It's been a while, so let's slip back into the familiar routine of looking at some letters into The Sloppy Star, pointing at them and then ridiculing them. There's a few to get through this time around, so let's dive straight in:
Sean Bayley calls me homophobic and other vitriolic names for defending the guesthouse couple who refused to give two homosexuals a double bed.
You remember this case, I hope? It's a very tricky one - a Christian couple who own a guesthouse refused to let two gay men stay overnight, based on their religious beliefs. They claimed that if they initially knew they were gay, they would have said they weren't welcome before they pitched up there. As it was, they turned up, got told to clear off, it went to court and it all got very messy.
I find this one very tough to call. On one hand, shops don't have to serve people, and if a biker goes to a pub he can be asked to leave and he can't do a damn thing about it. This couple own a guesthouse, which is also their home, so if they don't want someone in there they're entitled to say "no". HOWEVER in this case, their view is so appalling, so antiquated and so misguided that I find myself opposing them vehemently. And there was me thinking that God loved everyone.
What do you guys think? I'm genuinely undecided. What I am certain of however is that on this topic, sensible, grown up debating is required. No prejudice and no nonsense. So, with that in mind, let's read the rest of the letter!
Well I don't hate gays, but like most people I find the practice abhorrent.
Ah good. This will be an important contribution to the debate.
I feel sorry for the one per cent who are born that way, but for the rest it is a lifestyle choice, accepted, even encouraged in the media and sick magazines.
I interviewed Graham Norton the other day - nice man. When I asked him about his homosexuality, he told me he realised he was gay after reading about it in a "sick magazine". Interesting.
We will regret allowing it being taught to our children. Anything which is unnatural is contrary to God's law and the whole nation will pay the price for allowing it.
Ron Jones
Oswestry
I wonder if Irish Catholic priests abusing and raping children is contrary to God's law?
Let's move on before I get too irate. Needless to say though, Ron Jones goes on the list.
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Sixty years ago during National Service with the RAF we airmen were given something to eat similar to mashed potato but tasting just like candle grease.
Right.
I was bitterly disappointed and threw it in the bin.
I see.
Most RAF stations supplied food like my dear late mother made or the fare at the five star Grosvenor Hotel in Chester or the Buck Hotel in Bangor-on-Dee.
Right.
The corporal cook threatened to put me on a charge so I told him "please yourself". However, support came from an ex-Royal Navy man and police corporal.
I see.
The next day, the messing sergeant - a real gentleman - apologised to me "We're having real mashed potato from now on Taff," he said.
Right.
Let's drink to potatoes and vegetables.
Mr Emyr Davies, Wrexham
I just don't really know what to say here. On one hand, this man is clearly elderly, so to mock his irrelevant and uninteresting story would be poor form. On the other hand though, he's Welsh, so fuck it.
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So, Desperate Dave,
Nobody has ever called David Cameron that, ever.
badly rattled over the incompetent coalition's mishandling of the Libyan crisis,
Incompetence and mishandling that has passed everyone else in the world by, clearly.
has come out fighting and suddenly appears to relish a war of his own. He threatens to unleash fire and brimstone, a flash man vowing to send the bits of the armed forces he hasn't sacked or sent to the breakers yard. Cameron talks of a no-fly zone while at the same time firing pilots and decommissioning the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. He thinks that Libya could be his Falklands.
This is a real mixed bag, this paragraph. There's some good, there's some bad and then there's some utter bollocks. I particularly enjoy the bit about David Cameron apparently believing that Libya "could be his Falklands". It is true that there have been severe cutbacks in our defence budget, which disappoints me a lot, but then I'm a boy so I'm excited by things that go whizz-bang and have the capacity to unleash sulphur.
The British response to the wave of unrest sweeping North Africa and the Middle East needs a cool head, not a hot-head in power.
Which currently it has. How lovely that the Government (of which I'm not a fan) has been largely praised for the handling of this difficult situation so far (emphasis on the words "so far", your Honour) whilst letters like this are being flinged around by idiots.
John and Jackie Pond
Shrewsbury
I was curious to know what goes on at the Pond residence, so I sneaked round there the other night, crouched under their front window and listened in on their conversation. Fascinating. I taped it as well, it went like this:
John: "Bad news love."
Jackie: "Go on, what?"
John: "Gaddafi is fighting back in Libya, and has just gone on state radio to inform the nation that he's coming round to murder as many people as he can. Women, children, grandparents, doesn't matter."
Jackie: "Oh my god! What can we do?!"
John: "Well, the right thing to do would be to get a coalition of many countries together, get UN backing, and then implement a no-fly zone over the country. To do that they first have to take out his military centres and tanks that are on their way to Benghazi. That would stop his army in their tracks!"
Jackie: "But that would involve missiles! People will get hurt! That's completely unacceptable!"
John: "My God! You're right! Thank goodness we belong to an unbelievably spineless organisation such as 'Stop The War'!"
Jackie: "Exactly. Best thing is just to ignore it. All these wars solely for oil, it's disgusting. Cucumber sandwich?"
John: "Thankyou. I love the sandals."
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Once again Barmy Blair
Bliar. You won't believe this, but I met Tony and Cherie again the other day, at the local cinema. I asked Tony what film they were going to watch, and he told me "The Adjustment Bureau" before walking off to buy some popcorn. At that moment Cherie leaned in and whispered into my ear that actually they were there to see "The King's Speech"!!!
That man just CANNOT help himself!
and Clown Brown have shown their extraordinary powers of judgement.
I see what you did there.
They both regaled the reformed Colonel Gaddafi and embraced him into the fold (they are both of course barristers).
I have literally no fucking idea what that last bit is all about. Nevertheless, both men were correct in meeting the man and trying to Westernise him at the time, I believe. It's a shame things haven't exactly worked out, but I can't blame them for trying.
Well Gaddafi has shown he is still the mad dog he always was. No doubt this has enhanced both their global standings. Oh is the price of gold still rising?
D L Barnett
Arleston
I remember blogging about you before. Nice to see you're still wrong.
Anyone else? I'm tired, so let's just have one more.
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If I look forward five or six years, I can actually foresee the possibility of UKIP winning a general election.
*Spits out tea all over keyboard in shock.*
*Cleans keyboard, takes another sip and then spits it out again, just for a laugh.*
I think the Lib Dems will disintegrate before much longer, forcing an increasingly unpopular Tory Government to limp into an early general election, which Labour will win, before very quickly finding themselves even more unpopular with an impatient and deeply disaffected electorate. By then, the festering eurozone crisis will have created deep fractures within the EU and the burden of our own financial contribution to shoring it up will create the right conditions for seismic political change.
Bob Jenkins
Stirchley
I wish that in life we had a mute button, both for voices and letters.
There's so much shit in that paragraph I'd love to wade through, but I'm as bored as you are and I want to go and watch the cricket. So let me just say this to you, Robert:
"I, Ewarwoowar III, state at this moment in time (15:23 on the 24th March 2011) that if the United Kingdom Independence Party, otherwise known as UKIP, win a British General Election in the next six years, I will thus change my name, officially, to "Nigel Farage" as well as resigning from the UK's #1 rated entertainment blog, "The Rise and Rise of Tim Lovejoy". So let it be said, so let it be written."
Remind me of that in six years time, won't you?
