How to become a Celebrity in the UK - Part II

Apparently over the last couple of days there’s been quite a bit of an uproar in the UK about what two guys who work for the BBC said on an answermachine. According to mum, these two guys - Mr Ross & Mr Brand “…believe their own sickeningly arrogant hype and accordingly believe that their celebrity status will protect them from anything they do – no matter how offensive”. She says Mr Ross should have known better because even though he says his “rrr’s” as “w’s”, he’s quite experienced (although he has let fame go to his head), but the other guy, Mr Brand, is “…just a sex-obsessed ex-junkie, a pre-Raphaelite version of Bernard Manning who will say literally anything to make a cheap tabloid headline, however lewd, crude or downright disgusting…” according to Piers Morgan. I think Piers Morgan is a Saint or something. He must be because mum says he thinks he can do no wrong.

Anyway, Mr Brand has now resigned from the BBC Low-life Celebrity Quits . Mum says that the BBC paid him more than £10 per year to say rude things on the Radio and for NOT being funny. That’s an extortionate amount of money AND a daft thing to do. Why pay someone who is crap? According to mum the BBC do it all the time AND they use other people’s money to do so. Apparently all the British public have to pay more than £10 per year EACH to this BBC place so that they can pay people like this Brand man to swear and be rude and this Ross man to say his “rrr’s” as “w’s”. Crazy!

Mum says this swearing, offensive Brand guy will now be even MORE famous and will end up with his own aftershave and exercise DVD. According to mum he already has his own best selling autobiography called “My Booky Wook”. I know she’s having me on!!!! The British public aren’t stupid enough to buy a book with such a daft title.

Stupid dogs make mum go Aaaahhh!

Mum was reading an ‘Aaaahhh’ story to Uncle Hugh this morning. There are lots of stories that make mum go ‘Aaaahhh’. They’re usually stories about animals – particularly young animals – particularly puppies or kittens, but she also gets very stupid about Pandas. Well this one made her go ‘Aaaahhh’ Stupid Dog! . Now don’t get me wrong, I kind of felt sorry for the little chap, cause he’s a terrier, like me, so that’s a plus for starters. BUT, I’m sorry, if you don’t like water in the first place, don’t jump in it! Then to start swimming AWAY from his owner, which he must have done - then words fail me. The little chap’s definitely lacking in grey matter. Or perhaps he’s senile.

And this one Even more stupid dog! about a dog that stood guard over some cute kittens whilst a fire raged around him simply shows his stupidity. Yeah, it’s a cute story ‘cause he was revived and the little cute kittens survived too, but why didn’t the stupid mutt MOVE the kittens out of the burning house instead of simply sit and watch them? Now he’s being heralded a hero for passing out! No doubt he’ll have his own aftershave, exercise DVD and bestselling autobiography before you know it. All the best bitches will be swooning over him just because he was overcome by smoke. I don’t get it!

Uncle Hugh's puppy has come to stay

One of Uncle Hugh’s puppies came over to stay yesterday with her husband and their own little puppy called Annabelle. GOD, I AM SHATTERED! Why humans decide to keep their puppies for more than eight weeks beats me! Why don’t they just sell them or if they can’t do that why don’t they give them away? I mean, after eight weeks it all goes downhill doesn’t it? Human puppies simply become more and more hard work the older they get. I overheard Uncle Hugh saying to mum once that his own puppies are STILL hard work and they’re in their thirties, which is ANCIENT. It’s nearly as old as mum. Mum’s sensible. Mum doesn’t have any puppies. Mum only has me and I can look after myself (almost), I’m never naughty, and even when I was a very tiny puppy I never pooed or peed inside the house – except that time when I had colitis and had a VERY bad accident inside mum’s car – but we don’t talk about that much!

Anyway, I’m digressing. This little human puppy, Annabelle, she wants to play with me ALL THE TIME. Now don’t get me wrong, I like playing – with adults. Because adults tire easily, know when to stop and their games normally involve socks or food but Annabelle WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE. And her games are daft. A lot of the time, she wants me to pretend to be her own puppy! Perrrllleeeassse! I am nearly four! I am an adult! She tried to put a dolly dress on me yesterday. NO WAY! I am SO not gay! In the end, I went and hid in the spare room, and then mum came and joined me and said, “She’s so doing my head in”. I don’t really know what that means but I guess she isn’t mad keen on human puppies either; otherwise she’d have had one of her own wouldn’t she?

