QUEENS SPEECH.
Good afternoon and happy Xmas. I’m sitting here with the
great Buckingham Palace staircase in the background. Those are the actual
stairs that Princess Di flung herself down. But luckily for Diana she landed on
my sister Princess Margaret who was crawling up them at the time.
And hasn’t it been a good year for my United Kingdom.
Andy Murray won Wimbledon and Andy is a great friend of my
son Charles, and many the hours they spend together wondering just how to get
rid of their Mothers.
But in my defence, at least I give my son Charles some
breathing space, unlike Andy and Judy’s relationship which in my opinion is
perhaps a bit Norman Bates and his mother.
In 2013 came the sad news that Nelson Mandela had passed
away, a man who spent 27 years in jail, a man who went from prison and into
politics, which is the direct polar opposite how Denis McShanes career went.
President Barack Obama attended Mr Mandela’s memorial
service in South Africa where he was joined by hundreds of other leaders from all
around the world. This gave President Obama the chance to speak to the other
leaders to find out face to face what they were thinking, instead of his usual
way of getting the American security services to listen in on their phone
calls.
And there was a new royal baby this year and he cries a
lot, in fact I haven’t heard so much crying since the phone calls I received
from my son Prince Edward when he was doing basic training with the Royal
Marines.
There was also a new Pope elected this year, Pope Francis
the First who seems a lot less preachy than his predecessor Benedict the
Sixteenth.
Benedict said he felt that at 85 he was too old physically
to go on. Meanwhile 87 year old Hugh Hefner married a 26 year old so one yet
again has to ask the question. Does celibacy take a bigger toll than rampant
hedonism?
The new Pope Francis is on Twitter, the Catholic Church
said it wants to engage with young people, in a way that doesn’t involve hush
money.
Thank you for listening and have happy Xmas and a
prosperous New Year.
GARAGE BABY.
A woman has given birth to a baby boy in a petrol station
in Edinburgh.
Nicola McLean and her partner Julian Skinner were on their
way to hospital when they were forced to pull in when they noticed that as the
petrol station was closing for Xmas they were offering close to sell by date
Ginster pasties at 75% off.
During the pasty purchase Nicola went into Labour but
luckily a midwife just happened to be in the petrol station at the same time.
So going into labour turned out to be advantageous for the
expectant mother as she saw a mid wife straight away because if she’d made it
to the hospital it would have been hours before she saw one. There’s a moral
here somewhere.
The baby was delivered in 45 minutes and is doing well.
Nicola said she was shocked and tired. Tired because of the strain of pushing a
baby out and shocked because the petrol station staff out the CCTV of her
giving birth on Youtube.
INITIALS.
A surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth hospital has been
suspended over allegations that he branded his initials into a patient’s liver. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because
he had obviously carried out a successful operation if he was willing to put
his name to it. Given the large number of medical incompetence cases there are
nowadays perhaps every surgeon should be legally obliged to sign his name or
even a number to an operated on organ. Even jeans come with a factory checkers
number on a little slip inside the pocket that denotes that the jeans have been
checked and are perfect.
Yet surgeons can get away with anonymously operating
on a liver or a kidney with no comeback blame should the organ has been left
upside down, backwards or inside out.
BUCKFAST.
The Monks in Devon who produce Buckfast wine have said that
it’s not fair to blame their wine for crime in Scotland. Strathclyde Police (now
Police Scotland) revealed that Buckfast consumption has been linked to 6,500
crimes in the last three years.
So like the monks in Devon a lot of Buckfast drinkers sleep
in cells, the only difference being that the Monks cells are in a monastery and
the crime committers cells are in police stations.
Hampshire based J Chandler and Co which bottles and sells
Buckfast is taking legal action to stop Police Scotland adding anti crime
labels to Buckfast bottles. The company’s argument is that the majority of Buckfast
drinkers drink responsibly. Which is true, it’s the other 49% who are
responsible for the Buckfast fuelled chaos. Oddly Buckfast only accounts for
0.5% of alcohol sales in Scotland, but given the fact that Scots drink per head
more than the per heads in the rest of the UK that 0.5% is worth £27b a year to
the Monks. This probably explains why on the Sunday Times Rich List 2013 ninety
four of the top 100 places were taken up with Brothers from Buckfast Abbey.
The order takes no responsibility for the crime figures
claiming that they only make the tonic wine and what people choose to do after
drinking nine bottles of it has got nothing to do with them.
This could be why the order chose the name Buckfast. It’s
because they can pass the Buck faster than anyone.
