The Time Of Liars

How can you tell when  a politician is lying?

It’s easy; he’s talking.

The time I dread is upon us;  that’s if you live in the United Kingdom. Yes, it’s election time again, when we are subjected to a parade of lying politicians appearing on the television, on the radio, on the internet and, if like me you are unlucky enough to live in a marginal constituency, on your own doorstep.

It’s time for an election and for the next few weeks the British people have to endure a bunch of double-talking, dishonest and deceitful hypocrites promising the world and delivering nothing but their own agenda.

Over the coming weeks, the news will be full of these people using scare tactics or worse to get us to put a tick in a box next to the name of a lying representative of their party, all so that one of the leaders can become our next Prime Minister and spend the next five years shafting us all in one way or another.

So what array of liars do we have?

Allow me to introduce them to you.

David Cameron is the current Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party, a party who love rich people. With his Chancellor, George Osbourne, you have two former public school boys who think that they are one with people, declaring “We’re all in this together,” while at the same time allowing the rich to get richer and the poor, via a savage austerity programme, to get poorer.

David Cameron

Osborne - Smugness Personified

Ed Miliband is the leader of the opposition and has become a laughing stock, simply because he looks like a melting waxwork and speaks as if he has a huge ball of cotton wool up his nostrils. While he claims to stand for fairness, it’s difficult to believe him and not just because his rhetoric is delivered from his funny face and lopsided mouth.

Which one is the leader of Labour Party?

The current Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats is Nick Clegg, a man whose party is currently in government as the tiny party in coalition with David Cameron’s Conservatives. He made promises before the election but his party realistically couldn’t get elected with a majority on their own. They formed an unholy alliance with the Conservatives and when they had a taste of power all of their pre-election promises were completely broken. He made an impassioned film apologising for his deceit but all this did was make his party even more unpopular.

Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg's  apology was quite rightfully mocked:

But the really bad thing is that thanks to his broken promises my younger son will leave university in a few years’ time with an enormous debt.

Clegg’s party is now floundering and this has let in a very scary party called UKIP (UK Independence Party) led by “man of the people”, the beer drinking, smoking man who “tells it like it is”, Mr Nigel Farage. Like Ed Miliband, he is a strange looking guy but he resonates with the little Englanders up and down the country who blame every problem in the UK on one thing: immigration.

Farage - Looney Leader

While Farage tells his scaremongering lies very eloquently, claiming that he does not lead a racist party, certain UKIP councillors and other members of his party have exposed their true colours.

Like this lady:

She was sacked. But what about this man?



He was sacked too. How about the UKIP councillor who blamed a series of severe floods in the south of England on David Cameron’s decision to legalise gay marriage?

He too was suspended. It seems to me that Mr Farage has his work cut out trying to apologise for the loonies in his party.

Nigel Farage - nothing more needs to be said

There are other parties too, most notably Plaid Cymru (“The Party for Wales”) and the Scottish Nationalist Party, neither of whom I can vote for, who are totally driven by issues for their own country and the break-up of the United Kingdom.

Usually it is a two horse race between Labour and the Conservatives but this time there seems to be no party that will get the required majority. This means that we will almost certainly end up with yet another coalition, lots more broken promises and, if we are really unlucky, a lunatic party like UKIP having a say in government policies.

As I said, I live in a marginal constituency which means that the only likely winners for my seat are the Liberal Democrats or Labour. There will be a stream of leaflets from these two parties through my letterbox and if I am really unlucky, the party activists and/or prospective MPs themselves will come-a-knocking hoping that I will promise to vote for them.

When I get my ballot paper, I want another option. I know I won’t get it but you can hope, can’t you?

The option is “None of the Above”.

Alternatively, I could vote for The Official Monster Raving Looney Party (“Vote For Insanity”) – and yes they really do exist (click here if you don't believe me).

With candidates like “Sir Oink-a-lot”, “Baron von Thunderclap”, “R.U.Seerius”, “Minkey the Drummer” and “Baron Barnes von Claptrap” they will make more sense than the liars we have to suffer.

Hopefully, on the night, TV coverage will be like this:

We can live in hope, can’t we?