There is one saving grace - she drops food everywhere, which irritates mum but I'm enjoying clearing up after her!

Mum's a Nasty Bitch (Sometimes)

I’ve had a poorly paw and been ill, so that’s why I’ve not written for a few days. Don’t get me wrong I love my mum, but she has a really mean, vicious, nasty side to her. Every time I’m ill, she takes me to this horrid place called “The Vets” where this horrid man in a white coat puts me on a slippery table, manhandles me, shoves things in my orifices and then sticks sharp needles in me. HOW MEAN IS THAT???? I mean, when you’re feeling crap that is the LAST THING you want someone to do to you. When you’re feeling good it’s bad enough, but when you’re ill, it’s a nightmare. SO WHY DOES SHE DO IT TO ME? WHY IS SHE SO CRUEL? The laughable thing is, when we’re on our way home from my torture she has the cheek to say “You’ll feel better after that”. AS IF!!!! Then she says “Don’t look at me as if I were the daughter of Satan. It was for your own good.” FOR MY OWN GOOD? WHO IS SHE KIDDING? The even MEANER thing is that this horrid Vet man always messes around with the bits that hurt! IT IS TORTURE – PURE AND SIMPLE!

If I were in charge, I would outlaw these horrid The Vets. It shouldn’t be allowed. Mum should have to go on a course to sort out her sadistic streak. Surely, she’s got to be guilty of dog abuse? I wouldn’t want her put in jail or anything because I love her but I still think she needs counselling or something. The thing is, it’s not just mum. There are lots of people who own animals who have the same nasty streak – I see them in the waiting room of The Vets with their quivering, terrified pets - all wondering why their cruel owners are taking them for torture when they should be showing sympathy and compassion when they’re ill.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Humans are weird!

Mr Brown, Mr King and Dogs' Bollocks

Mum was ranting to Uncle Hugh this morning. She says that this guy called Mr Brown - who’s in charge of Downing Street in the UK - and this other guy called Mr King who lives in a big Bank in England and who I think is the Queen’s husband – have made a real ‘dogs bollocks’ of everything. Is that so bad?

Anyway, according to mum, these two guys have been telling the whole world that the UK is in recession, and so the markets are in a real mess again – all the cheese and stuff aren’t selling, the Credit Munch is worse than ever and mum’s cross. She said “Why didn’t they keep their stupid mouths shut? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that telling the world you’re failing is hardly going to encourage folk to invest in you is it? How THICK can you get?” I think the Queen should have told her husband, Mr King, not to say anything. After all, she is in charge of the paper money in the UK - I know because her face is plastered all over it. She should have exercised more control over him. She should assert herself as Alpha Bitch, like mum does with me. I always do as I'm told (nearly).

I don’t really understand what a recession is, but it’s obviously something you don’t tell folk about, because it upsets mum, and I don’t like mum being upset. I think perhaps a recession is something to do with folk not having much money or plastic to spend. It’s certainly not affecting that Sarah Palin Pit Bull woman, I heard she’s spent more than £10 on her frocks and handbags and stuff since she got engaged to that really, REALLY old man, the one who is trying to be President of the US and whose name I can never remember. That is a LOT of money to spend on frocks. I bet nice man Mr Obama hasn’t spent anywhere near as much as that on his suits.

Clueless Parents, the New Generation & Natural Selection

Mum says that some people should have to go on ‘parenting classes’ before they bring children into the world. When my mum got me, apparently she went to classes where they told her how to look after little puppies and discipline dogs. Now I’m the perfect specimen – I am the best-behaved dog in the world – most of the time. When she’s not looking I sometimes do naughty things, but I’m digressing.

Mum says that these days the types of people who are having the most children are “...the jobless, brainless, lowlife” – I guess she means unemployed, unintelligent small people. She says a lot of them are still children themselves. She says the offspring of these types will themselves turn into “jobless, brainless, lowlife” because they don’t know any better. Meanwhile, she says that the rest of the populous – hardworking, intelligent folk tend not to have children, or at least only one or two at a time, because they can’t afford to. She said the world will be overrun with “jobless, brainless, lowlife” and what will happen then? “Well, they certainly won’t find a cure for cancer will they?” she ranted to Uncle Hugh. “How are we expected to find our future politicians, entrepreneurs, nurses, doctors, solicitors etcetera out of the load of garbage pondlife that is presently growing up with parents like this?…” and she showed him this article Clueless Mother.

