PUT THE WINE HERE ...

Now you cookin' ... I tell you, this being on the wagon thing is a damn'd bore - Lord have mercy.

• In 2 minutes I take Tasia home to her cabin off Poulathes Boulevard and I dont know if I'll make it back past signor Di Ellas' Homestores without pulling in for a jug o' that good Sangria wine and a pouch of Rebetika Root Canal 'Chewin' baccy.
• Lawd have mercy ~ sing it, Charlie
• And sing it again - Κρασί, γυναίκα και χαρτί, thanks to the Blues Man.

   

PEACHEY TWITTY

fragrant Denise Fergus,
Bulger mère

I'm only posting about Peaches because she carelessly blabbed on Twitter about the ghastly case of the abusèd babies.  

Twit Tweeterer Peaches Geldof

My real interest comes further down with the reference to the stout (but careless) yeoman who tweeted images 'purporting' to be Bulger-basher Jonny Venables and, poor chap, copped 14 months suspended for being caught. 

Denise crassly posed with
portrait of little Jimmy 

I pillory and lampoon the Nethren for failing to nail Brother Venal Balls and Robbie Thompson but there is a rather fierce ban on publishing anything that reveals the identity of the winsome duo and our Plodgate guardians may be fibbers and flounderers but even they can sit all day before a screen monitoring traffic on Bulger-gate. 

All the same, I wish some sleuth would get on with it and blow the cover on these two - I've written to Snowden begging a favour but he hasn't written back. 

BULGER BASHER BAILED BORDERING BABES

Or, since the whole point of the exercise is to posse down this blighter, get the Venables name up and out there ... calling all search engines ... 

• Venables 
• Venables 
• Venal Balls 
• VENABLES
• ... as in Thompson
• ... as in Jimmy Bulger.

How I wish I was on the headline team ~ some subs get all the luck.

BULGER BIFFER BILLETED BORDERING BABES. 

Really get them northern mums going.

Tricky finding good 'V' words to alliterate: Vile Venables venue'd verge of nippers.  

WANTED: Jon Venables 

Back story ~ "Venables and friend Robert Thompson, both ten at the time, were jailed for eight years for sadistically killing toddler Jamie, two, in 1993.

The toddler was abducted from a shopping centre in Bootle and subjected to a horrific attack near a railway line that shocked the nation. Venable is out again, believed re-housed 'somewhere in the north of England'." 

By the Sleuthings of SLORC  !! Surely in God's name of All that's Vengeful, we can trace and trash him now ?? 

(Incidentally, dont you love the initials SLORC for Burma's State Law and Order Restoration Council ?? Just like Fleming's SMERSH except he wanted it to sound sinister whereas I'm sure the Burmese goons thought they were coming up with something peaceful and reconciliatory.)

I'll wager a few stout Slorcists and true, let loose on the mean streets of 'north of England' wi' pliers and blow-torch would run the bastard down and have him turning on the spit before we could say Miley Cyrus. So what the devil is wrong with our toothless Netizenry? 

I've long lost my temper but now I'm beginning to lose hope, except of course I haven't: in the week of Fifth Estate, I'm encouraged to think that one - just one -  right- and forward-thinking guerilla Googler will emerge from the sludgy slothful ranks to drop just a tiny bone that'll point the hounds baying in the right direction. Oh happy day!

It's not all gloom - they're out there. This clip was sent to me by one of the faceless faithful and I know there're more.

I love the idea of Venables, crazed by proximity to these children, suddenly turning into a raving kid killah. Listen, he's a sick hunted frightened bizarro whose fourth identity is now so enmeshed with the others that he'll blow his cover just blowing his nose.

I don't think they'll catch him wanking behind the porn rack in some northern WH Smith but I would love it if it turned into some Stephen King scenario where he's pressing his nose against the playground fencing of Greenhalgh Junior and one of the darlings shouts "Ayup! There's our Jon, no mistake - quick, lads, let's tear his bollocks off!" ~ which they will manage with bags more aplomb and glee than my useless Corfucian Irregulars (sorry, chaps, had to be said) who've come up with bugger all in nabbing and slabbing fugitive JV.

I lie awake at night pondering the syringe in the haystack of missed clues out there pointing to Venner's venue. Someone out there must be this close ... oh boy, what a hoe-down there'll be when we've chased old VarletBalls down.

Great movie, it'll make: Venables rumbled, he'll make for a patch of wooded country he marked out during Identity 2 when he was familiarising himself with some rough terrain to lead the Filth a merry chase.

