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Moral Decline of a Nation

Is nothing sacred?

The festering politically correct lefties that are ruining this country are at it again. You can’t open a door for a woman without someone accusing you of being sexist, you can’t respect a tradition without someone trying to tear it down and you can’t call the towel-heads terrorists without being accused of racism. What’s the world coming to?

Last week they stopped tennis players bowing in front of the Royal Box at Wimbledon and now we’ll have all sorts of sweaty, ungrateful colonials walking past the lovely Duchess of Kent without so much as a tug of their forelock. You let these people take part in the world’s greatest sporting tournament (apart from the World Cup, the Olympics, the European Championships, the Commonwealth Games and The Embassy World Dart Championships) and they throw it back in your face. Instead of being proud of appearing in front of our Royals and paying due respect to them, they just want to pick up their free towels and Robinson’s Barley Water and hurry back to get their nails done. And the women are just as bad, they can’t wait to get inside for a spot of “leg over-Navratilova” if you know what I mean.

Next on the lentil crunchers hit list of institutions is bingo. Okay so it may not be your highbrow opera or ballet but it has been a staple of British life for generations. And if it keeps Mrs Plumb and her mother out of the house for three nights a week then it’s fine by me.

Obviously I don’t play bingo, I’m a man, but I remember many happy days at the seaside winning packs of ciggies and half bottles of vodka just for shutting wee windows over numbers. Lovely. Clickety click. Legs eleven. Sweet sixteen, never been kissed. Those were the days.

But oh no. Two little ducks, no more. Tom Mix, no more. Burlington Bertie, no more. The Bleeding Britpop Brigade have decreed that bingo names are old-fashioned and have come up with a list of new-fangled 21st century names. Old-fashioned? Is Big Ben old-fashioned? Is British justice old-fashioned? Is the class society old-fashioned? If you want to change traditions then hop on a plane to Iraq and stop women wearing masks over their faces and men wearing tea towels. Leave bingo alone.

How is Mrs Plumb’s mum going to cope with all this rubbish? For a hundred years she has lived quite happily in the knowledge that 71 means “bang on the drum”, now she is being told that it is “J-Lo’s bum”. Not bad enough that they are changing it but they have to bring in the derriere of some Cubanist-American pop star. If they need to bring bums into it then why not Kylie? Much nicer in my opinion and she’s more or less British.

So now we have Gareth Gates number 8, which doesn’t even rhyme and anyway there is absolutely nothing wrong with garden gate. We have Jimmy Choo 32 — I’m told he makes shoes — so how is that better than buckle my shoe? Go on tell me that.

These people should just leave well alone. What would happen if they started changing u-bend to w-bend or s-bend to t-bend? Well you’d get a lot of confused plumbers and water all over your floor. My old gaffer always said that everything should be left the way it is except crap on the floor. And, as we all know, if it’s true in plumbing then it’s true in life.

Next thing you know you won’t be allowed to smack your kids, smoke in public places or drive your car down the road for free. They will be scrapping the House of Lords, getting rid of red phone boxes, allowing women to referee snooker matches and changing the name of the Post Office so many times that Postman Pat’s head will explode. Oh hang on, they’ve already done that.

I hardly know this country anymore. Today bingo, tomorrow Buckingham Palace. You mark my words, this is just the beginning of the Trotskyist revolution. When The Duchess of York and the Countess of Wessex are being beheaded on the Mall, just you remember — Two Fat Ladies. That’s how it all began.

Plumb on.

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Twice Nightly

Hello darlings

Sometimes seeking out the skinny on the social scene is more than one can possibly bear. To the uninitiated it may seem one endless round of parties, premieres, popstars and poppers. And well I suppose it is. But at other times it can be such a ghastly chore that I have even been known to contemplate getting a job.

Only kidding.

Yet sometimes the demands of looking impossibly gorgeous for the craparazzi can take its toll even on those of us whose skin tones are naturally lustrous. Sometimes having to deal with the sort of unpleasant Johnny-come-lately nouveau riche ruffians that think a shampoo glass needn’t be filled to the brim is just too much. Sometimes the penne isn’t quite al dente yet the catering manager refuses to have the pasta chef taken out and shot. Sometimes it’s just like that.