Uncle Hugh said that politicians and solicitors have always been pondlife anyway so what’s new?

Mum’s got a point. If the intelligent folk don’t have children and the folk like the woman in that article do have children, then the world will eventually be run by people like the daughter of that clueless mother. Or perhaps it won’t run. Maybe it will simply grind to a halt because it’ll be full of people who don’t have any brain cells, people who just want to watch daytime TV, drink lots of beer, smoke lots of cigarettes and eat junk food. Or, maybe it will be run by a few elite – the few offspring of the few intelligent folk. But then who will pay for all the hordes of ‘lowlife’ as my mum calls them? Perhaps they’ll just be allowed to die off – I think it’s called Natural Selection – yes, perhaps that’s what will happen.

I’m not going to worry about it. Perhaps I’ll be in doggy heaven by then.

With friends like these........

I reckon it can’t be much fun being a really big celebrity. And I mean a proper celebrity, not one of those types of celebrities that mum was talking about earlier in the week. I mean someone who is famous because they HAVE got lots and lots and lots of talent. Like that woman called Madonna. I like Madonna. Mum plays her music when we go somewhere in the car and it makes me all sleepy and sometimes mum plays Madonna in the house and she dances a lot and it makes me cringe because mum is no spring pup, believe me.

Anyway, I’m digressing. I feel sorry for this Madonna woman because she’s splitting up from her hubby so she must be very sad. I know my mum would be sad if she didn’t live with Uncle Hugh anymore. But the very sad thing is that there are ‘friends’ of Madonna who have suddenly started talking about her to the newspapers and telling them lots of things about her private life and mum reckons that most of it is “a load of wanky bollocks that should be taken with a pinch of salt”. I don’t know what “wanky bollocks” are but they’are obviously edible. Anway, I do think that if they were REALLY friends of Madonna, they wouldn’t be saying anything at all. I thought friends were people who liked you, supported you in bad times and who were loyal to you. Dogs are very loyal, that’s why they call a dog Man’s Best Friend. True friends wouldn’t gossip to the newspaper would they? And it’s fairly obvious even to me, and I’m just a dog, that what these friends have said is what I call a Pack of Lies - Take this with a pinch of salt

Mum, detox and Dirty Dancing

Uncle Hugh’s back and I’m so relieved. Whilst he’s been away, mum has been talking to me all day and I can’t always understand what she says because she uses big words. AND she watched that Dirty Dancing DVD about one million times and every time she watches it SHE CRIES. I used to think that it was the law for women to watch Dirty Dancing, Ghost or Moulin Rouge when their men were away until I spoke to Claude – the fat yellow Labrador down the road - and he said that it wasn’t the law at all, which REALLY surprised me.

Just a digression about Claude. He can speak English because his mum’s English. Claude has had quite a few mums and dads because he’s got this problem with house training and can’t grasp that humans want dogs to poo outside and not in the kitchen. So he tends to upset folk. Claude’s very thick, but then again he’s a Labrador.

Right – back to mum. Why does she watch Dirty Dancing if it upsets her? I don’t get it. Also, whenever Uncle Hugh’s away she does this ‘detox’ thing. She says that men make women fat. I reckon that stuffing your face with food all day and not doing enough exercise is what makes you fat. Mum’s not fat but she thinks she is. That’s another thing about human women. They all think they have big bums. I don’t get it. Anyway – this detox thing. It means that she drinks a bit of warm water and lemon juice in a morning, she has a small portion of fruit at lunchtime then she has soup in the evening. In the meantime, she walks me for an hour and then she puts this "exercise" DVD on and jumps up and down for about an hour and gets all sweaty then she looks really miserable for the rest of the day. NO WONDER! That’s why I’m always happy when Uncle Hugh comes back from the UK.