The Meaning of Life - The Grim Reaper

The fourth part of my mini-series on the meaning of life was going to cover happiness, leaving death until the end. However, Christmas is approaching faster than a speeding Santa so happiness is a fitting topic to finish on.

Sadly this means I have to discuss death now.

Death is a nasty part of life – which is kind of weird really because death means the end of life. Some people become preoccupied with death in the later stages of life and become obsessed with it.

I hope that doesn’t happen to me.

I have faced death in a major way, as regular readers may know, when I watched my father die at the tender age of 44. Obviously that was a traumatic event which time helped to cure. The problem was that because his death was so unexpected and so sudden that it planted a seed of anxiety that lay dormant until I approached the same age.

Reason was cast aside and for a whole year, a part of me expected my own life to come to an abrupt and meaningless end. The feeling was totally irrational and while it didn’t dominate my life, I found my thoughts drifting towards the Grim Reaper more times than I would have hoped for.

My 45th birthday was a great day because to me it meant the end of what I described as the year of death. I felt like I had reached the finish line of a great race.

Looking back now, some seven years later, I have no such fears and I can’t believe the thought ever crossed my mind. Furthermore, I really ought to be worrying about it more because I am older and, realistically, closer to the day when the Grim Reaper comes knocking to collect me.

And I can’t help but wonder why that is.

Death is the inescapable conclusion to life and, unless you have discovered the secret of immortality or are a vampire, it will happen to you.

Why worry about it?

There is no reason.

Life is great and when the time comes, it will come; there is nothing you can do about it.

What’s more, death may not be the end. The premise of most religions is that death is merely a transition to a higher plane of existence – or possibly even the chance to pop back to Earth as another person or another creature.

As a Catholic, I have been indoctrinated by the premise that when I die, I will be judged and, having been a naughty boy (and I have been a naughty boy), I will suffer the consequences in Purgatory before joining the legions of the dead in Heaven in eternal happiness.

I could go to Hell of course and spend the rest of eternity being tortured and tormented by demonic forces. My punishment would almost certainly involve being locked in a cell with Piers Morgan with diabolical pop music blaring out of speakers at a high volume.

Reincarnation seems a reasonable option – if options are available. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be born again as another person and live another life? Of course, it might already have happened and I may have been a slave in Pompeii, or a jester in the court of Henry VIII or an explorer sailing towards America with Christopher Columbus.

Apparently it is possible to be hypnotised and drift back through your past lives. I am tempted to have a go at this but I am too sceptical and realistically I imagine my “past life” will come from a historical novel I have read or a blockbuster movie.

Other options exist; what about the science fiction concept that death is just a way of entering a new plane of existence? When we shuffle off this mortal coil, do we shed our old bodies and float off into space in an alternative reality?

Or the idea that we all drift off and continue to prevail in death? In the Necroscope series of books, when people die, they exist in a different form and continue their life’s work in death.

Apart from Hell with Piers Morgan, most of the alternatives sound appealing in one way or another.

And being a positive person, I would like to think that there is something more. The scientist within me is very sceptical and informs me that we will simply cease to be. After all, we don’t remember anything from before we were born do we?

I have no memory of anything before October 1962, my birth month. I suspect the reality is that I will return to that emptiness.

But I may be wrong.

Death could be the beginning of a brand new adventure.

Finally, please excuse the morbid tone of this post but people can’t talk about death without some negative overtones.

To cheer you up a bit, here are a couple of funny videos relating to death:

Britain - Your Questions Answered

Regular readers will know that I am British – or maybe just a weirdo from Britain.

The year 2012 has actually been quite a year for our little islands and I’m sure that the world has noticed us a little bit more than usual.

The Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics and the Paralympics have all helped to put us on the map (we have always been there anyway – just off the North West coast of France) but perhaps more people have taken notice of us this year.

On my travels, people have asked me quite a lot of questions about my home country and in order to educate you, if you are from outside our islands, I thought I would share some of those questions – and, indeed, answer them.

I have genuinely been asked some of the questions below – others are just a few I stole from the internet with the aid of my good friend Mr Google.