Last night for example I was presenting an award at some television awards bash — the Evening Standard’s prize for best afternoon chat show not featuring live actors but with occasional nudity. Now you know I would normally have nothing to do with daytime TV — the unemployed being entertained by the unemployable — but I’d bought a darling little Alexander McQueen number that positively screamed “Wear Me Now You Magnificent Bitch” so I thought I may as well.

Darlings I’ve never made such a bad choice since I let Angus Deayton do The Hunt For Red October at charades. One could hardly move for bulimic soap actresses fending off arthritic actors with sweaty hands. I swear those stick girls halve their weight when they take their make-up off.

If that wasn’t bad enough I had to endure the agony of watching those scrum-diddly-gorgeous little Geordie chaps Ant and Dec fawning all over that old hag Joanna Lumley as if she was the last upper-class trollop left in the world. Which she isn’t. If it wasn’t for a shipload of the old shampoo I’d barely have been able to stomach the thought of the cheeky chappies playing good cop, bad cop with La Lumley. Such a waste, those lovely young cowboys tanning that leathered hide. Meiow.

And to pile on the agony, not only does the absolutely-not-fabulous one get a personal visit to biker grove but I — oh I can hardly bring myself to reveal it — I danced the dance of four vowels with Richard Whitely. Yes darlings I who once showed that Tom Cruise was no mission impossible was reduced to being a notch on the scoreboard of a man who wears comedic ties. A conundrum indeed.

Needless to say I was completely befuggered at the time, why else would I entertain the advances of this pompous fatty if not being utterly reek-ho. Even tashered as I was I am quite convinced he must have had the additional aid of rohypnol or another of those dastardly, if occasionally useful, date rape drugs.

You would be forgiven for thinking it could be no worse but imagine the depths of my degradation as he cried out, “Another consonant, please Carol!” as he reached his own personal break while I had still not reached the numbers game. The only saving grace is that he could not live up to his repulsive nickname of Twice Nightly Whitely but rather proved to be One Quicky Dickie. Oh did I say that out loud?

Toodlepip darlings

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Bomb Baghdad and Back Our Boys

Hello Darlings

I am too unaccountably traumatised to give you any social skinny this week. Shocked as I am by the onset of war in this land of ours. Well, I suppose it isn’t actually here, it’s over there, so I can tell you about a super anti-war beano that I went to last night.

Yes I know you might be a tad surprised to see lady P line up beside some of the lentil crunchers and lefties that normally populate such frightful bashes but sometimes we all have to take a stand for what is right. And I heard they were serving up some splendid shampoo.

While I am quite happy to see that Hussein chap being defrocked, I would be desperately sad if the poor Iraquois children were hurt in the process. In fact I’ve got a good mind to send some of last season’s dresses to tend to their seeping wounds. They may have nothing other than dust to eat but surely it would lift their spirits to have their lesions bound in finely cut Armani strips. How their fellow urchins would envy them.

Among those banging their cans last night was that silly strumpet Liz Hurley. She seemed to think that sending a message of peace to the world was best articulated by wearing a dress that was simultaneously slashed to the navel, the thigh and her London derriere. I believe the expression is slut.

And yet the Hurley harlot’s “Versace safety pins and teeth” act is only for the craperazzi. I have never known her to be in the company of a real man unless she was in front of a lens. I’m not saying that she’s necessarily a vaginatarian but I’m rather sure she spends a lot of time alone reading The Diary of Anne Frank. If you know what I mean.

Yes I know she used to bunk up with dear old Hugh Grant but although the tufty-haired little sweetums is totally adorable, he is hardly what you would call testosterone-driven, now is he? He is even lighter on his loafers than he is on camera. Put it this way darlings, the only hairy centre parting that he is interested in is on top of own scrummy little head.

The big question of course is how La Liz got that child thing inside her. There is no way that it is la thing de La Bing as that would have meant smudging her make-up. So we are either talking about a horrid basting brush episode involving the juice of some indigent actor or else she forgot her lines and played the casting couch cherub once too often with some pawing director. Meiow.

Anyway, apart from burly Hurley and her pneumatic breasts, there were all sorts of celebs desperate to be the caring, sharing face of the peace corps. Although I am fairly sure I also saw darling little Kylie Minogue at a Bomb Baghdad, Back Our Boys rally I was at the night before. Some people are such awful hypocrites.

Vanessa Felz was at the anti-war thing of course. Not that she gives a parrot’s penis for peace but she did seem keen to do her bit for global harmony by eating every vol-au-vent in sight. Perhaps she was afraid they would be sent to feed our brave boys at the front. Or that they would be dropped on the poor Iraquois urchuins and they would choke on them.