Also, this time she was going on about getting old and she kept saying to me “Look at my wrinkles, Henry” so I did as I was told, because I’m a good dog, and I looked and looked at her wrinkles, but nothing happened. Nothing! I wonder why she wanted me to look at her wrinkles? In the end she told me off, she said, “Stop staring at me”. I can’t do anything right! I think she’s got PMS.

This is a serious post about suffering

Us dogs aren’t allowed to suffer. If we are suffering so badly or if our lives become impossible to bear lots of us have owners who love us to bits and who would ensure that we are put out of our misery. I find it reassuring that mum would never let me suffer.

Unfortunately human beings don’t have that reassurance, because it is illegal to put a human being out of his or her misery. Human beings in most parts of the world are expected to simply put up with it and some end up with a terrible existence or have to suffer a long painful death. My mum had to watch her own mum die very slowly and painfully because of the laws in the UK. Mum says that life is more than breath, and I agree with her. Here is a very sad story about a young man who wasn't in insufferable pain, but who could no longer bear living. It made mum cry. A very brave young man

What Brits do in their spare time.

A new electrical store opened yesterday in the UK, somewhere near a place called Birmingham, which I think is a bigger version of that Rotherham place I was telling you about i.e. it’s full of REALLY fat people, binge drinkers, teenage mums and it’s where the police put you if you’ve been very bad.

Anyway, I’m digressing. This store selling useless stuff like TV’s and computers opened with a sale and the people of the West Midlands got SO excited that they formed a humongous queue outside the store. Some people started queuing at night and the store didn’t open until the morning! The queue was so big and there was so much traffic that the police had to close a part of the M6, which is a big motorway in the UK that was built so that people can escape from Birmingham, or avoid it altogether. Mum said there were 3000 people in the queue and that some people were injured. What Brits do in their spare time. Mum said it could only happen in the UK.

I can’t count very well. I can count up to ten and that’s it. Ten people is a lot. I get frightened when there are more people than I can count because odds are on that I will get trod on. So I think that 3000 would be a lot of people too.

I can’t understand humans. In my spare time I like to do something nice - I play with my toys, play with Uncle Hugh, chew my chews, update my blog and go for walks with mum. It seems to me that what humans do in their spare time is simply stare at a TV, and when they’re not doing that they’re shopping or, it seems, queuing outside a shop hoping to get in at some point. And humans are supposed to be cleverer than us dogs! I don’t think so!

How to become a Celebrity in the UK

Mum was talking to me today because Uncle Hugh’s still away and she's nobody to talk to in English. All her other friends over here in France speak that strange 'gobbledygook'. So I guess she's lonely. Anyway she says that to be a ‘celebrity’ in the UK these days you no longer have to have talent. She says that having talent can actually be a hindrance. Apparently you don't have to be the brightest bulb either.

According to mum, other things that can help you to become famous in the UK are these:

- taking drugs (particularly if you are a model or a singer)
- having very large breasts
- having very large breasts and being filmed having them surgically reduced
- marrying someone really famous
- having one leg and marrying someone really famous
- sleeping with men who kick footballs around for a living and then telling the newspapers all about it.
- marrying men who kick footballs around for a living
- getting engaged to men who kick footballs around for a living
- having puppies with men who kick footballs around for a living
- being really bitchy whilst on Big Brother
- doing rude things whilst being on Big Brother
- being on Big Brother
- being on any other reality TV programme
- having an ASBO
- having an ASBO and auditioning for X-Factor
- being really REALLY crap and still auditioning for X-Factor
- winning loads of money and then spending it all whilst making everybody’s life a misery Lotto lout Mikey Carroll. (Please accept apologies for source of story - The Sun is not one of my fave newspapers)

I do think the UK is weird.

Uncle Hugh's away, and it's not much fun!

Uncle Hugh’s gone to the UK for a few days in a flying bus, so it’s just me and mum. It’s not the same when Uncle Hugh’s away because I don’t get any Haribo Jellies and mum never drops her food on the floor when she’s eating, so I don’t get any titbits. Also, when mum’s having a rant, she ends up ranting at me when Uncle Hugh isn’t here. In fact, when he’s not here she tends to talk to me ALL THE TIME. It can be quite tiring so I often go in my basket and pretend that I’m asleep.

