World Cup: Sharks vs Hooligans

Shocking News from South Africa
In the run up to the start of this summer's World Cup soccer competition in South Africa, Blighty's Blog has uncovered a devilish plan to thwart trouble from English soccer hooligans.

Britain's press reported yesterday that South African authorities will be employing extra shark-spotters to protect visiting soccer fans. The waters around South Africa are notoriously infested with fan-eating sharks and World Cup organizers are concerned that local Great Whites may target visiting soccer tourists.

British Fans to Get Special Treatment

The official press story that broke yesterday omitted key details that Blighty's Blog has been able to uncover. Our South Africa correspondent Pik Dawinna has dug up a sinister sub-plot to the main story. In this Blighty's Blog exclusive we reveal the rest of the story.

It is true, South Africa is indeed recruiting extra shark-spotters during this summer's competition. But their real job is to steer the Great Whites toward a special beach reserved for British soccer hooligans. Beach patrol officials will then place hundreds of crates of lager along the beach.

Funding for the covert operation has reportedly been received from several European soccer federations who have hosted British soccer hooligans during previous competitions.

Story filed through Blighty's Blog's European bureau in Whopping Lye, England.

"Spot the ball!!!"

What a Lovely Morning for a War

The British Isles were invaded and occupied several times throughout history. Now the British people can be extraordinarily patient, but the time comes when enough is enough.

English gentlemen of the Middle Ages took horse to save the Holy Land from the Saracens. Then during the Hundred Years War (which actually took 116 years to complete) it was found to be profitable to hop on the channel ferry, bully a few Gauls and bring some back to be held for ransom.

But it didn't always go swimmingly well for what the Brits - for some strange reason - refer to as their "Millet Tree". Mad King George and his redcoats were sent packing by the American colonists. Actually, if truth be told, the redcoats were a determined force and were on the point of overwhelming the Americans until the latter formed an alliance with the French. Payback time for the French came during the Napoleonic Wars when the Duke of Wellington trounced "Boney" and his perfumed warriors.

Queen Victoria is currently Britain's longest serving monarch. During her long reign she built a huge empire covering two thirds of the globe. Victoria waged war on many countries, including Zanzibar.

The war with Zanzibar commenced at two minutes past nine on the morning of 27th August 1896. Royal Navy gunboats fired on the town disabling the defending gun emplacements. A naval battle ensued resulting in the sinking of the defending nation's Royal Yacht.

The Zanzibar army sustained 500 casualties but only one British sailor was wounded.  The war raged on for a long, drawn out thirty eight minutes. The defenders fought back with artillery and machine guns but at 9:40 the same morning a victory for the Empire was assured and the British officers retired to their mess on board the Royal navy flagship for a nice cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.

Oops ... Wrong Bridge!

Image: "London Bridge" in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

A brilliant TV series from the United Queendom was aired in Canada a few years ago. It was called "Auf Wiedersehen Pet". It told the story of a bunch of hapless entrepreneurs from the north-east of England who sold Middlesbrough's transporter bridge to a native American band in Arizona.

Dismantling of the bridge was shown on TV and the series culminated - following a hilarious story - in the reconstruction of the bridge in the Arizona desert. Filming of the show led viewers to believe that the bridge had really been moved - which was not the case. The Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge is an unusual yet magnificent structure that still operates carrying vehicles across the River Tees.

Of course, the idea was not entirely original. In fact the show may have been a poke in the ribs at an oil executive from the Excited States who, in 1971, paid more than two million dollars to buy London Bridge and ship it to the US of A.

Now American tourists can drive across the old London Bridge without ever leaving the land they love. Except it just isn't true!

You see, the man from Missouri who bought the bridge thought he was buying Tower Bridge. London Bridge (not even the original bridge, but one of a series of bridges that have spanned the Thames at that location) was a rather boring stone structure that was only 140 years old and needed to be replaced anyway. Tower Bridge - often mistaken for London Bridge - is a magnificent structure that is an iconic representation of London.

London City Council denied they sold the American oilman the wrong bridge. The oil baron from Missouri cheerfully shipped and rebuilt his bridge across a canal in Lake Havasu, Arizona where it is the central attraction of an ersatz English tourist centre. Except even that part of the story isn't completely true.

The reality is that the man from Missouri built a new concrete bridge and merely used stone cladding from the old London Bridge to cover the concrete. Most of the stone from the old London Bridge is now lying at the bottom of a flooded quarry in Devon, England.

Off with his head!

The British do get so excited about their fox-hunting. Some like to dress up in jaunty little outfits called "hunting pink" (although they are actually scarlet-coloured) and charge around the countryside in an activity they describe as "riding to hounds". Their objective is to capture and violate - with extreme prejudice - the animal rights of the local fox population.

Other British people, on the other hand, choose to view fox hunting as a disgusting, inhumane and thoroughly despicable activity that should be - and has been - banned by the English and Scottish parliaments.

Fox hunting is primarily an activity led by the rich, landed gentry. Commoners are allowed to participate but when the law banning fox hunting was brought before the parliament in Westminster, the overwhelming vote in favour of the law in the House of Commons was overturned by the House of Lords. The house of seldom sober second thought obviously viewed the law as a violation of their animal rights.

