The vile anti-freedom, pro-tory, pro-fascist shitrag that is the Daily Mail, have this week all but run a campaign to get Carol Thatcher reinstated on our TV screens. Not a day has gone by without them publishing some form of article on their website, clearly stating which side of the fence they sit on in this matter.

Well to counter this I would like to start a campaign - right here, right now - to keep Carol Thatcher off our TV screens.

I suppose firstly I should explain who Carol Thatcher is and what it is she has done.

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Not at all. No sir. Not one jot! But in other news, not much seems to be happening outside of the country grinding to a halt following a heavy downpour of snow.

By heavy downpour, I mean ‘dusting’. By country, I mean ‘London’.

Nothing like the snow we used to get but because, for once, London was affected, it was a case of baton down the hatches and declare a national emergency. You’d think it was The Day After Tomorrow the way the capital’s media network simper on about the white stuff falling magically from the sky. Nowhere else really gets a look in. After all, it’s not London, is it?

image courtesy of World Economic Forum

Anything north of Watford is considered an illiterate backwater populated by toothless dullards trying to get a tune out of a punctured inner tube, whereas any sane individual knows that’s just Dudley.

In fact, anything further up the map than the M25 circle is regarded as t’North and therefore neither matters, nor probably in their mind’s even exists.

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You didn’t really need me to tell you that…

According to the Prime Minister and saviour of the world, Gordon Brown, the present economic crisis is no more than “the birth-pangs of a new global order.” Apparently the solution is not to “muddle through it as pessimists but make the necessary adjustment to a better future…”

It would seem this ‘necessary adjustment’ is for the likes of you and I to make. By losing our jobs, our livelihoods and our homes. Repossessions are on the rise and although we’re not even a month into 2009, the likes of Zavvi, Adams, Barratts, Barclays and Corus have announced closures, receivership and mass redundancies. Of course, those five are just the tip of the iceberg with other high-street chains shutting up shop and the lifespan of the likes of Jaguar looking very grim indeed.

But so long as the boys in Westminster are all right, that’s all that matters.

Words cannot begin to describe the anger and absolute revulsion Jeffman feels towards these scabrous, reptilian politicians who once elected to power see fit to abuse it. That goes for all denominations. A septic brew of arrogance, lies, perceived self-importance, greed and veritable fuckwittery has put us in the foul position we now find ourselves in, all courtesy of the esteemed members of Parliament.

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Richard Hammond, in what can only have been a desperate attempt to try and prove his ‘working class’, blokeish manhood, once drove a car so fast it very nearly killed him. Well, I say car. It was more of a Boeing 747 engine strapped to a roller-skate.

Nowadays he has the look of a haunted corpse about him. That’s quite a sacrifice to make in return for the privilege of wearing one’s man-badge with pride.

Now I’ve never really had anything against Richard Hammond, despite his suspect claims of proletariat Brummy roots, but in all fairness anybody can look good when stood alongside a crypto-fascist with a merkin on his head, namely Jeremy Clarkson. However, he managed to plummet right out of Jeffman’s estimation the other Saturday night when his new TV show was unveiled to an unsuspecting audience.

I only managed to catch this monstrosity through sheer bad luck. I was still incapacitated by Christmas illness and thus not sampling the delights of a barmaid’s apron. Having just been considerably underwhelmed by the naming of the next Doctor Who, I happened to leave the telly on. And lo, it did appear. Total Wipeout.

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Those arriving here expecting a spot of Christmas cheer may be better off going here instead. For those choosing to stick around, read on:

“It’s Christmas time, and there’s no need to be afraid. At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade.”

Indeed so. Well, maybe if you’re a politician, a banker, or anybody else fortunate to operate under the sleazy banner of corrupt and bone idle rich – complete with obligatory easy-wipe conscience.

