Riots in London - Government Acts

In the wake of historic riots devastating London and other cities, the British government has stepped in with an iron fist to take control of law and order.

Government spokesperson Baroness Warsi, speaking in a BBC interview this morning, assured the public that the "police are in control". Millions of British people will sleep sounder in their beds tonight with that re-assurance, I am sure.

Meanwhile, prime minister David Cameron, fresh from his vacation in Italy is primed to sweep into action with a heavy hand. "We will not hesitate to recall parliament and immediately - I say immediately - form a committee to study various courses of action available to the authorities".

A spokesperson for the rioters, heard on the BBC, claimed "it's all the fault of the govinment (sic) and the rich people". Indeed, the riot spokesperson may have hit the nail on the head. If only Mr Cameron had had the cajones to form a parliamentary committee to study the situation before he went on vacation. Tsk, tsk.

Three Harrys and an H Bomb

All three Harrys in this strange tale were British. All three were famous and all three are dead. What is strange is how one of the Harrys made the other two happy Harrys by mistake.

Let us start with the first Harry. He was James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC, better known simply as Harold Wilson, the pipe-smoking prime minister of Britain from 1964 until 1970 and then again from 1974 until 1976.

The second was Harry H. Corbett, born in Rangoon, Burma, the son of a British army officer. Corbett earned fame as an actor for his role as Harold Steptoe in the hit TV show "Steptoe and Son". He was also a strong supporter of the British Labour Party and a friend of Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.

The third Harry of this strange tale was the very similarly named Harry Corbett, the son of a coal miner. Harry  number three was deaf in one ear which halted his ambition to become a musician. However, he did achieve fame in the entertainment world as a puppeteer with his stage and TV act involving a mischievous teddy bear called "Sooty".

The first Harry, the prime minister intended to honour his friend and supporter Harry H. Corbett with an OBE (Order of the British Empire). But, due to bureaucratic bungling, the middle initial "H" was dropped from the paperwork and the honour went by mistake to Harry H-less Corbett - the puppeteer.

The error must have embarassed the prime minister and disappointed the intended recipient who was nevertheless also rewarded with an OBE in the new year's honour list of 1976.

The moral of the story is "never drop your H's".

What a Bummer!

The Great British Bum is getting greater according to a British tabloid. In fact the average beefy British bloke's bum blubber is so bulky it is breaking toilet seats.

But, just in time, the Excited States of Um...Erica has come to the rescue. Americans, apparently, are well acquainted with the problem of portly posteriors putting pressure on the porcelain and have engineered an elegant solution. They call it the "Big John".

The Big John is an oversize toilet seat capable of supporting the rumps of the ravenously rapacious. Unfastidious fans of fatty, fast foods who tip the Toledo at up to 840lbs can now mount the thunderbox in safety and comfort.

Is Phone Hacking Really So Bad?

The whole of the United Queendom seems to be worked up into a lather over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Without meaning any disrespect to the victims, it all sounds like a jolly big cyclone in a teapot.

The whole country is falling apart but members of parliament are frothing at the mouth with uncontrolled rage over the underhand tactics of a handful of journalists. Could it be that this is just the issue they needed to distract public attention away from their own impropriety in the parliamentary expenses scandal?

And is the British public really so embroiled over the phone-hacking issue? Didn't they make the "News of the Screws" the country's best-selling rag in the first place? Where did they think the salacious information in the paper came from anyway?

But the big

question is:

Is phone-hacking really so bad? 

Yes?

Are you sure?

Well consider this; the BBC reported this week on Taliban outrage over the US hacking into Taliban phones and sending false messages to confuse the enemy in Afghanistan. Whoa! They'll be threatening them with guns next.

Rebekah Brooks Out for a Duck

News Corp CEO in Deep Trouble

Once again Blighty's Blog is on the cutting edge of breaking news from the United Queendom. Our crack team of New York (just off the A19 near Newcastle-on-Tyne) based journalists were at the forefront of the action when disgraced News Corp CEO Rebekah Brooks fell into the hands of an angry London mob today.