The answers are all genuinely true – well mostly – possibly.

Do you live in London?

All people in the UK live in London – that’s 62 million of us. There is no other city or town in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. 

We were all born there too. 

When the Romans invaded Britain in AD 43, led by Emperor Londinium, he was so enamoured with the River Thames that he decreed it to be the site of the greatest city outside Rome. 

Why do American films always have a British bad guy?

The answer is simple; we are all evil megalomaniacs who want to take over the world – all 62 million of us – even James Bond. 

It started with the Beatles in the 1960’s and since then we have conquered most of the known world, in a subtle way, of course.

Recently they were questions about Barack Obama when Donald Trump accused him of being born in Kenya. This is of course wrong. I can now reveal that Barack Obama was born in London, in the same street as me.

Furthermore, Vladimir Putin’s real name is Vince Putin and he was also born in London. 

Have you met the Queen of England?

Liz and I are the best of friends. We have afternoon tea every day. In fact, she has contributed several posts to this blog. Can you guess which?

How can you be British AND English?

England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are all aliases for Britain, which is an alias for London and also the United Kingdom. Since we all come from the UK we are also Ukrainian.

Why do you all drink tea?

At 4pm in Britain, everything stops for tea. We down tools, go to a tea room where we are served lashings of tea served by men with silver trays, snooty faces and whose name is Jeeves or Perkins. Accompanying the tea are scones, tea cakes and a stiff upper lip.

It is tea that gives us all rotten teeth and stiff upper lips (due to grimacing when we drink an extremely strong brew).

Why is your beer warm?

Our beer is not warm – it is served at room temperature, which in Britain averages -10°C.

Does everyone in Britain sound like the Queen?

Yes. This young man from Scotland has a perfect British accent… 

As does this guy from Birmingham (I used to talk a bit like him - really!):

Why do you spell words incorrectly?

Nobody in the United Kingdom can spell. Those guys across the pond have got it right.

I have been taking lessons to improve my spelling, actually.

I now know that:

Colour should be Color

Tap should be Faucet

Nappy should be Diaper

British should be Limey

Are you impressed?

What is a bloke?

The official definition of bloke in the Oxford English Dictionary is “not a woman”.

What language do they speak in England?

We all speak Latin.

How do you play cricket?

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

Why is Monty Python funny?

I don’t know – you tell me.




I have a friend in London called John Smith. Do you know him?

There are 30,000 people in London called John Smith – and I know them ALL!

Who feeds the Loch Ness Monster?

There’s a little Scottish fellow who lives in London, who travels 560 miles to Loch Ness every week, with a lorry full of fish and spends three days throwing them into the Loch before setting off back to London to fill up his lorry for the following week.

Why are British people so grumpy?

Because we are constantly asked stupid questions.

And finally …

If you have any genuine and serious questions about life in Britain, please feel free to ask me and I will try to give you some serious answers (instead of flippant and facetious answers like those above).

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, ...

This post is a little crude.

I apologise for that in advance but I feel I need to post about something that has irritated me for the past year or two.

I have two personal email accounts, one for this blog and one other.

The email for for this blog is fairly anonymous and serves to inform me when people have commented on the blog, people who have decided to follow me on Twitter and other fairly mundane stuff.

I get a few emails as you would imagine. However, I get thousands of emails in a folder called Spam.

I feel like I’ve been to this transport café:



I have never used my email account to tell anybody about any problems, even anonymously. Yet I am discovering that people want to help me, in many different ways, to improve my personal life. And they are sending me thousands of emails to tell me.

And these people are persistent, I can tell you.

I don’t ever recall telling anybody that I am having trouble in the bedroom department. And before you start sniggering, I am functioning perfectly.

Yet somebody somewhere feels the need to continually offer me a solution to a non-existent problem, in the form of a little blue pill called Viagra.

And it’s not just one email – its loads of them – from many different sources.

If really did have the problem that Viagra solves, do you think I would send out an email to lots of random people saying:

Hey guys, have you got a cure for erectile dysfunction? I have a real problem with that - and PLEASE don’t tell my mates.