Talking of choking, I couldn’t begin to tell you how the rascally Angus Deayton did his bit to stop the war. Just suffice to say that poor Charlotte Church was unable to speak out against Blair on account of her mouth being full. And he didn’t say no to Bush either. Oh did I say that out loud?

Toodlepip

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Cheese Eaters

As the constipated man says, it’s the waiting that’s the worst.

Well I’ve been waiting for flippin weeks for this war to start and there’s not been so much as an exocet fired by accident. Not even a bit of death by friendly fire. Call this a war?

Honest tradesmen like myself will obviously need to put our prices up if there is a war and we need a bit of notice to get the stationery changed. It’s a sad but inevitable consequence of global conflict but there’s always a price to be paid for freedom.

I just wish they’d hurry up and get started. We all know President Dubya is gagging to bomb the towel heads so why doesn’t he get on with it? All this pussy-footing about with the Untied Nations is just wasting time. Bomb Mustaffa Moustache and get it over with.

As for Blair, he is spending far too much time listening to the lentil-eating, cardigan-wearing, bleeding heart Guardianistas. Why listen to them when you can just run them over with tanks?

Then there’s the French. The frogs. Garlic-loving, soap-dodgers who have suddenly developed a conscience when the rest of the time they are quite happy to choke geese to death to make a starter. We bail them out of two world wars and they can’t even be bothered to let us go fight without them.

Britain and America want to make the world a safer place to buy oil and all the frogs can do is say Non. Typical, they can’t even say no properly.

We all know that the real reason they are scared to go fight in the Gulf is that the Iraqis will be able to smell them from miles away and they’d be sitting ducks a l’orange.

Okay, so the brown rice brigade want to give Saddam more time to prove that he’s evil? Fair enough. Let’s not attack him for a month or two and use the time in between to practice by fighting the French.

Dubya and Tony the Toady should declare the frogs as enemies and nuke the garlic out of them. If they ain’t for us they are agin us. Let them join the axis of evil along with Iraq, Sudan and that horrible wee Pekinese that won Crufts and bomb the bejeesus out of the lot.

It is pay back time for Sacha Distel, Allo Allo, Plastic Bertrand and Camembert cheese. Fry the French — except maybe Thierry Henry, who could then play for Scotland as he won’t have a country of his own. Pulverise Paris, obliterate the Onions Johnnies, destroy Disneyland Paris and put and end to those poncey poodles. Anyway, it’s much closer than Iraq and our boys won’t be away from home for so long.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Sort the pong and you sort the problem. And if it’s true in plumbing then it’s true in life.

In this case, the pong comes from the ponging French. Sort out that smell and then we can turn our attention to old Mustaffa. He’s probably a bit whiffy at the moment too.

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Anthea Turner

Hello darlings. Lady Pan Jammer here, bringing you the low-down from the social hoe-down of the year at Brighams on the Strand. Well it is only March.

We were either saving the whale, raising money for missiles or celebrating Holly Vallance’s new ‘record’. Viva la difference, I say. The main thing is the place was positively dripping with names. Put it this way, the editor of Hello would have had the mother of all orgasms if he’d been able to get any of his grubby little craparazzi inside.

However every silver lining has its inevitable cloud and there were a coterie of b-list hangers on as well, desperately looking for cameras to pout at and shrimp canapés to guzzle. Or vice versa. Among this sad little shower was former Blue Peter strumpette Anthea Turner, a woman so tacky she makes velcro look slippery. Mieow.

She was railing off about Hello and OK, as if they’d be interested any more, and you could see the Beckhams and the Douglas Zeta-Jones’s positively squirming with enriched embarrassment. I didn’t mind her rambling on about throwing tramps off the steps of the theatre but I couldn’t believe my ears when the bitch said that Manolo Blahnik made horrid shoes.

I was so cross I nearly spilt my drink. Thankfully I remained in control; a lady at all times of course, and calmly told her and anyone listening how her husband had given syphilis to Pippi van Muflin. Oh, did I say that out loud? I certainly did.

She claimed I was fabricating the entire thing until I told her Pippi said he had a dangleberry the size of a chipolata, a mole shaped like Norway on his derriere and a trumpet full of germs.

The whole incident was dreadfully distressing darlings and I can only thank Gucci for the restorative and consoling powers of Dr Bollinger. Why that man hasn’t received the Nobel Prize for Medicine I will never know.