Two of our correspondents were on the scene when Rebekah Brooks was taken by the mob and ducked into the Thames. Our exclusive pictures tell the story. Correspondent Ben Bigg in Westminster working with his counterpart on the south bank, Surree M. Bankment, shot these pictures as the action unfolded. "She just couldn't hack it" reported a Blighty's Blog editorial staffer who was a member of the Ducking Committee.

Rupert Murdoch to Visit USA
News is also pouring into Blighty's Blog's global HQ about an impending trip by News Corp head honcho, Rupert Murdoch to the Excited States of America. Interviewed by phone on Saturday, spokesman Billy-Bob Swamprat - a uniformed US government employee - revealed that Rupert Murdoch has been invited to come for a fun-filled fortnight at an exclusive US government resort in Cuba.

All Expenses Paid Vacation

Murdoch will enjoy two full weeks of all-expenses paid fun featuring waterboarding and other sports as well as singing lessons. Mr Swamprat told Blighty's Blog that, by the end of the vacation, Rupert Murdoch will be "singing like a canary".

Penguins Over Canada

Annual Migration
Something exciting is going to happen this summer in Canada. Every year, around this time, the annual penguin migration from the north pole to the south pole takes place. Their route usually takes them over Iceland, past the west coast of Ireland, then over the Azores to the west coast of Africa where they rest for a few days.

Penguin Books
The migration is well known and well-documented in Britain. Visitors to any bookstore in the UK will see hundreds of penguin books on the shelves.

Sex on the Beach
After recovering from the first phase of their long journey, the penguins fly on to the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic where they rest again before the final leg of their migratory route takes them onto the cold Antarctic peninsula where they spend the antipodean summer breeding on the beaches.

New Route Over Canada
This year, British scientists working in Bermuda expect the birds to take a more westerly route over Greenland then Canada before heading out over the Atlantic. Anyone living in eastern Canada - possibly as far west as Ontario - should watch out for the giant birds between now and the end of August.

Spread the Word
The extremely rare sight of Penguins flying over Canada is not to be missed! Tell everybody you know and share this story with your Facebook friends, then get a comfortable chair and watch the skies!

Prince in Plot to Change World Climate!

Prince In Secret Talks with Top Politicos

Amid whispered rumours of something called the "New Whirled Order", news has been pouring into Blighty's Blog's New York (just off the A19 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne) bureau about a sinister plot involving Prince Charles. 

The British press reports the Prince has been in top secret talks with several British ministers. Now our Oslo, Finland-based environment correspondent Skep Tic has received a tip-off that Charles is involved in a fiendish plot to manipulate the world's climate.

Details are sketchy due to a thick blanketing shroud of secrecy but Blighty's Blog understands the essence of the plan is to combat global warming by planting millions of trees to soak up excess carbon dioxide.

Human Race Faces Extinction ... or Incineration

Our science correspondent Professor A. Boffin explains:

"Carbon dioxide has long been known to be an extinction level gas due to its greenhouse effect which is warming the planet, potentially making the Earth uninhabitable for future generations. But teams of top scientists are pointing to a natural process by which trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen."

But the professor urges caution:

"Of course, taken too far, we may saturate the atmosphere with oxygen making it highly inflammable" he cautioned. "We have to maintain a delicate balance between global warming due to excess carbon dioxide and incineration of the human race due to spontaneous ignition of the excess atmospheric oxygen."

According to British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph:

"Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman twice discussed the issue of 'tree health' with him (Charles) while he held a one-to-one meeting with Climate Change Minister Greg Barker about global warming at a conference in Norway."

Army Mobilized

The British government is believed to be assembling several regiments of army regulars for a gargantuan tree-planting exercise in an as yet undisclosed location in Britain. Meanwhile a second army is on standby with chainsaws ... just in case ...

