CANNES FRENCH RIVIERA 2009
And by Jove what a success it must have been. Within an hour of arriving back today; a lady approached me on Canning Street who asked me if I wanted any business. Yes I said lots of it and so do all my friends in the council. So anyway she is getting few of her colleagues together and I am having a special weekend conference at the Adelphi.I was very honoured to be asked to make all the arrangements for the Grotty Cash Yacht and organise a few events for visitors and business typhoons that may wish to come on board. It was a bit tricky at first travelling with the Town Clerk, Conrad Stilton, who said my Capital of Custard Guide, was a load of rubbish, but I needn’t have worried, since he got his two stars award with an encouraging comment from the inspectors he has been giddy as a schoolboy.
The Inspectors said; “….the patient is not dead yet and able to take solids but needs to stop throwing them at the fan. There is signs of improvement but there continues to be heavy internal bleeding caused by the Doctor who is not taking at least 26,000 house calls”
So yes, he’s much more cheerful now and has even taken the balaclava off.
Mine I believe......two stars!The other worry was having to share a room with Stinky Ink Bartlett from the Last Post. I
suppose I was a bit harsh at times having a go athis employers, “The Laryngitis of Merseyside” But with the mass exodus of staff, the shedding of jobs and the move to Oldham, I was genuinely concerned that I’d not know what Kerry Katatonic was wearing to the opening of Herbert’s Slappy Hour Bar. But I have to say, he was nice as pie and there are only a few of the poor buggers left now so I have called off the blogs.
He has a blog now, oh yes missus, it’s catching on, they are all at it. They’ll probably all be at it in the Adelphi next week. So yes, young Mr Barcode, who is now promoted to Grotty Cash City Editor, spent most of the journey picking my brain about how to keep his audience interested, c’mon Prof, he said, give me some blogging tips. Well not if you’re going to use that language, I said.Keep it clean, risqué but never blue. What’s it called? Dire Street Blue he said.
Yes, her and Colin Ostrich, have a little sparring going on there. They are like those two off 'This Week' on the telly with that Hairdo Neil, you know them, they look like they've been tipped onto the sofa from a wheelbarrow. Russ Abbott and Michael Costello. The bloke who likes to be beaten with a twigg.
But beware I said, the days of the blog may be numbered, it seems everyone now is on this new craze 'Twatter', I’m on myself, but frankly I haven’t got time to read a running commentary on people's every waking moment. They seem to have stepped over the social precipice to the point of it being a Compulsive Repetitive Disorder.
It’s bad enough on Bookface with the daily updates of 'what I am doing' but with Twatter, they are telling you what they are doing every 2 minutes. I haven’t been able to leave the house for a month!
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It must be interfering with people’s lives. I am following a consultant surgeon who is twattering on line during his operations!
dropped my mobile into his lower bowel and hadto unstitch him again LMAO”
I watched Stephen Fry on the telly the other night, then a bit later I watched Katy Boil. 'Ramsey’s Cannibal Kitchen.' - By Jove, you couldn’t write this stuff.
So anyway we all set off on the Channel crossing, heading for our specially booked yacht in Cannes, and we all seemed to be getting along. Mrs C was in the saloon bar with Mrs Hewitt and Mr Clack from the Key cutting shop. The ladies were of course swooning around Professor Parkinson, from the Grotty Cash Uni. Mrs C was well oiled and trying to grope him, while he went on about the decline of the fishing industry and mackerel economics. Mrs Hewitt, as usual after a sherry or two, was singing The Old Rugged Cross, with the high notes only audible to dogs. Clack was slumped across the table next to an empty bottle of Blue Sapphire, paralysed but still able to swear at the waitress.
Mr Stilton eventually called us all together and gave us the running order for the first day of MIPIM. Whatever that means. We all listened intently and he was only interrupted when I got three bars on the fruit machine and everybody cheered. We looked round to see a stoney-faced Stilton pointing forlornly at his power point presentation. The screen suddenly melted like celluloid followed by a bang and all the lights went out. Suddenly there was this big jerk, no missus, we hadn't brought Redmond, a jerk in the ship, with a great grinding crash and all the tables started sliding to the stern with a distinct incline of the deck. The engines fell silent. "By heck that’s strong, same again!" shouted Mr Clack.