After a few glasses of shampoo I was feeling ever so much better — if a little Schindlers — and my only discontent was that I had scuffed a perfectly good pair of Via Spigas by kicking that horrid Turner woman on her ample rump. Harsh words are all very well but sometimes the only language her type understands is violence.

An unfortunate consequence of delivering the blow was that it seemed to stir something in the loins of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. You would have thought the funny little man would have enough on his plate with all this war nonsense but oh no, he stills find time to play hide the weapon of mass destruction with anyone that takes his fancy. He managed to get a grab of my inspectors but I beat him off before he could get a UN resolution, if you know what I mean.

Oh what a night. Sweeties I barely have time left to tell you about the roguishly handsome Jonathan Ross slipping behind the curtains with Judi Dench and coming back out ten minutes later whistling There’s Nothing Like A Dame. Or time to spill the skinny about a certain royal personage named Edward who told Kenny Branagh he’d back his new production in return for a special part. Said he’d be behind him all the way. Silly bitch.

But maybe it’s just as well I don’t have the time to tell you about Stephen Fry and the special trick he performed with two pomegranates, a xylophone and a small man named Bert. Public schoolboys, really.

Toodlepip darlings.

Lady P

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Tories in Trouble

I’ve been having a good think about the state of the Conservative Party in Britain. Two minutes it took me. Shower of flamin’ losers.

Lady Thatcher would be turning in her grave if she could see the mess this lot was in. If she was dead. To think that the party she led to three General Election wins can’t even organise a day’s outing to a distillery. Disgraceful.

There’s Iain Duncan-Thingy, the biggest loser since the last one. I can’t even bring myself to call him leader of the party because he wouldn’t make a lead for a dog. What was the point of getting rid of the baldy wee Yorkshire boy and replacing him with a double-barrelled baldy wet blanket? If they had just changed him over and kept the same name no-one would have noticed.

If anything, this one is even more boring than the last. Mrs Campbell in Harding Street had the telly on last week when I was backing up her waste pipe and Duncan-Thingy was droaning on and on about something or other. Next thing I knew I’d fallen asleep on the job and Mrs Campbell was far from happy. The man’s a bloody menace.

I see the Spaniard is causing trouble again. Why this Portillo bloke can’t just go back to Magaluf and be a waiter is beyond me. I’m sure he’d make a perfectly good waiter, if a little light on his feet. But oh no, first chance he gets he has to stir up the effluence. Any apprentice worth his solvent weld will tell you that if you continually stir the excrement then sooner or later you will get covered in the stuff. The sooner the better in the Spaniard’s case.

Then there’s this Theresa May who I used to think was one of those bits of tottie that the lads like looking at on page three of the Sun. Turns out this one’s a different sort altogether and we’d happily have a whip round for her to keep her gear on. Mind you, she is usually seen with some right tits. There’s that little Liam Fox chap. Five foot nothing and dandruff like a blizzard. There’s Michael Ancram. Six foot tall and dandruff like a blizzard. Then there’s… Well there’s bound to be others but I just can’t think of them. They need to bring back some of the old guard and give Blair and his cronies a kick in the Commons.

Bring back Maggie and Stormin Norman, Howard and Parkinson. Bring back Selwyn-Gummer and … okay let’s not go too far. But if something works once it will work again. If I had a pound for every time I’d sorted a leaking tap with a dod of chewing gum then I’d be plumbing in the Bahamas. And if it’s true in plumbing then it’s true in life.

Bring back Maggie. You know it makes sense. Even if she doesn’t.

Plumb on.

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Evacuees

Hello sweeties, here’s the skinny on the social scene. And the big news is…. it might be moving out to the sticks.

Tristram Parker-Wayne invited me down to his place in Sussex at the weekend to discuss what was going to happen when this dreadful war starts. Not just the two of us, you understand. Goodness no. Polly P-W would have had my garters for guts if she thought it was just me and Lord Scrummy of Stud Muffington. No, this was a gathering of the gliterrati, a summit of the select, a congregation of the cream of the cropola.

Anyone who was anyone and a few who weren’t anyone but knew someone who was someone descended on Bashington Hall to sort out the social order of things for however long it takes to obliterate Iraq and anywhere else that Mr Bush doesn’t like the look of. You see, it’s all very well him bombing the bejeezus out of Baghdad but the belles still have to go to the ball do they not?

