We’re warning you – If you don’t come out we’ll have to come in. We’ve got weapons, and we’re not afraid to use them… OK, we’ll count to ten… one…

So the British Army have announced that they are about to launch a major new offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It’s thought that making a prior announcement might persuade some of the Taliban soldiers to surrender.

Why didn’t the Allied Forces think of this before D-Day? If the Germans had known they might have surrendered and saved an awful lot of unpleasant business.

"OK Carruthers, let 'em 'ave it."

Eight out of ten cats prefer an intelligent owner.

As the owner of two cats I am pleased to read the results of a scientific study by the Government Department for Wasting Taxpayer’s Money on Pointless Scientific Studies that cat owners are more likely to have university degrees than dog owners. According to Dr. Jane Murray, Cats Protection Lecturer in Feline Epidemiology, who led the study at the University of Bristol: “Cats require less time per day than a dog, so they are more popular with educated people who work late and have long commutes.” 

It’s good to see that my hard-earned tax is being spent wisely. It’s believed in her spare time Dr. Murray works for the Department for Stating the Bleeding Obvious. 

"Hmmm... very interesting."

Things I Would Consign To Room 101: No. 2

It’s a tie for number 2, quite literally, as I go with JD’s suggestion of the novelty tie. If you feel you need to wear a novelty tie around the office to say “look at me – I’m funny me!” then, just like the wearing of novelty socks for the same effect, you are not funny. You are a to55er.

No. 2:The Novelty Tie.

Things I Would Consign to Room 101: No. 1. Novelty socks.

Following on from yesterday’s posting on the London Air Ambulance Service, I see in newspaper headlines that ambulance chiefs are threatening to sack paramedics who wear novelty socks. I guess they have a point – if I suffering a heart attack and some bloke in a green uniform was bearing down on my chest with a defibrillator, I’m not sure the last image I’d wish to see before departing this earth would be a bright pair of socks bearing a painfully unfunny slogan along the lines of “I’ve got 12 inches but I don’t use it as a rule!”

I was thinking the other day I might start a Things I Would Consign to Room 101 thread to to55er’s Blog. If I do then perhaps first on the list should be novelty socks. They don’t say funny, they say to55er.

"I think it's a heart attack. Get the defibrillator!"

“You have reached the all-new 24-hour London Air Ambulance Service emergency hotline. Please call back during normal working hours.

My son being a paramedic, I listened with interest at today’s announcement that the London Air Ambulance is to run a 24-hour service. A 24-hour service has not been previously possible as the London air ambulance helicopter is not equipped to fly and land safely at night. However, due to the large cost involved, rather than equip the air ambulance helicopter so that it will be able to fly and land safely at night, during the hours of darkness the Service are intending to attend emergencies via road in a normal ambulance.

Now I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, so correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears that the Air Ambulance Service are to run a 24-hour service, except during the hours of darkness, when they will run a normal, road based, ambulance service.

Am I missing something?

The Air Ambulance Crew stop off in Piccadilly Circus for a McDonalds breakfast.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.

Being a fiftysomething I may be a bit mutton (Cockney rhyming slang for deaf to any non-Londoners wasting time reading this blog) but nevertheless I hear from the Department of Pointless Scientific Studies that it’s more receptive to apologise into someone’s right ear. According to my confidential sources “scientists” at the University of Valencia found that…

Sorry – what’s that you say – file this one under Boring Story of the Day?

"Apology accepted".

The CIA ping-pong ball conspiracy.

Continuing with Things you Don’t Need To Know About London, and looking for a new bus system for its capital Havana, Che Guevara – at the time Cuba’s Transport Minister – placed an order for 450 London buses. The height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the sale and export defied a United States’ trade embargo, and after much wrangling, in October 1964 an East German ship with 24 buses onboard eventually set sail, Cuba bound, from the Port of London. In thick fog the ship soon collided with a Japanese vessel and promptly sank, along with the buses. The buses were later recovered from the River Thames, raised to the surface by filling them with ping-pong balls. 

Conspiracy still surrounds the “accident”, with a finger of suspicion pointing towards CIA involvement. 

"Two singles to Cuba please".

Tony Blair breaks into song at the public enquiry into the Iraq War.

And now the end is near

And so I face the Iraq enquiry

My friend I’ll say it clear

I’ll state my case, I’ll state it boldly.

 

Iraq was a threat to the western world

Until we bombed each and every highway

And more, much more than this

We did it my way.

 

Regrets, I have none

But then again… no, none to mention

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption.

 

I planned our army’s course

Each careful step along their highways

And we bombed, we bombed them all

And we did it my way.

 

Yes there were times I’m sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew

But through it all when there was doubt

I made it up and spun it out;

I faced it all, Bush and all

And did it our way.

 

For what is a man what has he got

If not himself then he has not

To do the things he truly feels

And not bow down at Saddam’s heels

The record shows he took the blows

And they came from my way.

Que sera sera, whatever will be will be.

Yesterday being both Holocaust Memorial Remembrance Day and the 65^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, a person under the guise of Beheader69 left the following comments on my 10 June 2009 posting regarding Zyklon-B, the poison used to murder over a million Jews and other “undesirables” in the Auschwitz gas chambers:

I love zyklon-B

Spare me these memorials,what happened happened and that s it.in fact many of them deserved it.kisses from romania(gypsy land)

My apologies for the lack of grammar and punctuation, but then I imagine this person struggles to string a sentence together, let alone put the words of the sentence down in the correct order.

It’s a little unfortunate we have to inhabit the same planet as such non-intellectual scummy pond-life, but que sera sera…

I don't think 'Giftgas' was referring to the gift of life.

Things You Don’t Need To Know About London No. 14: Blue Posts

In the 1925 Willis O’Brien stop-frame animated film The Lost World the dinosaur is seen coming down Berwick Street in Soho and poking its head through the upstairs window of the Blue Posts pub. It could well have been looking for the vaudeville artist Jessie Matthews, who used to live upstairs.

The Blue Po...

There are a number of Blue Posts in Soho, one theory being that the posts once marked the boundary of a royal hunting ground, Soho taking its name from an old hunting cry.

The Blue Posts as it is today.