Will somebody please explain to the producers of "The Flying Gardener" (BBC1 Friday evenings), as well as the research teams behind programmes such as "The News" etc, that Northern Ireland is NOT part of Great Britain.
"This is the boggiest place in Britain..." "These are the largest ship yards in Britain..." No they're not!
Look at your passports people! I don't have a bloody passport but even I know that along the top edge are the words: "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!" If you can't research your subjects better (and, frankly, seeing as you live in Britain yourselves you should be ashamed of your ignorance) then find another job. For your information: Britain = England, Scotland and Wales. The U.K = Britain and Northern Ireland. Dumbing down = pig ignorant tossers who continually try to educate the Great British public with misinformation!
Smarten up your acts and, whilst I'm here, stop bombarding an increasingly ill educated populace with dangling prepositions and split infinitives! Cretins!
On a slightly different note (well...on a totally different note actually) it seems the government has performed a U-turn on the law that it passed several months ago concerning nudity and sexual practises committed in public. Following vociferous condemnation of Blunkett's Anti-Exhibitionist Law by British naturists it has now been returned to its original status. General nudity and bonking in public places are no longer imprisionable offences, but a sexual act committed in public designed specifically to cause offence, is still unlawful. Good! That means whilst the rest of us are bonking in the bluebells this spring, John Prescott won't be allowed to strip off!

Quiet! You down at the back!

Update 1: Federal MPs may be limited in what they can say about the issue when Parliament returns on Tuesday because parliamentary rules prevent any "disrespectful" comments about the Queen or her representative.

Speaker Neil Andrew said "criticism of the Governor-General will not be tolerated".

Ve haf vays of not making you talk! Mmmmm ... searches dictionary for etymology of the word "parliament".

Update 2: The government whip gagged federal Liberal MPs from commenting on rape allegations levelled at Governor-General Peter Hollingworth.

The memo from chief government whip Jim Lloyd was sent to all MPs, including ministers and senators, according to the ABC's Lateline program.

The memo said: "Additional comments in relation to this issue only assist the media - not individuals members, senators nor the government."

... and bugger me dead, what gives the idiot voters who elected these members the idea that they have the right to know where they stand on this issue?!

*Thinks* ... Didn't all this stuff start with silence, stonewalling, denial and some Archbishop sweeping things under the shagpile?

Update 3: The focus of the crisis embroiling Governor-General Peter Hollingworth shifted to Buckingham Palace last night, with the Queen reported to be willing to allow him to resign.

Prime Minister John Howard today flies home from meeting Australian troops in Qatar to tackle the growing controversy, fuelled by the revelation that he knew about the rape claims against Dr Hollingworth last December.

Last night The Times of London reported that the Queen would raise no objections to Dr Hollingworth's removal.

The report said the Queen was known to be concerned about Dr Hollingworth's increasingly precarious position and discussed it with Mr Howard during his visit to London earlier this week.

A senior palace official told the paper that the Queen would raise no objection if Mr Howard decided he wanted Dr Hollingworth to stand down. "The Queen follows the advice of her ministers in the Australian Government," the official said.

Roll on the Republic of Australia. No more salacious stories about Governors-General. We want our own President who can give us far a better class of peckerdillos. We want our own home grown Bill Clinton!

When do we want it? NOW!

Update 4: The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists will consider dumping Governor-General Peter Hollingworth as its patron at a special meeting in Hobart today.

The RANZCP is, however, willing to take him on as a patient.

UPDATE 5

Governor-General, Dr Peter Hollingworth, has stood aside as the Queen's representative in Australia.

Tasmania's Governor, Sir Guy Green, will stand in as Governor-General pending the outcome of a court case into rape allegations against Dr Hollingworth being heard in the Victorian Supreme Court.

The GG not be standing down because of this issue (a mere sideshow probaby destined to go nowhere) but should have already resigned because of his priors when Archbishop of Brisbane.

The announcement was made by Prime Minister John Howard at a specially convened press conference in Sydney.

(True to form little Johnny couldn't help surrounding the event with his trademark obfuscation and prevarication.)

Dr Hollingworth and the Prime Minister have both been in Sydney today.

Mr Howard's office earlier today denied the two were holding official talks but late today the Prime Minister ordered a press conference be held at his Sydney office where he made the announcement.

Visitors entering Gaza from Israel will now be forced to sign chits wavering the Israeli government from any responsibility should their troops bomb, shoot or otherwise kill, maim and knacker them. This particular idea has arisen from the killings of various British and American aid workers, peace protesters and journalists in recent months.
David Blunkett has welcomed the plans with open arms, proposing a similar chit for refugees and asylum seekers entering Britain.
"This way we can remove any legal blame from our own government ministers should they get caught torturing, hanging or buggering the refugees sideways," Blunkett explained to the official press conference rubber plant by accident. "It's just a pity that we didn't come up with this idea during the Iraq war."
Ex-Yorkshire Ripper and prostitute murderer, Peter Sutcliff, was heard to comment in prison this morning, "Fuck! I wish I'd thought of that."
Meanwhile three British Muslims appeared in court today to give evidence against their relatives, the British suicide bombers who detonated themselves in Israel last month. One of the bombers, Omar Sharif, failed to explode at the time. He was last seen running after a steam train in Moscow with a gap between his front teeth before having a heart attack and spoiling the whole film with a pathetic ending.
Other news and my satire chip appears to have broken.