Comments

Major (Queen's Own; ret) W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G St-John Blackguard-Smyth IV, bart of Surrey.

Dammit, HRH wants to forge his own legacy in case he snuffs it early and leaves the throne to that young whipper-snapper of a son of his. Harrumph! B-S in Surrey.

Carl Marks (unemployed, Clapham)

Typical! The ruling classes think they own the whole flaming world. It's the workers who will suffer the most, you Marx my words! C.M. in south London.

T. Blair (P.M. ret)

Of course it was all my idea. I discussed it fully with Her Majesty while I was in Downing Street. Her Majesty suggested we give the project to Charles because, if it all went horribly wrong, she didn't want the sane members of the Royal Family to bear any blame. T.B. in Brussels.

Royal Navy Running Out of Ammo

British First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Bill Barnacle has informed Downing Street today that the Royal Navy cannot continue its campaign against Libya for much longer.

The admirable admiral has advised Whitehall that the navy had budgeted for a 6-month campaign but that the recent re-allocation of cannonballs to the army for the 90-gun birthday salute to the Duke of Edinburgh had almost completely emptied its arsenal.

Red-faced civil service mandarins at the Ministry of Defence are said to be dismayed by the admission that the world's oldest naval force doesn't have the balls to fight on.

Meanwhile, in the Excited States of Um ... Erica, top-ranking politicians are said to rolling around on the White House lawn frothing with uncontrolled mirth while sputtering disingenuous and disparaging remarks about "European Puddle Pirates".

In Tripoli, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi commented that he is pleased with the news because the constant thudding of cannonballs against his compound walls had been giving him a nasty headache. He said he hopes the Royal Navy will now let him get on with his chess game without any further unpleasantness.

The Royal Navy's lack of balls has surely not gone unnoticed at Al Qaeda headquarters in downtown Islamabad either. Al Qaeda spokesman Denis al-Menace today commented ... [continued on page 94]

Use Your Loaf!

Give Us This Day
The American artist Andy Warhol is best remembered for saying "everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes". Fame is fleeting; infamy lasts forever. And the British will forever be infamous for ruining our daily bread.

Use or Abuse?
In cockney rhyming slang a "loaf" is a loaf of bread: head. The expression "use your loaf" means "think about it". In 1961 British scientists at Chorleywood, in Hertfordshire, England thought about it. What they came up with was, unfortunately, a way to "abuse your loaf".

Buck and Dough
The result of their thinking was a new, super-fast, very cheap way of making bread - nasty bread. Bread made by the Chorleywood process now represents 80% of the bread sold in Britain. Production has spread around the world as bread factories (we used to call them bakeries - remember?) adopt this easy way to make a fast loaf and a fast buck.

Use Your Wonderloaf
I grew up eating that bread, you are probably very familiar with it too. Bread made by the Chorleywood process is white, light, soft and stays fresh for several days. Sounds good so far doesn't it? But when you understand what goes into Chorleywood Bread you may never want to eat it again.

The Proof is in the Eating
Traditional bread is made very slowly. Dough is mixed with yeast and allowed to "proof" (i.e. rise slowly). It is then kneaded thoroughly to develop gluten from the natural wheat protein and give the bread its body.

Fat and Full of Wind
Chorleywood bread, on the other hand, can be made with poor quality, low protein wheat. Very high speed mixers are used to introduce as much air into the dough as possible. Very little gluten will be generated (because of the low protein content of the wheat) so the body of the bread is maintained using hard fat, large quantities of yeast and chemical additives.

Hard to Digest
Incidentally, since this wonderful new "bread" was introduced there has been a marked increase in the number of cases of people who are incapable of digesting bread. Coincidence?