Won't help tho' - they'll send that robot horse after him. Hi yo, Silver. Can't you picture it, relentlessly trotting in the pale moon light.  

I want to be there on camera 2 and I want to be there again when the Lords of the Flies catch up and rent the venerable Venables flies medi-evily asunder. 

ORPHAN BOOK ~ Author Liaison Director

A decisive stirring blog post by Gwyn Headley. Read it yourself, and thoroughly. You don't have to be in publishing to see the sense it makes.

But here are some titillating quotes to entice you ~  

"Orphan Books. By my definition, an Orphan Book is one that has been commissioned by an editor in a publishing house who has then left before the book has been published.

What this means is that there is no one within the publishers to root for the book. No one to stand up at a sales conference and say “This guy is pretty good. He writes like a dream, looks like a Greek god and has a 36DD bust” — all the attributes the modern publisher demands from its authors. Instead they probably pictured some fat old git slumped over his keyboard and relegated the title (and any attendant publicity) to the ‘Also published this year’ pile.

It’s not enough to be published. The publisher has to back his judgement, even the judgement of former staff, and promote the hell out of the book.

What if these Very Large Publishers created an Author Liaison Director - [my emboldenment] - someone not directly involved in any part of the publishing process, whose job it was to comfort and reassure all the authors and translators who feel they are being trampled underfoot? It wouldn’t cost a lot, and the goodwill generated would be incalculable."

911 REVISITED

I'm a sucker for these.

For viewing when more time anon

Same for those convincing probes into Princess Di and the Freemason SAS hit-men. 

SEDUCED, ROSS'D, & ABANDONED

A mission at last! Let me devote a whole post to Toback and his intriguing-sounding movie. A subtitle could be 'tritely stalking Taki' but let's just see how it goes.  

While I'm about it, dont let me forget my earlier post about Seduced and Abandoned  and hey, let's use, a foto(s) of the alluring Debs Ross whose ghastly 'writing' posing as about 'Cinema' used to send me foaming at the mouth into the olive groves. 


She's sort of forgiven for being so sexy in some of her  pics (not the ones where she looks like a faded Kate Hudson, which is where she looks like she writes)

To be ungentlemanly in the extreme, here seems to be a link to some of her other writings. 

Gosh, I mean even I'd keep someone on the payroll with a mouth like that (even if she did write like Rossie). 

But ohh what a waste of space in the venerable Speccie.    

Wikynopsis of the movie

Taki in the Speccie

85% from Rotten Tomatoes; not bad

HBO Synopsi

Chewing the cud - Baldwin comes off friendly. Smashing shot of wife (29)

Woot! Ross even gets a mention from Taki  so I'd better slip it in. Wouldn't have thought she was his type, but they write for the same mag so fair's fair to lend a helping hand.  

Cocksuckers - good point Taki makes, springing to Al Baldwin's defence over his mild chiding of the vile lensman:  

"Anyway, why is it homophobic? And since when is it a gay slur? Some of the grandest ladies I’ve known have been extraordinary cocksuckers. The English aristocracy wouldn’t be what it is if it weren’t mostly made of cocksuckers."

Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki's Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don't get paid for their work. Email editors@takimag.com to buy additional rights. 

UNEMPLOYMENT ~ PREMATURE AGEING

I knew that. 

Months before the thieving and high-handed deceiving and dominating and obfuscating and bullying vile gardenry, all the flah blucking flahr dementia repeatia dronings on and on, I knew one needs a job or something to stay 'alive'. 

That's why I kept asking if anyone had up-to-date research findings on the long-term effects of treatment such as mine on wretches such as me.   

MAYOR ROB FORD ~ Alcoholic, Obfuscator

DR DREW PINSKY

Have we all seen the appalling sight of Toronto mayor 'Rob' Ford fumbling and stumbling over his 'admission' of a cocaine stupor? 

As gross a sight as any of us can pray not to have to witness again.  

But the cloud has a silver lining because lucky viewers saw the stalwart Doctor Drew at his measured patient best. [Test all the excellent links on the Ford story]

There was an even better clip on  Anderson Cooper's show but it was no sooner up on You Tube than removed as  "no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been closed." Too bad. 

I first heard Doc Drew in Seattle when he shared the radio show, Loveline, with the raspy-voiced Adam Carolla who provided an amusing foil to the calm Drew, altho' I sometimes wondered if the good doc didn't often grind his teeth at his uncouth but media-savvy buddy's antics.

