Onan the Barbarian

This, genuinely, was the front page of the New York Post at the weekend where somehow you feel the word is not considered as rude over there as it is here. Fans of the famous Mork and Mindy episode featuring the character Arnold Wanker will attest to that.
And it proves that for all those years that Bush was looking for Osama, Osama was looking for bush.
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On a road sign as you come out of Gatwick - or Chavwick - Airport - are directions to the M25 and, I quote, Lond'n. Not London but Lond'n. That's an abbreviation of London except with just as many characters as the original. Which means it's not actualy an abbreviation. Can anyone explain?
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I think I finally get it. Downing Street's dodgy dossier is like The Only Way Is Essex. Wait. Bear with me because it helps explain the report better than Chilcott ever could.
TOWIE is a reality TV programme where the events are real but the characters are 'directed.' So if Sam breaks up with Spanner, or whatever he's called, then normally she would text him but for the purposes of TV the directors make them go through a break up scene in front of the camera, say in a wine bar.
If it just filmed their normal lives and normal conversations then no one would watch. So they are told what to talk about and how to develop the 'plot.' The language they use is still their own, which is why it looks like a load of kids badly acting a nativity play.
The dodgy dossier was supposed to be neutral report into whether or not there was a case for war except the spooks who compiled it were 'directed' to concentrate on the negative.
So one military geezer chews over the possibility that Saddam could be making weapons of mass destruction. And someone, like Alistair or Crystal Tips or Mary, Mungo or Midge, in the government PR department, leaves this in the final cut and takes out the boring bits like 'but on the other hand' or 'of course we have no proof'.
The army brass are asked to talk about the reasons why Saddam could be dangerous, and not to bother much with all that dull stuff about why he might not be, and hence they come up with some meaty stuff, in their own language, with a touch of extra spice from Blair's wonks.
So there it is. Tony Blair's case for making war was the government's version of The Only Way Is Essex - it left in all the juicy bits, the WMD equivalent of Amy bending over to do up her laces and Lauren getting an all over spray tan but it leaves out the boring bits such as a fly on the wall listen-in to the one who's a bit chubby and thinks he may be dropped from the series so he sits in his room playing with a razor blade and wondering why his sad little life has come to this.
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I thought I might have to sue Cliff Richard when I heard he'd called his latest tour the Sollycious Tour. But then I saw it in print and it said Soulicious. In which case, any surviving star from Motown, Phillie, Atlantic or dozens of other labels should be suing the smug, Christian pensioner who has, strangely, never married.
Because Cliff Richard may once have been a rock and roll star, pop singer and Europop favourite but soul? From the man who made Wired for Sound and Mistletoe and Wine? Do me a favour. He is to soul what Mario Lanza was to reggae. Or Hugh Laurie is to blues.
Don't get me wrong, I like Laurie in House - even if it is a blatant rip off of Sherlock Holmes. But if you want to hear blues, then buy a record of a blues singer doing it, not an Old Etonian who gets paid more, per week, than a Premiership footballer. You just get the impression he's playing at it.
I'm not saying that the only people who have the right to sing blues have to be poor, or that ginger people have no soul. You don't have to be black, disenfranchised and living in the deep south to play jazz or soul or blues (look at Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen for instance!!)
But it strikes me that the hardest thing faced by Hugh Laurie in his life was probably when the monthly hamper arrived from his mum and dad and it didn't have the right kind of marmalade. I wonder if he supports Aston Villa? To see him doing his golly gosh act on chat shows promoting his inner Howling Wolf or whatever, just seems patronising. I imagine I'd feel the same if they announced a biopic of Miles Davis with Hugh Grant playing the lead role. Or seeing Laurence Olivier playing Othello for instance.
I don't care if Hugh Laurie has a half decent singing voice and grade 11 on the piano, blues comes from something else. So does soul. As indeed does gospel, jazz, reggae and even opera.
And while we're at it, when did R&B stop standing for rhythm and blues and include stars with names like Tinchy and Diddy and start to mean songs about how great it is to be rich and do naughty things to women with big bottoms.
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Wife's away for a week. She's left me a schedule so I know what my kids are doing, and where I fit in. There's a freezer full of food with instructions for meals. Though it all seems pointless as I have the number for Domino's in my mobile memory. And they are old enough to use a toaster now.
R&B, WMD? TTFN...Solly