Is it just me...

This story in today's Guardian (no, I don't normally read it: the Devil linked to a different story and I saw the headline) has opened my eyes to a bizarre 'pastime', called 'Upskirting'. This apparently involves the illicit taking of photographs up the skirts of oblivious females...

What the fuck?!

Just how low can people sink? I thought we'd reached a nadir with Big Brother and Benicio del Toro's 'Che', but...

One view might be that the legalisation of prostitution can't come soon enough. Another - that these men are too cowardly (or too small down there) to ever try to have sex with a woman, even if they were paying for it...

However, it does have the upside of getting Guardian readers all in a tizz - the comments are well worth reading, if only to see the stupidity of that particular group... And the Islamist tossers who suggest that 'women should dress appropriately'. Which takes me back to the Devil's post about how 30% of the population still, apparently, plan to vote Labour.

Lord help us.

Nutter on the bus...

'Fuckin kids, nah fuckin respect these days. Me, I got a dodgy knee, and that scum we've brought into the world won't give me a seat. Kids these days - they're just scum. Just stabbing kids, no good for anyfink. Going into hospital tomorruh, only waiting til tomorruh so I can get my pension. And they won't give me a seat'

Says the nutter to his reflection in the window, as he climbs up onto the top deck of the thing they call a bus here in Chav-ville.

So far, not a lot to disagree with.

'Can't believe the mess this country's in. We're going to the bloody dogs.'

How true.

'It's all the fault of that one-eyed Scotch cunt. He should go back to fuckin' Scotland. He's finished, finished.'

If only. If only.

'Let the banks fail. Why the fuck should bloody taxpayers bail out the fucking banks? Somefink else would've evolved to take their place.'

True, how true.

'This place is full of bloody Europeans, half of 'em don't even speak fuckin' English.'

Mmmmm. Well, I don't hold it against you.

'All that cunt Gordon Brown's fault. He's let 'em in.'

Fair point. But they (and the, ahem, people of colour you don't appear to like very much) are, for the most part, a damn sight more useful than the native inhabitants of Chav-ville. Perhaps we could send the chavs to their countries?

'But I won't vote for the bleedin' Tories, me. No way.'

Well, it's true that they won't be much better (not that they could be any worse, of course).

'Nah, the answer's National Socialism', he emphasises, 'National Socialism'.

Oh dear.... and I thought we might be friends. Well, alright, maybe not... but I did at least feel sorry for you.

'Yer, vote BNP. Vote BNP, that's what I'm gonna do. This country's goin' to the dogs.'

How instructive for the twats at Liberal Conspiracy, who keep trying to claim that National Socialism had nothing to do with socialism. Clearly, not something that all of their fellow 'liberals' share... Something for them to ponder - if only they dared read anything outside their own comfort zone...

Recently (very) drunk...

The eagle-eyed will have noticed a new feature here on Craggy Island - the 'Recently Drunk' sidebar...

This is your humble Bishop's effort to stick two fingers (or one, if you're one of our American friends) up at the health fascists who have stuck posters all over the Metrocity metro telling us all that we drink too much.

These fuckers need to understand:

- I do a stressful job, working in the Diocesan Council with people utter cunts like Archbishop D'Inde, who are busy trying to fuck up the Diocese's investments.
- I have to travel on the Metrocity metro.... and the Metrocity above-ground
- Because my salary's shite - or, rather, I have to pay so much of it in tax - I have to live in Chav-ville, alongside the recipients of my generosity
- Who repay me by spending it on cheap cider, being violent, scaring the shit out of Mrs Brennan and anyone with half a brain, and then visiting Chav-ville A&E, where they are singularly unpleasant to the docs and nurses who try to help them.

And you fuckers have the nerve to tell me not to drink...

You should be grateful I don't shoot-up... the chavs' flats (actually, make that my flats, since I pay for them).

Now fuck off back to Guardian La-La Land, where everyone, darhling, has a BMW and a Tuscan Villa and lives in the nicer bits of Metrocity, and therefore can 'afford' to pay more tax...

Cunts.

Who said the unions were dead?

Interesting stories today on Devil's Kitchen and Iain Dale about trade unions (trains and education respectively). The Bishop has tried to engage in some debate on this with Norfolk Blogger and a new favourite, To Miss with Love. He must also confess to some prejudices here, in part stemming from a (pub) conversation held some years ago with someone who was then working on education policy at the Diocesan Council.

The Bishop, then a lowly priest, was living across the river from Chav-ville, in what Dr Michael Nazir-Ali might call Islam-No-Go-Tiny-Village. On learning where the person in question worked, the Bishop had the temerity to remark that, were he to have children, there would be as much chance of him sending them to a local school as there might be of Gordon Brown coming out as gay and having been in a relationship with Peter Mandelson, with a rocking horse as the third member of the menage-a-trois*. Well, the Bishop was blown away by the venom of the response, which was basically along the lines of, 'You are not doing your social duty if you do not send your children to the local schools: how will those schools ever get better if people like you don't send your kids there?'.

Unfortunately, at that time, the Bishop had not learned that arguing with a lefty is as futile as expecting banks' shareholders, rather than taxpayers, to bear the burden of their employees' mistakes. He suggested that competition and vouchers, as used to help poor blacks, I mean 'African-Americans', in Chicago might help. Or perhaps the reintroduction of grammar schools, combined with properly-resourced secondary moderns and decent vocational qualifications that offered an alternative to academic subjects.

I leave it to you, my dear Reader**, to imagine the reaction...

Amazingly enough, the Bishop escaped with only minor damage (a broken eardrum and a wet patch on his crotch, the latter entirely due to wetting himself laughing :) ).

Anyway... I seem to have gone somewhat off the point. Ahhh, yes... unions.

Well, the Bishop is a member of the Premier Clerical Union, which has 'moderate' Nu-Labour leanings, although it does not make political donations ('render unto Caesar' and all that...). But this is only in case he is brought before a Consistory Court - he has no desire to have his retirement determined by the nationally-mandated age of 75, and is quite happy to negotiate his own pay with the Diocesan Council or, indeed, the Vatican HR Dept. (should Craggy Island give up more of its powers to the latter; there may be some attractions - for the Bishop, although probably not for his flock - from this; the Bishop understands that they pay a decent stipend and are quite happy to increase the tithe to its more traditional 23% level, found in the Old Testament).

So, perhaps those opposed to unions allegedly standing up for them - when in fact they stand up for nonsense such as national wage bargaining, retirement at 33 3/4, a 2-day week, etc. - should set up their own organisation to provide support in employment tribunals, advice on investments and pensions, etc.? And then negotiate their own terms and conditions, with public sector employers copying their private counterparts and paying according to market conditions.

And unions that seek to abuse monopolistic powers (esp. the gits that ruin the Bishop's daily commute in Gotham) should be subject to the same anti-monopoly laws faced by businesses. Even France requires that transport unions provide some service when on strike - if the cheese-eating surrender monkeys can manage it, surely so can Craggy Island!


*which is, of course, a ridiculous idea.

** My apologies for the assumption that anyone is actually reading my rants. This is really just a space for me to vent my spleen of the frustrations built up from my daily work Ministering in Gotham.