No place for the potato tricksters

There were shambolic scenes at Galatasaray and Reverb Dub Kingdom’s school sports day this week.

I understand that, after a lot of rumour and conjecture, there has now been an official complaint lodged against the conduct of Meithrin Team Glas. This apparently relates to an allegation that Team Glas have been engaging in the disgusting and dishonest practice of potato whittling.

Estyn’s Welsh National School Sports Day Regulations define potato whittling as: “The adjustment, via the application of force from an external object, of the shape of a potato, in order that its profile more accurately fits the corresponding profile of a table spoon.”

As you will no doubt be aware, egg and spoon races were rightly banned from school competitions in Wales after the tragic Briton Ferry egg and spoon disaster of 1998. But with the potato now regarded as the official replacement for the egg as counterpoint to the spoon, we are seeing more and more unscrupulous sports day teams realise the opportunities to influence results via whittling.

It is believed that in 2010, over 20 instances of potato whittling were investigated in South Wales alone. I am led to understand that in more than a dozen of these cases, there were also suggestions of unusual betting patterns in the run up to the events and the strong suggestion is that behind all this is a shady and illegal gambling racket, run by a powerful oligarchy of rival potato farming concerns.

Estyn’s Head Investigator was quoted on BBC Wales later as saying: “We will not tolerate the gaining of unfair advantage via potato whittling, and we will do everything in our power to bring the practice to an end.” Well those are fine words, but where is the action to back them up? In fact, there are even suggestions that Estyn’s inaction is down to the fact that they themselves have been corrupted by money from the potato barons.


As a casual observer, I was sickened to see competitor after competitor from Team Glas tearing down the home straight on Tuesday, with potato seemingly stuck to the spoon. The response of the authorities has been – as is often the case – wholly inadequate.


That is why I have written to First Minister Carwyn Jones AM to ask him to personally intervene to sort this mess out once and for all.

Why oh why oh why?

According to those faceless Brussels bureaucrats, it is apparently NOT OK to punch an owl anymore. Well, I say ‘punch’, but I understand that the new EU Owl Twatting Directive is so heavy-handed that it makes it nigh on impossible to even push an owl, nudge it, encourage its movement via gentle prodding, tell it forcibly to get a shift on or otherwise interfere with its normal movement in any way at all. Ludicrous!

2009's better moments #1

Album of the year?  Well, you'd be hard pushed to find a better one than The Phantom Band's 'Checkmate Savage'. In fact you won't find one, so stop looking. Give it up. You're wasting your bloody time.

Click here for the video: Phantom Band - 'The Howling'

The devil sits in the quiet carriage

I got the opportunity to experience the quiet carriage the other day, for the first time ever.

I'll admit, I was a bit giddy with excitement at the prospect of a whole carriage full of middle-aged, miserable, misanthropic pedants just waiting for the opportunity to quote railway by-laws to anyone careless enough to sneeze at a volume in excess of eight decibels.

Thank you First Great Western, but...

I know how to sit down, I know how the sodding doors work, I know what a buffet car sells - there's no need to list every item individually although I thank you for confirming to me that tea and coffee are examples of hot drinks, that cold drinks can be either carbonated or non-carbonated and that possible sandwich fillings include cheese, ham, chicken and tuna,

Lust for insurance

No, no, no, no, no.

Like everyone else, I have long suspected that television commercials are simply the moron’s wet-nurse – a load of half-invented, half-remembered horse shit set to a jaunty musical backing in order to trick us into filling our lives with stuff we don’t need or want.

I am not amazed

I’ve got to be honest, I’m not often amazed. Confused, disinterested, sick to the very core of my cold, dead soul… but rarely amazed.

The music doesn't matter anymore

“Shabba!” yells the man on the radio, in a groundbreaking moment of post-modern comedic clarity. There is a pause. “Shabba!” he shouts again. After a few background laughs, a voice yells “ting!”. More laughs. “Shabba!” yells the man once more, before a button is pressed in the studio, causing another voice to shout “Charlie Murphy!” By now, the laughter in the studio is quite pronounced.

A joke

Quack quack quack quack, quack quack.

Quack quack quack.

"Quack quack quack-quack quack quack quack?" quack quack quack.

"Quack," quack quack quack, "quack quack quack quack-quack-quack quack quack!!!!!!!"

I tell you what, if you spoke duck you'd know just how fucking funny that joke is.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha fucking ha

How much does a cockney pay for shampoo?

Pantene.

I thank you.