...or How to Make Friends and Influence People in Soho

I'm sure I've seen the blue guy in the John Snow...

'Speeches of Biches - they come for the calming pink background but stay for the stating the bleeding obvious'

"That is like, massively disrespecting of your trousers"

The Armstrong and Miller show has moved to BBC1 primetime, which, as any fan of comedy knows, means completely selling out and becoming rubbish and crap an' 'at. I haven't seen many episodes, but have actually been pleasantly suprised by how not rubbish it is, which has quite a lot to do with these characters:

Burning (ho ho) Questions of the Day

* Who keeps on burning the pile of refuse sacks full of chicken bones outside KFC in Crouch End?

This appears to happen about once a week and leads to the further query as to why a giant smoldering heap of orange plastic and bones smells distinctly like overcooked bacon.

I somehow doubt it is an organised protest like this photo rather than a load of little scallywags on their way to school. The ruffians!

*Why people are so shocked that that young girl was kicked off X Factor for happy slapping?

She's from North Finchley for chrissakes. There is not much to do in the 'armpit of london'* apart from smoke weed in carparks, try and get served in the Tally Ho and mooch up and down the grey streets looking for a brightly tracksuited youth to give you one round the back of Hollywood Bowl, so really her violence is proabably an artistic act of self expression at the grey futility of her homeland. Probably. In any case, she should be thankful. It's not like she lives in Friern Barnet.

* (c) Biche 2001

*Why there are so many ginger people in Eastenders?

I haven't seen this programme in a while but when I did I began to wonder if it was some special Comic Relief Episode or something. Bradley, his dad, Sean, Mickey, that kid who has the Manc dad...okay well that's it, but I heard that Patsy Kensit is coming back with a load of kids, at least one of which WILL be a ginge.

It has to be noted that I bare no ill will towards people of the gingery persuasion, hell, after a freak dying accident a long time ago I was one of them and was saddled with the nickname 'ginga' for at least four years, by which time I had blonde hair and anyone new who met me wondered why the hell I was nicknamed thus.

I do however find the ginger ratio in Eastenders, which purports to be a realistic soap set in the east end of London, quite amusing. At last count there were approximately four asian people and one black person in Eastenders, versus the four gingers. In the real east end of London there approx 77,885 asian people and only 1,956 ginger people*.

*based on my calculations of asian-white population percentages of Tower Hamlets plus the fact that 2% of caucasians are redheads. Thank you Wikipedia!

Belated Halloween Post 2007!

Halloween costume ideas for the disabled child in your life:

Lots more tips and tricks for costumes here!

What can I say? I'm just bitter because my costume consisted of a pink wig which I have had for three years... I decided to cut it into a bob this year for a 'fresh new look' (aka it was getting all ratty) and ended up looking like the girl from Lazytown rather than the 'Natalie Portman in Closer' look I was aiming for. The girl from Lazytown if she wrapped her pear shaped arse in a black mac and trudged around Whitechapel looking at carparks where 119 years ago some prostitutes were killed rather nastily. *

*Jack the Ripper tour, in case that wasn't clear. Pretty interesting, but only because of what the guy said, which I think would have had the same effect said on a warm coach instead of wandering around law firm carparks and back entrances to office blocks. Although I suppose there were a couple of old buildings that gave a sort of atmosphere, until we had to move on as another Ripper group was on our tail.

Richard Littlejohn - He writes for the People

The second in an occasional series of amusing amazon.co.uk book reviews. This week:

Littlejohn's Britain: 'a themed collection of pieces that fires broadside at Blair's Britain and the absurdity of petty bureaucracy' - The cover

'the racist xenophobic witterings of a fool' - The Biche
finally someone gets it, 10 May 2007
By
pablo dombrowski "wewillcomebackasfire" (london) - See all my reviewsat last, a man with the visionary skills to realise how dangerous the London Eye is. So many people don't realise that this is an evil eye. Look at the patterns... it's clearly the eye that the freemasons use to signify control. They're laughing at us people, laughing. They're in league with the communists that make up the so-called labour party, and have ACTUEALLY erected this monument to their control, and we like sheep, actually RIDE IN IT. oh, i could weep for the stupidity of humanity. Buy this book AND LEARN THE TURTH before they get you.

the intellect of this man hath no bounds, 12 May 2007
By
Mr. B. B. N. Farrant "natural history fan" (uk) - See all my reviews One is reminded of Orwell, who once said "Every book is a failure." Well Orwell was clearly a fool and had not stumbled upon 'Littlejon's Britain' whilst browsing on Amazon, for no educated man could dare claim this seminal piece of literature a failure. If, as H.G. Wells assures us, that "Good books are the warehouses of ideas" then this book is a vast chasm of a warehouse, overflowing with such a smorgasbord of enlightened ideas that may liberate us from the shackles of contemporary liberal Britain. Oh how i feel complete having read this book, now i truly understand the meaning of Bernard Shaw's musing, "Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty." LittleJohn i am indebted to you. hurrah



A new world dawns at the turn of a page., 12 May 2007
By
Mizake - See all my reviewsWith this insightful, visionary, and - I am not ashamed to say - celestially inspirational commentary on modern life, Richard Littlejohn has rendered the entire canon of Western literature, philosophy and ethical discourse entirely moot. On finishing the book - in one sitting, I might add, its compelling majesty renders one utterly incapable of laying it down - I had no choice but to burn each and every one of the other books I own. Such trinkets are simply unnecessary in the face of such brilliance, in this new and glorious era of "Anno Littlejohn". Yes, I cry, cast Hamlet and Macbeth into the fire! Render the Iliad and the Kalevala into dust! Drive away the librarians and book sellers! No other works are necessary; all knowledge and truth is contained herein. Praise you, Sir Richard, and long may your wisdom guide us all.