For the rest of us, well Christmas is just a slightly sparkly plaster – you know, the sort they stick on the bloodied knees of toddlers at Playschool, complete with minute depictions of whatever cartoon character is currently flavour of the month – administered in preparation for the wasteland of precariousness that inevitably lies ahead.

Take Woolworths for instance. Set to close its doors in the UK for the final time on January 5th 2009. The name has been trading for 130 years, which has led to the media’s ‘nostalgia’-tinged banter about how wonderful the pick ‘n’ mixes were, Saturday jobs for teenage girls, and shoplifting etc. But amidst all this dewy-eyed reminiscence there’s also the small matter of 27,000 suddenly out of a job.

That’s 27,000 human beings, with lives of their own, families to feed, and bloody great bills to pay. Not a statistic chanted ad nauseum by anodyne newsreaders every few minutes of the day, nor a great whopping figure whose only purpose is to bolster the steadily rising unemployment figures. Makes one so proud to be alive, right here, right now!

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As you may know, Jeffman’s not one to discuss American politics. An entire campaign of murky presidential electioneering has just crawled back under the rock from whence it came and Jeffman didn’t as much as squeak.

This is simply because A) he doesn’t care, and B) he’s in no hurry to experience the unfortunate end of a bullet delivered by some ‘offended’ NRA-type, exercising both his right to bear arms and his right to travel to other countries whilst doing so.

However, I couldn’t let the Iraqi shoe-flinging incident slip without at least tickling the subject’s belly and seeing what pops out.

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The little man who brandishes the stupid stick and dances about maternity wards administering sound beatings to the heads of selected newborns, must’ve really had his work cut out the day arch-chavette, Waynetta Slob- sorry, I mean Karen Matthews, and village idiot reject Michael Donovan were evacuated kicking and screaming from their respective mothers’ wombs, never to darken its doors again.

Suffice to say, said little man would surely have been in need of a new stupid stick once he’d finished beating this particular pair of dullards about the head, evidently using up what you’d think to be a limitless supply of idiocy on the pair of them.

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Jeffman made one of his rare journeys outside of the pub yesterday and was quick to regret it when he innocently happened upon the following sign, printed in big black letters on bright orange paper, and attached to the notice board of his local church:

MARY WRAPPED THE FIRST CHRISTMAS PRESENT. CELEBRATE THE LORD’S BIRTHDAY HERE THIS CHRISTMAS

Well he should’ve seen it coming really. Jeffman knew it would only be a matter of time before the grasping hand of religion tried to muscle in on the festivities and claim their share of the seasonal purse.

Any right-thinking individual knows full well that Christmas serves two purposes and two purposes alone. Drinking to the point of central nervous system collapse and acquiring a respectable stash of loot. Just what the religious bods thinks this has to do with them is beyond me.

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Ah, the fickle world of fashion. Populated by preening poseurs, pretentious pillocks, and temperamental tossers. A shallower arena of vacuous whores, brainless drama queens, and slaves to the god of money, you’d be hard-pressed to find.

responsible advertising from the shallow world of fashion

So how would one define fashion?

Well I took the liberty of peeking into the Not What it Used to Be Dictionary of Foolishness and found the following:

Fashion [fash-uh n] noun, verb, idiom
-    Looking at what someone else is wearing before making a purchase yourself.

Indeed so. Fashion is dictated by a cabal of ludicrously attired and obscenely overpaid designers who would readily sell you the shirt off your own back at four times the price you paid for it, and then proceed to make you feel guilty for breathing the same air as them. It is from this arcane collective (I hesitate to use the word thinktank) that the clothes you or I wear filter down to the high street. Like shit down a hillside in a particularly heavy rainstorm.

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It’s hard to convey with words the wanton despair or complete lack of enthusiasm Jeffman feels for anything in this world on an almost daily basis. So he won’t. But it seems that some folk have no trouble entering into the spirit of things, and indeed, taking it that one step too far.