It’s bad enough seeing an email like:

Hey, Plastic, do you have problems between the sheets? We guarantee to give you the power to make a HUGE tent in your bed.

without the ignominy of a mate seeing the email and saying:

Is there something you want to tell us, Dave? Hey lads, it looks like Dave needs some help in the trouser department.

It’s not just Viagra spam. Other emails offer a more drastic solution to problems in that area.

Hey Plastic, do girls laugh at your small winkie? With our winkie extension procedure we can guarantee that you will positively WANT to slowly change your underwear in a room full of hot women. Most will faint and those that don’t will want to jump on you. What’s more, you’ll be so proud that your winkie has turned into a monster that you will want to show it off to your mates.

Change my underwear slowly in a room full of women? Show my mates? I don’t think I could survive either of those without violent pain or eternal savaging.

I’ve heard that the procedure possibly involves a needle or worse.

Why would I even consider such drastic action?

As well as offering bodily enhancements, I have been offered brides from various parts of the world.

Hey Plastic, are you desperately lonely? Do you want to meet Russian women? Or Chinese women? Or Thai women? Or French women? Or American women? Or British women? Or any women from anywhere in the world? We can guarantee that you will meet and marry a voluptuous woman, even if you look like the rear end of a baboon and have the personality of Marvin the Paranoid Android.

And it’s worse than that. These people know where I live.

Hey Plastic, join our dating site and we guarantee you will find the love of your life. We have thousands of HOT WOMEN in the Manchester area ALL dying to meet you.

Presumably if they know I have been receiving emails about erectile dysfunction, winkie extensions and mail order brides they will come armed with Viagra, needles and weapons of pain.

I’m half expecting them to knock on my door asking for a guy called Plastic Mancunian, a name that, when I think about it, makes me sound like some weird pervert.

I would like to just say one thing to anybody who reads this and who happens to send me these spammy emails.

PLEASE STOP!!!!

Your emails only end up in a folder labelled Spam and I delete them without reading them (even though they have amusing titles).

Perhaps I should just change my email address and the name of my blog and the pseudonym I use.

How about one of these?

Rock Hammer

Goliath Fist

Brutus Bonecrusher

None of them are really me and I would bet I would still receive emails like:

Hey Goliath, are you ashamed of your winkie?

Perhaps I should just call myself Chuck Norris. That might work here are some Chuck Norris facts that might deter spammers:

Chuck Norris never sleeps – he waits

Chuck Norris can slam revolving doors

Ghosts are caused by Chuck Norris killing people faster than the Grim Reaper can process them

Chuck Norris can build a snowman out of rain

Chuck Norris doesn’t do press-ups. He pushes the earth down

Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle

Chuck Norris died ten years ago but the Grim Reaper is too afraid to tell him

Giraffes were created when Chuck Norris uppercutted a horse

Chuck Norris is the only man on earth who can kick you in the back of the face

Chuck Norris can punch a man in the soul

An important fact I could spread is

Chuck Norris tracks down spammers and makes them eat their own Viagra.

Actually on second thoughts please don’t tell Chuck Norris that a guy called Plastic is trying to use his name; I think I’d rather take my chances with the Viagra.

Top Ten Comedy Films

There is nothing like a decent comedy film to brighten your mood. Here is a list of ten really funny films that have made me howl with laughter in the past. Please feel free to let me know your favourites.

10 – There’s Something About Mary

I had absolutely no idea what this film was about when Mrs PM dragged me to the cinema to see it. It was payback time; I had forced her to see one of my testosterone-fuelled action flicks and this was my penance. I sat down munching on popcorn and within ten minutes I was choking with laughter. There are simply so many pure moments of comedy genius; Cameron Diaz and the hair; the interview with the crazy policeman; the cringeworthy moment involving the zipper that frankly still makes my eyes water just thinking about it.

9 - The Blues Brothers

“We’re on a mission from God”. This is another film I saw without knowing a thing about it. some fantastic performances from legendary artists like James Brown, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. It has everything – a surreal story line, great music, great car chases and top comedy performances from John Belushi and Dan Akroyd.