Henny Throckmorton’s little moppet Finella has her coming out on March 8, just seven days after the war starts — at least that’s what Tristram says and his uncle Roger is some Field Marshall or other — and the dear girl would be heartbroken if it had to be cancelled. The party that is, not the war. Her debut marks her emergence into the world of womanhood — not withstanding that little sordidity with three members of Westlife and Nigel Havers — and is much more important than some rammy in Africa. Marguerite Patten-Cooker says she will happily turn her home into a bunker for poor little Finella’s bash, complete with anti-missile warning system and a chap on the door to keep Havers out.

There was also the issue of the Boat Race Party at Jeffrey’s. If the war thingy lasts a month — although Uncle Roger swears it’ll be over by Easter — then the Oxbridge oarfest will have to be postponed. No-one really saw that as much of a problem as we’re never very interested in the canoes anyway. But the Archers’ Annual Shepherd’s Pie and Champagne Post-Race Party is an absolute must. It looks like this year we’ll be without Jeffrey, his horrid pie, and the boats, but at least we’ll have the bally Bolly and that’s the main thing. It’ll even be worth putting up with Mary whining about slopping out and the loss of conjugal rights. You’d have thought she’d be delighted. Mieow.

Tara Parker-Tomlinson said we should cancel the Army-Navy football match at her pa’s place because not enough of the troops would be able to come and watch. That caused a few giggles among the girlies I can tell you because we all knew that Tara TP had a hot date with the 3rd battalion of the Black Watch. Apparently someone had told her they were called the Black Watch because they were hung like colonials. Really, the only thing looser than that girl’s grasp of reality is her knicker elastic. Oh, did I say that out loud?

So there you have it darlings. The social set are moving out to the country to enjoy the delights of wide open spaces — no I’m not talking about Tara TP again. It will soon be spring and we’ll be sipping on shampoo, smelling freshly cut grass and listening to the sound of willow on buttock. Oh, what a lovely war!

Toodlepip

Lady Pan Jammer

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Simply Not Cricket

This Cricket World Cup in South Africa is really confusing me. Well, it’s just not cricket is it?

It’s politics, it’s death threats, it’s drug taking, it’s racial slurs. It’s everything except flaming cricket.

I don’t really know what the problem is with these English lads not wanting to play in Zimbabwe. Are they afraid of getting beat or are they just a bunch of nancy boys? Okay so there’s a bit of poverty and a few people are dying but it’s Africa for God’s sake, what do they expect?

This Nasser Hussein (is he related to Saddam?) needs a good shake. You wouldn’t have had this problem if Sir Geoffrey Boycott were captain. He’d have them out there in two ticks and take whatever spears they threw at him. Of course if they had some right quick fast bowlers that would be a different matter. He’d send Gooch in first and wait till they got knackered.

All this fuss just because a few farmers are moaning about being chucked off their land. Farmers are always flaming moaning about something! If it’s not the price of milk then it’s their house being set on fire and a black man running off with their cabbages. They’re never happy.

All right so this Mugabe bloke isn’t very nice, I’ll grant you that. But the nancy boys only have to go there to play cricket not to vote for him. If they want to be all save-the-whale about it, they might as well go the whole hog and make Bob Geldof captain instead of Hussein. He’d probably get more runs anyway.

The New Zealanders are just as bad, being all girl’s blouse about going to Kenya just because they’re going to shoot them. No wonder they never won any world wars. My old gaffer always said if you took on a contract for a job then you finished it. Even if it turned out they had a dog and a granny who smelled of pee and biscuits. And if it’s true in plumbing then it’s true in life.

Between these conshies and fat Shane Warne taking his old dear’s water tablets to lose some of that beer gut, there’s been precious little word about any actual cricket. Which is good news for any England supporters.

But there has been one little ray of sunshine. Canada beat Bangladesh in the biggest upset since I had a chicken vindaloo from Greasy Alec’s Cowboy Curry House. The Canadians won mainly thanks to fast bowler Austin Codrington who took 5 for 27.

Codrington isn’t even a full-time cricketer. He’s a plumber. Sometimes I think it’s only a matter of time before the noblest profession of all inherits the earth.

Plumb on.

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Shampoo

I am in mourning this morning sweeties. Lady P’s fragile little heart has been split into more pieces than Ulrika Jonnson has had football players. My darlingest little Hernando, the best hairdresser this side of heaven, has passed on into that great salon in the sky. I am truly devastated — I’ve got the premier of Chicago on Friday night and my split ends are ghastly.

