasping it’s last breath? Actually there would probably be a queue of the little buggers, lobbing them in or skimming them like stones. Oi! That’s a rabbit go on clear off. Terrible, it’s probably the RSPCA trying to get that shut down.

The Leader of the Council; Mr Foulkes Books, has been attempting to get his so-called a Strategic Arsehead Review through, with backing from the Wirral Glib Dums, who jointly run the administration. I understand, he also has support from the Head of Hoodies and Leisure Services, Executive Director, Mr A Dullard, who thinks because he never uses a library that we don’t need them. Well I don’t use your office mate, so why don't you go and sit on the pavement instead, while I turn it into a betting shop.

It’s not been an easy ride for Labour/Liberal Democrat joint administration; trying to railroad this decision through, and many of the Lib Dems are revolting. Well don’t worry, so are the ones in Liverpool! By Jove!

Did they learn nothing from our year as Capital of Custard? What a marvellous idea, to close down a dozen libraries, some of which are in the most deprived areas and in "The National Year of Reading” as the protest signs outside the Town Hall highlighted.

How can you do this? The leader was asked. He looked puzzled by the signs. “ Reading?” He said, “..that’s a festival isn’t it what’s that got to do with the Wirral?”

He went on; “We have widely consulted on this, why only a few months ago we organised a mass public meeting in the sauna cabin at West Kirkby Concourse at 3.00am. Only nine people bothered to turn up to the meeting, and yes there may have been a couple more who wanted to get in but there simply was not enough space and besides, they probably couldn’t get through the five hundred people locked outside, at least not until we set the police on them.”

The leader claims he even made the effort to go outside and talk to them in the open air and reassured them that; if they didn’t let the council members leave, he would order the police to use water canons. “..and we have a whole bloody swimming pool full in here” he said. (For now anyway)

Now unfortunately the crowd turned ugly – and then they jostled and pushed him as well. He ended up being backed into the pool before he finally agreed to another meeting. They do put that dye in the water, you know?

He made a solemn promise to give the protesters a chance to properly present their objections and then he'd close all the libraries.

Well as usual the pretence of consultation took place, the all too familiar cavalier attitude towards the people they are elected to represent. This was almost a book-burning mentality and a complete disregard for the workforce and all those people who rely on the libraries. What about the children doing school projects, toddlers going to the story time - I hear Jackie Collins and Stephen King are very popular with the kiddies - or those using a computer they otherwise can’t afford?

There’s also the elderly folk who like to pop in and annoy the staff, but at the same time, no matter how annoyed, the staff will check to see if they are ok or give them a call if they’ve not been seen for a while. Si I suppose the've only themselves to blame. There are also people who just go in as a place to get a warm and feel safe, a chance for some quiet reading. It’s more than just the normal borrowers, libraries are often part of the community, sometimes the only part left.

“Sod ‘em.” That was the message, all neatly wrapped up in the pretence of building a modern Library Service for the 21st or possibly 22nd century. The public didn’t appear to buy the arguments though and about 20,000 more had signed the petitions against the closures than had voted in the elections. A clear message you may think – to think again.

This of course is the same outfit that couldn’t even be bothered to fix the roof of the main Central Library for about five years, until it nearly fell on somebody’s head. A lovely 1930s neo classical style -

- building left to rot until they were forced to take action. And so ladies and gentlemen, there we were with a cultural hit list put together by the Wirral illiterati. (I hope I’ve spelled that right) These are the same cheeky buggers who like to look down on Grotty Cash.

And why are they doing it? Well one of the reasons is a projected £16 million budget deficit in the next year. Is that all? £16 million? Well we all fell about laughing at that. We had £64 million deficit mate, and only three pounds twenty seven in the reserves!

Amateurs, that's all I can say. They say the closures will save them £3million, but they also list a £12million backlog of repairs on top of the deficit.

So, within this strategic review, once they have shut them all down, they claim they will then invest £20 million in the new services. Now I am no mathematician, and I’m sure there must be more to it but does this add up right? Has our former financial supremo and marathon runner, Phil Hasitall got a new job with them? Has Wally Bradlow, the leader of Grotty Cash been advising you on balancing the budgies, as he calls it? Well he is a previous award winner for his administrations financial skills, and that’s from the National Audit Murphy Commission, no less.

So they need to save £3million by shutting them and then promise to put in £20million investment. By Jove, that’s clever! I went to the last public meeting, disguised as a certain Welsh windbag and I made a brief speech that I think has since had a major impact. Here is my speech.

“Where is the promised £20Million coming from? I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with phoney consultations. They are then pickled into a rigid dogs-dinner, a con, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour/Lib-dem council—a Labour/Lib-Dem council—hiking taxes to scuttle round a city handing out voluntary severance notices to its own workers. I'm telling you - and you'll listen by Jove - you can't play politics with people's jobs and with people's library and leisure services.”

It was all too much for one local, Derek from Hooton, who walked out saying he was moving to Cyprus.

I do hope that some of my readers will forgive the paraphrasing of the welsh weasel, Neil Comb-over but I can now tell you that at the 11th hour, thanks to my intervention and a few thousand protests, I suppose, as staff were just about to be handed their severance cheques or sent packing to Ellesmere Port to continue throwing books on the bonfires, my message was picked up by International BSN Rescue and Thunderburnham was Go!

Yes, Missus, diddy Andy Burnham ( an appropriate name) the Custard Secretary. He has stepped in at the 11th hour. So your Barbara Cartland’s are safe – for the time being. A complete halt was ordered as part of a national review of library services putting a stop, for now, to the cultural devastation across the Wirral. By Jove! Well done barmy Burnham. Shove that up your back catalogue.

Of course the problem now is that they had been so busy forcing the staff to close the libraries down before anyone could stop them, they had started giving away or selling off books, shelves, tables, chairs and anything else they could flog in some of them. Direct instructions from the top. So now madam, if you want to pop in for a book, it’s best to bring your own - and take a deckchair as well just in case. A very modern approach, and better still they can’t fine you!

Maybe the Fireman isn’t so bad compared to Private Doberman. Ahh I am just being silly now, nobody beats our Wally. They might even make a fine double act though.

Private Doberman can burn the books and Fireman Wally can put them out with a little squirt, oh no I forgot; the little squirt had to stand down after losing his appeal.

You couldn’t read about it! Well not if they’d had their way.

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye!

Be nice to each other