Despite ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’ falling on Sept. 19th annually, and lasting for precisely 24 hours, the Somali leg of the organisation appear to have gotten the wrong end of the stick and are under the misapprehension that it is in fact a yearlong event. What’s more, they’ve thrown themselves into the festivities with a little too much gusto and started swiping ships across the high seas, as if it’s going out of fashion.

However, from the photographs of captured pirates I’ve seen over the past few years, it is evident that when it comes to the dressing up part they must try harder.

Of all the pirates that have been rounded up and herded off of a Navy Gunship under the watchful eye of an AK-47 assault rifle, not one has been sporting a jaunty tri-corner hat; an eye-patch; a peg-leg; or a bloody parrot.

It would seem that these pirate characters’ absolute commitment to the cause has to be called into question. As will my judgement in writing this if any of the latest batch of hostages wind up riddled with bullets.

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Speaking of self-righteous pricks, one of the few pleasures that lifts Jeffman’s otherwise dull and dreary weekdays watching a wall in case it decides to change colour, is occasionally listening to the abject nonsense that spills with seemingly carefree abandon, and no due consideration for nearby animal or plant life, from the mouth of a man he is forfeit to share office space with.

We have met this particular character before. He was number five of Seven things you needn’t know about Jeffman. From this moment on we shall refer to him as Case M.

Not that he’d recognise himself were he to happen upon this page whilst scouring the internet for topless photographs of Margaret Thatcher or PDFs of the Daily Mail Guide to Social Justice and Enriching the Dispossessed Classes (Page 1, string the buggers up). Not even if I were to post his full name, his address, and the combined age and shoe-sizes of his wife, cat and dog. Such is Case M’s almost terminal condition of self-absorption, self-importance, and misguided self-belief that elevates him to the same pedestal of self-centred idiot presently reserved for the likes of Simon Cowell, Jeremy Kyle, Piers Morgan, and anybody who considers themselves worthy of a place in the Big Brother house.

Case M would have you believe, given half the chance, that it was he who discovered fire, fashioned the first wheel, put a bullet through JFK’s skull, and single-handedly raised the Mary Celeste with nowt more than a rubber dinghy and a fishing rod liberated from a passing garden gnome.

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In yet another bid to prevent the great British public from getting royally rat-arsed and – horror of horrors – maybe actually enjoying themselves in this grim, grey wasteland they’ve so generously created for us, the right honourable members of Parliament (members, indeed) are calling for an outright ban on what was once the finest exponent of the British pub trade, the happy hour, as well as cheap supermarket booze.

The good people elected to protect our interests have even proposed putting a minimum price on alcohol. This in particular nearly caused Jeffman to spill his pint.

These sparks of brilliance stem from a committee headed by keen defender of free speech, the publicity shy MP for Leicester East, Keith Vaz, a man who by decree of his very religion is unable to partake of alcohol.

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It is in fact November the 5th, which means tonight is Bonfire night. An evening where everybody in England gathers together around a roaring fire beneath a fog-cloaked sky and celebrates the arrest, torture, hanging, drawing, quartering, and eventual burning of Catholics everywhere; via the medium of the humble baked potato.

However, recent Government edicts have made it a criminal offence to not only discriminate against, but also look at somebody else on the grounds of religion.

We here at Not What it Used to Be are taking no chances.

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There’s fashionably late and unfashionably late. I think two days counts as the latter.

As is the case with most of the landed gentry, Fanshawe’s about as reliable as Gary Glitter at a school fete. Only missing the deadline by an entire day, Fanshawe, the tiresome toff, has some of his wisdom to dispense on the matter of Halloween. It would’ve been up yesterday, but Jeffman was too inebriated to open his email. Read on and consider yourselves unfortunate:

Indubitably, my good fellow! I have seen some sorry showings in my time but just what the deuce is this Halloween chicanery all about?

