A new and amusing phenomenon has come to my attention recently (is your breath bated yet?). To wit, the finance company radio ad in which the disclaimer at the end is longer, in some cases significantly longer, than the ad proper. Example:

'Roll up, roll up! Mortgages for all! Come and get them while they're hot.

Disclaimer: Terms and conditions apply. The Mutual Irish Mortgage and Home Repossession Society is regulated by the financial services regulatory authority. Interest rates may rise exponentially as well as falling slightly, very slightly, if you're lucky, but this seems unlikely. The European Central Bank etc etc Subject to stringent conditions, charges, terms and conditions, we break thumbs. Terms and conditions apply. Overcharging may also apply.'

This second part is recited at high speed, presumably so Johnny Radio Listener doesn't dwell on the barrage of many-syllabled, forbidding words such as 'regulatory', 'conditions' and 'authority'.
The actors try to speak so fast you can't absorb the information, which, naturally, makes it much more interesting. I strain to hear every word of the disclaimer, whereas the ad itself bores me. Besides, it's ancient history by the time the disclaimer is finished.

'What was that ad about?'
'Dunno. Terms and conditions, I think.'

I take a childish delight in this, because I have a not entirely rational dislike of the advertising industry and a very rational dislike of banks.

Some disclaimers are longer than others, which suggests that some financial institutions are cutting corners in the small-print stakes. The cheeky scamps. It would be nice to think that the more evil institutions had to include enormous disclaimers that comprised the entire 20 seconds of their slot. Or they could simply issue an apology for their generally perfidious activities.

Whoever introduced the legislation that forced banks and building societies to tack on these riders had a wonderfully impish sense of humour. Faceless bureaucrat, I salute you.

Domestic violence
Recently, my girlfriend bought a house. Unlike me, she has a proper qualification and an actual paying job. The house is newly built. It was built by builders. This is because builders enjoy a monopoly in the whole house-construction area. As everyone knows, all builders are emissaries of Satan.

The house has the usual Mephistophelean quirks of newly constructed homes. The shower, into which I ventured for the first time last Saturday, is unusual. Following a tortuous, not to mention torturous, process of experimentation I established that the shower provides two water temperature options. These are:
1) Death by scalding
2) Death by freezing

The temperature dial serves a largely decorative purpose. I discovered that I have a marginally higher tolerance for the scalding option. Before withdrawing in defeat and in between flinching with pain from the sting of boiling water on flesh I managed to rinse all bar a considerable wad of shampoo from the left-hand side of my head. This shampoo supposedly serves to prevent dandruff. I don't know, but I'm guessing congealing residues of the stuff may have the opposite effect.

I dried myself with a towel which, like the house, is new. A soft, fluffy thing, it decided to attach significant portions of itself to my face. Since I was unshaven it adhered to my jawline all the more eagerly. Gloop-haired and fluff-faced, I had effectively been tarred and feathered by a confederacy of hostile household objects.

Since it is St Valentine's day, traditionally a time of shockingly dreadful poetry ( I just heard one on the radio: why can't people who can barely string a sentence together realise that 99.999999999% of people simply cannot write poetry, including those who can make a reasonable stab at prose, and that therefore virtually no one in the world should under any circumstances compose verse. Please) I thought I would add to the canon. It is inspired (I use the word in its loosest possible sense) not by love, but by its ugly sister, loathing.

Ballad of an editor who still owes me money

Well, he's a boil-brained blubber-blunder
Soil-stained head of dunder
Canker-sore
Wanker-bore

Once he was my editor
But I am still his creditor

Well, he's a lizard-tongued lumpen-headed
Canker blossom brain-deaded
Truth-mangler
Jeans:Wrangler

Once he was my editor
But I am still his creditor

Well, he's a pestilent pie-faced pigeonshit
He's a lumbering faecal dangling bit
Scatologically adverse
Universally perverse

Once he was my editor
But I am still his creditor

Well, he's a whimpering welching woodworm
With all the charm of heartburn
A louse, a lying leech
A fraudster and a thief

Once he was my editor
But I remain his creditor

Recently, I embarked on a project which involved writing sarcastic letters to famous people. Marginally more recently, I abandoned the project.
Here is a letter I wrote to human profanity machine, Gordon Ramsay.