Mrs Hewitt started screaming, so Mrs C. - a trained nurse - slapped her face to calm her down - then she slapped her again because she annoys her. She was about to give her another slap, when there was an announcement over the P.A. so she just let her drop to the floor. “ We have now arrived at Cannes." The voice said. " The Captain would like to thank you for Travelling with Toxic Disposal and advises all passengers to take care on the rocks as they disembark. There is an incoming tide so all luggage should be arriving along the coast within the next hour.”
Now for some reason they all tried to blame me for this, but it was Stilton who’d kept going on about saving money, so I'd just booked the cheapest crossing I could find. Cheer up I said, if we can find out where we are exactly we could head straight for our yacht and dry off. It’s a lovely old vessel with quite a history. One of the Dunkirk flotillas I was told. Although don’t mention that to the German delegation, they got funny last year when I said, so have you got a yacht for the week or a U-Boat? I don’t know why they were upset - they did have a U-Boat.
In fact they sank the Nottingham yacht with it. You see what happened was, I was blocked in by the Nottingham mob and couldn’t get my pedalo out, so I shouted up to the German Captain, “Oy! Admiral Doughnuts, can you give us some help here?” Next thing I know, phfutooom…torpedo. Down it went. Terrible shame, as I took them for three grand the previous night, playing Connect Four. I’d have won more if they hadn’t taken that bit of blue tack out, they are still cross with me about that.So anyway, we managed to drop down the side of the ship. Mrs C threw Mrs Hewitt overboard first, well she was still out cold from the slap and we didn’t want to risk lowering her by rope as Clack had tied it round her neck. But it worked out well and it meant we had a soft landing, although I told Clack not to wear his golf shoes, she’d notice all the little holes in the morning.
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Luckily there was a gentleman with a stall further up the beach and we could hear him shouting, though he didn't sound French – “Here y’ar ladeees get tha duty frees, T-shirts and Ice creams, It’s tha last chance afore them robbin’ French boogers rip yer off tha knows” 
We couldn’t believe it! There, running the stall was ex Chief Executive of the Custard Company, Jasper Harbottle. “ Fookin ‘ell” he said “wharra you tw*ts doin’ here – is that friggin’ fireman wi’ ya?”
I wasn’t amused by her, I’ve had the arse / elbow routine off her so many times now the novelty has worn off. Clack enjoyed it though and tried to have a kick himself, but Jasper head-butted him. I’ll tell yer what Chucklebutty, he said, you might be a tw*t but yer Missus is a fookin’ belter. Thanks for that love, there’s no stoppin’ me now Arse – Elbow, Arse - Elbow and he ran off towards the sea – then he stopped thought for a moment and ran back to his van, wrong way he said, and drove off.
It was lovely to see him again. I miss young Harbottle. Pity his career in local radio didn’t work out. It seemed to be going well until he actually started speaking. At least Pete Price’s job is safe now.I’ll tell you what though Missus, that Pete Price has been stirring it up recently, he upset a lot of people in his column the other week.
It seems he had discovered and wrote about one of these fake breasts manufactured in the USA
that looks and feels like the real thing for those who are trying to give them up. It’s called the TT 4U. He got himself thrown out of bars in town for using it, and got several surprised looks in the office. Even after he explained it was a not real one people asked him to take it out of his mouth or to go outside with it. All sorts of people wrote in complaining that it was encouraging people to breast feed in public and although even he said it’s natural, he doesn’t want to see it himself, but he understands that people get great comfort from it. One person complained that even if it does only give off a milky vapour and starts to glow red, how does he know it’s harmless, they said the same about that other product Bannedtits and these also had a milk ingredient. Stop showing off with expensive breast gadgets while others are going bust said one angry mum.
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, this has nothing to do with my special report, it must be thinking about Harbottle, it made me go off on another tango…er. tangent..
So there we were dripping wet carrying waterlogged suitcases along a country lane somewhere along the coast of French France. As luck would have it along came a native driving a pick up truck. I flagged him down, introduced us and asked for help, all in French of course.
