The Year of the Pod

Although 2011 has been a quiet year for Think of England in terms of posts - The Dabbler inevitably takes up the majority of my blogging time (and I contribute to the Christmas and year end stuff over there this week) - nonetheless remarkable things have been happening deep within its bowels.

For 2011 has been the year of Poddington, whose bizarre thoughts continue to accrue on the infamous Why the Scottish Hate the English post. He's had a second wind over the holidays, and I feel that with the prophesy of the forthcoming Great War between all nations - quoted in full below - he's really taken Poddingtonery to a new level...

The Great War...

In a nutshell...

Europe becomes one, well, The United States of Europe consists of ten key nations and possibly others. However, not twenty Seven like unto today.

Roman Catholicism has a great revival in Europe, becoming the state religion.

The Anglo Celts leave - they are the Christian Protestants.

Mean while, in The Middle East, The Shiites are growing and they become powerful. The Shiites are allied with Europe. This alarms the Sunnis to new and greater degrees, to the point that not only do they look to Anglo-Celts for greater alliances and ties, they are happy to become Anglo-Celtic protectorates.

For some reason the Roman Catholics, i.e. USE, move a great armed force into the Middle East. The Anglo-Celts confront them, and ask them if they have come to do them and their allies harm. The USE respond in typical German fashion, shocking everyone and using the element of surprise "how cleaver," they attack the Middle East using nuclear missiles and typically, cause great harm.

This rocks The Commonwealth of Nations. However, the Indian's attack from the East, and the North American's shock the USE by attacking Europe from the North. The USE
withdraw from the Middle East to fight the forces to the east and north. They manage to control those situations and return to the Middle East.

While this is happening, the Brits have reinforcements on the way to the Middle East.
However, they are too late. For, the USE attacks and captures Israel. By this
time, Jesus Christ has had enough and He and His armed forces attack and destroy
the USE.

Jesus then reigns from Jerusalem as the King of the Universe and the Anglo-Celts are the first to take unto Jesus great gifts of wealth, gold and silver and to acknowledge Jesus as Lord of the Universe.

So, that is the war between the Brits and the Germans within and according to the Christian scriptures, yet, this is according to my understanding at this current time of course.

Joys!!!

Poddington

Happy New Year all!

Brit Jnr Minor arrives

We have doubled our number of daughters, to two.

Elizabeth Orla, arrived Saturday at 11.55am. 7lb 9. Spit of her sister.

All well, if sleepless.

These people who are taking Jeremy Clarkson's remarks seriously...

...I'd have them all shot.

My litany of grievances against Thom Yorke

I list my complaints about Thom Yorke and talk about Radiohead's album The Bends here.

More Yard

I grill Bryan Appleyard over at The Dabbler about his new book and also why he keeps stopping and starting blogging.

Bryan's Brain

My review of The Brain is Wider Than the Sky by Bryan Appleyard is up at The Dabbler.

Back to Ilfracombe

Another airing for my queasy Ilfracombe prose-poem at the Big D.

Soldier music

Entertaining the troops over at the Dabbler, with Gracie Fields, Glenn Miller, George Butterworth and Elvis singing gospel.

Newsnight, Bryan Appleyard

I have become addicted to the nightly financial doom-fest that is Newsnight. This is eating into important reading and sleeping time and also making me depressed. What, I keep wondering, does 'the abyss' actually look like? Are we going to be just a bit poorer over the next decade or are we going to be eating each other?

Anyway, Bryan Appleyard popped up on it last night, talking (too briefly, Paxman was useless) about the brain. He has a new book out today called The Brain is Wider than the Sky. I'm halfway through the review copy (reviews and other exciting Yard-related things will appear on The Dabbler soon) and I can tell you you should buy it.

You should also go and read and comment on his blog, which is alive again.

Papandreou's Unforgiveable Sin

Could anything be more revealing of the true nature of the Great European Project than the Markozy reaction to Papandreou, who has broken the iron law of Pan-Euro politics: whatever you do, don't ask the people what they think.

J'accuse David Attenborough

Over at The Dabbler I commit heresy by criticising David Attenborough - or specifically, his neo-Malthusian theory of human population.

Specky four eyes!

Over at The Dabbler I peer at some bespectacled popstars, including Buddy Holly (of course), Elvis Costello, Graham Coxon, plus a nasty surprise.

The Martyrdom of Dr Giles Fraser

There are many highly comical elements of the Occupy London/St Paul’s debacle – the Trustafarian queues for Starbucks, the empty tents, the misconceived ‘Elf and Safety’ fears, the general sense of it all being such a pointless waste of time – but one that has really tickled me is the martyrdom of Dr Giles Fraser, the Cathedral’s canon chancellor.

He resigned from his post yesterday with “great sadness and regret”, on the righteous grounds that he wanted no part in anything that might involve the Church “using violence” against the protestors. Given that this wasn’t at all likely to happen, his resignation must be one of the most frivolous in memory. But you only need to look at Fraser to know that here is not only one of those clergymen who, given half a chance, would be bringing electric guitars into St Paul’s or trying to get down with the kids by organising (alcohol-free) “raves for Jesus”; but also a man who hungers for celebrity.

He needlessly announced his needless self-sacrifice on Twitter. Bet you anything he’ll be popping up in the media whenever a talking head is required on “What it means to be a Christian in the modern world….”

The Stone Roses

I put Second Coming into Record Rehab here.

Why is Private Eye so unfunny?

I address this and other questions about political satire in my review of The Comic Strip presents... The Hunt for Tony Blair.

Sam Warburton

I was sorry to see Wales lose to France - not least because victory would have made my pal and Dabbler co-editor Gaw happy - but I confess I was nonplussed by the ITV commentators' furious reaction to the red card shown to Sam Warburton for his spear tackle on Vincent Clerc. It was a quite eye-wateringly dangerous act of violence, but they seemed to think a sin-binning would have been harsh. Rugby is a violent game but that makes the drawing of clear lines more important.

It seems pointless to compare the apologising for Warburton with the opprobrium heaped upon Wayne Rooney for his pathetic kick on the the Montenegran (described by the UEFA authorities as "an assualt") since football and rugby have wholly different moral codes, but a more telling thought experiment would be to imagine the reaction if it had been an England bruiser dumping one of the plucky Welsh lads on his neck.