Symmetry in a cemetery

Has it ever struck you - the symmetry in a cemetery?
Are we really so obsessed with what is on the other 'side'?

If there is a greater expression of derision than silence...

...keep quiet about it.

Peeping Tom found at Abbey

He was staring into the Abess.

The difference between oppose and repose

Oppose: to sit on the opposition benches in the House of Commons.
Repose: to sit on any bench in the House of Lords.

Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away

Today I must look through my binoculars the correct way.

I was the most outstanding pupil in my school

I was out standing in the corridor almost every day.

From Scotland Yard to the farmyard, there's a certain whiff

1. rank: a position within a fixed heirarchy. For example, in the Metropolitan Police.
2. rank: having a foul smell. For example, in the Metropolitan Police.

Hello! Hello! Hello! said the MP to the MP to the MP

The Member of Parliament to the Murdoch Press to the Metropolitan Police.
The permutations are endless.
Three in a bed is never healthy. You don't know where to turn.

An apology. My editor didn't die.

It was a coma. Not a full stop.

My editor died. An obituary.

To cut a long story short...

Eats shoots and leaves

Or maybe that should read 'Eats shoots and departs' as has happened to a number of diners at Lübeck's Kartoffelkeller.
The new strain of E.coli that has done for 22 of their guests so far is second only in virulence to the rumours that abound as to its precise source.
Having originally pointed the finger at Spanish cucumbers, it now seems that it might well have emanated from Germany's own homegrown bean sprouts.
All of which leads me to think that the best health food of all is the mighty chip where such unwelcome bacteria are incinerated into oblivion.
God forbid that Germany ever starts another world war.
With bean sprouts as part of their newly found armoury, when it comes to winning wars, at long last blighty might well have had its chips.

His own personal FifaDom

Bloater (noun) def. : A herring partially dried in smoke.
Note: not to be confused with a Blatter although there is certainly something very fishy about both.
Etymology of Blatter: from the state of being bloated. Puffed up through over-indulgence. Tendency to gormandize as in "FIFA-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman".
Look out English FA. You've been warned. Maybe even slightly warmed.
Do I smell toast?

The embattled Minister and his embittered ex-wife

Had Chris Huhne been better versed in the classics, he would have done well to remember that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
As Essex police sit up and take notice of Huhne's Machiavellian efforts to offload his speeding points onto the licence of his former wife, it seems that they are not paying her any attention at all.
Was she not also complicit in trying to pervert the course of justice?
Either the police begin to show her some interest or they too could end up having to indulge in the taming of the shrew.

Let him who is without sin...

...Stoneham.

Three cheers for Lord Stoneham and a further three cheers for parliamentary privilege.
This week in the House of Lords, Lord Stoneham exposed Sir Fred Goodwin as a contemptible cad.
I think we are even allowed to refer to him again as a banker even although his track record would make that difficult to substantiate.
Rhyming slang excepted.
Amid revelations that the erstwhile head of RBS was having an extra-marital affair with a former colleague, there is a growing number of calls for an enquiry into the affair.
And why not?
At the risk of being accused of massively understating things, Sir Fred Goodwin enjoys a comfortable life at our expense.
It is now incumbent on us to make that life somewhat more uncomfortable.
Not because of jealousy but more because of the need to provide a better 'balance sheet' - something that Sir Fred failed to do at the RBS which resulted in a £45.5 billion pay-out from the taxpayer.
I now learn that the female in question (yes, female - Frederick Anderson Goodwin's initials had wrong-footed me) was promoted twice while under Sir Fred.
Maybe that was her reward for talent.
But let's get serious.
If Sir Fred's career was anything to go buy, the principle of 'talent and reward' had no place at the RBS.
The principle of 'shafting' others in order to get on, however, seemed to reign supreme.

A condom for the poor. A conned 'em for the rich. a.k.a. a super-injunction.

Backs to the wall in the world of finance...and in Rikers Prison

There lurks a scintilla of irony that there is no more valuable a 'currency' in the world today than stories about the sexual exploits of the former head of the International Monetary Fund.
If we were to believe even half of them, at the very least he ought to be commended for his boundless energy.
He stands accused - yes it's amazing, he is still standing - of 'targeting young students', 'behaving like a gorilla' and 'indulging in flings with those too numerous to mention'.
And that's only a randy sample. Sorry, a random sample.
From now on, when we refer to the sexual mores of the French, I think we should consider precisely which definition and pronunciation of 'mores' we are referring to.
As Dominique Strauss-Kahn languishes in a New York prison cell awaiting his next court appearance, I am not suggesting for one moment that he should be categorised as a dangerous criminal.
What I would suggest, however, is that there might well be a stiff penalty for any Prison Guard who dares to turn his back on him.

What price the Statute of Liberty?

I suspect that if you were to Google the phrase "how the mighty have fallen" an image of Dominique Strauss-Kahn might well appear.
He is the head of the International Monetary Fund who has also appeared this week in a Manhattan criminal court charged with a serious sexual assault on a chambermaid at the hotel where he was staying.
So instead of hobnobbing with the great and the good in Europe where I imagine he would have been consuming Ferrero Rocher rather than mere HobNobs, he is struggling to find a few crumbs of comfort in an isolated New York prison cell.
Before we can sit in judgement on his guilt or otherwise, what I find particularly gauling - well he is French - is that it won't have cost him one cent more to stay in the Sofitel New York's $3000-a-night suite near Times Square than he will need to pay to stay in the notorious Rikers Island prison.
For once, however, the mighty might yet - and I stress might - have an even bigger price to pay.

The typists wouldn't doff their hats for the Queen

It wasn't lack of deference. They had simply left their Caps Lock on.

True to form...but nothing else

As the football season draws to a close, it would be well-nigh impossible to exaggerate the difference that three points can make.
Just ask Chris Huhne, the Government's Energy Secretary.
Having been caught speeding, it is alleged that Huhne tried to offload his three points on to the licence of A.N. Other.
In a world of politics where freeloading has become almost de rigueur, I would have thought that a little offloading ought to be commended.
But patently not.
At least, not when you lie about it.
As befits his position, he has recently been expending endless energy in trying to persuade a witness not to blab.
Huhne warned the witness that the "last thing" he would want is a "half-baked" story in the Press.
I would translate that to: the first first thing that Chris Huhne would want is to avoid being skewered and roasted by the Press as he bloody well deserves to be.
Commenting on this latest story to besmirch one of our fine upstanding representatives, his former wife claims that he often "drove like a maniac". Had she accused him of "going like a train", then his stock might have risen.
Instead it has fallen.....or is about to.
Not to the sub's bench but to the back benches.
Like a previous MP who valiantly tried to claim expenses for his moat, here we have yet another who is about to be de-moated.
And a good thing too.

I went to the market to buy ceps

I ended up with mussels.