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NHS CRISIS: SUNAK ACTS

Bird Guano's

SAUSAGE LIFE
The column that occasionally says maybe but often actually means perhaps

READER: I've had it with Netflix.

MYSELF: Yes, I know what you mean. Its the new Blockbusters.

READER: At least at 'Busters you would usually come home with something, even if it was an animated Scandi version of the film you actually wanted. What are we supposed to do now that proper live entertainment doesn't exist any more? It's all dead in the water, like our great British pantomime tradition.

MYSELF: That's where you're wrong - for example last week I was lucky enough to get tickets to a 2024 production of the Vera Lynne Memorial Panto & Tea Dance at the Upper DIcker Pilates Centre, starring Jason Donovan as Rishi-Washi the Chinese money-laundry boy.

READER: Woof! That sounds edgy.

MYSELF: White Cliffs of Dover never sounded so fascist. It was not only edgy but gritty and dare I say it, daring. I mean, where else would you come across a pantomime man worked by two horses?

READER: Horses? Don't be ridiculous. How would that work?

MYSELF: One at the front, one at the back.

READER: Of course.

MYSELF: After the Panto they had mind games, abstract expressionist face painting, pass the suspicious parcel and later, after the children had cleared off, stilting.

READER: Stilting? What’s that?

MYSELF: This is a family paper, so I’m afraid I’ll have to tell you some other time, in private. Suffice it to say everyone went home smiling.

DICTIONARY CORNER

Poppycock (n) the shrivelled penis of an opium addict

Sewage (n) the aftermath of too much needlework

WARRIORS' WOES

Hastings & St. Leonards Warriors have appointed a new head coach, gifted psychic and amateur ventriloquist Seaton Sluice, aka The Great Mento,who is looking forward to levitating the sagging fortunes of the ailing soccer club.
"I predict that this club is destined for the future", he told us without moving his lips, “I see great things ahead”.
No stranger to criticism, his controversial coaching methods include encouraging the team to communicate with the dead via a Ouijaboard, teaching them card tricks and conducting training sessions with Douglas his ventriloquist dummy.
“Douglas helps me get my tactics across to the players, some of whom are, frankly, a bit thick. Battle-scarred midfield enforcer Nobby Balaclava for instance, still has to have his boots labelled left and right, and Irish striker Finnigan Swake is well known for forgetting to wear his shorts when coaching the ladies team”.
The new coach, formerly manager of Herstmonceux Cannibals FC replaces disgraced Italian supremo Sergio ‘The Horse’ Peccadillo, whose departure coincides with accusations of inappropriate behaviour with team physio Sabrina Devine (aka Lulu LaVerne). She alleges that il capo showered her with a succession of suggestive gifts, including a studded leather apron illustrated with scenes from My Fair Lady and a set of casserole dishes with pictures of scantily clad ladies whose clothes disappeared when they were put in the oven.

CAT SAT
Issue 666 of Witch, the consumer magazine dedicated to occult-based mumbo-jumbo, features an interview with Hastings inventor Professor Gordon Thinktank, in which he recommends that all black cats be fitted with his latest innovation, an anti-bad luck helmet dubbed The Cat-Nav. The satellite-linked device automatically detects when an innocent stroller’s path is likely to be crossed by the animal and transmits an electronic image of a plump, delicious mouse directly into the predatory area of the cat ‘s brain. This distracts the animal whilst emitting a piercing siren which prompts the pedestrian to take evasive action. The inventor, according to Witch, is also working on a ladder which automatically folds up when anyone attempts to walk under it.

ASK THE JUDGE

In which readers' legal questions are addressed by His Worship Lord Justice Hyphen-Hyphen KC & Bar.

Dear Your Worship

As a one-man pantomime swan act, I implore you to settle this question once and for all. Are pantomime swans required to conform to the same Equity regulations as pantomime horses? I mean, does there have to be one small actor in the front and another one in the back? I enclose a publicity shot of me in my one-man-operated swan costume, described by Stage magazine as “more swan-like than the real thing”. However thanks to intense union pressure, I now find myself effectively blacklisted in the pantomime swan community.

Melvin Twollet, Hartlepool

VERDICT:

Whilst I sympathise with your current employment difficulties, this is a matter of health and safety. Equity rule 2177114(b) specifies that there should at all times be two small actors inside every pantomime swan, (see Quigley vs Theatre Royal Doncaster 1948), principally so that the one in the rear can act as a guard.

Your Honour,
Is it true that if one is bitten by, or receives a severe scratch from the claws of a badger (Meles meles), one might eventually turn into a badger? What I would like to know is, if that were to occur, where would one stand, legally?

Beatrice Rasputin (Mrs),

Lilliputtenden, Wessex

VERDICT:
An interesting question, which brings immediately to mind the notorious precedent of Schultz v Stott (Nottingham Crown Court 1993).
After being bitten by a badger, window-cleaner Darren Schultz woke up the following morning with the overwhelming notion that he was a badger. With the aid of hair dyes and a small fortune spent on nose operations, he was eventually able to, as he put it, “go and live in the woods with my people".
During the court appearance shortly after his arrest for causing a nuisance in the garden of his former neighbour Angelica Stoat, council for the defence argued that since he now lived in the woods and foraged for insects and the occasional earthworm and furthermore had been cautioned on several occasions for urban bin raiding, he should now be classed as a badger. One witness for the prosecution swore under oath that Mr. Schultz, had given TB to one of his cows.

The magistrate, former dairy farmer Wilhelmina Salamander would have none of this, ruling that becoming like a badger was not the same as becoming a badger, and ordered that the defendant be culled.

Sausage Life!

Rarely-seen 2Os German Expressionist film about a strange spanner-worshipping cult

EPISODE1:
Travel & transportation

EPISODE2:
Body Parts

EPISODE 3:
Telephones

EPISODE 4:
Economics

EPISODE 5:
Misheard Lyrics

EPISODE 6:
MILK

Click image to connect. Alice's Crazy Moon is an offbeat monthly podcast hosted by Alice Platt (BBC, Soho Radio) with the help of roaming reporter Bird Guano a.k.a Colin Gibson (Comic Strip Presents, Sausage Life). Each episode centres around a different topic chosen by YOU the listener! The show is eclectic mix of music, facts about the artists and songs, surrealistic sponsors, Bird Guano's phone-in and of course, Poetry Corner featuring everyones favourite poet, Big Pillow!

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