BEYOND THE IMPLODE 3 - BRITISH AIRWAYS 0

I believe it was the philosopher Mark P who once observed Life's about as wonderful as a cold... life's about as wonderful as growing old...life's about as wonderful as a tramp lying dead in the road...life's about as wonderful as...NUFFING! And he had a point. After all, 'LDN'ers, there's a corporate pig sitting in a business conference, RIGHT NOW, snuffling through a brochure outlining the core qualities of a new and unique ID tracking system, enabling companies to keep tabs on employees wherever they are in the world. He tries to locate a brown bogey with his finger as he reads about the system's ability to ensure key execs' safety on jaunts across SE Asia ((or at least to pinpoint exactly where an angry taxi driver shattered their opaque ribcages with a meat cleaver, after the Manila whore-trawl lurched down the wrong side-street)), but what really impresses him is the fact that he can determine exactly where his London-based staff go for lunch; how long they spend on the toilet; who they tend to hang around with 'socially' after work ((cos, let's face it, you need the fucking ID card to get back into work in the morning, so you're not going to leave it on your desk when you scramble out at 5.00 on the dot...))

Yeah, life's pretty grim. It seems the Muslims were right all along - booze and bacon give you cancer. The greasy swine we shovelled down our gullets have returned as a multitude of tumours, squealing with vengeance as they turn our insides out! Britain is fucked, and we're all going to die like nannified manatees, wallowing in a sea of shit.

But cheer up! As Vegetius once dribbled, "If you want peace, prepare for war", so fuck Steve Ignorant and his lifeboat benefit gig and check out this soundclash instead:



I really thought KID SHIRT BLOG had cooked up this flyer for a laugh, but no, the event seems to be real. For the benefit of foreign readers - - to whom I profoundly apologise for the amount of limey slang and in-jokes that litter this blog - - this clash basically represents a struggle between East and West. Tottenham Hotspur vs Bristol City. The Godfathers of Grime against the Pagan Sons of the Cerne Abbas Giant!

The West Country folk - a strange and savage breed! - hate Londoners. As far as they're concerned, we all live in 12-bedroom mansions, gas pensioners for sport and think nothing of paying £75 for a pastrami sandwich, as long as it comes in a pretty paper bag. We treated the Elephant Man like crap and never caught Jack the Ripper. Westminster houses the current kakistocracy responsible for patronising the nation and tearing Iraq to shreds. In fact, any self-respecting yokel will tell you that Londoners are lazy bastards who've never done a day's work in their lives, couldn't knock up a haystack if you paid them, think eggs grow on trees and spend all weekend sitting round Starbucks on their fucking urban arses, pontificating about haircuts.

Whereas Londoners view the West Country folk as evil, crafty tricksters - rogues who'd sell their bed-ridden grandmothers' souls to the Devil at the crossroads at midnight, in exchange for a HAND JOB. Scrumpy-guzzling freaks who gibber like toads as they roam the fields, molesting scarecrows and tearing lambs from the wombs of terrified ewes. Illiterate criminals who've contaminated this country's western hinterlands with incest and in-breeding to the point that scientists fear the dawning of a new mutant race by as early as 2020. Toothless, corn-chewing halfwits, who eat stillborn children...you get the picture.

So, this clash is a way of settling, once and for all, who's better. Having been entrusted by Lord Ganesh to record the history of the universe in unbiased fashion, I obviously await the outcome of this apocalyptic encounter with great curiosity. However, things don't look too handsome in the C'N'D camp. In recent years, the cockney rebels have been ravaged by internal conflict. Promotional posters for a string of dates in the early 2000s featured the baffling information, "LIVE AT THE ALBANY, CHAS AND DAVE* (*not the real Dave)". Fuck knows what that was about. Incidentally, I met Chas and Real Dave on a Ryanair flight once. My travelling companion tried to engage them in conversation, but all Chas could muster was a growled, "JUST DONE A BENEFIT FOR LONNIE DONEGAN'S WIDOW", before slouching off to Departures, while an excessively glum Real Dave retreated to KFC and sat glowering at a drumstick like a man on Death Row. They sat at other ends of the plane and didn't even speak to each other in baggage reclaim.

Well, they say you shouldn't meet your childhood heroes, as they invariably turn out to be a pack of cunts. BUT - London's pride is at stake here. If C'N'D can't get their shit together, then I'm going to be well angry. The Wurzels, for all their faults - cirrhosis, the same genes as lizards, obsession with human sacrifice - are united and boast solidarity in their ranks. Come on Chas - stop dicking about, you Silvertown oaf. Real Dave! Oi! Gertcha! Cut this ridiculous in-bitching, and swig jointly from the holy chalice of COCKNEY PRIDE - we're all in this together and now, more than ever, London needs you to perform.