ALSO, mum doesn’t wrestle with me or play games like ‘fetch the sock’, in fact she growls when I steal her socks and says I’ve been a ‘bad boy’. And she rolls her eyes and says ‘not now’ when I give her one of my ‘play with me’ looks.

ALSO, mum tends to groom me when Uncle Hugh’s away and she puts this stuff on me to kill fleas. I don’t like it, it smells. I don’t mind fleas, she should leave them alone. They don’t do any harm and it’s good fun to have a good scratch now and then.

I think Uncle Hugh’s gone back to ‘have a look at his finances ‘. Or something like that. Does that mean that he’s going to put all his plastic in a big pile in front of him and stare at it? What good will that do? It’s all to do with this Credit Munch boring thing. Mum thinks they might not have enough plastic to keep living in France and she’s really worried about going back to live in the UK. In fact, sometimes she cries. I’m not bothered where we live, as long as it isn’t in that Rotherham place that I told you about. I’m quite happy about living in the UK because, as I told you, mum says it’s gone to the dogs – GREAT!

Smacking, Dog Borstal and the Rattle Bottle

Mum says that whilst all this Credit Munch nonsense was going on last week some NULabour people were sneakily trying to pass an amendment to a bill that would stop parents from being able to smack their puppies Smacking children is a decision for parents - Telegraph.

I don’t really know what a bill is now. I initially thought it was a piece of paper that nice Monsieur De Poste delivers in our postbox and makes mum sigh heavily when she looks at it and say “Shit”. So how can a bill stop you from doing something?

Anyway I’m digressing. Mum says that at the moment, people in the UK can slap their puppies, as long as they don’t do it too hard. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. I reckon there are lots of human puppies in the UK that need a good slap. Horrid, badly behaved, rude little blighters most of them. Mum says that if it were made illegal then lots of stroppy teenagers and some smaller puppies could make their parents’ lives hell. She said that a teenager in a strop is capable of doing horrid things and that they’d probably call the police whenever they wanted to get their own way and lie to them that their parents had slapped them and the police would then have to arrest the parents. She said some teenagers already lie about teachers hitting them. She said that it would be chaos, with stroppy teenagers all over the country dialling 999 whenever they were grounded or simply told not to do something.

Why don’t they have Dog Borstal for human puppies? I like Dog Borstal, it’s on BBC3 in the UK – it's a bit like that Dog Whisperer programme that they have in the US. Dog Borstal is where useless dog owners go to be re-educated, and they take their dogs with them for company. Some of the owners are so useless to start with they can’t even walk to heel, but they really improve after a stint at dog borstal. I used to like a cool guy there called Mick, until he said that Mini Schnauzers were useless. Now I prefer that tubby one – Robert I think his name is. If they sent the naughty human puppies there I’m sure a few days with Mick, Robert, that woman with the bad teeth and the magic rattle bottle would work wonders.

I'm Sick of the Credit Munch

Now it’s my turn to have a rant. Normally it’s mum ranting but now it’s me. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE CREDIT MUNCH!!!! There! I’ve said it. Mum has become a SMB – a Stock Market Bore. We used to have interesting stuff on TV (my favourite programme is Dog Borstal) but now all we have is CNBC Europe and mum and Uncle Hugh are glued to the screen watching these numbers go along the bottom of it and sometimes they are in red, which makes them sigh a lot, and sometimes they are in green, which still makes them sigh a lot.

Mum keeps talking about the property market and how houses aren’t worth as much anymore. SO WHAT! DOES IT STOP PEOPLE FROM LIVING IN THEM? NO!!! If your house is worth £10 one week, then £5 the next week how does it change the way you’re living in it? Does it being worth more make it more comfortable? I really need to know because I’ve not noticed any difference with our house over here in France. It seems EXACTLY the same to me. My baskets are in the same place and so is everything else. It smells the same and it’s not got any smaller.

Also, mum keeps saying to Uncle Hugh that there’s going to be something called a procession and that money will be short. I don’t get it. The solution is simple. PRINT MORE MONEY!!!!! Simple isn’t it? And I’m just a dog! I wish I could talk sometimes then I’d be able to give them advice - then there wouldn't be all these problems.