Some more Loveline right here - gahd, I'd forgotten what a great show it was. Have another even nuttier clip. By the Lovelines of Loipon! We need a show like that right here in Corfu ~ I would be such a good unctuous host and I know exactly whom I'd recruit as 'Adam'. 

mayor rob ford, alcoholic obfuscator

OK, so no Drew pronouncing on Fatty Ford, but here's Jon Stewart with some rib-tickling clips incl a shot from the elusive crack-pipe video. Oh my ...

What an appalling creature Ford is, to be sure, and Pinsky nails it bang to rights that he desperately needs to ditch his denial of his alcoholism before it's too late. 

He won't, of course, and the cameras will be trained even more closely on his next few escapades.

Insane  Cracks in his story. Hilarious  ~ Young Turks' Cenk Uygur  on delightful form.

*Hitler learns of the 'crack tape' 

Ranting Robbo ~ and the rant

* That other rant ~ video - Ford faffing but still heading for Court. Ford has had it but he doesnt know it.

Cops and sobbers - A lot like the ongoing exposé and collapse of the British police, and their own lying denying.   

Blacks in Maine - Jon Stewart further demolition. We need him over in the UK to wreak final humiliation on the mendacious entrails of Plod Albion. Have you noticed how both Brit Filth and Mayor Ford share something else - both are indescribably ugly.  

North America's photogenic mayor

Blab blab - and then Rehab

Chris Farley tribute mayor: Rob Ford jokes

Role Model

Sheer stupidity

Oral Sex, Vulgar Overtures ~ Fat crass piggie-eyed Rob Ford writes his own story, a one-man Plebgate. Includes glimpse of his petite long-suffering wife - cue Fordian asides about crushing and crunching ... poor wretch. 

"One of the most stubborn, pig-headed people ... we have ever seen ... no self-awareness, no core of moral character."

REDUCED POWERS ~ I keep telling people that Podgy Ford is still waddling around in situ because he "has not yet been charged with any crime, though his close friend and driver is facing extortion charges related to his alleged attempts to obtain phone footage of Ford taking a hit from a crack pipe that was being shopped around to reporters earlier this year. 

Need conviction ~ Short of a criminal conviction, there is no legal authority that can force Ford from office, so his fellow lawmakers took the unprecedented step of removing the mayor's powers."

WEIRDEST MAYORALTY EVER - all you need to know.

Superb Double - I've forgotten what the obese original looks like. Rotund Robbie is finished now. 

Knocks over Councillor and then this mayhem (is his brother a twin? Looks like an exact double there)

The measured tones of Auntie Beeb, plus brother Doug pronounces.

“The crazy thing about alcoholism is it distorts your priorities so much that you’d rather die and lose your job and lose your family than contemplate stopping your relationship with this substance that you literally love.” - Doctor Drew

SEDUCED AND ABANDONED ~ must-see

Ignore the idiot review in Spectator Nov 9 by Deborah Ross of Seduced and Abandoned.

Τάκης Θεοδωρακόπουλος

I don't know what is going on there but she is a complete waste of 'Cinema' review space. 

I write on behalf of the Ionian Irregulars challenging the editor to produce evidence of one single letter praising Ross. They do not and cannot; she is out of her depth.  

I must see it. It sounds wonderful and includes Taki, whose magazine is my Bible. 

Grauniad review

Hilarious take on making a movie - πρέπει να δείτε

debbie ross, speccie 'reviewer'

Deborah Ross ~ goodness, all this time I've been ranting and despising the pen-tied incompetent Ross for wasting space in The Spectator under its Cinema column, and I've never bothered to perve her.

deborah ross, 'cinema' reviewer

A bit of a looker. 

No wonder she's still droning on in the Speccie despite not a laudatory word from readers.

In typical foot-loose fashion, I've now continued this post elsewhere to make it more ross-centric.

LIDDLE VERSUS CYCLING

Uh ohh ... Rod will be catching a postbag of bile for this unfortunately timed broadside.

"If killing cyclists is no longer allowable in a free country, then it is the thin end of the wedge ..." 

 ‘Such anti-cyclist anger reminds me in many ways of the feelings about gypsies that I would hear expressed when I lived in central Europe.

In Hungary, people would tell me they disliked gypsies because they were lazy and dishonest. The truth was that gypsies — like, I would suggest, cyclists — were unpopular principally for being different.’—The Invisible Cyclist, anonymous blogger

DAY AT A TIME

• Tuesday 19 Nov, 10am

• Wesley presiding

• Al Anon Corfu [are they spelling it A-Anonymousc?]

• 'On the Wagon' - 'On the wagon' - abstaining from alcohol. 'Off the wagon' - returned to drinking after an attempt to give it up. What, whence - why wagon?