Apparently Hernando and his friend Alf were playing some game involving domestic pets and a particularly strong hallucinogen when poor Hernie took a heart attack to himself and popped his heated rollers. Such a loss to the world of hair couture. Such a loss to me darlings. At least I can console myself with the thought that lovely Marilyn Monroe can get her celestial roots done by an expert.

Henny Throckmorton has recommended her stylist — a frightful fellow by the name of Bilbo. I told her that I’d certainly give him a tinkle. That is, if I ever fancied having my hair looking like it could accommodate a family of not too fussy sparrows. I swear sweeties, that woman has all the style of Anne Widdecombe but without the shapely hips. Oh, did I say that out loud?

Of course I have drunk a toast to my noble Hernando. And a toast to his hamster which sadly took fright at his master’s demise and burrowed his way towards eternal suffocation. And a toast too to his poor friend Alf who had to face the indignity of accompanying the constabulary to their station while wearing a pair of last year’s shoes. How awful.

Yes darlings, the brutal shock of having Hernando taken so cruelly from me so near to meeting Richard Gere has driven me into the comforting arms of Great Uncle Bollinger. I have drank so much shampoo that I’ve been druck-steaming since last Tuesday. Off me pickle as Marge, the lady who does for me, likes to say.

Aristotle, that handsome old millionaire mongrel of a husband of mine, has seen fit to take advantage of the situation to resume marital relations. I was so spangled the other night that his train entered the station for the first time since Dr Beeching closed the line. Don’t worry though sweeties, as soon as the shampoo wears off he’ll be back to riding in the guards van on his own.

But in the meantime I needed to find a crimper extraordinaire to look after the Pan Jammer locks. I was offered Velasquez, the Danish-Algerian who does Vanessa Felz but he isn’t even gay. And anyway if he’s used to tending to La Felz then he’ll be expecting black puddings and cream cakes and I’m simply not prepared to tolerate such excess during the day.

Think of me sweeties, think of poor Pandora as the prospect of Richard Gere’s loins looms large in my horizon and my follicles remain unloved. What a cruel world in which we must live.

Toodlepip.

Lady P

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Asylum Seekers

It makes my blood boil, it really does. Who do these people think they are?

You give them the English language, teach them cricket and football, put shoes on their feet and all they want to do is come to Britain and blow us up. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they want to take money from the social while they are at it.

They call them asylum seekers but as far as I can see they are asylum assassins, towrag terrorists, traitors with tea towels, lethal leeches in our legal system. Come on, don’t tell me I’m the only one who thinks that way.

I’ve been reading my Daily Express and I know that every single one of them is a potential terrorist. I’m not suggesting that every corner shop has bombs beside the bonbons but all the Johnny-Foreigners-come-lately are likely to have semtex in their satchels.

What about this mad cleric fellow, this Abu Hamza from the Finsbury Park Mosque? You only have to look at him to see he’s a couple of warheads short of a nuclear holocaust. I’ve watched enough James Bond films to know that anyone with one eye and one hand has to be a danger to the western world. Especially if they are not white.

The mad mullah has been coining in 20 grand a year in benefits as well. Disgraceful. Just because he is a British citizen, has committed no crime and is technically entitled to these benefits, that is no reason why he should actually get them. It’s a scandal.

No wonder this country is going to the dogs when one-eyed, one-handed terrorists can put two-fingers up to the flag and get away with it.

The Express tells me that Hamza stands accused of being a terrorist, a serial rapist, being rude to nuns, not washing his hand after going to the toilet, kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, killing Maxine Healey and grievously wounding Emily Bishop, cheating at snap and of being black. None of these charges have been proven yet — except him being black — but it’s only a matter of time.

An old boss of mine used to say that if a pipe was going to break, and you knew it was going to break then there was no harm in giving it a wee twist until it snaps. Okay so you have to charge the punter £100 for a new pipe but it saves them money in the long run. If you wait until everything goes to pot then you’ll have all sorts of crap on your hands. And if it’s true in plumbing then it’s true in life.

Lock up the traitors with tea towels now, I say. Don’t wait till they blow up the House of Commons first. Well, okay maybe let them do that but not anything else.

We’ve already lost the Empire, let’s not lose the corner shops as well.

Plumb on.