Insane Britain

I found out today that if you are a poor person who lives in a poor country and if you have lots and lots of children you can go to the UK and the kind people in the government there will pay you lots of money for doing nothing and put you and your children in a GREAT BIG HOUSE - all for free- Insane Britain

I guess it's very charitable of the people in the government in the UK to do that but it doesn't seem very fair to me. I know I'm only a dog so I don't really know about these things but my mum never got anything for free in the UK, and she was born there. In fact she PAID money to the government when she lived there. I think the thing she paid was called "fooking taxes" and Uncle Hugh paid "fooking taxes" too. Mum also paid a thing called a "bloody mortgage" so that she could live in her house there. She didn't get her house for free, so how come if you're from another country and if you've never paid "fooking taxes" how come you can get all this free stuff? According to mum some folk who're getting all this free stuff are even plotting to do nasty things to the people of the UK, like blow them up with bombs and things, like they did on 7/7. It seems very strange to me that the UK government are happy to pay people to do that.

I reckon if the UK was run by dogs it would be more fair. If I were in charge I'd let mum live in a great big house for free and I'd give mum lots of money and make the other people, like that Afghan woman, work and pay "fooking taxes" and a "bloody mortgage" instead.

Sinister goings on in the US?

I heard mum talking to Uncle Hugh last night and she said, “something sinister is happening in the US”. I don’t know what sinister means, but I know the US – it’s that big place where they don’t like the TV series Little Britain, they have a president who’s also a really famous comedian, they have a woman who’s trying to be president who thinks she’s a Pit Bull and who also thinks that the world was made in only six days, and they have a nice blackish man called Obama who wants to make everything alright for everyone but mum reckons “it’s going to be almost impossible for him to get in, unfortunately”. I heard her say that many Americans wouldn’t vote for Mr Obama because he isn’t the right breed – perhaps they prefer that Pit Bull Sarah Palin or that really, really, really old guy whose name I keep forgetting – the one that Sarah Palin is supporting because he’s so old he can’t walk very well. I guess some people prefer different types of breeds to others. Some folk don’t like Mini Schnauzers so I guess if I put myself up to be president, those folk wouldn’t vote for me.

Anyway, I’m digressing. Mum seems to be shocked that in the US there is this religious place where people can go to be cured of liking people who are the same sex . I think she called it a “Gay Boot Camp”. I think Gay means that you’re really happy all the time and you’re a man who likes men - so why would you want to be cured of that? Mum likes men, but she’s not gay. She would only be gay if she were a man, AND she lived with Uncle Hugh. Mum says that in the US there seems to be a huge “upsurge of the happy-clappy mentality, which is rather scary because it seems to be squeezing logic and reason out of the minds of the people it's infecting. Extremism never works and mis-guided folk are the most dangerous on this planet”. I don’t understand a word of what she said but she seemed a bit concerned. She said that many ‘happy-clappy’ religious people don’t like gays and think they’re evil.

Mum says that a gay person is born gay, it isn’t a matter of choice and so how can someone be condemned for being born a certain way? She’s got a point. I didn’t CHOOSE to be born a Mini Schnauzer, did I? Does it make me a bad dog? NO! Mum is very wary of religion and religious folk. Mum doesn’t like people telling her what she should and should not believe in. Mum likes gay folk, she likes Mr Obama, she doesn’t like that war in Iraq, she likes Jeremy Clarkson, she doesn’t want there to be World War III so she really doesn’t want that really really really old man and that Pit Bull Sarah Palin or any other really religious folk to be in charge of the world, and neither do I.

Official - the people of Rotherham are Revolting

There’s a guy in the UK with a big fat tongue who cooks things and lisps, and he’s famous for it. I think he’s called Jamie Oliver. Anyway, this Jamie bloke has really upset some folk in a place called Rotherham in the North of England. Apparently they're up in arms about it and a revolt is taking place. I think Rotherham is where all the very VERY fat people, the teenage mums, the benefit cheats and the binge drinkers of the UK live – I think they’ve been put there because nobody else wants them in their town and I think they live on donner kebabs and strong cider. I think you might also be put there as punishment if you do something bad – I would imagine that for those sentenced to Rotherham, the re-offending rate is really low.