October 6:  Read Dr Drew on Mayor Rob Ford and reckon Dru is talking about me: 

“The crazy thing about alcoholism is it distorts your priorities so much that you’d rather die and lose your job and lose your family than contemplate stopping your relationship with this substance that you literally love.”

Al-Anon Corfu - spot notice in Holy Trinity and decide I like the look of burly Wesley and his kilt and decide to go along.

Hold embarrassing sway at the after-cemetery refreshments at the church, proclaiming loudly how I am joining AA to give it a whirl. Everyone behaves exactly as I expect them to, checking to see if my loud protestations are reaching the others. Someone assures me I am far from 'that bad' but I know I am and I also suspect that some of the chivvying is directed at themselves.

Alcohol was my only anaesthetic during the five years, eight months of caregiving, not to mention the unsupervised temptations to take solace in drink in the post-mortem years as I floundered to go about readying the house for sale.  

It will be gruelling - and I am told I won't like the biblical part - but it will also be fun to report. I am reading up on anything that catches my eye - even the 'exposés'

The '12 Steps' everyone goes on about and tells me will be the stumbling block for me



** HIDE TRACKS ~ Had to change the title of this post, so many people linking to me and four helpfuls to date calling me with McWesley's phone number in case I wanted to have a private word with him before tomorrow (10 for 10:30, I'm told. It better fit in with Aleko's lesson at μισή το μεσημέρι)

What does it mean, this outpouring of care and luhve? Have I been such a drunkard these five years and 8 that Friends of Marjorie have decided to come to post-humous assistance? I may have some reports to deliver. Watch this space.  

Invoking all the help I can get - and certainly do need. Lucille's been there, walked that path; she knows what I mean. 

Twelve Steps

1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.

 New word from my reading about the 12-steps ~ Iatrogenic  

DOG CRUSHED IN GARBAGE TRUCK

Huge response to this article from Keep Talking Greece when I posted it on Corfu Grapevine.

"Municipality workers have reportedly crushed a dog with the automatic garbage mechanism in an unprecedented act of cruelty in Patras.

Citing eye witnesses and a local animal welfare society, Greek websites report that this barbaric act took place on Thursday in Katritsi area of Patras in northern-west Peloponnese.

Municipality workers threw the dog together with trash into the garbage truck"

"Beyond words or feelings ... I wish I hadn't read it now"

"Brought tears to my eyes ..."

"I would ask everyone to please forward this to their respective Embassy/Foreign Consulates as it is only through the intervention of foreign attention that these pieces of sh*te will ever be punished.  Horrific.... 

Or if anyone knows anyone in the British press, etc. this would make a great story ... and they would react to save any damage to tourism."

Greece Exposed - reportage including photo of dog buried in garbage. Pretty horrific site, this.

See also Inagist

Probs with petition ~ reports of people not being able to sign in, others resorting to share via their own country, ie UK. Just persevere, I'm afraid. 

The Road to Damaskinos

Stage two in Aleko D's tutorials in  'Effective Greek'.

Day 1 ~ Guy Fawkes Day, November 5. I ignore the implication and arrive in time. All the bright faces - it is like 'Glittering Prizes - and the dullards have gone. Some people will never learn but Aleko is too polite to put it to them, and it is their money.

The lessons now come as a link from Real Corfu and starting the next week, there will be a password to keep out spongers.

I start work on the exercise as soon as it comes through and thrilled to see that AD has packed it with useful daily exercises for the shops and time telling. I work every day and look forward to scoring top marks.

Day 2 - All sorts of old faces swelling our ranks - so old in some cases it had never occurred to me that they might think themselves capable of learning the language. Excellent acoustics.

J and T signal to sit next to me but I affect not to understand so's to have the pleasure of staring across the semi-circle at their baffled expressions at what is going on. A takes the lessons from a respected well-honed course but one has to have a modicum of feel for a language or it's just a series of foreign sounds.

Three newbies capping each other to answer Aleko's questions and probably wondering why the rest of us are so slow  (psst, dont tell but they are such basic questions we can't be bothered)

When we come to telling time I almost fall off my stool with delight at the puzzlement from the grockle corner over 1, 3 and 4. Aleko makes them suffer awhile before announcing that they can be feminine. Time and again a classical education gives one the edge. 