Prime Minister John Howard has arrived in Qatar to visit Australian troops who have been involved in the war in Iraq.

On his arrival, Mr Howard ignored a question about the controversy enveloping Governor-General Peter Hollingworth.

The issue has taken the gloss off what would otherwise be a trip characterised by patronising pats on the head glowing tributes from US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr Howard is expected to visit the Australian forces' central command and troops on board HMAS Kanimbla where it is understood he will be leaving them with a reminder that whilst the war in Iraq may be over, the hunting down and smoking out of people who rain on his parade has only just begun.

BTW seems like the Good Green Fairy has been hacked.
No wonder she is not enamoured of children.



UPDATE. Pleased to report that fairies of all hues have reported in for duty and are now back blogging at the bottom of the garden.

One of the problems with being as incredibly famous and benevolent as me is that my time is seldom my own. For example, I wake up at five o'clock in the evening morning and vacuum the house from top to bottom. (Because of my hideously generous nature and the fact that I donate all of my earnings to tiny, helpless foreign children and three legged baby animals, I can't afford the busty maid from Miss Daisy's Personal Cleaners that I've had my eye on for some time now.) Then I polish every surface in sight, greet the dawn with a torch and night-vision goggles, the intention being to rid the garden of slugs and snails. (I gather them up and transport them in a container to the nearest wood...not just sling them into the alley behind the house like some people would...and in answer to the angry letter that I received from the RSPCA last week...I've no idea who's been hammering snails into the cobbles at the back of my place.) Where was I? Whatever...all this before breakfast!
Throughout the morning I meet and greet local dignitaries who are fans of my work and hold press conferences, make television appearances, pat mongols on the head, answer my adoring fans (I insist on replying to everyone by hand and don't just print out form letters with the names changed at all like some unworthy Australian legends I don't care to mention by name)...and basically get on with the minute by minute obligations that structure my claustrophobic life.
Afternoons I spend writing and scribbling. Somebody has to produce the high quality novels and cartoons for which I am so rightly famed around the globe, you know! Three novels a week and one hundred and fourteen cartoons a day requires a lot of work and I never ask for any reward. I'm just content to know that I've made some publisher somewhere enough money to drive his petrol-consuming Jaguar another fourteen feet along the road from his office to his luxury mansion.
Evenings...and I tend to my thousands of web sites across the net. This is the best time of all. It's now when I produce something special for this little board...and it's a wonderful feeling knowing that I've helped to educate some mentally deficient runt somewhere. I can collapse in bed at four-thirty in the morning full of the knowledge that I've brought a little light into this tragic world and have produced a coherent 'road-map' for a better future for the whole of mankind.
Then there's the cooking and the shopping and all the other mundanities that I, sometimes reluctantly, have to perform throughout the day, of course. Fortunately, because of my massive intellect, I've managed to bend the rules of space/time a bit so that I can squeeze in an extra few minutes here and there for new projects...such as SKUNK magazine...available in the shops soon. Only £1.50! Excellent value! Will keep you posted!
However, sometimes, no matter how hard I try to work beyond the physical limits of mortal man, there aren't enough hours in the day.
Which, to cut a long story short, is why I haven't written a blog tonight. So if you want to complain about it look into your own hearts instead and ask yourselves, "Why are you such demanding and selfish bastards?" Then try to act a bit more like me and be more giving.
Or alternatively, just sod off.

BREAKING NEWS.

Governor-General denies rape claim

O.K. all you people north of the equator, we in Oz are just as amazed that this Governor General story is challenging "Dallas" for twists, turns and improbabilities.

Thursday, 8 May, 2003, 07:11 GMT 08:11 UK The Australian Governor-General, Peter Hollingworth, has denied an allegation of rape after it emerged that he was being sued for a sexual attack dating back to the 1960s.

Mr Hollingworth is already under pressure to resign from his post for mishandling a series of sex abuse cases while he was the Archbishop of Brisbane in the 1990s.

Mr Hollingworth said he did not know the woman who alleged the attack, and that the allegations were a case of mistaken identity.

"I deny absolutely that I have ever raped or in any way sexually assaulted any person," the Queen's representative said in a statement.

The rape charge came to light after Mr Hollingworth bowed to pressure to lift a suppression order on the details of the case, which is still being heard in the courts, even though the woman involved recently committed suicide.

Win, lose or draw ... guilty or not, this has to be the nail in the GG's coffin.

I've come all ambivalent like about this. As a fully paid up republican it would serve to undermine this archaic institution to have him stay in the job. As someone who can appreciate the anger and distress of victims of the abuse that occurred during Hollingworth's flawed reign as Archbishop of Brisbane I would want him to go, and go swiftly. The second proposition is the more compelling.

Editor's note: George Galloway eat your heart out.