Thought provoking stuff!, 12 May 2007
By
Mangina Reilly-Hurtz (Misogyny) - See all my reviewsI read this while awaiting clearance in a terminal at London's Heathrow. By the time I turned over the last page I realised Britain was not for me. Thank you Mr Littlejohn. You have saved me from a squalid life living in a small studio flat above yet another Indian Takeaway or Pizza Delivery service. As for the neighbours I would have had according to you. Well it is not worth thinking about. So I asked for the Immigration Service to return me on the earliest flight back to where I came from. I just wouldn't want to live in a country that produced Littlejohn. Plain and simple

Brilliantly exposes the bonkers values of socialist Britain:, 1 Jun 2007
By
Brian Ginnity (Colchester) - See all my reviews
This book exposes the way we are now governed, which is why a lot of socialists can only respond with mockery and insult. It hits home and they can't handle it. It's the old "we're right (by definition) so anybody who doesn't agree with us must mad, bad or both. That's how the old USSR was able to justify locking up it's political opponents in mental hospitals. The book was a funny and merciless description of the self-serving, hypocrital antics of the likes of Prescott, Blair (Mr and Mrs), police chiefs who refuse to fight crime, councils who refuse to collect rubbish and all the other useless so-and-sos who have got us to where we are now.



Oh wait, that last one could be serious... well anyway, you can find all the reviews here

This Charmless Beeb (or Biche takes a metaphor too far)

Now they say BBC 3 is the televisual equivalent of your boyfriend making you pasta for dinner - it's cheap, a mix of bland and tasteless and you will only eat it when you really can't be bothered to interfere or suggest something else. But for all the disparagment and sneaky bitching to your friends, you realise that there is a certain charm in its homemadeness and that mixed in with the overcooked penne and raw mushrooms there is hope of a better tomorrow - the onions at least were nicely fried and in only half a bottle of oil this time. 'What the hell?' you think, 'I'll stick with it. By next month he might try something more risky and perhaps foreign. An Old El Paso Fajita kit perhaps.'


But yes, BBC3. So much potential, but potential doesn't always pique your interest or allow your bowels to move for two days. So here I suggest my tips for making BBC3 good:

1) Line up the cast of 'Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps' and shoot them. Erase all the tapes, burn all the evidence and then bury it all in the wastelands outside Elstree, which I think that would be Stanmore. Okay, so we can never truly forget, and if we go on holiday to the Rhineland we will have to endure crackpot Bett und Fruhstuck owners swaggering around like Mancs going 'Eh Deneeese get meh kecks will ya oh Jonneh you knobend' but we will merely stare down at our gekochtes Ei with the quiet dignity of those who know there is no point dwelling on our shameful past, but that we look on towards greater things.

2) Fire this Charmless Bellend. For those who don't know (it's not hard, he's so personalityless he often gets upstaged by soft furnishings or the little red light on the bottom of your telly that indicates that it is on) this is Benjamin Fry. He is a 'psychological coach' who gets wheeled out on such magnus opiae as 'Spendaholics' and 'Freaky Eater: Addicted to Spaghetti Hoops' to walk around in a big coat talking to a fat bossy woman about whatever working class oik (and it always is) is being subjected to wanton analysis that week. He then murmurs at aforementioned oik lots of difficult questions like 'so what do you like about Spaghetti Hoops?' before nodding his big luminous head like one of those sunlight activated 'ornaments' you get in Clinton Cards and are found soully on the dashboards of 16 year old girls.
Now I quite like programmes where I can pick up lots of stupid little tips that I think will tremendously benefit my life but that do not in any way shape or form(make a healthy burger bun out a lettuce leaf/don't piss away money on expensive pesto etc) but this vapid nodding gonk makes 'fun factz!' about stuff seem about as interminable and useful as the lord's prayer said through a balaclava. And yet dispite this irrifutable fact he has been on two (and counting!) 'documentary' series for the beleagured channel.

3) Don't Lie! Now we all like our telly to be Glasnost these days, death to nodding shots, death to editing the Queen, death to the Blue Peter cat etc, but BBC 3 wantonly flouts this 'nu truth' with great titles that do not follow through. I will hold my hands up and say yes! 'Addicted to Cheese' and 'Addicted to Spaghetti Hoops' were kinda good in their 'look at the freaky oik' way, but 'Addicted to Chicken'?? That was just a fat girl who occasionally had some wings in between all the pizza, pie, chips and unreformed lard she ate. 'The Real Hustle'? They give them their money back at the end! 'Sex with Mum and Dad'? LIES!!!1!!!

4) Bring back good comedy like 'The Mighty Boosh' and 'The Smoking Room'. Bring back which ever great person commissioned them. Fire the bellend who obviously thought there was a dearth of shite poor sketch shows that further purpogate the myth that women can't be funny and commissioned Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor AND Little Miss Josslyn.

Boots' Tips for Getting Gorgeous..

This is my flatmate. As you can see she is a an average 22 year old who studies art, smokes rollies, drinks warm beer and gets her hair cut into crazy shapes by Vidal Sassoon trainees.

Yesterday she received this bit of direct marketing in the post from Boots. This in itself is not odd as she is the proud possessor of a Boots Advantage card, although one does have to wonder why someone would want to treat themselves to a gorgeous Christmas in the middle of October...

So what are Boots proposing the dear flatmate should use to get herself ready for an aforementioned gorgeous Christmas?