• -eio signifies selling something. 
• Mpouti = thigh. Booty = thigh. Of course it does, we're in Greece.  
• Galopoula - Xmas coming up, 'turkey' a good word to know 

Wonderful confusion, almost came to blows, when Lorraine was asked to ask in Greek how much something cost and started to use kostizei only to be corrected to poso kanei ... oh poh poh, a right wild bunch we have here and it'll be interesting to see who reappears next week once the dust is settled.

Penny - only the skilled observer will remember Penny's sharp comments from the UK that enlightened the Grapevine discussions. Sage words from the Smoke, pearls among us ignorant expat swine.  Then suddenly pouf! she's moving over here:

• A few well timed drinks parties
• Mingle tingle mwah mwah
• Heard so much about you, luhve your comments

Then the waters close over and we go back to our duties. Here she is today looking puffier-faced than her profile pic and cracking jokes to paper over her struggles with the lingo. I don't smile because my new favourite fellow pupil doesnt smile, except that when she does the sun bursteth forth and the whole of Sally's illuminates.

Password -  a lot of argy-bargy at the end of the class and I need to make tracks. I gripe about are we going to be told the password to get into the next week's work. Έλληνες.

I talk that night to my elder daughter who observes that the password should be announced in Greek by way of a simple riddle 'beware of these bearing gifts'  Να είστε προσεκτικοί. Αυτοί οι άνθρωποι φέρνουν δώρα (or something like that). 

"That way, if they can't even understand the riddle, they're clearly not making enough progress to stay the course." Rather clever in a way. 

Lesson Three - Efficiently thru Real Corfu in pdf.
First glance: 

• Now I know what 'If' is
• Ah ha - so 'yesterday' is Htes and not Hthes - altho it sounds spoken like hythes
• Dont confuse cheap with exactly

AFRICA BIG 5 ~ Tusker Cruelty

A caring right-thinking pal sends me news and links to Africa Big 5 and asks me to name and shame, which I do with grim satisfaction.

• Africland campaigns to stop this sort of disgrace and I pray that our joint efforts will bring 'Big 5' to some sort of justice. 
• Support Afric's website

• How does one mobilise to ram the message home to the likes of AB5?

• This family shot and killed this elephant as it was eating. See the food still in its mouth, surely an act of the utmost craven cowardice and laziness?

What possible fun can there be in shooting a rare species like elephants?" 

• Here is the link to the company that promotes this cruelty.

• And a disgraceful self-promo

• I suspect the following contact details are out-of-date: 

Bookings, call 011-27-82-339-9235 [they probably mean you to jam the switchboard]

Email ~ Africa Big 5, write to info@africabig5.co.za

And there to rub it in - as if they shouldn't be hiding their faces in shame - the smug family snap:

Frikkie du Toit Safari’s
Phone: 011-27-82-339-9235
Fax: 086-648-8622
P.O. Box 67, Tosca, 8618

North West Province, South Africa

Gratifying response - I'm asked if I had seen Frikkie Du Toit Safari's: Stop hunting endangered animals for profit.

Melissa Bachman

Melissa - Now it's that silly vain Ms Bachman, with her, “An incredible day hunting in South Africa! Stalked inside 60 yards on this beautiful male lion … what a hunt!”

BAD SEX AWARD 2013

It's that joyous time of year when the wonderful  Literary Review chooses its short-list of Bad Sex scribblers. 

Britain's Most Dreaded Literary Prize. ~ the shortlist.

Huffington shortlist

"The 21st annual award for the most embarrassing passage of sexual description in a novel - Tuesday 3 December 2013.

"The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to the crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.

"In a year in which the Man Booker Prize has tentatively stretched its remit across the Atlantic, the Bad Sex Award, which has long been cosmopolitan and ecumenical, is delighted to present a shortlist that reaches from the USA to India, and from writers in their pomp to one published from beyond the grave.

Among this year's shortlist

My Education by Susan Choi

The Last Banquet by Jonathan Grimwood

House of Earth by Woody Guthrie

Motherland by William Nicholson

The Victoria System by Eric Reinhardt

The World Was All Before Them by Matthew Reynolds

The City of Devi by Manil Suri

Secrecy by Rupert Thomson

(not sure what Wells-sahib will say about HoE making the cut but it'll be sump'n, that's for sure; prolly know the exact passage)

* Excerpts courtesy of the Torygraph 

* "Surfing the waves of neuromuscular euphoria"

*  Not sufficiently cringe-worthy to make the cut: Bridget Jones'   Mad About The Boy ~ "'Oh, oh,' I gasped. 'Did they teach you this in the SAS?'"

Good Sex award

25 EXPRESSIONS ~ σωφροσύνη

 25 to join my vocab

Other-worldly