Dear Gordon Ramsay,

I do not know this for sure, but I would guess that your television appearances have elicited more than a few letters of complaint regarding your language. I refer, Mr Ramsay, to your frequent employment of terms such as ‘fuck’, ‘fucking’, ‘fucker’, ‘fuckwit’, ‘fucked’, ‘fucked up’ and ‘for fuck’s sake’.

Fear not, I am no Mary Whitehouse. In fact, your ill-tempered badinage with the inept nincompoops who surround you in the kitchen in such shows as Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word has never failed to bring a smile to my face. Truly, you are a master of the profane putdown.

On your recent appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, you, not once, not twice, but thrice referred to that show’s irreverent host as a ‘fucker’. Bravo, Mr Ramsay; that put the cheeky rapscallion in his place! On a marginally less recent appearance on The Late Late Show you insulted its host, Pat Kenny. Speaking for the Irish nation, I thank you sincerely for this.

I hope I have made plain my admiration for your colourful language and devil-may-care attitude to the linguistic conventions of television. However, as alluded to earlier, I do have a complaint. It concerns the soundtrack of curse-induced bleeps that invariably accompanies your shows. At times, your programmes sound like Morse code. This is deeply irritating.

In this regard, I have a suggestion. Decreasing your reliance on the word ‘fuck’ and its variants and drawing on a broader palette of profanity would have a twofold beneficial effect. It would:

A) Reduce the frequency of the beeping sounds which pepper your shows
B) Allow you to verbally eviscerate your incompetent kitchen helpers in a more stylish and synonymous fashion.

So, what do I mean by suggesting you expand your range of abusive language? Shakespeare, as I’m sure you know, was a master of insults: the Gordon Ramsay of the Tudor era, if you will. Here are a few examples of how some typical kitchen scenarios could be resolved in an insultingly Shakespearean, but non-beep-inducing, fashion.

Instead of: “I don’t believe it; what the fuck are you doing? Can’t you even chop carrots, you fucking idiot?” (two beeps)

Say: “Verily, I shudder. Canst thou not cleave a carrot? Thou ist a maladroit malt-worm!” (no beeps)

Instead of: “You’ve overdone the fucking salmon, you fuckwit.” (two beeps)

Say: “Accursed vessel of calamity! Thou hast spoiled the salmon.” (no beeps)

Instead of: “You’re going to put me out of fucking business, you fucking incompetent spineless fucker.” (three beeps)

Say: Thou ist a lumbering lemon-brained canker-blossom and thou hast wreaked devastation on mine house.” (no beeps)

In an emergency, you could actually quote the Bard, rather than merely devising insults in his style. If, I don’t know, say, a chef incorrectly cuts a Japanese blowfish, you could roll out this little beauty: “Methinkst thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.” (All’s Well That Ends Well)

I hope my modest suggestions may be of some use to you.

Keep up the good work.

All the fucking best,

Seán Kenny

Yesterday, I wrote this. I submitted it for publication in a satirical magazine to which I have been contributing for 18 months or so.

Celebrity Big Brother in Ratism Row (The Indefinite Article)

Channel 4 has accused BBC, ITV and Sky of ratism in their coverage of the Celebrity Big Brother controversy. A Channel 4 statement read: “Other networks have displayed flagrantly ratist tendencies by targeting Celebrity Big Brother. We cannot all have the same ratings, and we should learn to appreciate each other’s differences in ratings. This means accepting diversity in ratings and fostering an environment of inter-network tolerance where Celebrity Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here can peacefully co-exist as part of the rich tapestry of reality television that exists in modern Britain. We would never stoop so low as to point out Celebrity Big Brother’s ratial superiority to ITV’s Celebrity Love Island. Ratial harmony is what all networks should be striving for.”