Monsieur, I said, parlour view frogs legs? Je suis une celeb blogger, une comedy hen, similar au Jaques Tattifilarious. Capital de Cousteau. Mes amy et moi avec grande adversity mitt meine schipfe und wie ist im dem grossen shiese. Tu jour Hughie green. Vous allons Edward Du Cannes pour favore Le MIPIM yakky da?
He nodded and smiled, Oui monsieur, tres bien. He said. Trust me to find an Arabic speaker, but we got the gist when he nodded for us to climb on and off we all went headed for our luxury yacht.Mrs C sang Liverpool Judy’s, Maggie May and Shaddupa Ya Face all the way to the harbour. Even Stilton played along on the spoons. Real comradeship.
Maybe there really is a new spirit gripping the city, although Mr Clack was gripping a bottle of his own spirits. But even Clack attempted to sing, Remember You’re a Womble. I started to sing Happiness but Mrs C hit me across the head with the wheel-brace. Stinky and Parky sat silently dripping on top of Mrs Hewitt, twittering away on Twatter. But I suppose you will have read all of that by now. It’s not my fault this is late, it was the arrest at customs and the prison guards taking a shine to Mrs Hewitt that delayed it.
That’s a point, I must get her a solicitor, I promised as soon as we got back we’d try and get her released. I’ll get Sir Rex Hesperus onto it.
Nine hours later we arrived at the beautiful harbour that was to be home-from-home for the next week. Unfortunately our Yacht was just outside of the harbour near a field so we had another journey ahead of us. I turned to see who was helping Mrs Hewitt and we realised we’d left her on the truck under the onion sacks. We knew she’d be all right and she couldn’t get robbed as we had her handbag with all her Euros, which was handy for the taxi. At last we arrived, I rushed ahead to see our floating embassy for Grotty Cash.
The brochure said our yacht was once owned by the fine wine producers the Chateau Bouard family and used to transport their famous wine - It was named after one of their finest wines, The Red Angelus - but it turned out three of the letters had worn off the nameplate.
So there I was waiting for the others to catch up and wondering how we could invite the world’s business leaders to meet us on board The Red Anus? Actually I was more worried about the condition. They said it had been at Dunkirk, I just didn’t expect it to be so badly shelled and more in the field than on the water.
When they caught up I could hear the gasps of horror and I waited for Stilton to start on me. To my amazement, he said never mind, if it was up to me, I would give it three stars with prospects for improvement and then he gave us a twenty minute talk about working together, overcoming adversity etc. I told you since he got his two stars and managed to control the trembling, he is full of enthusiasm. Let’s do this, he said, jumping on board and falling right through the deck with a splash as he went through the hull into the water. That’s the deposit gone, I though
we booked into, Mr Stilton sat in sombre mood for hours drying off under a blanket. He didn’t say much for the rest of the night, other than occasionally muttering “three stars – three stars, got to get three – premiere city – no money - I didn’t do it Miss, it was Mark McElBinney what did it ”
Parky and Stilton, had set off wearing Beatles wigs and each had a wheelbarrow full of keys to unsold one-bed luxury apartments and pictures of Sefton Park with a photo-shopped incinerator by the lake.
So young Bartlett and I decided to cheer ourselves up and we both headed for the Yanks yacht. We’d heard that veteran comedian Bob Newhart, was now the Chief Executive of some Innovations Company and doing a presentation.
I was expecting an update of the Walter Raleigh discovering tobacco routine, with an IPOD or something – what and you stick it in your ear Walt? And then set fire to it? But no it was all about fit for business and examining output and setting targets for new innovation. After an hour of this I stood up and said, look mate this is getting no laughs – do the one about the driving test. I got five minutes of “people like you blah-blah” and then we were asked to leave. Very disappointing. 
Turns out he’s just inherited a diamond mine worth billions and needed the council bank details to sort out the release of some funds, if we help him he is going to give us £64Million!!! So we may as well just enjoy ourselves for the rest of the week. Let’s Party!!! I didn’t want to spoil their celebrations but I said this all sounds too good to be true, have you checked him out?
So ladies and gentlemen, for all those who say that the Cannes jaunt is a waste of time and taxpayer’s money or just a big freeloading jaunt, just wait until the money starts flowing in.
The lads said once the cash arrives they are going to buy up all the empty luxury development blocks themselves and turn them into giant helter-skelters for the kids.
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