The Best House in Britain

3 Bed Semi

The United Queendom is home to over 61 million people living in no fewer than 13 million residences. The average Briton is said to live in a 3-bedroom semi-detached house on a modest suburban lot. But, in stark contrast to the lot of the common man, the Queendom is replete with stately homes and castles built over the centuries as the principal residences of the British aristocracy.

Stately Homes

Many of these magnificent homes were built from the proceeds of Britain's expanding trade with its colonies; others were built from the proceeds of the slave trade.

Noble gentlemen in the shires were expected to host visits by the sovereign and his or her entourage during their travels throughout their home and native lands. That required opulent accommodations and lavish entertainment in order to keep the sovereign's favour. In consequence there are many beautiful homes throughout the UK with magnificent rooms, expensive furnishings, and great works of art.

240 Bed Detached

One of these stately homes stands out from the rest as possibly the best home in Britain. The home is now owned by the state and is the rent-free principal residence of a prominent British citizen. It features 830,000 square feet of space, 240 bedrooms, 78 bathrooms, a swimming pool and a large private garden with its own lake.

Home-based Global Business

This fine home also features 92 offices in which a total of 450 people are employed. The principal resident operates an international real estate empire extending to the four corners of the world administered from this location.

A Billion Pounds

Despite its opulence it is actually one of the smallest buildings in its class in the world. It costs £15m in annual maintenance but this cost is offset by the £4m in revenue earned from public tours of the property. The recession has slashed property prices in the United Queendom and this property has taken its share of the pain, falling in value by nearly 9% to a present market value of around a billion pounds sterling. It is not currently listed for sale.

Viewings Available

If you are visiting the UK this year it is worth taking a look at this splendid stately home. In fact why not take advantage of one of the public tours. It is located to the east of the intersection of the A4 and the A302 in central London. Various properties have been built on this prestige lot over the centuries; the present property is called ... Buckingham Palace.

Canadian with Automatic Weapon Stopped at Gatwick Airport

A story in Britain's Daily Mail this week triggered a report from Blighty's Blog's firearms expert Sikh Shuter. A woman from Oakville, Ontario has been intercepted at London's Gatwick airport while trying to carry a military assault rifle on board a flight to Toronto.

The weapon described as made of resin, about three inches long, with no moving parts and an unbored barrel was accompanied by a model soldier. It was a gift from an expat British woman to her husband (a former territorial army member) on his retirement.

Security officials at Gatwick, despite being highly intelligent with an exceptional IQ score of 199, were nevertheless fooled into thinking the "weapon" might be a danger to the safe operation of the aircraft.

[UPDATE: Since this report was compiled Blighty's Blog has learned the IQ score was actually an aggregate of all the individual members' IQs. "We work as a team" claimed Gatwick union spokesperson Lill Iput].

The "weapon" was confiscated but in a gesture of compromise Gatwick officials mailed it to Canada where it was reunited with its owner.

You can read the original article in the Daily Mail Online by clicking on the title of this post.

Massive Floods Expected in Toronto: UK Source

This news just in from Blighty's Blog weather expert S. Keptic in New York (just off the A19 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne): massive flooding is forecast for the area surrounding Lake Ontario. Affected cities include Toronto, Hamilton, Buffalo (New York - no not the one just off the A19 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

The Canadian government has kicked into high gear to deal with the problem. New Environment minister Peter Kent has ordered a public inquiry to begin as early as January 2012 with a mandate to explore all possible avenues of relief for the affected regions.

And, for once, the much heralded but as yet unseen global warming is not to blame. Instead, Britain's experts have predicted a reversal in the direction of flow of the mighty St Lawrence River. The entire Atlantic Ocean is expected to drain into the Great Lakes basin raising lake levels by as much as five hundred metres according to UN computer models.

The sinister scientific findings were passed to Canada hidden in a board game produced for United Queendom retail giant Marks & Spencer. A quiz card within the game box contained the question: "Which Canadian river flows past the cities of Quebec and Montreal before emptying into Lake Ontario?"

The science is settled - start building an ark!