Anyway, I’m digressing. I heard mum speaking to Uncle Hugh and she said that this Jamie Oliver bloke has upset the people of Rotherham because he made out that they were all numpties who can’t cook. Mum once had to live in Rotherham because she was born there (that’s a BIG, BIG secret and she’d kill me if she knows I’ve told you) and she says it’s true. Mum says there 250,000 folk living in Rotherham with only 249,000 brain cells between them. Mum says that the centre of Rotherham is full of swamp life, kebab houses, pubs and betting shops and that the place should be condemned.

I don’t think I’d like to live in Rotherham if it’s full of teenage mums, benefit cheats and binge drinkers. I don’t like teenage mums because i) I don’t like teenagers – who does? and ii) I don’t like children - they make me growl. I don’t know any benefit cheats so I can’t comment on those, but I think they might be naughty. As for binge drinkers, I don’t particularly want to meet one because really drunk folk tend to tread on little dogs, but I don’t mind vomit – us dogs are quite keen on that, saying that I’m still glad that mum doesn’t live in Rotherham anymore.

Elf & Safety Gone Mad - Again!

Mum says the ‘elf & safety police’ have struck again – they want to change the wording to the Police Bravery Awards as follows:

They claim that the current citation - praising officers for acting 'with no thought to his or her safety' - sends out the wrong message and should be toned down to 'fully recognising the risks to their own safety'.

Mum started ranting and kind of gnashing her teeth and jumping up and down and screaming lots and saying “stoopid fooking eediots where will it end?” and then Uncle Hugh asked her if she had something that he calls PMS and that made her even MORE mad and so Uncle Hugh went for a drive and I retired to my basket under the table.

I don’t know what the Police Bravery Awards are. Maybe they are for policemen who arrest the most homeowners who've attacked folk whilst they've been burgling their home, which is against the law in the UK unless you’ve done a risk assessment first – I’m sure that’s what mum said, or something like that.

Anyway, I did some research on this ‘elf & safety’ thing in the UK and apparently it’s so bad that someone has even wrote a book about it called “Playing It Safe” that tells of some very, very strange regulations that the ‘elf & safety police’ have drawn up in the UK. A few examples of some very daft things they’ve done

• An ice cream shop was banned from pouring it’s sticky toppings on its ice-creams in case some fell on the floor and made someone slip (can’t they just mop it up or can’t people just look where they’re going?)
  
• A village was banned from flying bunting at its village fete because it was deemed to be a hazard (it had been doing it for 100 years without incident)
  
• A fireman was stopped by his superior from throwing a lifeline to a drowning man because he hadn’t completed a ‘risk assessment’ and told him to ring the Coast Guard instead (they were in the landlocked midlands).
  
• A firm stopped their staff from putting up Christmas decorations because their insurance didn’t cover their employees standing on chairs or climbing up ladders (their insurers told them they would have to recruit professionals to do it)
  
• A 2yr old couldn’t have her paddling pool in the back garden unless she had a life guard (requires no comment).
  
  I could go on but I won’t because it makes me very depressed.

Human's are strange.

I really like the UK TV comedy show Little Britain, but I read today that lots of people in the United States don’t like it. I don’t understand the people in the United States. You’d think that people who choose a comedian for their president would have a good sense of humour wouldn’t you? I guess different things appeal to different people. I mean, I really like nasty smells, but mum doesn’t. I like to eat food that is rotting, but mum and Uncle Hugh don’t. They say things like “Oh God!... (What’s Jeremy Clarkson got to do with it?)...That smells off, we can’t eat that” and I think “I CAN!” but they just throw it away.

Just thinking about different things appealing to people - some people like a thing on television called Big Brother – where very odd folk are filmed all day doing really normal things like eating and drinking and showering and arguing and lots of people in the UK actually sit and watch them do these really normal things and think it’s great! Then at the end of it, the odd folk who have been filmed are called ‘celebrities’ and they end up with their own perfume, keep-fit DVD and best selling autobiography. I think humans are weird.

Some people like a thing on television called XFactor too – it goes like this: there are four people sitting at a table in a big room, and other people come into the room, stand in front of the four people and start making a noise – some noises are really awful and some noises aren’t bad – then the four people sat at the table make nasty comments or nice comments and decide if the people making the noises can come back and do it again next week. And guess what – those four people making the comments are paid LOADS and LOADS of money – probably more than £10 each.

There’s no accounting for taste is there?