Shilpa Shetty, the Indian actress who was victim of the ratist coverage, has expressed her dismay and outrage. “ I had no idea a well-respected format like Big Brother could be responsible for such sensationalist, lowbrow television. Truly, nothing could pay you for tolerating such ambiguously offensive comments. Not my fee for appearing on the programme, not my potentially lucrative spin-off contracts, not my massively increased profile, nothing. I have decided to throw myself into work as a form of catharsis. I hope that some healing may come through tabloid interviews. For a six-figure fee.”

Speaking through an interpreter, Jade Goody, the contestant at the centre of the allegations, said: “I ain’t no racist, but I just think that Englishers is the bestest race, that’s all. That ain’t racist, it’s just patriotistic, innit. Facking Pakis.”
Ends

This article will not be published. Instead, another piece on the same subject written by someone other than myself, will be used. Here it is.

Jade Goody: Not a Racist (The Definite Article)

The latest series of Big Brother is the most controversial yet. But this time, the record number of complaints and the yards of newspaper column inches are dedicated not to Orla’s notorious clothes allergy, Nasty Nick’s subterfuge or the unsightly vision of an MP pretending to be a cat. No, the more uneducated, attention-starved inhabitants of the Big Brother house are being accused of racism, with the irrepressible and outspoken Jade Goody bearing the brunt of the disparagement.

A wave of schadenfreude is sweeping Ireland and the UK as former darling of the public, Jade Goody has fallen out of favour with her adoring masses. But is she really a bigot? The Spanner talked exclusively to friends and family of the falling star.

Celebrity friends Ron Atkinson and Cheryl Tweedy took time off from watching their favourite DVDs Zulu and Roots (respectively) to offer their support. “She’s a nice lass”, claims Atkinson, “though she might have blackened her name in the Big Brother house”. Tweedy added that racism was wrong “most of the time”, though her eyes narrowed when someone asked how she would react if she was offered Jade’s perfume in a nightclub toilet.

An ex-boyfriend of Jade’s has also spoken out; “She’s a nice girl and not a racist” claims Billy Hitler. When our reporter asked if the young Mr. Hitler was any relation to the fascist dictator, he said no, and that he “just likes the name.”
“Jade is not racist”, according to her friend Johnny Smith, a prominent member of the National Front among other organisations, “I know how she feels; you make a few racist comments in jest, incite hatred on national TV and address an Indian person as ‘popadom’ and all of a sudden people think you’re racist. It’s the Politically Correct Police at it again. I hate the PC Police…and the actual police, come to think of it.”
“That Indian bird should smoke a bloody peace pipe!” opines Jade’s mother, “Jade is a good girl, and her friends are a good ethnic mix, not all white South Londoners…she has an ex-boyfriend from Sheffield! She’s a little outspoken and says things as she sees ‘em, and I for one do not want to live in a country where you can’t say what you want, do what you want and scream racial slurs at whoever you want.”

Ends

I will not make any grand claims for what I wrote. It's a trivial piece of ephemera which I knocked out in 20 minutes. I would imagine the other article was written in a similar time (well, I certainly hope it wasn't laboured over). But, as flagrantly biased as I am, I know which I think is better.

Incidentally, and I'm sure this has nothing at all to do with it, you understand, the other article was composed by the editor of the publication in question.

The Spanner (whoops!let it slip), for which I have written maybe 20 articles despite receiving no payment, has lost itself a contributor. Like they give a shit.

My mood in this regard has not been helped by the fact that I had another article - in which I had invested considerably more time and effort - rejected by an editor, whose judgement I actually respect, the previous day.

I apologise for wasting this much of your time with my self-piteous drivel. Sometimes you just can't beat a good bitching session.

What joyous tidings the BBC schedules bring! What felicitous bounty is this! A whole week of World Championship Darts! Daaaaarts!

Thus far, there is a disappointing paucity of mullets on show. The earring count, however, appears to be up on last year. Not merely the 'I am a heterosexual and I will destroy you if you suggest otherwise' ring in left ear, but more adventurous biploar piercing.

Daaaaaarts!