During my days at Fanshawe towers, Pater and I were never troubled by such an affront to our naturally easy-going natures, as we had hired a little man whose job it was to pepper anybody whom he so much as suspected of glancing at our drive with buckshot. Admittedly we never received much with regards to correspondence, but Pater had a habit of burning the post and quite often the postman in a small iron basket he kept on the drawing room table, anyway. But it kept the revolting hordes at bay, which was all that mattered.

However, since my unexpected upheaval to pastures new (Fanshawe now resides in a 1-berth caravan in a lay-by along the A361, which he rents from a Gypsy named Roland Browning. Ed) my autumn evenings are plagued by young ruffians who see fit to leave their grimy paw prints over the laminated PVC of my front door.

There I was, just last week in fact, having presently returned breathless from a quick half up the Wizards Sleeve and toasting my crumpets over the Breville sandwich toaster, when there came a horrendous hullaballoo from outside. There was banging and shouting, and all manner of commotions, so with no further ado I put my trousers back on and went to see what this most disagreeable of occurrences was.

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There is a powerful weapon found resplendent in the toolboxes of all chancers. If employed efficiently and with the optimum of timing it can be used to devastating effect. I refer, of course, to the Politician’s very own favourite: Bandwagon Jumping.

All chancers worthy of their salt are trained to the pinnacle of their abilities in this discipline, and will be on a constant lookout for the latest bandwagon rolling by upon which to hike up a trouser leg and hitch a ride.

Case Study
The tool has been used admirably over the past few days or so, following the furore surrounding overpaid entertainers, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, and their leaving of risqué/lewd messages on the answer phone of Manuel off of Fawlty Towers. To fill in a bit of background, this happened on a pre-recorded radio show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on October 18th. Remember that date. Now Russell Brand has a bit of a history for putting his foot firmly in his mouth, and as for Jonathan Ross – well he’s 48 and should really know better by now.

But we don’t wish to get bogged down in the rights and wrongs of this, for that is not the purpose of The Chancer’s Formbook. Instead, we shall note that to date there have been 18,000 complaints to the BBC and Ofcom (TV, radio and communications regulator) regarding this broadcast. It is also worth noting that only two of these were made at the time on the aforementioned date of October 18th.

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When asked as to whether he thought Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world, John Lennon famously replied: “He’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles.” Nor was he much of a singer, as anybody who’s given ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ on the White Album a quick listen, will attest to.

Following their self-destruction the other three members of The Beatles went on to forge successful solo careers, whereas Ringo went on to get royally pissed and narrate a kid’s TV show about a train with a face. Most recently he managed to upset the city of Liverpool (Not the trickiest of achievements, I admit) by saying there was absolutely ‘nothing’ about his hometown that he missed; except of course the opportunity to use it in the title of the latest solo flop he was promoting named Liverpool 8. An album that entered the charts at the heady heights of number 91.

And then last week he told his fan(s?) not to bother writing anymore letters to him, as any received after October 20th would be consigned to the bin with the utmost of urgency. Which beggars the question just why is anybody still writing to this evidently ungrateful and discourteous drummer?

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Despite what I may have said midweek regarding the imminent end of the world and everybody blaming poor Gordon Brown for it, it would seem that as I was indeed publishing said foolishness, the Prime Minister was in fact undergoing a sudden surge in popularity.

Unbelievable, I know, but Gordon Brown was suddenly hailed as the saviour of the planet following the decision to hand £37bn of our money to three of the big banks so they could continue operating, which kick-started a similar bowel movement across Europe and beyond. It would be churlish of me to mention that these are the same banks that are probably right now setting in motion procedures to repossess your home if you’re having difficulties meeting your mortgage repayments.

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After another eye-bleedingly dull day in ungainful employment Jeffman has reached the conclusion that the only way to beat the astronomical odds that have been stacked against him is to sue some other bugger for their money. Everybody else in this day and age is using the courts to bolster their lack of income, so why shouldn’t he?

I have taken the liberty of drawing up a shortlist of people to sue with handy tips should those of you at home wish to acquire your own retirement fund.

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