Nonetheless, the Commons had its way and the law passed into statute in 2005. Since then the pro- and anti- hunting lobbies have been at loggerheads over alleged violations of the law by the jolly chaps in jaunty red coats.

Strongly held beliefs on each side of the issue have led to confrontations between the protagonists. These petits contretemps have escalated to the point where the foxes are in less danger than the people chasing them and the people chasing the chasers.

Recently, an anti-fox hunting activist was following a hunt in an ultra-light gyrocopter. As he landed to refuel he was approached by a belligerent fox hunting supporter. In the ensuing fray the fox hunter's head was detached by the gyrocopter's rotors. What rotten bad luck.

Britain Shocked by Canadian Drinking Binge

For a second time in less than a fortnight shock waves are rippling through the British Isles over the Vancouver Olympic Games. The British media is hyper-ventilating because Canada's women's (ice) hockey team, having won gold medals in Vancouver, was also thought to be threatening to steal Britain's crown as the binge-drinking capital of the world.

Throughout the entire British nation journalists are sitting down and taking smelling salts in a valiant effort to deal with the effrontery of these colonials. Canada's women's hockey team went back onto the ice after medals had been awarded and fans had left the stadium to crack a celebratory cold one.

Canada has sincerely apologized to it's mother nation. A message has been sent making it clear that while Canadians enjoy blowing the froth off a couple of beers to celebrate a big sporting win, our women will not be drinking themselves stupid and vomiting all over public streets every Saturday night as thousands do in the United Queendom.

According to a BBC report, Britain invests £20 billion every year to maintain its world binge-drinking title. The main contenders are young people in the same age group as Canada's women's hockey team. The BBC report goes on to say that 33,000 binge-drinking competitors die every year pursuing their favourite pastime.

Canadians are deeply embarassed that our incredibly modest display of alcohol consumption was misinterpreted as a challenge to British binge-drinking supremacy. We promise to behave ourselves in the future.

I'll drink to that.

The Worst Ever: Newspaper

"Vancouver Games continue downhill slide from disaster to calamity. Snowboarding nonsense is the latest fiasco threatening to make these Games the worst in Olympic history" writes golf caddy and guitar player for the "Bluebells" Lawrence Donegan of Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Times are tight in the United Queendom. The Guardian couldn't afford to send a real Fleet Street hack to Vancouver, but when "Bluebell Donegan" showed up to caddy for the paper's editor one Sunday last autumn the head scribe collared him for the assignment.

Maybe Bluebell is a bit pissed off that nobody in Vancouver would hire him to carry their clubs around while on his jolly little junket. Maybe they were all more concerned with winter sports than Bluebell's favourite summer pastime. Poor chap; he got so frustrated that the poison just gushed through the nib of the jaunty little fountain pen the Guardian slipped into his pocket as they ushered him off to Heathrow.

Never mind Bluebell old chap, it's London's turn to host the Olympics in just two years. You can have a bash at showing us lowly colonials how it should have been done. There's a very large group of British expats living here in Canada and we are very proud of how our new country has responded to the myriad challenges of organizing an Olympic Games. At the same time, we are all hoping that Britain will have the most successful games ever in 2012.

Have a safe trip back to England, Bluebell.

New Correspondent for Blighty's Blog

Who would have imagined it? The great Simon Cowell - a part of Blighty's Blog's international team of top-notch foreign correspondents! Until recently it was beyond even our wildest imagination. Now, each morning we wake up and ask ourselves: "can this really be true?"

Simon's Bio
This is not the tale of a rude, sneering, spoiled brat who was expelled from a series of exclusive private schools for which his well-heeled parents paid the fees. It is not even the tale of how the spoiled brat grew up surrounded by pampering nannies, thinking he had a better pot to pee in than the rest of the world. 


Mail Room Clerk
This is the story of entertainment guru Simon Cowell. Mr Cowell was born in Brighton, England in 1959. He has achieved a lot of his fame by being simply obnoxious. His father was influential in the music business and got his erring son a job as a lowly mailroom clerk with a record company. The mischievous boy made good at the job and quickly rose through the ranks. Bursting out into an unsuspecting world on his own, he went on to become a music producer and record label owner.

TransAtlantic Idol
Cowell's breakthrough came when he was appointed as a judge on the British TV show "Pop Idol" and subsequently on the American spin-off "American Idol". His lack of sensitivity for aspiring young talent trying hard for a breakthrough in show business was amply demonstrated in his scathing sarcasm and dismissive attitude toward acts he didn't like. His biting comments and unpleasant demeanour became his springboard for success.

Stand Aside for Simon
He has since appeared as a judge in other talent shows such as "Britain's Got Talent". In that show another judge was well known personality Piers Morgan, former editor of the British tabloid newspaper "News of the World" - a well known breeding ground for papparazi infestations. While filming for Britain's Got Talent" in Manchester, England, Mr Morgan was waiting in his hotel lobby one morning. Those same paparazzi over whom he presided when in charge of the News of the World asked him to stand aside so they could take pictures of ... Simon Cowell!

Welcome aboard Simon, you're gonna fit in well on our team.