8 - Borat

We’ve known about Sacha Baron Cohen in the UK for some time. Bizarrely, Borat and Bruno were minor characters compared to the more famous “Ali G”, a completely useless pillock who thinks he is a gangster rapper from a crappy little town in the south of England called Staines. Here in the UK we saw Borat on “Da Ali G Show” before anybody else and we knew what to expect from the movie. I have to say that Sacha Baron Cohen has absolutely no fear; I realise that a lot of the movie is staged but some of the scenes in the movie were unbelievable. Arguably the funniest moment was the naked wrestling in the hotel that ends up gate-crashing a corporate event.

7 – This is Spinal Tap

I love this film because it is an absolute piss-take of a classic British heavy metal band, made even better by the fact that all the actors are American. And the album “Break LikeThe Wind” that appeared some years after the movie, is actually very good and very funny with lyrics like:

When we die, do we haunt the sky?
Do we lurk in the murk of the seas?
What then? Are we born again?
Just to sit asking questions like these?

Back to the movie, scenes like the cock up with “Stonehenge” and the band getting lost on the way to the stage are comedy classics. And remember “These go to 11”:



6 – Some Like It Hot

This is one of my mother’s favourite films. It may be dated now but the ideas and comedy in the film are years ahead of their time. It was also the first film I saw starring Marilyn Monroe – what a lovely woman she was. Jack Lemmon is the star of the film for me, though it has to be said that both he and Tony Curtis were very convincing as women. And of course, the ending of the film is legendary:



5 – Blazing Saddles

I love Mel Brookes and Blazing Saddles is my favourite of his. OK, the ending was a bit crap but the rest of the movie is inspired. Highlights for me include the baked beans around the camp fire, Gene Wilder’s gunslinger and, of course, the inimitable Mongo. Very silly and very funny.



4 - National Lampoon’s Animal House

I saw this film as a sixteen year old and it was the first film that was certificate 15 or above. I cried with laughter. John Belushi’s character Bluto is one of the best comedy characters ever and the film is full of fabulously hilarious scenes. The scene with Niedermeyer’s horse is classic. Here’s John Belushi at his best:



3 – Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Steve Martin will never make a funnier film. He came close with “The Jerk” but “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is in a league of its own. Maybe the reason I love it so much is because it represents one of my worst nightmares – struggling to get home by any means possible and saddled with the most obnoxious man on the planet, played by the brilliant John Candy. I feel Steve Martin’s pain all the way through the film and the poignant ending brings a tear to my eye. But the journey is one of the most hilarious romps I have seen, particularly the socks in the basin and the anguished cry of “THOSE AREN’T PILLOWS!!!!”



2 – Way Out West

I love Laurel and Hardy. My dad introduced me to them as a young child and I have seen just about everything they have ever done. I’m a bit of a sad basket case, owning a DVD box set of most of their feature films and shorts, including quite a few silent films. For me, they are the founders of modern comedy and way ahead of their time. As a child, “Way Out West” had me crying with laughter. These guys are the original “Dumb and Dumber”; so breathtakingly stupid that they defy belief, yet so funny that people still howl with laughter after all these decades. “Way Out West” is my favourite film by the dynamic duo and this is the funniest scene in the film. It is an absolute classic:



1 – Monty Python’s The Life of Brian

This is the funniest film I have seen and also the most misunderstood. It was condemned as blasphemous when it first appeared and was banned in a few areas of the UK, mostly by people who hadn’t seen it. People assumed that just because it was set during the life of Jesus, that it was actually about him. It isn’t – not at all. Jesus appears in the film twice; once at the beginning just after his birth (where the three wise men mistake the baby Brian for Jesus) and once at the Sermon on the Mount. That’s it. The remainder of the film is an hilarious tale that happens to take place at the same time. I laughed so much when I saw it the first time that I had to go and see it again. To this day it is the only film I have ever seen twice at the cinema. There are too many hilarious scenes to mention, so hear are a couple of my favourites:







All ten films have made me laugh – I hope you agree. If you don’t please feel free to let me know your favourites.